Inwido AB (publ)

STO:INWI

Q4-2025 Earnings Call

[Operator]

Hello, and welcome to today's webcast with Inwido, where President and CEO, Fredrik Meuller; and CFO and Deputy CEO, Peter Welin, will present the report for the fourth quarter of 2025. [Operator Instructions]

And with that said, I hand over the word to you, Fredrik.

[Fredrik Meuller, executive]

Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this webcast for Inwido's Fourth and Final Quarter of 2025. My name is Fredrik Meuller, I'm the President and CEO of Inwido. And by my side here today in sunny Stockholm is Mr. Peter Welin, our Group CFO and Deputy CEO.

As usual, we will go through the highlights and the detailed financials of both group and the BAs, and then we'll finish off with conclusions and of course, open up for Q&A towards the end. In the spirit of transparency, we have also added a few new slides that I hope and think that you will appreciate. As usual, also, the material is, of course, available on Inwido's brand-new website. So do take a look at that.

In a nutshell, this is sort of summarize where Inwido is finding itself at the moment, but also where we're heading. We are on a super exciting journey towards becoming a company twice the size of what we are today. It's not all about top line, of course. On the contrary, it's about profitable growth. So rest assured that the bottom line is and will remain important as well. We are very pleased about how we execute our strategy in what is the fact of still an unprecedented industry downturn.

This is, of course, a familiar slide to many of you. Do note, however, that we've now added Ammanford in Wales and Kungota in Slovenia on the map representing the 2 latest acquisitions that we did just before year-end last year, meaning also that pro forma, our sales are now closer to SEK 10 billion rather than SEK 9 billion before. We are de facto one of the leading players across Europe. But again, we have many white spots on the map. So lots of growth opportunities for us to pursue. We're de facto only in one of the top 10 geographic markets in Europe. So with that said, again, huge potential to grow from here.

Let's now dig into the quarterly and full year highlights at the group level. And starting with the quarter, I mean, market-wise, it's yet another quarter with soft demand in both the renovation and the new build sectors overall. Similar to Q3 last year, the geographic pattern is a bit mixed, large variations across the markets. We continue to see Sweden progressing and improving. And at the other end, Finland is still very challenging and parts of England as well.

Still, I think it's highly pleasing and rather promising to see the uptick in organic growth, both in the net sales and also in order intake for primarily the consumer side. As -- when we talk about the order intake, I think it's important to bear in mind, and as we have flagged before that the comparison with the fourth quarter of 2024 is a bit tricky because, as you recall, we, in December 2024, had a record order from the Sidey Group in Scotland, equaling GBP 22.5 million. So -- but adjusting for that, actually, net-net, we have -- we come out slightly positive also on the organic order intake now.

Group gross margin, one, rather okay, a function of pricing -- value-based pricing activities and a rather stable raw material dimension. Having said that, we've had, of course, a less favorable mix, both in the geographic dimension where Sweden has outpaced Denmark in growth, for example, but also where we've had more project sales than consumer renovation sales. On top of that, we've also been hampered by negative FX impact from a stronger Swedish krona. We'll get back to that later on.

Looking at gross margin, too, I think it's quite solid. It's really a lot about efficiencies in all forms and shapes. Our investments from previous quarters are beginning to pay back, which is great to see. But overall, it's about cost consciousness, restructuring where we shut down a smallish entity in Finland and generally taking out cost. So that has, to a large extent, really offset the drop, the negative headwind that we've had in other dimensions.

I think it's important still to remind ourselves of the fact that the industry fundamentals remain the same, and they remain rather positive. At the end of the day, people do need windows and doors. And there's a lot of pent-up demand in both the renovation and the new build sector. Both need to grow from here.

Last but not least, we've been successful within mergers and acquisitions. We are not stressed up about it, and we're definitely not overpaying for the assets that we come across. But it's great to see that our activities, the focused efforts that we have within acquisitions have paid off, and we've added 3 new companies in the quarter, 4 new companies over the last 4 months. And hopefully, of course, there should be more to come in the M&A dimension.

Cash is king, strong cash flow and a lot of working capital excellence, primarily within the e-commerce business area. And of course, we've had a somewhat lower CapEx than expected that also strengthens our war chest and our financials, making them even more solid going forward.

So a snapshot of the quarterly key financials relative to the same quarter last year. Again, on the order intake side, one needs to make an adjustment for the Sidey record order in December 2024, meaning that overall, order intake is actually in line with last year or, in fact, slightly better. As mentioned already, operating EBITA was hampered by SEK 13 million negative on the FX side, but again, offset by efficiencies that started in -- yes, to a large extent in Q3, but in some cases, actually already in Q1 last year. You will recall, hopefully that primarily back then, our business area e-commerce took the opportunity to make their setup a little bit more lean and mean, and that has paid off. And on top of that, then we were forced to make more adjustments in -- primarily in Finland in early Q3 as demand back then surprised us negatively.

So all of that is beginning to and have, I would say, really had an impact in the fourth quarter, which is great to see and making us more ready for what's to come as we now have ended 2025. Main contribution at the BA level is from BA Scandinavia and BA e-commerce. The other 2 have done a great job as well, but are facing tougher market conditions. And again, strong cash flow, still rather low gearing. It has been affected by acquisitions, of course, Peter will talk more about that, but we still have plenty of room to pursue additional acquisitions from here.

