Operator
Welcome to the Ferronordic Q3 2025 report presentation. For the first part of the presentation, participants will be in listen-only mode.
During the questions and answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key 5 on their telephone keypad. Now, I will hand the conference over to speakers CEO Henrik Carlborg and CFO Erik Danemar.
Please go ahead.
Henrik Carlborg
Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for your interest in Ferronordic.
We will now do our presentation of the results for the third quarter of 2025. Moving to slide two, please.
Trending upwards, still a way to go. During the quarter, we saw revenue decrease by 9% in Swedish krona to 1 billion 60 million kronor compared to 1 billion 171 million last year.
That is -5% on fixed currency rates. The gross margin increased nicely by 3.7 percentage points year-on-year and 2.9 percentage points quarter-on-quarter to 19.1%.
We continued to decrease SG&A. That went down 8% to 167 krona compared to 181 the year before.
Operating profit increased to 37 million krona compared to 2 million a year ago and compared to -5 in Q2. Net income, excluding currency effects, increased to 10 million kronor compared to -39 the year before.
We continued to reduce working capital, went down by 49%, and net finance costs decreased by 25% to 29 million kronor compared to 39 million the year before. Net debt reduced to 1.6 billion krona compared to almost 1.8 a year earlier, and net debt to EBITDA decreased to 3.9.
We turn to the next slide. During the quarter, we saw improved performance in all our markets.
In the US, we saw stable dollar sales and recovering margins compared to the lower levels we've seen earlier in the year. In Germany, we also saw stable euro sales, higher gross profit, lower expenses, and an operating result close to break-even.
With a lower cost base and a team and a service network ready to handle larger volumes in Germany, we are now in a good position when the market recovers. In Kazakhstan, sales were modest, but margins were good, and we saw improved operating profit in Kazakhstan, too.
Reduced costs and optimized working capital further across the group. We now tie up less capital and have lowered our finance costs.
Net debt in relation to EBITDA at the end of the quarter decreased to 3.9. This is still higher than our target, but still a clear improvement.
Next slide, please. Looking at the group summary financials, as I said earlier, group revenue decreased by 9% or 5% on fixed currency basis.
The US revenue was down 5% in Swedish krona to 677 million, but was unchanged in US dollars. In Germany, revenue was down 4% to 358 million krona, and that was a decline of 1% in euro.
Fairly stable revenues on a euro level. Kazakhstan revenue dropped by 70% in Swedish krona to 25 million.
That is 64% in local currency, mainly driven by lower equipment sales. Operating profit for the group amounted to 37 million compared to 2 million a year earlier and -5 in Q2.
US operating profit decreased to 53 million SEK—from 53 million SEK to 43 million SEK, but was up from 26 million in Q2. German operating profit increased from 40 million krona—from 40 million to -1 compared to -13 in Q2.
In Kazakhstan, operating profit increased from 3 million krona to 7 million krona. Net income improved to -13 million compared to -88, thanks to lower finance costs and despite further foreign exchange losses during the quarter.
Net debt decreased to 1.6 billion Swedish krona. Equity amounted to 32% of total assets, and our equity amounted to 1 billion 294 million at the end of September '25.
Next slide, please. Looking at the US operation, our US team continues to perform well.
Despite continued tariff uncertainty, we saw demand holding up. Customer activity remains at a high level, and machine utilization is also high.
Based on statistics, we saw a 15% market increase in the third quarter isolated in our territory. This is mainly driven by competitors filling up their rental fleets, but it still validates that the demand remains stable.
Our machine sales decreased by 16% or 12% in dollars, mainly due to lower sales from the rental fleet. Compared to last year, we had more newer machines in the fleet that have not yet reached the optimal resale point.
Rental fleet utilization continued to improve. We saw a 25% increase in rental revenue, or 32% increase in US dollar.
We are in a good position to sell more machines from the rental fleet later on, supported by recent rate cuts and tax breaks that were introduced during the quarter. Service and part sales were stable, decreased by 1% in Swedish krona, but were up 5% in US dollar, but this was still an increase compared to the second quarter.
Operating profit then was 62% higher than in Q2. We continue to work on different initiatives to grow the business to its full potential, including to gain market share, especially in the important excavator segment in larger metro areas, and to take a larger share of the potential service and part sales in our territory.
We also continue to work on improving our IT solutions to increase efficiency in sales, including the implementation of our automatic lead generator. Looking at Germany, demand for new trucks remains soft.
