Note AB (publ)

STO:NOTE

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q1

[Johannes Lind-Widestam, executive]

Welcome to this Q1 presentation of NOTE. As always, how do I describe this quarter and where we're standing. Yet another quarter quite much affected by inventory optimization by -- among our customers. That means that we are -- they are buying less than they sell. We see that some segments are doing quite weak. We will come back to that later on in the presentation, but we can see that the Greentech sector is not picking up as we had expected when we entered this quarter. We're now comparing our Q1 numbers compared to quite low numbers last year already. So this surprises us a little bit. It's quite far below our customers' communicated expectations as well. So that recovery that we have been talking about for some quarters is still not happening. That is one of the reasons or probably the main reason why we did not end up in the mid of our guidance rather in the lower end of the guidance.

We can also see that this segment is not expecting to go so much better in the second quarter either. So we will see quite slow sales in the Greentech segment also in the second quarter. After that, the indication is quite much stronger, but we have seen that quite many quarters now that they are forecasting higher demand than within their reach. So Greentech is a segment that is still doing fairly weak in our portfolio. We can also see that, yes, Industrial, as I said before, the last 2 quarters, we are expecting the majority of the growth coming from Industrial segment. That is very valid, as you see.

On the cost side, I mean, we talked after fourth quarter that we are adjusting the cost base. I would say that we have done that fairly good. We are a few -- what we call it, a few points higher than in profitability in the first quarter compared to the fourth quarter last year. We are not where we want to be. We have been up to around 10%, and that's where we are aiming also for this year, even with the start. We don't see that as unrealistic, given where we see stand and what we see. As I said in the -- after fourth quarter, we are going to see the first quarter slow, second quarter potentially higher. We see that the speed entering second quarter is still a bit lower than we expected when we were looking at the year 3 months ago. But we are seeing that the demand from the customer side is improving quarter-by-quarter, if I look at their forecasted volumes.

So we're still expecting to see quite low Q1. That's very easy to say because we have now communicated it. Second quarter, we are expecting that to be, yes -- in line with Q1, potentially slightly higher. We have -- even if we guide quite low, we have higher ambitions. Third and fourth quarter, we are expecting to start to see organic growth again. So that's how we see the year.

We are also seeing that the sales towards our customers are lower than their sales to their customers, where we can measure that and where we have the transparency from them. And that tells me that we are on the road to recovery. I got the question earlier today with how we see upon the underlying demand. And we have seen that we have been growing roughly 20% in year-over-year organically the last 5 years. I don't expect the market to be at that level this year.

The last update I got from the industry, what we call statistics, is that they are expecting the EMS market to be flat or decline 1% to 2% this year. That is the underlying growth for this year. But trending on the 7% in the longer period. We should know that in 2023, the last number I saw was roughly 20% growth for the industry. So we -- what everyone that tries to understand the EMS market is saying that in '23, the industry delivered the growth of 24%. So instead of just delivering what the customers wanted, they delivered a higher growth that came from the long lead times that were implemented during the component shortages. Now market is stabilizing, and we see that everyone is trimming down their inventories and that will have this effect. Then again, we are into a slower economy in general in Europe, and that has an effect.

So my prediction is that we are -- if we have been seeing 20% year-over-year growth for NOTE side, I would say that our customers are now -- customer sales this year are probably in the 5% to 7% growth if I look at their sales and their customers. So I still believe that our customer base will grow with the portfolios that we produce this year. Yes, a long introduction.

If we go into the numbers, yes, sales roughly flat SEK 1.55 billion. That includes 4% acquired growth. So we are 4% negative on organic. Operating profit. Underlying operating profit is more what we are trying to measure ourselves from 8.8%. Last year, 10.2%. Last year, we had SEK 5 million in positive currency revaluations. And this year, we had SEK 2 million negative.

