Dometic Group AB

Dometic Group AB

1.82
EUR
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720.15MMarket Cap
Feb 03Next Earn

Q3 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptOctober 22, 2026

Operator

Welcome to Dometic Q3 report 2026. Today, I am pleased to present CEO Juan Vargues, CFO Per Carlsson, and Head of Investor Relations Tobias Norrby.

For the first part of the call, all participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions and answers session, participants are able to ask questions by pressing pound key 5 on their telephone keypad.

Now, I will hand the conference over to the speakers. Please go ahead.

Juan Vargues

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to this quarterly report, the third quarter for this year. Let's move on to the presentation.

We are very happy to report organic growth. It has been a while ago since we could show positive numbers.

What is even more positive is obviously that the underlying markets are still weak. We have still today low consumer confidence.

Looking internally, we started by showing organic growth a couple of quarters ago in one of the segments, then we got two segments, and now we have three segments showing positive developments. Even positive is that we continue to see a good order intake in Q3 and a stronger backlog when we move into Q4 in comparison to what we had last year and what we had as well at the beginning of Q3.

Obviously, we would like to see higher profitability. As you all know, we are working very hard with our restructuring programs, adapting capacity all the time.

At the same time, we have still today the headwinds coming from raw materials just now. Obviously, volumes are still very much down in comparison to what we had a few years ago.

We keep working hard on implementing our strategy. That means these days on one side finding the pockets of growth wherever they are under tough market conditions, but also continuing to adapt capacity to the new need by reducing complexity and using our assets in a better way, a more efficient way.

That means as well that considering the situation the American market, considering the fact that the industry is down 14% this year, that we might have new interest rate hikes moving forward, expectation is we should be careful with our expectations on the remainder of the year and next year. Therefore, we also launch a new restructuring program addressing primarily Land Vehicles Americas.

There are a couple of other pockets, but the vast majority of the program will address Land Vehicles Americas, having as a target to have 215 additional million in savings by the end of 2028. Looking at the numbers, organic growth 3% up; EBITA reaching 9.7% versus 10.4% last year; a negative free cash flow for the quarter of 90 million, affected by a few one-offs that Per is going to comment later on; and then all of that leading to a leverage slightly higher than one year ago, 3.4 versus 3.2.

Looking at the underlying OEM markets, we see US RV production is very much down, both quarter to date—but the same numbers in reality for the year-to-date number, -14%, still very, very weak. We have also registrations in Europe.

As you may know, we don't get numbers—there is no association publishing numbers every month as we have in the US on manufacturing, but we have registrations instead, which is a pretty good indicator of the state of the market. Registrations, we had a strong Q1 across Europe, we got a weaker Q2, and Q3, as you can see, is pretty negative, reaching -16%.

When meeting dealers, when meeting OEMs across Europe just now, the expectation is obviously that this weakness will continue for the remainder of the year and most probably also next year. Looking at the US marine business, a little bit of the same.

We still have the majority of dealers feeling that their inventories are high, that they are suffering from, obviously, low consumer confidence and price pressure. At this point, we cannot see any signals of any major change on market conditions from an OEM perspective.

What we can do is, obviously, to focus on the rest of the areas where we are present, which means the service and aftermarket business or the distribution business. Considering all these factors, again, we are happy to see the evolution in sales and bringing us to the feeling that we are taking market share just now on a broad base.

We expect as well our investments in service and aftermarket, in Mobile Cooling, and Marine continue to show that the diversification process that we started a few years ago is paying off. Looking at the facts, again, 5.1 billion in sales revenue in the quarter, with 3% organic growth; EBITA 495, or 2% down, with an EBITA margin reaching 9.7%; adjusted EPS of 3 öre in comparison to 64 one year ago.

I already commented the negative free cash flow of 90 million, and we'll be back to that; and the leverage ending up at 3.4. Looking at the year-to-date numbers, happy to report finally 1% organic growth year to date, not just in the quarter, but we are turning to positive even for the year; EBITA almost 1.8 billion in comparison to one year ago, or 10% down, with an EBITA margin of 11%; adjusted EPS of 2 krona and 16 öre; a free cash flow of a little bit more than half a billion krona; and leverage of 3.4.

