financial performance

Bioretec has appointed Panu Mikkonen as chief financial officer from 6 October 2026, the fourth person to be named to the role since September 2025.

The appointment itself is quite routine. What stands out is the pattern around it: of roughly 400 management-team changes at Finnish listed companies that Listeds has tracked so far in 2026, Bioretec's finance function stands out for cycling through four CFOs (two of them interim) in just over a year, a pace uncommon for the role.

How the CFO role changed hands

Anne-Mari Matikainen took over as interim CFO with immediate effect on September 15, 2025, while outgoing CFO Johanna Salko stayed on to support the transition until her departure on November 30, 2025. Tuukka Paavola became permanent CFO on January 20, 2026, but Bioretec disclosed his departure barely six months later, on July 2, 2026. Anna-Mari Venola stepped in as interim CFO the same week to bridge to Mikkonen. Mikkonen is the fourth person to hold or be named CFO in roughly 13 months.

Frequent leadership changes cut two ways. Rapid turnover carries a cost of its own, in lost continuity and institutional memory, but replacing a poor fit quickly can equally signal decisiveness.

Two of the four moves were interim appointments, the usual way a company covers a gap while it searches, not four permanent hires that failed. Interim finance chiefs are in many cases also confirmed in the job later, though at Bioretec neither was made permanent.

All four CFO changes have unfolded under a single chief executive, Sarah van Hellenberg Hubar-Fisher, who became CEO after serving an interim position since May 2025, only in August 2025, weeks before the first of them; new chief executives often rebuild the finance function around themselves, and some of the turnover may reflect that. Bioretec has not disclosed the reasons behind each departure.

A day before Luotea posted half-year results showing Sweden pulling ahead of a lagging Finland, the group named Rikard Nyhrén, most recently of Intea and Newsec, as CEO of its Swedish operations from February 2027 with the group’s profit guidance now resting on Sweden.

He succeeds Mikko Taipale, who has stepped down from the role and from Luotea's Group Management Team effective immediately; Saman Khalilian, CFO of Luotea Sweden, will run the unit on an interim basis until Nyhrén arrives. CEO Antti Niitynpää said the appointment supports Luotea's aim to "accelerate improvement in profitability" in Sweden.

The change lands at the point where Sweden has become the group's growth engine. Swedish net sales rose roughly 10% in the first quarter and 9% in the second, even as Finnish cleaning and support services fell a further 7%, and the reaffirmed full-year guidance, adjusted EBITA to increase, or increase significantly, against 2025's EUR 7.0 million, increasingly rests on Sweden holding its trajectory.

Two features of the appointment stand out. Management is changing the leadership of its best-performing region at the moment that region is working; and it has gone outside facility services to do it.

Nyhrén, born in 1981, joins from Intea Fastigheter, where he heads asset management. He has held senior roles at Newsec, Hemsö and Parmaco, and was chief technical officer at Hemsö. He trained as a construction engineer at Mälardalen University. So his background spans both sides of the business Luotea wants to build: property and asset management, and the technical side, not cleaning or facility management.

His background points to where Luotea wants to grow: property services and data-driven services, both central to its 2026–2028 strategy. This is our read of the hire, not a reason the company has given.

The numbers behind the timing

The appointment landed one day before Luotea published half-year results. Group net sales for the second quarter rose 1.5% to EUR 88.1 million and adjusted EBITA rose to EUR 2.5 million, with Swedish net sales up 9%.

For the first half, net sales increased 0.4% to EUR 174.2 million, adjusted EBITA improved to EUR 2.9 million, and operating profit stood at EUR 0.5 million.

The improvement builds on the first quarter, when Luotea said that the "turnaround in Sweden proceeds as planned" even as group net sales dipped on price competition and delayed investment decisions in Finland.

Summa Defence shares fell 4.1% to €0.58 in the afternoon after shareholders ordered a special audit, refused to grant discharge from liability to the previous board and CEOs, and replaced the company's entire board. The latest decline extends an almost 90% slide over the past year and follows weeks of mounting concerns over the defense technology group's finances. 

The AGM yesterday approved a special audit covering the period from January 1, 2025, to June 24, 2026. The review was requested by shareholder Oy Haapalandia Invest Ltd, with support from Jerovit Investment Oy and PM Ruukki Oy, and will examine the use of IPO proceeds, the rapid depletion of funds during 2025, the company's financial crisis, acquisitions, disclosures, and the administration and use of corporate assets. The supporting shareholders said they collectively hold more than one-tenth of the company's voting rights, meeting the threshold required under the Finnish Companies Act. 

The AGM also marked a complete boardroom reset. Shareholders elected Ville Jaakonsalo, Ville Heikkinen, Juha Pinomaa, Tapani Kiiski, Jyrki Heinimaa, and Mikko Haapala as directors, replacing the previous board in full. At its first meeting, the new board appointed Pinomaa as chair and established an audit committee led by Jaakonsalo.

Finnish pension insurers started the year in rare agreement. Ownership platform Holdings data show pension insurers’ net sales of €670 million in Helsinki-listed equities in the first quarter, Arvopaperi reported today.

At the center was Neste, with roughly €425 million in net sales, followed by Wärtsilä and Metso. Renewable energy giant Neste’s share price has fallen from its March high amid fluctuating energy prices due to the Iran War, yet remaining more than three times elevated in value in the past year. Even Wärtsilä, a developer of solutions in marine and energy industries, has doubled its share price.

Insurers also sold banking giant Nordea, especially early this year, after a bourse rally late last year, but some turned into buyers as valuations softened. The pattern suggests disciplined profit-taking after strong runs in cyclicals and energy.