Kamux Oyj

Good morning and welcome to Kamuksi's Q425 results information sessions. My name is Katariina Hietaranta. I'm Kamuksi's Head of Investor Relations and I'm here with our CEO Juha Kalliokoski and CFO Enel Sintonen who will present you the results. Please go ahead, Juha.

Good morning. Thank you, Katariina. Let's get started. Here is our agenda for presentation. As usual, we shall first take a brief look at the market, followed by review by country. Enel will then dive deeper into the financial development, including our outlook for 2026. She will also present the post dividend proposal and the extension in our share buyback program that was announced this morning. As usual, we will take the questions at the end. 2025 was a tough year for Kamux, and obviously we are not satisfied with the results. Last year was the first year in Kamux's 22 years of history that the volumes and revenue decreased. The reason behind the 13% revenue decrease is a combination of volumes and average price. While volumes were stable in Sweden and Germany, they declined by 10% in Finland. The rest of the revenue decrease came from the lower average price. Despite the decrease in cross-profit, cross-margin improved to 8.7%. Masses were better in Finland and Sweden. During this market, we have wanted to ensure that the keys are in our own hands, therefore focusing on a strong cash flow. We have seen that many in the industry have had issues with their cash positions. We focused heavily on inventory turnover, and our inventories decreased by 23%, which is 10% more than the revenue decrease. At the moment, we are in a position to start increasing our inventory again towards the spring and summer season. Revenue from the integrated services was 13.3 million euros with Camux Plus at the previous year level. I'm very happy about the customer satisfaction improved throughout the year. Our long-term target is 60, and we beat that in the fourth quarter with NPS at 65. At the year end, NPS was as high as 66. Despite the disappointing volume development, we maintained our position as the market leader in Finland, selling the most used cars both in the fourth quarter and over the whole year. New car markets were subdued in Kamuks operating countries last year, affecting the inflow of trading cars. We can already see that the car park of one to five years old cars is decreasing in all our operating countries, which means even tougher purchasing market. This may lead to higher prices of used cars also. There were no major changes to our showroom network during 2025. In Finland, our showrooms in Jyväskylä moved to new, purpose-built premises during the last quarter. Earlier in the year, we closed the showrooms in Mantsela and Savonlinna. There were no changes in the network in Sweden, where we had closed altogether six showrooms in 2024. In Germany, we opened a new showroom in Sverin, near Lübeck and Rostock in the northeastern part of Germany. To improve our efficiency in the capital region in Finland, we have decided to close two showrooms. The Malmi showroom closes by end of February, and Herptonimi by end of March. The cars and most of the sellers will move to other showrooms in the capital area. The Seinäjoki showroom will relocate by end of March to better premises. Moving to comments per country. In Finland, the competition continues tight. consumers continued to prefer affordable cars, which were not so easy to source, as many dealers were after them. The volume development was disappointing, but the good news is that despite the decline, we maintained our position as the market leader in terms of number of cars sold. Revenue was impacted by volumes and lower average prices. Volumes were down by 10%, and the rest was due to lower average price. Gross margin developed positively for the third quarter in a row, although margin per car was slightly down. Adjusting operating profit decreased mainly due to volumes. Insurance penetration increased to 66%. The decrease in Kamux Plus penetration rate is largely explained by the lower average prices of cars sold. Our showroom in Jyväskylä moved to new premises during the quarter. This is one of the few premises that we own ourselves. Customer satisfaction improved further and was 65 for Q4. On a full year basis, NPS was 62. And then we will move to Sweden. In Sweden, we have made good progress into the right direction during 2025, but obviously there is still a lot of work to do. The market did not help us in Q4, and our volumes stayed at the previous year level. Revenue decreased as the average price of cars was lower than in the previous year, and fewer cars were exported to Finland. It's also good to keep in mind, when thinking about the full year volumes, that in the first half of 24, we had six showrooms more than in 2025. Three showrooms were closed at the end of July 24, and another three by end of December 24. We took active inventory management measures during the quarter, which impacted the margin per car. Despite this, gross margin continued to improve, but gross profit decreased due to lower average price. Cummins Plus penetration rates have increased quite nicely, and the finance and insurance penetration rates have remained on a good level. Customer satisfaction has developed well also in Sweden, and there is significant improvement in NPS. It was 56 in Q4-24, and now in Q4-25 it was already 64. I'm also happy to say we announced the appointment of Niklas Eriksson as the new MD of Kamux Sweden yesterday evening. He will begin in the MD role in mid-April, but joins the company a little bit earlier. In Germany, our challenges continued. In Q4, we did a lot of inventory cleaning by lowering prices, and selling cars also to the other dealers. As a result, the number of sold cars grew compared to Q4-24. This was at the cost of the margin, leading to a weaker gross profit and gross margin, and also with an impact on financing services. Assisted EBIT was also affected. The good news regarding Germany is that also in there, our customer satisfaction has improved. NPS for the quarter was as high as 70 and even the full year 62. And now I hand over to Enel for more details on the figures.