Looking at sales, the graph is self-explanatory. Land Vehicles growing 2%.

As you can see, Americas is still in decline, 8%, but pretty far away from what we see in the decline of the market. Again, manufacturing in the US is down 14%, we are down 8%, so that's good news.

EMEA 9% up, very positive. APAC also turning to positive, 1%.

Marine 4%. Mobile Cooling strong, 9%, which feels very, very good.

Then Global Ventures still suffering as well, 6%, primarily driven by the connection to the RV industry in the US. Looking at the evolution of the different channels, we clearly see also how we have been targeting growth outside the high-ticket discretionary spend, moving more and more into distribution channel, moving as well into service and aftermarket.

That has brought quite a lot of resilience when looking at how the different end-user markets develop over time, especially driven by the OEM situation and consumer confidence. Looking at organic growth by channel, I also believe that this slide is self-explanatory.

We see the stability. We are coming from a negative situation for a number of quarters, with American market falling first, then once the American market stabilized, then we got the European market coming down, and then the market in APAC coming down.

The good news is that we have just now the opposite situation. We got into some kind of stability, and now we see as well that we are starting to grow.

Especially happy to see, obviously, service and aftermarket, where we have been investing from a product and development perspective, we have been developing even from a branding perspective, introducing a new brand to address a different channel than we were used to. We see as well OEM being positive, 4%, despite the weakness in the RV industry.

We are growing primarily driven by commercial vehicles at this time. Then distribution, pretty flattish, has been flattish for a couple of quarters, and we still expect, obviously, to see that channel moving into positive in the quarters to come.

EBITA showing good resilience, despite the fact that we have raw material prices just now playing against us. As you are all aware, on plastics due to the oil prices coming up and being a pretty high level, 10 to 20% higher than one year ago; we have aluminum close to 40% higher than one year ago; we have steel 10 to 15%.

This is playing against us, but we still manage to mitigate the negative effects. Gross margins staying at 29.3% versus 29.5% last year.

Here we need to consider as well that we have a negative product mix, with Mobile Cooling growing 9% in comparison to the rest, where we have lower margins in comparison to the average. Then SG&A, we have also been working hard, we continue to invest in product development, we continue to invest in sales activities, and at the same time, we reduce in other areas of the company, especially administration, all of this leading to a slightly lower EBITA margin for the quarter.

Going a little bit deeper into different segments: Land Vehicles, 2% up, with growth in service and aftermarket overall, and growth as well in the OEM channel, especially driven by commercial vehicles, while RV declining, but a pretty slight decline, we see also that that's moving. Now we need to understand what is going to happen in the European market in the coming months, but we have seen a pretty positive development in Europe from an RV OEM perspective during the first quarters of this year.

EBITA ending at 6.3%, or a little bit more than 140 million, with improved gross margins despite raw material cost. That's, obviously, a consequence of all the savings that we are getting through the restructuring program that we have been running the last couple of years.

We also see higher SG&A as a consequence of investments in both product development and sales and marketing, in a similar way as in a couple of other segments as well. Marine, positive, 4% organic, with very nice growth in service and aftermarket, and flattish on OEM.

Still, we are all aware of the situation of the boating market in the US. We see that market still negative, while we see positive in Europe, very much driven by the yacht market, the superyachts and the megayachts, going still very, very well.

Good resilience on margins as well, 20.4%, with stable gross margins, again, protecting. We had tariffs in Canada kicking in, at the same time as we have been pricing.

We have the raw material prices. Again, we increase our prices and manage to mitigate the negative effects.

Slightly negative FX effect as well in the marine business. Mobile Cooling, very nice growth, 9%, very much driven by North America, and seeing very, very good sell-through, I have to say, higher than I would expect.

Obviously, here I never like to talk about the weather, but I do believe the weather has had a positive impact in this season in comparison to last year. Margins lower than we expected, ending up at 5.4%, but very much driven, again, by raw material prices.

We are increasing prices, but we are still suffering from a time lag between cost increases where we get new cost increases on monthly basis, and price increases where we normally, when we're talking about the major accounts, we have anything from 3 months to 9 months implementation. Then working as well on SG&A to adapt the capacity to the new levels.

