Listing is, in a way, a tool for a company in its lifecycle; it is not an endpoint for anything. So, no one sold shares? No, so it's not a cash-out opportunity, but rather a way to handle the current situation and enable future growth, including acquisitions, and it continues, as it was a milestone. Now we move forward towards the next growth leaps. Perhaps a main listing will be relevant at some point; the company is evolving. We also see that we,
Translink Corporate Finance, don't get involved in projects where it sounds a bit like it's just meant to last until the listing and then surprises start appearing, or there are some other goals that aren't long-term. Interests must be aligned with the investor who joins during the listing, so that's important to us. In our financial targets at the time of the listing, if I remember correctly, we defined that about
44 million of that growth would come from acquisitions. And it's clear that those will still be needed and will likely be done, but on the other hand, I still have a feeling that many companies, when they list, always state that the raised funds will be used for acquisitions, but how many actually follow through? For us, we've actually done dozens even before the listing. We have
experience with them, and this was of course our largest yet, Lahti Precision in the spring of 2023. Alright, welcome to the Neuvottelija channel.
I have Tamtron's CEO Mikko Keskinen as my guest. Hello!
Greetings. You've come by train from Tampere? Yes, that's correct. And then my colleague from Translink Corporate Finance, Jari Lauriala - you probably walked from our office? Yes, that's what happened. Hi, nice to be here and finally! Indeed, and you're one of Translink's founding partners with Tero Nummenpää, who has been here so many times, so
it's great to have you here. It was a good topic, so it's nice to be here for this. Yes, and the Neuvottelija channel is actually overtaking Inderes TV, so we thought we'd do a company presentation here, and this is where I'm a bit on thin ice, as Translink Corporate Finance carried out Tamtron's IPO in 2022. We are, or Jari specifically is, the Certified Adviser for the company. Tamtron provides
weighing solutions. What was your slogan again? It was 'Weigh to Know'.
Translated as 'Punnittua Tietoa'. Yeah, it's really annoying that the 't' isn't there in 'way', but it's a pun. But why is weighing the most important thing in the world? Well, it's actually the most common way to measure in industry - it's weight data, and Tamtron is a world leader in its own niche industry here.
companies and, well, I think we're now in Europe among the top three, if I don't remember it completely wrong, so we have grown strongly in recent years and the product offering has expanded through acquisitions and we've gained more market share that way too, but for the general public of course we are a bit of an unknown company, even though we've had great recognition and visibility, for example through this listing, but
anyway indeed our solutions, or we provide solutions for mass-based material flow management. I personally like this definition, which includes specifically for industry these weighing devices, weighing systems, dosing systems, conveyors, and related software, cloud services, and then life cycle services, so these are a quite
critical part of our customers' processes, which is why there's also a lot of maintenance and repair activity, verification services. So when you said that these are important to the customer, it can be said for many companies that all their purchases and sales, that data goes through our devices and systems and through that all the way to invoicing, which then of course leads to the fact that we also work quite a bit with regulation, statutory
metrology, measuring instruments, there's a lot of this sort of compliance, starting from the requirements of EU directives, and those Tamtron of course applies here and yeah, so, like, also taxes and customs statistics and all that, top-notch, and nothing like estimated by eye; it's very precise work. Yes, and well, this kind of work investment banking is too, though I think, Jari, there's quite a bit of artistry involved in this investment banking business, but those two roles were mentioned
so could you perhaps explain a bit what— Yeah, so indeed, at Translink I act in listings as, well, a financial advisor and a Certified Advisor. So this first-mentioned means that we are involved in these offerings as an advisor and ensure that we get sufficient anchor investor demand, meaning getting institutional investors involved and, well, then we have a partner in this case Nordnet, who then handled this this retail side, meaning marketing then to consumer customers, and we
were then, well, we handled sort of the stage preceding that and ensured that the project reaches the finish line, and then this second role, meaning the so-called Certified Advisor, so this is this kind of stock exchange system, an institution in a way, which then ensures for these target companies that they fulfill the continuous disclosure obligation, so first the stock exchange criteria must be met to
get onto the exchange, we assist the company in that, and after that monitor that these obligations are fulfilled. So there are sort of two themes, one being this sort of legislative upcoming, which FIN-FSA supervises as the authority, and then there's this self-regulation side, meaning the exchange's own rulebook, and both of these must line up so that you can be on the exchange. And this
