Operator: Report 2026 presentation. During the Q&A session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key five on their telephone keypad. Now, I will hand the conference over to the speakers, CEO Erik Stenfors and CFO Lars Åkerblom. Please go ahead.
Erik Stenfors: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Hanza's Q3 presentation. Thank you for joining us. This has been an important quarter for Hanza. We are seeing results of the work we have done to develop the group, both in profitability and the progress of our acquisitions. Together with Lars, I will take you through the quarter and explain the factors behind these developments.
Erik Stenfors: We start with a brief overview of the quarter, then I will describe how we are developing Hanza based on our customers' needs. Lars will take you through our financial performance, then I will return with our conclusions, outlook, before we open up for questions. Let me then start with a few figures that I think are relevant to this quarter. First, profitability. We see that our adjusted EBITDA margin increased from 6.9% to 8.7%.
Erik Stenfors: We generated SEK 118 million in operating cash flow, and if we look at the last 12 months, it means that we are above SEK 1 billion in operating cash flow. I am sure Lars will come back to this. Net debt to our adjusted EBITDA is down to 1.4. MSC growth. Sales increased by 77%, including 7% organic growth, which is quite good for a vacation quarter.
Erik Stenfors: Hanza became stronger and substantially larger this quarter. Also, and this is important, thanks to our organization and the structure we have put in place, we still move quickly even though we have grown. I will come back to this. This is important. Another thing also worth highlighting is that we develop our business based on our customer's needs, but it is our ability to execute that will turn this development into profitability.
Erik Stenfors: And I think BMK that we acquired in the beginning of this year is a very good example of this. Let me explain. It was in the beginning when we closed the deal that we announced already last year. We acquired Hanza BMK, it is called now, as a final step in what we call the HANZA 2025 strategy. The reason we have seen from other parts of Hanza that the scale of our operation is crucial to our ability to take on larger manufacturing projects.
Erik Stenfors: That is why we have been scaling up Hanza in HANZA 2025, and that is why we also invested in this larger manufacturing platform in Germany. Hanza BMK brought competence, capacity, very strong customer relations. But it is important that when acquisitions strengthen Hanza must also strengthen the acquisition. How do you do that?
Erik Stenfors: With such this, I would rank it as the leading EMS company in Europe. How can Hanza strengthen it? Well, in two ways. Firstly, our concept. It goes from being just a normal EMS company to being part of Hanza's concept. Secondly, a bit on the commercial side, where we have been working with pricing, with purchasing, with efficiency.
Erik Stenfors: We have something we call the Horizon, a program that has been working in Hanza Group also in Hanza BMK, and we can already see the results. The adjusted EBITDA margin that BMK had from the beginning was 7.3%, increased to 7.5% in Q2, and then we are up to 9.2% in Q3. This is more in line with the margin that this great company should have. Another thing, really interesting, we have done this integration faster than planned.
Erik Stenfors: We have allocated a special project for this. It is supposed to run all 2026, but already on 1 October, we could transfer BMK from being into this integration project into our regular organization. This is done 3 months ahead of schedule. So great work from colleagues both at the BMK and across the Hanza Group.
Erik Stenfors: Of course, this is one of the major highlights of Q3. But let us then move on and have a look at the market and our customer segments. We have a diversified customer portfolio, and if you have been following us, you know now we are sorting into 5 segments. We see that the market conditions, they fluctuate a bit between the segments.
Erik Stenfors: We have a strong demand in electrification driven by energy systems and data centers, and also we have a very strong demand in defense security and also in the mining part of the heavy equipment. But also we see softer development in forestry, construction, customers in the textile industry, warehouse applications. So this is up and down, and that is why it is so important to have a diversified customer portfolio. We have one advantage.
Erik Stenfors: We are not just selling contract manufacturing, we are selling a better supply chain, meaning that when demand goes down a bit, it is even more important to work with Hanza and find new solutions so we can take some market shares even in the, let us say, softer segments. We had some constraints during the quarter. Some temporary capacity limitation due to the fact that volumes went up above forecast. So that was mainly in the energy systems.
Erik Stenfors: We also have some shortages of electronic components. I think we are all aware of the semiconductor situation, where AI and data centers eating up a lot of components. We have been able to navigate through this. We have a great central sourcing team working together with equally great local sourcing teams, close to customer suppliers, been able to manage this.
Erik Stenfors: We have seen delays in our defense and security segment, but it is not so much it will be visible on the group level. Something to keep an eye on. This is something that will remain uncertain, the component situation. We have also seen a strong order intake in BMK, an organic growth. Of course, that is not visible in our figures because we did not own BMK a year ago.