And we have talked about how the big swings of the currency is affecting our profitability. And I also said that it doesn't really matter if the Swedish currency is low or high. It's the fluctuations that is affecting the result, much more than where the actual level is. Then you can argue saying that, okay, if the dollar increases in relative size to Swedish, the price will go up because we have this currency converters in our agreements. And then our customers will pay a higher price, but that is basically how it works. The positive side with a weak Swedish krona is that the added value in Sweden is becoming lower compared to others. So the Swedish competitiveness is becoming stronger, if that's the case. We can also see that the sales from the Swedish entities are roughly 50% of the NOTE group sales.

And that is -- we entered that level last year. We are still on that level. So as I said before, it doesn't really matter where the currency is, but the fluctuations will have an effect on us. And that's why we have started to show you the effects of it because going back some 3, 4 years the effects were very small because fluctuations were not that strong. The last 2, 3 years, it has been really big fluctuations, and that has a big impact to us. Over time, it will often flatten itself out. Last but not least, cash flow positive, SEK 84 million. It's also important and why are we seeing positive cash flow? It's yes, we are earning money that will convert into cash flow, but we also see that inventory is declining in a good way. I think we had SEK 90 million in inventory reduction in the quarter.

It's the third quarter in a row where we have seen inventory reductions. And we also see that the -- the cash flow will be like 2, 3 months after the inventory reduction comes because that's the payment terms from the suppliers that will have an effect. So given the inventory reduction we see, we are also predicting that in second quarter, we will have a good cash flow. That's what this indicates. So we also see that what I said in the last few quarters that we will have a strong cash flow in the coming quarters, but it will also fluctuate depending on how all the numbers will come in. So that's very important. Our cash position is strong, and it's getting stronger every quarter as it looks now.

If we look at -- on the 2 segments, Western Europe, slight increase. It's basically acquired growth. Rest of the world, decline, we see that if I look at the sites, we see that Estonia is doing fairly flat, China is reducing. What we can see, if we look on the year as such, we will see that China will decline. We will see a much weaker demand in China compared to all other markets that we are in. And as I said before, we have also adjusted our sales in China to more be going towards Chinese companies or Western European owned companies with assembly in China. So we see that the demand in China and Asia is weaker at the moment compared to the rest of the world. So I think China in itself were down with like 20% in the quarter. So that is also one effect. We have seen that, and we have taken that into consideration when we have done our guidance for the year. But China is weak.

And that has an effect on the margins on the rest of the world. We are -- yes, Western Europe, 9.7%, still not where we want to be, but the big reduction this quarter is coming from rest of the world. We are expecting both the Western Europe and rest of the world to increase, but we will see that Western Europe will have a significantly higher margin this year than the rest of the world primarily driven by the weaker sales of China. We have adjusted China quite significantly in the cost side, but it's -- we are not expecting to reach the same profit level in China this year as we did last year.

Going forward, segments. If we look at this, we can see that strong growth in Industrial. Now it's around 60% of our sales, highest number in quite a few years. We see that growth is 12%. As you know, defense is part of this segment, but we see growth in the segment even despite, even if we exclude defense. So Industrial is a strong segment at the moment. Several accounts that we started to ramp up in the second half last year has continued to go well. So we are expecting Industrial to continue to be on a strong level for the rest of the year. We have good order coverage in this segment.

Communication. We have ramped up several accounts in the last year. If you remember, we had a good growth throughout last year. This year, we see that many of the installations are postponed. You see 5G -- the rollout of 5G base stations is significantly slower than the operators has communicated earlier. And we see that our customers that are delivering into this are affected by this, and they are pushing out their orders to better match what they see on the market. This has probably an effect of the slower economy and the higher interest rate where they don't want to invest so much in the systems as they have done in the past. I expect this to bounce back, but it will take more than 1 or 2 quarters. So Communication is expected to be on a lower level this year than it has been before.

Medtech also very strong growth last year, more than 100%. We are on a good level. We are expecting that Medtech will jump a little bit up and down. It depends on what orders we get out for the quarters. I don't expect it to grow this year, but we will see how this quarter or how the segment will end.

