Earnings call transcript: Teqnion AB sees stock drop amid weak earnings

Teqnion AB’s recent earnings call revealed a challenging financial landscape, with operational earnings remaining flat compared to 2024. The company’s stock reacted negatively, falling by 10.48% to 152 SEK after the announcement. According to InvestingPro data, the company maintains a GOOD financial health score of 2.71, with liquid assets exceeding short-term obligations. Despite the weak performance, Teqnion remains optimistic about future growth, targeting a doubling of EPS every five years and planning further acquisitions.

Key Takeaways

• Operational earnings were flat compared to the previous year.
• Stock price dropped by 10.48% following earnings announcement.
• Teqnion completed seven new acquisitions, focusing on niche markets.
• One-third of group companies are currently unprofitable.
• The company aims to improve performance by fall 2025.

Company Performance

Teqnion AB’s financial performance for the recent quarter was lackluster, with operational earnings showing no growth from 2024 levels. The company is grappling with increased inventory and sales, which have contributed to deteriorating free cash flow. InvestingPro analysis reveals modest revenue growth of 0.15% over the last twelve months, with an EBITDA of $2.66B. Approximately one-third of its subsidiaries are currently unprofitable, but the company expects these to contribute positively by the end of the year. In contrast, Teqnion has been proactive in strengthening its market position through strategic acquisitions in the UK and Sweden. For deeper insights into Teqnion’s financial health and growth prospects, investors can access the comprehensive Pro Research Report, available exclusively on InvestingPro.

Financial Highlights

• Operational earnings: Flat compared to 2024.
• Free cash flow: Deteriorated due to increased inventory and sales.
• Acquisitions: Seven new companies acquired, focusing on niche markets.

Market Reaction

Teqnion’s stock price dropped by 10.48% to 152 SEK following the earnings announcement. This decline reflects investor concerns over the company’s stagnant earnings and the broader challenges in the Swedish economy, particularly in heavy industry segments. Technical indicators from InvestingPro suggest the stock is in overbought territory, despite showing strong returns of 33.62% over the past year. The stock now trades closer to its 52-week low of 135.6 SEK, signaling a cautious market sentiment.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, Teqnion is targeting an ambitious growth trajectory, aiming to double its EPS every five years. The company plans to continue its acquisition strategy, potentially acquiring more than seven companies this year. Management expects improved performance by fall 2025, focusing on turning around underperforming subsidiaries and leveraging niche market leadership. InvestingPro data shows the company operates with a moderate level of debt, maintaining a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.55 and an Altman Z-Score of 3.34, indicating financial stability.

Executive Commentary

CEO Johan Stijaner emphasized the need for the company to push through its current plateau to achieve scalability and growth. He stressed the importance of trust and transparency within the organization, stating, "The first thing we want to hear is the problems." CFO Daniel expressed optimism, noting, "The lowest point is behind us and that we’re moving now in a trajectory that is upwards."

Risks and Challenges

• Economic conditions: Deterioration in Swedish heavy industry segments.
• Unprofitable subsidiaries: One-third of group companies are losing money.
• Market competition: Pressure to maintain niche market leadership.
• Cash flow issues: Increased inventory and sales impacting free cash flow.
• Global customer environment: Challenging conditions impacting growth.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts raised questions about Teqnion’s exposure to the US market, which accounts for 2-3% of its revenue. The company also discussed its net debt/EBITDA target of around 2x and outlined strategies to prevent stagnant subsidiary scenarios. Executives were transparent about current challenges and shared their strategies for improvement.

Full transcript - Teqnion AB (TEQ) Q2 2025:

Moderator/Host, Technion: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Technion twenty twenty five Q2 Q and A, the start of our Lager and Motada. Thank you, everyone, for taking your time from your busy schedules and vacation to read our quarterly report that was released this Saturday and for joining us in this call today. We will, as always, alternate between the questions that were sent in to QA at techno.sc and the ones that we get live here in the Q and A function. Before we start the actual Q and A session, I would like to hand it over to you, Johan, for a quick overview of the quarter.

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: Yes. Thank you. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our office here in Solnaut of Stockholm and Q2 Q and A for 2025. This is my friend Daniel, who works with acquisitions, and he’s the Deputy CEO of Technion. My name is Johan Stijaner.