is a very good system in my opinion, what they have in First North, that if you compare it to main list companies, for example, there's no equivalent there and there have been quite a few challenges with reporting for many large companies, which you don't see in First North. But perhaps our big role is, however, this role of a financial advisor, ensuring that the deal gets finalized there on the exchange. Meaning getting investors to invest in the company and the company
listed. Yes, and it's not... I've been quite critical myself of how hard it is specifically to find these anchor investors, but in this case Translink's December 2022, well, there we found the rich Miettinens, so greetings to Tero Luoma and Marjo Miettinen and Ensto Invest, dear greetings there, and so we got this kind of Serious Capital involved, but before this call, I called
Mika Heikkilä from Proprius Partners, and he hadn't yet set up the fund, so he couldn't participate then, but this first capital in the listing is quite important, but then the Lahti Precision acquisition was also made right after, and these were two slightly different mechanisms, right Jari? Yes, I can start with that, then you can tell a bit about the deal and its
benefits, but basically, it was this kind of seller-driven process, so Lahti Precision had a private equity fund as its main owner, which then started this kind of sales process with their advisor, and this happened right after Toni's listing, so we had to react to that situation, knowing that all the other buyers had been contacted, and then we had to really seriously consider how to approach this, and the company was well known, and then
basically it required us to arrange additional financing for the company, the deal was doable, and it was done so that then, once we had reached an agreement on the commercial terms with the seller and the seller's representatives, then the company's main owners, meaning in this case, Pentti Asiakainen and then Ensto Invest, gave subscription commitments in a way that
the deal could be financed, and after that, the company's main owners made a smart decision that they still wanted to open this opportunity to the public to participate in this follow-on offering, so what was done there was that the current owner was given this kind of guaranteed allocation, but for the part they didn't like subscribed for shares then like completely outsiders were able to get in on that offering and I think this was like a good sort of
intermediate model between a rights issue and and this kind of like overnight directed offering so so it surely left everyone with a good taste in their mouths that it wasn't done really like overnight and and at a discount then relative to the current market value especially since the company was still quite young after all and it met the goals in that deal meaning meaning the seller was able to ensure that the financing is not a problem and we got like a clean exit then because there was a private equity investor as a seller so it sort of
like we were able to carry it through in a very short time then then and deal certainty was high there like towards the seller and Mikko can tell more about these Yes so so I mean you can demonstrably get capital from the stock market quite quickly even after an IPO and for acquisitions but well wasn't it quite a good deal that in a way practically like didn't quite double the turnover but significant Yeah yeah not quite indeed in that year we were at
ten but but nearly 20 million then came in that so a big big growth leap of course for us and about 100 100 people new colleagues here in the home country and of course the significance of this IPO here as Jari says was was like essential that of course Tamtron's IPO was carried out to implement our growth strategy and and these kinds of leaps wouldn't have been possible of course without the fact that that the funds raised from these which
we then of course used Now this came quite quite indeed quickly this opportunity for this this Precision deal but of course when we had been competitors partly in the home country in certain product groups for a long time we've we've followed the company we knew we knew well their solutions and and well also there was new offering certain technologies in these dosing solutions on the automation side which Tamtron didn't
have before In a way that in-factory measurement and and weighing so it was like actually for us such a perfect addition meaning meaning market share and growth were gained but also new technologies that we can now in this Tamtron world then take to our country companies sales channels and support then this organic growth further through that not to mention
we got the two best Finnish cities Meaning well Tampere and Lahti so I was b- born so well and grown up in Tampere a completely winner combination maybe the big biggest challenge for a couple of years has been this this well playoff league finals must be careful what you say as a Tamperelan in that so as not to offend anyone's feelings Yeah maybe let's return to that on the insider side but well it's great that an acquisition succeeds and then I mean this isn't in any way
an easy job to promise like growth leaps in an IPO and then in a way also implement it it was quite clear it has to be acquisition-driven You can't get there quite organically, but it's really great after a few months...
...after getting that big one, and then you probably wondered if the synergies would work and...