Then Greentech I looked at some numbers in 2021 and the first half of '22, Greentech was up to almost 30% of our sales. Now it's down to, I think, the number was 14% or something at the moment. So it has basically halved in relative size. So when our sales has grown significantly, Greentech has actually been reducing also in actual numbers during the last 2 years. So the recovery that the customers has expected and communicated to us and what we have then read out of these expectations has not came in. So this is one of the segments that we are very disappointed in the sales. And we are also looking at the orders for the second quarter is not indicating that we will see a swing upwards.

So if I look at the segments, we will be -- Industrial will continue to drive our sales, and that is what I expect for the year. The Communication, Medtech will probably see a quite weak second quarter and then we are expecting it to bounce back with and come back with positive numbers. Greentech, if I look at what the customers are telling me, it will bounce back, but that has been the story for the last 4 quarters, and it has not yet happened. So we are looking into Greentech with some, how should I say, less certainty. The other segments are fairly or are easier to attract than Greentech.

A lot of start-up and scale-up companies that are expecting to grow, but their market has not came in as it -- as they have seen.

Some highlights. I think, as always, I have this as my top remark every time. It's quality and delivery is what is important in our industry. As long as we continue to deliver good numbers here and our continuing to drive efficiencies out of our production. We will have a good dialogue with our customers. You could argue with saying, okay, we have seen a quite slow sales the last, say, 2, 3 quarters, but we have not lost one single customer during this period. So my expectation is that when the customers bounce back, we will be gaining from that.

And we don't have any discussions with customers that they are not seeing that we're performing and that we have exit discussions. So the customers are staying and they are fairly happy and we do like customer service every year, and that is very positive. Every year, it's very positive. And I think this year is more positive. It is the best year ever if I got the information correct. So it's -- I still expect that we have a strong, solid and fairly loyal customer base. And that is where the majority of our growth is coming. If I look at the sales increase the last 2 years, the existing customers with extensions of the program has been contributing more than the new accounts that we have been winning. In 2020 and '21, it was the opposite, but '22 and onwards, existing customers has grown more or more of our organic growth has came from organic or from existing customers relative to new customers. So that is -- and we expect that to continue.

We'll talk about order stock decreases. We have 18% lower order backlog now compared to 1 year ago. If I look at how many quarters in advance customers is placing orders today compared to 1 year ago, it's a significant difference. Last year, it is -- or in '23 at Q1, we were still looking at 9 to 12 months of order horizon. Now we're often taking orders on 1 to 4 weeks. But then we have an agreement covering the fluctuations within the first say, 4 months. So transparency in terms of how long order visibility we have is much lower today than it was 1 year ago. However, this is how our industry has been living for all the years, except for the years where we have component shortages. So this is a normalization of the market. It doesn't mean that we will see lower sales or that we will see customers starting to move production around. It's more that they want to place the order quite late because that will reflect what they need rather than placing orders, say, 9 to 12 months in advance. So this is a normalization of patent rather than not something else. We have been talking about this I was one of the only transparent CEOs when this increased because we had like order increasing with 100% some quarters that -- and we were very open saying that this is not a reflection of how we will see the next 2 quarters. This is more of an extension of the order length. So now we're going back to normal. And that is, in my opinion, fairly good because that also increases the -- how should I say, if you win a new business, if they have placed orders for 12 months in advance to their current EMS supplier, then the time it takes for us to take over that production is very long.

Now when it's normalized, it's easier to get access to new wins faster. And we have a very low exit from customers. We are winning much more than we are losing. We're relatively set not losing any big order or a customer. So for us, this is good. We also talk a lot about investments and CapEx to support our growth. For those that knows, we are extending our factories. We are increasing our capacity. So our view of the future is very bright. We would not do this if we didn't see this demand coming. So if we look at what our customers are expecting, say, 4 to 6, 8 quarters in advance, we see very positively up on that and we see that we will gradually come back into those numbers. I've also said in the past that increases comes when they come, they are steeper and faster than you expect because then you also see a stock buildup. And in many cases, it's not only our customers, it's their distribution channels that are also building stock because they want to meet the current increased demand with higher preparation. But that comes negatively when the demand is declining. Every step in the chain are decreasing their inventories. And that's what we have seen. So fluctuations are, how should I say, quicker and deeper or higher than we have seen in the past. So that is something to keep in mind.