So overall, if we zoom out from Q4 and we add the previous 9 months to close the books on the full year of 2025. Market-wise, it has yet again been a roller coaster ride. At the beginning of 2025, we thought that -- I thought that it would be the beginning of a bounce back in demand relatively quickly in Q1 already, we did notice that, that was not really going to be the case. And then as stated, Q2 added quite a lot of geopolitical turmoil, and that has been a bit of a wet blanket on consumer demand, in particular throughout the entire year of 2025.

Still, I think we come out stronger than before. We're, again, successfully executing our game plan. And we are definitely ready for whatever 2026 has in store for us. So I'm overall very proud of what we've achieved. And pro forma, of course, we've added almost SEK 1 billion in turnover. We have more lean operations, and that bodes well for the future. I think importantly also worth noting is that we do deliver a healthy dividend to our shareholders at SEK 5.50, i.e., same level as last year.

So to sum up the key financials also for the full year of '25. Importantly, I think we are displaying an organic top line growth and a healthy profit margin, which is really a quality seal of what Inwido is all about. Again, FX headwind, actually SEK 30 million affecting EBITA on the full year level and still low volume. But I think we met it by really successful collaboration. So there is more on the synergy side from us working in the horizontal dimension across all of Inwido, which is great to see and additional efficiencies, consciousness and investments paying off dividends. And then on top of that, the successful M&A work. So overall, I'm rather pleased with what we've achieved.

Yes. Again, large market variations across our business areas. Sweden continues to improve, boosting Scandinavia. And of course, the ROT incentive where the government raised the level in May last year had a positive impact. But all of our Swedish entities, I'd say, have done really, really well and particularly Elitfonster. And that, of course, makes a huge difference to the BA as such.

Denmark looks solid. We hope and think that the Greenland debacle, the Greenland matter and Novo Nordisk turmoil that we've seen over the last 12 months, so to speak, that, that does not have a negative impact on demand and sentiment overall in Denmark. And so far, so good, I would say. Same thing with Norway, where we are doing a really good job in still what is de facto quite a tough market, but we think that Norway has stabilized and bottomed out.

If we move across to BA e-commerce, yes, similar pattern as in the previous quarter with, yes, Sweden improving. We, of course, see quite positive outlook on Sweden, strong macroeconomics. It's an election year, and we're beginning to see that the housing market is moving, more transactions being done and at somewhat higher price levels, starting, of course, as usual with inner city of Stockholm. But that's, of course, overall positive news for us. On e-commerce, Black Week, which is important in Q4 was rather successful.

If we move West and going into Western Europe, Ireland remains quite buoyant, and U.K. is patchy. Scotland faring better than England still. England tricky, but quite a mixed bag. And I think there is some light at the horizon. There are increasingly talks at the government level about how to further boost the economy from where they are right now. And for sure, they need some support to get consumer sentiment back.

Last but not least, Eastern Europe, which in our case, as you know, is largely Finland and to some extent, Poland, well, not really improving, I have to say, still very, very tough. And here, I'm lacking still incentives and clear measures taking at the government level. Having said that, there is a new tax regime with the intention, of course, to make households a little bit better off. And hopefully, that will kick in now already early this year. Poland doing quite okay, stabilizing with a reasonably positive outlook actually.

So as stated before several times, we, of course, need to grow by some 15% CAGR on top line in order to get to our 2030 target of getting to a SEK 20 billion turnover. That is definitely achievable. And I think we've proven over the last 4 months that we can do it and that we can do it in a clever and profitable way. So it's -- again, it's not just about top line. We need to bear in mind what kind of reputation we have given the 50-plus acquisitions that Inwido have done over the years in a really, really good way. So we continue to be very picky. And thankfully, we continue to be perceived as a very attractive buyer with the model that we have.

And I think overall, the market is improving. There is quite a lot of M&A activity going on, including some strategic assets that are in play, we think. But again, we're picky. And the 4 acquisitions we did are really classic Inwido transactions, I would say. And the first 2 ones that we got in yes, late Q3, early Q4 are already contributing in a really, really nice way, proving that they were the right deals to do. And great also to see the acquisition of AJM, which means that we've added yet another country, Slovenia, to our geographic footprint. And Slovenia is a very solid market, and it also provides us with access to Austria and Switzerland, which are also really, really interesting for us.

So overall, very pleased with our M&A efforts. They continue, of course. And when I look into the crystal ball and when I look at our funnel and pipeline, our cases and activity level and the overall discussions that are live, I'm reasonably optimistic. I think it looks quite good. It's a nice balance between new and existing markets. It's a nice balance between medium-sized and large assets actually. So in the meantime, we see that some of our peers are struggling in some of the markets that we're in, primarily Finland and the U.K. So in England, of course, we continue to see quite a few cases popping up, but many of them are cases that are in financial distress and i.e., they are not of interest to us. There is quite a lot of capital out there. We do see competition in the processes that we're in, but it's not sort of crazy bid levels, and we wouldn't do any stupid transactions here. The multiples, I think, still are very reasonable.

We are also looking into the field of solar shading. So in the pipeline of cases that we are working with, both on the sort of gross and net list, there are a few assets with the solar shading label, which is, as we've stated several times before, it is an area of interest to us. Here, profitability typically is much higher than in the traditional window and door business, meaning that we may have to pay multiples that are somewhat in the higher end of the range that we typically pay. But again, very nice companies. And here, we, of course, see sales synergies on top of the cost synergies.

Moving on, and it's great to see smiles on people's faces and particularly our coworkers. I think it's a lovely picture. And within sustainability, we have every reason to smile. One example is our employee engagement survey that we do every year. And in -- now in Q4, we actually achieved the highest ever score, and we have had the highest ever response rate, which is a fantastic outcome given that it's been a very challenging year with lots of changes going on and of course, lots of cost cutting as well. I think it's a sign that the group management team and all of our BUs have done a really, really good job in explaining where we are and where we're heading in a credible way, and it has to be like that, of course.

