For Ponsse, the start of 2023 was driven by relatively strong order books. While the market situation looked fairly positive at the beginning of the year, the decreased outlook for the forest industry soon started to affect our customers’ investment decisions.

While our order books for the second half of the year were weaker than in the comparison period, they increased slightly during the final quarter to EUR 194.2 million. At the end of the period, the company’s order books stood at EUR 229.5 (353.7) million.

Forest machine markets were affected, on one hand, by uncertainties caused by inflation and rising interest rates and, on the other, by declining economies across the world. Difficulties in the key drivers of our operations – the sawmill and chemical forest industries – were rapidly reflected in forest machine sales. A decrease in purchasing power reduced private consumption and decelerated demand for sawn goods, board and pulp. Despite this, our customers were highly employed, and harvesting operations in Finland and Sweden in particular were running at high capacity.

Machines continued to be delivered normally from Ponsse’s factory in Vieremä throughout the year. The availability of parts improved, reaching an excellent level at the end of the year. This resulted both from quieter general demand for equipment and machine manufacturing and from the measures we carried out in our supplier network. We modified our procurement strategy and built alternative procurement channels for critical components.

In 2023, our net sales increased to EUR 821.8 million, driven by the delivery of new machines and the positive situation in maintenance. The growth was 8.8 per cent. Eventually, our net sales for used machines also increased slightly from the comparison period. Our technology company Epec grew as planned.

The company’s profitability decreased, with the operating profit rate being 5.7 (6.2) per cent. The loss of the Russian market had a significant impact and the difficulties of Ponsse Latin America Ltda, Ponsse’s subsidiary in Brazil, continued. Ponsse reacted strongly to the situation of its Brazilian subsidiary, and the company is now heading in a better direction. The new Managing Director of Ponsse Latin America Ltda started at the beginning of February 2024. We expect the profitability of our Brazilian subsidiary to improve significantly in 2024.

The company’s cash flow amounted to EUR 30.4 (-17.9) million in the period under review. We have been able to improve the efficiency of our working capital and especially release capital tied to material and accessory stocks. While the increase in used machine stocks calmed down towards the end of the period, the stocks increased significantly when examining the year as a whole.

Despite the challenges, 2023 was also full of successes. With festivities, we delivered the 19,000th and 20,000th PONSSE forest machines manufactured in Vieremä to our customers. Ponsse has grown rapidly. The PONSSE forest machine number 10,000 was completed in 2015 which means that the number of manufactured machines has doubled in only eight years.

Our investments in the development of new products are bearing fruit. During the year, the PONSSE Mammoth, a new addition to our forwarder range with a carrying capacity of 25 tonnes, the new PONSSE Scorpion Giant harvester and the PONSSE H8 harvester head all entered serial production. At the same time, we developed our existing product range to be more competitive. New product properties focused on operator ergonomics and remote connections, including the PONSSE Active Cabin suspension system, the rotating PONSSE Active Seat, and PONSSE Manager Satellite which enables satellite connections in forest machines. The productisation and testing of the PONSSE EV1, a forwarder equipped with an electric powertrain, proceeded as planned, and the second prototype of the concept was completed for customer testing at the end of 2023.

Ponsse is planning to update its operating model globally to strengthen its long-term competitiveness and profitability and provide even better customer services. The goal is to have a more global and scalable organisation and operating model. We are especially seeking to strengthen roles with customer responsibility in our sales and service network and planning to establish regional organisations to ensure both local and regional support. The global functions to be possibly established to support these regional organisations and a harmonisation of their operating methods would provide effective support for the success of our customer activities in the future. The planned measures could result in total annual savings of approximately EUR 10 million from 2026 onwards. The Group’s Management Team is moving the planning and execution of these changes forward. They would affect our organisation globally, and any local negotiations with employee representatives will be held in accordance with the local legislation of each country. If the planned operating model is realised, the changes would enter into force at the beginning of June 2024. According to initial estimates, the planned measures could result in the reduction of approximately 120-140 jobs globally.