Then you can argue, indeed, why couldn't we see this clearer 2 quarters away, but that's -- we can always learn. I think we and the peers are going to see that this is the same scenario for many of us. But that's how it is. We're still investing quite heavily and this is one of the reasons why we can continue to drive our headcount relatively compared to our sales lower and lower and we have a lot more to do. So even if we have been doing this for several years, we have a lot more efficiencies to take out from our factories. And we will do that, and we are doing it. That's part of our daily tasks. So I'm very pleased to see what we're doing there.

Return of our operating capital, 23%. We have been up almost 30% when we were doing at top. I expect us to come back to that in the coming years. Always strong balance sheet for equity ratio of 45%. It's the highest we have seen in several years. Our liquidity situation is stronger than, I think, ever since I started. So good preparations for the quarters and years to come.

Outlook. Second quarter, I think we're still seeing that the pace we have in the first quarter is where we're standing. We have some signals that it might increase. I want to see that before I guide it to you. So quite moderate or modest guidance for the second quarter. I think our cost run rate is improved. So if we hit the same sales as we did in Q1, we will see higher margins. For the year, we are still seeing positive views from our customer sites. So we are -- and that is what we try to indicate when we look at the year to come.

And also we are heavily driven by margin -- or sales will drive margin. We are adjusting cost level to where we stand. So as soon as we get good growth, we will see that our operating margin will come back. For those that have followed us until the end of '23, we had 15% fall-through on our organic sales increase. And I don't see why we should not come back to that when we see the sales coming back. I've also said that I think that 5%, 6%, 7% organic growth is, as I said, if you are below that, you will struggle with improving your margin. So we need to come back to that level, then we will start to see that the margins will increase year-over-year. So we are expecting to turn the negative swing on our margin development. So that is basically what we're seeing.

I think the market is really strong, looking over a longer period of time. There is no indications that the usage of electronics will decline in the society. There's no signs rather that regionalization that is ongoing will stop. I would say that the regionalization trend is getting stronger every quarter. We with a high footprint in the relatively seen strong industrial countries, we'll probably see higher sales increase relative to Europe as such because Europe, as such is quite burdened with the Mediterranean countries that are not growing in their Industrial side as well as the Northern European countries are doing. I think our position is very favorable going forward. And we have made our growth in the countries that we see is most beneficial for us. We still lack some dots on the map as I call it, but we will see if we can close some of them.

Our preparation in terms of funding is very strong at the moment. So we are actively looking into the acquisitions possibilities that we see. There is no one that is as far in the pipeline that we can talk about, but we are, as always, keeping dialogue with a few companies at all time, some more interesting than others, of course.

But looking at this, we are -- what you should bring with you after this presentation, I would say sales, we're not happy where we are. We are where we are. We will do whatever we can, and we do a lot of activities to come back into growth.

Profitability. We are not happy where we are, 8.8%. If you look over time, it's not a very bad position but given our last year's performance, we're not at all happy with that. And we are expecting it to come back into new levels. I would be surprised if when we closed '24, if it's not the best year in NOTE's history, meaning that we are expecting that we will beat our last year sales and that will beat last year's EBIT in money.

That is my expectations. And I think that we see what the market is indicating that, that is supported by what the customers are saying. And then we have to, of course, act and work accordingly and ensure that we take out all the benefits we can from where we stand. So I'm quite optimistic. But when we look at '24 as a year for the aggregated EMS market. It will be one of the -- it will be the weakest year since 2020. That is for sure. I think nothing that happens from now on will change that fact that the industry over delivered volumes in '22 and '23 that now has been -- are now depleted or are now inventories around our customers' distribution channels, and that has to be depleted until we see that the growth come back.