So very pleased overall here. We have KPIs moving in the right direction as they have been on a positive trend for a really long time. And particularly, our carbon dioxide number is down by a lot, which is the function of both our own activities, improving our CO2 footprint, but also very fruitful collaboration together with our business partners and suppliers. So it just goes to show that we're in it together. And we're getting a lot of external credit here as well, of course, for our overall sustainability work. It's really, really a natural part of our DNA. Can never rest on our laurels, though, and particularly when it comes to accidents and incidents, that's always and always will be very, very high on our agenda.

So with that said, for some more flavor on Inwido's Q4 and full year financials, I hand over to you, Peter.

[Peter Welin, executive]

Thank you so much, Fredrik, and I'll start with this picture. This picture is showing the income statement. To the left, we can see the Q4 developments. And to the right, we can see the full year.

Starting with the quarter, sales is plus 1%. We still have the same negative mix impact, meaning that consumer sales are declining and the product sales is growing. The reported consumer sales is down by 1% and the product sales is plus 4%. The organic sales was plus 3% in the quarter. And here is the consumer sales plus 1% organic and the product sales is plus 6%. So we still have the same negative mix impact as we had in Q2 as well as in Q3. And that can be seen in our gross margin development. The gross margin has declined in the quarter from 25.9% last year to 25.7%. Then we have been able to offset that by reducing our costs meaning that the operating EBITDA margin as well as operating EBITA margin are on the same level as last year.

We have made acquisitions and acquisitions have a positive contribution to the quarter, but we also have a negative FX impact from our translation exposure. The group doesn't have so high transaction exposure, but we have a high translation exposure due to stronger SEK, where we are then consolidating the Danish result as well as the Finnish results into the group. And the FX impact is more or less the same negative impact as the positive impact from acquisitions, so they offset each other.

Below the operating EBITA and down to EBITA, we have nonrecurring items of SEK 26 million in the quarter, whereof SEK 21 million are connected to acquisitions. So SEK 21 million acquisition costs and then SEK 5 million as structural costs. The structural costs are mainly connected to Finland, where we're taking more actions due to the market developments. And also, we have reduced a business unit called Finluft and merged that into another business unit in Finland. And that has cost -- we have taken some costs in that in the Q4.

Further on the income statement, we can see that profit after tax is down by 7% compared to last year, even though EBITA is on the same level as last year. We have a little bit higher financial net or negative financial net in the quarter compared to last year. And we also have higher tax costs in the quarter compared to last year. Due to our acquisition costs that are nondeductible. And we also have some losses in U.K., and we cannot utilize those losses on the tax calculations for this year, can be used in the future now after we made more acquisitions in the U.K. that are profitable. And then we also have a higher minority stakes or minority result in the quarter and thereby, earnings per share is down by 9% compared to last year.

Looking at the full year, sales plus 2% organically is plus 4%. We have an operating EBITA margin of 10.5% for the full year compared to 10.8% last year. We had a good development in Q2, and then we had a margin decline in Q2 and Q3 -- sorry, decline in the Q1 and then the margin development in Q2 and Q3. And now in Q4, we are back on track again. And the earnings per share ended at SEK 8.87, minus 5% compared to last year.

This page is showing the sales development as well as the operating EBITA development for each business area in Q4. To the left, you can see the sales development. And to the right, we can see the operating EBITA developments. The main takeaway on this page is that Scandinavia is stable, higher sales as well as higher results, lower margins due to mix, not the mix between consumer and project, it's more mix between the different business units. The Swedish market is growing more compared to the Danish market, and thereby, we have a lower margin for Scandinavia, but still a stable development for Scandinavia.

We can also see that Eastern as well as Western are still challenging, lower sales as well as lower results. And we can see that the margin focus on e-commerce is paying off. In the quarter, sales is down by SEK 3 million for e-commerce. However, the result is plus SEK 12 million or more than 50% higher increase on the operating EBITA compared to last year for e-commerce. So the action taken when it comes to e-commerce, we have reduced the cost in e-commerce. We have taken some restructuring costs both in Q4 last -- in 2024 and also beginning of this year, and now we can see the payoff of those actions.

This graph is then showing the operating EBITA margins as well as sales for Q4 between 2019 and 2025. And we can see that we are back on track when it comes to the operating EBITA margin for the quarter. same level as last year and also looking at long-term perspective, we are back and have a high level for Q4 this year.

Looking at the cash flows. This page is showing the cash flow. So the left, you can see the cash flow development, cash flow before financing activities, however, excluding financial assets and also excluding acquisitions. And to the right, we can see the CapEx level this year. The cash flow was strong in Q4. We have the strongest cash flows in Q4 [Technical Difficulty] from operating activities was above last year. And when it comes to working capital, we are not as positive development of working capital as it was in last year. However, if we look at our working capital in relation to sales, we are more or less on the same level as last year.

And then when it comes to investments, when it comes to CapEx, we have lower CapEx in the quarter -- in Q4 this year compared to last year. We have also lower for the full year, and we were expecting a bit higher CapEx during 2025. However, some projects have been delayed and some project has been postponed into 2026.

In the quarter, we have concluded 3 acquisitions. We have paid for [ RM Fonster ] in Sweden, Fast Frame in U.K. and also Victorian in U.K. When it comes to AJM, that acquisition is not yet -- it has been closed now in January, but was not closed in Q4 and has not been paid for in Q4. So this means that the net debt has increased in the quarter due to the 3 acquisitions, RM, Fast Frame and Victorian.

