Earnings call transcript: W5 Solutions reports Q3 2025 growth amid strategic shifts

W5 Solutions AB reported a strong performance in Q3 2025, with net sales increasing by 24% year-over-year and the company achieving its first positive EBIT since Q3 2022. Despite this growth, the company's stock experienced a decline, closing down 5.33% at 54.4 SEK, reflecting market uncertainties and investor reactions to future guidance.

Key Takeaways

• Net sales rose 24% year-over-year, marking significant growth.
• Achieved positive EBIT for the first time since Q3 2022.
• Stock price fell 5.33% in the wake of earnings announcement.
• Strong order backlog of SEK 522 million.
• Strategic focus on M&A and export market expansion.

Company Performance

W5 Solutions demonstrated robust growth in Q3 2025, with net sales climbing 24% compared to the same period last year. This uptick was driven by increased demand across its product segments, particularly in its primary markets of the Nordic countries and Western Europe. The company also reported a significant improvement in EBIT, achieving a positive figure for the first time in three years, highlighting its operational efficiency and strategic realignment.

Financial Highlights

• Q3 Net Sales: SEK 277 million, up from SEK 256 million year-to-date last year.
• Order Backlog: SEK 522 million, indicating strong future demand.
• Year-to-Date EBIT: Negative SEK 9.8 million, a marked improvement from previous losses.

Outlook & Guidance

W5 Solutions remains optimistic about its future, setting a target to reach SEK 1 billion in revenue by 2027 with a 10% profitability goal. The company is confident in achieving a 20% sales growth in 2026, supported by an expanding sales organization and a focus on mergers and acquisitions (M&A) to bolster growth. The emphasis on export market expansion is expected to play a crucial role in the company's strategic initiatives.

Executive Commentary

CEO Evelina Hedskog emphasized the company's strategic direction, stating, "We do not have a profitability problem. We have a top-line problem." This highlights the company's focus on increasing revenue streams. Hedskog also underscored the importance of the export market, noting, "The export market is super important," reflecting the company's commitment to broadening its market reach. Additionally, she mentioned, "We are working systematically with M&A," indicating a strategic approach to growth through acquisitions.

Risks and Challenges

• Market Volatility: Fluctuations in the defense sector could impact sales.
• Supply Chain Disruptions: Potential delays in product delivery could affect customer satisfaction.
• Currency Exchange Rates: Variations in exchange rates could impact financial performance.
• Competitive Pressure: Increasing competition in the sustainable defense technology sector.
• Regulatory Changes: New regulations in primary markets may pose compliance challenges.

W5 Solutions' Q3 2025 performance reflects a company on the upswing, with strategic initiatives aimed at sustaining growth and improving profitability. However, the market's reaction underscores the challenges ahead in aligning investor expectations with the company's long-term vision.

Full transcript - W5 Solutions AB (W5) Q3 2025:

Hannah, Communications and Investor Relations, W5 Solutions: Hi, and welcome to W5 Solutions' presentation of the third quarter result. My name is Hannah, and I'm responsible for communications and investor relations here at W5 Solutions. I'm joined by our President and CEO, Evelina Hedskog. Welcome, Evelina.

Evelina Hedskog, President and CEO, W5 Solutions: Thanks, Hannah.

Hannah, Communications and Investor Relations, W5 Solutions: Also our CFO, Cecilia Drivving. Welcome, Cecilia.

Evelina Hedskog, President and CEO, W5 Solutions: Thank you, Hannah.

Hannah, Communications and Investor Relations, W5 Solutions: The agenda for today, Evelina is going to give you a brief presentation of W5 Solutions, followed by the key highlights during the quarter. Thereafter, Cecilia will take over and give you a presentation of the financial development. We will end with a Q&A session, so please feel free to submit your questions via the chat function, and we will answer them one by one at the end. With that, I'll hand over to you, Evelina.

Evelina Hedskog, President and CEO, W5 Solutions: Thank you, Hannah. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this quarter three presentation. Like Hannah said, I will kick this off by giving a brief introduction to W5 as a company. At W5, our vision is to become the leading global provider of sustainable defense technology. Our mission, what we do every day, is that we deliver cutting-edge solutions to empower owned and allied forces. Cutting-edge solutions to empower owned and allied forces. That is what we proudly do every day at W5. Our business is divided into three different business areas, and I will give you more of an in-depth presentation of them in the coming slides. It is integration, training, and power. Our operation sites are located in Sweden, Finland, and Norway, with emphasis on Sweden, where we have operational sites from Älmhult in the south to Piteå in the north.