We started the stock depletion earlier than the peers. If you look at our Q4, it was significantly weaker in sales growth compared to peers. And I think that we were much earlier in accepting that this was the case. That affected our Q4, of course. We talked about it in the Q4 and in our profit warning, we had to do in December that we were allowing this to happen. But I think that will come back in Q1 and Q2 with better sales than the peers. But again, we are reporting first. So it's easy for me to say something that I cannot look into. But that's what I expect. I will end there and I will open the floor for discussions and we start with the questions in the room.

[Johannes Lind-Widestam, executive]

So anyone? Of course, Carlos first.

[Unknown Analyst]

Maybe a question on the inventories at your customers or the inventories at your customer sites. What are you getting for feedback when you're speaking with them? Are the customers -- are the inventories coming down? Or what is your impression?

[Johannes Lind-Widestam, executive]

Yes, it is. I can -- normally, we have a good visibility for maybe 35% of our sales from customers, meaning that we have direct access to see what they have in their own inventories. And we see that those levels are coming down, not as fast as we had expected because we were expecting this to be fairly over at this point. It's still going to drag into second quarter. For the other customers, we have to take their -- how should I say, their word for it. And we can see that if I look at the sales or the purchase forecast that we get is that they are gradually improving the numbers when I look through the month of this year. So that is an indication of that they are going to see an increase and it's important because if the forecasts come within the next 6 months, it also drives their material commitments. So we can see that our increasing forecast within the committed period, and that's very important for us.

[Unknown Analyst]

And are you seeing any signs of that order intake is starting to pick up? Or I know you don't report it, but I guess is order intake still a little bit lower than net sales in Q1 or...

[Johannes Lind-Widestam, executive]

I could answer you, but I don't have the number. If I look at my gut feeling on that is that we still see slightly lower order intake because we -- otherwise, we would have seen higher demand in the next quarter. I don't see this as how shall I say, alarming in that way. I don't expect the second quarter to be -- I expect it to be within our guidance. But it's an indication that we're slightly lower than last year.

[Unknown Analyst]

And is it possible maybe I also know this is a difficult question to answer, but the sales of your, let's say, legacy customers, how much they grew or contributed to growth in the quarter? And how much the new customer wins in the last 1 year contributed?

[Johannes Lind-Widestam, executive]

I think we can -- a very honest answer on that is that the time from you win a new project until it is implemented, it has extended. So customers are dragging out of implementation of new products at the moment. We can see a clear delay in those projects among -- especially among the smaller customers. If you take the large industrial customers, they are just moving on as normally. But on the startup or scale up or they are significantly slower in new product introductions than we have seen in the last say, 2, 3 years.

[Unknown Analyst]

And already seeing any signs of, would you say, more price pressure from your customers that want to push down pricing, I guess, materials, et cetera, down quite a bit this rate?

[Johannes Lind-Widestam, executive]

Yes, you can see. I mean we look at this every month, and we see where the price -- overall price is going. And we see that in '23, we saw a reduction of maybe 8%, 9% on material price, but that also were an effect of the spot price this year, we also see a reduction. So we are -- I would say that we're very close to getting back to where component prices were, say, 3-1/2 years ago. So more normalization is where we're entering. And that has, of course, an effect on our top line because we are adjusting pricing when the boom cost is going down. I don't see so much pressure on the margin side. It's more that we have to come down or follow the material price reductions. And that is, as I said before, we're quite transparent here. So this has a direct effect of this.

[Unknown Analyst]

And just the last question from my side on the receivables, so on. They were up quite a bit despite lower sales or flat sales. Can you elaborate a bit on what is impacting this and if there's any signs of credit losses or something like that?

[Johannes Lind-Widestam, executive]

I would say that in Q1, we had significantly higher sales in March compared to the other quarters and relatively seen to last year. That was also the case. That has an effect. We also see that we had several customers that were late and they have closed their late payments in the first days or weeks in April.

