Operator
Hello, and welcome to today's Finwire broadcast presentation with KB Components. After the presentation, there will be a question and answer session, if you have any questions, you can submit them in English using the form on the right.
In case you are following the report at the phone, you can push *9 on your telephone keypad to raise your hand, and *6 to lower the hand. With that said, I'll hand the floor to you.
Please go ahead.
Magnus Andersson
Yes, thank you very much, and this is Magnus Andersson here, CEO of KB Components, and I'm sitting here in Örkelljunga, Sweden together with Michael Grindborn, who is the CFO of KB Components. Welcome, everybody, to the presentation of our year-end report 2025.
Today's agenda will be, as you can see in front of you, KB Components, an introduction to the group. We will proceed from that into a quarter four update, and an update on the different markets and regions, what we have seen in the last quarter and during 2025.
We will present the financials for the quarter and the full year, and also split per region we operate in. Then at the very end, financial position slide as well as some concluding remarks.
KB Components is a leading global supplier of polymer components. We were founded in 1947, an old company in this industry, and we are active with sites in many parts of the world.
Our vision is to be a world leader in technologically advanced and sustainable polymer products, and our overarching goals are growth, profitability, and employee engagement. Our main customer segments are in the automotive field, which is roughly 55-60% of our turnover, and then electronics and other general industries, and also medical segment is areas we operate in.
We have production facilities, as mentioned, around the world, meaning we can quickly and efficiently deliver products to our customers no matter where they are, and we strive to be close to our customers to provide them with the best possible service. Looking at the group, we are more or less a global company, employees over 2,000 people, headquartered in Örkelljunga, Sweden, with production sites spread around the world in Canada, USA, Mexico, several countries in Europe, as well as India and China.
Our strategy is based on three main pillars: technological leadership, operational excellence, and global presence. Our financial targets are, as mentioned, profitability, where we strive to be above 10% on EBIT; growth, over 10% per year; and job satisfaction and engagement, measured annually, and here we strive to be above 75% on an engagement score.
Looking at quarter four and the full year 2025, we titled this as a year of transition in North America with successful acquisition-driven growth in other regions. The full year 2025 was categorized or characterized by somewhat different picture between the regions.
Europe and Asia experienced good growth driven by acquisitions in the regions and good development of those acquisitions. North America has been in a transition phase.
We have had behind us in 2024 and first half of 2025 a phase where we have won new business, and with that had strong sales of tooling, injection molding tooling, which has been a part of the result. From that, we move into a phase where we are preparing ourselves and also our customers are preparing for running production of parts tied to this new business, which will start ramping up in quarter two of 2026.
This transition has had a somewhat negative impact on our turnover here during Q3 and Q4 of 2025. Sales in North America has also been affected negatively by currency effects due to the weakening of the US dollar, which is the currency we sell most of our business in North America in.
The full-year negative impact from this has been 115 million krona on the sales number during 2025. We should also say that despite the challenging result in 2025 in North America, we have had positive developments in that region as well.
We have strengthened our presence by the acquisition of a new facility in Windsor, Canada, which will be our main manufacturing hub in North America. We will create there from four present sites one large new site that will encompass all of our production in Canada with more efficiency and with more capacity for the coming years.
At group level, we have sales growth of 3%, that is -9% organically for the entire group, and the EBITDA have developed from 409 million krona in 2024 to 370 million Swedish krona in 2025, adjusted for items affecting comparability. Profit before tax has gone from 153 in 2024 to 122 in 2025.
That is moving from 5.6% to 4.4% in 2025. Also, recent acquisitions have happened during 2025.
With that, we have further broadened our customer portfolio of global key accounts, which is a good opportunity for organic growth for our company. To ensure this value, we have initiated a commercial excellence program in the group in the second half of 2025, which we believe a lot in will help us generate geographic expansion with these customers that have joined or has a relationship with KB Components due to these acquisitions.
Group cash flow from operating activities was strong, landing at 281 million krona, and in addition, our financial position is further strengthened through a new three-year bank agreement with DNB Bank providing KB with a credit facility of 1 billion krona Swedish krona and a global cash pool solution. Looking at the various markets we operate in, North America is in this quarter and full year affected by lower tooling sales, as I mentioned before, compared to the year before.
