* Risk of temporary GM pressure from rising oil prices
* EBITA lowered by 4% for '26e, 3% for '27e-'28e
* Q1e: precious metal headwinds should persist
Risk of temporary GM pressure from rising oil prices
Rising oil prices (from March) will likely have an impact on Nolato's input costs; material costs were 36% of '25 sales, and management has previously stated that roughly 60% of material costs are linked to oil prices (plastics and silicones). Part of Nolato's business model is to move rising input costs on to customers, but given normal lag effects of ~3-6 months, there could be a risk of temporary gross margin pressure ahead. One big difference compared to the last oil price spike (in 2022) is that the Medical Solutions segment, where end-market demand is less sensitive to pricing, now accounts for 62% of our '26e sales compared to 45% in '22, so we assess that the company is now in a better position to raise prices without too much impact on demand.
EBITA lowered by 4% for '26e, 3% for '27e-'28e
Given the aforementioned risk of temporary margin pressure alongside heightened cyclical risk in general, we make some negative revisions to our organic growth and margin estimates. The changes are fairly minor, however, as we consider Nolato to be resilient. Overall, we lower our EBITA estimates by 4% for '26e, followed by 3% for '27e-'28e, of which +1pp per year stems from updated FX assumptions.
Q1e: precious metal headwinds should persist
For Q1e, we expect Nolato to report net sales of SEK 2,394m, down 2% y-o-y, and of which +3% is organic growth. We expect EBITA of SEK 262m for a margin of 11.0% (11.0% in Q1'25, 10.4% in Q4'25). It is too early to see any concrete impact from higher oil prices, but rising precious metals prices impacted Nolato's Q4 margins negatively, and given that the price trend has continued into Q1, this margin headwind should persist. Finally, the share is trading at 13x '26e EV/EBITA compared to its historical average fwd. multiple of 15x.