[Unknown Analyst]

If March was a good month, then you should have a good run rate maybe going into Q2?

[Johannes Lind-Widestam, executive]

Or we stole from -- I'm just kidding. We will see. I think if I look at it like this, I still see it's very hard to predict. We are expecting that it will be lower. I have a good overall feeling that the market is coming back or that our market is coming back. It's hard to say for everyone else because it's very customer dependent. So I'm still confident that it will start to come back in this quarter. But I would want to see it before we start to guide for it.

Any other questions? Okay. Then I'll start with questions from the web. I'll start one from Aviend. How much sales comes from the defense industry? And do you see increased demand from this sector.

I don't have the exact number. I would say that 6% to 7% of our Q1 sales were from defense, could be up to 8% in that range. And yes, I expect that the increase will continue over the year and also in the years to come.

Next question also from Aviend. A question with regards to consolidation in the industry. Have you looked into larger consolidation of the EMS industry, not via small acquisition, but to, for example, a merger with Kitron.

I like the question. It's very hard to look into, but it's hard to merge with large peers when the industry is increasing, then the valuations are quite high. Currently, I think the EMS industry is pushed down on valuations. We see that for us and for others. But it's also hard to see that we could find a common ground with a company where, say, for example, [ Incap ], that is it could look attractive because the valuation is now maybe 60% lower than where they were picking but I would say that many of the owners are expecting to get up to the peak level. So it's very hard to convince someone to say that it's a good deal to buy on, say, 50% compared to where they were a year ago.

So I think the common ground for listed peers is very, very tricky to find that to work. Smaller, not listed, we saw Hanza buying Orbit One and that is something that we -- every time we see an opportunity, we will pursue them quite heavily because that is interesting. Size is relevant. And if you buy something that is relatively big with would say 2, 3, 4 sites, we can take out some overhead when we do the integration. So that is important. So I would say that if an opportunity will occur, we will jump on it. But so far, we have not seen that opportunity that has been a good fit for us. Looking with some historic background, we should have taken BB Electronics that was a very fantastic acquisition for Kitron, and I'm impressed with that it took it.

I don't know if I answered the question, but that's going to be my answer.

Then we go to Grund. Within industry, can you comment on drivers of growth in various verticals, please?

Yes. One is, of course,. We talked about it. That is one part, but it's also our big yes, big Industrial customers are growing fairly well in this segment. So we see that the strong brands that are maybe reporting today are also doing very well in this segment. So we see that the big industrial companies are also driving the Industrial sales. So both, but also our common platform in this segment is going well.

Next one from Lucas. Lucas from Inderes Equity research. I have 3 questions. Is the anticipated growth being realized in the Industrial sector. Additionally, are there other indices within the Industrial sector apart from defense that are showing promising development. I think I answered that in the last answer. From a macro perspective, do you anticipate demand improvement to materialize in '24, even if major central banks refrain from significant rate cuts or implement only minimal cuts this year.

I would say that what we look at is our customers' demands based on where they stand today. We are not anticipating a swing up in the market. If that happens, we will be -- it will be a positive effect for us. So we are expecting that -- we are guiding and looking at our customer base based on where we stand, not taken in consideration of what might happen if the central banks are starting to reduce their interest. So I would say that we are quite -- we look at where we stand instead of trying to make a guess of where it might be going.

Greentech and the last question from Lucas here. Greentech have developed slower than expected, why and does the outlook remain difficult? I think I touched upon it before, but I would say that our customers in this segment are not hitting their own expectations, and that will -- that is, so to say, depleted over to us and downstream. So I think the slowdown of sales of electronic cars and so on is affecting the EV charging boxes a little bit. That is the effect.

So it's -- I think it's the political question is a little bit important here, but where we stand today, I don't see that this industry will recover in the short time frame. That is why we are quite negative on the expectation on this segment.

Last question I have is from [indiscernible]. Apart from automation, how do you look upon AI and the potential for further efficiency gains other benefits.