Thank you, Juha. Summarizing our financial performance in the quarter, Sold volumes and revenue declined, and despite slowing decline in Q4, current volumes do not meet our ambition, and we continue to work to turn it. Gross margin improved for the third consecutive quarter. Looking at financial performance per country, Finland and Sweden are moving step by step to the right direction, In Germany, we continue to face challenges, noted also by Juha earlier, and we work intensively and with discipline to turn it to the right direction. In response to headwinds in sold volumes, we have prioritized the right size and health of inventory. Inventory has adjusted to 100 million euros level, unlocking a significant amount of cash. Inventory turnover has improved, right steps towards capital efficiency have been done and will continue. Balanced ratios are at healthy level, net debt is at historically low level and equity ratio is 53.5%. And as a summary, at the time we continue to have headwinds in volumes, we ensured right size and health of inventory, healthy financial and liquidity position. And here are our financial ratios. Revenue declined by 13 percentage points and key drivers were underlined earlier. Gross margin was 8.7% and improved slightly. Driven by lower volumes, operating result was negative. Items affecting comparability included termination of CEO contract costs. Adjusting operating result was negative. Inventory turnover that we talk a lot in our business has improved and we continue activities to gain further improvements in this area. Equity ratio has improved and is at over 50% level as said earlier as well. After this year, volume is our key area to improve. we are looking at our financial position, we are better equipped to go for volumes, our inventory is at the right size and fit. Here we can see trend in volumes. Volumes declined in a quarter, but less than in recent quarters, mostly due to profitability focus and with impact from lower showroom network. In Q2, we sold about 3,800 cars less compared to the previous year same time. In Q3, about 2,800 cars less. And in Q4, we sold about 1,000 cars less than in previous year same quarter. So the decline has somewhat slowed down. We can see revenue and adjusted operating results trend here. Looking recent four quarters, adjusted operating profit trend was to the right direction in Q2 and Q3. However, low volumes impacted heavily to Q4 results. At the end of the fourth quarter, our cash position was 18.5 million euros. In Q4, we paid back 12 million of revolving credit facilities that can be withdrawn later when needed. Cash position and unused credit facilities gives us a good position to build up inventory and volumes. Our integrated services revenue development was hit by lower volumes, We are not satisfied with this trend, even though the share of integrated services has slightly increased to total revenue. And here is a visual representation on how our networking capital developed. We can see 30.8 million euros reduction in networking capital driven by decline in inventory. our inventory is in a better fit from both structural and price points perspective. Outlook for 2026, Kamux expects its adjusted operating profit for 2026 to increase from the previous year. And dividend distribution, Based on the dividend policy, Kamux aims for a dividend payout of at least 25% of the profit for the financial year. This year, the result has been negative. However, the board of directors proposes dividend of 5 euro cents per share to be distributed for the year 2025. In this morning, we have announced also an extension to our share buyback program. The program that was initially launched in November has progressed well, and board of directors decided to increase the number of shares to be bought. The new totals are acquire at maximum 2 million shares, and this means extension of 1 million shares compared to initial launch. The maximum amount to be used for the repurchase of shares is 4.5 million euros. The program will end April 16th at the latest. And back to you, Juha.

Thank you, Enel. So, a few words about long-term targets and strategy. In terms of our long-term targets, we have progressed well in customer satisfaction, where we have already achieved our long-term target of 60. The group level NPS for Q4 was 65. Now our task is to keep it there. We have also progressed well in terms of employee satisfaction in the last six months, and the ENPS has risen to 15. This is obviously still below our target, but an important improvement nevertheless. On the financial side, as we have shown earlier today, we are not where we want to be. However, we are still standing by our long-term targets. Here is our current management team to which there will unfortunately be some changes this spring as Johan and Joanna will be leaving us. They are progressing well with their replacements, however, and we have just announced that Niklas Eriksson will join us in April as come of Sweden's new managing director. This is a reminder of our focus areas in improving productivity. During Q4, we worked especially hard on managing our inventory in preparation for 2026 and ensuring that we have a solid cash position. There is still a lot to do and we continue to work on these on daily basis. Our strategy remains unchanged. In 2025, we made good progress in advancing customer satisfaction in all our operating countries, as seen in our NPS results. The group's NPS improved from 55 to 65. We have also progressed in improving our operational efficiency, but there is still a lot to do. 2026 is the last year of this current strategy period, and we will review our strategy during the year. Our vision also remains unchanged to become the number one used car retailer in Europe. Thank you, Juha.

