Operator
Welcome to the Beijer Ref Q4 presentation for 2025. During the questions-and-answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound five on their telephone keypad.
Now I will hand the conference over to the CEO, Christopher Norbye, and CFO, Joel Davidsson. Please go ahead.
Christopher Norbye
Welcome, everyone. Christopher and Joel here.
Looking forward to present the full year and Q4, and of course, some questions. I guess we'll get straight into the numbers.
Thanks. Just wanted to start a little bit talking about the year as well, and then we'll dig into the quarter.
All in all, we're very happy with the year. We're highlighting here on the slide a fantastic cash flow, which we surely will come back to.
We see the improvements coming through here during the year on the things we worked on for quite some time, it's very satisfying. Of course, on the cash flow, it puts us in a very good position to continue on the M&A activity, and we'll come back to that as well.
Also very happy about the margin, very good margins throughout the year, despite limited growth in the business. We continue to see progress in all the initiatives we're doing on the margin side.
Also in a solid year, 3% organic growth. Of course, we expect that when the markets improve a little bit to come back at a higher level, which puts us in a very good position, I would say.
It's also then the record margin, 10.7%, solid margin developed for the year. We also have 4.4 billion of cash flow, which I think is 110, 111% cash conversion, it's very good, which puts us in a strong balance sheet with a net debt of 1.7, including all acquisitions here that we announced in Q4.
I think it looks very good. Then we have, finally, the dividend proposal of a growth of 7% at 1.50.
All in all, we continue to grow, the model continues to develop, and we see a solid 2025 behind us, and look forward then also to move into 2026. Then looking into a little bit on Q4, and I think it's the same story as we had all year long on the business.
Remember also Q4 is our smallest quarter of the year, and we're turning into more heating and other products, it's not a massive quarter for us. The way we see the quarter, stable across the board.
We do have quite some high comps in US and APAC, US growing 11% in Q4 last year and APAC 10%. I think in the US, especially a lot of residential project that we saw in Q4 last year that we didn't see this year, but some other good development in the US that we will talk about.
Then also we lost a trading day in the quarter in most of our big regions, which does have a negative effect on our business. We'll come back, I think Q1 is going to be same amount of trading days, so that's, of course, better than minus one.
Then we almost had 7% organic growth in Q4 last year. All in all, when we look at the Q4, it came in at a stable level similar to how we've been trading during the year on the sales side.
We do have, as I said before, nice development acquisition, four in Q4, two more announced, and then a very good pipeline moving in here through 20 2026 and a nice roll-over, very positive on that side. Joel talk a little bit on the restructuring program.
Also EBITA came in very good, underlying margin 9.5%, solid quarter. We did have 25 million of acquisition cost of the acquisition we announced and what we're working on, a very active quarter on that side, but underlying solid performance across the group, and very good especially in the US and APAC, and we'll come back to that.
The cash flow I highlighted, I think it's worth highlighting again because we're very nice to see that the flash through and an important part of our growth journey going forward, and we talked about the acquisitions. All in all, we were happy with the development in Q4 as well.
If you go in a little bit more on the product groups, I think nothing revolutionary there, it is stable across the board. We did see, as we said, starting to see an uptick on the OEM side, especially driven by our green OEM, which makes us of course happy, because that's the segment we want to grow.
Strong development in our SCM Frigo refrigeration side, and also a nice growth in Fenagy, and also good pipeline going forward, also a better position, I would say, in going into 2026 than '25, very satisfying on that. HVAC, of course, more affected in the quarter of the trading days, and as also on the commercial, industrial refrigeration.
I think the highlight here is stable underlying business for the year and quarter, and also a nice little uptick starting to show in the OEM segment. If you then move in a little bit to the segments, starting with EMEA, a lot of things happening in the quarter, but if you start on the year, 3% organic growth versus zero the year before, slight improvement, and again in a stable market.
Of course, EMEA spans across so many regions from southeast, west, north, down in Africa, you have some ups and down, but in general, a stable year, solid on the margin, good acquisition growth, good pipeline also on the acquisition going into '26. I think worth mentioning here also the good OEM in SCM Frigo and Fenagy that we talked about.
