contentSlug

type

ContentSlug_ContentQuery

slug

ContentPageContentQuery

content

trendingContent

query ContentSlug_ContentQuery(
  $contentSlug: String!
  $type: [ContentType!]
) {
  ...ContentPageContentQuery_13QmVO
}

fragment CompanyDetails_Content on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  companies {
    name
    description
    pageUrl
    id
  }
}

fragment ContentBasicInfo on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  id
  type
  title
  lang
  companies {
    viewerIsFollowing
    id
    name
    pageUrl
  }
  tags {
    viewerIsFollowing
    id
    name
    pageUrl
  }
  ...PublishingDetails
  ...Reactions
}

fragment ContentMetadata on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  type
  title
  lang
  pageUrl
  alternatePageUrls: translations {
    __typename
    pageUrl
    lang
  }
  imgUrl
  description
  createdAt
  changedAt
  isPremium
  authors {
    __typename
    name
    pageUrl
    id
  }
  companies {
    name
    pageUrl
    id
  }
  tags {
    name
    id
  }
  ... on Video {
    liveTime
    videoUrl
    videoEmbedUrl(location: "inderes")
  }
  ... on Webcast {
    liveTime
    videoUrl
    videoEmbedUrl(location: "inderes")
  }
}

fragment ContentPageContentQuery_13QmVO on Query {
  content(slug: $contentSlug, type: $type) {
    __typename
    id
    type
    title
    isPremium
    lang
    htmlBody
    summary
    companies {
      forum {
        latestPosts {
          ...ForumPosts
        }
      }
      name
      id
      viewerIsFollowing
      pageUrl
      defaultInstrument {
        isin
        id
        marketOpen
        marketClose
        marketplace {
          region
        }
        returns {
          total
        }
      }
    }
    tags {
      viewerIsFollowing
      id
      name
      pageUrl
    }
    createdAt
    ... on Video {
      liveTime
    }
    ... on Webcast {
      liveTime
    }
    slug
    ... on CompanyReport {
      reportUrl
      researchContentUrl
      researchContent {
        title
        lang
        pdfUrl
        relatedContent {
          __typename
          ...PublishingDetails
          ...Reactions
          id
        }
        content {
          title
          lang
          slug
          htmlBody
          publishedAt
          createdAt
          changedAt
          isOutdated
          isPremium
        }
      }
    }
    ... on ThirdPartyCompanyReport {
      reportUrl
    }
    ... on StockExchangeRelease {
      reportUrl
    }
    ...ContentBasicInfo
    ...ContentMetadata
    ...PriceAndRecommendation_Content
    ...CompanyDetails_Content
    ...ReportLink_Content
    ...KeyFigures_Content
  }
  ...TrendingContent_1jQ2Cn
}

fragment ForumPosts on ForumPost {
  text
  likesCount
  url
  author
  postedAt
  authorImgUrl
}

fragment KeyFigures_Content on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  companies {
    defaultInstrument {
      estimateData {
        modelType
        reportingCurrency
      }
      snapshot {
        transaction {
          date
          actualized {
            year
            quarter
            revenue
            revenueGrowth
            ebitAdjusted
            ebitReported
            ebitda
            enterpriseValue
            epsAdjusted
            dividend
            dividendYield
            sharePrice
            nav
            navPerShare
            opexOfNav
            quarterlySharePrice
          }
          estimates {
            year
            quarter
            revenue
            revenueGrowth
            ebitAdjusted
            ebitReported
            ebitda
            enterpriseValue
            epsAdjusted
            dividend
            dividendYield
            sharePrice
            nav
            navPerShare
            opexOfNav
            quarterlySharePrice
          }
        }
      }
      id
    }
    id
  }
}

fragment PriceAndRecommendation_Content on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  createdAt
  companies {
    name
    pageUrl
    defaultInstrument {
      priceData {
        tradeCurrency
      }
      snapshot {
        priceData {
          date
          lastPrice
          tradeCurrency
        }
        transaction {
          date
          recommendation
          targetPrice
        }
        prevTransaction {
          recommendation
        }
      }
      id
    }
    id
  }
}