Thank you, Enel. It is now time for questions, and we will begin by questions from the teleconference, if there are any.

If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 6 on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Jonas Haja from OP. Please go ahead.

Yes, hi, it's Jonas Haja from OP. So a couple of questions starting from the inventory actions Q4 that you did. Could you provide some additional color on what was the reason? Why did you need to clear inventory? Was it too low turnover or perhaps unsuccessful purchases or what? And how are you expecting metal margins to behave going forward?

When we speak of inventories, it's always so important to remember about the inventory turnover. And if the inventory turnover is too low, it means that you are getting all the time, all stock, which means losses. And that's why we focused last year to turning the inventory in just the right level, but also that we can achieve our target inventory turnover And as I mentioned that now we are situation that we are possible to increase our inventories to watch the summer and spring season. And it's easier to manage lower inventory compared to 30 million higher inventory. And as we saw Q1 25, what was the impact over there?

Okay, thank you. And then regarding operating expenses, those seem to have increased somewhat in Sweden and Germany in Q4. Was there anything specific behind those developments, and can you elaborate the drivers a little bit?

Yes, so I would say that we had very operational Q4 in that sense, so operating costs were slightly bigger in Sweden and Germany. I would say that nothing special in there.

Okay. And then can you update us on your store network plans for each of the countries? You talked a little bit about the plans in Finland, but what about Sweden and Germany?

If you start, for example, from Sweden, as we said after Q3 presentation that we have 17 stores in Sweden, and we are happy about that, but of course it can't It doesn't mean that we don't change the places where we are or the buildings where we are. And there is possible to use 2,000 cars in our places, what we have. It means that we pay rents 100%, but we use capacity only 60%. And we are in the same situation in Germany, that we have stores there, and we are not opening the new stores for both of those countries before we are making a profit in both countries. And as I mentioned earlier, it means that we must turn the inventory in the right level, and then we can expand to our inventories higher.

Okay, thank you. That's all from me.

Thank you, Jonas. There seems to be other questions on teleconference as well.

The next question comes from Rauli Juva from Indears. Please go ahead.

Yeah, Rauli from Indears here. Hi. Just a question on your outlook, if you can elaborate more on the drivers behind the earnings growth expectation, the volume development, the margin development, and what are the measures that will enable those things.

What a difficult question. Difficult to answer. So, As said by Juha, our long-term target remains the same, 100,000 cars. What we have seen in 2025, both operating environment but also our own operations have seen some challenges. So, when looking ahead, we have made a number of steps to improve our own operational daily routines, also putting in place better inventory, inventory in better fit, in better structure. So this is why we see that we improve in profitability. However, as seen, it has been tough and we are, it also sees in our outlook that we have given.

And maybe if I continue shortly, if you think about the building, you must first, if there is something broken, you must end first building the ground of the house. And we did that in last year in many ways. And now we think that we are better positioned to start to also grow.

All right, all right. But yeah, so it's mainly based in your own, let's say, processes or so, so no big changes expected in the markets or perhaps in your market share or on the cost side as such.

Of course, we are taking, as we mentioned about the showroom network in Finland, we are taking off about the property costs a little bit and share the cost and people to the near stores. And also, we don't believe the big change in the consumer confidence in this year. Of course, we heard something about the positive feedback from the market, but we don't calculate about the big number of that.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. That was all questions from the teleconference, if I'm correct. Very good. Before we take questions here from the audience, there's a couple sort of related, but perhaps expanding a little bit, particularly on the outlook via the chat. So questioning Again, the volume assumptions within the outlook, if there's any sort of ideas behind that in terms of unit number or year-on-year growth range, and whether the profit improvement is thought to be more volume-driven or cross-margin expansion. And maybe also related to that, to the guidance, is that are there some uncertainties that could prevent us from achieving it, and how should that be interpreted?