When it comes to Victorian, we made that acquisition very late in 2025, late in December, meaning that balance sheet is included and the payment for the shares are included in the quarter, but not the income statement. So we don't have any results from Victorian in 2025. They will be consolidated from 2026 when it comes to the income statement. And then AJM will be fully consolidated also from 2026.

So the net debt has increased to SEK 2.1 billion, and that includes IFRS 16 loans of SEK 483 million. So net debt in relation to operating EBITDA is now 1.7x, including IFRS 16. However, when I calculate a pro forma basis, for the EBITDA, meaning I include full year results for RM, Fast Frame, Victorian, then the net debt to EBITDA is 1.5x, including IFRS 16. Excluding IFRS 16, we are on 1.4x reported and on a pro forma basis, we are on 1.3x.

The acquisition has also had a negative impact when it comes to our calculation of return on operating capital, especially Victorian because the balance sheet is included, but not any results. And that's why we have declined in the quarter from 12.7% in Q3 down to 12.4%. So we are 0.3% units behind last year, and we are also behind the target of 15%.

Looking at the order backlog as well as the order intake, starting with the order intake. In Q4, as Fredrik also mentioned, we took this large order in Scotland and a large order of GBP 22.5 million. And they were booked in Q4 because the order was received in December. So the order intake -- organic order intake is down by 12% compared to last year. However, when we adjust these large orders, we are slightly positive compared to last year. The positive thing is that consumer is growing. We have a positive order intake of plus 2% organic in the quarter and the project is down by 28% due to the orders in Scotland. Adjusted for order in Scotland, the project is also slightly positive. The order backlog is slightly lower this year compared to last year. Project -- the order back of project is down by 11% and the consumer is down by 1%.

If we then look at the order intake and then we divide the order intake between the different markets and starting with the consumer. This page is showing the order intake, organic order intake per quarter from Q4 last year to Q4 this year, meaning development during 5 quarters. And now we are separated by market, so not by business area, meaning e-commerce is now -- the e-commerce sales in Denmark is reported in Denmark and e-commerce sales in Sweden is reporting sales, et cetera.

The most important market for us is Denmark. The Denmark stands for 43% of our consumer sales. The second most important market for us is Sweden stands for 25%. On this page, we can see that in Q4 last year, we had a negative organic order intake of minus 2%. Then in Q1 this year, we started the year positive at plus 2%. Q2 was minus 4%, Q3 was minus 2% and now Q4 is plus 2%. And when I look at the development between the markets, we can see that Denmark, which is the most largest market for us when it comes to consumer sales, is quite stable. And we can see a positive development in Sweden on all quarters. Q4 last year -- until Q4 in 2025 had a positive development when it comes to the order intake.

And we can see that U.K. and Finland, which stands for 12% of our -- U.K. sales was 12% of our consumer sales and Finland for 8%, they are still challenging. They've been challenging all over the year, last 5 quarters. And then the rest, they are quite small. Rest is Norway, Ireland, Germany and Poland. So stable development in Denmark, positive in Sweden when it comes to consumer order intake, U.K., Finland still a challenging market for us.

When it comes to the project sales, and the main thing when it comes to project sales is it's a higher volatility in the project sales compared to consumer sales. So now we have to have a graph where we go up to plus 250% because in U.K. last year, we took this large order of GBP 22.5 million, and we had an order intake growth more than 200% in Q4 last year. And this year, since we are comparing to last year with these large orders, we had quite a large decline in U.K.

We can see a quite stable development in Finland during the last quarters. We can see also quite stable development in Sweden, some growth in Denmark, but Denmark is only 8% of our product sales. And then Ireland is also quite volatile because there, we also take large orders. However, Ireland is only 4% of our total product sales. So the product market is much more volatile compared to the consumer market.

And when it comes to the order intake, you should not look too much on a single quarter. You have to look more on a rolling 12-months basis, in some cases, also the rolling 24-months basis to see the development when it comes to the product order intake. The sales within the product market is stable, but the order intake is very much volatile.

[Fredrik Meuller, executive]

Thank you very much, Peter. Have a glass of water. I think it's now time to look into our 4 business areas in more detail and starting with Scandinavia, of course. Yes, very positive to see organic growth in both sales and orders, driven by Sweden again, as we mentioned several times already. And particularly Elitfonster doing a great job. Also operationally, and I think worth mentioning is that they got Supplier of the Year Award from the Optimera Group over here in Sweden, very much linked to their high OTIF on-time-in-full delivery precision. So a great job there.

The flip side of Sweden doing better is, of course, that it means that we have a negative geographic mix impact since Sweden is doing better than Denmark. And on top of that, of course, we have translation effects from a stronger Swedish krona. When we translate profits in Denmark, for example, and in particular, it becomes less worth when we take it into Swedish krona. But overall, great cost consciousness, great efficiency, leveraging the investments made across the entire BA. So well done, Mats and team. And it's great, of course, also to see that the latest acquisition in this field, RM Snickerier in Vimmerby is already well integrated and already contributing in a very nice way.

Let's move to the East, and that's actually exactly what we will name this BA from now onwards, BA East since we're looking at, of course, additional acquisitions in this area as well. You will recall that we had a softer-than-expected Q3. We thought at the end of Q2 that it had sort of bottomed out in Finland. That turned out already in July to not be the case, meaning that we had to go back to the drawing board, meaning that we had to take out more cost. And it's been and still is a fight for volume, but we are prioritizing profit before volume, meaning that we de facto have probably lost some market share, but some of the pricing for some projects over there has just been at crazy levels, and we will not contribute to the whole sector going down the drain. So it has been painful. And some entities are really down to the bone chewing, but they're doing a great job.