fragment PublishingDetails on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  createdAt
  publishers {
    name
    imgUrl
  }
  authors {
    __typename
    id
    name
    slug
    imgUrl
    jobTitle
  }
  ... on Video {
    liveTime
  }
  ... on Webcast {
    liveTime
  }
}

fragment Reactions on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  id
  reactionGroups {
    reactionType
    reactionsCount
    viewerReacted
  }
}

fragment ReportLink_Content on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  type
  isPremium
  ... on CompanyReport {
    reportUrl
  }
  ... on ThirdPartyCompanyReport {
    reportUrl
  }
  ... on StockExchangeRelease {
    reportUrl
  }
}

fragment TrendingContent_1jQ2Cn on Query {
  trendingContent(type: ARTICLE) {
    __typename
    id
    title
    lang
    pageUrl
    createdAt
    type
    imgUrl
    companies {
      squareLogoUrl
      name
      id
    }
    authors {
      __typename
      imgUrl
      id
    }
    publishers {
      imgUrl
    }
  }
}


lapwall-surprising-guidance-revision-evli

__typename

title

isPremium

lang

htmlBody

summary

companies

createdAt

publishers

authors

reactionGroups

pageUrl

translations

imgUrl

description

changedAt

LapWall operates in the building products industry with several factories. The company manufactures wooden wall and ceiling elements in factory conditions for construction companies. The product range includes several standard products that are delivered and installed by the customer. The company's market area is Finland. LapWall was founded in 2011 and its headquarters are located in Pyhäntä, Finland.

Thanks Jarmo, a good and colorful presentation once again. An investor considers competitive advantages and ‘moats’ from many angles. My own favorite angle is intangible and invisible to some, namely corporate culture - I define it myself through things that are externally visible and verifiable in hindsight, such as:  management anticipates things, i.e., looks a bit further ahead than the competitors strategy translates into actual actions more smoothly than normal clear communication missteps are quickly accepted as such and there is a return to the core area of strength etc.  ‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast’ is an excellent saying and I consider it a strong truth. In my list, something always fails to materialize if there is incompetent or the wrong people in management / at the operational level, or simply if someone is constantly p*ssed off, whether it be a customer, a worker, or the CEO. That doesn’t mean that mere satisfaction guarantees a competitive advantage, but it is a prerequisite for it. Regarding good communication: Many things you’ve said stick in the mind, such as in some annual/interim report (from memory): “And one would think investors are interested in whether our strategy is being implemented on the ground. If not, then we’ll be here making excuses like ‘well, there’s that Russian war of aggression .. and the weather has been bad and ..’” Besides the humor, there is a core truth here. The market has been volatile - sometimes terrible and sometimes horrific - and LapWall’s product palette has expanded against this backdrop exactly as success has required. That - and of course the fact that the company is thriving while others around it are going bankrupt - signals competitive advantage(s). These kinds of reflections emerged this time, have a good weekend!

What creates a sustainable competitive advantage? I gave a speech at LapWall’s 15th anniversary seminar, where I went through LapWall’s 15-year history, what kind of company LapWall is today, and how we see the company evolving by 2030. In the speech, I also discuss the key lessons we have learned on this journey regarding growth, competitiveness, productivity, industrial construction, and business development. I thought I would share the speech with the Inderes community as well. I hope it provides insights for both current and future shareholders. The speech can be found here:               Comments and thoughts are welcome.

Attached is a photo from LapWall’s Veteli factory, where approximately €1.5 million has been invested in production technology as well as factory and yard area development following the acquisition. Today, production runs smoothly and efficiently. The roof elements for the new data center project in Kajaani were also manufactured at this factory. LapWall’s customer in the project was YIT, which built the data center for XTX Markets. This was an extremely demanding site where the structures were required to have high quality, load-bearing capacity, and fire and moisture technical performance. It’s great to see how the Veteli unit has been developed into a modern and competitive production facility as part of LapWall’s growth story.