We're looking at the – I will start with inventory level we entered the year. So we have a much lower inventory level compared to last year when starting there. And this was also our target to enter the market with this level. And this is the base where we start. Our thinking is that we – build up volumes and inventory accordingly. But we do it very with a conscious way. So no quick fix in volumes in that sense. So we have been quite conscious and cautious with volumes in our thinking behind the outlook. What we still think is what is the right balance between profitability and volumes. We still aim on, continue to aim on profitable deals, healthy business. So we expect margins to remain or improve in that sense. Anything to add, Juha?

It was a good answer, yeah.

Okay, thank you. I'll take a couple of more questions here from the chat. And there's two that I'll try to combine. They're related to the purchasing organization. There's a question that the purchasing organization, is it partly outsourced or 100% in your own hands and with reference to the purchase of webcasts? And then also asking, how are the sourcing channels evolving today and whether we expect to have an impact of the sourcing channels in 26?

Purchase site and sourcing site is all inside the company. Our own employees. You can't outsource that. We have the purchase organizations in all countries with purchase just to cost what needed in the Finnish market, in the Swedish market, in the German market. And then we have the corporate between the countries. and they have the meetings and try to share about the packages, what are the market, can we share those, or are we interested in Sweden, cars which are in Germany, and so on. And when we speak about the channels, it depends a lot of the market. If we start about Germany, it's very much business to business, how we purchase the cars, And in Sweden, it's a totally different way. Most of the cars that we purchased, we purchased from the private customers or business or consumer business and tried to increase about the trading costs. And we are improving over there, and it's important. And Finland, it's the highest rates about the trading costs, over 50%. And we buy locally from the private customers, but also from business to business inside the country, but all over the Europe also.

We've been speaking quite a bit about the car park development in countries, and particularly in Finland, and I believe also in Sweden, suggesting that due to the new car market being so slow, so the number of available used cars is getting lower, which means that particularly to Sweden and Finland, there need to be more imports. Anything you'd like to comment on that?

Yeah, in Finland, it means more imported cars. In Sweden, it means that, of course, the ground is now stronger compared to a year back or two years back. It means that it's not so easy to export cars from Sweden or import from Sweden to Finland. And that's why in the Swedish car park, it's not go so much out of Sweden. But many, many, many years back, there was 100,000 cars per year that moved from Sweden to other European countries.

Okay. One more question from the chat, and then we move to questions from the audience. How far are you from your normal sales level, and how much of the gap is due to the weak economy versus increased competition?

how far away we are. Of course, we can set, not set our budgets, but as we said earlier, it's very important to increase hand by hand the inventory turnover, what means the sales and the inventory levels. If you do so that you increase the inventory Of course, it's very short-term good impact, but after the three months, there is coming a lot of bad things on the table. And that's why we are very careful about increasing about inventories and the sales speed coming with the inventory increases.

Very good. Thank you. Any questions from the audience here? Maria, please. You get the mic just a second.

Yes, thank you. Maria Wikström from SCB. I had three questions. I'll take them one by one. I'd like to start asking, like, who is winning share, given that, I mean, your number of cars in Finland you sold was down 10%, the official statistics, so about a percentage drop in the Finnish used car volumes. So who is currently gaining share?

If you look about the last year numbers, there is both of Rintajoppis, Kei Auto and Pilar 99. Those are the strongest companies which grew last year.

And if I may expand a little bit here that, I mean, you probably have analyzed the situation, I mean, with the board. What do you think has been like the winning recipe then in 2025?

Of course, if you start somewhere and you open new stores and new locations, hire more people and increase the inventory, it means automatically, not automatically, but it's easy to grow. But if you are the market leader, and you have tough situations as we had Q4, 24, Q1, 25, then you must choose where you want to win. And as Enel mentioned, that we made decisions that we are taking a margin, healthy inventory, good cash positions.

Thank you. There have also been some news articles about Finnish customs having an investigation on certain car dealers for their practices of importing cars, and I guess paying for the VAT. Are you part of these investigations?

Maybe I take this one. So we haven't been contacted by authorities. Of course, we look at the news and follow the situation, but they have not contacted us on that.

And then finally on Sweden, so what kind of mandate you have given, I think his name was Niklas, the new country head of Sweden. So is that more like a growth or profitability mandate that you gave him when he's taking the helm in Sweden?

I would say that in Sweden we need the growth that you can achieve the profit also. It's not so now in Sweden that we only need the margin. We need both of the margin, but we need also the growth. It's hand by hand.

And if one follow-up there, so would that be more, I mean, growing the number of cars in the inventory, or have you given him a possibility to start increasing the number of locations as well?