Our headquarters is based in Stockholm. We are right now about 200 employees in the company. If we look at our customer base, it is a mix between defense agencies and other defense industry companies. It is primarily the OEMs like Saab or BAE Systems Hägglunds and BAE Systems Bofors. The markets that we are active on are primarily the Nordic countries and Western Europe. Since four years back, we are listed on First North. About a year ago, we communicated our financial targets. We say that by the end of 2027, we want to have a turnover or net sales of SEK 1 billion and a profitability of 10%. That is where we are striving. Our company is divided into three different business areas with seven product areas. I will now give you a little bit more information about them.

Starting with business area integration, headed by Gunilla Stomberg, we have two product areas there: systems integration and shelters. Within systems integration, which is also our site in Solna, we do, of course, systems integration services, but also design and manufacturing of special purpose harnesses, intercom solutions, etc. Shelters, that's our site up in Piteå. Our shelters are basically very sophisticated containers for military applications. They can be used as, for example, command posts or field hospitals. That is business area integration in short. Moving on to business area training, headed by Toralf Johannessen. Here we also have two product areas: live fire training, defense and security, and the equivalent for sports and hunting. In these product areas, we have products, both hardware and software, that can be used both for marksmanship training on shooting ranges, but also more tactical training out in the field.

Two product areas, which are also in this particular case, customer segments. Moving on to business area power. Headed by Tobias Johansson since 1 November. In business area power, which is also the entire operation site down in Älmhult, we have three different product areas. Starting with batteries and chargers, we come from expertise in battery charging, but have also added battery manufacturing to our portfolio lately. These batteries and chargers are designed and developed for the, I would say, the military requirements. Same thing with gensets. In the genset product area, we design and develop both generic gensets for military use, but also more tailored applications when it comes to gensets that are tailored for a specific weapon system or sensor system according to the customer's wishes. Last but not least, simulation.

Also located in Älmhult, hence belonging with power and not with training. Within simulation, our expertise lies within the simulation hardware. It can be anything from a tank, like you see in this picture, to hardware for a grip and simulator, for example. I mentioned that Tobias Johansson is now the Head of Business Area. We have had some changes in management recently. Joakim Hammarsland was earlier heading Business Area Power. He is now doing it full time as Deputy CEO. In that role, he has two main responsibilities. He is running sales and marketing on group level and also is responsible for our M&A efforts. Sales and marketing and M&A for Joakim as Deputy CEO and Tobias Johansson as Head of Business Area Power since 1 November. We are extremely glad to have Tobias on board. He joins us from.

Having been the CEO of Rottner Industrier for eight years. He comes with lots of experience that we look forward to enjoy in W5 as well. Moving on to the quarter three highlights and key figures. I think if there's like one thing to say about the third quarter, it's probably, okay, now we're doing what we said that we would do. We have talked about winning business, building a backlog. We have talked about the fact that we need to get sales up in order to reach profitability. Those of you who have followed us know that the order backlog has built up over time, but especially during quarter two this year. Now we see the result of that. Net sales is up 24% from the same period last year.

We are finally in the black when it comes to EBIT margin. I think this is a very positive message. It is really a position of strength now going into the fourth quarter of the year. Order intake is down a bit from the same period last year. I am not worried too much about that. Like I said, we had a very strong second quarter this year. Many big contracts were closed right before vacation. Last year we did not really manage that. We had one very big contract right after vacation, which also gave us a very good order intake in quarter three last year. Going forward, I do not see this as a trend at all. Actually, on the opposite, it is a huge influx of prospects for all our product areas.

We are working hard to turn that into order intake now in the fourth quarter. We are still aiming at continuously building the order backlog and also having a longer visibility within the backlog. All in all, very positive results now in quarter three in terms of higher net sales and finally black numbers. If we look into the different business areas, as you know, we have had segment reporting from the first quarter of this year. We do not have any comparable numbers from last year. However, you can see the numbers from first and second quarter at the bottom of this slide. Just to illustrate that we, I mean, designing these three business areas from the seven subsidiaries that we had earlier as a sort of organizational concept, the idea was that we would have three business areas with more or less the same size and.