Customers postpone replacements. Importantly, though, they continue to use their trucks, meaning that at some point, the trucks that they are using will have to be replaced.
The market increased by 10% in the quarter, still from a relatively low level. Hopefully, we are now seeing the beginning of a recovery in the market.
Our own sales of new trucks increased by 30%, but remains at a low level. Truck sales was unchanged in Swedish krona, but grew by 3% in euro.
Service and part sales decreased by 10% to 151 million krona. We keep hiring technicians, but it takes time to train them and ramp up productivity to the level we look for.
Gross margin was 15.6%. That was a big improvement year-on-year, mainly then because of the write-downs we did in Q3 2024, but this was still better than we had in Q2.
Inventories decreased further to 170 million kronor from 280 million at the end of Q2 and 461 million after Q3 '24. We are rolling out a new service organization in Germany to give more responsibility to local management.
We spent a lot of efforts earlier in the year to train our local service managers to raise the general level and make them ready to take on a bigger responsibility. The aim of this is to make the operations more agile and to improve customer satisfaction further and, ultimately, increase sales.
Looking at Kazakhstan, we see signs of recovering market, particularly in the mining and road construction segments, which are important to us. Equipment sales were low and decreased by 14 million compared to 73 the year before, but the margins were better than last year.
Service and part sales increased by 22% and made up 46% of the revenue mix, contributing to a high gross margin during the quarter. Operating profit in Kazakhstan increased to 7 million krona, positively affected by a reversal of provisions for doubtful debt of 3 million krona.
Inventories reduced further to 63 million from 68 at the end of Q2 and 130 million after Q3 2024. Our former group HR director, Nadezhda Semiletova, was appointed president of Ferronordic Kazakhstan.
During the quarter, we have also hired more sales representatives and spent a lot of efforts on training and improving the sales team we have in place. We also work on improving our IT solutions to benefit from the progress we make in the United States.
With the new management and the improved sales resources, we are optimistic that we can increase sales and profitability in Kazakhstan going forward. Thank you.
Erik Danemar
Thank you, Henrik. Then, I step in and jump straight into the income statement for the group.
On the slide to the left there, you will see in the leftmost column the comparative period of last year per segment and also for the group as a whole. Then to the right, you would have the reporting period of the third quarter 2025, per segment and for group.
What we can see for the group as a whole is a total revenue that is down 9%, but as mentioned, if we look on a fixed currency basis, meaning using the rate that we had in Q3 '24, applying that also in Q3 2025, then it would be -5%. Looking at revenue split to see the weights of the business for the group, we see 64% of revenue in the United States, 34% coming from Germany, and only 2% from Kazakhstan.
Looking rather at that same revenue, but over revenue streams, we see 49% coming from sales of construction equipment and trucks, 41% coming from parts and service revenue, and 9% from rental. Fairly high share there of parts and service revenue, which is typically associated with a higher gross profit contribution, and therefore, margin contribution.
Arguably, we would expect maybe a higher potential revenue in Germany and Kazakhstan, rather that part of the revenue stream being below potential. If we look gross profit across the group, we're up 12% despite that revenue being down 9%, as I said.
Up to 203 million Swedish. Margin increased, reflecting that dynamic between revenue and gross profit, to 19.1%.
That's up 3.7 percentage points, and that reflects slightly lower margin in the US, but higher in Germany and Kazakhstan. I remind you, in Germany, we did have a write-off of trucks in the comparative period in last year, so that is obviously part of the increase.
We also have a healthy increase in margin quarter-on-quarter, and that is without any extraordinaries or adjustments needed. A positive trend on gross profit overall, and looking that quarter-on-quarter, we see also positive trend in the US with a increase in that gross profit.
SG&A down, cost for the group, by 8%, roughly in line with the revenue to 167 million. As a percentage of revenue, you can see largely flat there as well, 0.2 basis points higher compared to the comparative period.
Operating profit at 37, again, is a big increase on last year, and that's much driven by the higher contribution from Germany. Net income at -13 is also reflection of lower financing costs year-on-year, but there is also 22 million of foreign exchange losses there, without those losses, we would have posted a positive net income result.
Moving over to the balance sheet, you will see in the table here year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter comparisons. Now, looking at property, plant, and equipment, our fixed assets, we see bigger year-on-year despite the FX effect, the lower dollar mainly, some effect of that on the euro as well, but more accentuated from the dollar, and that's reflecting the increase of the rental fleet in the United States and, to a lesser extent, of the e-rental, electric rental fleet, in Germany as well.