On top of that, as we've mentioned a few times already, we did one smallish restructuring of one entity in the portfolio. But it really is about profit before volume. Antti and his BUs keep fighting, showing a lot of cease to. It's been a lot of blood, sweat and tears, and it's not over yet, unfortunately. But hopefully, some silver lining in the form of this tax relief that's been implemented as from 1st of January in Finland. So hopefully, the wheels can start spinning again and consumer confidence can be boosted by that. But the war and the neighbor in the East is de facto a main, main issue for that whole market. In the meantime, great to see, of course, the exciting add-on through AJM in Slovenia, providing us with access to Austria and Switzerland as well.

E-commerce, well, Bo and his team proactively turned this BA into a lean and mean machine already in Q1 last year. You will recall that we were off to a slow start within e-commerce, and that meant that we had to review our setup in everything from manufacturing to sales, and that has really kicked in. We took some additional measures in Q3. And I think Q4 really proves that it's all about profitability and growth, but growth in a clever way. So a combination of value-based pricing, a combination of cost control, operational efficiencies across the 3 factories that we have in Estonia, Poland and Romania add to a 55% or 54% profit improvement despite volume being down by 1%. So really, really strong and order intake on top of that looked, of course, very healthy as well. So well done. You have every reason to be proud of what you've achieved.

Last but not least, to complete this BA run through, we go West, and we praise Jonna and her team for a job well done in what is also still a challenging market, a bit patchy across England and Scotland. It was challenging throughout more or less all of 2025 and Q4 was no exception. So a lot of hard work, but with a mixed bag depending on the positioning of our entities and the segments that they are in. So pure trading is trickier in particularly in England, whereas projects and some of the other businesses are more positive. I think the recipe here has been and still is a combo of cost consciousness, mix and thankfully also now very solid contribution from our latest addition, Fast frame. And then, of course, we have high hopes, and it looks good with Victorian Sliders as well, where, as Peter said, we got the capital in before year-end, but we haven't included any profits yet. So that will, of course, be a big plus from Q1 and onwards. Also here, we will rename the BA to BA West and not Western Europe.

To summarize, I think this -- and some of you will have seen this slide before, it's an illustrative way of looking at the building blocks of Inwido's exciting growth journey, talking about both top line and bottom line. And as you can see, we're still eagerly waiting for the anticipated comeback and rebound in both renovation and new build. On top of that, we, of course, are beginning to see something happening around energy efficiency and EPBD is still -- it's not super clear yet. But of course, this is now going to become legislation across all of the EU member states from, I think, it's May and onwards. So we are closely monitoring the developments in each country. And of course, hopefully, at least towards the end of the year, we should be seeing some tailwind from this, particularly as windows and doors are extremely well suited to help house owners improve their energy efficiency.

So overall, I think we are executing our strategy road map, which is a very clear one and a road map that we are committed to. We're doing a great job with it also on the right-hand side here on the profitability levels. And we're definitely stronger as a group today compared to a year ago. So again, we are really ready for whatever 2026 has in store for us. I think we've really been navigating successfully through a lot of headwind, very stable performance overall. It's de facto the third year running of this historic downturn in the industry. We've added pro forma SEK 1 billion in turnover just over the last few months. We have a more lean setup. So at the end of the day, now it's really all about volume. When we get more volume in, not if, but when it happens, we will, of course, be in a really, really good position to also make even more money based on that.

There is a bit of a cultural revolution going on within Inwido, where we have stronger and stronger collaboration in the horizontal dimension, best practice sharing, communication, information sharing, visiting each other's factories, et cetera. We're more engaged than ever and very forward leaning. And last but not least, we also managed to pay back a healthy dividend to our shareholders.

So just to conclude, I recommend, as always, that you pencil these dates into your calendars already now. And again, do visit our brand new website. And with that said, Peter and I would now be delighted to answer any of the questions that you may have, please.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] And the first caller here is Jonny Jin from SEB.

[Jonny Jin, analyst]

Fredrik and Peter, can you hear me?

[Fredrik Meuller, executive]

Yes.

[Jonny Jin, analyst]

I have a couple of questions. I think I will start with demand. I think you said in the last quarter that you had a strong end to Q3 and now organic growth is back here in Q4, which is good. So can you maybe elaborate how is the momentum entering the new year, would you say? And given your current trajectory, is it fair to assume that this positive organic growth can continue in coming quarters?

[Fredrik Meuller, executive]

It's a relevant question, of course. It is difficult to stick your chin out and say that it's all hunky-dory from here because it's not really. It will be a bumpy ride. It's really large variations between different markets. I have to say, though, that it feels a bit more solid than a year ago. We have the macroeconomic projections and the KPIs to support that, particularly when it comes to Sweden. Let's not forget that Q1 is always the softest quarter for us. And so it's also too early to say that we're out of the doldrums. We've, of course, had a very cold spell across Northern and Continental Europe so far this winter, meaning that some installation work affecting some sales in -- particularly in countries like Finland, which have already been faced with a lot of headwind.

But -- so it's a mixed bag. But overall, irrespective of what happens, I think we have proven now, particularly towards the end of last year that we are in a really good position to maneuver any scenario. We can quickly ramp up where needed, and we can quickly adjust the cost base also when needed. But overall, I think the macro picture looks quite okay. And there is de facto a lot of pent-up demand across a lot of our countries where new build and renovation in particular, is at far too low levels.

