Second quarter 2023 (Q2 2022)

• Order intake increased year-on-year to SEK 154 million (4)
• Sales increased 3 per cent to SEK 167 million (163)
• Operating profit totalled SEK 17 million (45), corresponding to 10 per cent (28) of revenues
• Adjusted operating profit totalled SEK 17 million (45)
• Profit after tax totalled SEK 12 million (35)
• Earnings per share amounted to SEK 0.21 (0.58)
• Cash flow from operating activities totalled SEK -40 million (58)

January–June 2023 (Q2 2022)

• Order intake decreased 5 per cent year-on-year to SEK 185 million (195)
• Sales decreased 8 per cent to SEK 279 million (303)
• Operating profit totalled SEK 25 million (76), corresponding to 9 per cent (25) of revenues
• Adjusted operating profit totalled SEK 25 million (76)
• Profit after tax totalled SEK 18 million (58)
• Earnings per share amounted to SEK 0.31 (0.37)
• Cash flow from operating activities totalled SEK -77 million (80)

Events during the second quarter of 2023

• On 12 May, Permascand announced that the company was strengthening its presence in North America by signing a collaboration and supply agreement with Chemetry. Permascand is also investing in the company as a growth partner.

CEO comment

The second quarter of the year was characterised by continued changes to the revenue mix, with growth in the Electrification & Renewables and Industrial Solutions segments that successfully offset a decrease in sales in Water Treatment.

Sales for the quarter totalled SEK 167 million, up 3 per cent year-on-year. Sales were driven by robust growth in both Industrial Solutions and Electrification & Renewables. Successfully setting a new sales record for a single quarter, despite the changes to the revenue mix with a sharp decrease in sales in Water Treatment, is quite an achievement.

Order intake for the quarter totalled SEK 154 million, driven primarily by Electrification & Renewables, our future pillar, and Industrial Solutions, our stable industrial business. One of the highlights of the quarter was the order in Electrification & Renewables, under which the company will supply cells for the construction of a new lithium extraction facility, expected to be delivered in 2025. Customer activity levels continue to be high, but we are still experiencing cautiousness from customers in their orders caused by the uncertainty brought about by the situation in the global market.

Gross profit for the quarter totalled SEK 45 million. That corresponds to a gross margin of 27 per cent, which is lower than the 38 per cent achieved in the year-earlier period. We achieve a lower gross margin due to changed product mix where we in the quarter have a smaller series of manufacturing in Electrification & Renewables, and a price pressured water treatment business.

Permascand's three segments are in three different phases. Industrial Solutions is a very stable aftermarket business with good visibility and profitability. The Water Treatment business has during the period 2018-2022 gone through a strong growth phase with new installations. In total, we delivered around 5,500 cells before installations declined from the first quarter of 2023 and we expect the aftermarket business to reach significant levels after 2026 with the refurbishment of systems installed before 2018. Thus, after 2026, two out of three segments are expected to be in stable aftermarket phases. Permascand's next growth engine is Electrification & Renewables where we have an ambition to reach 5GW capacity for green hydrogen manufacturing in 2030.

Electrification & Renewables
The segment posted one of the strongest quarters in its history in terms of sales, while we experienced a high level of activity and increasingly intensive customer dialogues within all parts of the segment, electrowinning, power transmission and hydrogen. The electrowinning orders received in lithium extraction are a success in line with our strategic focus on winning business in new construction. The recoating cycle is estimated at between two and five years, which presents opportunities for attractive and recurring aftermarket business.

In green hydrogen, it is clear that our customers’ investment decisions are largely governed by the global market and financing opportunities. Owing to the investments in our production capacity over the last few years, we are ready to do our part – delivering on orders for components for production of green hydrogen on a commercial scale. We currently have over ten active customers with orders, sales and ongoing development and qualification processes. At the same time, we have another ten customers with ongoing dialog and exchange of information.