We of course have some nice project rolling in Q4 and orders in there, and then we are I guess pretty much done from the strategic consolidation according to plan. Moving nicely, also integrating Airwave, nice acquisition for us in the Baltics that we continue to leverage in our strategy around HVAC.
All in all also, a stable quarter on the margin side, the year a little bit improvement compared to the previous year, and also highlighting that the very good development on the green OEM side. If you move into APAC, of course on the margin side, one of our stars for quite some time now, and it's very satisfying to see that the margin development driven by our strategic initiatives.
You can see in the quarter or for the year, the margins are up in a nice way, continue to drive. Know ever remember what we started three, four years ago saying we want to go over the 10% for the year in APAC, and it has step-by-step gone in that direction.
You can see now 10.6% in 2025, I would say better than we expected and faster, they've done a fantastic job in that region. Also, a strong Q4 last year, plus 10%, we lost a trading day and came in flat, I would say still a good development in APAC region.
Also, of course, Q4 is one of their key quarters as you have summer in Australia, New Zealand, a lot of good activity in that region. We do have a little bit still challenging on the OEM side.
We see nice projects in South Korea and the Asian market. That's very promising, because it's not driven by regulation.
It's driven by interest to switching over to these type of solutions, which also means we're building up a training center now in South Korea to further leverage on that. We see quoting activity in Australia, New Zealand picking up, be interesting to follow this during 2026.
Also, of course, did some acquisitions there that are strategic, and we also announced an acquisition in New Zealand that's going through the competition authorities as we speak. Then moving over to North America, also see here we start with a full year nice year.
I think the organic growth of 3% is very solid in an uncertain market in the US, extremely happy how they delivered and executed during the year. Also, starting to see the improvements here on the strategic side on the work we're doing on the margin side, despite having diluting M&A and branch openings in there.
Also, signing and closing two acquisitions in Q4 with a continued very good pipeline going into '26, looks very, very promising on that side. We do have if you look in Q4, minus 4%, but it's also compared to 11% growth in Q4 last year, still a solid underlying growth.
I'm sure we'll talk about it, but a lot of residential projects in Q4 last year that we didn't see this year, but on the other side, a stable replacement and good activity on the repair side, which is part of explaining the very nice margin development in Q4 as we make more money but less sales dollars, the repair side for us, of course, and of course it's creating pent-up demand in the market. Also will be nice when that start moving forward on the replacement and also the project business.
All in all, a very solid quarter, and we continue to expand our branches and have a plan to further expand that in 2026. Private label continue to expand, and it's also a key point as we move these into our new acquisitions going forward.
I would say all in all, a very good year in an uncertain market in the US, and a solid Q4 with good potentials as we move here in 2026. Here's a lot of numbers over the quarters.
I think it's just worth highlighting as we move into 2026, we'll start seeing a nice tailwind from the acquisitions, we expect this to pick up as we move in '26, as we have a nice roll-over plus a good pipeline here in the beginning of '26. Then on the margin side, you can see here a similar margin as the last quarter, but if you look at adjusting for the M&A, it's a nice pick-up despite one minus in organic and driven by the development we set in APAC and North America.
We think it's a very solid Q4, and of course on the last couple of years, you can see the development on the margin side. Wrapping that up before I hand over to Joel, you can see the total sales growth just for the currency, 2% in Q4, organic minus one, EBITA plus three, and four on the EPS.
I think if you look at the full year, it's a very solid year, I would say, 9% growth, organic three, 11% EBITA growth, and 15% EPS growth. Putting all that together, we're happy with the year, and look forward as we transition into 2026.
Joel?
Joel Davidsson
All right. Thank you, Christopher, and good morning, everyone.
As always, I will jump into our reported EBITA, this time excluding items affecting comparability, which is mount then to 758 million, which reportedly is down 6% compared to last year. However, it is very important to keep in mind here that our EBITA excluding items affecting comparability is impacted by 25 million of acquisition costs following, as Christopher said, a high acquisition pace here in Q4.