Global Ventures, negative organic growth of 6%, with mid-digit negative growth both on other global verticals and mobile power solutions. EBITA margin, 7.7%, and here we are clearly suffering from factory underabsorption.

In this case, in this segment, we have small units, and it's a little bit more complicated to adapt capacity to the demand on the market, even if we are still working to reduce our capacity even there. Looking on sustainability, we are also happy to report that we continue to make quite nice progress, with injuries coming down and below target, with share of female managers above targets, which is also positive.

Renewable energy also developing in a nice direction and above our targets for this year as well. The same is valid in terms of assessments of direct material suppliers, also there above target for the year.

As I commented earlier, the American market is not developing as we all would like to see. That means that we continue our efforts, looking at the restructuring programs that have been implemented until now.

We would expect annual savings of 900 million, 750 million from the program announced in December 2024, another 150 million from the program that we announced in Q2 this year. At this point, we are running a savings of 600 million, adding another 110 million in savings in Q3.

As we speak, we are just now working on shutting down three manufacturing units that will, obviously, bring additional savings in the quarters to come. If we look at what we have done so far, one manufacturing unit has been shut down, and other six distribution centers have also been reduced.

Now, moving forward, we still suffer from overcapacity, especially in Land Vehicles Americas, considering the situation of the market and that we don't see the market turning back anytime soon. We need to continue.

We are adapting capacity, we are reducing cost, and we are also working on product portfolio. Additionally, I would say, is self a job that we started in December 2024.

We want to improve asset utilization. We want to reduce capacity and look at additional footprint adaptation.

We keep working hard on simplifying the product portfolio. We will be selective on customers and products and channels, the three dimensions.

As commented earlier, it's very much focusing on Land Vehicles Americas and getting back to profitable situation. The program as such, we are booking a restructuring cost of 425 million.

We'll generate 215 million in additional savings, bringing the total savings once we are done with the three programs to 1 billion 115 million in savings. The estimated cash impact is going to be 140 million.

We try as much as we can to drive a split vision, which means that work very, very hard on savings, work very hard in adapting capacity to the market needs, at the same time as we continue to invest in the long-term growth generation, which means that we continue to invest in product development and keep our levels at 3% of sales. We keep investing in innovation.

We are just now at 23% in our innovation index. As some of you may remember, innovation index for us is the share of products that we are selling that are less than 36 months.

Just now we are running at 23%, having as a target 25%. We continue to invest in sales and marketing, not the least driven by the number of product launches that we have in the pipeline.

We have been launching a lot of new products, and we continue to launch new products. A few examples of product launches during the quarter: we have new AC equipment and the air distribution box for the RV industry and commercial vehicles; we have a new kitchen equipment, an air fryer, even there for the RV and commercial vehicles industry; we have a new premium series of roof racks under the Front Runner brand, so that's the new Dometic Front Runner series that we believe very much on; and we have also launched a new generation of solar panels, and this will continue moving forward.

A lot of things going on in the innovation pipeline, in other words. With that, Per, I would like to hand it over to you.

Per Carlsson

All right, thank you, Juan. Good morning, everyone.

I'll walk you through the P&L and the cash flow on the coming slides. On a very solid and a good top line, I would say, with a growth of 3%, and especially encouraging, obviously, is that we have growth in three of the largest segments, it's good support.

That gives us a gross margin of 29.3%, which I would consider as a good margin management, as we still have a quite heavy headwind from the higher material prices, both in resin and in metals, plastics and metals, impacting not the least the Mobile Cooling business. We also have a little bit of negative impact on the currency, as we have seen a strengthening of the RMB in the year and in the quarter.

As we have quite a lot of production in China, both internally and externally sourced. Against that, we have the price increases that has been implemented throughout the year, and we see an effect of that.

That gives us basically a flat margin year-over-year. On the operating expenses, underlying SG&A is up in line with sales, which is, in a way, good because it's a lower pace of increase than what we have seen earlier in the year.

The other part here in operating expenses is the other operating expenses and income, where we had a couple of good ones in '25, but underlying SG&A up in line with sales. That gives us the EBITA of 495, 9.7%, which is slightly down compared to last year, but still quite a good number for us.