I’m the CEO of the company group since 02/2009. Talking a little bit about the first half of the year, we see that the market is rather slow. It’s been difficult to generate orders, and we need to work harder to get sales. This is in the process of doing a lot of changes on the organizational level and how we measure ourselves within the group. We are on a road to doing something that will be the new Technion.

We have the group has grown quite a bit. We have, as we talked to you about going out to 2024, we had a lot of acquisitions on the way in. We have finalized those. We have seven new companies in the group now, which is fantastic. We’re strengthening our position in The UK with five new acquisitions there, and we have two more in Sweden, which is really fun.

It was several years since we acquired something in Sweden where we have new two great companies here.

Moderator/Host, Technion: The

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: operational earnings as presented in the quarterly report is weak. We are very dissatisfied with that. Compared to 2024, we see that it’s more or less flat. I pointed out that you should disregard the positive effects of the earnouts. And if you compare that to the positive effect of the earnouts in 2024, you see that the operational underlying earnings is more or less flat, which is not fun, but still maybe not as bad as you can read.

We have, as mentioned in the report as well, reached a level or a plateau in Technion now where we need to reorganize how we operate. And we have done that during the spring by adjusting how we measure the subsidiaries and how active we are when it comes to supporting them. I mean, the key for us as a group is, of course, to keep the subsidiaries autonomous. They should have all the decisions made out there up to the point where they show a trend which is not good enough or is trending downwards. Then we know early on now that they are in need of support, and we will demand from them to turn that trend around much more quickly than we have done previously.

And one way of doing that is that we introduced a new type of role, so to speak. We have called the our coworkers that work closely with subsidiaries before CEO coaches. We still have a few of those, but it’s now we will introduce regional managers. And now we have a UK manager responsible for making sure that The UK companies or the international subsidiaries perform on the right level and are trending in the right direction. And he’s now based he’s been with us for a little a little bit over a month.

Everything looks really, really well. It’s to to just to put some words on what that is, it’s more more of a super CEO coach maybe that follow-up more closely on the metrics and make sure that we implement actions as soon as we see the trends turning in the wrong direction or or is flattening out. So a new way of working, not introducing a new level of organization, but more one point of responsibility and a more heavy skill set in that type of individuals. We will probably not probably, we will introduce the similar role in Sweden, hopefully during the fall or in the winter. We have a plan for that, and we see that The UK will stand as an example on how we should organize ourselves now, that we reach this level of of volume.

We we have that’s maybe I’m I’m repeating myself, but but that that process is that that is what it is. I I have a, as also explained, a frustration over that things takes time. We have we have implemented quite a lot of changes and and a few new colleagues over the last six months. And we see that the things that we have done and that we are continuously doing is changing to the better our performance. Of course, it’s frustrating when you see that the underlying performance of the operations is generating better orders, less costs and all of that, but it hasn’t filtered through into the real numbers yet.

I will I’m trying to I’m trying not to be a negative person, but maybe that’s my personality. But right now, I’m actually feeling a great deal of hope going into the fall. All the things that’s been implemented and are being implemented is actually showing that if you work harder and more effectively, it actually gives effect. It’s always a surprise in a in a rather strange way to many people. But if you actually do a lot of things, that will give you some effect.

And and and I see that now, unfortunately, it’s frustrating that it hasn’t filtered through into the numbers. But that’s maybe how I would I would reflect on on the last quarter and the last six months. Alright.

Moderator/Host, Technion: Let’s jump into the questions then. The first email we got from regarding the Q and A is from David, who is wondering which businesses have exposure to The U. S, what level exposure and what is the impact of tariffs?

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: We have I think we touched on this subject before. It’s we have three, four companies that have some sales directly to The US. It’s very low numbers. The potential is great, huge. But since all these tariffs came into the discussion, we have paused or just idled those processes or projects.

So the potential for the future is huge for a few of our companies, but we will wait until the rulings and the tariffs are more stable so we know what’s gonna how they’re gonna affect and how they’re gonna hit different markets.

Moderator/Host, Technion: And to give some more color on that, so the three companies account for maybe 2%, 3% of the revenue if you look at The US piece. For one of them, I don’t think that impact the tariff will be impacting at all volume wise. For one of the companies, the sales absolutely have been impacted severely, but it’s still a small percentage for that company and for the group. For the third company, it’s something in between. But it’s insignificant for the group even though it’s not fun, of course.