The same sort of outlook in terms of profitability. We are not there yet. As you can see in this slide, there are different challenges. It has to do with the different product mix that we have within each business area. Backlog-wise, power is by far best right now. Of course, that has to do with large contracts over multiple years for very complex design contracts in terms of both simulation and gensets. Whilst net sales is right now best within integration. On the profitability side, we have also integration showing great results while power is still struggling a bit. This is no surprise. We knew that this would be a tough year for power. I think the important message here is that it is moving in the right direction. That goes for all the business areas. The overall picture is really positive.

We're excited now to move into the fourth quarter of the year and deliver on the backlog that we have there. Before I hand over to Cecilia for some more digging into the details with the numbers, I just want to give you a short glance of, okay, from an operational perspective, what is the key focus areas now then. Both for the rest of the year, but also maybe a bit into next year? Integration, like you saw in the numbers, they are doing really well. There is a big pressure to maybe bring in more orders than we do right now. Customer demand is extremely high. Of course, it's important for us to grow without jeopardizing profitability, quality, and delivery precision. The challenge now is really to expand profitable.

Part of that is also to look into slightly new customer offerings that can give us larger serious deliveries and larger contracts. Looking at training, those of you who follow us know that we've had a number of large contracts for the live fire training, defense, and security part of the portfolio this year. These are off-the-shelf products that we primarily have on contract, which means that we can get scalability. Doing everything we can in order to create this economy of scale with the deliveries that we now have in training. Of course, some investments are connected to this, but we've taken them already this year. Now it's really about getting the scalability from these contracts. Within power, as you saw, a fantastic backlog. It's not only that, it's also a fantastic prospect pipeline, huge interest in our products.

Of course, this big order backlog gives us the ability to plan ahead. The attention is really now on fine-tuning the delivery organization, both when it comes to the complex development projects, but also for our standardized products within batteries and chargers, where we have a little bit like in training off-the-shelf products with faster turnaround times. I think that was my last slide. I am handing over to Cecilia. Thank you, Evelina. I will keep on talking about the backlog and the visibility going forward because on the left-hand side, you see the order backlog split by years. For the rest of the year, 36% of our order backlog is due to be delivered. Of course, it is great to have this visibility for the quarters to come that we have 45% of this backlog already for 2026 and.

2019 going forward, even further that, 2027 and beyond. If we look at the right-hand side, we have the book to bill. As we previously have said, we would like to over time be about 1.2 to have the growth in the company secured going forward. We have had a positive trend since 2023, with a significantly high number in the second quarter. Still, we are in this quarter on one, and that's a positive sign or even a little bit above that. We have a great order momentum and we see that demand is still there. Going over to the key figures for the order intake and order backlog, we have so far this year SEK 522 million in order backlog, which is a huge uptick since last year and great for the future.

In the order backlog, it is almost the same numbers that we have SEK 569 million in the backlog compared to SEK 304 million a year ago. This gives us a healthy pipeline going into next year. If we break this down through the business areas, you see that integration has an order intake of about SEK 100 million this year and an order backlog of SEK 138 million. Training has had lots of new orders this year, SEK 200 million, and an order backlog of SEK 135 million. Many of those have been, one of them has been communicated this last quarter and a few already before the summer. For power, which is the business area with the largest backlog, the order intake has been very good this year and we had many of them already in the second quarter. Of course, there are small orders.

In between that we do not communicate, but still we see that there are many coming as well. Going over to net sales and EBIT margins by the quarter, you can see that we have always had the strongest quarters in Q2 and Q4. Q3 is the summer, over the summer period, which is very visible in the numbers because this is the slowest quarter and all the vacations from the summer are visible here. We expect the fourth quarter to be stronger as usual because the second quarter and fourth quarter are always the strongest. We have also here finally got a Q3 with positive numbers, and that has not happened since the third quarter in 2023, I think, or if it was even before that. It is a turning point for us. If we look into the year-to-date numbers for the group, we have SEK 277 million.

