Hanza AB

Hanza AB

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Q1 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptMay 5, 2026

Operator

Welcome to HANZA Q1 report 2026 presentation. During the Q&A session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing #5 on their telephone keypad.

Now, I will hand the conference over to the speakers, CEO and President Erik Stenfors and CFO Lars Åkerblom. Please go ahead.

Erik Stenfors

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to our presentation of HANZA's Q1 2026 results.

This is Erik Stenfors, CEO and founder of HANZA. With me as usual is our CFO, Lars Åkerblom.

This morning we released Q1, our strongest quarter to date. We see organic growth, high margins, and a strong cash flow.

Still, this should not come as a surprise. If we view this in context, it's rather a confirmation of a consistent execution of a solid business model.

That's the key message today. To explain this properly, we have an agenda which follows a clear logic.

We will start with the HANZA concept, because that's where everything begins. Then we show how this model was executed in Q1.

Next, how this execution translates into financial performance. Finally, how we will move forward.

Of course, we'll wrap up with the Q&A session. Please use this to ask any questions you may have.

HANZA, HANZA was founded like all companies, to solve a challenge. In our case, to solve a challenge in the manufacturing industry: complexity.

Why? Because contract manufacturing is fragmented.

You see it on this slide: there are too many suppliers, too many interfaces, and across far too many locations. This complexity creates costs, delays, and risk, and also it makes it difficult to scale.

Therefore, we started the company with the vision: manufacturing made easy. Idea is to remove complexity from our customers' supply chain.

When you do that, when you do reduce the complexity, instead you unlock efficiency and scalability. That's our vision.

If you look at our business model, under the slogan "All you need is one": one partner, full responsibility, less complexity. In HANZA, we have combined multiple manufacturing technologies in one company.

That's how we are able to provide a better way to structure our customers' supply chain. Then, when it comes to execution, I can tell you we have never believed in shortcuts.

Instead, we have built HANZA with the long-term perspective. Since the start—now we turn 18 this year, we started in August '08—we have developed the company step by step, phase by phase, each phase adding new capabilities.

This is important, because a strong concept, it drives growth, but a structured execution, it also drives margin and cash flow. This quarter, we also launched the next phase, which is HANZA 2028.

In short, our plan is to keep our current geography, but we're going to expand our manufacturing technologies, all with the idea then to further increase customer value. If you want to get a deeper understanding and view of this, please visit our website.

There you can see the full Capital Markets Day presentation, and you can also hear a lot of the good reps from HANZA tell you more about this. The main idea is then to work with the manufacturing technologies.

That's what you're going to see in HANZA moving forward. Let's now have a look at Q1.

It contains several highlights. Firstly, of course in connection with the launch of HANZA 2028, we had a look at our financial targets and the board of directors decided to raise them.

In '28, sales should reach at least 14 billion SEK and share an operating margin of at least 9%. You can find a more detailed description of the goals on our website.

Of course, we have been able to fulfill our previous goals, we intend to do it this time as well. Secondly, we completed the BMK BMK acquisition.

This fantastic company you see up in the right corner. We are now in the integration phase.

It's proceeding according to plan, and that should be expected. Acquisitions are one of HANZA's core competences: so identifying the right companies, integrating them systematically, and improving performance.

Actually the real work you do before the acquisition. We always do a full HR due diligence, we check the company culture.

If you do that pre-work, then the integration will run smoothly. Also it's really good.

I've been spending time there. I've been acting managing director for this company actually also, and spending a lot of time with the customers.

It's really really nice. We get a great customer feedback.

Not only that, we are increasing the order intake already. You have seen that from previous acquisitions that a company inside HANZA many times gives wider offer and that increases the order intake.

That's also very important, because order intake today is revenue tomorrow. Then to the real highlight of the beginning of '26, we got two Supplier of the Year awards.

From very important companies and customers: 3M and Saab. This is of course very good external validation of our model and our execution.

