W5 Solutions AB (publ)

hi and welcome thank you for joining w5 solutions presentation of q4 and full year 2025 results i'm joined by our ceo evelina hedskog who will take us through the key highlights and financial performance during the quarter as well as the full year after the end of the presentation We will conclude with a Q&A moderated by me. The chat is now open, so please feel free to submit your questions at any time during the presentation and we will address them one by one. With that, the floor is yours, Evelina.

Thank you very much, Hanna. Welcome everyone to this presentation. I will kick off by giving a brief introduction to W5 as a company and then we will move on to the numbers after that. So at W5, our vision is to become the leading global provider of sustainable defense technology. And our mission, what we do at work every day, is to deliver cutting edge solutions to empower own and allied forces. That's what we do. And when we talk about sustainable defense technology, what do we mean? Well, to us, we see this in four different perspectives. First and foremost, it's about defending democracy. And our products and services should support the defense of free, open and democratic societies. And why is this? Well, it's because that we need these democratic societies in order to have sustainable development. Second perspective is responsibility by design. And our products are always engineered for long life and resource efficiency. Thirdly, we care about people and partners. So we strive to have safe, inclusive workspaces and responsible supply chains. And the fourth perspective is to be guided by standards and regulations. So we always strive to have certified compliance across every delivery. So these are the aspects that we think of when we talk about sustainable defence technology. W5 in brief then. The business is divided into three business areas, integration, training and power, and I will dig a bit deeper into them in a bit. Our operations sites are spread across Sweden, Norway and Finland, and our headquarter is in Stockholm. Right now, we are around 220 employees in the group. And if we look at our customers and the markets where we find them, the customer base is a mix between defense agencies and other defense industry. And it's a bit of a 50-50 split between them. And they are primarily based in the Nordics and in Western Europe. And we are listed on Nasdaq First North since 2021. A couple of years ago we announced our long-term financial targets and we say that by the end of 2027 we want to have a net sales turnover of 1 billion SEK and we want a profitability of 10%. And how to get there? What's the strategy? Well, it's a combination between organic and acquired growth, put it simply. And the aim is to have at least 20% organic growth every year and then add on acquired growth to that in order to reach this billion sec. And as of today, we can see that the growth from 24 to 25 was 27%. So we're definitely moving in the right direction there. And we're also working continuously with M&A and looking for the right target out there. So hopefully we could add on to this growing turnover with also acquired growth. So that's the strategy. That's how we plan to get there. So I said before three business areas and together they have seven product areas and I mean we're still quite a small company and you can wonder why do we have such a broad product portfolio and this comes from the fact that when W5 Solutions was founded in 2018 it was a merger between three companies And after that, we have acquired four more businesses. So that gives us the broad product portfolio that we have today. So if we start by looking into business area integration, where Gunilla Stomberg is head of business area, we have two product areas there, systems integration and shelters. Within systems integration, we have systems integration services, but we also have products such as special purpose harnesses and intercom solutions. Shelters, that's where we design and build really high-end customized container modules for the military customer. So products focusing on mobility and scalability. So that, in short, is business area integration. Moving on to business area training, headed by Toralf Johannesson. Here we also have two product areas, live fire training, defense and security, and the equivalent for sports and hunting. And these two product areas are, as you can tell, also divided into customer segments. Within the two, we have a full range portfolio of any type of hardware or software that you would need on either your shooting range or for more tactical training out in the field. And there are definitely commonalities between the product portfolio in these two product areas, but the route to market is different. So that's what constitutes the training business area. And the third one is power, where we have Tobias Johansson as head of business area. And Tobias has three product areas within his business area. And the first one is batteries and chargers. We come from a history of being experts in battery chargers for the military customer, have now also moved into battery manufacturing. On the Genset side, we are specialized in both generic power supply for military units, but also more tailorized solutions for specific systems. It could be a tailorized power supply for, for example, a sensor or a certain weapon system. And last but not least, simulation, where we have our expertise within the hardware. And as you can see here in the picture, it's a tank simulator. But we do different types of hardware all the way down to, for example, joysticks for cockpits. So that was the very short run through of what we do in W5. So now moving on to the numbers. And... Of course this is a very happy moment for me as CEO to be standing here and show arrows pointing in the right direction all over. We've had a fantastic last quarter of 2025 and that also gives us a really really