Next question comes from Akash. He says, hi, Dan, Johan. What sort of net debt EBITDA level do you think is sustainable to operate at on a consistent basis? I know that your upper limit is 2.5x, but on a sustainable basis, I imagine it’s lower.

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: I think we touched on this before as well, but I think if we can be around two or just below two, it would feel great. But then, of course, going through different development processes and stuff, of course, that can alter it a little bit, but we would hopefully be around two.

Moderator/Host, Technion: Yeah. On a long term level, if we find a good acquisition that potentially would be a little bit larger, that will stretch that for short term, that is if that’s a good bet, we will not keep to the two point zero. Can you talk a little bit more about the addition of the three new subsidiary CEOs plus one interim CEO in the context of improving operating operating performance?

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: We have a few new CEOs that look really promising. We have a couple of more coming in in a month or so. Seems to be really good people. Of course, when you do changes in companies on that level, it’s gonna have an impact. And in this case, we see very positive impacts.

Some of them have a lot of work with and a lot of struggle ahead of them, but but the the trend is looking good.

Moderator/Host, Technion: A question from Christophero on email. Dear Daniel and team, Cristoforo from Italy here. Two questions. How do you assess the quality of the increased inventories and trade receivables just to be sure that counterparties will be good and cash collection is ensured? Let’s start with the first question.

So, basically, we we explained I mean, the cash flow, the free cash flow ex acquisitions this quarter was very low as you saw, and we’re not happy about that. A part of that is explained by the inventory levels went up and that the sales actually went up for quite a bit of companies by the end of the quarter, which, of course, didn’t really translate into actual cash yet, but trade receivables. So when it comes to the inventory part, looking at the companies that went up in inventory, we are very confident that it’s companies that will actually be selling those inventory and translating that to profit and cash flow later this year. And when it comes to the momentarily higher trade receivables for the companies that actually went up in sales, roughly half of that trade receivables have actually already hit our bank account as of today. And for the rest, we’re very confident that they will hit later in this quarter or sooner.

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: Yeah. And I mean, in a situation where we have felt that we haven’t performed well when it comes to to the to gathering orders or or receiving orders, and we push that really hard, and, of course, that’s gonna lock up some of the working capital. So not fun, but also a natural course when when we do what we do.

Moderator/Host, Technion: Yep. Second part of the Christoforo question is how the organizational changes will affect the subsidiaries and the decentralization approach that you have always followed. What are the risks of losing the benefit of autonomy? You wanna start?

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: Yeah. No. Please start.

Moderator/Host, Technion: I I think it’s a really, really good question. And, I mean, decentralization still is the heart and the center of our business model, where I think that we have not done good enough and, to be honest, far from good enough is that decentralization works when you have individuals that are doing the right things, that have autonomy to do the right things, but it’s also people that have the capabilities and the ownership, feeling the ownership of doing the right things. If there is a person like that that is running the company in the right direction, autonomy is the right to go, and decentralization is the model. However, when we see, and we are following this up more closely nowadays, when we see that operations are deteriorating, and we’re not talking about the financial numbers, but rather more forward looking indicators, in those cases, we need to be quicker to identify that as number one, and secondly, to ensure that the per people that are running the companies are running the right direction. So it’s really about trust but verify.

And as long as the person are right doing the right things, it is an autonomy. But the more we feel that it’s going to the wrong direction, in the first step, they need to explain to us why it’s going in a direction that we feel is wrong, and they also need to tell us the plan of righting the ship. If we believe in that, then we support that CEO fully in going that in that direction, full steam ahead. If we try that or if we don’t feel that they are having the right plan of righting the ship, then we get to a point where we basically have to draw up the map and say, this is now your journey going forward. Please implement.

And if that is going in the right direction, then everyone is happy, and hopefully, we’ll all learn something. But without putting too many words on that, Christoforo, I mean, decentralization and autonomy is really the way to go, but only if we feel that trust for the individual.

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: Yeah. And and I I think it’s it’s characteristic also that you talk When we feel that it goes in the wrong direction, it feels. And maybe we we we emphasize the Dan word a little bit too much historically because we have had the ability to handle the group when it was a nescircle volume. Now that we are a little bit more companies and we are in several jurisdictions, we cannot feel that much.

