Welcome to InderesTV. Relais published Q3 2026 results today, and with me here is company CEO Christian Gebauer. Christian, as kickoff with the overall view of your Q3, how would you sum it up?

No, I think it was a good quarter in a transitional year for Relais Group. We saw that two of the business areas were performing very well, with strong organic growth both in the commercial vehicle services business area and in Products and Solutions. We also see that the cost base that we came into this year with in the Technical Wholesale companies is, in some of the companies, not paying off. We don't get the volume that we were expecting to get when we did these investments and took on this cost. Now we are taking actions to adjust the cost base where required to get to the right profitability level. So things are moving in the right direction, and we are making progress.

Very good. Let's dig deeper into this efficiency improvement, as this is a topic we talk about a lot. So let's look at it, how we're doing in each business area, kicking off with the commercial vehicle business. We saw a clear uptick in profitability compared to Q2, which was kind of one-off, I think. But overall, the performance there, how satisfied are you with how things currently stand, and what are you working on in terms of efficiency here?

We are never satisfied, but we are making good progress in commercial vehicle services. We have developed the playbook on how to create a profitability-leading business during the last five years with Raskone. Now we acquired Verkkokauppa in Norway and Team Verkstad in Sweden, and then we are applying this playbook now point by point, item by item, on what we can do to get to the profitability level that Raskone has. When I met Team Verkstad, they had an all-employee gathering last weekend, and I talked to the managing director there. What he said to his people was that, under the new owners that we got last year, we have been coping with this September demand reduction in a much better way than we would have done with our previous owners. So that shows us that the playbook is working, that we have the tools in place to handle these types of situations. This program is continuing. Nothing goes overnight, but it will continue through this year and also in 2027.

Sounds like you have a solid playbook from Raskone. Is it only about bringing the playbook to new businesses, or do you have knowledge shared from Raskone operations, some people going over and making sure that the knowledge is shared?

That happens both. Adam would say so, we do. Of course, networking and meetings on different levels of the organization to share best practices and see what they're doing in Raskone, and we have the business area head. This is the same person as the CEO in Raskone. So he has done this job, and he can coach and help the local management teams in our companies to execute on this. It is up to each management team to do the execution, but we have to make sure that we get the right support around the management teams to execute on this, so it is a combination of what you mentioned, right.

Then jumping to Technical Wholesale, I really read that you are not very satisfied with the current performance. There were some changes happening in the depots, some closures, you know, organic investments, and it takes time to ramp them up. But how do you look at the whole Technical Wholesale currently?

We came into this year with a higher cost base, aiming to increase the sales. That has worked out according to plan very well in some of the businesses, but in some businesses we see that the volume that we expected, that we need to get to handle the cost that we took on, so to say, the volume is not there. We are not getting the sales, and instead of waiting and hoping the market is going to help us here, we are taking actions in selected companies to now wind down such organic investments. That will reduce the cost base and restore the profitability in the other companies. It is company-by-company efficiency measures that we are doing, making sure that we are not harming the sales. That's the critical point here, so working with things like pricing, looking at the overhead costs in the companies to see how each of them can contribute to getting the business area margin to increase.

Looking at your business model in terms of capital allocation, organic growth is often very value creative. If it materializes, it seems to me that some businesses are able to grow organically, but then maybe some areas are not. Is this the right conclusion of what you have been talking about now in terms of organic growth in Technical Wholesale and the potential changes now to the businesses?

We are seeing strong organic growth in Products and Solutions that we have to feel good about. In Technical Wholesale we also see organic growth, but it is not enough for the investments, so we have to adjust the cost base. But there are opportunities to grow organically, I would say, also in commercial vehicle services. But we have to be sure that we understand what the market can give us and the demand that we have at hand, and all the time now work with growth, but also making sure that the cost and the growth are going hand in hand. Right, right.

You mentioned Products and Solutions, the organic growth and the value creation potential there. Obviously it is on a very high, healthy margin level, above 20%. How do you look at the current state? Is there still a lot to find in this business area, a lot of efficiency gains to pull out, or is it more of continuing on the same track?

I think we have showed that we are doing progress on the margin quarter by quarter. We took in Matro Group last year. That was taking the margin down because they had the lower margin when they came into the business area, but they are also increasing their margins now, so it will continue. It will be quarter over quarter, and we are doing the work, and they're applying the toolbox and the playbook that we have in Products and Solutions. So I think we should be optimistic about the additional opportunities that there are in that business area.

Let's jump into a topical thing, which is fuel prices. There is a lot of discussion here in Finland at least about fuel prices, and you mentioned that some changes in subsidies and the excise tax had been visible in the Norway business. Can you give an overall overview of how the higher fuel prices are impacting your business currently?

I think short term there will be and can be an impact if the fuel prices go up. Our customers that are running on low margins, they get the price increases, and they might have to postpone some work and some maintenance to a later stage, basically to survive, right. But this is not going to last. You cannot do this forever. So it will be that the backlog is then kind of growing for the future needs of the services that we offer. So it is not about that the amount is disappearing, but that the amount is shifting in time. And we saw short-term there can be an impact. Then we have to handle the impact and make sure that we manage and maneuver in that environment as best as possible. Like we did in Norway in September. But eventually the amount will come that has been postponed.

If it turns out so that the fuel prices are higher for longer. Do you think it will be impacting the change in electric trucks, for example? Will there be a bigger shift, faster shift in the market, or is it about investments and capex for the logistics companies, that anyway it takes time for them to be able to do the changes? Or what is your view on the market?

No, of course a long-term higher fuel price makes the electric vehicle option more favorable for the future, you know, cost of using the vehicle here. I think it is not about do we want to change tomorrow or not. The question is more about do we have the infrastructure to charge these trucks, and at the moment we don't have that to the extent we would require to have. And this we can hear from SKAL and Volvo and the like, that they have capacity to deliver and produce electric trucks, but the customers are not yet there because of the charging infrastructure. So eventually it will come and increase. For the time being, I don't see that there can or will be a quick change in the size of the electrical fleet.

Obviously the efficiency improvements are a big, big topic for you. What about if we think about capital allocation? What kind of priorities do you have there currently, what comes to bringing down debt, what comes to M&A and so on? How do you look at it currently?

Here, we are focusing on growing EBITA and being efficient with our capital. The EBITA will go up and the leverage will come down. So that's kind of the consequence of the focus that we are having. We are still having an active pipeline of acquisitions. Many of these discussions go on for a year or two until they realize, and we have some opportunities coming up now in the near term where we have small acquisitions that are very kind of value creative that we should pursue in this environment. But long term, I think it is beneficial for the shareholders if the debt ratio is also coming down from the four times that we have, to be sure.

Thank you for this update, and best of luck for the rest of the year. Thank you.