Erik Stenfors: If we look at it, we see that we have a great order intake there as well, but not reported into our figures. What is the conclusion? Well, although the market conditions fluctuate, we see really good opportunities for continued organic growth, and I will come back to this in a special statement at the end of this presentation. If we move from customer segments to technology segments, we see something really interesting here, and I will move to the next slide.
Erik Stenfors: One of our key features is that we combine several manufacturing technologies into this, what we call manufacturing cluster. So one cluster per country with different technologies. That is how we do not just offer contract manufacturing, but also help our customers to simplify their supply chains. Our smallest technology area has been heavy mechanics. What is heavy mechanics?
Erik Stenfors: Larger, heavier mechanical parts and steel structures, very often combined with then large complex assembly. We see from the previous slides, across several customer segments, so in particular defense security, but also in heavy equipment, a growing customer demand for heavy mechanics. For, let us say, obvious reasons, customers want to have this capacity close to the market.
Erik Stenfors: That is why we decided to strengthen this technology area, heavy mechanics, as a part of strategy HANZA 2028, which is all about looking at the different technologies, making them wider, and maybe also adding technologies. So that is the background for the deal we made in July in Q3, where we did this deal with Fortaco. I think that this slide gives you also, let us say, a practical illustration, what we mean by heavy mechanics. You see components such as large frames and steel structures.
Erik Stenfors: This requires specialist manufacturing equipment and, I would say, considerable industrial expertise. We did a carve-out deal with Fortaco. We are not buying the whole company. Fortaco is a contract manufacturer. They will keep its vehicle cabin business and focus on that, whereas we then buy the fabrication and the complex assembly. So it is 5 factories we are acquiring, signed this contract in July. We are waiting for approvals.
Erik Stenfors: All the required external approvals are received and expect to close this transaction on 2 November. So next Sunday, I will be out traveling and start to meet the people in the new factories. Really looking forward to welcome these new colleagues to Hanza. So this is why we are doing this deal, and that is also something that I will come back to, is putting us in a really good position for the organic growth moving forward.
Erik Stenfors: But as we continue to grow, we also need to have an organization that can support this expansion. That is why we decided to split Hanza into three parts, basically. We do not want to become slower. We do not want to become more bureaucratic. So we have organized Hanza into three regions, each region with two manufacturing clusters. Two of the regions also have something important, gateway.
Erik Stenfors: This is a single factory designed to, let us say, meet a specific customer need. Also, as we have reported, we are winding down our manufacturing operations in China, but we will keep our sourcing office. The idea behind this split is very simple. We want the responsibility of all customers, operations, and performance to be close to the business. We are a decentralized company. This allows the local management to make decisions quickly.
Erik Stenfors: This is, I think, very important for us to preserve the entrepreneurial approach we have in Hanza. The figures you see on this slide is the plan structure following the Fortaco acquisition, so it is post-Fortaco. From Q1 2027, our financial reporting will also follow these three regions, and Lars will come back to that. But with that, I will hand it over to you, Lars, to take us through the financial performance.
Lars Åkerblom: Thank you, Erik. As you see, Hanza is growing rapidly. We are close to double the size compared to a year ago or 81% in organic growth. What we say in this report is that we significantly improve profitability both for comparable and acquired units. I think that is really important to split the profitability that Hanza are showing in Q3 between the old Hanza comparable units and the acquired units.
Lars Åkerblom: What we can see is that a year ago, we had an operating margin of 8%, including the then quite newly acquired Leden. Including Leden, we were on 6.9%. What we can see now is that we have increased those parts of Hanza, excluding the acquired Milectria and BMK, up to 8.3%. So the comparable units, let us call it the old Hanza, is doing, increasing the margin.
Lars Åkerblom: Then we have the acquired companies that temporarily decreased the margin in Hanza that are now showing just nine months or three quarters into the period, increased growth. We see Hanza BMK growing from 7% that we said when we acquired them, that they were on that level to 7.3%, 7.5%, and now in Q3, 9.2%.
Lars Åkerblom: So I think that we can, by this, show that we are able to integrate bigger companies and turn them into the Hanza model and increase profitability. As I said, we are entering into Fortaco, hopefully a week from now. What we have said about Fortaco is that they are on this level already and shall contribute. So we shall not see this decrease in margin when we include Fortaco into the Hanza. They will be on 9% or hopefully above 9% in EBITDA margin.