Thank you for the very good questions. I have added a few slides to this response from my presentation yesterday at LapWall’s 15th anniversary seminar. On Management and Leadership Selection I believe that every leader makes mistakes in personnel and leadership recruitment during their career, and I am no exception. However, I have learned a great deal from these situations over the years. Nowadays, I look at leadership selection much more holistically than before. A good CV, experience, or presentation skills alone do not settle anything. A leader must fit the company’s culture, way of operating, the team, and the specific stage of development the company is in at that moment. Even a good person can be in the wrong environment or the wrong role, and conversely, in the right environment, a person can grow immensely. Today, for candidates reaching the final stages, we also use more extensive and thorough personality, capability, and suitability assessments. Of course, these do not solve everything on their own, and people can never be managed based solely on tests. However, when used correctly, they provide valuable additional insight into, for example, decision-making style, pressure tolerance, motivational factors, leadership profile, interaction, and how the person functions as part of a team and in changing situations. At the same time, they help identify potential risk factors in advance. Often, the challenges are not ultimately related to actual professional competence, but rather to whether the person’s way of operating fits the culture, operating environment, management model, and the company’s stage of development. I have also learned that in leadership selection, in addition to competence, one must look at a person’s ability to learn, renew, take responsibility, and build a functional organization around them. Ultimately, leadership is always reflected in what is concretely achieved—whether competitiveness improves, results are generated, cash flow strengthens, and the organization develops in the right direction in the long term. At the same time, I have also developed as a leader over the years. One of the most important lessons has been that if something is not working, one must have the courage to intervene early enough. Decisions are not always easy, but waiting too long is often a worse option for the organization, the people, and the business than an honest and timely solution. I have also aimed to share these lessons openly within the organization. A good corporate culture is not created by avoiding or hiding mistakes, but by learning from them. Management must evolve in the same way as processes, products, and production.  On Factory Capacity Utilization and the Market Regarding factory utilization, it is not ultimately just about demand being present in the market. It is about the functionality of the entire process, from leads all the way to production-ready orders. In practice, we must succeed in several stages simultaneously: getting the right kind of leads, converting them into profitable deals, and moving projects efficiently to production readiness. This involves order processing, element design, production planning, procurement, and the functionality of the entire supply chain. Only then is demand truly reflected as factory load. Today, we already have a significant industrial entity to manage: five factories and, at current utilization levels, a weekly element production of approximately 13,000–14,000 m². Utilizing that scale of capacity constantly requires a large number of the right kind and size of projects. A single detached house project can be very important to the customer, but from our perspective, one small project often requires a relatively large amount of white-collar work compared to the low production volume it ultimately generates. However, individual projects are also interesting to us when they are large enough and allow for efficient and planned execution. That is why the most essential things for us are customer relationships where operations can be standardized, processes can be developed long-term, and volumes are sufficiently large. In practice, this means partnership accounts, annual contracts, and continuous demand.  Currently, demand is at a good level in many sectors other than residential and office construction. There are also cautious signs of recovery in low-rise residential construction, and some of our customers are already seeing significant growth figures. In my opinion, the construction industry is facing a historical turning point. Customers are no longer just looking for an element supplier, but for a more efficient, higher quality, and more predictable way to build. Labor shortages, productivity pressure, digitalization, automation, standardization, and low carbon requirements favor industrial and competitive operators in the long run.  Cutting production capacity when the market weakens is ultimately relatively easy. It is much more difficult to scale the entire process back up so that sales, design, production, procurement, logistics, quality, and delivery reliability remain under control. Therefore, the best possible situation would be a load that is as steady and predictable as possible. In the current global situation, however, the market often moves quickly in both directions. It can go up with speed, but it can also come down quickly. That is why we have aimed to build LapWall long-term so that competitiveness, production efficiency, partnership models, and operational capability withstand market fluctuations as well as possible. I do not want to give a timetable that is too specific for the market recovery, as there is still a lot of uncertainty. What I can say, however, is that our own actions are not based on just waiting for the market to turn. We are resolutely building a product company where competitiveness stems from efficiency, repeatability, data, partnerships, people, and the ability to serve the customer better than the traditional operating model.  I believe that when this systematic work is continued long-term, LapWall has good prerequisites to strengthen its position even in a difficult market.

