Organic growth and market outlook
The margin drop in business area Industry in Q4 – can you elaborate on the reasons and if this is a new normal level?
On an overall level, the drop in margins were related to two things of which the first is the predominant one – and that is lower volumes in the Specialist area. The second is lower contribution from acquisitions both to EBITA and EBITA margins.
I will come back to the question on business unit Specialist later on as we have a specific question on that, but if we look at the main business in the business area, Power Transmission, that business was stable in terms of margins, both gross margins and EBITA margins. Also here we saw a slight decrease in volumes, but keep in mind that the price pressure from customers is high and this has caused us to actually say no to certain deals that would impact our profitability negatively.
You mention in the report about Denmark and the noticeable slowdown in Denmark. Can you elaborate on this and the view of the future situation here.
Over a long period of time, the Danish industrial market has shown very strong development, mainly attributed to the pharma industry. This has affected the general economy and also our Danish businesses in a positive way. During 2025, we finalized some projects related to pharma customers, which caused a drop in comparable revenues in Q4 this year. This affected Specialist the most with approximately 1/3 of the revenue stemming from Denmark. For the total group, the projects are of limited size but has an effect on a single business unit. With a bit more normalized demand from the pharma industry, the Danish market we feel is now relatively aligned with the rest of the Nordic markets in terms of growth for the coming years.
Is there a need for larger projects in Industry for it to bounce back to normal EBITA margin levels?
Keep in mind that the lion share of Industry is our Power Transmission business which account for approximately 75 % of the revenue. That business is quite stable over time and between quarters. Specialist have more projects but still make up a relatively small portion also of that business. Projects are nice when they occur but is not vital to the underlying margin level of the business area. However, when we go from one situation to another in a quarter this can have an effect before we can adapt.
Can you expand on weaker performance for mining industries in Power transmission, would you say that demand still declined for the customer segment when excluding larger one-off transactions.
Mining within Power Transmission is where we have one the largest impacts from one-off projects as the deliveries are quite large – that is the ball bearing are huge in terms of size and also value. Last year we had quite large deliveries. They come back with some time intervals depending on the utilization in the mines.
You mention gradually improving signals across more customer segments. What concrete signs are you actually seeing that the market is turning?
We see it mainly in behaviour where the number of order enquires are gradually increasing as well an interest to also enquire for more system and project related business.
That said, customers are still cautious in investments, but activity is stabilising and in some segments increasing — especially defence-related industry, energy and parts of steel in Sweden, and gradually also Finland. That typically comes before larger project activity returns.
Seasonality
Your quarterly sales fluctuate during the year, particularly in Infrastructure. Can you explain the seasonal pattern in your business?
Yes, seasonality is quite clear in our operations and mainly driven by our service activities.
The second and third quarters are normally the strongest for service and maintenance work, as many customers schedule planned shutdowns and preventive maintenance during spring and autumn. During the summer and around year-end holidays, industrial production slows down and customers postpone non-critical service work, which lowers utilisation temporarily.
This means that quarterly variations are largely a timing effect rather than changes in underlying demand. Over a full year, service demand is relatively stable — it just moves between quarters depending on customers’ production planning.
Mix, margins and profitability
You mention composition of products and services as a explanation for the variation in margins between the quarters – why is that and what is a normal level?
For business area Industry the relation between Products and Services is relatively stable between quarters. On average the share of Services here is small with 8%.
In Infrastructure, the Services part is larger, on average 27% this last three years but ranging from ~20% to 35%.
Currency, tariffs and geopolitical environment
Given the current geopolitical situation and increased defence spending in the Nordics — are you seeing tangible demand effects?
Yes, primarily in Sweden.
We see increased activity in defence-related industry and infrastructure linked to energy security and resilience. It is not a large share of the Group, but it contributes positively and — more importantly — provides stability during uncertain periods.
Cost control and efficiency
You state that you are taking measures related to costs in various parts of your business and despite that, costs are increasing. Can you please comment on that?
Costs in total are increasing but keep in mind that that is also including contributions from acquired businesses as well as costs related to acquisitions, both fees as well as increase in deprecations. If we adjust for this we see that the cost base has decreased for comparable units and especially in Q4. Translated into no of FTEs we are about 10 people less than previous year for comparable units. We have also seen a positive effect from the central warehouse relocation for Momentum Industrial with lower logistics costs. The adjustments is done on company level based on the company specific conditions.
There was a notable WC release compared to last year, what was this attributable to?
Decreased inventories with SEK 23 million and lower accounts receivables with SEK 64 million but also lower accounts payables SEK 20 million.
Closing outlook
So entering 2026 — what needs to happen for organic growth to turn positive?
Customers need predictability.
Once industrial customers feel confident about demand, currency and trade conditions, investments start gradually. We already see the early phase of that process.
Therefore we believe 2026 will be a year of step-by-step improvement rather than a sharp recovery — but in the right direction.
