Lagercrantz Group AB

STO:LAGR B

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q3

[Jörgen Wigh, President, CEO & Director]

Welcome, everyone, to Lagercrantz's presentation of our Q3 report. Me speaking is Jörgen Wigh, the CEO. And with me here on the line is also Peter Thysell, our new CFO as of 1st of December, when he started. We will run this presentation 45 minutes to an hour maybe. And we normally put together a presentation that we put on our website on www.lagercrantz.com, and we will have that presentation starting with an introduction. Then we will go over the Q report. And then we will also look at some of what the importance is for the future. And the presentation can be downloaded then, as I said, on our website. So please go there and see and I would try to keep everyone updated on what page I'm on as we go through the materials here. So very welcome, everyone. We have decided to put everyone on mute today. We have had some troubles with that earlier on. We've put everyone on mute. But if you would like to interrupt or say something or have a question, please press star 6, and you will be unmuted and you can say something, or we will also, of course, have a Q&A at the end of the session. But I will start with the presentation. And if you'd like to interrupt, it's start 6 to unmute yourself. So welcome. We will start with Page #2, which is an overview and introduction to Lagercrantz Group. For those of you that are new to the group, we always have that as a start. And Lagercrantz is currently a tech group, and we are very much working with leading position in niches. We have been on the stock exchange since 2001, have been basically evolved over time, focusing more and more on proprietary products-type companies with strong organic opportunities for growth going abroad, but also improving our margins along the way and then profitability along the way by doing that. As you can see over to the right on the slide there, you can see where we are present. We are in the Nordics and in Northern Europe. And you can see all the way over to the right that we also have some foothold in other parts of the world, with the U.S. and also Asia, in China, in India, and also a few places there which are important to us as we go for more exports with our companies. We have organized ourselves. As of 1st of April of last year, we have organized ourselves into the 5 divisions. I will talk a little bit more about how we have organized ourselves, but it's 5 divisions. And you can see the companies we have there and it adds up to roughly 60 companies that we have within the group, working under their own brand name, all dedicated to a niche, to a specific market, to specific customer segments, addressing the business customers with very sort of high value-add solutions and products for those customers. That's what we do within the group. And also what is important to know about us is that we do a lot of M&A. We acquire between 5 to 10 companies or so per year. And that is something that the pace has picked up lately. And that's also behind the strong numbers that we're presenting along the way, some good growth coming also from acquisitions. So acquisitions is a key thing within our group. We move over to Page 3 to look into the Q3 report. In the Q3 report, we feel we experienced a strong market. The underlying market we felt was very good for us. And we also added then the acquisitions to the group, the new comers to the group. And as you can see over to the right there, we've had a very strong profit development over a long period of time and it has picked up even faster here in the last 3 quarters or so with strong underlying market and also the M&A coming in. So we reached almost SEK 700 million in profits after financial items on the moving 12 months, and we also exceeded the SEK 5 billion in net sales on the left scale, as you can see there, for the first time. With the acquisitions we have conducted here lately, we have exceeded SEK 5 billion in sales, which is a good number for us. So looking at Page 4. So we can see that we during the quarter experienced some strong revenue growth in Q3 with 30%. This is roughly the level we've had here in the last few quarters, but we were struggling a bit with COVID in Q1, Q2 of last year, and that meant that we have stronger comparables here in the Q3. So we feel that the Q3 was very strong for us given that we could keep the growth number there of 30% also when the comparables were tougher for us. And we had a good organic growth of 14%. It was very broad-based. Many of our companies did better and performed better than last year and had a strong underlying growth and good markets to work with. We saw also some good order intake. There are some shortages still, and we are struggling with shortages of supplies and components and also with freight prices being increased. So we're also raising prices along the way here, which is also affecting the top line. But we feel that it's good to see that the order intake remains strong here during the quarter as well. I would also like to highlight that there has been a very proactive management with a lot of good work being done by our employees and our management teams in our different subsidiaries. We're struggling with shortages and lead times from suppliers and raised raw material prices and a lot of that going on. And therefore, it's great to see that we, on a group level, still have a very stable development, and we have compensated for most of it with price adjustments and finding new ways of working, with also some new suppliers in some places. During the 9 months, we also conducted 7 acquisitions, which adds approximately SEK 665 million in annual revenues. So the acquisitions' pace has picked up, and we have managed to close more deals than before. And a few of them are also more sizable than they used to be. So 3 of them are more sizable: the CW Lundberg, the Libra, and now also the Westmatic, which we acquired here at the end of Q3, and it will affect the numbers starting from Q4. So that's also coming