Jarmo was in the hot seat with @Karo_Hamalainen                   LapWall, a manufacturer of wooden building elements, posted a pre-tax profit of just under three million euros last year. According to the company’s CEO, Jarmo Pekkarinen, the result had the potential to be six million euros better. This estimate is theoretical and illustrates the potential Pekkarinen believes lies within LapWall’s new factory. Pekkarinen highlights areas for improvement where savings are expected: product lead time, more efficient use of materials… According to Pekkarinen, on the new component manufacturing line, one person will perform the same tasks that currently require eight people. The deep freeze in residential construction has hit LapWall in recent years. The company has compensated for the collapse of the residential wall element market with other products, and the share of residential construction in revenue has dropped to less than ten percent. LapWall’s goal is a turnover of one hundred million euros by the end of 2030. In terms of production capacity, the prerequisites are there. At the same time, LapWall intends to transform into a product company. ”The customer gets a better product for less. If the customer wants to leave their own fingerprint on the product and specify that certain raw materials must be used and things must be done a certain way, they get a worse product at a higher price.” Data centers have been a bright spot in Finnish construction. Data center roofs sound like they are right up LapWall’s alley: large flat-roofed halls that need to be erected on a fast schedule, and that schedule must be met. LapWall has even developed its own roofing solution specifically with data centers in mind. LapWall supplied the roof elements for the data center built by YIT for XTX in Kajaani, but it has been quiet since then. ”We are active in the market, and the outlook is that we will be doing these projects, but we cannot disclose them until the end customer gives permission,” says Jarmo Pekkarinen. Data center projects are large enough and require so much attention that LapWall can only take on a few of them per year at most. In collaboration with: LapWall

Let’s post this report here as well for the record:

First of all, thanks to @Sijoittaja-alokas for interviewing Jarmo, giving us a slightly different perspective on him, his leadership style, and the company. And of course, a big thank you to @jarmot.pekkarinen for choosing to answer that interview in such a comprehensive manner. At least for me, this provided many good general insights, and thus my faith in the company’s future was further strengthened. I especially want to thank you for the observation that as long as this systematic work continues, growth is achievable despite the general weakness in the market. There are many things one could pick up from that interview, but I would be particularly curious to hear more about one point you raised:  I believe I understand what you are talking about (being a “smooth talker” could be one guess) and there’s no need to go into specifics, but I would still be very interested to hear what lessons you have learned from these cases for the future? Quicker reaction is obvious, but do you think you are now better able to identify potential risk factors (can you elaborate on the recruitment challenges in a general way) and thus avoid such situations arising? And at the same time, how have you succeeded in sharing these lessons with the rest of the organization? I have been reading your comments @jarmot.pekkarinen in this thread with interest, so thank you for those. I greatly appreciate open communication and the fact that mistakes are discussed transparently. And of course, I appreciate the good results even more  - on what kind of schedule do you believe the factories will start getting properly loaded?

LapWall

LapWall revised its 2024 financial guidance range yesterday, the positive update in terms of profitability guidance eases the short-term uncertainty. The updated net sales forecast matches our...

LapWall revised its 2024 financial guidance range yesterday, the positive update in terms of profitability guidance eases the short-term uncertainty. The updated net sales forecast matches our current estimate, while the EBITA guidance is significantly higher than we had anticipated.

Lapwall: Surprising guidance revision - Evli

Lapwall: Surprising guidance revision - Evli