[Jonny Jin, analyst]

Yes. I understand. [ We'll see. ] Then I want to ask a question on the margin. It looks very good here in the quarter despite this unfavorable mix, and I want to understand the drivers a little bit more. So starting on cost side, do you think you can -- do you have more things you can do on the cost side? Or are you now sort of preparing the cost base to meet the higher demand from here? And then on price, I think that you, Fredrik, talked about price on your Capital Markets Day. Is that having any effect already now on profitability? Or how should we view that?

[Fredrik Meuller, executive]

Yes. If we start with the cost side, of course, we can take out more costs if needed. But we -- I think we've done this in a clever way, and it's been really down to each BU to look into what they need to do. The good news is that this is more or less going automatically. The BUs really know what to do and when to push the button. And some of them have, of course, painfully been through this for a couple of quarters, if not years already. But we will never take out too much cost because we need particularly the strategic dimension of the cost base when things start to go northward again.

But if you take -- you can take Finland as an example, I mean, we have entities that have already in the lion's share of 2025 being down to 1 working week, and that's painful. We will, across all of the Finnish operations from 1st of January, actually, so it's already implemented, have for all the white collar staff in Finland, a 4-day working week. So -- and we can do more, of course, if need be. We also did the restructuring that we mentioned a couple of times in Finland, where we shut down one smallish entity, but still, it's really more about profitability than volume, to be honest. And that's where we perhaps have a somewhat different and more of a long-term strategy than many of our peers. So yes, a long response to your question. But yes, we can do more on the cost side if need be. But I have to say, I think we -- it looks quite good overall, the whole group at the moment, and we are in a good spot to make money also if this downturn continues to prevail in some of the markets that we're in.

Pricing-wise, yes. So I mean, pricing-wise, if I start and Peter, you can fill in. I think pricing, at least from a, let's say, theoretical point of view, is a topic that is higher on the agenda and where we have more confidence and where we try it out in entities where pricing may not have been as common or as used as a lever before. And of course, whenever you do try it, you realize that it is a fantastic lever for profitability. So we talk about it. We train our people about it. At the end of the day, you need some ammunition to be successful with pricing as well.

And thankfully, here, we have, in some entities like Elitfonster in Sweden, also been able to launch a couple of new products in the second half of last year. That certainly helps. And even more importantly, the OTIF, the on-time-in-full KPI is generally, I would say, across the whole group at a really, really high level despite challenges in the marketplace. We -- many -- the majority of our entities are at the 98% target level that we strive for on a daily basis. But on top of that, I mean, yes, the pricing impact, I would say, hasn't really -- it's not been a huge difference in the quarter. Maybe, Peter, you can elaborate a bit more on it.

[Peter Welin, executive]

No, I totally agree. But we have -- and actually, in some cases, it's a quite challenging market right now, especially in Finland, where the price is going down. So it's a price pressure in Finland, also in some cases, also in some markets, channels when it comes to U.K. So we don't have any positive gains on pricing in Q4.

[Jonny Jin, analyst]

Understood. A quick one on the e-commerce business. I think profitability looks good, and we talked about that. But besides cost control, gross margin seems strong there as well. So what drove that, would you say? And can we expect similar cost base in that segment going forward as organic growth is positive now, and it seems like you're gaining some momentum there.

[Fredrik Meuller, executive]

It's really -- yes, it's really, how should I say, a snapshot of the entire group's market situation. We are in a very strong position in our core markets like Scandinavia, in particular, and that certainly helps. I think we've gained market share. We are de facto the only one making money in this field, and now we're making really, really decent money. But some of the newer markets are still new and in that sense costing us [ $1 or $2 ] before they can show decent profitability.

So we want to grow and we see potential here for sure, going forward, but we want the need to grow in a clever way. So we need to digest some of these new markets and let them sink in and learn from each new market before we move on to the other ones. But for sure, organic growth opportunities, lots of price pressure here, though, because it is de facto, as you know, Jonny, our most transparent business where the end customers can in a rather open fashion, compare our offering with some of our peers' offering.

So I think it's more -- it just adds to the fact that we need to have a very lean operational setup, and that's not something that we are fully happy with yet. There is still more work to be done there. We have made quite a few investments into the factories across Estonia, Poland and Romania. And the full impact of that, we haven't seen yet on the operational margin.

[Jonny Jin, analyst]

Understood. We'll see. Just one final from my side. I think you had on total SEK 26 million in costs classified as items affecting comparability in the quarter. I think you had some SEK 60 million last quarter and SEK 50 million the quarter before that, where I suppose the majority relates to M&A costs. So given your journey that you are on now with more M&A, how should we think about the, I would say, recurringness of these costs going forward?

[Peter Welin, executive]

So we are in -- we have a target to reach SEK 20 billion. To reach the SEK 20 billion, we must do acquisitions. And when we do acquisitions, of course, we have costs connected to those acquisitions, mainly when it comes to due diligence costs. So yes, we are going to have acquisition costs also in '26, '27 and the coming years. We will report them as nonrecurring items because we don't know when they're going to happen, and it's also not really operative. Just to separate, so you can see the operational results and then the acquisition costs. But yes, it's going to be cost in the coming years as well.

When it comes to the full year, in Q4, as I said before, SEK 26 million is nonrecurring costs, whereas SEK 21 million is acquisition costs. For the full year, a little bit more than SEK 60 million in total, whereas a little bit more than SEK 40 million are acquisition costs.