I had the pleasure to visit Saab in April in Gothenburg and 3M earlier this year on a very memorable trip to Minneapolis. Then finally, expansion in Sweden.

At the last call, we talked about that we're just about to inaugurate a new factory in Sweden. This shows how we then increase capacity to meet customer demand.

We also are ready to do tailor-made solutions. In this case, among other things, we support Siemens Energy with the manufacturing solutions.

As we see on this picture in the middle, reps from HANZA and Siemens and also our Defence Minister Pål Jonson, who was attending the inauguration and of course really glad for that. It is important with factories in Sweden.

We need to increase our capacity. We have moved too much out of Sweden.

To sum up, first quarter had several highlights, but it's not about isolated events. Rather, it is about this consistent execution in line with our business plan.

Now, for something new. For the first time, we are presenting our customer segments.

We launched them at this CMD earlier this year. Here, you will see our customer segments illustrated by their development in the first quarter.

These segments also show the focus areas of HANZA, they are quite important. You see that demand also is not concentrated.

It is diversified across segments in a way that gives a good foundation for growth. If we go through them one by one, we saw Electrification & Energy Systems.

Strong demand driven by power generation, power distribution. Of course, the data centers are booming.

Defence & Security: here we have to separate a bit, because in old HANZA, before BMK, we were running about 10% on defence. We have Saab and Patria for customers, for example.

In BMK, it was zero. They have not been used to working with the defence industry.

Now we have a program called Lynxs, a special program for the defence industry. We have applied that also in BMK.

We have already secured the first orders from the defence industry. We have a very high hope that this will be a big part of BMK portfolio as well.

Heavy Equipment: then we see mining, for instance, doing really well, and we have positive order intake. Number four and five, they should be separated like this: that we are talking about industrial products, but in number four, it's primarily standalone equipment, whereas in item five, we talk about integrated systems.

That's the split. In number four, just a stable demand.

In number five, we had a really strong activity from some automation and material handled systems. That was a strong segment in Q1.

That's what we saw in terms of demand in the first quarter, and with that, I will hand it over to you, Lars.

Lars Åkerblom

Thank you, Erik. I will start with sustainability and the main activities in Q1.

Of course, the main activity was the CSRD report, the first time that it was also audited, and integration of BMK into the sustainability work. That is then not only the climate part.

It's also how we work with ethics, security, and most important, how we work with our personnel. To the right, you can see the KPIs that we believe are the most important for our business.

You can see that they are slightly down on energy use and hazardous waste, and that is due to the acquisition also of BMK that will reduce the energy use and hazardous waste going forward. Actually, BMK is not part of this yet, we see decrease in the sort of old business.

Then the accidents are on the same level as before, no major changes there. Of course, we want them to decrease even more.

Looking into the financials, we see that we have doubled the net sales in HANZA in Q1 compared to Q1 a year ago, and with an organic growth of 20%, leading to also an operating margin for old HANZA, for comparable units, of 9.7% compared to 7.3% a year ago. We see this trend of increased profitability, operating margin, to continue.

BMK, we said at the acquisition that they are on 7.3% in operating margin, and that's also what they came in with in Q1. We expect BMK to increase the margin over time, as we have seen with the previous acquisition, that we integrate them and then after a year or so, we definitely see a higher margin in the acquired companies.

For the group, including BMK, we came to an operating margin of 8.6%. I also want to reflect on the old HANZA and the previous financial goals we had that we finalized in 2025 of 6.5 billion with an 8% margin.

We are now in Q1 having a sales of 1.8. That's approximately 7.3 on a running 12-month period with a margin of 9.7%.

We are definitely well above the financial targets that we are just ending. Looking into the balance sheet and the cash flow, we had a fantastic, strong cash flow from operation of over 400 million SEK.

That is driven by this profitability, but also that we've been able to reduce the working capital. It was reduced with 176 million SEK compared to actually an increase in the Q1 last year of 14 million SEK, so that has a big impact on the cash flow.

