From the Q1 report 2026
Thriving in an unsettled world.
The first quarter of the year saw growth and profits in line with the previous year, despite some investments for the future. We have continued laying the foundations for future development through growing the Group’s offering organically and through acquisitions. During the quarter, we welcomed two businesses into our fold, the largest being Typhonix in early January. Towards the end of the quarter, we closed a small asset acquisition that will complement Autofric’s product offering and commercial organization.
The year started with some unease globally, albeit with our diversified and decentralized operations, our strong entrepreneurs have been able to respond well to external factors. The level of activity has been high during the quarter, and overall we continue to see good underlying demand. Still, some customers have once again needed a little more time to make decisions. As a result, the order intake increased no more than five percent above last year’s strong figure. Since sales increased by seven percent, and order intake exceeded sales by nine percent, it still indicates growth.
Energy & Environment show a somewhat mixed picture, where temporarily higher costs, partly due to acquisitions and growth investments in the new acquisition Autofric resulted in a temporarily lower margin despite good growth.
In Technology & Distribution we continue to see the good impact from the more efficient way of working and the changes that have taken place. In addition, we have gradually replaced some low-margin business. Overall, the business area lifted EBITA by 77 percent in the quarter and the margin by more than three percent age points to seven percent.
New acquisition Typhonix wins award
In early January, we completed the acquisition of Typhonix, and the company is now included in our books as of year-end. Typhonix’s business has more of a project character, which means that they have not contributed much revenue during their first quarter with us, but instead prepared for future deliveries. As they will now follow the same accounting principles as the rest of the Group, it also means a slight change from how they have reported historically, where we defer revenue slightly.
However, already from the start we have had reason to celebrate Typhonix, when in February the Rogaland Foundation named them the winner of the 24th edition of their Research and Innovation Prize. The award praises Typhonix’ great journey from idea and basic research to successful commercialization. We see an exciting future for the innovative new addition Typhonix and are delighted to continue working with them.
Further development with add-on acquisition
Another exciting acquisition during the quarter is a smaller asset acquisition to Autofric in early March in the form of Jernbro Water Technologies. Together with a couple of key recruitments, it further strengthens the commercial organization of Autofric and also broadens the offering within sludge management. During the quarter in isolation, the two acquisitions mainly meant increased costs for Energy & Environment as well as the Group. We can already see that order intake is starting to pick up and we look forward with excitement to see the operations also being able to strengthen the Group’s organic development.
We continue to work in areas that are important to society, which is all the more important when the world appears less static than usual.
Onwards and upwards!
Caroline Reuterskiöld
President and CEO Berner Industrier AB