[Fredrik Meuller, executive]

And I think Peter is absolutely right. I think it's -- in absolute terms, yes, maybe a higher level than where we've been at before, but it's linked to the pace that we're at. Relatively speaking, it's rather small amount given the fact that we've added SEK 1 billion now over -- in turnover over the last 4 months. And as you recall, when it comes to the cost that we highlighted for Q2 and Q3, well, they were rather extraordinary and where we didn't get any bang for the buck because we were quite unlucky with 2 processes that we've talked about. And they were really complex transactions as well. So we had an unusually high fee that we needed to pay to primarily tax advisers.

So it will vary a little bit depending on what kind of deals we do and when we do them. But as Peter said, we, of course, will face some charges here if we're going to continue to do acquisitions, which is definitely the ambition that we have.

[Operator]

And the next call is Linus Alentun from Nordea.

[Linus Alentun, analyst]

Can you hear me?

[Peter Welin, executive]

Linus, yes, we can hear you.

[Linus Alentun, analyst]

Just a few couple of questions from me here. Firstly, on the Scandinavian margin here, it declined somewhat from 17.1% to 16.4% despite stronger sales. And I was just wondering here if we strip out FX and mix effect and assume normalized conditions there, what do you view as a realistic margin for this segment ahead?

[Peter Welin, executive]

The main reason why the margin declined in Q4 this year compared to last year is due to the mix, not due to the mix between the consumer product, more mix between the different business units, especially in the markets Denmark compared to Sweden. Sweden has been growing more. Denmark has been more stable. We have higher margins in Denmark compared to Sweden, and thereby, we are dilutive in the quarter due to the growth in Sweden compared to Denmark.

So going forward, it depends, of course, how the market will develop, where will the growth be. And during this quarter have been growth more in Sweden. So the question is more in '26 and forward, where will the growth be in Sweden and/or in Denmark?

[Linus Alentun, analyst]

Okay. Super. And next, just a question here about Finland. I mean you're winding down Finluft, but you said -- but Finland as a whole still remains pretty challenging. I mean the margin is still pretty low. So I'm just wondering at what point do you reassess the Finland footprint rather than incremental restructuring? What would need to happen to consider exiting or significantly downsizing here and really reallocate the capital to higher return markets or M&A, for example?

[Fredrik Meuller, executive]

Yes. I think it's, first of all, worth bearing in mind that it's not that long ago that the Finnish entities were the stars of the Inwido Group. So historically also when we've seen a rather rapid downfall in the market, we've also historically seen a rather rapid bounce back. So we just need 1 or 2 triggers and then hopefully, something start -- yes, the whole market starts to look more shiny again. And because also the levels that we're at, where the whole industry is at are just not sustainable. So of course, at some stage, something will happen.

When it comes to our portfolio and our decision-making, where that is literally, I wouldn't say on a daily basis. But of course, we have -- with the governance model that Inwido has, we have at least formally a reason on a quarterly basis, if not a monthly basis to review the portfolio and above all, look into what measures we are taking. But I am super confident and rather pleased with the job and the work that Antti and his team are doing. It's a very, very, very painful situation that we're facing. And given that, I think we have actually fared better than the rest of the market, and we are not going into silly pricing. So yes, we've lost some market share, but we retain our margins where we can retain our margins.

So we are -- yes, the problem is that we so far haven't really seen any major dialogue at the government level in Finland compared to what we've seen in Sweden. But these tax measures that I mentioned is a sort of a step in the right direction. I'm sure more will come at some stage. Right now, we don't really have any reason to restructure the portfolio more than what we've already done. But again, it's something that we revisit, I would say, on a monthly basis, to be honest. The most important part is that we see the movement and that we take actions where we can take actions. And that, again, I'm very confident and rather pleased about what I'm seeing there.

[Linus Alentun, analyst]

All right. Moving on to M&A here. I'm just wondering here about the time line -- about the pipeline. You said in the CMD here that it's very strong. I'm just wondering about the sun protection area here, which you listed as promising. Do we have any of those in the pipeline? Or how can we think about that area going forward?

[Fredrik Meuller, executive]

Yes. It's been a clear ambition from us, from me to enter that field in a bigger and better way. We, as you know, have already one entity in Finland, Artic-Kaihdin that we acquired 1.5 years ago. Smallish entity, but -- and a bit of a [ litmus ] test for us in this field, which is -- and Linus, it's solar shading, not some protection. I got this wrong myself. Some protection, somebody kindly reminded me is more the sunblock Hawaiian Tropic kind of products. We're not into that.

It's solar shading. And -- but again, this is a field where we see synergy potential on the sales side because our end customers are increasingly asking for solar shading in different forms and shapes when they also buy windows and doors from us, partly linked to global warming. And this is, of course, a movement that we see has already happened and is still happening if you move further down South in Europe, where a lot of window and door manufacturers also offer some kind of solar shading solution. The profitability in this field can vary a bit from one entity to another.

But if you look at some of the incumbents, it's not uncommon for them to have profitability in the 20% plus area, which is, of course, very attractive for us. That would be -- and that's even without synergies then -- there could be some synergies on the cost side as well. But I think primarily, it will be on the sales side. So we're looking for -- we are actively looking for incumbents in both existing and new markets that would offer us a new platform from which we could grow further and learn.