Below that, we have a couple of big items impacting the P&L. We have the items affecting comparability, which is a net number of 72 million, the restructuring provision for the program that we have launched that Juan talked about of 425 million, which is then offset by the reversal of the provision related to the Acon earn-out case that we had a victory in, you can say, that we also communicated during the quarter.

That's a 354 million favorable, that gives us the unfavorable of 72 million in the quarter. Below that, we have the non-cash adjustment of the intangibles related to acquisitions.

That's an impairment of close to 4.2 billion, a significant number, obviously. That's for Land Vehicles, which is, you can say connected to the restructuring program that we have launched, and also in Global Ventures, also related to the American market.

Then we also have an adjustment of the intangibles on the Mobile Cooling side. I would say that this should be seen more as a retrospective adjustments on the balance sheet, due to the development we have seen in the market more in the recent years, rather than a changed view on the future.

Why now at this time? We always do an impairment test in Q3 every year, so that's the reason for the timing.

On the financial side, financial expenses are slightly down, primarily supported by lower interest expenses, as our debt is coming down. Then we have taxes of 245.

Taxes this quarter is a little bit distorted, obviously, by the high number of non-recurring adjustments of the IAC and the impairment. I would say you can still assume an underlying tax rate of some 34% when doing your estimates.

Taxes here is also impacted that we have taken a very conservative approach on the reversal or release of the Acon earn-out, and we believe that will come back in Q4. Moving over to the capital side: so working capital still at 25% on an LTM basis, in line with what we have seen here during the last year; still running with high inventories, which is then offset by a favorable development on the payables, partly related to the inventories, but also better terms; and then also favorable development on receivables.

We do believe that we have potential to come down, especially on the inventory side, and we still have the target of 20% working capital for the group. As we have talked about, also 100 days on the inventory might sound a little bit aggressive at this point of time, but we believe there is potential there for further cash release from working capital.

One should be mindful, though, that now going into the fourth quarter, we are going into the pre-build season for the Mobile Cooling business to be ready for the early or the springtime sales, especially in the US in 2027. Moving over to next slide: relatively flat.

The small peak you see on the CapEx side in Q3 is related to the manufacturing moves we are doing in the US, where we are building up capacity in the receiving plants, as Juan mentioned. We have three restructuring cases ongoing in the US now, which should be finished towards the end of the year.

It will also give us some more savings related to the '24 restructuring program. R&D remains on about 3% of sales, which is a level we believe is good for us, being able to launch all these new products that we have.

That takes us to the cash flow statement. There we file an operating cash flow of 563 million for the quarter, which is impacted then by the timing of the accounts receivable program, where we have a lower amount now in the program due to the seasonality of sales, so that's an unfavorable timing impact compared to last year of 350 million, as we got paid in the second quarter instead of the third quarter.

The inventory impact is lower than what we have seen in the first half, but that will start to flatten out the curve. Below operating cash flow, we have significant interest payment in the quarter related to the annual payments of the bonds, two of the Eurobonds, so that's a 20 million payment in the quarter, which on the quarterly, let's say, extraordinary impact is about 15 million euro out of that.

We also have the payment of an tax settlement of a tax dispute that has been ongoing for a couple of years in Germany, actually. That takes us then to a negative free cash flow for the quarter.

Furthermore, we have also paid back 750 million of debt in the quarter, which was done in August. This then shows you the seasonality for a number of years of the cash flow.

Obviously, a negative free cash flow in the quarter is not something we would like to see, but I think we have some good reasons for that, which is below the operating cash flow side, which is favorable and what we are aiming to deliver. This has an impact, obviously, on the leverage side, which is somewhat up compared to Q2, driven by the lower EBITDA LTM as well as the cash flow and FX, all three are going in the wrong direction for us.

Typically, otherwise, we have relatively good hedging on our leverage. Compared to last year, 3.2 going to 3.4 is all related to the EBITDA, as our net debt is down compared to last year, which we continue to work on to get our debt down.

That's a key measurement for us, obviously. Just a status on the maturity profile on the debt side, that we have them in a couple of years from now, but we are continuously, obviously, working together with our bank group to have a solid and good profile on our debts.

I think that concludes my part. Back to you, Juan.

Juan Vargues

What about moving forward? We have a number of priorities.

One is to continue to look for the growth opportunities, even if the market environment is still pretty tough. There are always opportunities to find something more, especially, obviously, from a service and aftermarket perspective, and from a low-ticket discretionary spend perspective.

