Fagerhult Group AB

Fagerhult Group AB

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Feb 23Next Earn

Q2 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptJuly 21, 2026

Niklas Willstrand

Thank you all for joining us today. I'm Niklas Willstrand, Head of Communications at Fagerhult Group, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to our Q2 2026 results presentation.

On the call today, we have our President and CEO, Bodil Sonesson, along with our CFO, Oscar Wallstén. Bodil will begin with a brief overview of our second quarter results, followed by a presentation of the strategic priorities announced as part of our recently published strategic review.

Oscar will then provide a deeper dive into the group's financial performance, and to close, Bodil will summarize the key points before we open the floor for your questions. We will start questions from the conference call participants and then take questions from the webcast.

You can ask questions by pressing pound key and 5, or in the chat window on your screen, and I will then read them out for Bodil and Oscar. Please note that today's session is being recorded and will be available on our website later today.

With that, I will hand over to you, Bodil. Please go ahead.

Bodil Sonesson

Thank you, Niklas, and welcome and good morning to everybody joining us today. I will start with the word stabilization today, and we note that the stabilization in order intake, noted already in April, continued through most of the quarter, with order intake increasing to 2.68 billion Swedish kronor in the second quarter, and sales also increased during the period.

Profitability, although improved from Q1, remains below our expectations, and while activity levels improve, customers in several markets continue to postpone investment decisions, and I wouldn't say that the general market conditions have fundamentally changed. In early July, we presented the priorities that will strengthen the group's performance and improve profitability.

The first step and the first focus is to restore margins through cost reductions, efficiency improvements, and a stronger focus on Europe. We also see significant opportunities to improve performance through closer collaboration across brands, markets, and functions.

At the same time, we will continue to invest in innovation and in growth segments where we see the greatest long-term potential, and smart lighting is part of that. Several of these priorities are already reflected in our day-to-day operations, and during the quarter, we continued to see strong activity in energy-efficient lighting and modernization projects.

Fagerhult secured several projects linked to the transition from conventional LED lighting solution, as well as important projects within healthcare, including the new emergency hospital in Västerås that's being built, and Scandinavia's largest orthopedic center. Another example of how we're strengthening the group's overall position is Trato-TLV, which is our French group company, which has now been part of the group for exactly one year.

The company has developed in line with expectations, and the integration has progressed well. Synergies have been realized while the first projects in new markets together have been secured.

We continue to explore opportunities to further develop and working on possibilities together with Trato-TLV in their international presence and in collaboration with other group brands. We also saw positive development in several growth segments driven by long-term investment trends.

Citylight, when we look into public investments, secured new municipalities, reflecting the growing demand for smart lighting solutions, while Designplan, our British brand, achieved the highest order backlog in its history. At the same time, WE-EF secured a project for an Opel factory in Germany and continue to expand its pipeline within the European data segment, where they have a very suitable product portfolio.

That was a short summary, and if we then look into the numbers, we start with the Q2 numbers. As I said, our order intake reached 2.68 billion Swedish during the quarter, which was up 8.6% compared to last year, and including for acquisitions and currency effect, the order intake was down with 0.5%.

We see it as positive that while order intake exceeded 2 billion, which is always a milestone for us, it was not any single megadeal that made the difference, but rather many mid-sized deals, which we see as a positive indicator of the activity level. Net sales increased by 6.8% to 1.978 billion Swedish kronor, supported by acquisitions completed last year and favorable currency effect, and adjusted for acquisitions and currency movements, sales declined by 1.4%.

Overall, the group's EBITA before IAC was 113 million Swedish kronor, which was a decrease of 16.9%, with an EBITA margin before IAC of 5.7%. We're still not satisfied with that level, of course.

We're working hard to get back towards our target, but as I said initially, still a stabilization compared to Q1. Earnings per share before IAC was 0.08 Swedish kronor.

We ended also positively the quarter with an order backlog of 1.916 billion Swedish kronor, which was up both from a year ago and from the first quarter. We are moving forward with the implementation of our strategic priorities, but before we get there, let's look also at the half-year numbers in brief.