...if we paid too much, but overall, it went quite well, yes.
Yes, and actually, this was a bit of a different kind of...
...integration process for us. Previously, we've often bought...
...companies from abroad, but now we were at home and partly with competitors, but...
...we were able to carry out that integration process quite efficiently and...
...immediately after the closing, within a month or two, we had...
...a new organizational model and roles in the organization, and...
...tasks were defined, and we could continue. And actually, we had...
...our most important internal goal was that for the customers and business...
...there shouldn't be any interruptions or disturbances, and we succeeded really well.
So the year '23 was a record year for this acquisition target, Precision LeKi...
...everything went really well. And now we've been moving forward...
...continuously, and these technologies and solutions from Lahti have...
...become more and more familiar to the local subsidiaries, and with Tamtron's...
...internal cooperation in sales and product management, I believe that...
...we'll see even more of these synergies on the top line in the coming years.
Yes. And regarding the IPO promises, by the way, about this...
...acquisition of Lahti Precision, wasn't one of the IPO promises this...
...lifting the recurring billing software component into SaaS?
Didn't it come specifically from that end? Are we talking...
...with Lahti's... S? Yes, exactly. So in this, you could say...
...in our industry, Finns have been pioneers, meaning...
...we've started thinking in a new way about how to deliver these solutions...
...to customers and modernize their processes, utilizing digitalization.
You still see very old operating models out there in the world...
...but now with digitalization, cloud services can replace a lot of...
...that old hardware with mobile devices that drivers can use, and...
...Precision brought this mScales service to the market...
...a couple of years before Tamtron. Tamtron had a similar...
...cloud service, and then after the acquisition was completed, we of course evaluated...
...which platform to continue on as a shared one, and mScales was chosen.
At that point, and indeed, it's a SaaS service as the name implies, and...
...it has this monthly recurring billing model.
The revenue stream comes from that, whereas previously in these weighing solutions...
...software in the old world was sold like how you used to buy...
...a package for your own computer. That has also shifted to this monthly...
...subscription model. It's the same ideology here, of course, and it brings...
...that recurring revenue stream, and of course, it's also there when...
it scales, so that will then also bring improvements to the bottom line and profitability and we can talk a bit more about Anni's goals, there were others too, but Jari, this SaaS is one of Translink's strong areas We have this Translink SaaS quadrant, so there the SaaS business is the best right now even though the industry is considered at a low number, like a 3.5 or 3.6 revenue multiple, so this is like
valuable business, so there's hidden value here in this Tamtron, I mean, I'm not giving recommendations in this episode but inevitably it comes to mind that at the time of the IPO multiples were... this company has done what it promised, meaning scale has grown, so roughly the revenue multiple was 1.15 and then a bit under 10 was the IPO EBITDA multiple, so from both of those
in a way, with this increase in scale, these multiples have become cheaper, so now it feels like there might be some value on offer here, but Jari, is this kind of valuation... was there a bit of breakup spirit here or multiples or how did you see it? We tried to communicate that, and some people did buy into it, of course the share was still relatively small at that IPO stage, but it's clear
that it's so scalable that when you can basically sell the software to competitors' hardware too, so it's not limited just to your own installed base, and on the other hand, I don't know what your churn is right now, but with software like this, very few entrepreneurs will start changing it when there are practically no competing solutions Yes, and the data keeps coming in from that hardware. And Mikko, isn't it that some AI dust is settling there too? Yes, absolutely,
of course Tamtron aims to maintain its technological leadership as well and this year the first AI-based solutions and features for this mSaaS service went into production after the summer for the first customers, so through that, and maybe it's even that there are many modules like this, for example the transfer document that came with the waste law reform, meaning in
hazardous waste transport, these transfer documents must be prepared and then sent to the authority's database. So our mSaaS service does that, then you can take these AI features as packages and pick the suitable ones, and of course they are all priced as additional services, which also increases the monthly price. You could think that you're not that sorry if a kind of stiff
bureaucrat says that now there must be this and that requirement, so yes, of course, there's a lot related specifically to these measuring devices and everything related to waste management around it and related to the circular economy and such, it's clear that these regulatory requirements are constantly increasing, and in that sense, demand for these solutions of ours is, of course, in good shape, and there is
