Moderator
Hi and good afternoon. On behalf of H.C.
Andersen Capital, I'd like to welcome you all to this presentation of the Q3 2025 report from SP Group that was published yesterday. My name is Rasmus Krojgaard, and I have the pleasure of welcoming CEO Lars Bering and CFO Tilde Kejlhof.
They promised to take us through the quarterly numbers and recent highlights, a warm welcome to you two. Before I hand over, I'd also like to give a warm welcome to all of those of you who signed up for today's presentation.
As usual, you can ask questions during the presentation in the chat room on your lower right corner. If you're not comfortable writing in English, you can write in Danish, and I'll help with the translation.
Please don't hesitate to ask any questions you have for the management of SP Group. With that, I'll leave it to you, Lars and Tilde.
Please go ahead.
Lars Bering
Thank you very much, Rasmus, and welcome to our Q3 presentation from SP Group. We are a global manufacturer of plastic solutions.
73% of our revenues comes from customer-specific solution where we work as a sub-supplier, and 27% of our revenue comes from our own products. This is own brands that are sold globally as a small niche products.
We have a global footprint with 30 factories, and we are a little more than 2,400 employees working with many different plastic technologies. 40% of our revenue comes from products that are used within healthcare, 28% is related to cleantech, 13% is related to foodtech, and then we have approximately 19% coming from other industries outside the first three areas.
If you take the next one, Rasmus. First, we have had a very exciting year.
We had a first quarter that was record high. Then we saw a tariff bomb in the start of Q2 that was actually giving us problems, and we saw a lot of orders being postponed, and that continued into Q3.
The main message from us today is that, despite all that, we maintain our guidance for the full year, and we estimate that we will end the year similar to the record year in 2024. During the first three quarters, we saw sales reduced by 3.3%, but we also saw in the end of Q3 a strong growing order book for Q4.
We also noticed that we have had nice growth in our sub-supplier business, and the slowdown is related to sales of own products. We have had success creating many new agreements for future business within healthcare and within cleantech, and we can see that this will contribute to the growth going forward.
We have also made agreements on several new products within the defense area, and we have continued our streamlining and optimization in the group during the quarter. If you take next one, Rasmus.
We have started up a big project on expanding our capacity for medical device production in Poland. We are building 1,700 square meters of controlled environment in an existing factory.
During Q3 Q2 together with an announcement of first half year, we also expanded our share buyback with 40 million Danish, in total now it is 80 million Danish. Finally, we also announced yesterday that we have hired a new colleague.
Based on dialogue on how to develop SP Group, how to develop the organization, we found that we needed more resources, and together we decided that the best way for this would be to find a new CFO and have Tilde to take on some more business-related tasks in order to strengthen the organization and keep momentum on all the important stuff that we do.
Tilde Kejlhof
I must say it has been six very exciting years as CFO for the group. I warmly welcome Allan in the new position and looking forward to the setup.
Lars Bering
Yes, thank you, Rasmus. Said before, we have experienced a reduction on 3.3% in sales compared to last year, we have in the first three quarters sold for 2 billion 122 million million.
-2.6 of that was organic, and 0.7 was related to currency. This resulted in an EBITDA of 417 million, a reduction on 6.7%.
EBIT was reduced to 270, a reduction on 8.9%. The major driver in all this was the reduction in sales of our own product, which ended up at 563 million, a 16% reduction from last year.
If you then put the numbers together, then you'll also see that the sub-supplier business grew in the same period with 2.3%, which for us is extremely nice and a good sign that our continuous focus on sales and customers really makes a difference. EBT was reduced by 9.8% to 229 million, and earnings per share reduced to 14.8.
The debt was reduced to 723 million, a reduction on a 100 on a 100 million Danish compared to last year, and the equity is 1.7 billion Danish. We have had during the first three quarters a big focus on the investments in healthcare.
Our factory in Atlanta is doing very well in terms of starting up. We lack revenue there, but there's good reasons for that.
We still see strong growth opportunities for the healthcare also in the coming years, we are actually quite convinced that this has been a good decision for us to start up in the US with establishing our own factory there. Within this year, we reach a level where we have invested 200 million Danish in this facility in US from when we started back in the beginning of 2023 and until now, and we expect that we will invest approximately 100 million Danish more in the coming two years.
This is not for the building itself. It is for putting in machines in the remaining part of the building.