Industrial Solutions
The Industrial Solutions business area is driven by a stable and profitable aftermarket business and has potential for growth through new construction and capacity increases. The segment is our engine for the quarter. In May, we could announce that we had signed a collaboration and supply agreement with California-based Chemetry, which boosts the company’s presence in North America. The partnership pertains to commercialisation of a more efficient and sustainable process technologies for commodity chemicals. The development is proceeding in accordance with plans, with expectations that the demonstration facility at Braskem will be in full use in the first half of 2024.

Water Treatment
In water treatment, we are delivering on our existing order book. We believe that orders will not grow appreciably until after 2026, when it is expected that the segment’s aftermarket business will generate increased revenue. We are continuing to work on our offering in the area of water treatment in industry and public water supply. This is an area where we see continued potential for growth, and the possibility for our technology to be developed in a new area of application.

Outlook
Visibility in the short term remains low on how the market and customer orders will develop in the near future. It is clear that the situation in the global market is leading to restraint and caution among our customers – and their customers – in their investment decisions, which is expected to continue into the second half of the year. Given the patterns in customer orders and deliveries, we believe that sales for the full-year 2023 will be lower than that of 2022. Owing to the market environment we expect an unchanged level of our gross margin in the coming quarters.

However, the underlying long-term demand among our customers remains strong. For example, customers postponing investments in new and existing facilities result in increased operating costs, due to lower performance and higher energy consumption, which creates a pent-up need that must be met in the future. Further on, we expect that Electrification & Renewables and Industrial Solutions will continue to grow and even better offset the decrease in sales in Water Treatment. We see good chances that the first order for hydrogen on a commercial scale will be made before the end of the year. This is an area that is expected to gain in momentum in 2024 before a major breakthrough is expected in 2025.

Permascand has a strong position in the market, with our technology and solutions meeting customer expectations for quality and performance. All together, we feel positive about the long-term market outlook driven by the global green transition.

Peter Lundström, CEO Permascand

Report presentation
CEO Peter Lundström and CFO Linda Ekman will present the report in a conference call today at 10:30 CEST. The presentation will be held in English and will conclude with a Q&A session.

Webcast
https://ir.financialhearings.com/permascand-top-holding-q2-2023

Registration
To participate via teleconference, please register via the link below. After registration, you will be provided with telephone numbers and a conference ID to access the conference. You can ask questions verbally via the telephone conference.

https://conference.financialhearings.com/teleconference/?id=200910

After the presentation, a recording of the webcast will be available on the webcast link and on the company’s website www.permascand.com

Link to report
The report is attached to this announcement and can be found at: https://permascand.com/investors/financial-reports/

First quarter 2023 (Q1 2022)

• Order intake decreased 84 per cent year-on-year to SEK 31 million (191)
• Sales decreased 20 per cent to SEK 111 million (139)
• Operating profit totalled SEK 8 million (31), corresponding to 8 per cent (22) of revenue
• Adjusted operating profit totalled SEK 8 million (31)
• Profit after tax totalled SEK 6 million (24)
• Earnings per share amounted to SEK 0.10 (0.40)
• Cash flow from operating activities totalled SEK -37 million (22)

Events during the first quarter of 2023

• On 14 March, Permascand announced that the company had appointed Nariman Askarieh as interim Global Chief Commercial Officer (CCO)

CEO comment

This quarter, we focused on strengthening our operational capacity for the future. The shift in our revenue mix is increasingly evident driven by continued strong development in Industrial Solutions while Electrification & Renewables continues to grow. The trend is positive, but our growing segments did not manage to reach levels that compensate for Water Treatment, which is performing at a lower level than historically. Even though our activity levels remained high and our customer dialogues intense, the quarter was characterized by a turbulent global situation where customers are cautious in their investment decisions.

We made several operational advances during the quarter, and we are continuing to invest for growth. This includes issues such as continued automation of parts of production for electrodes and electrochemical cells, new coating technology, and continued work on the completion of our technology and innovation center to strengthen our position in the field of hydrogen. These efforts in products and product development, combined with the cutting-edge competence we recruited during the year, will be key to ensuring a leading position and increasing efficiency in our processes and working methods for the future. The investments increased our workforce by 10 per cent, mainly in sales and research and development, and led to costs increasing SEK 9 million compared with the year-earlier period.