Lars Åkerblom: Looking into the figures down, we see that we have an organic growth of 7% or 77% in total figures. Q3 is normally the weakest quarter from a seasonal perspective. We do not see that in Hanza BMK. In Hanza BMK, we do not see the seasonal effect in Q3. As I said, we show an adjusted margin of 8.7%.
Lars Åkerblom: We have some one-time items. We have revalued the earn-out on Milectria. That was a positive effect of SEK 30 million, and we have transaction cost for the deal with Fortaco. It was SEK 12 million in this quarter, and also the MBO that we did in Finland for 2 sites had an additional SEK 8 million cost. We had some custom cost that we treat as a one-time cost of SEK 4 million.
Lars Åkerblom: We see an increase of the EPS, and this is to remind you that we have increased the number of shares quite significantly with the acquisition of BMK. Despite the fact that we have a lot more shares now, we see an increase of 53% to 190 in the quarter and an increase of 68% accumulated in 2026 to 581. As Erik mentioned that we have a minor effect on the shortage of components. On the total level, it is not anything significant at all.
Lars Åkerblom: We have a little bit effect of that. Looking into the 2 markets, and as Erik said, from Q1 in 2027, we will go over to the regional organization and report according to the new organization that we are moving to during 2026. We see an organic growth in main markets of 8%, and that is also what we have accumulated for 2026.
Lars Åkerblom: With an EBITDA margin adjusted of 9.5%, and that accumulated for 2026, we have 8.7%. In other markets, we also see an organic growth of 8%. It is a little bit stronger in the year of 18% and adjusted EBITA margin of 7.5% and accumulated 18.6%. So a good quarter. When we look at the quarters and when we look into the different markets, we should bear in mind that it is a little bit seasonal.
Lars Åkerblom: It can vary between the quarters a little bit up and down. That is what we see in mainly the other markets in 2026. Coming into the cash flow and the balance sheet. We have a strong cash flow. Erik mentioned over SEK 1 billion in the last 12 months, over SEK 800 million in 2026.
Lars Åkerblom: We have a net debt adjusted EBITA on 1.4, so well below the financial target or what you can call it, of 2.5. We have a strong balance sheet, 45% in equity to asset ratio, and with the acquisition of Fortaco, it is going to be well above this 30%. That is our financial target. We have a good cash position, over SEK 700 million in cash.
Lars Åkerblom: This financial position mainly coming from the positive cash flow we have had and the stronger result, but also the fact that we did the acquisition of BMK with fully shares, makes possible for us to do a cash deal with Fortaco. So no dilution with the acquisition of Fortaco, but still after the Fortaco deal, as I mentioned, we approximately have 2 times the EBITA in net debt.
Lars Åkerblom: So that gives us the possibility, if we would like to continue to do acquisition even without dilution. ESG sustainability. We have updated the DMA in order to report the sustainability report in spring next year. It is positive to see that the environmental performance, we have lower energy use and less hazard waste, partly coming from the fact that we have the Hanza BMK within the group, but also on the work we do on a daily basis to work with sustainability.
Lars Åkerblom: We also are glad to see that the safety, we are reducing the injury frequency. We are continuing to work with the integration of Hanza BMK into the sustainability work. By that, I leave back to you, Erik.
Erik Stenfors: Thank you, Lars. Let me then finish by putting the result into context of the strategy step we have Hanza 2028. We have grown rapidly. We are showing improved profitability, and we have a strong financial position. We see BMK, this is an example of our ability to develop acquired business and then integrate them efficiently. This is important because an acquisition is only the beginning. The real value is created after we come together.
Erik Stenfors: Now with Fortaco, we are taking the next step, broadening our manufacturing capabilities in heavy mechanics and complex assembly. So it is a way to, in our strategy to meet the customer needs. With the market position and the manufacturing capacity we will have then, including Fortaco, we now state that we have a potential to reach this Hanza 2028 sales target, SEK 14 billion, without further acquisitions.
Erik Stenfors: It does not mean that we change our financial targets. Still it remain unchanged. We are going to measure the sales in 2028, including possible more acquisition. We do not say that we have stopped doing acquisition either. This is just a guidance to show that we see a really strong potential for organic growth in the coming years. With that, Lars and I are ready to take your questions.
Operator: If you wish to ask a question, please dial #5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial #6 on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Anton Ingves from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Anton Ingves: Hi, and good morning, Erik and Lars. Thanks for taking my question here. Starting off with the BMK and the margin at 9.2%, very impressive. Hats off to the work that has been done so far here. Is this the run rate level that we can expect going forward?
Erik Stenfors: Would you like me to start, Lars?
Lars Åkerblom: Yeah, you can start.