If we look at the year-to-date numbers, they pointed in order intake to 4.37 billion Swedish kronor, a decrease of 2.3%, or 8.1% adjusted for currency effects and acquisitions. Net sales amounted to 3.795 billion Swedish kronor, an increase of 0.2%, and again when we adjust for currency effects and acquisitions, a decrease of 5.2%.

EBITA before items affecting comparability amounted to 158 million Swedish kronor, and the EBITA margins for the half-year was 4.2% compared to 7.9% in the corresponding period last year. We have an earnings per share of -0.09 Swedish kronor for the half-year.

Then leave the numbers for the moment and let us go to the strategic review and priorities for future profitable growth. As you already know, we communicated the outcome of our strategic review in July, where we sent out a press release, and our vision remains unchanged, which is a world enhanced by light.

The review confirmed the need to sharpen our focus and strengthen the group's performance. We are focusing on three key areas to improve our profits, grow our market share, and build a foundation for lasting success.

We have three main priority buckets, and our first priority is to restore stability and resilience across the group, and that's where we started. Selected initiatives, including a cost-saving program, which is throughout the organization, combined with selected consolidation activities, are expected to deliver an improvement of 220 million Swedish kronor, which was what we communicated in the press release.

These effects will be realized gradually over the next 6 to 12 months. We are already working on a lot of these activities related to the scope of the savings.

They haven't yet had any impact on the Q2. The better result in Q2 compared to Q1 was to refer to the increased sales.

These activities will have an impact as we continue the year. We will inform the market when we have executed on the activities.

The guiding star for us that we're working towards is a stronger focus in Europe, a laser focus, and a clear premium market positioning that will support the ambition of building a more resilient and a more competitive group. The second priority is to improve performance through stronger execution and increased collaboration across the group.

This starts with clear responsibilities, greater accountability, and a more effective way of working. We, of course, will continue to have empowerment close to the customers in a decentralized organization, which is in line with our way of working.

Responsibility for customers, sales, product development, production, operational excellence, and ultimately P&L performance remains close to the brands and business areas. At the group level, we will strengthen governance around strategy execution, finance, HR, and IT, including both cybersecurity and AI.

By sharing all the expertise we're having in the group, we will be leveraging the strength of our different businesses, and we will collaborate where it makes sense, and in this way, we can operate much more effectively and better support our customers. Two concrete examples are that we have started to work much closer in an IT forum with a sponsor from the group and then leverage all the competence we have in the organization.

We've also started a project to leverage our current footprint in Germany, where we have three German brands, local brands, and five additional brands in the group being present on the market, but with very limited cooperation today. In addition to this, we've put an ambitious target for the next three-year period based on high efficiencies, selected focus areas, and better cooperation.

The third priority is to continue investing in innovation and attractive growth segments. Close customer relationships and the ability to develop solutions that meet changing customer needs remain a very important strength of the group.

Demand for smart lighting solutions continues to grow, where we had a very good first half-year, while several other markets are supported by long-term investment trends, including defense, public infrastructure, data centers, and also retail. During the quarter, we saw positive development in a number of these segments, reflecting the opportunities created by the underlying trends we all see on the market.

Several of these markets are expected to remain attractive over the coming years, providing a solid foundation for future growth. We all know that the landscape in the construction industry has fundamentally changed the last few years, and therefore, it is important for us to be very agile and finding growth opportunities.

It's important to defend the premium market where customers understand the benefits of good lighting quality, and for us, in many cases, bespoke solutions. If we try to summarize this and to conclude, our first priority to remember is to improve profitability and strengthen the foundations of the business.

That's where we start. As mentioned, we already have quite a few selected initiatives that are expected to deliver an earnings improvement of approximately 220 million Swedish kronor over the next 6 to 12 months.

Nothing of this, as I said, is included in the Q2. At the same time, these initiatives will help to create a more resilient and cost-conscious group while further strengthening our presence in Europe and supporting the long-term development of the business.