We can confirm that several customers have been cautious about placing orders with regard to conditions in the world market and therefore postponed their orders. Order intake for the first quarter totalled SEK 31 million, attributable primarily to Electrification & Renewables, a segment with great potential.

Sales totalled SEK 111 million, down 20 per cent from the year-earlier quarter. Primarily, this is an effect of a changed revenue mix, where Industrial Solutions and Electrification & Renewables are continuing to grow, though not to the degree that they will yet compensate for the weak market performance in Water Treatment.

Gross profit for the quarter totalled SEK 32 million, corresponding to a gross margin of 29 per cent. During the quarter, we had a production mix consisting of smaller production series and Greenfield orders, which were sold with lower profitability than in normal aftermarket business. We are also experiencing continued price pressure within Water Treatment. Our flexible and scalable production ensures positive margins even at lower production volumes.

Electrification & Renewables
Both the order intake and revenue increased compared to the year-earlier period, albeit from lower levels. The activity level remains high and we are making continual progress within the development and partnership agreements we have entered in the segment. The segment was characterized by intense business development and partnership with new customers – particularly in green hydrogen and lithium extraction. As part of our Technology and Innovation Centre for green hydrogen, we are adding personnel and equipment, and are entering into several international partnerships with universities, research institutions, customers and partners. Completion of the Centre is planned for 2023.

Industrial Solutions
Industrial Solutions continued to perform strongly, and during the quarter, we achieved nearly record-high revenue from delivering on the robust order intake from earlier quarters, mainly due to delivering of greenfield orders. We continue to see growing interest from both new and existing customers, driven by the green transition. Still, we are feeling the effects of the short-term world market situation.

Water Treatment
As previously communicated, we have been experiencing a weaker and more volatile market in Water Treatment driven by customer inventory build-up. During the quarter, we experienced challenges in leveraging economies of scale in our production as a result of smaller production series and production of new products. Combined with the price pressure in the market, it weighed down our gross margin for the quarter. Efforts are progressing to strengthen our offering in industrial water treatment, which is a field where we see potential for growth and aftermarket business.

Outlook
Even if it is relatively difficult to predict how global conditions will impact our customers’ willingness to invest going forward, we can confirm that we have a stronger quarter ahead of us. It is reassuring that we have Industrial Solutions, a stable and profitable business, and Electrification & Renewables which represents a promising area for the future that we are investing in with our own cash flows. We have ongoing constructive customer dialogues and expect that the postponed investment decisions will lead to order intake in the future. Moreover, we are experiencing continued high levels of customer activity. We are noting increasing demand both in Electrification & Renewables and in Industrial Solutions which is expected to lead to orders that will compensate for the slowdown in Water Treatment, where the installation cycle in ballast water treatment has peaked. These orders include the first commercial order within hydrogen business, which is expected to come in before the year is finished.
We are sure that customers' willingness to invest returns, and we see no reason to revise our view of our continued journey of growth. Permascand is well positioned in the global green transition thanks to our technology. With continued investments for the future and operational advances in the quarter, we have favorable conditions for long-term, sustainable, and profitable growth.

Peter Lundström, CEO Permascand

Report presentation
CEO Peter Lundström and CFO Linda Ekman will present the report in a conference call today 10 May at 10:30 CEST. The presentation will be held in English and will conclude with a Q&A session.

Webcast
https://ir.financialhearings.com/permascand-top-holding-q1-2023

Registration
To participate via teleconference, please register via the link below. After registration, you will be provided with telephone numbers and a conference ID to access the conference. You can ask questions verbally via the telephone conference.
https://conference.financialhearings.com/teleconference/?id=200746

Link to report
The report is attached to this announcement and can be found at: https://permascand.com/investors/financial-reports/