good result for the full year 2025. We see extreme margins in this quarter and that has to do with the fact that we more than double the turnover compared to the average quarter for the rest of the year and that has a result on bottom line due to economies of scale. Also, the product mix in this quarter is, I would say, with a focus on deliveries from our training business area. And we will look at that a bit later. And within training, we have revenue recognition as a point in time. So we recognize the revenue when we deliver and we had a lot of deliveries this last quarter. So that is also contributing to an extremely good margin in this last quarter of the year. So moving on to the segments then and a bit more in-depth quarter four numbers for them. As you can tell, then integration and power keep on winning business. Training was a bit slower on the order intake side. Instead, they were outperforming the others in terms of net sales, as we just talked about. And as I said, for training, it's a point in time when it comes to revenue recognition. And for integration of power, it's more percentage of completion, which might give them a more stable net sales over time. I think the most important to highlight in this slide is, however, the profitability in power. We've talked a lot about the entire group and especially business area power having a top line problem, which has resulted in in a negative profitability earlier but now when we see power gaining momentum starting to turn the order backlog into deliveries and getting top line up we also see that they start being profitable so I think this is it's really something that is positive going forward now. If we dive into the order backlog and have a short look at the booked bill, you can tell by the pie chart to the left that the absolute majority of what we now have in the order backlog is to be delivered this year. So of course, what we want our sales department to focus on now is also to keep on building backlog for the years to come. And related to the 20% organic growth that we think we can manage or that we should manage every year, at least 20% to reach our long-term financial targets. As you can tell, the book to build for 2025 was 1.5%. Of course, also for deliveries after 2026, but it gives you at least a bit of a feeling of the growth that we are facing now going forward. A bit more in depth then on the order intake and backlog. Order intake for the full year was 730 million SEK. And when we closed 2025, we had 566 million in the backlog. Orders won during the year was more or less evenly distributed almost 200 for integration up to 314 for power training somewhere in between. But we do see that the backlog is different for the different business areas and this has to do with the different business models. So training has a much shorter order to delivery cycle compared to, for example, power that can have larger contracts ranging over multiple years. So the nature of the deliveries are a bit different between the three. And I think that's also reflected in the backlog. However, I think it's important to emphasize that if we look in the pipeline, we see equal interest for all three business areas. So this slide is to show a little bit the season variations that we see within the defence sector. Quarter two and quarter four are normally strong. For us this year quarter four was exceptional but as you can see it is the season variation that we expect as well. A bit extreme this year, but we've had a good quarter two and quarter four more or less every year historically as well. And diving into the P&L, also for the segments. For the group, we had a total net sales of 492 million SEC this year. And that gives us a 27% growth, as we talked about earlier. That's fantastic but I think what's even better is that we ended up with 38 million SEK in EBIT and that gives us almost 8% on bottom line and as you remember 10% is what we're aiming for so also here we're taking really the step in a step in the right direction. Net sales more or less comparable between the three. On the profitability side, integration is doing extremely well. Training is doing as expected. Power is struggling on the full year. And this is really due to too low returns. The turnover was too low in the first half of the year and before summer we managed to win a number of big contracts and I would say since August it's been full speed ahead down in Elmhult where power resides and as we could see in the quarter four numbers it is showing results also on bottom line. So this year negative numbers for power but it's not anything that we would expect going forward. So to summarize, both for the quarter and for the full year, we have strong results and they are really in line with the long term targets that we have. Net sales is record high, profitability in absolute numbers are also record high. We are now using our organization to its full extent. So in short, we are progressing according to plan and that feels really, really good. Looking ahead now we need to really focus on sustainable and profitable growth. It's fantastic to have this huge interest in what we do and a huge influx of orders but it comes with a big responsibility and we need to make sure that we deliver on time and with quality to our customers and we at the same time need to take care of our employees. It's good challenges that we see ahead but it's still challenges that we will have to handle. And in that then working proactively to prepare for these increased order volumes that we see coming. And last but not least, the backlog. Of course, if we ramp up production and deliver on our contracts, we need to backfill the backlog. So making sure that we work continuously with our sales organization and keep on having as good backlog as we have now or even better is key in keeping stability and visibility in operations going forward. So, yeah, with that, I give the word to you, Anna.