in a very good way. Looking at Page #5, you see the Q3 figures as they stand. And again, the net revenues increased by 30% then, up to SEK 1.4 billion as opposed to SEK 1.078 billion for last year, with organic growth at a good 14%. For those of you that have followed us for a long time, the 14% is a very good number. We've had it now for some 3 quarters. And that, I think, is giving us good confidence that we are doing it the right way. We are addressing it. We are acquiring the right type of companies, and we're going for exports, and that is evolving over time, but then also a very strong underlying market in most places, which means that it's a very broad-based good growth that we're having. The EBITA was then up 35% to SEK 226 million, and the EBITA margin was at 16.1, up from 15.6. That has been a key thing for us all along with pushing our margins and the 16.1 is a very good number for us as well. We came from much lower levels earlier on, but with the refining of our portfolio, that has been the case that we have also pushed our margins. The profit after financial items then grew by 37%, and the profit after tax grew by 33%, and the earnings per share after dilution stood at SEK 2.59 per share on the moving 12 months. So it's been picking up quite nicely. The return on equity is also important to highlight. That was at an all-time high at 29%. We had 28% previous quarter. And last year, it was 22%. So that's been picking up quite nicely. Also with the improved organic growth and with the acquisitions we made, we have been able to push the return on equity quite nicely here in the last year or so. But I think still we have a good equity ratio of 36%. It was 40% a year ago and 34%, I think, it was in the last quarter. So it's been picking up here in the last quarter a little bit. The operational debt then was at SEK 1,475 million total here at the end of December. Looking at Page 6, we can compare a little bit with the 9 months figures. And we can see that the net revenues grew by 31% as opposed to 30% for the quarter then. So it's picking up quite nicely. We're maintaining basically the pace that we've had and organic growth also had basically the same pace at 15% for the full 9 months as opposed to the 14% we had for the quarter. And the EBITDA then increased by 49%. So that was a bit stronger on the 9 months. And I think that has to do with the comparables that has been a little bit tougher here in the last quarter or so as opposed to earlier. Yes, we moved down there on Page 6, and we can also see that during the 9 months period, we conducted 5 acquisitions. You can see them listed there. But we also have another 2 coming in here at the end of December, that will take effect here by the 1st of January, which I will come back. That is the Westmatic and the ARAS business in Denmark we acquired. And good cash flows also this year, even though we've had some buildup of some stock here in the quarter, some safety stock. The shortages means that in order to deliver on our promises to our customers, in some instances we have been forced to put some increased safety stock in our balance sheet. Looking at Page 7. Looking a little bit at the different divisions. I think it's great to see that we have 5 very strong divisions present. You can see that they're all growing their profits as opposed to last year. And so it's growth. The growth, as I said, is broad-based. And we can also see the very good EBITA margins down there in all divisions. We have 2 of them above 20%. The International then is the one we've been struggling with. We had some restructuring being made here a year or 2 ago. And you can see the figure moving up from the 7.4% all the way to the right there up to 14.9% here, which is a very good number for the International division. That has been done through some really good restructuring within the companies we already had, but also with some good acquisitions being made there coming into play with both the Libra and the AC Antennas coming in and affecting the numbers in a positive way. We can also see that Control is picking up quite nicely to 20.3%, with also some smaller acquisitions, but that work has been done mostly organically with improving the margins and the profits in the Control division. So that great to see. We have some comments on Page 8 on each of the divisions. And to highlight a few things, within the Electrify division, to start there, I think they delivered a very strong and stable quarter. We have some metal-related businesses that are struggling with shortages and high price increases on raw materials, and they've been struggling with that for the period here. So they have been delivering basically on the same level as last year. So it's not a big difference for the big ones. But still then, we also have the QD coming in. QD have their antenna brackets addressing the telecom industry, and they have been picking up very nicely here during this last year. The rollout of the 5G is happening in many markets, and that is a good market for QD to be at present. And it's broad-based in QD. It's not as big. We have been talking about projects there earlier, but it's more broad-based currently. So it's a good development for the QD business. Within the Control division, we experienced a very positive business climate with significant improvements really in most profit centers really. Particularly Direktronik, GasiQ, Precimeter and Radonova performed well. And also the new acquisition of Geonor in Denmark, which came in, in November 2021, had a good start within the group. So that's important things that happened in the Control division. In the TecSec division, we also had some good performers. The R-Con, which is an important part, did very nicely this year as last year as well. And Frictape and ISG, they all reported strong organic growth. The CW Lundberg, which we came in by April of last year, working within roof safety continued to perform above expectations we had when we acquired the company. Looking at Page 9, we go on with the Niche Products division. The Niche