Erik Stenfors: I think this is a more normal level for such a great company. That is where you should be. So it is nothing strange behind this. It is just that we have done some standard activities in the beginning, and it was maybe faster than even we anticipated, but now we are on a margin which should be a normal margin. Is that a fair answer?
Anton Ingves: Yes, definitely. On BMK, you mentioned that you see organic growth and a solid organic order intake here. Are you able to quantify this a bit more?
Erik Stenfors: No. But we can say so much that if you have been following us, you saw that, let's say when we move back a year or 2 in time, we acquired a company called Leden. We had a good sales synergy, a lot of orders coming in. We state that we see the same thing now in BMK, and we are likely to have the same situation also with the Fortaco acquisition. That's part of the explanation why we look quite positively on the organic growth moving forward.
Anton Ingves: Okay. Sounds promising. Just saying a bit on BMK here as well, on the defense order you announced here in Q2 in BMK, has this started to be delivered here in Q3 or is this starting more towards 2027?
Erik Stenfors: We don't see a substantial impact in invoicing, so there is a time between the order and the invoicing, obviously. We cannot go into more details, more than we have stated that we see not just one, but several possibilities for defense in Germany. But it's not a substantial part of the sales in this quarter.
Anton Ingves: Okay, that is clear. On the outlook within the defense segment, especially for BMK, are you seeing any signs that the first order you took may be a trigger for additional orders ahead there?
Erik Stenfors: I think we had a good combination with the original part of Hanza coming well recommended from the defense companies in Sweden, and Baltics and Finland, combined with a company in Germany that has a very good reputation. This combination, I think, is a strong sales pitch and there is a huge need, obviously. Lars, would you like to give more color to this?
Lars Åkerblom: No. What we see is continuous strong activity in the defense market. I think many other companies also talked about the delay compared to the expectation maybe a year ago. But the demand is still strong, and the activities we have towards the defense sector is looking very promising.
Erik Stenfors: Yeah, you can say that the demand is increasing, but not as much as the output. The reason is not on the manufacturing side, it is that some of our customers have a quite extensive, maybe even slow process to get from the idea to the product. But it will most likely be a catch-up effect.
Anton Ingves: Okay, perfect. Very clear. And one final here from me. You mentioned some constraints due to capacity limitation, mainly towards the energy systems. How much do you expect this to continue into the coming quarters, or was this mainly a Q3 problem?
Erik Stenfors: You have to ask our customers. What happened was that we got volumes above forecast during summer, and we are catching up. We have a good situation at Hanza. Our concept makes it easy to scale up than traditional contract manufacturing. But having said that, we still need some time to do that. Our best guess is that we are on track in Q4, but it could happen that our customers would increase volumes again, and then better off. But at this position, I think we are catching up with the capacity.
Anton Ingves: Okay, perfect. That was all for me. Thanks a lot.
Erik Stenfors: Thank you.
Operator: The next question comes from Thomas Blikstad from Pareto Securities. Please go ahead.
Thomas Blikstad: Hello, Erik and Lars. Congratulations on another strong set of results. Firstly, just to follow up on the capacity constraints. Could you try to quantify the combined impact on top line in Q3 from that and the component shortages?
Erik Stenfors: Well, we haven't published any figures. I don't know if Lars is braver than I. I would say it's not a material impact, but it's some impact. How would you state this?
Lars Åkerblom: In the same way for your analysis, Thomas, I wouldn't have any impact based on Q3 sales or profitability. You shouldn't adjust anything based on this lower sales due to component shortage.
Thomas Blikstad: Fair enough. Just a quick, it might be a stupid question, but both segments reported 8% organic growth. Why is the group figure 7%? Is there a divested Finnish unit that is sitting here, or how should I think about it?
Lars Åkerblom: Good question, Thomas. If it is that you just round up the figures or so I need to. You have internal sales that also are decreasing there, the total sales. I do not have that clear answer on that one. I will look into it.
Erik Stenfors: Thomas, you are joining our cluster roadshow on Thursday?
Thomas Blikstad: Absolutely.
Lars Åkerblom: You will have the answer.
Thomas Blikstad: Looking forward to it. Okay, fair enough. Just following up with a question on the P&L side. You have had two quarters now with stocks and in progress and finished goods adding quite a lot to profits. I was just wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on that build and whether it will reverse in Q4 or later.
Erik Stenfors: Lars, help me out.
Lars Åkerblom: I lost you for a few seconds there, Thomas, so take the question again, please.