We want to improve the earnings quality of the company, while we will continue to protect our investments in future growth. We will continue to emphasize driving our restructuring program to a positive conclusion, and by that, improving profitability.

We will continue to focus on cash generation and taking down leverage towards our long-term target to 2.5. We will also continue to adapt to a volatile, changing market conditions and pursue any strategic opportunities wherever they arise.

That will conclude our presentation, and with that, we open for the Q&A session. Please go ahead.

Operator

If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 6 on your telephone keypad.

Please mute your line when you have asked your question, and please limit yourself to only two questions. You can also write your questions on the webcast page.

The next question comes from Agnieszka Vilela from Nordea. Please go ahead.

Juan Vargues

Agnieszka?

Operator

Agnieszka Vilela, your line is now unmuted. Please go ahead.

Agnieszka Vilela

Can you hear me now?

Juan Vargues

Yes,

Per Carlsson

we can.

Agnieszka Vilela

Perfect. Thank you.

Good morning, gentlemen. I have a few questions.

Maybe starting with Land Vehicles. I think that the growth in the quarter was a bit surprising and obviously positive, and mostly surprising in EMEA.

If you could tell us what has been driving the growth there, and also, do you expect the momentum to continue? When

Juan Vargues

you have different business. There is one reason for calling for Land Vehicles and not RV, and the reason is, obviously, that we have other businesses apart from the RV.

We are doing well in RV in the quarter, I have to say, it's still positive even in Europe. It's very much positive on the commercial vehicles side.

Then we have also a very strong service and aftermarket quarter. We have seen EMEA doing pretty well.

Starting already in Q1, Q2 was stronger, and Q3 has been very, very good. If we leave EMEA, we see as well a recovery in APAC, I have to say.

Despite the interest rate hikes that we have seen four times this year, we have in the quarter a positive growth of 1%, even there driven by service and aftermarket, but also RV doing decently, I would say. Then, of course, you have, as you are very much aware of, Land Vehicles Americas, where we are still dropping, but we are dropping less than the market, which is also good to see.

Agnieszka Vilela

Yeah. Just looking at these regions and maybe looking into 2027, it's a lot of uncertainty, but would you describe some regions as doing a bit better than others and having better outlook?

Juan Vargues

We have seen Europe doing much better, right? The question is just now is what we see on registrations, what we see on, again, whether interest rate increases are going to happen and what will be the impact on the consumer.

Underlying, it is clear that the European consumer is in a slightly better shape than the American consumer just now. That's crystal clear.

Again, looking at registrations, of course, that we need to be alert what is going to happen in the coming months. That's why, for me, you have the OEM side, I don't think that we are going to see any major improvements as far as interest rates are as high as they are.

Our bet has to be on the service and aftermarket, making sure that we are performing much better than anybody else, launching new products, looking at new channels. As you may remember, we also introduced a new brand to address a part of the market that was growing, and that's what we see, that we are taking quite a bit of share as well.

Agnieszka Vilela

That's my follow-up, actually, because, Juan, you mentioned that you're taking market shares. Could you specify any regions or products that you are succeeding with, and also what is driving that?

Is it your innovation investments and R&D that you put into that business quarters ago or what's really driving that?

Juan Vargues

I think just now it's on broad fronts. I think that, again, if you look at our growth, how the market has been perceiving Dometic now for a long while.

The reality is that you have an American market, and as American market is about 50% of our sales. You have an American RV market which is down 14% since the beginning of the year.

At the same time as we are running, Q1 ended up at 0 growth, Q2 -1, and now we are -3. That's telling you that this is not just that we are taking share this quarter.

We have been taking share now for a couple of quarters, but the good news is that it seems as it is accelerating. We have been communicating better order intake, we have been communicating stronger order stock.

I simply believe that we are taking share just now everywhere. If you look at the registration numbers in Europe, -16% in Q3, and we are showing +9%, something we must be doing differently.

If we go to products, the same, we have been launching a new series of products for AC, both on the RV side and on the truck business. We have been launching new products on continuous basis on Mobile Cooling, where we see very nice growth.