We actually have to see it, and that’s what we’re measuring now. We have metrics that we actually look at, and we follow-up on the metrics and not so much on how we feel. I I I know that you meant that, but it’s just how we phrase ourselves and and what type of words we use. The the subsidiaries should be autonomously run. But if they trend in the wrong direction and the metric shows that, then we have to demand from the subsidiary what are your actions that will be implemented to turn this ship around again.

And if they are not if the person put in place to to be in charge of that doesn’t have the equipment or the skill set to do that, then we have to support them and and follow-up on that very, very closely and much more faster than we have done previously.

Moderator/Host, Technion: Yep. We fill in data. Alright. We got a question here from Prakal Goyal, who is wondering, have economical conditions in Sweden deteriorated since we last spoke around the Q1 earnings? What is your outlook from here?

And please frame the comments from investors who is not familiar with the Swedish market.

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: It actually has deteriorated a bit in some segments, especially some heavy industry segments. But on the positive side, we actually see at least if you want and if you look hard for it, you can actually see that we have some new orders coming in when it comes to building houses and from the construction industry. But it definitely has been more difficult situation when it comes to heavy industry. Big global customers are hesitating, and they have struggling they struggle with their order intake, which just zipper downs to us as well.

Moderator/Host, Technion: I think there’s maybe two things to add to this. So one part is that for some industries, absolutely, if you look at a one year basis, two year basis, the the economy is down. But our companies are so, so small compared to the total so that it should not impact one to one how we are doing. I mean, obviously, if you have a CEO that is just running the mill, yes, that will impact close to one to one. But our point is and has always been that when you’re running something that is so small and where you’re 1% of the market or even less, you just work a little bit harder, a little bit smarter, and then you’re you take a little bit of market share, and nothing has happened.

We have CEOs in our group who work exactly like that. And if you ask them, they cannot see that the industry and the market have deteriorated. Even though all macro data say that. They just don’t feel it because they’re pulling double the weight at the moment, and that is something that we need to instill more in the group.

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: Very good, Pat.

Moderator/Host, Technion: We got the email from Alexi on email. Could you please share a bit about the synergy between your subsidiaries? Has there been any cases when one business significantly improved its margins or scales by adopting some ideas from another one?

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: It’s a rather a rather common thing nowadays since we we we have more companies and and the CEOs from the different companies get together a couple of times a year to to tell their stories for each other and and to get to know each other. So, of course, there’s a lot of what we call soft synergies there. I don’t know if we go into to hard hard examples, but but I have a few that that I really, really like and and where you get influenced and get the toolbox from from a fellow CEO that you can implement into your into your own business and actually see the effects quite quick. So yes.

Moderator/Host, Technion: It’s difficult to put numbers on it, but just to give two rather concrete things that we’re working with. I mean, not long time ago, we had ten, fifteen companies, so it was more difficult to find real interfaces where they had natural touch points that could make each other better rather than the other than the soft ones that you mentioned. But, I mean, nowadays, when we have roughly 35 different companies, they do have natural touch points where some of them sell to similar customers where they can open doors to each other. Some of them actually buy things that others are selling. And, I mean, we’re seeing more and more of that.

Right now, it’s on a very insignificant level. But on some micro level, we do expect that to give some kind of synergy and effect and margin uplift. I think the the bigger effect going forward is that, without adding a heavy overhead cost to it, We have many companies that have very similar functions. For example, every company, of course, buys something from someone. We have a lot of companies that are sourcing things from China, but obviously have not had the capacity to be best in class when it comes to that.

We have many companies that work with marketing, but have done it with some, you know, just a couple of hours a week and not really had the capability. So we are looking at finding experts that can help us out and do this on a overarching basis. And one, in the short term, save a little bit of money through not having as many external consultants. But secondly, more importantly, we do believe that the impact of that will be rather big, but, of course, that will take time. Next question comes from Arnold, through the email.

He’s wondering, regarding the country managers, for The UK and Sweden. Given the shift from technology centralized model, how do you plan for these managers to effectively oversee, especially the smaller subsidiaries? We could cut a little bit on that, but Yeah.