a regulatory need, in a way, to look at the raw tons coming in and out, and VAT in, and this kind of fiscal perspective. But then there's also this slightly criticized ESG, meaning that when you want to measure good things, and not just some kind of fluff, but quite measurable things, absolutely, if we think about, for example, something easy for everyone to understand, like recycling plants or circular economy,
things are measured in tons or weight there, and processed, and then they leave eventually in some form. So the entire material flow management, incoming and outgoing flows at the sorting center, is based on these weighing devices and the data collected with them, and then indeed, our cloud service, there are of course integrations from there to the customers' own ERP systems and other
back-end systems, and maybe also, as you pointed out, customer retention comes through that—it's such a central system, and when everything works, the customers are long-term. Yeah. Do you remember, Jari, if this IPO—I mean, on First North you can get by with this company description? Isn't the limit two million? But here we decided to do exactly that, since we went over it, it was then this EU Growth Prospectus, so
strictly according to regulation. It's no longer just according to exchange rules, but it comes directly from the law, what kind of prospectus it must be, it's the more extensive version, and we were doing that with the bank at the time, and of course it goes for regulatory review. Yeah, they were really scrutinizing them there, they really do read it, as they should, so there were good comments, and of course we wanted to keep the quality high ourselves too,
because it forms a sort of foundation for the future, and we don't want there to be things that are incorrect or misleading. Yeah. And my favorite term is 'circulation,' meaning these accountants there are actually drawing circles, like, 'yes, this figure is from the correct source.' So this is precise work. Even now, I think I can challenge any listener or viewer who wants to read the offering documents— I think we can still stand behind them quite proudly,
as it doesn't always go this way. In a listing, they might promise all kinds of fluff, but then the implementation is whatever. Maybe our philosophy starts from the idea that the listing is sort of like a tool for the company, that in a firm's lifecycle, it's not the endpoint.
at all, so in this case as well, no one sold any shares so it wasn't like a cash-out opportunity, but rather a way to handle the current situation and enable future growth, including acquisitions, and it continues—it was an intermediate milestone. Now we're moving forward toward the next growth leaps, maybe listing on the main market will be relevant at some point; the
company is developing. We also ensure that we at Translink don't get involved in projects like this where it sounds a bit like it's just a thing that lasts until the listing and then surprises start appearing, or there are some other goals that aren't long-term. Interests must be aligned with the investor who joins during the IPO; for us, that is important. Yes, regarding these offering goals, wasn't there talk
about staff commitment? That has progressed well, yes yes, and back then in that first original offering, it was really great to see how extensively our own staff got involved and subscribed for shares. I think it's a certain kind of confirmation that even inside the house, our own people believe and want to be owners in the company, so it was a really great signal, and of course
other benefits of listing, if you think about it, then of course now in the summer, a share-based incentive scheme was introduced, so we can continue that. Of course, the company has grown a lot; through acquisitions, more people have joined, and we can now expand it to the team and get the management and key personnel's interests aligned with shareholder value creation too. I think it was a really
great thing. And of course, you see in many cases that this kind of awareness and visibility is hard to get through earned media. Of course that's possible too, but this has brought many benefits to recruitment; when you think about it, we have a lot of information available about the company, and when people look into us, they can check interim reports and our company presentation and so on, so there's a lot of
positive stuff that comes with it. Of course, the workload shouldn't be underestimated, as Jari mentioned, for example, producing the prospectus and everything else, but you shouldn't be afraid of it either; those tasks get done. Yeah, and Jari, you invited me there; you had this event that I think you could call a Capital Markets Day, a sort of main market event. I thought it was fun. There were those R&D developer types, and they
had fun visions, I think. I believe it's worth attending these to always learn about the firm and how you do things. Was it useful?
Absolutely, and it's nice when you think about the communication side and
Yeah, I remember specifically that AI development and in a certain way, combining that weighing system with machine vision so that it seems like a winning concept, that you check and verify the actual weighing result with that image too. Yeah, and in that we're essentially at the core of this kind of AI or image recognition or whatever, because after all we get
that data with cameras and other devices, and there used to be these load inspectors who take photos there, maybe a bit more advanced ones with phones, of what was brought on the platform, and all this can be automated.