While our vision remains unchanged, as you can see it here, a world enhanced by light, the focus is on positioning the group for sustainable long-term growth. Continued innovation and increased exposure to new growth segments, combined with an ambition to become top three player in selected European markets, with a strong focus on some markets, will support future growth opportunities and long-term value creation.

We believe we need to be laser-focused for the period to come. As I said, restoring profitability comes first, then, in the next step, looking into accelerating growth once the profitability is achieved.

Our ambition remains clear: a 10% EBITA margin, and then, in the second step, a growth of 6%, which is then primarily driven by organic growth. We will not have an M&A focus in the forthcoming period.

We also have a focus in net working capital with a goal of free cash flow of 6%, which for us primarily means a focus on reducing inventory. That was a quick summary of our three main pillars in our strategy and how we're going to go from a vision to value creation.

With that, I will hand over to our CFO, Oscar Wallstén, to give you a much more detailed update on the financials.

Oscar Wallstén

Excellent. Thank you, Bodil.

Good morning, and welcome, everyone, to this call. This has been a stronger quarter compared to the weak start of the year.

Order intake has developed in a positive way, and the business areas Collection and Infrastructure are the main drivers behind the positive development. Both business areas grew organically in order intake in the quarter.

For the group as a total, the gross margin is still a challenge as both production costs are higher than last year as the sales mix is also unfavorable. Still, we see an improved EBITA margin in Professional thanks to Trato-TLV, but for the group as a total, a weaker margin compared to last year, which is explained by weaker performance in our largest business areas, Collection and Premium.

During the quarter, the group reported 19.8 million SEK as other operating income that relates to the Trato-TLV earn-out liability. Now, when the outcome for the first vesting period has been determined, the liability could be reduced, and hence, an income has been reported for the group.

While organic order intake declined by 0.5% compared to last year, total reported order intake increased by 8.6%. In the quarter, the order intake is negatively impacted by FX.

The stronger Swedish krona is affecting our euro business in a negative way also this quarter. On the other hand, the order intake is impacted positively by acquisitions.

By this time last year, our brand company Trato-TLV was not yet incorporated in our numbers. However, since the acquisition has now been part of the group for a full year, this will be the last quarter in which Trato-TLV is mentioned as an explanatory item compared to the previous year.

Sales decreased organically by 1.4% in the quarter, where FX had a negative impact by 19 million SEK, where acquisitions improved the numbers by 171 million SEK, totaling to a net impact of 152 million. The second quarter's EBITA margin landed on 5.7%, a decline by 1% compared to last year.

The margin drop is mainly related to lower business volumes in our two largest business areas, Collection and Premium. The decline in sales in these business areas has negative impact on our profitability.

In the quarter, we had a negative operating cash flow of 9 million SEK compared to positive 162 million last year. We saw a weakening in working capital also in this quarter.

I will come back to more cash flow insights later in the presentation. Year-to-date order intake is slightly lower than last year.

We see a decrease of 2.3% and an organic decrease of 8.2% year-to-date. The explanation lies in the weak first quarter.

Q1 last year was a tough comparison period with a couple of large projects. Sales, on the other hand, are higher than last year's year-to-date and increased by 0.2%, yet with an organic decrease of 5.2%.

The EBITA margin is 4.2%, which is lower than last year's 7.9%. The lower gross margin compared to last year is the main explanation.

Cash flow year-to-date is negative 169 million SEK, which can be compared to plus 188 last year, but more about cash flow later. Sales development: the rolling 12-month net sales shows an increase in this quarter.

We're back at the same level as Q4 last year after the dip in the first quarter. Looking at margin development, also the margin improved again in the second quarter as a consequence of a recovery in sales.

The rolling 12 development is, however, still impacted by the weak Q1 and hence a decline in the line chart. Moving over to the business areas, starting with Collection.

In Collection, the second quarter order intake of 894 million SEK entailed an organic increase of 2%. The improvement in order intake is coming from both iGuzzini and WE-EF.