In net sales. That is also a growth since last year, which was SEK 256 million. The biggest difference, I would say, is in the EBIT, which is only SEK 9.8 million negative this year. That is almost half from last year, not really, but almost. If you look at it, it is integration that has the highest sales number and also the highest EBIT. The training has a small negative number this year. Power is still growing. We think that this will sort itself out. It is the biggest business area with most people in it. We have built up and we have prepared for the growth that we see will come in the order backlog. This will change over time. Over to you, Evelina. Thank you. Okay, just to summarize then. Quarter three is really about delivering results.

We see the top-line growth that we've been talking about. We are now transforming the big order intake that we managed to have earlier this year is now turning into top-line growth. With that comes profitability. Back to black figures and doing everything we can to improve even more going forward. We also see continued success on the export market, which is sort of a great proof that our product portfolio is competitive. I think there are many, many more orders to be won on the export market. We are working tirelessly to find the right customers out there. Again, export market, super important. I would say that the most important for us this quarter is that we are now back in the black. It is the top-line growth that has given us this position. Priorities going forward then.

In the short term, of course, the deliveries in quarter four, as you saw in the order backlog slide that Cecilia presented. It's very busy days at W5. We are doing everything we can to make sure that the customers have what they have ordered before Christmas. In parallel with that, we are, of course, planning and preparing for next year. I talked about efficiency earlier. Of course, we want to make sure that we have planned ahead as much as we can now with the backlog in place. Of course, in addition to that, also win new orders continuously. In parallel to that, we have a continued focus on M&A. The SEK 1 billion that we are aiming to reach by the end of 2027 will not come only from organic growth. We need to acquire business as well.

This is something I've talked about before as well, that we have ramped up the pace in our M&A work. We are working systematically with it. It is a big focus area for us going forward. I think that sums up where we stand today. Thank you so much for listening in. Yes, now it's time to start with the Q&A session. I'll jump right into it. Can you comment anything on the M&A pipeline? Is the number of potential targets increasing, decreasing, or is it stabilized? For us right now, it has increased. Maybe it has to do with the fact that we have worked systematically to find the right targets over the year. Of course, it also has to do a little bit about, I mean, what's on sale for the moment.

We work both sort of proactively and reactively. We try to find companies that could fit into W5. Of course, also we're approached by companies who are for sale. It's a little bit of timing. It's also the fact that we have worked with this in a systematic way. The number of targets that we are now looking at, I would say, is definitely much higher than six months ago. I would say that the quality, the strategic match with W5, is also much higher than targets that we initially looked at. Sounds interesting. Yes. It's very exciting. Yeah. Next question. What was the main driver behind reaching break even in Q3? Is this a level you can expect to maintain going forward? The main driver was, of course, again, getting top line up.

I've been arguing that we do not have a profitability problem. We have a top line problem. The answer to sort of mitigate that is to win orders. We've won our orders. Now we're getting the top line up. That also gives us profitability. Looking at quarter four then, with the backlog that we are to deliver in quarter four, of course, we expect positive results there as well. Looking into the sales side, how much of your export sales is generated through sales partners versus your own sales organization? Sort of transactional sales where we're not in the loop at all, I would say it's a very, very small part of the export sales. That would probably be primarily on the sports and hunting side in live fire training.

In other cases on the export market, we would use local agents that would help us find. They would open doors for us. They would use their network in order for us to meet the right people. It would always be with W5 in the loop. I would say that it's us doing the export sales, even though sometimes we route the contract in another way than directly through to the end customer. It is dependent on us being there explaining what we do and how we do it. Thank you. Moving from sales to the financial question, I think it's for you, Cecilia. How are you working to strengthen cash flow going forward? Our working capital has increased quite a lot as a consequence of the growth. Of course, we will focus on this going forward and monitor it meticulously because.

This is always the consequence when we have so many orders that we will deliver in the next quarter. We have a growing, also, accounts receivables. That is a good thing, but it costs a lot of working capital at the moment. We will monitor that. Thank you. Moving on. What are your expectations for order intake in the coming quarters? Do you see potential for an increase compared to Q3? As always, my expectations are high. No, but joke aside, quarter three is, I mean, we had a super good quarter two and we managed to close big contracts before leaving for summer vacation. I mean, that is part, it is a bit of a vacuum then when you come back from vacation and a bit of a ramp up before we are back again. That said, we have, it is very, very busy times now for the sales department.