Looking at working capital across our segments, in the US, working capital decreased from 14% to 12% as a result of lower inventory and receivables. We have been trimming our receivables.
Our US team doing a great job there of working efficiently on that basis. Remind you here that the rental fleet is not part of this working capital.
That is in, again, property, plant, and equipment. In Germany, net working capital also decreased from 9% to 6%, which is a good number.
We will continue to work to keep our balance sheet as efficient as possible and our capital turnover as high as possible. That's, again, a good result.
We are lower on inventory and receivables. Receivables partly reflecting the receipt of outstanding subsidies for electric trucks from the government in Germany.
In Kazakhstan, net working capital decreased also in SEK, but increased as a percentage of revenue, but that is mainly a reflection of a relatively low revenue in this quarter, as mentioned by Henrik, driven by low equipment sales in the quarter. Net debt decreased further Q-on-Q by 38 million, but the big decrease really is year-on-year and from the peak that we had in Q4 of 2024.
A big decrease from that point and now at 3.9 times net debt to EBITDA. Equity to assets at 32%.
Moving over to this slide, as a reminder to those that follow you and for those also that are new to our company that we have a change in the presentation of the US segment in our accounts. It's a classification mainly of costs from SG&A up to cost of goods sold, also a slight adjustment on revenue.
Both of these effects lower the gross margin as presented, but it has no impact on EBIT. It is a classification-only issue that has been corrected or adjusted now like-for-like.
When we compare year-on-year, we look on the same basis. If you would pick up a report from last year, you would see a different number.
That is outlined on page nine in the report. Going back to dynamics in the quarter, looking first year-on-year, we see a decrease on EBIT level from the US that is driven from really gross profit level, where they are 20 million lower, and then there are also lower costs that reduce that gap.
In Germany, the other way around, we had 42 million more on the gross profit level, but then also in the previous year, we had some other income. The difference being the four between gross profit and EBIT, a 38 positive dynamic year-on-year in Germany; Kazakhstan, four; and some positive impact of lower costs on a group level as well.
Looking quarter-on-quarter, we labeled our report "trending upwards", and indeed on a quarter-on-quarter basis, we see improvements in all segments. In the US, 16 million driven by 18 million gain in gross profit; in Germany, 6 million on gross profit level and 11 here given also cost savings on an SG&A level; and then 8 million in Kazakhstan year-on-year; and 7 million lower costs on a group level, driving that dynamic to 37 positive in this quarter.
In terms of balance sheet, this illustration to remind those of you that follow our company of where the bulk of our assets are, the biggest item being rental fleet, red staple here being the US and grey in Germany, and then a bit further to your right, you will have our inventories in our three segments, again, the US being the biggest, then Germany and the small blue staple there being in Kazakhstan. Then you would have real estate to our far left there, our workshops in the United States and in Germany, and then, of course, also we have trade and other receivables.
Similar on the balance sheet, driving towards our consolidated equity at 1.3 billion Swedish krona. With that, we reach our financial objectives.
With slightly lower revenue for the group year-on-year, we're back to about one time. Our target is set, as significantly higher, and we believe that potential is there.
Positive dynamics on operating margin, but still a good way to go there for us. Again, we see the potential to move in that direction.
Improvement in net debt to EBITDA, below four, as Henrik said, not where we want to be yet, but positive dynamics there driven by cash flows, but also by currency effects. With that, I would hand back to Henrik for an outlook before we turn over for the audience to ask questions.
Henrik Carlborg
Thank you very much, Erik. We remain optimistic about the US and the opportunities there.
We expect activity in the infrastructure sector to remain high, as the need to maintain and develop roads and other infrastructure is substantial, and infrastructure spending in the United States and in our sales territory remains at a high level. We also anticipate increased activity related to data centers, semiconductor factories, and other infrastructure linked to the US tech industry.
We see opportunities to further develop and to expand our operations in the United States. In Germany, the demand for trucks remains weak, but the demand for service and parts is relatively high.
Customers do continue to use their trucks, but postpone fleet replacements, meaning that there is a growing pent-up demand in the market. When the market begins to recover, demand for both trucks and service should increase, and we must continue to ensure that we have sufficient capacity in our workshops to meet this demand.
We now have a lower cost base in Germany, but we still maintain an organization and a service network that can handle larger volumes, and overall, we remain optimistic about the potential of our operations in Germany, too. In Kazakhstan, we see signs of recovery, especially in the mining and road construction segments, and with the new management in place, we see good opportunities to increase both sales and profitability going forward.