This also leads to that our net debt in correlation with the EBITDA, and that is EBITDA including BMK for the time that we had not been part of the HANZA Group, of 1.4. Remember that we have not a financial goal, but what we said is that this KPI should not be higher than 2 and 2.5.

Here we have quite good headroom for continue to invest and also do acquisition with the balance sheet as the base for the financing. We also see that the earnings per share increased in Q1 to 2.08 compared to .9 a year ago and 1.6 being in Q4.

What is positive is also that we see that the acquisition of BMK, and BMK running at 7.3%, is contributing to the increased earnings per share. If we look into the segments and remember that we will change the reporting into the regions starting from Q1 next year.

The reason for not starting already now is that both BMK and Melectro are special projects during 2026 and will be included in the rest of the operation and into these three regions: North, Central, and East. Starting to report this from Q1.

We see Main Markets have an organic growth of 11% and an EBIT margin of 8.3%, and for comparable units 9.4%. This is where Main Markets has been running for quite a while now in this good margins.

We see segment Other Markets have a really strong organic growth, 34%, and that is approximately where we were in Q4, a little bit lower in Q4, but it's also showing a good profitable margin of 9.5%, and for comparable units 10.7%. That is a continuous increase of the margin that we have seen for the last, I would say more or less 2 years.

We have seen this segment increasing the margin, but also maybe most important is to look into the total and the fact that we have a 20% organic growth. It is the total that is important and where the growth come, that will change over time, and so don't focus too much on the different segments.

The main focus is HANZA in total. Looking into the shareholding, the big change in Q1 is of course that we acquired BMK with shares, we have the three sellers, Knöferle, Baur, and Müller, being included in the shareholder list now.

We also seen that the main owner, the largest shareholder and the Chairman and the CEO, they actually increased their ownership in Q1. By that, I leave over to you, Erik, and the summary.

Erik Stenfors

Thank you, Lars. To conclude, this was the strongest quarter yet, but still we must view it in context.

HANZA's performance is not driven by single events, but by this long-term perspective. That's based on that we have created our well-received concept and our structured execution, our disciplined acquisitions, and most of all, our strong company culture.

Furthermore, and this is important, Q1 then marks the end of the strategy phase HANZA 2025. At the same time, the start of next phase then, HANZA 2028, but from a stronger platform than ever.

In conclusion, what has been built up now step by step, you're ready to scale further. HANZA 2028 is just round the corner and will be visible for all of you very soon.

With that, we are ready to take your questions. 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.

Operator

The next question comes from Anton Ingves from Nordea. Please go ahead.

Anton Ingves

Good morning, Erik and Lars. Congrats here on a very strong quarter and thank you for taking my questions.

Starting off here, on the 20% organic growth in the quarter, how much of this was volume-driven and how much was price?

Erik Stenfors

I can start if you like to follow up on that, Lars. I'd say not so much price.

The price increases come later, more volume-driven is a simple answer. Lars, would you like to add something?

Lars Åkerblom

No, that's my view as well. We see discussions about price increases on components, and if that happen, that will of course then drive the net sales as well.

Far in 2026, that's not the main driver, no.

Erik Stenfors

Also important that we update our prices not every day or week, but monthly or quarterly, meaning that when aluminum, for instance, increases the price, it's a lag behind between the price increase in and the price increase out, and then the same way the other way around, meaning that it evens out.

Anton Ingves

Perfect. Very clear.

On the demand here, did you see any pick-up towards the end of the quarter and sort of the momentum here going into Q2 and perhaps the rest of 2026?

Erik Stenfors

I think it's rather uncertain times. We all know the administration in the US coming with surprises now and then.

I think that there is a concern with many customers how the year will end, and that's why we have our strategy. We cannot base our strategy on hope of an increased economy, but rather on secure areas.

For instance, we talked about defence. That is rather solid with or without a strong economy.

We have other areas as well. What we do now is we are working in Germany with outsourcing.

They are well behind the Nordic countries when it comes with that, and that's something that is also increasing if the economy is worse. I wouldn't say that I see neither up nor down at the end of this quarter, but you must be prepared and you must make sure that you have a plan to continue to grow if the economy would be worse.