We also expect that we will have break-even in 2026 in the factory, and that is actually based on a nice growth in the sales. This year, we expect a negative impact of 20 22 million Danish due to the whole start-up process.
As I said before, we continue the expansion for the healthcare production in Poland. We need more space.
We need more capacity, and therefore we have started a conversion of a 7,000-square-meter building, which is actually the building you see on the picture on the right side in this area in Poland. We have five large factories, and the first one here is the one that we are in the coming years going to convert completely into medical device production.
First step is to establish a 1,700-square-meter cleanroom that will be ready late Q1 next year. We will also, or we already have, started the process of finding 30 to 40 new colleagues in Poland to help handling all the nice orders that were coming in now.
Yes, please take the next one. As I said before, we have seen a slowdown in sale of own products.
We don't see this as a structural thing. We see it as a postponement.
There has been different areas where customers has postponed orders in Q2, and we have seen that starting to pick up again during September, giving us confidence in the quarter four. Still, it was our second best ever for our own products.
We had a record last year with 671 million. This year we are doing 563 million on own products in Q3.
If you take next one, Rasmus. If we see the first nine months by customer groups, 40% to healthcare.
Healthcare is medical equipment, medical devices, medical packaging from MedicoPack, Ergonomic Solutions, safety solution from Ergomat. Here we saw a drop in the sales of 4.9% in the first nine months to 841 million.
Cleantech, that goes for 28% of the revenue: components for renewable energy, energy reduction, insulation products. Here we saw a little larger drop in sales, but we also sure that this is going to pick up again.
On the other hand, foodtech increased, and we have seen nice growth there. We see products start up again, moving fast.
Projects are being activated that has been postponed. If we go to the category other, that is also highly related to a lot of the sub-supplier business where actually some things are going well.
This is other industries outside the first ones: maritime products, specialist vehicles, and also parts for the defense industry. Here we have seen a growth of 3.4% to 412 million.
Tilde?
Tilde Kejlhof
Thank you. If we only look at Q3, then the top line was 655 millions.
It was a decrease on 7.7 percentages. EBITDA was 126 millions.
EBIT was 77 millions, a decrease on 17%, and EBT was 65 millions, also a decrease on 17 17 percentages. We had cash flow from operating activities on almost 100 million.
We spent 40 millions on investments, and finance activities was 32 millions. If we look at the full year, we had a top line on 2.2 billions.
It was a decrease from 3.3 percentages. EBITDA was 417.
EBIT was 270. EBT was 229.
Earnings per share diluted was 14.8 compared to 16.3 last year. The cash flow from operating activities was 328.
We invested 124 millions. We used 50 millions to share buyback program, 50 millions for dividend to the shareholders, and another 100 for paying off debt.
The net interest-bearing debt was 723, and the gearing was 1.3, and the solvency ratio was 55%. If you look at the revenue, then we had a small decrease on 3.3%, if we look at a 12 months rolling, we are a bit behind.
There was growth in foodtech and other industries. There was reduction in healthcare and cleantech.
We saw a nice little growth to sub-supplier projects. If you look at the EBITDA, then it was reduced by 6.7 percentages.
We had lower revenue and a changed product mix, and also a reduction in own products. The EBT, we had a decrease on 9.8%, and it was kind of the same explanation.
There were lower revenue and changed product mix. We also had a loss in the exchange rates.
Lars Bering
Yes, and then we come to the guidance for the full year. As I said before, we maintained the previous announced expectations.
We expect a year similar to 2024. We guide a revenue to -3 to +3%, and with an earnings of EBITDA at the level 19 to 21%, and EBT at 11 to 13%.
Then we take the summary, Rasmus. First, expectations as maintained.
We saw lack of growth in Q3. Postponed projects within own products was the main driver.
We saw a slowdown in sales to healthcare and cleantech, but we saw growth in foodtech and other. We have seen growth in the sub-supplier projects, and our US factory is still progressing as expected.
We see a nice and growing order book giving us confidence in quarter four. Finally, as we have announced, we will expand the team and have a new CFO on board from January next year.
Moderator
Very good. Thank you very much, Lars and Tilde.
Let's take some of the questions. Maybe I should start with one we had earlier today when we did a presentation in Danish also that if you are to reach zero growth in your top line or the revenue, the 2.9, I think you have 2.1 now, you are to do around 800 million in revenue in the last quarter of the year here.
That's could look a little bit ambitious, at least compared to the Q2 and Q3 revenue. Yeah.