Net sales in the quarter amounted to 886 million SEK, corresponding to an organic increase of 1%. The EBITA before IAC was 76 million SEK, which is lower than last year's 95 million SEK for the second quarter.

The EBITA margin is consequently lower as well: 8.6% compared to 10.7% last year. The demand on Collection's home markets has been weak during the quarter, despite that iGuzzini and LED Linear have succeeded in delivering growth in sales, which compensates for the development in the other brand companies.

Premium delivered an order intake for the quarter of 608 million SEK, entailing an organic decline of 4.4%. Net sales for the quarter totaled 601 million SEK, and EBITA landed on 60 million SEK.

As you can see in the chart, both numbers result in a decline compared to last year. The EBITA margin was 10%, which represents a weakening compared to the second quarter last year when it was 14.5%.

Just like business area Collection, Premium encountered a weak market, especially in the new construction sector, and generally fewer larger projects than normal. Moving over to Professional.

Business area Professional's order intake for the quarter increased to 378 million SEK, mainly thanks to the acquisition of Trato-TLV. Net sales for the quarter totaled 366 million SEK, with an organic growth of 10%.

Organic sales growth remained strong in the second quarter and was mainly driven by a strong quarter in the UK compared with the corresponding period of the previous year. In France, the retail sector also continued to perform well, driven both by existing customers and by new business opportunities, where we are registering increased demand for retrofit solutions.

In addition to the organic growth in net sales, Professional also gets a positive impact of 164 million SEK in net sales from Trato-TLV. EBITA before IAC amounted to 8 million SEK, which in turn resulted in an EBITA margin of 2.2%.

The lower EBITA margin in the business area is primarily related to brand companies Eagle and Arlight. Trato-TLV has now been a part of the Fagerhult Group for 1 year.

The company has delivered in line with expectations, and the integration has progressed well. As mentioned earlier, this is the last quarter we will refer to Trato-TLV as an explanatory item compared to last year.

Then looking at Infrastructure. Infrastructure's order intake for the quarter totaled 170 million SEK, corresponding to an organic increase of 16%.

This was a result from Designplan securing a significant UK prison project in the quarter and setting a new all-time high for the company's order backlog. WE-EF also showed signs of recovery in the form of a project for an Opel plant in Germany, as Bodil mentioned before, and a growing project pipeline in the European data center segment.

The net sales for the quarter totaled 164 million SEK, representing an organic increase of 2.4%. The EBITA margin is, however, still negative and landed on -2.2% for the quarter.

The profitability of Infrastructure is still suffering from low gross margin and fixed costs that remain at a high level. Unfavorable development of Veko is unfortunately weakening the business area as a whole.

Looking at the cash flow, the operating cash flow in the quarter was negative at 9 million SEK compared with a positive 162 million SEK in the same period last year. The large difference in operating cash flow compared to last year is mainly explained by adjustments for non-cash items, which amounted to as much as 121 million SEK last year.

In addition to that, we saw a weakening in working capital also this quarter. Working capital has developed in an unfavorable way.

It is the customer receivables that have increased during the quarter and hence affected the cash flow in the wrong direction. Yet, as the increase in customer receivables is a consequence of higher sales, we don't see a risk in this particular development.

Net debt: the recent investment in Trato-TLV and Citylight has increased our net debt to current level, which is higher than before. In the second quarter, our net debt to EBITDA ratio has increased again because of the development in profitability and weak cash flow.

Earnings per share: earnings per share before IAC landed on 0.08 SEK per share for the quarter. Thank you for your attention, and now back to Bodil.

Bodil Sonesson

Thank you, Oscar, for the financial numbers. I'll make a short summary before we move over to questions.

I will use the same word as I used initially, and that is we see a stabilization. I think that is what characterizing the quarter.

The stabilization in order intake that we saw starting in April continued through most of the quarter, although many customers still remain cautious with investment decisions, they take a little bit longer than normal. We haven't seen when we look at the general market conditions that they have changed substantially, but we see still that we have markets and segments where we have strong activities, and also we see still the activity remains strong in energy-efficient lighting where we see LED conversion projects and several, as I've mentioned before, new attractive growth segments.