Products division also had a very strong quarter and performed an EBITDA margin of about 20% there as well. They had a strong improvement in demand and it was very broad-based. But some, to highlight a few key ones, are the Nikodan in Denmark, the PST, Wapro and Dorotea did very well with good organic growth. So as you hear, it's broad-based. It's coming from many sources. And then the Tormek and Kondator and Asept, that has been very important to the division, continue to do well, and especially Asept performed better than last year. Tormek did repeat the very strong numbers from last year. That was also good to see. So they're continuing to do well within the Tormek business. Within International, finally, we also see some good revenues growing by 43% and a very strong EBITA growth of 86%. And as I pointed out already earlier, an EBITA margin of 14.9%. I'm not entirely sure, but I think that's an all-time high for that type of companies and that group we have there. So that's also a very strong performance. And that is coming from many sources. And the Libra Group and the AC Antennas, as I already said, have performed well and brought positive contributions to the International division. So a strong broad-based quarter, I think, with a strong underlying demand in many instances. So that was basically what I had to say on the Q3 report. Looking a little bit ahead, I think it's important to highlight where we are with Lagercrantz. As we put together here in the beginning of this fiscal year, in the spring time, we launched the program of Lagercrantz towards SEK 1 billion, which you can find on Page 10 here now. And we feel that Lagercrantz has a very strong business concept. We've been doing it well for many years, growing at a good pace and been doing very well. And we would like to build on that platform to create a new very strong journey for the coming 5 years. And we have hit it off really to a very strong first year here. We are basically at the SEK 700 million or so, as we were at the SEK 500 million here in the beginning of this year. So it's a very strong first year in this 5-year ambition that we put together here in the beginning of this year. And we will build from here. What we have been doing with the Lagercrantz towards the SEK 1 billion is really clarifying, both internally and also externally, the strategies and the financial goals and building the 5 divisions with some clear growth ambitions in each of the divisions. And I think we are gathering around these themes and these new goals for us all internally. So I think it's also pushing us all in the right direction within the organization. We have also then the ambition to increase the capacity and the pace of the M&A. We have been doing some 3 to 5 to 6 M&A transactions per year earlier on. And now we have basically made 12 or so, I think, in the last 12 months. So we have increased the pace of M&A, which has also proven to be the right thing to do looking at the numbers and how we have developed here in the last year. We have also put together some focus on some new goals and some clear ambition on sustainability. I will come back to that. But the way we would like to think about it in Lagercrantz is that we would like to work with it in a very decentralized way as we do with most things. So we are working very much on the company-by-company base when we look at the sustainability issues as well. To elaborate on these things, I move on to Page 11 and looking at then at the vision and financial goals. We have been trying to clarify these that we we've had for many years, the 15% and 25%, but also looking at what we have to do organically versus through M&A and what we're saying is that at least 1/3 of the profit growth should come organically. And I think in the last year or so, it's been roughly 50% or even a little bit more that has come organically. But we also experienced a very strong market at present. So this is to be viewed over a business cycle. And we would like to conduct at least 5 to 8 acquisitions per year, which is an increased pace as opposed to earlier on then. The return on equity should then exceed 25%. And as already stated, we are currently at a 29% then, which is an all-time high. So we are basically delivering well and above these targets at present. And what we would like to build is really a strong group with some independently run companies, a strong portfolio of companies, all dedicated to the specific niche, working under their own brand name and with a dedicated organization and have that as a key concept, which we've had for many years, building a very strong portfolio of companies and through that build a very strong group on top. So that's our ambition and our vision for the future. Looking at Page 12. In this program of Lagercrantz towards SEK 1 billion, we have also reorganized into the 5 divisions. I won't go through this in detail currently. We have done that before, but it's important to highlight that this is a new thing for us that we are sort of moving towards more sectors with underlying structural growth and doing acquisition in those markets will mean that we will both benefit from the M&A, but also experience some better organic growth along the way. And I think you can see some good signs of that already with this focus, both internally and externally towards the M&A market along the way as well. Looking at Page 13, you can see also a key ambition that we have within Lagercrantz is to build the share of proprietary products. We've had the aim of 75% proprietary products for a few years now, and we are basically approaching that. We were at 67%, I think it was a quarter ago. And we are now at the 69%, as you can see there. The value-adding distribution will still be important to us. We have some really good performing companies there as well. But along the way, we have seen that the margins and the growth opportunities for proprietary products are better. And therefore, we would like to move in the direction of more proprietary products and the aim for 75%. I think this will be the