Yes, this is a really good question. And I would say that we are using AI quite significantly when we look at how we improve our production lines. We are using machine learning, we're using that the equipment is learning on the errors that is spot, we correct them, and then they start to detect the same type of error and stop telling us that. So we are -- AI is heavily used when we make line efficient, line improvements throughout our value chain into our factories.

We can do a lot more, of course but this is one area that is quite substantial and important for us. So we are using it. We can be a lot better. We have some discussions on how to improve this internally. My only concern here is that when you open something and say that you -- we open our system, there's a lot of information there. How do we ensure that what we can extract is the information that we should be able to extract, not all information because that can be a bit of a change or a challenge. But we are looking into this segment or in this sector or whatever you call it, or this trends, and we are hoping to take out more efficiencies from this.

Okay. One more question just came up from Magnus. Could you elaborate on how you are planning on increasing the EBIT margins through 2024 when the revenue growth is expected to stay relatively flat.

Yes, I can say that we are -- when we enter second quarter, we are around 4% less head count. And we are expecting that we will see a margin improvement on the top line because the material content is going down. So we will see -- if the quarter goes as we expect, we will see slightly lower material part of our sales, then we will see that the cost side is kept at the same or slightly lower level than in the first quarter. So our expectation is that if we hit the same top line, we will have a higher EBIT margin. I don't know if that was elaborated or not or but that is what we see.

Any other questions from the room or from the web?

[Unknown Analyst]

Just one question. You announced after the closing of the quarter that you're acquiring the facility in Herrljunga. Can you maybe just elaborate a bit on what's the plan with that facility? And I guess you buy it as you want to expand some time, but just give us some background regarding that, please.

[Johannes Lind-Widestam, executive]

Yes. It's -- you can say that it's -- when we acquired the business in Herrljunga, we -- all owner remained as the owner of the real estate. We did not agree on the price of the estate at that point. Now we announced that he wanted to sell the property to us or to someone else. And then we looked at it and we could find common ground on what the valuation should be, and then we decided to acquire it because we feel it's a good deal to make. And we are a bit hesitant to allow a new developer in there to own the facility. We had a quite good lease level. So we did not want that to happen.

[Unknown Analyst]

And do you plan to expand in the near term or not?

[Johannes Lind-Widestam, executive]

In Herrljunga, we have probably 50% capacity increase in the current building. So when that is filled up, we are going to extend it if needed. But we have some work to do there before we're hitting that level.

The more I speak, the more questions come in. So I have 2 more here from first from [ Johan Bostrom ]. Have you adjusted your forecasting process to reduce risk for negative surprises, if yes, how?

This is a very -- when we do forecasting, we look at what the customer states, we look at the current run rate, we look at what -- how the -- we expect the segment or the niche that they are in to develop. And then we're making assessment of if this is -- if we believe in the number we see or not or -- and we are often using a lower number than what the customers are using when we look at the forecasting. So we take some precaution there. So that is how we do. If we are, how should I say, immune from further negative surprises, very hard to say we're -- I would say that we are getting into a scenario where we are expecting more relatively positive surprises relatively than negative. But if we're through, it's hard to say at the moment. I'd rather report a positive number and then promise a positive number.

Then we have one more from Thomas. Thank you for a well delivery report and for your transparency regarding your guidance for '24. How have you considered doing share buybacks at the share price at these levels? The intrinsic value seems to be well above today's level in the long term.

Very good question. I think that we have an Annual General Meeting later on today and where we will most -- where the Board has put up -- proposed that we should be allowed to do it within the Board's decision. So we will see upon that. I like the idea, Thomas, but I'm not the one that decides. So that will be my comment on that.

No more questions. If not, I will say that, thank you. Very good questions. I like them, so keep on sending them in. It's always easier to respond to that when I'm standing here rather than to try to think about what you might want to know. So that's always good. And I would say that I look forward for second quarter and for the rest of the year. And I hope that you will all join me for the next presentation in Q2. So thank you for today.