That concludes our presentation. Now we're happy to take questions.
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.
The next question comes from Adrian Gilani from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.
Adrian Gilani
Yes, hello. I'd like to start off with a question on the Germany segment.
With the stronger gross margin, I understand that mix have played a part in that, but are you also seeing some underlying improvements to pricing on trucks in Germany as well?
Henrik Carlborg
The market remains highly competitive, and our underlying margins are more or less in line with last year.
Adrian Gilani
That's clear. Then a bit similar, but on the US, as for the gross margin there, we've seen it sort of even if you adjust for your reclassified costs from SG&A to gross margin, it's been quite volatile, and we don't have that much history for the segment either to take sort of a long-term average.
I guess, can you talk a bit about what a normal level should look like in the coming couple of years in terms of the gross margin in the US?
Henrik Carlborg
I don't think we want to talk about what the normalized margin would be. What we have seen that makes us happy is that the margin has recovered in this quarter compared to the two previous quarters.
In Q2, we had some effect of parts write-downs and some offloading of the inventory, but we have a recovered margin. I think that it's lower than last year is mainly related to product mix, that we have lower sales from the rental fleet, as I said, and a higher rental revenue.
Erik Danemar
Adrian, and if now look at sort of history you're producing on a like-for-like basis, I think you'll find that the gross margin is relatively stable, I would say. It will vary, as you're well aware, both with product mix, within the equipment revenue streams, and with revenue mix, as we call it, the different equipment sales and service and parts and that and then rental.
I think we're relatively stable there. Then you will have these gyrations between the quarter that will, on the margin, differ.
Last year, we had conversions from rental fleet that contributed high margins, and it was big machines. In this quarter, as we write in the report, the rental fleet is a bit younger, to say, newer machines, they're not at the point yet where we see as much conversions or as much margin contribution from those conversions.
In general, I think you can probably draw a stable from our history that we present.
Adrian Gilani
That's helpful. Then on the group costs, you've sort of told us before that these will fluctuate from quarter to quarter, but they were quite low this quarter.
Now, have there been any sort of cost cuts at the overhead level, or is this just normal quarterly volatility that we're seeing?
Erik Danemar
I wouldn't say normal quarterly volatility. I think there is one so to say one-off effect, and we write about that in the report as well, which is the reversal of bonus accrual for executive management.
They were accrued in the first half of the year, and we reverse part of that in Q3. You would have a negative cost there, basically, effect.
Then, we are working hard to trim costs across the board, we have savings on items like travel, IT, to some extent professional services. We are working across the board there, but there the effects are smaller, I would say.
No beyond that reversal of the bonus accrual, no big one-off effects.
Adrian Gilani
Understood. Then a final one, more broad question, for a while now, you've had your positive view on expanding in the US, but also near-term your focus has been largely on working down the leverage.
I guess I understand you have the leverage target of three times. That's an over-the-cycle target, you can also be above it.
At what leverage level do you feel comfortable to start investing in expansion?
Henrik Carlborg
I think it really depends on the opportunity we have and how much cash flow we would expect from that and what we would pay for it. I wouldn't be able to give a general answer to that.
Erik Danemar
We've said, Adrian, that we want to consolidate and strengthen the balance sheet. As Henrik points out, it depends very much on the nature of the opportunity.
What would that do to our leverage and how quickly would that business start to contribute? A business with strong cash flows could be taken on without increasing leverage on a net debt-EBITDA basis.
I would say it's a better starting position to have lower leverage ratio. It gives us maybe more room, but in general, it would depend very much on the nature of the opportunity that we face.
Adrian Gilani
Understood. In that case, that's all for me.
Thank you.
Henrik Carlborg
Thank you.
Operator
The next question comes from Anders Åkerblom from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Anders Åkerblom
Yes. Hi, good morning.
It's Anders from Nordea. Thank you for taking my questions.
Firstly, on Germany, could you elaborate a bit on the technician hirings, sort of what the current capacity and demand gap could be for service and parts, and when you expect to see full contribution from these new hires?
Henrik Carlborg
Hi, Anders. The hiring technicians is going on at full speed, and we have do be doing quite well since the beginning of the year.
As we have said, it takes time to train people and get them up and running at the productivity level that they should be at. I don't know if we can tell you exactly when we will be ready with this.
It's a constant work to optimize the resources we have in the workshops, and it also fluctuates a bit from one place to another depending on demand. Overall, we are working on it.
