CEO Arni Ekholm comments the third quarter of 2025
A RECORD STRONG QUARTER: HIGHEST QUARTERLY NET SALES AND COMPARABLE EBITA IN THE HISTORY OF RELAIS GROUP
“The third quarter of this year was in many ways a historical quarter for Relais Group. For the first time ever, our quarterly net sales surpassed the EUR 100 million mark, representing a growth of +35%. Our comparable EBITA (EUR 10.9 million) was also at an all-time high level, reaching a growth of +19%. The defensive and resilient nature of our business model is also reflected in our organic growth, which was +4% in comparable currency rates. This is a strong performance under the current market conditions.
Acquisitions
The scale of our business operations changed substantially during Q3. As a sector focused competent compounder, we have diligently pursued our strategy and made a total of four acquisitions so far this year. In June, we acquired Team Verksted and Lastvagnsdelar in Norway, which significantly strengthened our position as the biggest operator of independent commercial vehicle repair and maintenance workshops in the Nordic markets. In July, the Matro Group team joined us in Benelux, opening the lucrative European truck accessory markets for us. In July, we also announced the acquisition of Autodelar, strengthening the position of our group company ABR in Sweden. Finally, right after the end of Q3, we completed the acquisition of two high-quality commercial vehicle workshops, strengthening the workshop network of Raskone in Eastern-Finland. As a result of these acquisitions, our pro forma net sales is over EUR 400 million and we employ almost 1,700 professionals in eight different countries.
Segments
The acquisitions we have made had a significant effect in the financial performance of our segments and business areas during Q3. The Scandinavian segment grew its net sales by 64% (organically +5% with constant exchange rates), as most of the acquired companies are reported under that segment. The Finland and Baltic segment grew organically by 2%, which is clearly above the estimated market growth.
Business Areas
Our Technical Wholesale and Products business area performed very well, reaching a net sales growth of +21% (organically +7% with constant exchange rates). The spare parts and equipment sales developed favourably in Sweden and Norway, where especially the workshop equipment sales were strong. The newly acquired Norwegian heavy commercial vehicle spare parts wholesaler, Lastvagnsdelar, also contributed well during the quarter. The important vehicle lighting products sales season has started very well, with Strands continuing its strong performance and the sales of our e-commerce platform Lumise reaching record level sales during the quarter.
The sales development of our Commercial Vehicle Repair and Maintenance was extremely strong with a growth of 62% during the quarter. This strong growth is attributed to the acquired Norwegian workshop chain, Team Verksted AS, which has had a truly flying start as a new member of the Relais family. The organic growth showed a minus of 3%, which is partly related to the very strong comparison period last year and the softish trailer repair market in both Finland and Sweden. We expect the organic growth to improve during the coming quarters as the investments we have made in our workshop network in Sweden start to have a positive effect. In Sweden, we have opened two new workshops this year and successfully started the rebranding of our STS-workshops under the strong brand of Team Verkstad. Relais Group now operates 62 specialized heavy commercial vehicle workshops across Finland, Norway and Sweden.
The Commercial Vehicle Repair and Maintenance business has an inherently average lower EBITA-% than Technical Wholesale and Products. This is reflected in the Group level EBITA-% as the weight of the repair and maintenance area has grown based on the recent acquisitions.
However, our experience shows that with our workshop excellence-program we have been able to increase the profitability of the acquired companies. Generally, this business area is also capital-light and offers therefore good possibilities for increased return on capital.
Growth strategy
Our growth strategy is based on reaching earnings growth through a combination of acquisitions, organic growth and functional excellence. Basically, we allocate capital and aim to make the capital work harder for us to create value for our shareholders. Having sustainable financing solutions, in addition to using existing cash flows, is vital for further growth of the company. As part of constantly developing our acquisition financing solutions and to strengthen our balance sheet, we successfully issued a hybrid bond of EUR 50 million in September. The bond was broadly distributed and significantly oversubscribed. There was wide investor support across the Nordics and beyond, with a considerable number of investors participating in the transaction. The strong investor demand highlights our solid market position and enables us to continue our acquisitive growth strategy.
Outlook
Relais Group is in good shape and well positioned to continue the successful implementation of our strategy also during Q4 and beyond. We see some cautious positive signs in the market, and consider the demand situation for our products and services to be on a stable level. We continue the processing of interesting and relevant acquisition targets and have a healthy pipeline for future acquisitions.
I warmly thank all our almost 1,700 professionals for the extremely strong performance and contribution during the first nine months of the year. I also thank our customers, shareholders and business partners for your continued support.”
Arni Ekholm
Chief Executive Officer