And now, with AI, it can be done quite efficiently, meaning we get this kind of efficiency in customer processes and added value, and no one has to do things manually there anymore, so yeah.
We had one image processing case, Jari, was it Visy or whatever it was, it feels like in these cases Finns are quite strong in this kind of logistics management and in machine vision, in a way. Yes, and this measuring is great. I see Ponsse proudly putting that Tamtron logo on their systems. Yeah, but the core for us is still that
measurement technology and these force-based measurement solutions, and let's just say Ponsse chose us too. Thanks for the trust, but there are years of development work behind it and a lot of testing, iterating, and developing these measuring devices too, like for the forwarder, they have them there
and of course it's great with these OEM customers that often the development work is done together for a while, and they have the machines and the real operating environment, and we get to test there, so that is also worth its weight in gold. What's the scale? I mean aren't we talking about kilograms and tons in your line of work?
Well, it's practically tons, not kilos. When we're in industrial processes, the display shows tons not kilos for the operator. But then, of course for a Ponsse harvester, there is indeed in that grapple, yeah, it's in the grapple. So, of course, when you think those big wheel loaders can quickly have 5-8 tons in the bucket
of load, and of course, not to mention train scales, then we're talking about really heavy loads being measured. Yeah, and this Lahti Precision was like a rare domestic deal, at least Jari, we've noticed that this cross-border deal volume is becoming quite dominant, even though it's almost standard fare in acquisitions these days. In a way, for us, if
If we think about our typical case, we usually have, well, being on the sell-side, maybe those cases are sought out where there is international demand, and often the situation is that we're in an industry where, to enter Finland, it's practically necessary through an acquisition, meaning it's not possible to set up a greenfield, or maybe it's been tried and it failed, and then it's been concluded that this is the only way, which then sort of
might be that company's Nordic strategy, the final missing piece is Finland, and then they head there, so in a situation like this, where there's a very strong synergistic buyer who then wants the target, they are ready to pay quite a large premium, and then maybe these domestic buyers are at a bit of a disadvantage there if there aren't such large synergies, or if it's a
private equity target, then the PE firm still needs to get it bought cheap so they can sell high at the end of the investment period, so in that race, it often happens that the foreigner wins. Yeah, about those acquisitions still, didn't you have goals where this Lahti Precision helps quite a lot in this growth, but practically with just organic growth you can't manage, you should be able to... Yeah, in our
financial targets back at the time of the listing, if I remember correctly, it was defined that about 4 million of that growth would come from acquisitions, and it's clear that they'll be needed in the future and will likely be done, but on the other hand, I still have a feeling that many companies, when they list, they always state that the raised funds will be used for acquisitions among other things, and how many
actually do them? For us, however, they've actually been done dozens of times even before the listing, so we do have experience with them and this was of course the largest in history, this Lahti Precision, in spring 2023. Yeah, and it's good that you're doing it, there's a bit of...
Of course, some mess them up, like buying some Consolidated Papers or Unipers, but we always talk about them as responsible actions, and those synergy analyses are done properly, and we don't pay too high multiples, and we follow the playbook, so you really do get value from them, yeah, yeah, yeah, and growth, because organically it's harder to grind out, so in a way, this kind of
vertical, or buying market share, is quite low-risk anyway. Yeah, and then in a sense, if you think about the smaller there, so there aren't necessarily many other buyers out there then, on the move, so that's obviously a good advantage for a buyer like Tamtron. It is in a way a good home for an entrepreneur who's leaving or, well, wants to step away from the business to retire or something else. Yeah, and if you recall these machines and Konecranes and Metsos,
well, decades ago, they headed out into the service business and global expansion with exactly these—so, a bit like the same steps are being taken here, yeah, yeah, definitely. And it's of course been the case previously, before this listing, that with acquisitions, we naturally initiated many of those discussions ourselves and contacted selected companies, but now, of course, since it's quite public that acquisitions are part of our
growth strategy, and as things are being reported and announced, they are visible to everyone, so you notice that we've also started to be approached, so when industry companies reach that stage, it's of course also quite nice that those openings come our way and we can then evaluate if we want to go for it. Yeah, this could be done...
if I only knew how to say it, since it still bothers me that all potential targets would hear about you even better. In a way, maybe Tamtron has probably looked at the domestic market here; you could find anything still, if you start expanding this a bit, but didn't you have those acquisitions quite a lot over there in Eastern Europe? Wasn't it? Well, Eastern Europe, yeah.