Marine, we have the gyro, still not flying at the pace that we would like, but still, we are not dropping as the market, we are still positive. I think it's very much in a broad front.

Agnieszka Vilela

Perfect. Thank you.

Then the last question from me on the cost inflation and especially on the raw material side and your price increases: what was the net impact in the quarter? Was it still negative?

What mitigation actions are you taking, and when do you expect to be in balance?

Juan Vargues

It is two things. When you have raw material prices moving in that direction, on one side, you need to push back from a sourcing perspective; on the other side, you need to pass prices to the market.

Sometimes it takes a little bit longer, sometimes it goes a little bit faster, depending on the segment, depending on the region and the customer. We have a negative impact, but a personal feeling is that we are mitigating quite well, while at the same time showing growth, which is not easy in a market which is tough and where customers are looking for lower-priced products, to say.

We will continue. This is also one of the reasons, obviously, for driving very, very hard our restructuring programs, to compensate.

We are still in a catch-up situation.

Agnieszka Vilela

When do you believe to be in balance, if the prices remain as they are?

Juan Vargues

Normally, if the prices stay at these levels, we should be maximum in another 60 days, I would say.

Agnieszka Vilela

Okay. Thank you so much.

Juan Vargues

You're welcome.

Operator

The next question comes from Fredrik Ivarsson from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.

Fredrik Ivarsson

Good morning. Sorry, I've been a bit late, excuse me if I missed something here.

To follow up on Agnieszka's question on the raw mat, but did you actually comment on the gross impact from the raw mat headwind here, or if not, can you do so?

Juan Vargues

It's a mixed bag, obviously, when we're talking about so many products and so many different types. We see that we have a net negative, which is causing, I would say, somewhere between 50 basis points and 100 basis points.

Fredrik Ivarsson

Was that the gross number?

Juan Vargues

Yes.

Fredrik Ivarsson

Good. Thank you.

Then still the gross margin was pretty stable, which is obviously due to combination of price, mix. Which one of those two factors, price or mix, would you say had the best impact in 3Q?

Juan Vargues

Price.

Fredrik Ivarsson

Okay.

Juan Vargues

Mix plays a role, but it's less, obviously, than price.

Fredrik Ivarsson

Yep. Good.

Then on the order intake, you talk about the positive trend. Is that driven by both RV and marine, or is the outlook more positive in any of those two?

It's

Juan Vargues

service and aftermarket and Mobile Cooling. Service and aftermarket a little bit everywhere, and then Mobile Cooling is also very positive, and Marine is very positive as well.

I would say that the one which is lagging is still the RV industry.

Fredrik Ivarsson

Excellent. Thank you.

That's all my questions.

Juan Vargues

You're welcome.

Operator

As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Igor from Tubic.

Please go ahead.

Igor Tubic

Thank you. Yes, just a couple of questions from my side as well.

Just want to start up with the CapEx level going forward. Given that you are closing down some manufacturing sites, should we assume or expect similar levels going forward, or should this come down in any way, to say?

Juan Vargues

Over time, we have been shutting down a large number of factories in the last eight years. What we have done is that we have really changed the profile of the CapEx.

In the old days, we were spending CapEx in machinery, manufacturing capacity, while today, we are spending much less on that in that area, and we're spending more on IT, modernizing our IT profile, at the same time as we are spending more as well in product developments. If you think about the innovation index and how we are growing and the number of product launches, it's clear that behind product launches, you have new tooling, you have investments in a number of areas.

I don't think that you will expect that we are going to come down to 1.5. I do believe that being between 2.5 and 3 is a good level for the kind of company we represent.

Igor Tubic

Very clear. Thank you.

In terms of the new restructuring program where you have an announced additional cost savings of 250 million 15 million, the estimated cash impact of 140, when will that come, to say?

Juan Vargues

It will come step-wise.

Per Carlsson

All the way throughout '27, partly even into early '28.

Igor Tubic

Perfect. A final one from me: you mentioned the partnership trend or consolidation that you see in the US.

Are you in any talks around that, or how should we think about it? Or are you looking to divest that part of the business, or I just want to try to understand what your strategic way is there, to say.

Juan Vargues

These are relatively small markets, you would always have talks to the left and to the right. What we mean with that is obviously that we see the situation just now with Patrick and Lippert.