In addition, as we faced pretty significant FX headwind in Q4 of 8%. If you look at this on a currency neutral basis and also adjusting for the M&A cost, our underlying Q4 EBITA is actually growing by 6% here in the quarter with an underlying margin of 9.5%.
Our financial net continues develop very well. It's another benefit of our strong cash flow generation, and financial net came in at 106 million, which is 24 million below last year.
If you exclude currency effects and so on, I would say that the underlying interest cost remain around 35 million lower in the quarter compared to last year. Tax expenses excluding items affecting comparability of 151, which is an effective tax rate of 25%, slightly below last year.
All in all, Q4 report net profit excluding items affecting comparability of 445 million, down 3% versus last year, but then again, adjusting for the FX translation headwind, the net profit is up 4%. Moving over to our EPS, EPS in the quarter of 0.87, reported down 2% compared to last year, but as already mentioned, on a currency neutral basis, it's an increase of 4%.
For the full year, reported plus 10, which is a good number despite a tough currency headwind, and if you adjust for that, our EPS grew by 15% during 2025. Moving over to cash flow, we continue to develop a very strong cash flow.
In Q4, 1.7 billion. Cash flow this year is around 400 million higher than last year, and absolute majority of that is driven by lower working capital tied up as a result of our inventory and capital efficiency programs across the group.
For the full year, we print a record of 4.4 billion SEK, which is driven by the same development in inventory and capital efficiency in general. Over to the next slide.
I don't have that many more comments on this slide, I would say. I think it's a great visualization of the path we are on in terms of cash generation and capital efficiency, very nice development here for the last couple of years.
Moving over to leverage, thanks to this strong cash flow, of course, our net debt measured against the EBITA excluding leasing and pension is stable in the quarter despite the high M&A activity, and we end the year at 1.7, which is leaving us with a very strong balance sheet to continue to execute on our fantastic M&A pipeline here. With that, hand over back to Christopher.
Christopher Norbye
All right, let's try and summarize this. Nothing new on this slide.
I think it's summary in '25 with a stable growth, 9% with acquisition, good EBITA development, 11% growth, and also a record margin for us, despite not being a strong markets out there. I think that's also a sentiment to what we're doing.
Cash flow gives us a nice firepower as well moving in to '26, and you can hear we're I guess fairly, or very positive on [laughter] how we're going to use this money in '26 to continue to improve the business model. It goes hand-in-hand with the balance sheet.
I think also if you look at the EPS growth in a year, very solid and if you adjust for currency, plus 15%, which I think is a nice development for the year. Seven new acquisition integrated into the business, and also, what I said, a good roll-over moving into '26.
Then summarizing Q4, I think we went through all of this. To be honest, I'll move more into a little bit how we see the general market out there and some updates.
We are done with our A2L transition in the portfolio in the US. That's business as usual now in there.
We also see that our platform continues to develop in the US both on opening new branches, launching private label, building the acquisition platform, and capabilities is around there. We're very happy with the trend there, and of course also some uncertainty in the market, as you can see if you follow the OEMs and other things.
I think we perform extremely well in these times, and of course as the market picks up again, it'll be very strong development from our side. We talked about the pipeline in there that also looks very good in the US and also in EMEA for 2026.
I think one caveat I had, I just want to share here, and I'm sure we'll get it on the Q&A, is that I don't know how closely you follow, some of us follow business, but knowing in the US, what do we have? Around 100 and, yeah, 20 branches, it continues to grow, but we were completely shut down for two days with this winter storm running through with snow and ice down in Alabama and Tennessee as well.
We lost two two full days of business, and we also have continued to have branches shut down because of power outages in the business, and also you have a lot of things to clean up. We expect in January we might lose three to four days of sales because of this.
Hopefully, we'll see it pick up as we move into the rest of the quarter, but right now, at least you should think about three to four days shut down because of that, and I'm sure I get more question, I can develop it. With that, we would like to open up for Q&A.