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: Yeah. But I think it’s I really know how to phrase it, but it’s the normal way of operate, but we’re gonna do it on a more professional, more close level. So when following up on different type of KPIs, we have always done that, but maybe we’ve been too slow, too soft when it comes to actually supporting and and demanding from the individual subsidiary on on how to change things around or or making things better. And and our Slack has been too long, maybe, in some cases. And at this stage, we’re putting in an organization where we will focus more on have right now, here and now, following up and demanding more or less a response from the person in charge, the responsible individual, the CEO of the subsidiary, to actually get from them an action plan taking us to a better place.

And and if that individual is not capable of producing such an action plan fast enough, then we will support them with that and make sure that they actually actually do the things necessary in order to take us to a good place. This role is of these regional manager or country managers, and it’s their responsibility to make sure that we find a way that’s going to take us into the future much more healthier than we have been standing previously. Yep.

Moderator/Host, Technion: We got a question here in the q and a from Prakul, who is writing that our free cash flow profile has deteriorated significantly. Why was that? Do you expect the pressures to ease? And what is your outlook for free cash flow going forward?

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: I think you explained that quite well just a few minutes ago. And just to emphasize that we are driving the activities really hard at this stage, and we’ve been doing that for a while. Of course, one big thing is to be really close to our customers and potential customers in order to make sure that we have the sales. And that increase in sales, of course, is going to lock up some of the working capital and the free cash flow for a bit. But in the long term, we have incentives for all subsidiary CEOs and also for ourselves that the free cash flow should be high.

Otherwise, the we won’t get we we won’t get our bonuses. And and so we have it we we have the the toolbox on on different levels in order to make sure that the free cash flow is is what we are aiming for and what we’re chasing, and it’s a fundamental piece of of running a company like this. So it’s on on the top of our minds.

Moderator/Host, Technion: Yes. Email question from Akash. Hi, Johan and Dan. I have a few questions. Can you please speak in detail about the performance metrics you are implementing across your subsidiaries?

What type of KPIs are you focused on? Who is responsible for assuring these are implemented at track at subsidiary level?

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: On a subsidiary level, it’s always the subsidiary CEO that is that’s responsible for making sure that they have good earnings and good free cash flow from that business. On the top of the KPIs that we always look for is, of course, the earnings for that subsidiary. And then we have the margins, the different margins, making sure that they trend in the right direction. And then we have a metric, which is a return on capital, which needs to be high enough. Otherwise, we make sure that we implement actions in order to restore everything to a level where we want to be.

Moderator/Host, Technion: Yeah. And that goes back a little bit to the decentralization and autonomy question. So, basically, we have implemented five different KPIs on two profit levels and two margin levels and one return on capital level for the different time perspectives. And if everything looks good feelings, but defined in Excel formulas, the CEO can run their company as if it was their own, with basically full autonomy, of course, following the CEO instructions and the board instructions. But when one or more of these things becomes red, then things gets escalated from the country head in UK, CEO coaches in Sweden up to here.

And there are different routines for handling that, and that is something that we’ve implemented more clearly this year, which we, of course, believe will have effect going forward. Another question from Akash is, your net debt EBITDA calculation includes lease liabilities in the net debt. Is that the calculation used for debt covenant by lenders? Intuitively, a better measure of leverage would be net debt excluding lease liabilities divided by EBITDA. Yeah.

I think one can have different opinions about this. Opinions, unfortunately, usually doesn’t really matter so much when we when we speak to the rather rigid banks even though we love our bank, SCB, very much. But covenant calculations is actually based on what were the leases included, and the potential earn outs for the future is also included. However, we use pro form a as the bank wants to see how things would be running if at full speed with acquisitions for 12. So that is watching the covenants.

A third question from Akash is what are the learnings from the reward catering transaction? Please share what you can of the current status of reward and the lawsuit.

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: Okay. A little bit of background. We have an acquisition in Ireland, and we are in a dispute with the sellers over an earn out that turned into a court case, which is now put back into to be settled between the parties according to the SPA. In the aftermath of or during that process, a couple of other legal cases have emerged, and the court has asked the parties to settle those cases in court and not in public. And we will respect that and, of course, let the the court take its time in those cases.

So so, unfortunately, we cannot talk very much about it. It’s a very, very, of course, strangest situation to to be in this. This is not the normal way of operating for us, but it is what it is, and and I’m confident that the the the courts of Ireland will will decide what’s what is right and what is wrong.