We see a lot of mid-sized contracts coming in from all over the organization. We have some super interesting larger prospects as well in the pipeline. I would expect us to be higher in quarter four. I think the most important message is that we see no decrease in interest. It's the other way around. We see an increase in interest. We have more quotes out there. If it's one investment that we probably need to look into next year, it's to invest more in sales, which we have not really done yet because the product portfolio is mature. Again, there's a whole export market to explore, which is at the moment not really explored by us. Yeah, high expectations. High expectations. Yes. Sounds good. Yes. Moving on. Can you—sorry—can you comment on the error in the order intake for Q2?

How did it happen and how have you made sure that this does not happen again? That's obviously a good question. We wrote about it in the report. As said, we had a super high order intake in the second quarter. It was reported as SEK 358 million. We have found out that SEK 37 million of these was internal orders, so we have been double counting in that number. The real order intake was SEK 321 million, which is still a very high and good number for the second quarter. We have made sure now that we do not have that and that we will, of course, be looking into that very much going forward and make sure that we do not make that mistake again.

Now in the numbers, the SEK 569 million in order backlog and the SEK 522 million for the order intake year to date, we do not have that. It is no longer in those numbers. Okay. Thank you. Moving on, there are further questions here. You comment that you have invested in competence and larger facilities. Was the effect of this seen in Q3? Sorry, was the effect of this seen in Q3 or will costs increase going forward? I start and you can. I think that what we try to do is to continuously ramp up as we increase sort of the production. Of course, not having been profitable, we have been very sort of picky when it comes to where to make our investments. Do we see any result in quarter three? That is difficult to say. What I can say is.

Some of the investments made is, for example, ordering long lead items early and so on. That will make possible for us to deliver the big backlog that we have now for the fourth quarter. There is a connection. I do not see any, I mean, investments that we need to do now in order to get things out this year. Of course, it would be quarter by quarter. We would need to assess. I mean, it is everything from facilities to number of people. It sort of, of course, continues work. I do not think I have to add anything to that. I think that was a good answer. Yeah. Obviously, with the growth, we will need to invest more in the future. As you said, not in the fourth quarter.

No, and I think, I mean, one really big thing that we've done this year is to relocate everyone in Älmhult into one building, for example, to get the synergies from our different product areas in Älmhult and also to have some spare capacity facility-wise for the ramp up. That's one big cost that we've taken this year. Looking at 2026, we don't have anything in the plan when it comes to having to move facilities anywhere in the group. There might be sort of additional square meters added to some sites and so on if we talk about that. Machinery, etc., we should be good for 2026. It's more, I think, in the competence department where we might make investments. Then, of course, as always, maybe, yeah, tie some capital in terms of making sure that deliveries run smoothly once we get them. Yeah.

Thank you for that. That was a long and good answer. For sure. It's an interesting discussion. Yes. Let's pick a few more questions. I think we have time. Could you elaborate on your view of the 2026 order backlog? Do you feel confident in achieving around 20% sales growth based on your current position? Do I feel confident? I think. The short answer is yes. If we look at the backlog now for 2026, we're in a better position now reaching 20% growth next year than we were last year looking into 2025 and reaching 20% growth. I mean, things can happen, but I feel fairly confident. Again, we see the big demand from our customers. I'm not worried about not finding new prospects. It's all about getting it on contract. Getting it delivered. Yeah.

Yeah, like you said, it's a lot of interesting discussions going forward now, for sure. It is time to wrap up. Before we close, do you have any final remarks that you'd like to share? I mean, we've covered a lot of areas here. It's difficult to single out one thing that is most important. I think for us as a company, it feels really, really good to have had a profitable quarter and to be able to show black figures. We will take it from here. Yeah. Try to do even better next time. Even better. Yes. Thank you very much to both of you. Thank you all for listening in. If you have any further questions, you can reach out to us at our email address. It is ir@w5solutions.com.

Until then, we look forward to seeing you next year on our presentation of the year-end report on 3rd of March. I wish you a great day and take care.

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