Alexander van der Lof, CEO of technology company TKH: “With Q4 showing growth in all segments, we realized a strong end to the year. Smart Vision systems reported record results in Q4 on the back of the large orders secured earlier in the year, and the robust order book positions us for further growth. Smart Manufacturing and Smart Connectivity systems also contributed to the growth, and ROS for the group in the fourth quarter was a strong 14.6%.
During the year under review, Smart Connectivity systems showed a weak performance. The strong market headwinds in Digitalization led to a sharp decline in volumes, which we addressed by relocating all fibre optic cable production to Poland to reduce costs. In Electrification, the effects of destocking of onshore cables by the Dutch utility companies continued throughout 2024. Strong progress was made in positioning for growth in Europe. The postponement of the ramp-up of the new inter-array cable factory in Eemshaven resulted in low turnover for offshore inter-array cables and additional start-up and ramp-up costs. Good progress has been made in the past months to remove the bottlenecks enabling us to start serial production shortly.
In 2024, we concluded our €200 million investment program. We further optimized our portfolio, divesting two large non-core entities in our Smart Manufacturing segment, with a combined turnover of €56 million in 2023. We also acquired three smaller companies with state-of-the-art technologies, two of which in our automation-driven Smart Vision segment.
In 2025, we will see the full benefits of the €15 million cost-saving measures we implemented. Combined with expected growth in Smart Vision systems and strong growth in Smart Connectivity systems driven by the strong order book, we expect overall organic growth of both turnover and EBITA excluding one-off income and expenses in 2025.
As this is the last year of our Accelerate 2025 strategy, we have started to review our strategy going forward. We have achieved many of the milestones we defined for this period, but also due to geopolitical developments and resulting market headwinds, we have not realized our full potential within the timeframe. Building on our strong foundations, our strategy for the next phase will focus on Automation and Electrification as guiding global trends. Our leading positions and mature technologies on the back of our innovations and R&D roadmap, will allow us to gain further market share and expand our addressable market. In addition, a combination of cost optimizations, optimized integrations and commercial excellence programs will add to further margin expansion. As part of our strong focus on Automation and Electrification, we will implement a matching divestment program, using the proceeds to further build our core technologies, while returning any excess cash to shareholders. We plan to host a Capital Markets Day on September 25, 2025 to present our fully defined strategy and targets for the next phase.”
ESG
TKH made further progress in 2024 on its key sustainability targets as set out in the Accelerate 2025 strategic program. Our net carbon market-based footprint for scopes 1 and 2 decreased by 70.3% in 2024 compared with the reference year 2019 (2023: 64.3%). This excludes acquired carbon offsets and was mainly driven by energy efficiency measures, a higher share of renewable energy and green certificates. In 2024, the percentage of female employees in executive and senior management roles increased to 21.6% from 19.2% in 2023. The percentage of turnover related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was 71.6% (2023: 70.2%).