At the same time, we have taken steps, important steps to strengthen the group. With the first focus, as I said, on profitability and improving profitability, also increasing efficiency and strengthening our competitive position.

We have selected initiatives, including a general cost-saving program for the group and other selected initiatives in terms of consolidation that are expected to contribute to approximately 220 million Swedish kronor in earnings improvements over the next 6 to 12 months. While there is still work to do, we are building on the strength of the group: a stronger European focus, increased collaboration across brands and markets, continued innovation, and greater exposure to attractive growth segments, such as defense, public infrastructure, and data centers, will provide a solid foundation for long-term profitable growth.

We also believe that both outdoor and indoor smart solution will be part of our future growth drivers. With that, I will hand over to Niklas for questions and answers.

Niklas Willstrand

Thank you, Bodil, and Oscar, of course, and thank you for presentation. We will now start with the Q&A session, and we will start with questions from the participants on the conference call.

I will leave it over to the operator to take your questions.

Operator

Thank you, Niklas. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press pound key 5 on your telephone keypad.

The first question is from Lara Mohtadi from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead, Lara.

Lara Mohtadi

Hi. Just a couple of questions from me.

First one on the strategic review: how should we sort of think about the phasing of these 220 million kronor, how much of it lands in 2026 versus 2027? Sort of a follow-up on the same theme: what restructuring costs should we sort of expect alongside it?

Oscar Wallstén

I can take that. Thank you, Lara.

I would divide it into two buckets: one bucket that is general cost savings, opex if you like, that will be 100 million SEK. The ambition we have, the plan we are executing according to, is to take that out during the second half of this year, which would result in a run-rate reduction compared to 2025 to 2027 of 100 million SEK less in spend.

The remaining 120 million is strategic activities that is going to have a positive impact on bottom line, and we're aiming to get those done in Q4, but it might spill over to Q1, depending on the market conditions, if that helps.

Lara Mohtadi

Yes, yes, and also on restructuring costs?

Oscar Wallstén

The restructuring costs will be quite high. We're probably going to see a restructuring cost around 350 to 400 million SEK, which will end up as a one-time cost in IAC.

Lara Mohtadi

Great. Very clear.

Thank you. Just on the gross margin, you had a decline in the quarter.

You talked a little bit about production costs and mix. Could you maybe help us understand how much is production costs and how much is mix?

Oscar Wallstén

I would say it's 80%, 85% is related to mix and very much related to the large projects that we had last year. It's 15% to 20% of it is related to actually increased of prices that goes into the manufacturing process then.

Lara Mohtadi

Okay. Thank you.

You also mentioned that orders have stabilized throughout most of the quarter. What are you sort of seeing in July?

Oscar Wallstén

I don't know, Bodil, is that something—

Bodil Sonesson

I think it's a bit too early to say, Lara. If you look into what we were saying, we saw, as I mentioned, and I think we said it already in the earnings call that we had in beginning of May, that April was good, and we saw that continuing.

Then you always have normal changes. You had May with a lot of holidays, but I think we saw a very strong June as well, in general.

Then if I look into the longer indicators, we don't see a fundamental difference as where it goes. I would say what we've seen in Q2, it seems to continue.

Then it's always, even though I said it's positive, we didn't have a megaproject. I think that's something we should listen to.

Then you always have some weeks which are better than others when you have projects. So.

We have the benefit of having both Southern European and Northern European businesses, the summer tends to equal out from vacation periods.

Lara Mohtadi

Okay. Thank you.

That was very clear. That was all from my end.

Thank you very much.

Bodil Sonesson

Thank you, Lara.

Operator

The next question is from Oscar Rönnkvist from SEB. Please go ahead, Oscar.

Oscar Rönnkvist

Thank you, and good morning. My first question would also be sort of on the outlook.

I think the tonality was quite unchanged, but still accelerated through the quarter and saw pretty sharp increase from the Q1. Just have any question on how to read the outlook comments, given the positive momentum, which I interpret at least, and also if you have seen any impact from the EU building performance directive or performance directive that was implemented recently.