Thomas Blikstad: Sorry, I just saw that you have had two quarters in a row now where the work-in-progress line item on the P&L side has added quite a lot to profits, and I was wondering whether you can explain a little bit about that and whether you expect some kind of reversal in Q4 or later.
Lars Åkerblom: You mean in the P&L table, you see the adjustment on sales. It does not have a big impact on the profitability since it is mainly an adjustment of the cost of goods sold. It is mainly when you see this increase. It is hard to say whether that will have a negative effect in the coming quarters. It really depends on the work in progress, but it will not have any impact on the margin.
Thomas Blikstad: Okay. Thank you. Very quick last question here on the revaluation gain for Milectria. I might have missed something in previous reports, but it reflects missed earn-out expectations, or how should we look at it?
Lars Åkerblom: I think you should look upon it that at the time for the acquisition, we estimated together with the seller the size of the net sales in Milectria the coming year, but the earn-out was based on the development, the organic growth in Milectria.
Lars Åkerblom: What we see now is that, again, that the defense sector, and also based on the seller's expectation, has not increased and been so fast as we and the sellers expected when we did the acquisition. That leads to slightly lower. We expected the total price for Milectria to be lower than we expected at the time for the acquisition.
Erik Stenfors: I can add to that, as I stated before, we see a larger need than we see in ordering come still. I would say this was a very well-structured deal.
Thomas Blikstad: Understood. Thank you very much. That was all from me, and congratulations again.
Erik Stenfors: Thank you.
Operator: The next question comes from Marcus Develius from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Marcus Develius: Hello, Erik and Lars. Thank you for taking my questions. A lot of good questions already, so I am going to start with a simple one. You said that you did not see any seasonal effect in BMK in Q3. Could you maybe elaborate on that? Why there is no such effect?
Erik Stenfors: I can start, and then Lars can fill in if that's okay. We have a habit in the Nordic countries to go sailing in July. The factories and the customer base in our countries, it's a bit slower than on other places. Now over to you, Lars.
Lars Åkerblom: No, I would say the same, that in the restaurants, or even if maybe not the people go sailing in Poland and other parts of Europe in the same as we do in the Nordic countries, the main customer base is still Scandinavian and Nordic. That leads to the calendar effect that we have had in Hanza, and that we don't see in Hanza for BMK in Southern Germany.
Marcus Develius: Okay. Thank you. Then maybe this question was asked, but with BMK completing ahead of schedule, do you expect a similar sort of integration timeline for Fortaco?
Erik Stenfors: I can also start if you like, Lars. This is another part. Remember that we have built Hanza in a modular and decentralized way. We have our manufacturing clusters by country. It means that these five factories that we are acquiring are split into the different clusters. The cluster Finland received two factories, Estonia one, Poland two.
Erik Stenfors: In these countries, we have experienced infrastructure with managers used to acquisitions, so they will be able to work in parallel rather than if we would have a bottleneck, some central integration team. How long time it will take? Normally, we allocate one year, but also given that we split it up in different countries, maybe we will be faster this time as well.
Lars Åkerblom: I can add that, as we mentioned earlier in this call, we will from Q1 report in regions. Fortaco will be split into the different regions from day one.
Erik Stenfors: Lars, I do not know if you mentioned it. Did you mention that also we have a split in BMK as of 1 October?
Lars Åkerblom: Yes. Since we are ahead of schedule and Hanza BMK will be integrated into the operational organization going forward, it is not going to be obvious the profitability in what we so far have called Hanza BMK, since it will be in different parts of the organization. Still, we will go over to the way of reporting in the regions. That is from 1 January.
Marcus Develius: Okay. Very good. Then one final question from my side, and it is relating to the one-offs that you did help us guide here. You had some transaction costs now in Q3, and this closes at the beginning of November, so it should be some more due diligence, I assume. Should we just do the simple calculation saying that it is roughly in relation to how long you will do this in Q4? Is there anything that you want to flag for us to keep in mind?
Lars Åkerblom: We have SEK 12 million in Q3. I will not give you some forecast on the level in Q4, but I think that the size of those transaction costs cannot be significant for the overall picture of Hanza. But we will have some integration costs, transaction costs also in Q4, yes.
Marcus Develius: Okay. Those were my questions. Thank you very much.
Erik Stenfors: Thank you.
Operator: As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound, key 5 on your telephone keypad. There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Erik Stenfors: Okay, thank you. As there are no more questions, I would just like to thank you all for joining us today. Thank you for your questions and for your interest in Hanza. I will see some of you on Thursday. Have a great day, everyone, and bye for now.
Operator: The host has ended this call. Goodbye.