base for both sort of building margins even further, but also to experience some even better organic growth along the way. And when we look in our portfolio, we can see that there are companies we have within the group that are more proprietary products are both growing faster, but also have a better performance when it comes to margins and return on capital as well. So this is a clear strategic ambition for us to move in that direction. In line with this, on Page 14, we have been following up on our gross margin development. You could see that along the way here, as we refined the portfolio that we have and developed with more acquisitions in the right direction, we have been building our gross margins along the way for many years. Great to see that we have this development. And you can see that we also now, in rolling 12 months, have a good 38.3%. It was a little bit lower here in the last quarter. And I think that has to do mostly with raw material prices that have increased. And we are still in the process of sort of raising prices and compensating for that through different initiatives in order to fully sort of compensate for the changes in the lead times and the shortages and higher raw material prices and freight prices and that type of thing, the cost inflation really. So that will happen here in the coming quarters, I'm pretty sure of that. And I'd also like to move on to Page 15, where we can see the Lagercrantz towards SEK 1 billion in terms of sustainability. As already mentioned, for us, it's most important we will, on a group level, work with the ESG initiatives, and we are doing that and following up and working with that. But we also have the 50 plus local initiatives in each of the companies. And we will not follow up on that. We launched that list this a year ago, and we will now follow up how each company has performed around that in the group. So that would be interesting to see here in the months to come, really. Expanding on opportunities within acquisitions is on Page 16, which is also part of the Lagercrantz towards the SEK 1 billion. As pointed out, we made 12 acquisitions here in the last 12 months, and there were 7 acquisitions here in the last 9 months. That adds some SEK 665 million in sales volume. And you can see the different companies. What we have been doing here is that we have been moving more towards driving multiple teams of doing M&A. We are doing it more and more in the different divisions and building resources and capabilities on a divisional level when it comes to acquisitions. And the intention here is to be able to drive multiple M&A simultaneously throughout the group. And I think that is about to happen. We have a very strong pipeline and it feels great to sort of develop Lagercrantz in this direction. During the quarter, let's look at the recent acquisitions we made. On Page 17, you can see the AC Antennas, which is a smaller company that we acquired here in Denmark here during the quarter. We usually put together a factsheet like this of all the acquisitions that we make and here is the AC Antennas. And you can see both a very strong sort of EBITA margin level and that is pushing the margins in the International division. This is an add-on acquisition to the ISIC company that we already had in Denmark. So this is a boost to the ISIC business and to the International division. During the quarter, we also concluded the Geonor, which came in from the 1st of November. On Page 18, you have a factsheet around that. A company in Norway, which sells you technical, hydrological, metrological, and environmental equipment and solutions measuring rain and snow and other types of your technical measurement. And it fits right into the Control division, had also some very strong EBITA margins and a new company within that division. After the quarter, we've also concluded the Westmatic, which is more of a sizable deal that, on Page 19, you see a factsheet around that. Westmatic is working with our environmentally friendly and automated washing systems for heavy-duty vehicles for buses, trains, trucks and construction equipment. They have business in Arvika and are covering basically Sweden and Norway and the Nordics here, but also have a business -- so half of the business is basically in the U.S., working out of Buffalo in Upstate New York and doing very well. They have been through a turnaround here in the last few years and have experienced now some good growth and doing it very well here in 2021, and we feel confident that this will continue going forward. Looking at Page 20. We also, here in January, closed the deal of ARAS Security, which is then a company that adds to the TecSec division, delivering different types of security and alarm systems and access control systems in Denmark based on a strong platform. And you can see how they developed a very strong EBITA margin and a very strong business in the Danish scope, which will add to the TecSec division. So a very strong add-on there. To the TecSec division, we also, earlier on this year, concluded the CW Lundberg. We have a factsheet for that here on Page 21 as well. This is a very important acquisition for us and has been delivering very well here so far during these 8 months or so they have been with the group. Also, the Libra, on Page 22, is a more sizable deal that came also in here in April as part of the division International. That's a few bigger acquisitions and an increased pace of acquisitions along the way. To round off, I think it's great to work with Lagercrantz and develop the group along the way. And looking at the financial overview, you can see how we've developed over a long period of time. And you can see that we exceeded the SEK 5.5 billion in net sales, and we have some strong EBITA margin, an all-time high here in the rolling 12 months. And the EBT growth is at 50%, and the earnings per share growth is at 46%. So it's a great time to work for Lagercrantz at present. I think that was the presentation I intended to hold here. And I think we will open up for Q&A. [Operator Instructions].