Thanks.

Bodil Sonesson

I would say I think I've said it before, is that it's always positive when we have order intake above 2 billion. That's for us a benchmark.

I think you should look into that. Then we don't give a forecast or an outlook for the future, but that is one indicator.

What I also said is you can look at the order backlog, which is better. It's, I think it was 6%, 6.3% compared to Q1 and 5.4% compared to Q2 last year.

Then when you look into the landscape we have, there's nothing that has fundamentally changed in the building market since last time. I think what we see is that we see the change.

We see that the segments I was highlighting, whether it's data centers, public spending, and when we speak about public spending, we see healthcare. I see a lot of healthcare activity around Europe.

Also, we see on the retail side, we see positive activity. I think the trends that we've been seeing for a while, they're getting stronger.

I also said that we have the products for those segments. We have more work to do on working on the market side, and that's what we currently doing.

We're building our pipeline on the data centers side of things, for example, and we're doing the same in the defense markets. A different landscape compared to if you go back 2 years, and I think that is getting more and more obvious that that's the way it is.

We need to be agile. The question about European performance of buildings directive, it's a good one.

I can't give you a very saying we see a big difference, but some of these public investments that we are seeing, I think some of that is maybe also driven by the European performance of buildings directive. I would estimate so.

Oscar Rönnkvist

All right. Thank you.

Also, in the CEO letter, I think you touched upon competition from low-cost actors, or maybe not competition. Could you just expand that a little bit?

Is it increased competition from low-priced actors or is it more that the sort of underlying demand is more shifted towards low-cost products? Thanks.

Bodil Sonesson

I think when you have a tougher market situation in general, I think then you see more low-cost competition. We see it, I would say, in the entry-level segments, and we are premium-positioned, and you heard me saying that defending our position on the premium side of things is very, very important for us.

I would say we also see somewhat higher activities from low-cost importers. Maybe there is a stronger focus from the Chinese competitors into Europe because of the tariff situation in the US as well.

Somewhat higher competition, I would say, yes, in the entry-level segments.

Oscar Rönnkvist

All right. Thanks.

Then just some follow-ups on the cost initiatives. Oh, sorry, did you have—

Bodil Sonesson

No, go ahead. Go ahead.

Oscar Rönnkvist

No, yeah. No, some follow-ups on the cost initiatives.

Just first of all to clarify, the 220 million, you say earnings, would that be EBITA or would that be earnings, including that you expect some positive cash flows to reduce the debt levels? Also the 120 million in sort of mix effects, if you could just clarify that a little bit.

Are you sort of aiming to increase the exposure to some high-margin brands or what's that driven by? Thanks.

Oscar Wallstén

Thank you, Oscar. The 120 million is EBITA improvement to start with, and it is about addressing our cost base, which means that we will reduce the cost base, the structural cost base, if you like, which will result in a EBITA improvement of 120 million.

Oscar Rönnkvist

All right, thanks. Just to sort of get the sort of baseline for the 220 million, what would be a good baseline if we should sort of evaluate that in afterwards?

Is that the H1 EBITA?

Oscar Wallstén

I would say Q1.

Oscar Rönnkvist

Q1 run rate sort of.

Oscar Wallstén

If you annualize that.

Oscar Rönnkvist

Perfect. Great, thanks.

Then just the margin in Professional, appreciate the comments about Eagle and Arlight explaining those, but can you expand a bit more on what you see in the margin? Would that be cost pressure from production costs or is it just a pure mix effect or what do you see in that?

Oscar Wallstén

In those brands, we have seen a slight decline in business performance, and which results in a negative then impact on the business mix coming from those two brands into the business area.

Oscar Rönnkvist

All right, great. Then I think orders in Collection was a bit better, and I suppose that would be a positive driver for the gross margin ahead.

Is that correct interpret?

Oscar Wallstén

That is a good assumption, I would say. Yeah.

Oscar Rönnkvist

Okay. Thank you.

That was all for me.

