Byggmax Group AB (publ)

Hello everybody and welcome to the Big Max Group Q4 Interim Report. My name is Elliot and I'll be coordinating your call today. If you would like to register a question during today's event, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand over to Carl Sandelan, CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much, and again a very warm welcome to this conference call where we will present Big Max Group's year-end report for 2025. I'm Carl Sandlund, the CEO, and with me is, of course, our CFO. And as always, the presentation we will be referring to is available on our website, and we will try to direct you to the relevant section during this call. I start with a brief business update followed by a walkthrough of the financials. After the presentations we will open the floor for questions. So let's begin and please go to page number two in the presentation. For big banks 2025 has been a strong year. We defined clear focus areas for the year and through determined efforts, we have secured both increased profitability and further strengthened financial position. And I will come back to some of the drivers for this later, but let's start with the overall results. Our EBITDA margin increased to 5.9% for the full year. That's two percentage points higher than in 2024. Earnings per share were 3.25 Swedish krona, almost tripled versus the year before. If we instead look from a balance sheet perspective, when we closed 2005, we had a net debt of 354 million. And this year level is the lowest we've had for more than 10 years, a clear sign of our successful work when it comes to secure a strong financial position. Our life-alike sales growth was 3.4% for the full year, and that's despite the refined e-commerce assortment, which led to lower sales. And the growth was supported by welfare and supply chains and very high standards in our stores. If we zoom in on the fourth and final quarter of the year, which is part of our low season, it's a quite small quarter for us. We see a quarter where we continue to improve profitability. but sales was down somewhat, negatively impacted by currency effects and as mentioned the streamlining of our ECOM business. So overall, a year of further improvements where we see the effects of the focus on our core. And in recognition of the Group's solid financial position, the Board has decided to propose to the Annual General Meeting a dividend of 1.65 Swedish kronor per share and that's more than doubled versus last year. Before we get into more details, on slide three, a short overview for those who may not know us that well. We were founded back in 1993 and today we have 212 stores across core Nordic markets. Our core is built on a strong selection of products for home renovation and maintenance for consumers. We offer primarily building materials, but also paint, tiles, flooring and more. And our in-floor assortment is enhanced by online, providing an even wider range, home delivery and also customized products. We are a true discount retailer and offering the best prices requires maintaining the lowest possible cost. Our store design not only keeps operational costs low, but also ensures an efficient shopping experience, which our customers highly appreciate. In addition to the BigMax brand, we have RightPrice Tiles in Norway, focusing on tiles and bathrooms, and Skolska BigMorrow, which offers product and buildings for home and gardens, such as conservatories and greenhouses. If we move to page five, we have some brief macro context. Overall, the market showed significant variations during the last year. Development difference between categories, but also markets and seasons. The year began with more positive consumer sentiments, but during the spring, households became more cautious again, with a quite sharp dip in consumer confidence in both Sweden and Denmark. and this coincidence matched with a time when many customers start or are planning their larger output projects. During the second half of the year, consumer confidence once again improved, but in Sweden, the index has actually been below the level shown in 2024. So in summary, a market with significant variations where some categories developed strongly, while others have not yet gained full momentum. If we continue to the next slide, number five, for an overview of our focus areas. Over the past year, we have focused on improving our profitability through three main areas. And one is to be close to our customers. Two, to drive volume of sales. And three, do this while maintaining operational excellence. And this focus has touched I would say every part of the organization, from the work we do in our stores to e-commerce channels to admin and business development. And through the hard work and strong dedication of our teams, we have, as you know, improved profitability while we also built a business that is both flexible and robust, making us very well prepared for the future. To give some examples of the improvements we have made in terms of customer experience, you can look at page number six. For example, a large number of our stores have been rearranged to better present our assortment and make it easier for customers to find what they are looking for. Combined with improved customer flows and more self-service checkouts, customers are offering even smoother purchasing experience. We have also continued to develop the digital support tools we offer to our customers, and this includes expanded functionality in our employees' handheld devices, further strengthening of our customer support functions, and also the continued development of, for example, our AI-driven shopping shop on our website. It's a function that supports customers with their projects and also adds specific products directly to their shopping carts. We also see improvements in customer experience when it comes to our customized product offering, where enhanced online tools have been one key contributor to increase sales of windows, doors, and cabins during the year. On page number seven, you see some of the access we have done to make sure that we can also increase volumes. One main thing was that in 2025 we put a significant amount of effort into securing a very strong seasonal ramp up resulting in high standards across our stores. Staffing levels were increased earlier to ensure full service capacity from the start of the season while improved supply planning strength and service levels and our product availability. This position has been maintained throughout the years, supporting volume and sales by minimizing out-of-stock situations. We also continue to develop both customized products and our private label range. Our modular houses, for example, were expanded with additional options, allowing customers to tailor size, design and features to broaden their intended use. and we expanded also our private label offering in greenhouses and conservatories with several new products showing strong performance during the year. As mentioned, within Econ we have refined assortment to increase relevance and profitability and while this had a negative impact on sales, it has strengthened margins and also improved the quality of our online sales. In the current market position, operation control is extra important.

This is page number eight.