ES Group AB, the heat-pump technology company from Alingsås outside Gothenburg that trades on Nasdaq First North Growth Market as ESGR B, announced on 17 September 2026 that it has signed a distribution agreement with Termomat for the sale of heat-pump systems under its ES Energy Save brand in Portugal. The release, published through MFN at 09:32 Stockholm time, describes the Portuguese firm as an established supplier of HVAC and energy solutions with long experience of energy-efficient systems for commercial buildings, and says the partnership strengthens ES Group’s presence in Southern Europe “with a particular focus on commercial real estate”. The agreement covers ES Energy Save heat pumps for both commercial properties and residential homes, and the first step is a training programme for Termomat’s own organisation and its installation partners.
The Portuguese counterparty is Termomat – Distribuição de Equipamento Térmico, S.A., tax number 503763560, with its registered seat at Praça Luís Ribeiro 23 in São João da Madeira, in the industrial belt south of Porto, share capital of €410,000 and a second office at Taguspark, the science and technology park in Oeiras west of Lisbon. The company describes itself as a Portuguese HVAC business with more than two decades of experience, specialised in the technical representation of international brands in renewable energy and climate control: its brand list already runs from Viessmann and Schneider Electric to Jaga, Kampmann and Biddle, and, tellingly for this corridor, to Varmeteknikk, the Norwegian maker of electric boilers for commercial and industrial hot water. By the time of the announcement Termomat’s website already carried an Energy Save page presenting the “ES R290 residential heat-pump series”.
A deal that started on a stand in Milan
The two sides met the way most distribution deals in this industry still begin: at a trade fair. According to the release, the relationship started when Olga Duarte, Termomat’s commercial director, visited the ES Energy Save stand at MCE, the Mostra Convegno Expocomfort HVAC fair in Milan. “ES Energy Save offers a product portfolio that complements our existing offering very well,” she is quoted as saying, citing technical performance, flexibility and “close collaboration” as the reasons the Swedish brand suits the Portuguese market. On the Swedish side the deal is fronted by Matej Razdevšek, key account manager at ES Energy Save, who describes Portugal as “a market where heat pump technology is well established, and demand for energy-efficient solutions continues to grow”, and Termomat as having “a strong network, extensive technical expertise and a clear position within commercial building systems”. ES Group adds that the Portuguese agreement complements its existing presence in the Iberian market; the distributor list on the company’s website names Spain but, as of this weekend, not yet Portugal.
Who ES Group is
ES Group is small, listed and in the middle of a strategic pivot, which makes the Portuguese agreement easier to read. The company, active in European heat-pump markets since 2009 and known until this year as ES Energy Save Holding, renamed itself ES Group in the second quarter to reflect a model it calls a “heat pump technology and platform company”: it develops proprietary hardware architecture and control software and sells it two ways, as an original design manufacturer and white-label supplier to other brands, and under its own ES Energy Save brand through installer and distributor networks. Its products are built around propane (R290) as refrigerant, the low-global-warming-potential gas the industry is moving to under the EU’s F-gas rules; the company said earlier this year that it had sold 10,000 propane heat pumps, and Swegon, the Gothenburg-area ventilation group, agreed to sell ES Group’s residential R290 units under its own BlueBox brand.
The numbers are those of a growth company still paying for that platform. For the first half of 2026 ES Group reported operating income of SEK 77.0 million, up 4 percent, net revenue of SEK 69.4 million, flat on a year earlier, an EBIT loss of SEK 17.6 million (narrowed from 20.0 million) and a net loss of SEK 18.1 million; second-quarter net revenue rose 30 percent to SEK 20.0 million, and operating cash flow for the half improved to minus SEK 5.0 million from minus 32.1 million. In July the board proposed, and an extraordinary general meeting in August approved, a directed issue of units worth about SEK 17.8 million at SEK 15 per B share, subscribed by existing holders Tind Asset Management and Tedde Jeansson alongside new investors, with warrants exercisable at SEK 25 in August 2027; its Chinese shareholder and manufacturing partner Amitime, which is planning an IPO at home, placed a further SEK 4.4 million of shares while keeping the two companies’ joint-venture factory in Turkey. The stated use of proceeds was the ODM and white-label business and, second, expansion in the commercial real estate segment, which is exactly where the Termomat deal is aimed. Chief executive Yibo Zhao and chief financial officer Helena Wachtmeister presented the half-year on 21 August; the share traded at SEK 15.10 on the day of the Portuguese announcement.
Three distributor deals in ten days
Portugal is the third market ES Group has announced in September. On 8 September it appointed Nowatermia as exclusive distributor in Poland for its commercial heat pumps; on 14 September it reported a repeat order for R290 heat pumps from Hungary; and on 17 September came Termomat. In July it signed a technology partnership with the Swedish firm Enrad on propane heat pumps for industrial and commercial properties, and in April a spare-parts agreement with JS Energi for the Nordic region. The pattern is a distributor-led expansion into markets where gas and oil heating is being replaced under EU rules, run from Alingsås with a small organisation and financed in SEK 20 million increments. Portugal, with its mild winters, sits at the opposite end of the heating map from Sweden; the case for heat pumps there is cooling as much as heating, domestic hot water, and the commercial and hotel stock that Termomat already serves with its other brands, which is why the release keeps returning to commercial buildings rather than the single-family houses that drive ES Group’s Nordic volumes.
| ES Group AB, key figures (company reports) | Q2 2026 | Q2 2025 | H1 2026 | H1 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operating income, SEK million | 23.6 | 16.7 | 77.0 | 73.8 |
| Net revenue, SEK million | 20.0 | 15.4 | 69.4 | 69.3 |
| EBIT, SEK million | −13.4 | −16.0 | −17.6 | −20.0 |
| Profit/loss, SEK million | −13.6 | −16.2 | −18.1 | −20.1 |
| Operating cash flow, SEK million | −6.9 | −8.6 | −5.0 | −32.1 |
The Nordic HVAC bench in Portugal
ES Group joins a crowded Nordic bench in Portuguese heating, ventilation and cooling, most of it selling through exactly this kind of technical distributor rather than through subsidiaries. NorthSouth HQ’s directory already lists NIBE, Systemair and Uponor from Sweden and Finland, Danfoss and Grundfos from Denmark, and Finland’s Halton, which reaches Portuguese commercial kitchens and hospitals through the Amadora distributor Totalair. Termomat’s own portfolio, with Norway’s Varmeteknikk alongside the German and Dutch names, shows the same mechanism from the Portuguese side: a mid-sized technical distributor with engineers on staff and two offices, one in the northern industrial belt and one next to Lisbon’s largest office park, is how a Nordic equipment brand gets specified into a Portuguese building without opening a local company. The test for ES Group will be the one every small Nordic manufacturer faces in Portugal: whether a distributor carrying a dozen brands gives the newest one the training time and showroom space that the release promises.
Why this matters for the corridor
For Nordic manufacturers, the ES Group announcement is a clean example of the low-cost route into Portugal: no subsidiary, no tax number, a distributor found at a European fair, a training programme as the first deliverable, and a public-company disclosure that makes the relationship citable. For Portuguese distributors, it is a reminder that Swedish small caps with a technology story and fresh equity are actively looking for southern partners, and that a commercial director who walks a Milan fair with a clear brief can come home with an exclusive. NorthSouth HQ will look for the first named Portuguese installations, for whether Portugal appears on ES Group’s distributor map, and for any Portuguese contribution in the third-quarter report due on 13 November.