Moderator/Host, Technion: Maybe important to add as well is that from our side, we, of course, have our solicitors involved. We also have certified adviser involved and also our auditors so that whatever should and need to be put into the different reports are put in there, and whatever should not be put in there is not in there. So I have, of course, seen that some people that, for some reason, are very interested in the case have been writing about why there are no more disclosures and why we don’t answer more publicly. It’s because we’re really just following the rules of the high court in Ireland and local rules here in Sweden. When we have more to share, we will share that.

But until then, we will just continue to follow the legal procedures. Douglas, through email, is wondering. You mentioned on the four page that four companies have lost 14,000,000 Swedish krona during first half of twenty five, and you expect by the end of the year, the group will instead contribute 2,000,000 to 5,000,000. Can you please I’m paraphrasing, but can you please give some more color on that? So the four companies that Douglas is referring to are the ones that you can see in the middle of the whiteboard page where you can see their order stock backlog per per month.

The companies have been losing money because there is, of course, a level of operational leverage in it where with little revenue, of course, there’s gonna be a loss. But if you get to a certain stage, they start making money. The good thing with these companies that they are rather high gross margin businesses, which means that it doesn’t need a lot of sales in order to break even, and after that, they start making quite a bit of money. The thing which is really frustrating is that from actually closing the deal to being able to produce and recording the sales and getting the cash flow, it’s a long lead time. In this group, you have four different companies.

Two of them are building related, Hemet and Grimstorpe, where there are a lot of planning permits involved, which takes time. So in q four, we do believe that these companies will be positive, not by a lot, but by the 2 to 5,000,000 as we wrote out on the on the whiteboard together. That is not the level we expect these companies to operate on, but that is also due to the lead time and what we see in the backlog today, what we do believe is realistic because you actually need to start building things before you can record that the revenue for them. Then, of course, going forward, we expect that number to be much higher. We’ve seen the numbers for those companies that are on much higher levels, and we, of course, are doing everything we can to get them to those numbers again and beyond.

Yep. Another question from Kolapan through mail. Hi, Johan, Daniel. Thank you for your transparency in the report. My question is, while quarterly updates are useful, as a long term shareholder, I’m more focused on the operational trend and the underlying culture.

Are you satisfied with the current trajectory of key metrics this year, and how confident are you that this momentum is sustainable? Additionally, how are you fostering a culture of transparency and trust with the subsidiary CEOs where they feel safe and share bad news early, yet empowered enough to operate without micromanagement?

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: Great question. Of course, when it comes to fostering a culture, it comes down to how we act all all through the the company group, of course, how we interact, what type of relationship we build. And the it’s it’s extremely important that that Daniel had touched upon several times during this call is that we have the autonomacy, we have the independence, but we also monitor it very closely and that we follow-up on the metrics that actually mean something. Some individuals that run the subsidiaries are, of course, sometimes in need of support and help, and maybe they reach a level in their business where they’ve never been before, and they need to get some influence from from outside, from us, from from the team here on how to take it further. And and the way we have been organized hasn’t been just to be self critic self critic of myself is is that we haven’t followed up close enough on on a structured way and and maybe a little bit in a in a, let’s say, it’s standardized way.

And that is the new role of the country managers that we have metrics that we will all that we will demand, that we will follow, all of us. And, of course, one of those things is the transparency. And it’s very, very important that we have a full set of trust between us. The first thing that we want to hear from our colleagues and from our CEO coaches and from our subsidiary CEOs is the problems. Those are the ones that’s gonna be top of the agenda in in every conversation.

And I I have a small anecdote from when Daniel followed me out to the subsidiaries the first time when he was he was fresh here in in the beginning of twenty twenty one. We we visited the Swedish subsidiaries, and one of the CEOs came running out to the parking lot when we arrived in our in our rental car and said, you wanna be I’ve been here all we we don’t we we miscalculated the earnings for last month, and this is why, and we have been sitting all weekend. So and and I I remember Daniel was a little bit in shock in a positive way that that the transparency was so high and that no one was trying to hide anything. On the contrary, they were actually shouting it out. And and that’s, of course, the type of relationship and the culture that we wanna nourish.

How to achieve that? Yeah. Talk about it. Always be open about it, and always lead by example, of course.