This is especially evident in Q3 and Q4. In Q4 alone, this number was 123 million SEK lower than the same quarter in 2024, that is the tooling sales.
This is due to an expected transition from project and tooling sales into running production. Looking at the market as such, it continues to be affected by a degree of political uncertainty in the USA, meaning some projects are delayed or put on hold, but for our business, we maintain a positive outlook of 2026 in the region.
Europe developed well for KB Components in the quarter and in the year. It is driven by the acquired businesses in Estonia and Finland that joined the group in January or in December of 2023, actually, adding sales growth and is developing as per plan in terms of profit improvement for those entities.
In total, 2025 showed sales increase of 400 million Swedish krona, that is +36%, and an EBITDA improvement of 45 million Swedish krona, which is 31% for the region as a whole. In October 2025, we made a further acquisition in Germany, which adds €13 million of sales, almost €14 million of sales to the group from three legal entities that were acquired in October of 2025 in Germany.
We see the European segment of KB Components increasing also in sales in 2026 driven by acquired volume. The acquired footprint and the legacy sites we have is also giving us opportunity to do further structural improvements with the focus on creating larger and well-utilized production sites.
Asia has continued the positive trend from earlier in the year, also in Q4. Sales went from 16 million in Q4 2024 to 61 million in the same period in 2025.
For the full year, the corresponding numbers are 61 million Swedish krona in 2024 growing to 189 million Swedish krona in 2025. This is mainly driven by the acquisition of JBJ Technologies Limited in India, which is being renamed KB Components India in the near future.
This unit has developed very well as a part of the KB Group, both in terms of profitability and organic growth. The region's EBITDA result for the full year has improved from 17 million Swedish krona to 50 million in 2025, adjusted for items affecting comparability.
Michael Grindborn
Yes, and to have a look more in detail of the quarterly results. Net sales in the fourth quarter amounted to 716 million, down from 818 last year.
Acquired growth was 13%, the currency effect was -4%, and organic growth was -21%. In the quarter, as Magnus mentioned before, also North American project tooling sales went down by 123 million, it also have a big effect of the quarterly sales.
Adjusted EBITDA amounted to 91 million compared to 94 year before, corresponding to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 12.7%, up from 11.5% year before. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA amounted to 370 million with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 13.2%.
Adjusted operating result amounted to 42 million, down from 51 year before, corresponding to an adjusted operating margin of 5.9% compared to 6.2% year before. For the full year, operating profit was 181 million with an adjusted operating margin of 6.5%.
Our adjusted earnings per share amounted to 0.34 SEK compared to 0.41 year before, and earnings per share in the quarter amounted to -0.19. For the full year, adjusted earnings per share was 1.77, and earnings per share was 1.65, slightly down from 1.77 year before.
Cash flow from operating activities in the quarter amounted to 24 million compared to 55 year before, and for the full year, we see a good improvement in cash from operating activities amounting to 281 million compared to 157 year before. We continue with the regions, and start with North America.
Here we have net sales amounting to 304 million, down from 537. Of course, a big part is lost project sales of 123 million, and in total, it's corresponding to 42% of our total net sales.
We have also a negative currency effect of 5% in the quarter, and the organic growth was minus four -38%. For the full year, we have sales of 1.25 million, down from 1.65 billion last year, and it corresponds to 44% of our total net sales.
Adjusted EBITDA amounted to 27 million compared to 64 year before, corresponding to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 9% compared to 11.9% year before. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA of 127 million with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 10.1%.
Adjusted operating results amounted to 5 million in the quarter compared to 42 year before. We have an adjusted operating margin of 1.5% compared to 7.8% year before.
For the full year, operating profit of 51 million with an adjusted operating margin of 4.1%. Looking at Europe, here we see an increase in net sales from 265 million up to 360 million, corresponding to 50% of our total net sales.
Acquired growth stands for 25%, currency effect -1%, and organic growth 12%. For the full year, 1.4 billion compared to 1 billion last year, and 49% of our total net sales.
Adjusted EBITDA amounted to 47 million compared to 23 year before, corresponding to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 13.1% compared to 8.7% year before. For the full year, EBITDA of 193 million, corresponding to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 14.1%.
