Investors > Boreo as an investment > Strategy and financial targets
Our roots are in the North and our company name Boreo mirrors both our cultural heritage and the location of our operations. Boreo – the former Yleiselektroniikka - creates value by owning, acquiring and developing small and medium-sized companies in the long-term.
Boreo has successfully executed its strategy and created shareholder value during 2020-2022. In the coming years the focus is on sustainable long-term profit generation. The execution of the Boreo Way and reaching the primary objective takes us towards reaching Boreo's broader purpose, i.e. being The Best Place for its Companies and People to Grow and Prosper.
To reflect an increased focus on the key drivers of value creation, Boreo updated on 27 Spetmeber 2022 its long-term strategic financial targets as follows:
Minimum 15% average annual operational EBIT growth
Minimum 15% Return on Capital Employed (ROCE)
Net debt to operational EBITDA between 2-3x
Boreo’s updated dividend policy is to pay an annually increasing dividend per share, taking into consideration capital allocation priorities.
Strategic objectives of Boreo for the strategy period 2021-2023 are presented below. In accordance with the company’s guidance approach, the strategic financial objectives serve as the company’s guidance and Boreo does not provide a separate short-term outlook.
Minimum average sales growth during the strategy period 20%
Minimum operative EBIT at the end of the strategy period 8%
Net debt/operative EBITDA 2-3x
Our primary objective is sustainable long-term profit generation. This is achieved with a business model that is based on the acquisition and ownership of great entrepreneurial companies with ability to generate sustainable long-term earnings growth and strong cash flows. The profits generated by the portfolio of companies are re-invested back to operations or to acquisitions with attractive expected returns on capital. The decentralized operating structure promoting culture of ownership and release of entrepreneurial energy is a core pillar of the firm’s business concept and sustainable earnings growth is ensured through the support and coaching of companies and the personnel.
Our ‘Acquisition strategy’ aims to create long-term earnings growth, to diversify the group through platform transactions to new industrial areas and geographies and to complement the existing Business Areas with add-on acquisitions.
Development stands for the goal to create growth and improve earnings by deploying group-wide adopted performance management processes and methodologies to develop operations.
The goal of People & Culture strategy is to make Boreo the best home for its personnel and companies to Grow and Prosper.
Our experienced M&A-organization develops our M&A-activities and facilitates the creation of deal flow from our organization and from our network of advisors.
In deal flow generation, we encourage and educate our people to ‘think M&A’. This internal deal flow generation method acts as a key source for identifying complementary businesses to our existing operations. In addition, we continuously maintain relationships with the financial community working with transactions in Northern Europe. This in turn acts as a source of identifying possibilities for the group to diversify to new industries and geographies.
We have a standardized acquisition process from identification of opportunities, to execution of the transaction and to post-acquisition integration. We put a high focus on aligning interests of key management of the acquired companies with the group.
We make sure that the acquired company is culturally fit with Boreo and is committed to Boreo’s values.
Growth
We aim to create significant EBIT growth through our Acquisition strategy, in line with the group's strategic targets.
Diversification
The Acquisition strategy furthermore aims to diversify the Group through platform transactions to new industries and geographies and hence creating a favorable risk profile for the group.
Strengthen existing operations
Strengthening of existing businesses with complementary add-on acquisitions
No integration to existing Business Areas
Sufficient scale either at acquisition or through a build-up after acquisition
Geographical or product offering expansion
Vertical and horizontal expansion in the value-chain
Small operational add-ons to larger stand-alone acquisitions
Sub-division build-ups
Boreo looks for asset light industrial businesses with strong cash generation, proven track record and a management fit with Boreo culture.
Our philosophy in acquiring companies is not built on capturing synergies with our existing operations and hence we limit the risk profile attached to growth via acquisitions. However, in daily operations we continuously focus on identifying synergies between our businesses to create growth of sales and earnings.
We aim to acquire companies in Northern Europe and selected other geographies.
Jesse Petäjä
SVP, M&A, Boreo Oyj
jesse.petaja@boreo.com, +358 40 706 9450
See list of acquisitions here.
Development stands for the goal to create growth and improve earnings by deploying group-wide adopted performance management processes and methodologies to develop operations.
In our development strategy we have addressed three focus initiatives through which we drive growth.
1. Game plan concept: Simple, efficient and standardized
Common view
Capabilities and resources
Visibility
2. KPI visibility: Measuring shareholder value drivers
From business specific KPIs to common finance KPIs and Group strategic financial targets
Increased focus on selected KPIs
3. Increased focus on cost efficiency: Starting in Q2/22
Procurement program (Finland, Baltics and Sweden)
Employee Benefit Program
People & Culture play a very central role in Boreo’s strategy. In order to achieve our business goals, we need talented personnel in our company who are willing to develop and prosper at their work. With our systematic People & Culture strategy, we help the business succeed and keep up with the constant competition and changing working life.
Main objective
The objective of our People & Culture strategy is to make Boreo the best home for our personnel to Grow and Prosper. We believe that when our people are happy and succeed in their work, our business targets will be achieved too.
Focus areas
In order to reach the main objective of our People & Culture strategy, we have defined three focus areas which are in the core of what we do. These are the areas in which we want to excel and which we prioritize.
Leadership development & Talent management
Boreo has a decentralized management system in which Boreo’s companies operate independently under the guidance of their own CEO’s. We want to make sure that the management in each of our companies is of high-classand develops the company forward. In addition, it is important for us to identify the talented employees working in the group, and to support them in their development and engage them.
To achieve our goals, we have created the Boreo Academy. Boreo Academy consists of two programs:
1) Leadership program
2) Talent program
Leadership program is a development program aimed for the key employees and managers of the group. The goal of the program is to increase understanding of Boreo’s strategy, to develop the participants’ leadership skills in different areas, and to promote the sharing of best practices and to discover cooperation opportunities between subsidiaries. The program consists of offsite seminar trips organized twice a year, joint trainings and workshops, and supporting learning materials. In addition, the program offers an opportunity for individual Business Coaching.
Talent program is offered to selected talented excellently performing employees who have a strong desire and capacity to develop and advance to more demanding positions within the group. Each talent program lasts two years, after which a new program always begins. 4-6 talents are selected for the program at a time and for the duration of the program they will receive a mentor from the members of the group's management team. The program includes trainings, workshops and various exercises on different subject areas. In addition, each participant is offered the opportunity for a work rotation in another company or country in the Boreo group according to the participant's development plan. During the program, participants can also go on an excursion abroad to a reference company.
Performance management and incentivization
Our decentralized management system is based on the companies' autonomy and strong local leadership. We develop incentives and rewards for the group's key personnel and local CEOs in a way that we ensure a focus on both the companies' short-term profit-making ability and the long-term value creation for Boreo and its stakeholders. Most of the group's key personnel are significant shareholders in the parent company, and we strive to enable personnel to participate in Boreo's growth story also as shareholders. As an example of this, we implemented a personnel share issue in the summer of 2022.
HR digitalization and compliance
We are willing to offer our companies efficient and modern tools for handling HR processes, so that management can focus on business development. By utilizing the group's HR systems, the companies also ensure that personal data is processed in accordance with the laws.
We also use digital HR tools to induct and train the group's ways of working to support our employees working in different countries. Our goal is to build a wide collection of different trainings in our digital learning environment for our employees.
We carry out regular personnel surveys in the group, with which we measure employee experience and use the data to help companies develop their culture and ways of working.