Operator

The next question is from Mats Liss from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead, Mats.

Seem to have some problem. I'll try to activate him again.

Now, Mats, your line is open.

Mats Liss

Thank you. Just coming back to the cost savings there.

You mentioned 220 in cost savings, but the earnings impact, the EBITA impact is 120. Was that right?

Oscar Wallstén

No, no. Hi, Mats.

Yes, that is a good question. No, the full impact is 220 million on EBITA.

You should see an improvement of EBITA of 220 million.

Bodil Sonesson

Maybe to add on to that, Mats, good morning, is that what we were saying before is that 100 million is all around the business where we doing cost savings, and 120 million are targeted to few of the businesses where we working on strategic reviews, which have more of a strong structural impact. We can't communicate more around that today, but when we have finalized those, we will come out with more communication around it.

It's divided in—

Mats Liss

You're just mentioning this overall numbers, and you don't sort of have any sort of comments on which business area is more affected and so on? No,

Bodil Sonesson

we will do that when we will communicate. We're only saying this is what you will see as a result of it, and then as soon as we are ready, we will let you know exactly what we're doing.

We have a strategic review in a few of our businesses.

Mats Liss

The costs to implement these measures could be expected to be taken this year, or is it sort of balanced between 2026, 2027?

Oscar Wallstén

Say again, please.

Mats Liss

No, you mentioned the 350 or 400 million of expected restructuring charges to be expected, and should we expect them to be taken as a one-off this year or is it more sort of balanced between the two years?

Oscar Wallstén

Those are related to transactions essentially, and the drivers is more than one activity, which means that it depends on when those activities happen in time. I would say it's spread over Q4 and Q1, but we don't know the exact timing of that today, and the bulk of it is non-cash flow impacting.

Mats Liss

It's more that you sort of close down factories and maybe some intangibles and that kind of costs?

Oscar Wallstén

That is probably a good conclusion.

Mats Liss

Yeah. Good.

Then about, yeah, you also mentioned that you will continue to focus on smart lighting solutions and those kind of trends. You don't see any sort of opportunities there to maybe cooperate with other companies and you will continue to focus on your own solutions there?

Bodil Sonesson

Yes, we will continue to focus on our own solutions, both on the indoor and outdoor side. Then, having said that, of course, we see partnership opportunities as well, but we're seeing it's being essential for us to have an offering.

If you want to defend the high-end and premium side of things, we think this is a very important ingredients for the future. If you look into the indoor side, which is the Organic Response, we had a very good first 6 months in terms of increase of sold Organic Response sensors.

We also mentioned in the reporting that we took additional municipalities in Sweden. You saw Håbo and Eslöv, and we also see ourselves widening the scope with the cities we're working with.

If you want to learn more, there is a new website from Citylight, which is citylight.com, where you can go in and learn and read more about it, who's also showing very clearly what are the advantages. I think when we spoke about before where we're saying that municipalities is important and public spending for the future, I think this is one of the areas which is interesting going forward.

Both, they see very clear benefits of maintenance. You have the energy efficiency, but it's also a future-proof solution for the municipalities.

You can see, for example, if you're driving around in Stockholm, there we have a partnerships, and traffic. When there is a lot of traffic, we have a different lighting in the city compared with there is less traffic.

That's a very concrete example of what you can do for the future thanks to the Citylight platform.

Mats Liss

Great. Just, well, maybe there it's more short-term aspect there.

Orders seems stabilizing and what's the aim for out there? Should we expect enormous seasonality?

I'm not sure what that is actually because you have changed structure somewhat, but the third quarter is normally somewhat slower seasonality even if the infrastructure projects are running there. Should we expect the orders there to be sort of delivered during the second half and maybe, well, in the third quarter?

Could you say something there?

Bodil Sonesson

It's depending what you mean by seasonality, Mats, what you refer to, if you refer to how it was way back. No,

Mats Liss

I mean there is a normal holiday season, but I know you have this infrastructure projects are maybe running more in the, well, summer months and so on. Could you say something about the aim for out there?

