Joining the dots

While 2026e financial targets were reiterated during yesterday's CMD, the event was an opportunity for Hexagon to announce the roll-out of more transparent financial reporting starting from Q1 2024e, a shift in management incentive plans as well as some improvement in governance. We also understand

Bryan, Garnier & Co Technology Daily | LECS, IDR, SOP, HEXA, VANTI, DTE, SEMIS

Off to a good start to the year

Hexagon has reported solid figures this morning, beating consensus estimates by 1.5% on net revenue. Despite the 8% organic growth delivered in Q1 2023, we still expect the growth rate to decelerate throughout the year and remain fundamentally sceptical about the M&A strategy, which we consider

Airthings (No_rec, TP: NOK) - Recommendation and target price withdrawn

As a result of DNB Markets acting as financial advisor in conjunction with the company’s announcement (link) of a strategic review prompted by a non-binding letter of intent from Firda AS to explore a potential sale of its business segment assets, we have withdrawn our target price and recommendation.

SpareBank 1 Helgeland (Hold, TP: NOK167.00) - Softer margin, but lower costs

Helped by still-solid core revenues, cost reduction YOY and moderate loan losses, HELG reported a Q1 ROE of 12.3%, despite some margin pressure. With solid earnings generation, the bank increased its CET1 ratio by ~20bp to 18.0% and still guides for a 0.8%-point benefit from the implementation of Basel IV, boding well for meaningful distributions. We have lowered our 2026–2027e EPS by 0–1%, That said, we reiterate our target price of NOK167. With the stock trading at a 2026e P/E of ~12.4x, we continue to find the valuation fair and reiterate our HOLD.

Smartoptics (Buy, TP: NOK27.00) - We remain optimistic

Smartoptics’ Q1 results marked a slower start to the year than we forecast, primarily owing to weaker sales in Devices, which seems to be back to near-term tariff-induced uncertainty. On the flip side, we understand the slowdown seen towards end-Q1 has already caught up again in order inflow, and thus we remain upbeat for the quarters ahead. Following an estimate reduction, we have lowered our target price to NOK27 (30) but reiterate our BUY.