Thank you, Evelina, for that presentation. Like you said, it's time for, you didn't say that, but it's time for a Q&A session now. Yes. And we have received several questions through the chat and I will read them out in turn. So the first question I have, you mentioned earlier it's about that the demand remains strong between the product areas and you also secured several contracts during Q4. Could you elaborate on the new integration contract and what that means?

We had a big contract for systems integration services in the last quarter and what's new there is the fact that this is really an integrated solution where we combine a lot of third-party products into a system really and that system is then physically integrated onto a platform. So we're doing both the design and the actual physical integration of that system onto the platform. And that is not the scope that we've seen earlier in that business. So it's really exciting. And we think that that might be something we want to do more in the future.

Thank you. Next question. We have a few to go through. How do you expect the cost base to develop during 2026? The cost base?

I think as we're growing, it is, of course, important to keep track of the indirect costs and keep the overhead as slim as possible. Of course, in many of the contracts that we have, They stretch over a long time and so on. And it's always a challenge to make sure that the direct costs in a project are according to what we might have calculated maybe years before and so on. But if we look at the supply chain, I don't think we see any increases. And in terms of, again, the indirect costs, it's about making smart choices and keeping track over time.

And looking at our products and segments, you mentioned this before, but if you just can develop the answer a bit, what products and segments do you see the most demand for?

No, I mean, it's a valid question. And I think in that question, many people are wondering, OK, should you really be doing all of this? And to start with the first question, yes, we see an increased demand for all product areas. But it's also... You can't swap one for the other. So it's not that if we focus less on one, we can do more in another. And that has to do with the organization that we have and the history, as I explained. I mean, we come from many different organizations from the start that has now formed a W5 family. So... As of now, we see demand in all product areas and the plan is to just make the best out of that demand for each product area.

That was a clear and good answer, I would say. We keep on digging down here. How much production capacity do you have? It's two questions. And can you grow top line 20% in 2026 without any increase of production facilities?

Yeah, facility wise, we are very lucky. I mean, we're spread out. And I would say more or less all our sites have had some sort of increase in square meters over the last year. And I think there is potential to slowly grow each site as well. during next year. No, we don't need to move sites in any way to reach that 20% the coming year. After 2026, that might be different. But as of this year, we feel comfortable where we are. And in many, many sites, we can grow a little bit step by step. So that's facility-wise. But organizational-wise, we will need more resources. And we have loads of ads out there, of course, to find the right people. And I'm very happy to see that there are a lot of applicants for the jobs that we announced. So I think we should be able to find the right people. But we definitely need to... to grow the headcount this year to deliver on our promise.

And next question, it starts off with the congratulations on a very strong quarter. Thank you. And to reach your 2027 targets, Again, assuming 20-30% organic growth in 2026 and 2027, as you talked about. Could you update on your M&A pipeline, the status? Yes, the M&A status.