Thank you for listening in on the presentation.
Operator
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad.
The next question comes from Adela Dashian from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Adela Dashian
Thank you, and good morning, gentlemen. Would it be possible to specify in greater detail what all these moving items actually contributed in terms of the organic growth or the organic decline, if we start with the trading day, and then maybe also the lower volumes from the projects in the US, and so on?
Weather potentially also if that's possible, just to get a view on what the magnitude is and how much of it could be phased into the coming quarters.
Christopher Norbye
Is it two question? One is around Q4, and the second one is just around what I told you about the US for Q1?
Adela Dashian
Correct.
Christopher Norbye
Okay. All right, yeah,
Adela Dashian
just so that we can compare Q4 versus Q1 effect, and so on.
Joel Davidsson
Trading days is relatively straightforward. One day in the quarter, and Q4 is fewer trading days than a normal quarter, so that is roughly 2%, I would say.
Then in the US, as Christopher alluded to, underlying business is not so different in Q3 compared to Q4. It is a tough market, and the comps is primarily driven by difference in residential project sales, but you also have, of course, in the general business in this type of environment, a higher degree of exposure towards the repair as opposed to the replacement, which is also affecting revenue dollars, of course.
Christopher Norbye
I think how I would look at this way is that, of course, the trading days is straight up mathematical effect on the business, it's fairly easy. While, if we have more projects or less projects in a quarter, that's business, right?
It's part of the business how it runs. I think the only one worth calling out there is that what we saw the underlying market in the US, we continue to have a strong development on repair, which you can see in the market, and fairly stable around the day-to-day replacement market in the US.
I think in general, what we want to portray if it's worth it is that the market continues to be at the levels we saw in the year in general. Then in Q4, also remembering both Q4 and Q1 are smaller quarters for us, it's hard to make big conclusions on it.
In general, our view is it's stable underlying market, and then we had some projects in the US that didn't come in, and a development in repair that also drove the good margin development. It's a nice balancer you have in your portfolio, because we have so much on aftermarket spare parts in the US versus equipment.
We build, in our view, a stable development in still tougher times right now, reading into OEMs and also other comments in that. That would be on the Q4.
On the Q1, Joel, you need to help me, three, four trading days would be in the US about for the quarter
Joel Davidsson
You have roughly 6, 7% impact in the US potentially on that.
Christopher Norbye
If you do it straight up, but let's see if we get a pick up, and I guess that's about 2% on the full Q1 depending on how we see February, March developing. We're just highlighting that out.
It's hard for us to control that type of situation in the US, so.
Adela Dashian
I see, and that's very good colors. I appreciate that.
I guess it would be fair to say then that maybe you were caught a bit by surprise over the development, because if I remember correctly, the comments coming out of Q3 were a bit more robust on the remaining months of the year?
Christopher Norbye
On are you speaking in general, or on the US?
Adela Dashian
In just market conditions in the US in general.
Christopher Norbye
Okay. No, I don't see so.
We see the trading, also more details per branch and on the repair and all that. Maybe you could say, did I expect more projects coming through in Q4?
Maybe, maybe not. Those things move around quite a lot.
It's nothing that we have in our daily business reviews. It's, you get more and it falls in, especially in smaller quarters.
No, I think we expected this, or I would say if you look at everything else you hear about the US market, we continue to do, in my view, better than anything else I see there. I guess I'm still positive in how we're executing in the US in the market.
I think a stable market development right now is a pretty good place to be. Of course, adding on the mix with repair, that's not bad if you look at the margin development in the US as well, so.
Adela Dashian
Thank you. Just two more if I may.
Sorry if I missed, but did you specify how much do you have left in terms of the refrigerant transition? Because you were nearing 10% at the end of the third quarter, is that now completed?
Christopher Norbye
Yes.
Adela Dashian
Then lastly on your comment here on the margins, you have been a bit active on the M&A pipeline lately, should we expect some sort of dilutive effect now coming through in 2026?
Christopher Norbye
I think I would say maybe you can take that offline with Joel, and we'll come back and be more clear what it is, or if you want to take it right now.
