- Investors
Christophe Sut, CEO:
“The fourth quarter was the best quarter of the year, and we delivered an adjusted operating profit of EUR 14 million. In absolute terms, the improvement was EUR 0.6 million compared to the same period last year. The adjusted operating margin was 6.6%, an increase of 0.5 percentage points from last year.
The fourth quarter closed a full year where Scanfil demonstrated an ability to defend its operating margin and maintain a solid 6.8% adjusted operating margin in a challenging market situation. Excluding full-year impacts of foreign exchange rates, layoff costs, and material consignment sales, the full-year operating margin reached our long-term target of 7.0% and demonstrated great operational performance throughout the year.
At the end of the fourth quarter, our financial position was solid. Gearing was 7.3% (19.4%), and the equity ratio was 55.5% (53.7%). Inventory management improved, and inventories were reduced by EUR 5.8 million in the fourth quarter. Compared to the end of December last year inventories decreased by EUR 51.4 million (Cash flow impact of inventory reduction). Our net debt level was 0.43 times EBITDA, well below our long-term target of 1.5.
The Board of Directors’ dividend proposal per share is EUR 0.24, which is 41% of the earnings per share. We aim to pay our shareholders an increasing dividend and keep our balance sheet strong to be able to carry out all strategically important growth investments. If the Annual General Meeting approves the proposal, the dividend has increased for 12 consecutive years.
On the customer side, we continued to focus on winning new contracts and had another very active quarter in sales, winning new projects with a record annualized value of EUR 61.0 million in the fourth quarter and EUR 187.5 million in 2024.
The Industrial segment remained slightly negative compared to last year, with turnover decreasing by 5.0%. The market was soft, and volumes stabilized at a lower level. However, our new sales activity was strong, and we won new projects with an annualized value of EUR 31.6 million in the fourth quarter and EUR 83.2 million in 2024.
The Energy & Cleantech segment stabilized at lower levels. Turnover development was -7.8% for the fourth quarter and -13.9% for the full year compared to the same period in 2023. The long-term outlook remains positive, and we won projects in the fourth quarter with an annualized value of EUR 19.9 million and EUR 73.7 million in 2024.
The Medtech & Life Science segment developed positively in the second half of 2024 and returned to growth. Turnover increased by 7.6% in the fourth quarter, but the full-year turnover development was still slightly negative at 5.1% compared to 2023. Investments in sales resources started to pay off, and we signed several new contracts. In the fourth quarter, the annualized value was EUR 9.5 million and EUR 30.2 million in 2024.
The strategic changes announced during the third quarter are now fully implemented. At the beginning of 2025, our new regional operating model and supporting Management Team were fully operational.
The SRXGlobal acquisition was completed early in the quarter, and we focused on integrating and leveraging the newly acquired assets. Anticipating strong customer demand and a promising long-term outlook, we have decided to invest EUR 4.3 million in the Malaysian factory. Our financial position will allow us to continue to look for new M&A opportunities.
We see customer demand stabilizing and rebounding; this was the case with Medtech & Life Science. We believe demand will gradually speed up in 2025, and in the first quarter of the year, we will focus on ramping up customer projects won in 2024. Our outlook for 2025 in turnover is EUR 780–920 million and an operating profit EUR 53-66 million. The first quarter of 2025 is a ramp-up quarter of projects we won in 2024. It builds-up a momentum for a brisk remainder of the year.
In 2024 our team has shown strong commitment to implementing the strategy and reaching our targets in a challenging market situation. We are building our strength through efficiency improvements, new customer contracts, and M&A”.