As I said earlier, we don't open, and we were very clear about Niklas, that we don't open any store before we are taking place, use all the places what we have in our Swedish stores and store networks. And it means that we can grow our inventory, but not open any stores before we are profitable there.

Perfect. Thank you.

Any further questions?

Okay. Kamuk's story was competitive advantages through or based on scale, financial services, database management and so on. So what has happened to those competitive advantages you told us a couple of years back? Have they disappeared and can we somehow enhance those or get some new competitive advantages?

The areas that you mentioned are still there. The competition is more tough on those because When you go first with the competitive advantages, your competitors are very eager to copy those. So what we have started already is our strategy update process. We look into those areas very carefully and our strategy overall and also competitive advantages as part of it.

If I continue shortly, maybe also the size of the store network, especially in Finland and Sweden, those are still in our own hands. We have our own tailor-made ERP CRM system, common management system, And we know many competitors which works in many countries and they have several different systems what they use. And it's quite a tough. And of course the brand. We are still 22 years old company and the best known especially in Finland.

Is it possible to execute those old advantages more efficiently or find some new advantages?

We believe that we can find also some new when we are updating our strategy in this year. And also we need strength about those advantages what we have.

I'm not sure if I remember right, but at some point of time, there was discussion that you would like to have more stores in capital area. And now you are closing two of those. So has the situation somehow changed?

Yeah, we look about how many cars we can set or put in our stores in the capital region. And now we had so many places. and the sales were not as good as needed and we didn't have so many cars what are possible. It's not okay in a financial perspective to use the place where we couldn't make a good business.

That was all. Thank you.

Thank you. Then we have questions from David, please.

Hello, it's David Kantola from EQ. I have a question on the inventory cleaning or decrease you did in Q4. Could you elaborate was it done during the quarter evenly or was it at the beginning or at the end of that?

I would say that we made systematic work the whole quarter and The level where we are at the end of the year was very near about the target what we set when the quarter started.

Any further questions? Sorry, Maria, I was typing a reply in.

No worries. Yeah, I have a few more follow-up questions, which, I mean, today when I walked here, the sun is shining, and that typically means that the high season is ahead of us. And given your inventories were quite low at the end of Q4, so have you been able to source attractive used cars, I mean, ahead of the – ahead of the high season or are the next explanation for lower volumes being that, I mean, there were everybody in the market sourcing for attractive use cars?

As I mentioned, we are the situation that we can start to grow our inventory and we started it.

And then I think you... mentioned in your CEO notes that one of the weak points in 2025 was high employee turnover. And I guess that's probably following the lower number of used cars sold, which then reduced the compensation for the sales employees. So how you are going to tackle this in 2026? And is it possible to tackle it with the current model?

Yeah, we started, you can continue after me, we started the program for the leaders, I mean store managers and the area managers, started this year to give more tools for them to handle the purchases and the sellers. and take better care of the employees. And as we see that we are at the right track, when we think about the ENPS, what happened last year, the second half of the year, but we have still a lot to do. And of course, it's also how much the sellers can earn, how much they can sell, what is the margin of the cars? And it's one reason, of course.

And I think, I mean, given that I followed you guys, I mean, quite a long time, and I think we talked about the quality of data that you have in your database. And, I mean, now the AI is a big theme everywhere. And I would assume that, I mean, with the AI tools, I mean, the kind of information that you previously perhaps have held by yourself is easier to accessible to other players as well. So how would you see the impact of an AI to your business?

This is something we discussed about in our strategy work as well, but of course we have discussed many months at least since I have been here. We see in many areas, of course, first how you mentioned that, you know, maybe competitors who doesn't have their own database have an advantage, but at the same time we see it as an advantage as well. because we own the data that we have and we can do a lot with that, with IA. Also, of course, we see customer journey, you know, very, very traditional areas, customer journey, inventory management. The development is so fast in IA, and we also are in the journey with the development, so this is something we really work on and continue in 2026, and particularly within our strategy work.

Thank you.

Any further questions from the audience? There's at least one more via the chat. So we'll take that. How many cars do you have to return for repairs after you sell them and how does that affect your bottom line? So, you know, after costs.

I would say that 70% of the costs coming when we speak about the repair costs or maintenance costs coming before the sales. It means that 25 to 30% coming after the sales. And of course, we have the ticket system where we see all the tickets, how many claims we have, how fast we handle those, and what are the cost of those. Maybe that's the answer.

Thank you. Any further questions? If not, then we thank the audience online and the audience here at Flick Studio and wish everyone a good day. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Have a nice day.