Lars Bering
Yes, it is for sure ambitious, Rasmus, but if you see our Q1 figures and add them, then it is similar. We were also at 800 in Q1, for sure we believe this is possible again.
Moderator
Very good. Let's take a couple of questions also related to your new site here in Atlanta, as we also had on the presentation earlier today.
There's one here that sort of how is the factory performing in Atlanta? I think you were quite positive when you took the rundown earlier with this slide, but maybe we could repeat a little bit on that, Lars.
Lars Bering
Yes, of course. The factory in Atlanta is running 24/5, around the clock, five days a week.
We have production, but however, this year it is rather limited, and that is also why we will have a relatively large loss in the US this year. Due the fact that it is low comes from the whole start-up process.
There's a lot of approvals, there's a lot of validation, there's a lot of training. All this put together gives a good year, a hard year, but also a loss-making year.
We see that we will have a nice revenue next year, and expect break-even on EBT, meaning also profitable on EBITDA next year.
Moderator
Very good. There was actually a question related to this if you have seen sort of any unexpected challenges with the factory in Atlanta or has it mainly been the start-up costs?
Lars Bering
When you start a big plant like this, buying a piece of land, building a house, there's been a lot of unexpected things in the whole process, but nothing so big that we have not been able to handle it and navigate in it.
Moderator
Very good. Then there's also a question: when do you expect to be at full capacity on your Atlanta site here?
Lars Bering
As said, we're going to invest additionally approximately 100 million in '26 and '27, and I would expect the factory be fully utilized in '28, '29. It is a factory that is able at that time to have around 80 to 90 injection molding machines running inside and outside cleanroom.
Moderator
Very good. Then there was some question with regard to this slide, as we could see here on the third dot, that you had a growing order book for Q4.
There was a question here related if you could elaborate a bit on your order book, the size, composition, percentage growth.
Lars Bering
The order book for us is many, many different things because we are doing business with many different industries. For some customers, we have frame orders looking a bit ahead in the future.
For others, it is more day-to-day business. We can see on the totals that it has been growing nicely.
What we have for Q4 is a lot up to ourselves to make sure that the orders are being delivered and get invoiced. One joker we have for the fourth quarter is always if there are some customers who are going to postpone orders around New Year.
Sometimes we have seen customers that the last part of the orders that they have actually booked for December, they postpone that to the first week of January. In some years, this trend is bigger than in other years.
We don't know that before we are in the middle of December yet.
Moderator
Good. Then there's a question: what caused sort of the order delays in Q3?
Was that still related to the tariffs, as we saw did hit you around the Q2 results?
Lars Bering
Yeah. It was the same effect that we had there.
Personally, I probably believed that it would come back a bit earlier, but then in July, we had summer vacation, and not much happened in August. In September, things starts to look really nice again.
Also, the September month for us was actually quite decent, but we had a terrible July and August.
Moderator
Very good. Then related to this also, there's a question here: have any larger projects been lost or are we only talking postponements now?
Lars Bering
It's only postponements.
Moderator
Yes. Then there's also a question related to I think it's the second-last dot here, several new defense industry projects, as you have here.
There's a question here: discussions of projects in defense, what is the market opportunity here and which markets are relevant for you? It is
Lars Bering
First of all, it's a a nice growing industry. We have always done a a little different parts for for this industry, but now we see a good potential for for strong growth in this area, even though it's a niche area compared to to the medical area for us.
We see a a growing possibility to use more plastics for this industry. Of course, it is also an industry that is covered with some very thick NDAs making us making it hard for us to talk about what we're actually doing in for this area.
Moderator
Good.
Lars Bering
Of course, it is plastic parts, and there's many ways to use plastic parts also in the defense industry.
Moderator
Very good. Thank you, Lars.
Then there's a last question related to sort of your gearing as we have on this slide. Let me just see the question goes like this: gearing is at the lower end of range, will you increase share buybacks or dividends if you don't find attractive M&A opportunities?
Lars Bering
I think that is a good proposal.
Moderator
Good. We will probably see when you report Q4 then, I guess it will be sometime in March next year.
We'll see the numbers from there and also with the guidance, and whether we'll see more buybacks or dividends. Very good, but that concludes today's presentation here.
Thank you very much, Lars and Tilde, for the presentation.
Lars Bering
Thank you, and thank you to all of you who has spent the time listening in.
Moderator
Also a thank from my side here, and thanks for the questions. We will conclude by that.
Thank you.
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