Are these orders expected to be delivered here in the third quarter to a large extent?

Bodil Sonesson

As we see, we always have a mix in our order base. I wouldn't say that there is any particularity in there.

It's a mix of more longer and shorter-term projects in the order pipeline, as such. There is not that we see today any specific particularity around it.

Then, as you said, we have, as I said before, you have always a little bit slower in the Nordics in July and a little bit slower in Southern Europe in August, but that we have every year.

Mats Liss

Yeah. I guess you have seen some extra costs here coming up, and it seems that competition is sort of quite tough.

Do you expect to be able to pass on the cost increases or should we expect a margin squeeze there short-term before the sort of cost savings are being implemented?

Bodil Sonesson

I think we all learned and trained in terms of costs passing on cost to customer when it's a question that we're having increases that's coming in. We will do the same that you saw us doing in the past if it's related to higher cost from if it might be aluminum or whatever it is.

That we will do as we've done it in the past.

Mats Liss

Okay. Great.

Thank you.

Bodil Sonesson

Thank you, Mats.

Operator

There are no more questions from the telco at this time, I hand the word back to you, Niklas.

Niklas Willstrand

Thank you so much, Einar, and thank you for questions. We have a few questions here.

You mention and talk a lot about innovation. What actions do you take to boost innovation while simultaneously cutting your costs?

Bodil Sonesson

I think that's a question about what you protect. When you cut costs, I think we have a lot of things to do where we can work more together.

You can cut costs in things which is not impacting innovation, and that's what we're trying to do. For me, there are two main parts that we need to safeguard.

One is product innovation and the second one is on the sales resource side, so that we have enough people on the ground. I think we have maybe the benefit of having a lot of things in between where we can be much more efficient than we've been in the past.

One example, maybe, Oscar, you want to highlight a little bit more if we look into purchasing, for example?

Oscar Wallstén

Absolutely. I think to start with is a little bit about accelerating and braking at the same time here and be laser-focused to Bodil's earlier point, to make sure that we're not cutting everywhere, but we cut where we can, but invest where we need.

Purchasing is a great opportunity for us where we've been working both on indirect spend, but also, as we mentioned before, bringing the IT organizations together has enabled us to renegotiate some of our IT licenses, which of course then gives us a good saving bottom line. We also work in the group as one entity, if you like, where we negotiate prices on electronics, but that is also an opportunity for us going forward to expand that activity to more areas outside of electronics.

As Bodil just mentioned, aluminum is a very good example where we to date actually have not worked as a group in driving purchasing activities. I think there is a good opportunity to benefit from the scale we actually have as an organization.

Niklas Willstrand

Thank you. Earn-out re-evaluation in Trato-TLV: how much impact on EBITA in Q2 and half-year?

How does phasing looking for the timing of payments related to the remaining contingent liability of SEK 123 million?

Oscar Wallstén

That's a very good question. The earn-out program is over 3 years, we just finalized the first year, and we had a positive impact of 19.8, as we mentioned, in this quarter, and that is also the sum for the first half-year.

We just do this transaction once a year. Next time will be in Q2 next year, and the outcome of that we can't really tell today because it depends on the performance of Trato-TLV.

Niklas Willstrand

Okay. Thank you.

Also, another question here regarding Citylight: do you have any explanation or more information regarding the expansion outside Sweden? Are there any new progress?

Bodil Sonesson

Yes, if we look into it, what we've said is we're focusing first on Sweden and then on the Nordics, and I think we reported in the last quarter that we've seen first wins both in Finland and in Norway, which is positive. We are having and then also expansion in Sweden.

Currently focus on Sweden and the Nordics, and then we will look into Germany as the next focus, but that's not for this year. We will come back to you on that.

Niklas Willstrand

Okay. Thank you all for joining today's webcast.

We truly appreciate your time and active engagement, and on behalf of Fagerhult Group, we would like to wish you all a great summer ahead.

Oscar Wallstén

Thank you, Niklas.

Bodil Sonesson

Thank you, everybody. Thank you.