Actually, regarding the Precision acquisition, well, there we carried out an acquisition in Denmark a year earlier, and the year before that in Norway, so these actually complemented our Nordic presence—the other way around than you just described, where Finland was the last one, so we got some really good, companies from there. And yeah, Eastern Europe—Tamtron is now in nine European
countries, so besides the Nordics, there's Germany, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Estonia, and, well, in Europe we still have, I'd say, interesting countries; of course, there are large economies like France and the UK, where we aren't yet, though we are there through dealers.
We actually have exports to 50 countries outside of these home markets, through an extensive network of partners and dealers.
And many of these Tamtron companies are former dealers, so it's quite a natural path; we get to know each other, and then the exit might become timely for the old owners as retirement begins to loom. So, this has been a good path for us, and I'd say one reason we've succeeded, I'd say, is that we've always known the target company quite well, and of course, they've known us, and we know that...
The cooperation works so that there's like these resale acquisitions of dealers, perhaps. Isn't your system set up so smartly that competing weighing solutions can be plugged in there, into your Lahti Precision system perfectly, and then of course customers learn it's worth using quality hardware and buying from you. Yeah, that's right. Indeed, with these gateway devices, we're able
to connect devices from other manufacturers, which obviously makes adopting the cloud service easier; we wanted to make it flexible and easy for customers. However, there's great added value in getting more scales and customers connected and this recurring revenue stream; those services are easy to deploy. But of course, we've seen that once we're in with the customer and they know us, when they renew or invest in new
equipment, it's directed our way quite well. So, cloud services also strongly support hardware sales, so it's a good concept. Perhaps regarding acquisitions still, that when you basically buy distributors and move forward in the value chain with vertical acquisitions, then as you said, the risk is significantly lower than if we buy a competitor, because those distributors are familiar, they're known
personally, so their customers are also known, and the risk of a takeover like that is much lower than going horizontal into a new country or market, or often taking on new products or buying a competitor.
So yes, in that sense, it's easier to succeed. But this Lahti Precision was successful, even though it's a more difficult game, and there were likely cost synergies and overlapping operations that we could address, but apparently Lahti brought quite a lot of new energy, and there's a good team together now. Yes, exactly.
And we got a lot of new products and solutions, as I mentioned, for our overall offering, all of which can be connected to this cloud service, so we can meet all the customer's weighing data needs even better, and indeed, there are many synergies domestically, of course, but also a lot of technological expertise was added to Tamtron, so
we're moving forward stronger than ever. And now, since we talked about these relative multiples, the company's scale has grown, but the Finnish stock market has been in a bit of a slide, so that's been reflected in your case too; though the scale grew, relative multiples have stayed the same or even decreased slightly. So, Mika Heikkilä from Proprius Partners joined in here, and...
Well, he is this kind of value investor; previously, this kind was requested...
...micromarks. And sometimes these things turn around so that, for example, I remember when...
...he was annoyed when Comptel was taken off the stock exchange too cheaply. So, there is...
...this kind of thing involved; Jari and I did Finland's first...
...First North public tech thing, Nordic ID, then Brady Corporation of America bought...
...it then, and hopefully Tamtron will now continue this domestic...
...growth, but there's like a certain percentage chance some foreigner gets interested and...
...makes a public tender offer. It's useless to speculate on that now, but probably...
...it's some kind of edge case in Mika's portfolio that a public...
...tender offer comes. Yes, that's how it is. Certainly, on a general level, one can...
...say that the Finnish stock exchange is lagging so much that if other exchanges rise...
...and this continues, it's like a very clear, logical progression that...
...then deals like this will surely come. There are several projects currently...
...underway, or ideas, but let's hope that for Tamtron...
...it can now continue according to plans, so that there...
...those kinds of things. But here we have, in a way, at least three anchor investors...
...here we have the wealthy Miettinens—greetings to Marja Miettinen again—and...