We're also increasing the number of trainees we have in the workshops, Azubis, as they are called, so that we have a good pipeline of new technicians being trained and being ready to be deployed in the future.
Anders Åkerblom
Okay. No, makes sense.
I appreciate that it's hard to maybe discuss and quantify further. On the US, since previously, you've sort of said that you don't expect with regards to tariffs to be more affected than competitors, could you share how your view of this has elaborated, potentially changed, or does it remain the same following this quarter with recent policy developments?
Henrik Carlborg
Thanks, Anders. It's a good question, and I don't think our view hasn't really changed during the quarter.
There's a lot of things changing all the time, but at the end of the day, we still see that the tariffs that are in place, since they apply very broadly to generally everything that is imported to the country, be it complete machines or components or parts or steel, aluminum, and other raw materials, it affects all manufacturers and all players in the market. We still do not see that the products or brands that we represent would be worse affected than competition.
Anders Åkerblom
Makes sense. Thank you.
Just a final question, if I may. With regards to sort of what you said about the US market and competitors filling rental fleets, how should one view this in light of sort of underlying demand versus oversupply risks or if you understand my question?
Henrik Carlborg
I know there have been talks in the past about sort of oversupply in the market. I don't really see that.
I think it's a healthy sign that our competitors are filling up their fleet. It sort of indicates that there is underlying demand for them as well.
Maybe that's my interpretation of it. Our customers are optimistic.
They have good backlogs, and they are busy, and they have an optimistic view for the coming year, and we see that infrastructure spending is still at a high level.
Anders Åkerblom
Right. Makes sense.
Just follow up on that with regards then to sort of rental fleet conversion pipeline going forward, how should one think of increased conversions and sort of the expected timing of this, if you could speak to that?
Henrik Carlborg
I don't want to speculate in when and exactly we will sort of be able to increase sales from the rental fleet, but we have an increased utilization, meaning that our depreciation also increases so that we will meet then the optimal resale point. The better utilization is, the sooner we will reach the optimal resale point.
We have a good utilization, and now we have the rate cuts and we have the tax breaks that were introduced through the one big beautiful bill, and all that should support rental conversions going forward.
Anders Åkerblom
Right. Makes sense.
Really appreciate the answers. Thank you both and have a nice day.
Henrik Carlborg
Thank you, Anders.
Operator
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad. There are no more questions at this time, I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Erik Danemar
Thank you very much. I have one question online here asking about if we can say something more about our sustainable transport project in Germany.
Henrik, anything you want to—
Henrik Carlborg
As you all know, part of our rental fleet consists of electric trucks. We received subsidies from the German government that makes it possible for us to offer electric trucks to our customers as a competitive price.
Having these trucks deployed in the rental fleet gives us a lot of data and information that we can use to learn how electric trucks are being used, that we and our customers can become better at using them. As part of this project, we have now deployed two trucks that are with own drivers that are transporting goods in Germany as a pilot project.
We do this to gather even more information, data, how electric trucks are being used. It's still a very small project, but we learn a lot from it.
Maybe at some point, it could develop into its own revenue stream, but it's too early to say. It's an interesting, but small project.
Erik Danemar
Thank you, Henrik. Other questions coming online, I think we touched most of them, it's more if you want to add something to it.
One question on the margin trends again in the US, gross margin year-on-year slightly lower. Again, I think we've discussed the reasons for that and also pointed to the meaningful improvement that we've seen quarter-on-quarter and recovering towards the level that we saw last year, but also some strong sales from the rental fleet last year driving margins higher then.
German truck market margin, and here Henrik also pointed out that underlying margins for new trucks is more or less stable year-on-year. We had an impairment last year, which skews the gross margin overall, but if we look at the new sales of truck revenue stream, then it's fairly stable year-on-year.
In terms of the dynamics in the aftermarket in Germany, again stressing there the work that we are doing and making some progress on increasing our organization of productive technicians and mechanics, hiring and training, that takes a time, but we're working hard to increase the base there. Unless you want to add something to that, Henrik?
Henrik Carlborg
No, I think I'm just thinking more about the hiring of technicians. One thing to keep in mind is that we are making sure that we have enough resources for the current demand, but we also expect to have a higher demand in the future when the market recovers, and we need to have enough resources to cover that at that point in time as well.
Erik Danemar
So. I think that was all.
I'm going to check my email inbox again for any further questions, but there seem to be none at this time. We thank you very much for your interest in our company and for your time this morning, and with that, we hand back to operator.
Henrik Carlborg
Thank you very much.
Erik Danemar
Thank you.
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