[Victor Hansen, Research Analyst]

Can you hear me?

[Jörgen Wigh, President, CEO & Director]

Yes.

[Victor Hansen, Research Analyst]

Great. So this is Victor Hansen from Nordea Markets. So you wrote that M&A contributed SEK 175 million in sales. And I'm wondering if you have the number for the M&A add to EBITA in the quarter as well. And then perhaps roughly how much of the 45% year-on-year EBITA uplift is attributable to M&A?

[Jörgen Wigh, President, CEO & Director]

We have not disclosed that number. I think I gave you a rough idea here earlier on when I said that I think around 60% or so is coming from organically and the rest through M&A.

[Victor Hansen, Research Analyst]

All right. And then on the organic operating leverage, looking at Electrify, I think it was quite soft, 6% to my calculations. And you, of course, alluded to this in your presentation. But I'm wondering if it's harder in this segment to mitigate the supply chain turbulence and push through costs to customers. And then how do you expect this to improve ahead?

[Jörgen Wigh, President, CEO & Director]

I think we have a few very strong companies, some of the strongest that we have within the group, within the Electrify division. We have the Elpress, it's the group's biggest company, and they are working quite a lot with electrical connection systems that are very sort of copper based. So the products are very copper-based. So I don't think they have a tougher time to sort of drive through or to compensate based on their market position. They have very strong market positions. On the other hand, I think the turbulence and the raw material cost increases have been more significant within that sector due to that the companies have more metal-based raw materials. So it will take a little bit longer time, but I think they will be able to compensate along the way. I think it will just take a little bit longer time. That's my answer.