Moderator/Host, Technion: Yeah. The lot piece. I think also just going back to your question if we’re happy about the operational improvement. I mean, maybe the starting point is that we truly believe that the the when when looking at the actual operations, the lowest point is behind us and that we’re moving now in a trajectory that is upwards, which we’re happy about, that it’s upwards. Are we happy about the actual delta and about the speed, the momentum?

No. We are not. We do believe that there is a lot more to be done. So it’s not that we feel that, okay, we have bottomed out, and now let’s go on vacation. We feel that we’re gonna use that energy and, of course, a little bit of happiness that we do feel that that is behind us and build on that momentum.

There’s also a lot to be said about if we go back to the beginning of this year, we try to explain in our heads how our business are is looking. And and we have, roughly speaking, three different legs. We have one leg who which is acquisitions. We have one leg, which is companies that is actually performing, and we have one leg, which is companies that are not performing. Usually, we want to have a three leg still.

In this case, we want two. We don’t want to have the third piece even though, realistically, it will always be there, but as a small, small leg. The acquisition piece, in the beginning of the year, we said that we’re going to have a big acquisitive year and that we were going to buy more than six companies. We’re at seven so far. I do not feel that we’re done yet without making any promises.

When it comes to the companies that are performing or not, we we don’t have this normal distribution of, you know, most companies performing to the average. It’s quite a bit in the opposite actually, where we have a bunch of companies that are performing very well. The majority of them are in The UK, but we also have a lot of companies here, maybe not a lot, but we have some companies here in Sweden that are performing on that level as well, growing with 20% margins. But we have this third group, which is not something that we like, companies that are losing money, which is really hurtful. As a group, they are moving in the right direction.

Direction. But on individual levels, I mean, we do have some quick turnarounds, which we have shown also on the whiteboard where the financial results are actually already seen and will improve even more going forward. We also have some companies where they have plateaued out in the other direction, which is something not great. But as a group, they are moving in the right direction, but we fail too slowly. That was a lot of words.

Unnecessary.

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: Very true words,

Moderator/Host, Technion: I think. Alright. Next question comes from Gunther on email. Can you please give some more details about the processes that are will be installed to avoid acquiring a Kakapu or to avoid that an acquired company becomes a Kakapu?

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: Cuckoo. Someone that has been so clamatized to to a certain level of of environment, so they forget how to work in another type of environment. I I mean, the risk is always there. To acquire something in the short term is is not that high of a risk because we are looking for companies that are growing a little bit and that have a very niche market where they are very good at what they’re doing. They’re the leader in their little narrow niche, and they have a a very good history of doing that.

So but but, of course, every company that is growing will reach a level or leveling out on a plateau, as I mentioned before, where you’re not used to what, you don’t maybe don’t have the skill set or you don’t have the experience on how to get away from that plateau, start starting to climb again, climbing to higher higher altitudes. And that will probably happen to to the subsidiaries, and it’s just as I mentioned earlier today, also happened to Technion. It happens to Technion at several stages throughout our history. And now we’ve been in such a situation again, and now we’re a bigger entity, which means that the impact will be bigger. And I’m very happy and confident that we have found a lot of new tools that is necessary in order to to proceed.

I think the high risk of of ending up in a kakapo situation is if you hire someone from from outside and and you don’t into a a subsidiary where maybe the the founder or an entrepreneur has been running the show for for many, many years or decades, the risk there is not that high. But if you bring someone from the outside taking them in, maybe don’t have the maybe don’t don’t have the full skill set or or the the what is necessary in order to to make sure that you also do the things that is not obvious for this moment. Because becoming a kakapoo means that you do things that or or making sure that you don’t become a kakapoo means that you do things that is not maybe not necessary here and now, but will probably extremely necessary for the future or tomorrow and and continue to practice those things and and emphasize those things that that will make sure that you have the full toolbox of of taking the company into the future and and having it grow forever.

Moderator/Host, Technion: And I also think that we are expensive letter, but we’re expensive lesson, but we are getting better and, sharp have sharpened our tools, during this downturn. So two things that I also feel is important, in addition to what Johan said is, one, to actually set the targets in the right way. So we are more involved in the strategy phase of figuring out where the company should go, in which pace, and building that, in a very, very realistic but achievable, with concrete steps. So so we have some kind of baseline against where we’re heading. And then secondly, just as we’ve mentioned a couple of times regarding the lead times from actually closing the sales and getting a sale on the whiteboard, the the good and the bad is that for quite a bit of our companies, there is a lot of momentum in both directions.