Joel Davidsson
It is relatively similar. The acquisitions we have been pursuing is relatively typical of what we see in the market where you have a few percentage points lower margin in that type of businesses.
It's relatively short-term simple mathematics as well on the share of acquisitions at a few points lower margin. Absolutely some dilutionary effects of that going into next year gradually, disappearing on realization of synergies, and of course, we are working on improving the underlying margin in the core business, of course, as always.
Adela Dashian
Thank you so much, Joel. I'll step back into the queue.
Thanks.
Christopher Norbye
Thank you, Adela.
Operator
The next question comes from Carl Ragnerstam from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Carl Ragnerstam
Good morning, it's Carl here from Nordea. A couple of questions from my side as well, starting on the working capital side.
You released over a billion, as you also mentioned. Is it possible to sort of give a split by market on that, where it came from?
Joel Davidsson
We are working on this capital efficiency, of course, globally. We are at, as we have mentioned, at a little bit different maturity levels across the business, and it is gradual improvements.
I think it's fair to say that EMEA is behind the largest improvement here. We are operating on a slightly more efficient level in general in the APAC region, obviously working with it there as well.
Then in the US, also improvements, but a lot of things going on there, it's a little bit the good opportunities ahead is also coming from moving further on the efficiency in the US. A little bit more than what EMEA represent of sales comes from the working capital improvement in Europe.
Carl Ragnerstam
That's very clear. Then it's fair to assume that the majority of the working capital release is driven by your new initiatives and incentives with the capital charges.
How much do you think is more to come from those initiatives if we look into '26?
Joel Davidsson
It's a good point. Yes, it is.
Absolutely majority of the improvement in working capital is related to inventory efficiency. Come a way on the journey.
We are approaching or more or less on levels pre-pandemic levels, but I would say overall, this is a long-term focus area for Beijer Ref, and I think we should see improvements for a number of years to come in terms of capital efficiency.
Christopher Norbye
I think what we've said before, right, Carl, is the ambition over the years now to generate, let's call it at least 100% cash conversion as we improve the inventory situation and structurally do it. Of course, we 111 for this year, you get some more low-hanging fruit and you structurally need to work with it.
I think at least our ambition is continue over the years here to be at the 100%, and let's see if we can do more than that, but at least have that as a guideline.
Carl Ragnerstam
That's very clear. I think we have seen rally in many of the raw material inputs, both to the AC units, but also related to your component distribution, such as the copper that used to be quite big earnings driver for historically when it moved.
With the quite steep rallies we've seen in those materials, how do you see that impacting your business in '26? It could be a tailwind, of course could be a headwind depending on how you manage it.
Christopher Norbye
For us, I would describe it in this way, and it's early days, right, in January, and there are processes and structure on because mostly what I'll be looking at is, of course, if you take copper, for example, we also trade copper and sell it. That price is always move with the information you have on the stock, but it's not a major driver in our business.
Of course, copper and these things is components into HVAC and in refrigeration products that you alluded to. The clearest example we have of announcements and if you follow the OEM is that they will not have price increase coming from in the US market of anywhere from 5 to 7, 8% rolling into in the end of Q1.
That's the signals we're getting on that side of the fence. In Europe, we're right now seeing normal price increases on the refrigeration side.
There's still very little information on HVAC, and HVAC in Europe, I'm not giving you more details or you already know this, is more a price increase discussion around mid-April before the season in that sense. Then if you fly over in being in Australia, New Zealand, it was middle of the high season.
We haven't seen any big price changing there yet from the OEMs, but the market is pretty active. All in all, if those type of translate into the market in a way with the increased prices from OEM, it's a good thing for Beijer Ref.
Carl Ragnerstam
Amazing. The final one if I may, is on OEM.
We saw a slight sequential acceleration in the organic growth. It would be great to hear more what you see in more specifically in the green part of your business, because you still have the tough comps, right, in the rest.
When those comps are easing, what kind of growth are we looking at in the underlying operation then?