Our adjusted operating result amounted to 30 million compared to just 4 million last year, and adjusted operating margin of 8.4%. For the full year, operating profit of 110 million with an adjusted operating margin of 8%.
Asian region, net sales increased to 61 million compared to 16 year before, and it corresponds to 8% of our total net sales, main increase coming from the acquisition in India, because the currency effect was -11%, but also the organic growth in China was 38% plus, good growth also in China. For the full year, net sales amounted to 189 million, corresponding to 7% of our total sales.
Adjusted EBITDA amounted to 16 million compared to 7 year before with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 26.7%, and for the full year, adjusted EBITDA of 50 million and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 26.2%. Our adjusted operating result amounted to 7 million compared to 4 million year before with an adjusted operating margin of 12%, and the full year's operating profit was 25 million with an adjusted operating margin of 11%.
Finally, a look at our financial position. Group's total assets amounted to 2.2 billion, a decrease of 3% despite the acquisitions we have made, we have tightened a little bit our balance sheet.
Equity amounted to 775 million, and with an equity to asset ratio of 26.4% compared to 26.8% year before, almost the same. Net debt amounted to 899 million, and our interest-bearing net debt, including lease liabilities in relation to adjusted EBITDA, amounted to 2.5, and if we exclude lease liabilities, interest-bearing net debt in relation to adjusted EBITDA is 2.0.
The board of directors proposes to the annual meeting that a dividend of 1.5 SEK per share be paid to the shareholders for the 2025 financial year, and it's the same dividend as the year before. We had a good news last Wednesday last week that KB Components and DNB Bank Sweden has entered into a three-year credit facility agreement of 1 billion SEK with an extension option of an additional two years.
Magnus Andersson
Thank you, Michael. Some concluding remarks.
We will say that 2025 is a year of transition, positioning us for growth in 2026. We have a positive view of our market and our prospects for 2026.
Year-over-year volume development in the short term is expected to be stable and slightly increasing in the medium term of 2026 and onwards. This is driven by new business ramping up in North America from the later part of Q2, and acquisitions in Europe contributing positively to this volume growth.
Asia is also expected to continue growing organically, and our overall underlying market we view as stable. We continue the focus on embracing and integrating acquisitions and capturing synergies between our new and legacy sites.
Our growing footprint provides us with more opportunities to service our global customer base, but also, as we talked about with our commercial excellence program, but it also gives us an opportunity to optimize our production structure and our unit utilization to improve profitabilities. Initiatives are ongoing to this effect, both in North America and in Europe.
We are working on production transfers from Canada to Mexico, for instance, and also in Europe, we have, during the last quarter, closed one of the new sites in Germany, the Spektrum site in Lichtenau, which was a small site, and integrated that business into the larger Schleyssmeier site, but also to our Slovakian entity in Žilina in Slovakia. Our group will continue developing with new acquisitions.
Ernst Plastics groups, as I mentioned, in Germany, with the three sites was acquired during Q4, in October 2025, and adding this type of bolt-on acquisitions will continue to be a natural part of KB Components achieving our targeted growth, as well as our profit targets over time. With that, I thank you, and I think we will move to a Q&A session.
Operator
Thank you, Magnus and Michael, for your presentation. Now we open up for questions.
As a reminder, if you are following the report at the phone, you can ask a question by dialing *9 to raise your hand. The first question come from the number that ends with 3576.
Please go ahead.
Hampus Engellau
All right. This is Hampus Engellau from Handelsbanken.
Can you hear me?
Operator
Yes.
Hampus Engellau
Excellent. A couple of questions from my side.
Would it be possible for you guys to kind of talk about how you see tooling sales for this year in terms of what you have in your pipeline? Just because it's a major volatility depending on where you are when you ramp up new product lines.
I'll take them one by one instead of loading a lot of questions on you, if that's okay.
Magnus Andersson
Yeah.
Michael Grindborn
Tooling sales,
Magnus Andersson
I think if I heard correctly, the question was around how it will develop in 2026. That is a more normal year when it comes to tooling sales, I would say.