So... As I've said earlier, we really ramped up the M&A agenda as of this time last year. So for a year now, we have been focused in finding the right targets and pursuing them. We are not the only ones doing that in the defense market right now. So it's quite hard competition. We are looking at targets in the Nordics. We are looking at targets that has an absolute majority of their customers in defense. So there are some sort of red lines in terms of where a target is, what we're looking for or not. Of course, size-wise, it's also important to find something that we could bring into the organization as it is today. So we keep on working on that. Again, we're not the only one looking for acquisitions in defense right now, but we are comfortable with the fact that for a seller who wants a buyer who understands the market, has a good network, have a lot of established customers, etc., etc., then we might be their new home. So again, we're working actively with it, but so far no payoff, but I'm sure we will get there.

Thank you. Moving on, looking at the cash flow, the operating cash flow. The question is for the full year, you delivered solid EBIT, but negative operating cash flow due to working capital. How should we think about working capital requirements as you scale towards your 2026 and 2027 targets?

No, I mean, this will always be a problem. It will be a challenge for us, as for many other companies growing and also working in an industry where it's very rare that you have prepayments and so on. So it will always be sort of a capital tie up in one way or another. So it's always about, you know, working with your contract, making sure you minimize that, And of course now going forward, if we can get the stable profitability, that will of course help as well. I mean, we come from two years of red numbers and that's not helping when you're also tying capital in order to be able to deliver later on. So it will continue to be a challenge and we're doing our best to mitigate this risk. Yeah.

Looking at the next question, operational readiness and delivery. The question is, you delivered roughly 40% of your four-year sales in Q4, which places significant strain on the organization. It's been a strong quarter with high deliveries, definitely. How are you working to ease such pressure on the organization? You talked about it a bit before about...

Yeah, I think to some extent you have to live with the fact that we have these seasonal changes and it will always be higher pressure before summer and before Christmas. It's also important to remember that it is a little bit about how we recognize revenue as well, as I talked about in the beginning. And when the final delivery comes for a point in time, it peaks the turnover. But we could have been working on that for quite some time before we get to the point where we have the delivery. That said, I'm extremely proud of how the organization took on this challenge because we knew that we had a lot of orders to deliver in quarter four. And I mean, I received so many questions where People asked me like, will you really be able to do this? And I said, of course we will. Probably sounding a bit more sure than I was. So I'm so pleased and proud that we managed to do this because It's, of course, about delivering the results to our shareholders and so on. But it is actually also, I mean, even more important, the fact that what we do matters and the products that we deliver to our customers, they need them now. They can't wait. So, again, very proud that we managed to do this.

Thank you. Yes, we have one more question here. When all three segments are contributing from start in 2026, how should we think about the margin expansion this year, 2026?

If we speak in general terms, I've said all along that we have a top line problem more than a profitability problem. So I think when we get top line up, it will be easier to also get profitability. Now we had a an extraordinary fourth quarter. And if we look at the full year, I don't think we can expect such a fourth quarter. Also this year, that would be unheard of. So if we think that we will, of course, have the seasonal variation, but maybe a bit lower, what would the total look like? Difficult to say. I mean, when we make our calculations and so on, of course, we're always striving towards the 10% that we have as our long-term financial targets. At the same time, we sit with some framework agreements that date back a number of years where we might have lower margins. So it is still a mix and it takes time to change this. But It feels like we're going in the right direction. But as a guess, I think profitability-wise, if we can keep up with the 8% that we have this year, I would be very happy. Because again, we're also facing growth here. So if we are able to grow and keep the profitability we had this year in terms of percentage, I think that would be wonderful.

Thank you. Sounds very exciting going forward. Yes. Well, I see that time is running out and it's time for a wrap up. But before we do that, is there any final remarks from your side, Evelina?

Again, I just want to emphasize how proud I am about all the people at WFI being able to deliver this result because it didn't come easy and it has been a long time coming. Two years ago, we had a really weak backlog. It's really been a journey to get to where we are today. So it feels fantastic to be able to present this result. That said, it's just the beginning. So here we go. 2026 will be really, really exciting.

Exciting. Thank you, Evelina. And thank you all for listening in. If you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out to us. And we hope to see you next time when we release our Q1 report for 2026. It's on the 7th May. And until then, I wish you a great day and take care.