[Victor Hansen, Research Analyst]

Great. And then I can find a similar dynamic with rather low operating leverage in TecSec, despite its growing 19% organically on my estimates. And yes, basically, the same question here as for Electrify, the low operating leverage. And if you can compensate it.

[Jörgen Wigh, President, CEO & Director]

Well, I think the biggest company within the TecSec division is currently the newly acquired CW Lundberg, and they're also quite metal-based. So they also have -- the second biggest company there is the R-Con business. And they are also working with increased raw material prices, and they also are working with sort of -- they will also need to compensate going forward here a little bit more than they have. So it's not maybe the operational leverage, it might be higher in Electrify, but it's not very far from that in TecSec either, I would say.

[Victor Hansen, Research Analyst]

All right. Understood. Then looking at Niche Products. So you grew sales here by SEK 100 million year-on-year. And I'm wondering if you could provide some color on what's driving the organic portion, which I think represents up to 60% of the total sales increase here? And then how sustainable this organic growth is, because you also alluded to that Tormek have quite tough comps, for instance.

[Jörgen Wigh, President, CEO & Director]

Yes. Tormek is doing very well, and they have also launched some new products, which we feel are very promising. So that's in their favor going forward, but that's not affecting here in this quarter. I think this quarter, it was mostly Nikodan and it was Wapro, and Nikodan experienced good growth and some good customer experiences and winning customers in Denmark with their sort of conveyor systems and packaging systems that they're working with. And Wapro experienced some good growth in the U.S. with their [indiscernible] that they're working with in sewer systems and that type of thing in the U.S. So Wapro has experienced some really good growth in the U.S., and they also acquired the Proagria, it's been renamed to Riawatech, which is a company here in Denmark, which is also coming in very nicely for them.

[Victor Hansen, Research Analyst]

Excellent. And I have a few more questions. So for group costs, they increased quite a bit in the quarter. And I'm wondering, is this mostly one-off related to M&A? Or what's driving the steep increase here?

[Jörgen Wigh, President, CEO & Director]

Peter, maybe you have -- are you with us here, Peter? You need to unmute yourself, star 6.

[Peter Thysell, Chief Financial Officer]

Yes. Can you hear me?

[Jörgen Wigh, President, CEO & Director]

Yes. Maybe you can give us some color on what we experienced around the common costs or the group costs?

[Peter Thysell, Chief Financial Officer]

Well, first of all, I don't think it has been dramatic. But of course, part of it is increased cost for materials, as we have mentioned, and also electricity. We have also seen a few more employees. No dramatic changes because, as you can remember, in 2020, Lagercrantz reduced the number of employees, if we exclude the acquisitions. And now that we are growing so fast organically, we have hired a few more people, but I don't see any dramatic increases in the cost.

[Jörgen Wigh, President, CEO & Director]

I think that the question was related to the parent cost, isn't that what you mean, Victor?

[Victor Hansen, Research Analyst]

Just the group cost. Because they were SEK 19 million now in Q3. Last Q3, they were SEK 12 million, and the last quarter, it was SEK 8 million.

[Jörgen Wigh, President, CEO & Director]

Right, I agree with that. And I think that we made some extra reservations. I would need to look into it even more. But I think 2 things that are related to that. One is that we are a little bit more -- we are building some overhead in terms of divisional management, and there has been some cost around that. We've also had, as you mentioned, some costs related to M&A, which is coming in there. And the third thing is that we have increased the bonus reservation here in the quarter, which we picked up a little bit more here compared to what we did the last quarter. So a little bit of different things, but I think we made a calculation around it. It should be -- all in all, the group cost should be around SEK 14 million, SEK 15 million per quarter on a normal basis.