We had a period in North America, Canada specifically, with very high level of tooling sales as we were preparing ourselves for the Rivian R2 model being launched, which is launching here in Q2. The majority of that tooling sale has already taken place during 2024 and 2025, and it will be tooling sales to that customer of a much lower level in 2026 and onward until we start looking at other new business going forward.
That there in North America is where we have the big change in sales related to tooling sales. In our other markets and our other sites, it is more stable year on year, I would say.
Hampus Engellau
Excellent. Then if I move in terms of the Plastone acquisition, are that now contributing and in line with European margins or are they still diluting your margins?
Magnus Andersson
Plastone is still not at the level of the average margin that we have in the group, but they are improving and have improved quite a lot during 2025, but there is still a little way to go before it reaches our average margin.
Hampus Engellau
All right. On the German acquisition, should we think the same duration as you had on Plastone?
It's just when I read the report, it seemed like you were moving a little bit ahead of maybe a normal integration with the German acquisition, or maybe I'm misinterpreting that.
Magnus Andersson
No, I'm not sure if I captured your question fully there, but the German integration is going to follow the same types of steps as with other acquisitions. What is different in Germany is that we already in the due diligence phase identified that one of the sites was too small to operate effectively, and in our industry, larger sites with good utilization level is important.
Because of that, it was a quickly made decision based on the due diligence findings that the Spektrum site in Lichtenau should be closed and transferred to Slovakia and to the Schleyssmeier site in Germany. We are now, since, yeah, October, we have they have been a part of the KB Group for a few months, and we are in the middle of that integration phase and embracing phase and identifying the steps forward, which will include the same levers as we normally use in terms of working on pricing to customers, and working on production efficiency and also production consolidation and in the aim of generating better utilization of our plants.
I hope that answers your question. I'm not sure if I captured it correctly.
Hampus Engellau
Yeah. No, no, that was spot-on.
Spot-on. The last question from me then.
If I look at the Rivian R1 last year, it was around 42,000 sales, and also listen to the guys on the call and reading the results, it seems like site take the midrange guidance with the R2 and R1 around 63, 64,000 units. You were under-absorbing fixed costs in the North American business given that you have no tooling sales and you're planning for the ramp-up.
On the midrange guidance on R1 and R2 from Rivian, 60 to 64,000 units, would you not be under-absorption any cost, or you would be adding to the profitability to the North American business on those volumes? Is that a correct assumption?
Magnus Andersson
Yes. Those volumes that they are indicating to their investor market are lower than the volumes they are indicating to us in our production planning and so on, and we have of course discussed that with Rivian.
We are getting indications of higher levels around 90,000 cars in total for 2026. That is what we're preparing for.
At 65,000, there would still be some under-absorption in our plant if those were the levels that they end up selling in 2026.
Hampus Engellau
Super. That was the last question from me.
Thank you very much.
Magnus Andersson
Thank you.
Hampus Engellau
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you so much. If there are no more questions at the phone, we go ahead with some written questions.
The first one is, would you say that Plastone is now operating close to KB Group average volumes?
Michael Grindborn
As Magnus mentioned, not fully, but they are improving, but still a little bit lower than the average in Europe.
Operator
Thank you. Next question is, how much more can you in terms of efficiency improvement on how to dry margins, and how much is that you need volume?
I would say
Michael Grindborn
volume, of course, is one part, but we are, especially in Europe, with new acquisitions, still working quite a lot with business improvement as well. Here we have good opportunities to do that, and we are also looking in North America with some transfer of some business from Canada to Mexico where it's man-intensive products.
Also that way looking at improvements also due to moving production and have more efficient plants.
Operator
Thank you. Next question is, should we interpret the commentary on structural activities in Europe as indications of facility closures, or is it as likely that you, for instance, continue to do M&A in Germany to achieve scale?
Magnus Andersson
No, the comment is around doing what we always do. We look at transferring production that is labor-intensive, as Michael just mentioned.
If we have a labor-intensive production in a higher cost country, we look at where can that be produced in our sites that have a lower cost to operate, for instance. It is a combination of that, and also, yes, as we mentioned in this presentation, we also continue to look at further acquisitions that gives good synergies in our group.
Operator
What are the terms of the credit facility with DNB and compared with existing loans?