...then there's your founder group, and then there's also this...
...Proprius, who is likely a long-term investor, though you never...
...really know with value investors, but here, the important thing was...
...the lock-ups and the founder's investments. But don't you have quite strong CEO...
...support there in the board and from the owner perspective? Yes, certainly.
...The Chairman of the Board, Pentti Asikainen, who is also the largest...
...shareholder, so Pentti has of course been with the company for a long time...
...in operational roles and as an entrepreneur back in the day. And he knows...
...the industry and the company really well. And let's say we have a...
...really excellent board from a management perspective; everyone has their own...
...areas of expertise. We have SaaS knowledge and digital...
...business expertise. Yes, Hannu Kytölä is on the SaaS side, and then...
...on the sales side, there's Pia Hautamäki, and of course Tero Luoma brings...
...his own expertise from the institutional side, especially from Ilves...
...Ilves, of course. Yes, he is a member of the Ilves board—just a little...
...lighthearted note there. But yeah, indeed, we are in contact quite a lot...
...outside of meetings too. And now, for example, when...
...the strategy is being updated, the board is very actively involved in that work...
...and works actively with management. Yes. By the way, has your...
...management team changed during this or has it stayed the same? Well, yes...
...there has been some minor turnover along the way...
...along the way, but I think we have a very good...
...leadership team together now. And let's say, of course, some retirements are coming up.
In the country companies, there are already a few older guys, but even so, in the Czech Republic, for instance, a couple of years ago, it went very well, finding a successor there, and he has performed very well. So does it go— so you have that sort of functional structure and then the country managers, or how? Yes, we have company-specific P&L responsibility, so in Finland we have
this Tamtron Oy, which is practically this onboard business, and I'm still running that myself, and then we have Tamtron Precision Oy, which handles heavy weighing and system solutions, and MSK is part of that, and then there are all the country companies, so...
the CEO of Precision reports to me, as do the country managers and, of course, the CFOs. Yeah. Well, now internationalization will likely continue, and you were able to sell in the UK as well, and is America part of the plan at all? Yes, South America has actually been good for us; there is a lot of forest industry there, so we've sent
solutions for that sector and also for the mining industry, then these onboard solutions. North America is, of course, something we also have our eyes on, as everyone knows that the economy there is thriving, and it is the world's largest economy, and of course Canada might also be interesting now with the free trade agreement with the EU, so we can enter through there too. And there are exactly these—thinking about our
customer segments, there's forest industry, earthmoving, mining, of course logistics and others, everywhere circular economy, so of course these can be found there, and just the week before last there was the MINExpo trade show in the US, where we were physically present opening doors, so it's definitely in our plans. Yeah, it really is— regarding my own portfolio, North America is really pulling it
upward nicely, so hopefully these elections don't cause any turbulence there. Those Trump— Trump's tariffs are quite an interesting thing if it goes through, but not much of your revenue comes from there yet. Yeah. Has there been any learning regarding communications, like, obviously having to be very careful when you're making or preparing a major acquisition like that, so has that
communication side of things evolved along the way? Well, yes, it starts right from the beginning, actually from this IPO project, so in that, of course, at the start, the role of advisors is very important, and of course after the IPO as well, so even though we've gone through—regarding who participates in our communications, management and especially the CFO, he has a big role in that
and has completed all the exchange trainings and...
[We've] studied the topic, but it is indeed challenging in its own way. It's very important that something like this—I'm also here at First North—it's really good to have this Certified Adviser with whom you have a telephone connection active at all times, and you can discuss matters related to these communications as needed, and ensure that things are handled
correctly. Yeah, and Jari, we've been here as trainers for the Exchange and Suomen Yrittäjät's '365 Days to the Exchange' for five years now. From there come potential clients all the time, but if we look back at the former project, Talent T, our project's name, yeah. You mentioned the ITF, the Intention to Float, which is a notification of a very likely stock market listing.