That might have consequence for other smaller players, and that might mean as well, obviously, that customers don't like, obviously, monopolistic situations. Customers might be looking for other options, right?

As our position on the RV OEM market in the US has been pretty tough in recent years, right? This might also open for customers looking for other options like us.

It's a broad perspective, and I'm not just thinking about the RV industry. We see obviously that the outdoor sector has been in a tough position during the last four or five years.

We see that companies are acquired by PE players, companies are acquired by industrial players. There is a lot of movement as we speak.

Of course, that you cannot just stay outside. You need to have your eyes open and evaluate any opportunity.

Igor Tubic

Yes, clear. A follow-up there: are you considering any divestment of any other part of the business, or?

Juan Vargues

We communicated 2024, in December 2024, that we were looking for a number of divestments. Unfortunately, with the market being depressed as it is, we still see a gap between sellers' expectations—in this case, we are the sellers—and buyers' expectations.

We want to divest to create value for the remaining business. We don't want to give away businesses; that would be destroying value instead.

We have not abandoned, by any means, our plans. We have been to the market, we are on the market, but we are not getting the kind of price levels or valuations that we are expecting.

Igor Tubic

Very clear. That was all.

That

Juan Vargues

continues. No changes from our plan perspective.

Igor Tubic

Okay. Thank you.

Juan Vargues

You're welcome.

Operator

The next question comes from Andreas Lundberg from SEB. Please go ahead.

Andreas Lundberg

Thank you so much. Can I go back to the working capital discussion you had?

How do you see that in the coming quarters or in 2027? I recall you talked about somewhat high inventories during '26.

Thank you.

Per Carlsson

I see for '27, for the fourth quarter, as I mentioned, that we will continue to see build-up of inventory in Mobile Cooling due to the pre-season build-up. We're working on reducing that inventory in the other segments.

It's a little bit hard to view or see whether we are able to offset the Mobile Cooling side, the growth. Going into 2027, we should see a year-over-year decrease on the inventory development.

Andreas Lundberg

Sorry, you expect inventories to increase next year, or?

Per Carlsson

No, we expect to see probably a flat development during the remainder of the year, as we have a build-up in Mobile Cooling, which is offsetting the decline we are looking at for the other segments, while coming into '27, and when we are through the build-up for Mobile Cooling, we should see a decline year-over-year.

Andreas Lundberg

Got it.

Per Carlsson

Keep in mind that we have quite a substantial seasonality in the business. Q4, Q1, and also then partly into Q2, we have a build-up of inventory due to seasonality.

Juan Vargues

Every year.

Per Carlsson

As every year.

Andreas Lundberg

Except for working capital and then potentially, obviously, operational earnings or operational cash flow, what are the biggest levers that will affect your cash flow most in the coming year? Thank you.

Per Carlsson

We hope that we should be able to get down the inventories, which should help us to release some cash. Obviously, on the accounts receivable side, we have the program running, but, of course, if we get into a growth mode, as we see indications now in the quarter, that will also take some investment into receivables.

We have a focus on cash flow and on working capital. That is the biggest lever, in addition to the generation from EBITA, obviously.

Andreas Lundberg

Right. On this program on receivables, where are you now, and then how do you think about that on an isolated situation, i.e.?

Per Carlsson

We have about 600 million sitting in the program as of end of September, compared to 950 end of June. That was, as I tried to explain, the movement on the operating cash flow.

That's one of the reasons why we see a drop compared to last year on the operating cash flow. It will come down further into Q4 as the season comes down.

Andreas Lundberg

Okay. Do you have any chances to, to say, increase that program or decrease, or where are you in that?

Per Carlsson

No, exactly, we are looking into integrating more customers into the program, it's a good program for us due to the high seasonality in the business, actually. We should be able to seasonality-wise finance the inventory build-up by getting advances from the customers.

Andreas Lundberg

Cool. Thank you so much.

Per Carlsson

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Daniel Schmidt from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.

Daniel Schmidt

Yes, good morning, Juan and Per. A couple of questions from me.

You clearly talk about a positive trend in order intake, and we have heard that before and hasn't been really realized in improving top line the quarters after, but now it seems to be happening. I think you even mentioned you called out service and aftermarket, Mobile Cooling, and Marine being very positive, but RV still down in the order intake.