Michael Grindborn
It's better margin. We mentioned in our press release last week that it will give us an improvement of roughly 5 million SEK in financial cost, we will get less financial cost of roughly 5 million per year.
Operator
Next question is, what is left to do in order to take Plastone to group margin?
Magnus Andersson
What is left to do is, yeah, it's journeys we've already started. It is pricing improvements is one of the key things we're working on now when it comes to the Plastone entity.
We had a satellite site in Estonia in Haapsalu, which has been closed during the later half of 2025, and moved into the bigger site in Tallinn. It is around these structural changes and optimizing the utilization, as well as pricing activities, both on the cost side and on the selling price side.
Operator
Why did the sales decrease in the fourth quarter compared to last year?
Michael Grindborn
As we mentioned, one big part is this project tooling sales that decreased by 123 million. Of course, also currency have quite big effect of -4% in total, so that was the two main reasons.
Operator
Why did profit after tax become negative in Q4 2025?
Michael Grindborn
A part of this is, as we mentioned, that we didn't have a full absorption of fixed cost in especially North America. Then yeah, also of course the volume make that we don't get the same absorption of total depreciations and so on, it gives a negative effect also on EBIT level, and then also of course on profit after tax.
Operator
What is happening in North America, and when do you expect growth to return?
Magnus Andersson
I think that comes back to the answer we gave on an earlier question. What is happening is that we are coming out of a phase where we've had a lot of tooling sales with high values to customers, especially to Rivian, for starting or winning production for their R2 model that is launching here in Q2 of 2026.
When they launch that car into the market, we are also starting the production of running production, to say, of parts, and that will gradually ramp up during 2026 to the levels that we were indicating before of yeah, 90,000 vehicles in total for Rivian, out of which around 45,000 are coming from this R2 model. The second half of 2026 is when we believe we will see a bigger ramp-up of volume in the Canada site primarily.
Operator
How have the recent acquisitions helped the company during 2025?
Magnus Andersson
The recent acquisitions, we haven't talked a lot about India. If we look at India, we made an acquisition of JBJ Technologies in January of 2025.
That has had a very positive effect on our sales in the region Asia. It has improved in profitability.
It's actually running at very good profitability compared to the group targets as well, and is growing organically. It is a market, as well India, that we believe a lot in, and we see has strong growth potential for us going forward.
The Plastone entities we've talked a little bit about, they have developed well. They have developed as per plan when it comes to profit improvements, we are happy with that acquisition as well.
Then when it comes to Germany, it has developed our group in the way that we now have a footprint and a presence in the important German market. Those were businesses that need profit improvement plans, and that is what we're actioning as well.
That is also reflected in the purchase price of those companies that was bought at a badwill. That has also positively impacted our group and given us opportunities for the future, but they are still at an early stage of integration and an early stage of their profit improvement plan, to say.
Operator
What is the goal of the new commercial excellence program?
Magnus Andersson
One of the main goals is to better capture the opportunities with global key accounts that we have adopted or acquired through acquisitions around the world, and we see that there is big opportunity in expanding with those customers into our other sites around the world. The commercial excellence is around many things, but that is one of the key things to build a model and a process and a structure for doing that activity with these types of customers in a very structured way.
Operator
Thank you. We have come to the last and final question, that is, how does the company see the outlook for 2026, especially with the new production starting in the first half of the year?
Magnus Andersson
As we mentioned in the report, we look positively at 2026. If we look at North America that we talked a lot about here, it is in the later part of Q2 and onwards is when we expect to see a bigger ramp-up of production to the Rivian account, which is an important account for us in Canada.
Also, our US site has some project-based business that has been won and is supposed to start ramping up here during the end of Q1. In North America, we expect to see volumes improving starting in Q2 and forward, and in Europe and Asia, we see a continuation of these acquisitions helping us to grow in these markets in 2026.
We have a fairly positive view of 2026 volumes.
Operator
There are no more questions at this time, I give the word to you, Magnus and Michael, for some closing remarks.
Magnus Andersson
Then we just say thank you to everyone for participating and listening to this year-end report, and yes, that we thank you for your participation.
Michael Grindborn
Yep, thank you very much.
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