Christopher Norbye
Sky is the limit, Carl. [laughter]
Carl Ragnerstam
No, but what do you see in orders, and
Christopher Norbye
Sorry. [laughter] No, I get your question, and I think what we've been saying is this OEM segment today is the 50 55% is the green, which is related to Fenagy and SCM Frigo mainly.
If you look at Fenagy, right, it's a European platform, and they continue to grow double digits last year, and we expect that to continue throughout this year with a nice pipeline and orders moving into Germany and other places. SCM Frigo, as the other Carel and other component delivering to us, has a strong backlog and also grew double digits in '25.
Both those companies have a better backlog in '26 than they had in '25, and then it's also seeing that the comps in the rest of the OEM business start easing up. I think at least our view is that we'll have a better OEM growth in '26, and the green will continue to grow, good double-digit number.
We can clarify a little bit more as we move in. I think the only area where we still haven't seen the progress on that green OEM related to SCM Frigo is a business Australia, New Zealand that's been very muted over the last two, three years, more flattish type of development.
We do see quoting activities picking up quite nicely in those markets, but it's too early to say when quoting moves into orders. In general, we're more positive on the OEM side here in '26 than we were in '25, we expect it to continue to improve.
Carl Ragnerstam
Very clear. Thank you.
Christopher Norbye
Thank you, Karl.
Operator
The next question comes from Karl Bokvist from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.
Karl Bokvist
Thank you. Good morning.
First one on the number of branches, I believe you said 120 in the US, that would be interesting [laughter] about the total number.
Christopher Norbye
I don't know it Tommy, because now I have to put KRS and Dennis Supply in, offline I can give you exact numbers. We have the data, but, 121?
[laughter] You can guess, Joel. [laughter]
Karl Bokvist
All right. All right.
Fair enough. We'll discuss it later.
Then on the refrigeration side, just looking at it from a multi-year perspective, we have regulations supporting the transition there on the F-gas, and many stores needs to replace these types of equipment. Yet just organically, it's been a couple of years now with lower growth.
Just out of curiosity, how you view the replacement cycle that we have been potentially waiting for because of regulatory changes?
Christopher Norbye
No, I think it's fair. It's two ways of looking at.
When we talk, that's driven on the system side, it's more in SCM Frigo discussion, the solution they're selling based on the CO2, which is growing 10% plus, and as I said, backlog. I think if you go back on the SCM Frigo two years, and after the pandemic, most of food retail was very slow.
They pushed out a lot of CapEx, which then affected. Now we have very other good segments in SCM Frigo, they were doing better, I would say, than most of the competition.
You started to see the pickup in SCM Frigo order book and orders coming into, Q1 2025, and after that, it's just been accelerating. Also '26 looks very good here to have a strong growth in SCM Frigo.
If you then take out where we report the commercial refrigeration, that's been more that, the 1 to 3% growth. That, I don't see that accelerating to, 5, 10%.
You do have also technology in there that we're waiting on this technology shift to start giving a tailwind in that segment. I think in general, we separate those two, and the main driver for these regulation will fall in the OEM SCM Frigo segment.
Karl Bokvist
All right. Understood.
That would be all. Thank you.
Christopher Norbye
Thank you, Karl.
Operator
The next question comes from Karl Hedberg from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Karl Hedberg
Morning, guys. A couple of questions from my side.
I wanted to come back a little bit to the US, and if we could talk a little bit about the private brand roll-out. We talked about this in Q3.
You seemed very happy with the sort of initial shipments. Just general update there, how many branches are you with there, and maybe if you could elude a little bit on your expectations here into the new year.
Thank you.
Christopher Norbye
It's still evolution versus revolution. Just had a board meeting yesterday, and we went over it.
It's still early days, but the indication we're getting in this rollout is that we did a couple of orders in for the '26 on the ducted. We're also launching the ductless in 2026 on that product portfolio.
Also high expectations on that, but if you know the market in the US, 85% is ducted, 15% is ductless. I would say that, and it's continued to trade very well in December.