So when you started to build up to sales pipeline, there will be a lot of incoming things for a while even if you stop, which we will not do again. But the momentum is true in both directions. So we have implemented KPIs and a structure where we actually follow-up much closer because, unfortunately, we saw some of the company’s operational deteriorating for a little bit too long until it hits the numbers, and we were too slow to to react on those things for various reasons. So I think being just much better at setting the targets both on a financial level and also operational what needs to be done and then following up more tight when it comes to the forward looking KPIs, are things that we do believe, will affect not becoming, just stupid bird going forward. Alright.

Next question from Gunta as well. Are Grimsthorpe a big componente, Hemet, Marquis City, part of the group of turnaround that I mentioned on page nine? The two building companies are. Marquis City is not. Marquis City is a business that, strangely enough, doesn’t really have a backlog in the traditional meaning.

So their numbers are always reported as zero when it comes to the backlog. What we can say is that it’s also as a company where we’re putting a lot of effort at the moment, and we do feel that even though there’s a lot of things left to be done, it is moving in the right direction. I think year to date, that company has made close to zero, which is, like, doing exactly nothing, which is not where we want to be, of course. But that is roughly 4,000,000 better than last year or 4,000,000 less poor than last year, but a lot more to be done. Yeah.

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: Positive trend.

Moderator/Host, Technion: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. From a low baseline.

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: Yeah.

Moderator/Host, Technion: Is the order backlog of 69,000,000 sufficient for these companies to become profitable in q four, or is further growth needed for this?

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: I think you mentioned that already so that it looks like they’re gonna make a small profit in the as of today. And that is still something that we’re not happy with, of course. They need to be much more profitable for the future, and that’s also the aim for the CEOs and for us to make sure that that happens.

Moderator/Host, Technion: Yeah. Besides these four turnaround companies, are there any other companies that are losing money? If yes, can you indicate how many?

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: Yeah. We we have we have a few more companies that are losing money, and I don’t know if we we mentioned something about that in in q one Yeah. Year end report. So it’s approximately one third of of the group. I think we are about there.

Moderator/Host, Technion: Yep.

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: Also worth mentioning there is, of course, that the trend is showing that we’re going doing the right things, and we’re moving in the right direction, and the idea that we will we will be able to report much health much healthier group for the coming times.

Moderator/Host, Technion: Yep. We have one more email coming in from Kip who basically is wondering two things. How do you define organic growth, and when do you include an acquisition’s contribution in the income statement? So when it comes to organic growth, I think that we write something short about that on the last page. But in for simplicity, organic growth is when a company has been in our group more than twelve months.

So the thirteenth month, they start when they have a month to compare to, and that is when they are included for organic growth. And when we include an acquisition’s contribution to the income statement, So, basically, this is when we have control, and control means when we actually have the deal done, signed, completed, money sent shares in our hands. So because accounting is tricky to do in the middle of the month or actually can do it, but it’s a lot of work. So for simplicity, the the companies get included the first, and, basically, it is the first that is closest to usually the press release, which is very close to actually the completion date, usually the same day. Good.

It has been very quiet in the live q and a today, and it looks like we actually got through all of the mail questions with few minutes to spare. Would you like to end with some concluding remarks?

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: Yeah. Thank you so much for listening in, and please take with you that we have done a lot during this year, and we feel confident that our path forward looks much brighter. We have still a lot of things that we need to address and that we do take action to. I feel very confident when it comes to to the new organization and how we’re gonna work together for the future. We have been on this plateau, nagging about that, but we that’s maybe something that we need to to push through in order to be able to scale and and double the group from today.

And it’s it’s with some positive feelings within that I say that the fall will show more improvements for us going forward. And we are still very, very much focused on doubling the EPS for Technion for every five years to come and At least. That is very important, but at least. But we still feel that the the the things that been implemented and the things that we’re actually achieving right now is is very, very good. I hope that we will talk again in October.

Moderator/Host, Technion: Yep.

Johan Stijaner, CEO, Technion: And, up until then, have a very good time, and, take care of the rest of the summer. Thank

Moderator/Host, Technion: you very much. Have a good day. Bye bye.

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