So that's probably an important milestone before the actual listing. Yeah, well, in practice, the anchor portion must already be sold at that point, so then only the retail portion is left open, maybe 20–30%, as it typically has been—in some cases even even smaller. So in practice, the package is ready, and then you sort of announce that now we're actually coming, and well,
then right after that, there are announcements about when the subscription period begins. For some, it starts quickly after the ITF, but then it's been customary to have these kinds of soft launches before that, where you mention that it's being considered and that listing is one option. You see these from time to time, and they don't necessarily lead to the actual final listing process; instead, it's more about testing the waters, still having investor discussions, so from here
we might get to your favorite topic: in Finland, after all, if you're doing, say, over ten or even tens of millions in an IPO, it practically always requires that you have pension money involved, or then you have one of these larger family offices that have balance sheets of hundreds of millions, so they can genuinely be part of this kind of long-term case as an anchor investor. Since the number of those is just
small in this country, it's a big constraint. Of course, a big tip of the hat to the pension companies for taking all these projects positively; they always look at every case, and well, they respond quickly if they're not interested, or maybe there are different views on valuation, and the market situation has an effect, but in a way, there's a certain good spirit there that all
projects are reviewed and taken seriously, whereas for family offices, they have different types of goals; some are more active, some aren't, and some are involved occasionally, but then the underlying fact that there are now these kind of micro-funds like Proprius that of which there are quite few and they don't have the capacity to write big tickets in the way pension companies do,
being poorer. In these, on a practical level, I think these smaller family offices—since we at Translink have done deals with these multi-millionaires, they are also important to find, and then these X-Capitals can then be called through, because sometimes the success of an offering depends on them, whether we get another million from someone on top of it. And here, fortunately, we got this anchor investment from Ensto, and
from Kytylä as well, but all of it is very important and, by the way, those one-on-ones, they were rehearsed so much. I don't know if you still have nightmares, Mikko.
Well no, there were many of them, but they started to go very well; the presentations became natural, if you'd woken me at night, they'd come from the back of my mind. We did them. Yeah, and if you think about it, usually you mentioned not getting bandwidth from these pension companies or others, I remember 2022, or everyone remembers that if you look back a bit, it was predicted to be a record
listing year, but then came the wars in Ukraine and everything else, and the situation turned completely upside down. So, and probably still today, I could imagine that since there are relatively few IPOs, many of these institutions currently have time to process them, but perhaps in a record year, it might be hard to get the bandwidth even to present.
Now, from the retail investor's perspective, the few percent increase in interest rates has eaten the extra investment pot, so maybe it'll ease up when rates go down and purchasing power returns, so we get that retail investment angle. Inderes did this kind of independent analysis and still does. Is the team following you, how sharp are the people at Inderes? Are they roughly on point? Yes,
I think we are followed by analyst Pauli Lohi from Inderes, and of course we are in contact with Pauli, and I think I could say that his analyses are exceptionally good, company analyses; Pauli internalized our business very well and the important drivers, and he definitely knows how to
focus on the right things. Do you read the Inderes discussion forum, by the way? Occasionally. I think I'll just for the fun of it post this there, so leave a comment. As I said, this is not This isn't an investment recommendation, but well, that's also quite... sometimes, quite sharp people. Some there are really well-versed in these industries. Yeah, yeah, like, from what I've seen, sometimes people there have really delved into the company and can
bring up some really good points. Good, well, I don't know if we dare talk more about this non-recommendation, but indeed, I've had Thumtron's CEO Mikko as a guest, and then colleague Jari from Translink, and I'd suggest that, first of all, since you've watched or listened this far, please subscribe to the channel and let's head over to the Inner Circle side, and I feel we have to move on to ice hockey now, as I was
born in Lahti, and that last final, the Tappara-Lahti game, which Tappara naturally won. I was there watching Game Seven of the finals, of course, so let's at least discuss which team... Yeah, well, it's obviously, if it hasn't become clear yet, it came to us with our mother's milk, that Tappara jersey on. Jari, Jari, you might be part of
the Tampere teams' joy too. Yeah, I was born in Oulu, and there, being a Kärpät fan comes automatically from birth, and we played pond hockey, and back then I followed ice hockey very actively. Nowadays, you see, if Kärpät makes the playoffs, then then I'll tune in. Yeah, but let's go to the Inner Circle to talk about those, and I can reveal this much: we've been with Thumtron
in a box at the Nokia Arena as well, so jump over to the Inner Circle side and we'll check that out then. Thanks officially, thank you.