Financial performance in October-December
• Sales increased by 4% to
• Operating profit was
• The operating margin amounted to 10.9% (12.3%). The adjusted operating margin was 8.5% (10.6%), adjusted for currency revaluations, and adjusted for items affecting comparability.
• Profit after financial items was
• Profit after tax amounted to
• Adjusted for acquisition-related payments made in the period, operating cash flow after investments was
Financial performance in January-December
• Sales increased by 15% to
• Operating profit was
• The operating margin was 10.1% (9.3%). The adjusted operating margin amounted to 9.4% (10.1%), adjusted for currency revaluations and adjusted for items affecting comparability.
• Profit after financial items amounted to
• Profit after tax was
• Adjusted for acquisition-related payments made in the period, operating cash flow after investments was
Dividend
In order to ensure maximum financial freedom of action, the board intends to return regarding dividends, or share buybacks, for 2023 at the latest in connection with the notice to the annual general meeting for 2024.
CEO Comment – The market challenges some of our customers face pressurised sales in the quarter, which were below our estimates. We anticipate a progressive demand increase in 2024
“Short-term shifts in customer orders impacted growth for the quarter and sales came in below our estimates. In our broad customer portfolio, we have customers and customer projects that are developing extremely strongly. However, it could not sufficiently compensate for the short-term shifts in projects and inventory adjustments we saw with some of our other customers linked to market challenges. NOTE's sales during the fourth quarter of the year reached
An underlying operating margin of 9.4% was achieved for the year and 8.5% for the quarter. Our ambitions for our operating margin are higher than that. The lower operating margin results from unusually large shifts in customer orders, which has affected resource utilization in our factories. The lower growth rate has also resulted in excess capacity in several of our factories. Adjustments, mainly to the workforce, have been carried out and today are judged to correspond to the sales pace we expect during the beginning of 2024.
The previously challenging situation in the market for electronic components has challenged our cash flow for several quarters and it is therefore gratifying to see that we have succeeded in breaking the inventory build-up in our factories and are now instead delivering positive cash flows from our operations. For the quarter, the operating cash flow (after investments) amounted to
We expect demand to gradually strengthen during 2024 with an ongoing strengthening of our margin. The previous guidance provided remains, which means a turnover for the full year 2024 of
NOTE’s Year-end Report for 2023 is now available in PDF format on the corporate web site, www.note-ems.com, and attached to this message. Today at 10.00 CET, NOTE organises a presentation for analysts, media and investors, where CEO and President Johannes Lind-Widestam presents the report. The Interim Report for January–March will be published on 18 April.
© Modular Finance, source