[Victor Hansen, Research Analyst]

Wonderful. And then just a final question. If you can mention roughly how much of the organic sales increase is related to price and how much is related to volume?

[Jörgen Wigh, President, CEO & Director]

It's really impossible because we have so many companies and so many different products and mix and a lot of different things. But we have been quite keen on raising prices. And I think we are doing it very well in our companies. When we hear about sort of the level of cost inflation and how we have compensated and keeping our margins at a very good level and really on the same level or almost at the same level, I think it's great to see the work that has been done. But I don't have a breakdown for you. I don't.

[Unknown Analyst]

Can you hear me?

[Jörgen Wigh, President, CEO & Director]

Yes.

[Unknown Analyst]

Marcus here. So a couple of questions. Picking up maybe on the last point of the previous answer about prices. So do I understand you right that there are more price increases in the system which have not had effect yet, which would come through in the first half of next year?

[Jörgen Wigh, President, CEO & Director]

Yes. Yes. We see that in some instances. We see that within the Electrify division, and we see that within the TecSec division, where we have companies where we feel that have sort of announced price increases, but they have not taken effect yet.

[Unknown Analyst]

Okay. Okay. Perfect. And then talking about the gross margin. So the gross margin is flattish for rolling 12 months, and then you were referring to raw material prices being the reason for that. If I try to tie the margin to your long-term target, about 15% growth in EBT levels, I would also assume that 75% of all proprietary products gives another 5, 6 percentage points to get there should also mean that the gross margins, you also see upside in the gross margins. So that should mean, right, that the level of sales increase to get to 15% should be lower. Can you talk a little bit about it. I think you talked about it before, but can you remind us about how you think about these different components to get to the 15%?

[Jörgen Wigh, President, CEO & Director]

Well, the EBITA margin is already at 16.1%, right? But I feel when we look down in different sort of businesses that we look into acquiring, I think that we have a tendency to see or the pattern is that within proprietary products, we usually see a gross margin of 40% to 50%, while we, in the distribution business, usually have something around 28% to 32%. So by increasing the level of more proprietary products from 69 to 75, there will be sort of an incremental possibility to raise the gross margins and also the net margins. And the net margins, I mean, that you can see basically from the type of acquisitions that we make. So looking at the factsheets that I presented on each of the sort of acquisitions we make, you can see the sort of the average where we're at, and you can basically, yes, make some simulation around that, if you'd like.

[Unknown Analyst]

But if I'm looking forward and you think about what kind of companies you would like to acquire and if you look at your pipeline, there is more margin potential, I would assume, yes. So the 16% is kind of not a level where, I mean, there's upside from that. You see an upside potential still on the margin, right?

[Jörgen Wigh, President, CEO & Director]

Yes. Even though I internally don't -- I think we have been doing a very good job in building margins. I think we have basically really been pushing our margins over a long period of time. Internally, I would also like to push the organic growth. So I think it's important to feel the balance there. So it's not all about margins. It's also about organic growth. And therefore, I think we would like to see a better organic growth. And now we've seen it for 3 quarters, but I'd like to have that as a more of a sustainable level or increasing it to the 5% or at least half of our growth would come organically. I think it's important to highlight that, that's also been pushed here internally. But some improvement in the margin is reasonable to expect, yes.

[Unknown Analyst]

And if we look at demand in the quarter. So what I might take kind of from the report that we've seen overall in general is that the quarter kind of started out slowish in October, then picked up through the quarter, then January seems quite strong as well. Would that be a view that you would subscribe to?

[Jörgen Wigh, President, CEO & Director]

Yes. Well, I don't think it has been that of a change really. I think it's been strong all throughout the last 6 months of 2021.

[Unknown Analyst]

Kind of a broad recovery and not kind of a good demand level overall. Is it the way to subscribe it right now, not just to pick up?

[Jörgen Wigh, President, CEO & Director]

Yes.

[Unknown Analyst]

And then...