Anton Ingves

Perfect. Then moving on to BMK here, you stated the margin is some 7.3% here in the quarter, and you obviously say that you expect this level to rise going forward.

Looking at the full year for 2026 here, can you give any guidance on what's your expectations here? Perhaps looking even further out, do you see BMK coming up towards the target of 9% on group level as

Erik Stenfors

well? We cannot give that kind of forecast.

What we can say is that we have had a good track record of the companies we have acquired to increase the margin, and it's very much depending on the economy. We saw, for instance, when we bought Orbit One, that was at the same time as a recession, it took one or two years to get that margin up to HANZA standard.

If the economy is stronger, it will take shorter time. Either way, we will get the margin up to the group level.

We cannot give the forecast though.

Anton Ingves

Perhaps a final one for me here, if I may. I know you, Erik, have been down quite a lot here in Germany and working closely with BMK.

Have your impressions changed compared to before the acquisition and also compared to the CMD of both the growth opportunities and perhaps the integration here going forward?

Erik Stenfors

Yes, I spent time because there was a gap between the sellers. One of the sellers was the CEO and he retired, and then we have the new MD coming in at half-year.

I've been acting managing director of BMK, [Geschäftsführer?] .

I've been following this very closely, and have my opinion changed? Yes, I thought it was a good company, but now I see it's a great company.

The skills of this company is just fantastic, and it's also nice to be very close to the customers and be on customer visits. Because what you see and what we have stated is that we already see an order intake from both the existing base and new leads, meaning that the theory works that a company inside HANZA would gain more orders than standalone.

We can widen simply the scope for these customers and get more. On top of that, it becomes a more interesting partner, we can also address new areas.

That's why we can bring in new customers. If that was an answer to your question.

Anton Ingves

Perfect. I'll get back in the queue.

Thank you.

Erik Stenfors

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Thomas Blikstad from Pareto Securities. Please go ahead.

Thomas Blikstad

Hi, Erik and Lars, and congratulations on a really strong quarter yet again. Just quickly to follow up on the BMK order here, defence side.

Could you give some color on what kind of program or subsegment of defence that was, and if it was a prototype order or a larger order or any color would be very helpful?

Erik Stenfors

Sorry, did you mean the entry orders from BMK or in the group?

Thomas Blikstad

BMK.

Erik Stenfors

BMK, yeah. We cannot reveal details, especially not about defence.

It is highly classified, but I cannot give you any details. I can just tell you that the first contracts now, which I think is a record speed given the few months we've been in this company.

Thomas Blikstad

That's fair enough. On the organic growth side, could you give some sort of view on how much was driven by RVM volumes and rollout of these systems, and if so, the sustainability of this growth going forward?

Erik Stenfors

We don't give that kind of details. I tried to well give you an overview at the segments, and we do see that we are in the lucky position.

Being a contact manufacturer is all about the customer base. We don't have our own products.

We believe to be a pure contract manufacturer. If we would have our own products, then we would compete with our customers about the manufacturing resources.

On the other hand, it means that we cannot have a sale or something. We cannot increase our revenue in other way than that our customers are growing.

That's why it means so important to build this customer base. I think again, we are in a sweet spot when we see mining, electricity companies, server halls, and a lot of companies growing at the same time.

We have to work with evergreens. We try to avoid automotive and telecom and more go into agriculture, forestry, and things we believe will be there forever.

Again, we cannot give you more details than that unless Lars is ready to open up.

Thomas Blikstad

That's clear. Good.

Just on the Main versus Other Markets, if we look at the underlying digits, it was largely the same dynamic as we saw in Q4. I was just wondering if there's any sort of specific drivers behind this and if it's still a let's say temporary effect, such as Q1 Q4 was?

Lars Åkerblom

If you go back, I think 2 3 years, we got the opposite question: why are Other Markets not showing the same margin as Main Markets? When will it pick up?