Given that sort of scenario heading into Q4, and hopefully, a stabilization of raw materials, it seems to be coming down a little bit as of late, and you increasing prices, is there sort of reasonable to believe that Q4 could turn out positive in terms of change of EBITA margin year-over-year?

Juan Vargues

We will do, obviously, anything we can to see that happening. Again, you have a lot of moving parts.

What I can comment, Daniel, is our intention, obviously, to see margin improvements on continuous basis. Unfortunately, we have seen whenever we have improvement, we have a headwind in terms of the market or in terms of the mix.

Absolutely, that's our intention.

Daniel Schmidt

Right. Just maybe also detailed question on RV in EMEA, which is sort of clearly sort of seen quite good growth in the quarter.

I think you've mentioned 9%, if I'm not mistaken, and registrations are, of course, clearly down. It's not a one-to-one correlation between registrations and production.

Did you still feel that production in EMEA among OEMs was up in the quarter? No.

Juan Vargues

My firm belief is that production in the quarter was down.

Daniel Schmidt

Okay. Do you have any sort of view on production for Q4 in the European market, given the weakness in registrations?

You could have thought that's going to accelerate that down, or what's your view?

Juan Vargues

It's going to be down.

Daniel Schmidt

Again,

Juan Vargues

I met all the major OEMs in Düsseldorf in August, the big, big show in the European market for the RV industry is in Düsseldorf in August, at the end of August every year. I met all the major OEMs, I met all the major dealers.

Dealers are still concerned on inventories, they are concerned about price series. All the OEMs were more pessimistic about Q2—sorry, second half 2027 than the first half.

Again, it's consumer confidence. I believe that we got a decent two quarters, right, after dropping in EMEA during the second half 2024, the whole 2025, then we saw improvements in the first two quarters of 2026.

Now the industry, looking at registrations, is expecting that production is going to come down. It came down in Q3, and it will continue in Q4.

Daniel Schmidt

Do you see the same drop in Q4 as we saw in Q3 on a year-over-year basis in production? I think

Juan Vargues

if I think about EMEA, I do believe that the drop in Q4 is going to be about the same, perhaps a little bit higher than in Q3.

Daniel Schmidt

Thank you, guys. That's all for me.

Juan Vargues

Just a comment, Daniel, when you said 9%, I was not just talking about RV OEM, I was talking about LVE as such. RV OEM was lower than 9%, while we have the commercial vehicles was pretty strong, and then we have a very strong service and aftermarket as well.

Daniel Schmidt

That's good to get some light on that. Thank you.

Juan Vargues

Yeah. You're welcome.

Operator

The next question comes from Johan Eliason from SB1 Markets. Please go ahead.

Johan Eliason

Yes, good morning. I just have a small follow-up here on the cash flow impact going forward from existing and the new restructuring program.

Obviously, you said most of the 140 million will be in '27 and then early '28. Can you just remind me how much is sort of remaining of the ongoing programs in terms of negative cash outlays in the final quarter and then 2027?

Per Carlsson

The majority of the cash, obviously, has been spent. I don't remember the number off the top of my head, actually.

Johan Eliason

Is it sort of?

Per Carlsson

Related to the one in '24, mostly of that has obviously been executed. Then we have the one we launched in the extension we launched in June, July.

I would estimate somewhere 50 to 50 to 70 million left on the two programs.

Johan Eliason

Then

Juan Vargues

the 140, so that

Johan Eliason

will take it all together to 200. Thank you.

Juan Vargues

You're welcome.

Operator

Now we have a question from the web.

Tobias Norrby

Yes, we have one question from the webcast audience, and that is if we can elaborate on how much of the goodwill impairment that was impacted by higher discount rates versus a weaker earnings development in the acquired businesses. Yes, the discount rate had quite an impact on the impairment test.

Yes.

Operator

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

Juan Vargues

Concluding the conference for the third quarterly report, happy to report solid growth, nice order intake. We are entering the quarter with a positive backlog in comparison to one year ago.

We keep working very hard on improving our margins, improving our cash flow, and we'll keep looking for new opportunities to mitigate the pretty rough market conditions still today. Thank you very much for your attention, and we see you soon.

Goodbye.