[Jörgen Wigh, President, CEO & Director]

But November and December was a bit stronger than October. That's also true, but it's not significantly different, no.

[Unknown Analyst]

Okay. Okay. Okay. And then finally, if I can just ask about sick leaves. So there's been some questions and some talk about sick leave levels and what that could mean for, in particular, Q1, et cetera. If you look at the sick leave level at the end of the year and the beginning of the year, is this something we should be concerned about? Or have you handled this in a good way, you think?

[Jörgen Wigh, President, CEO & Director]

I think we've handled it in a good way. I think it's important to understand how it looks in a specific company. Usually, we have companies with some 30, 40, 50 employees, and the sick leave has been high. I think it's like in the rest of society. I think we here talk about sort of 30% to 40% of people being absent from work. And of course, that's affecting to some extent. But then again, with the small companies that we have, we usually manage to sort of get our hands around it, and yes, people work extra hours and cover for each other and therefore, it's been handled, I think, in a very good way in our companies, even though we have high levels of sick leaves. I don't think we are higher than anyone else, but it's been a puzzle in each company to sort of figure out how to get the deliveries done and get everything in place. But I also think that when we feel that we have this sort of situation here with us, I think we also need to realize that that's what the customers are experiencing as well. And therefore, I think maybe they are postponing 1 or 2 orders or postponing 1 or 2 deliveries. Yes, it's creating a hassle for, I think, more larger companies than we are most of the time. So it's not a big thing. And I think already, it's passing over. I think people are coming back now. It's improving, yes.

[Unknown Analyst]

Yes, it seems that way, but I'm just trying to get a feel. I'm asking basically everyone. And of course, you don't see any more of this than anyone else, but it could still. Depending on what kind of workforce you have and what abilities you have to work from home, et cetera. It's of course -- I mean, if you have 25% of all kids in Sweden being absent at 1 point in time at some place, that can cause quite dramatic effect, right? So depending. All right. Well, those were my questions.

[Max Bacco, Analyst]

Can you hear me?

[Jörgen Wigh, President, CEO & Director]

Yes, we can.

[Max Bacco, Analyst]

This is Max Bacco from ABG. Just 1 question from me, a bit more long term. So if we look ahead, and this is something you touched upon already, but our estimates and consensus estimates expect you to maintain the margin at this high level, slightly above 16%. Is it possible for you to elaborate a bit of the margin expansion we have seen since pre-pandemic. And if you could say something about how much has been driven by internal structural improvements and margin accretive acquisitions and how much has been temporary cost savings due to, for example, lower market activity and so on?

[Jörgen Wigh, President, CEO & Director]

It is a very difficult one. I think 15% is the long-term target for us. I think it is reasonable to maybe elaborate on that and maybe increase that a little bit based on where we are at present. But let's see how things develop. I think what has been behind the 16% is really a good underlying growth, a good underlying market. We have some lower cost than maybe in a normal case due to the people are not traveling. We are not sort of -- yes, we're back home again, right? So I think that's also sort of affecting the margin a little bit. But then again, we also have -- I mean, looking at the portfolio we have, we have quite a number of companies that have EBITA margins well above 20%. And therefore, it's also about sort of elaborating on that. I think we would like to continue on the sort of level we are, and we will sort of fight for that, but to sort of -- yes, promise that or say that we will always be at the 16% or above. Well, let's work with that and see where we end up. I think it's reasonable to stay at that level. But let's see what happens when things are fully back to normal and we're experiencing some average growth rather than very high growth.

[Max Bacco, Analyst]

Okay, perfect.

[Jörgen Wigh, President, CEO & Director]

Good. Do we have some additional questions? Okay. All right. Thank you, everyone, for listening in. And myself and Peter are available for any additional questions you might have. So don't hesitate to call us if you'd like and have a sort of a short Q&A or one-to-one if you'd like with us. We would like to answer any questions you might have. So thank you for listening in, and have a good day to you all. Thank you.