We're in the winter season now, right? It's building up the capabilities for 2026 and for the summer season.
Also now when we made the acquisitions of KRS and Dennis Supply, we're going to launch these products into their portfolio as well and preparing for that. We have some other pipelines in the acquisition pipeline.
We're going to try and get cleared out before the season and do the same thing. I would say in general, and of course it's also, we can attack the transactional part of the market, a segment that we're not very strong in in our platform.
It's a nice margin. Of course, it also is part of our margin evolution here in Q4, but it's more when we roll out to the summer season.
It's I won't go into the dollars and cents right now, it's still building up these capabilities. I would say maybe in '25, we had it active in 30 branches, and of course now we're rolling out to 70, 80 branches for this year plus the acquisitions we made.
Pretty high expectation on that segment, but too early to say it's going to drive the business in '26, but it's a nice tailwind, and we have high expectations for it.
Karl Hedberg
Very well. Then I wanted to ask also further on the US, the acquisition pipeline.
You seem to be quite happy here entering the new year. [laughter] And I'm just curious a little bit on the mix here.
You've done a couple of acquisitions in refrigeration. You talked a little bit about the at least the initial sort of margin dilution from that.
Curious to hear on sort of the pipeline and maybe the mix you're sort of looking at here going forward, HVAC relative refrigeration.
Christopher Norbye
The reason when we say just to take a step back, we're positive, we talked about this, I think, in Q3, and of course we can track LOIs, and usually then we know that we're going to close them. Timing is different, especially on, you buy family-owned companies, things takes time to explain, put together, but we like these companies.
For us, these are the jewels that we want to go after and at least all built by personal relationships, and that we like a lot as well. It may take a little bit longer, but we think it's the right strategy.
Then, of course, we talked a lot, and if you look at the US, our refrigeration part of the business, it's a smaller part, but it's growing very nicely, and it's because we can roll it out in more and more branches. As we KRS and Dennis are strong refrigeration platform, then we had Young Supply and now we're expanding that into other one.
We built relationship now stronger, and we're launching with BITZER in the US, we're working with Danfoss, Copeland. It's going to continue to be a strong strategy for us using this platform to organically grow, and it looks very good, and we are investing in it.
Then if you turn your question on acquisitions, it changes, right, but most of the companies, if you look for an acquisition platform, etc., is majority of HVAC because it's such much bigger part of the business. That will go in cycles.
We're looking at both journeys, and of course as we build more capabilities in refrigeration, we get more relationship and contacts, because those companies knows the other companies in refrigeration, etc. It will move in both directions, but majority sales, if I just take a view in '26, will be HVAC expansion in the US.
Karl Hedberg
Very clear. Finally, I just wanted to hear you out also, this is obviously very early days, but on the OEM side, we've obviously seen quite significant consolidation with Paloma Rheem acquiring Atlantic in France.
Again, of course, that's hasn't been completed yet, but that's an important partner for you in the US. I just wanted to hear sort of, would you see opportunities with them now going into Europe with quite a strong platform in France, or yeah, any thoughts around that given your current relationships with them?
Christopher Norbye
Yes.
Karl Hedberg
Yes, on
Christopher Norbye
[laughter] No, I want to keep it brief [laughter] because it's our strongest partner in the US, our relationship is really, really good. It's not only the Paloma, right, it's the Fujitsu that they also are closing out where they have a portfolio for the US.
Of course, you have this, we do speak. Our agreement with Rheem is global, and we built it in that way together.
It's to, as you said, early, but these are the levels we're always talking to them, also we have a strong platform in Australia looking at their water heating business that fits in. For us, this is good news.
Karl Hedberg
Okay. Exciting.
Christopher Norbye
Yeah.
Karl Hedberg
Thanks, guys. I'll stop there.
Operator
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. There are no more questions at this time, I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Christopher Norbye
Thanks for a good discussion. Thanks for listening in, and I'm sure we'll keep in touch and yeah, we'll move forward now.
Thank you very much, and have a good rest of the day.
Joel Davidsson
Thank you very much.
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