So to answer your question, yes, we have a few assets of that nature on the growth list that we are in a dialogue with. Again, a lot of these companies are family-owned, second, third-generation. They are making a healthy profit since many years back, not necessarily for sale, but some are. And we have to be ready to pay up a little bit more. So as I mentioned earlier, probably towards the higher end of the 5 to 7x EBITDA. But again, I'm more than willing to do that because it would add a new leg for Inwido to stand on. It would offer a brand-new growth horizon. You could envisage that you split the 2030 target that we have that in 2030, maybe some 10% of our total sales would be within solar shading, which to me would be very exciting.

[Linus Alentun, analyst]

That is exciting. Just one last question from me here on raw materials. I've noticed that aluminum prices have increased quite a bit here during the past year. I mean your product portfolio spans PVC, wood and aluminum frames. So I'm just wondering here about the aluminum exposure. And does rising aluminum here create an advantage for PVC focused products? Or how do you expect this to play out?

[Peter Welin, executive]

It is -- aluminum is, of course, an important product for us, but it's not the most important product for us. First of all, it is glass then comes wood, then comes PVC profiles and then comes aluminum. Aluminum, we don't have so much pure aluminum windows. We have it somewhat in Finland as one unit, and we also have some sales in U.K. where it's pure aluminum. When it comes to aluminum windows, it's more that we have as a water coat on the outside of the wood windows. So it's not -- it has an impact of us, of course, the price development, but not as big as the other materials.

[Operator]

And we will now go on to the next caller who is Sofia Sorling from DNB Carnegie.

[Sofia Sörling, analyst]

Sofia here from DNB Carnegie. Can you hear me now?

[Peter Welin, executive]

Yes. Now we can hear you.

[Sofia Sörling, analyst]

Perfect. Okay. So my first question is related to the Western Europe business area. So you mentioned in the report that you continue to see very tough markets in the U.K. but still you have very high profitability in this Western Europe. And also it's quite not that volatile if you compare it to other business areas. So could you just explain this? Should we understand it that perhaps orders from the Sidey Group is holding up sales and profitability right now, but that might come down into 2026? Or how do -- how should we think about the communication about the weak U.K. market?

[Peter Welin, executive]

The weak U.K. market is mainly connected to England and the consumer market, where we can see the decline, both in the order intake and sales as well as profitability. The Scottish market when it comes to Sidey, not selling to consumer markets or the product market, that is doing well both in Q4, the order intake is below last year in the quarter due to that they took these large orders. But in general, latest 12 months development or latest 24 months development and sales development and profitability, they are doing well and holding up. So the comment is more connected to England and the consumer market in England where it is challenging.

[Sofia Sörling, analyst]

Okay. A follow-up question then. Do you see a larger risk that like Scotland will not hold up later on? Or do you see like a more chance and potential that you see more positive for example from the Victorian Window House Group (sic) [ Victorian House Window Group ] in 2026? Like is there a larger risk ahead or a larger potential do you think?

[Fredrik Meuller, executive]

I would say, a larger potential actually. I mean, Scotland as a market is, of course, competitive and to that extent, challenging, but it's also quite solid. Social housing, which is the field that Sidey Group, our 2 companies there have a lot of exposure towards is solid and quite buoyant. But it's, of course, not the only thing that we do within Sidey Group. They do -- they cover other parts of the market demand as well. And in England, as Peter said, it's more patchy. But I think the acquisition of Fast Frame is a good example of an entity that we really want and where you can obviously make money if you have a strong and unique position in the marketplace in your niche and in some cases, also in your geographic area.

You must not forget that England is very regional stroke local. So it depends quite a lot on where you are in the country and what kind of position and what kind of brand you have there. Victorian Sliders will, for sure, add to the overall strong portfolio that we have. But it is a mixed bag at the moment. The entities that we have that are more facing the consumer side, the trading part of the business are struggling, and it's been, in that sense, a deterioration in the second half of last year than compared to the first half.

But we -- I mean, as an example, we are continuing to look at additional acquisition targets in the U.K. as well. We believe in the market long run. And in fact, it can be quite a good time and timing-wise to get into that market even further. It's a super fragmented market. And it's a lot happening, huge consolidation, which is just actually for us and some of the others, just beneficial, painful, but beneficial in the long run.

[Sofia Sörling, analyst]

Okay. And I actually had just a final question. It's related to the e-commerce business area. So obviously, it has been quite volatile in the margin profile in this business area and it has improved significantly in Q4 versus Q3, for example. But how should we think about this margin ahead? Would you say that this is definitely like a one-time high margin in Q4? Or do you expect a more of a stable margin profile in line with perhaps not this level, but what is your expectation here in this business model basically?

[Fredrik Meuller, executive]

I think near to medium term, we have a 10% target, which I think is achievable. I don't think one should see it as a one-off. It's a lot of hard work and I think quite an achievement to get to where they are today in this last quarter. They have a better, more clear setup. They are working with pricing in a different way compared to before. It will, for sure, be a bumpy ride. Mix will have an impact. New markets will initially add to the cost and not necessarily be profit generating from day 1. But in the long run, of course, we want to extend the -- and expand the geographic footprint we have.

But overall, they are in a better position strategically and cost-wise, better prepared for what's to come. As I said, it's a super competitive market. Already in 2024, we were the only ones making a profit compared to our peers. And I'm sure that situation has been even more clearly intensified in 2025.

[Operator]

Thank you. And that was all the questions we had for today. So I now hand over the word to you, Fredrik, for some final remarks here.

[Fredrik Meuller, executive]

Thank you very much. It's a wrap. Thank you, Peter. Thanks, everyone, out there for attending. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of my Inwido coworkers and our business partners for a job well done. Together, we're already embracing an exciting 2026. So buckle up and enjoy the ride. Cheers and bye for now.