We said that there's no real reason for Main Markets to have higher margins than Other Markets. It's a matter of how mature the market is and development of those clusters.

What we have seen since that is that more or less for every quarter the margin in Other Markets have picked up, and are now slightly higher than Main Markets. Now we are where we said we would be a couple of years ago.

No, I cannot give you a forecast, but we do not see it as temporary. We see that going forward, the different segments shall be on more or less the same level in profitability, of course moving up and down a little bit between the quarters.

There's no reasons to see that one of the segments will be more profitable than the others. Then we will move into regions, which hopefully will give a better view on where we are in different margins in HANZA.

Thomas Blikstad

That's great. Just lastly, I understand that this was the last quarter with Leden as M&A growth.

I was just wondering if you could give some detail on the margin development and execution here in this quarter?

Lars Åkerblom

Before you do that, Erik, just to be clear, Leden was entered into HANZA in March, beginning of March 2025, in this quarter it's part of organic growth for

Thomas Blikstad

one month.

Lars Åkerblom

Okay,

Thomas Blikstad

1 month. If you're looking at Leden now.

Yes. The integration process, has it developed according to plan, the margin side?

Erik Stenfors

Yes, and I think a sign of that was that we announced that we are buying a new building adjacent to the main Leden building. We announced it in in last the last quarter first last quarter last year, I think.

Of course there's always new things to do, and and I think you remember maybe that we are under a little strain because the customer intake that we got the order intake we got when we acquired the company was quite awesome. That's integrated and we have good management in place, we have good cooperation between the different sites and the different clusters.

Thomas Blikstad

That's good. Thank you very much.

That's all for me.

Erik Stenfors

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Jakob Söderblom from Carnegie Investment Bank. Please go ahead.

Jakob Söderblom

Yes, hello. Can you hear me?

Erik Stenfors

Yes.

Jakob Söderblom

Perfect. Thanks for taking my question.

If you just can start talk a bit about the cash flow. I just had a wonder if it's super impressive actually in the quarter.

Just the question: is it any factors here that you could have included, started BMK on to some type of factoring program, or should we completely remove that type of assumption? Just speaking of the impressive organic growth, but also the working capital release in the quarter.

Erik Stenfors

Can I start, Lars? Because I think you're eager to explain this, but maybe just a few words from me first.

That's okay.

Lars Åkerblom

Sure.

Erik Stenfors

Cash flow, we have had cash flow as our priority since we started the company. We are the fastest-growing contract manufacturers and cash flow is the fuel.

That's what we need in order to make this work. That's why it's been the focus area.

Cash flow is driven by two things. One is the good result of the company, and secondly is a discipline regarding the working capital.

Then we have a model, and that's why I say that our CFO has black belt in working capital, because we have a model where we can handle the supplier credits, the implant of materials inside our building with the factoring solution, with a number of things which makes a release of the working capital. What was also said was that when we acquire a company, normally we apply these new principles on the company, giving a effect on the cash flow.

We saw a wave of cash flow after Orbit One, we saw a wave of cash flow after Leden, and we'll also see wave of cash flow from BMK. That makes us what you in analyst would call a compounder, that we are able to free capital and then use that for next acquisitions.

It's also very good for our common growth. That was it, Lars.

Now over to you.

Lars Åkerblom

Thank you, Erik. Jakob, we are working, and that's no secret, we are working with off-balance factoring in HANZA Group.

That's not the main driver of this 400 million plus in cash flow from operations in Q1. That is of course the profitability, but also the decrease of working capital.

That is excluding the effect on factoring.

Jakob Söderblom

That makes sense. Thanks for that from both of you.

Just another question then. You don't like to give any sort of forecast and guidance going ahead, but could you remind us perhaps how it was during 2022, '23, where you also had higher input costs, for instance related to aluminum or sheet metal and so on?

Do you have any quantified level of how much that actually impacted say gross margins when you had this pass-through revenue based on this where you basically can't take any margin? Do you have any numbers related to that so you can have as some sort of indication for what it could look like in the quarters ahead?

Should

Lars Åkerblom

I start, Erik?

Erik Stenfors

Short answer is no, I think.

Lars Åkerblom

Short answer is no, I think. No.

Erik Stenfors

I can give you some color, because when that happens, we all remember the post-pandemic price shock. We have the contracts in such a way that we can both ask for prepayment, again something supporting cash flow, and we can adjust the prices to our customers.

We were quite unharmed about that situation. We have open books.

We work in transparency with our customers. We just want to safeguard our margin, and then we need to put the cost on the customer.

We work on the same side of the table. We both want the products to be cheaper, but we must safeguard our margin.

Jakob Söderblom

That's perfect. That's all for me, and impressive work in the quarter.

Nice done. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial #5 on your telephone keypad.

Operator

The next question comes from Oliver Uusitalo from Aktiespararna. Please go ahead.

Oliver Uusitalo

Good morning, guys. I just have a few questions from my end.

This 20% organic growth, are there any one-offs here? Perhaps you already answered this, I'm not sure.

Is there anything special here that you think that we need to be aware of, or should we rather see this as a normal organic growth going forward?

Erik Stenfors

I can start and maybe Lars will add, but there is no normal organic growth. What we state is that we're going to reach our financial targets, and that we will do.

Then of course, the organic growth fluctuates over the quarters and over the year. We've always said that when the economy is weaker, we take new market shares, and when the economy is stronger, then we grow with the market shares.

We also have a model for creating growth in strong and weak economies. You cannot say that we don't have a standard growth that would be applicable in all the quarters and all the years.

Lars, would you like to add on that?

Lars Åkerblom

No. Again coming back to what I said a couple of minutes ago, that Leden will from beginning of March be included in also the historic figures, will be part of the organic growth as well.

That of course has an impact on the size of old HANZA so to say, what we are comparing to.

Oliver Uusitalo

Right. Thank you for that.

A short question as well regarding the one-offs on the cost side. These are fairly low in Q1, and perhaps that's a result of the integration with BMK being in early stages.

Do you see these numbers pick up in Q2, Q3? Do

Lars Åkerblom

you want to start, Erik, or should I?

Erik Stenfors

I leave that to you, Lars.

Lars Åkerblom

Okay. What we have said is that we will integrate BMK, of course, and it will most likely lead to cost for integration to actually get the synergies out the way we want.

The size and the timing of that we haven't revealed, but we are working with the integration. I think you can sort of expect some integration costs in order again to reach the synergies that we want with BMK.

Oliver Uusitalo

Great. Thank you.

Then I had one last question as well. You had some sort of growth outlook for BMK in the report, and I was wondering if you can elaborate a bit on that.

Are you saying that you expect BMK to grow above the 3.3 billion SEK for 2026, or are you saying that the company may return to growth in late 20 2026, meaning that the growth is actually negative in this quarter? Can you help me understand this?

Erik Stenfors

What we can see from the first quarter is that it's flat, that BMK is in the same size and profitability as we announced when we acquired it. What we're stating now is that we see that our model is working, meaning that we do get new orders to BMK and that will drive the growth.

They have been flat or say they will be flat then last year and this year. Takes some time between orders turns into revenue, but it should be visible something at the end of the year.

That's what we're saying. Don't expect the full year to be a huge increase, but we should see the increase by the end of the year.

Was that a fair answer?

Oliver Uusitalo

I think so. It will be really exciting to follow this.

Thank you so much, guys.

Erik Stenfors

Thank you. Even more exciting if you come and visit BMK in real life.

It's fantastic.

Oliver Uusitalo

Of course. Of course.

Erik Stenfors

Okay.

Operator

There are no more questions at this time, I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

Erik Stenfors

As there are no more questions, we will conclude today's presentation. To summarize the key message, today we have not reported an outcome.

We have demonstrated a model. Thank you very much for your attention, and we really appreciate your interest in HANZA and wish you a good day.