Björn Borg AB (publ)

friday not only is the weather beautiful and it's time for our compulsory sports hour in about a few hours it's also time to present our q3 results and we're super happy to share with you that our sports apparel collection continues to drive growth so of course as you probably recall or remember i've been talking about this now for many many courts in a row The whole dream with Bjorn Borg is to transition this in the past beautiful men's underwear brand into a bigger arena to build a sports fashion brand. And with that, of course, growing. But more than that, also inspiring people that if you should give something to yourself today, it's to move. whether it's walking to office taking the bike or doing a triathlon doesn't really matter movement is the best gift to yourself not only will you be happier you also live a bit longer and it's going to be a lot of fun perhaps not always doing the workout but certainly afterwards so Q3, another quarter where our sports apparel collection continues to grow. So absolutely fantastic. And by far, of course, the biggest highlight of the quarter. If we look at the sales, it's a record quarter. We never sold more than 300 million SEK in a quarter. So that's, of course, fantastic. We like to break records. Also, our gross profit is improving versus last year. And that, of course, consequences lead to growth. A strong also, Abit Afflit was last year where we're growing Abit with 7.3% and closing at 45.1 million SEK in profit. So overall, you know, a solid quarter behind us. So that is making me really, really happy, of course. But first, just a reminder of if you want to accomplish anything in life, you need to have a long-term goal. And of course, our ambition is to become a global iconic sports fashion brand. That's where we're heading. And it takes a bit of time to get there, admittedly, but we are making progress. Every quarter, we get a bit closer. Our mission, and partly I would say it's a bit unique. At least we like to think that. So this is not about building a sports brand for athletes that want to break world records. You can buy the stuff too, but we think that training is so much more important than that. So it's all about talking about this idea that we want to – inspire you you know unleash your own potential remind you that you are the captain of your own destiny and that working out and training with you your friends your kids is something absolutely fantastic that will give you a lot of different benefits and that's why and how we create the entire sports apparel collection. Looking at financial objectives, we want to grow, we want to make money, of course, we want to make sure that we have a high dividend, and of course, we want to have a solid equity ratio, asset ratio. So that's all in place. And of course, the business strategy has been to focus on multi-channels, so handling both wholesale, we believe that's super important, both brick and mortar and e-com, and also, of course, our own e-com, and then distributors and a few of our own stores. So managing those different channels we believe is a key strength. It's clear that if you want to grow, if you want to win consumers, you simply need to be where the consumers are. And looking at how far we got then. So a couple of brand KPIs. The brand is tracking in the right direction. Of course, I am sure if you are working out, if you do some running events, you will see our Borek tea almost for certain, no matter where you're working out right now. So that product has really been instrumental in our quest to move the brand into a bigger arena. And of course, it's... 100% recycled polyester T-shirt. It's beautiful, crafted, perfect fit, and of course, a very, very strong signature with the Borg on the left and right arm. So a very, very strong and what turns into being an iconic product. We launched it 10 years ago, and it's still our most sold apparel. And I think it resonates really well with what we want to bring to the market. Looking at a few of the key parts here, I'm super happy that our work in Germany is continuing to grow in terms so that the brand is getting stronger. Germany as such is actually declining, but that's due to Zalando. So it's not sales towards German consumer because that's actually growing 26%. But Zalando is declining. Of course, and here we can do a lot better and need to do so, of course, as well. Looking at consideration, I think this is one of the slides that makes me most happy. So, of course, here we ask 440 consumers in all of our different markets. So from Germany to the bigger ones in Sweden, a bunch of different questions. And one is, you know, out of this list of sports brand, who would you consider buying? And here we are number three. So ahead of Puma, Under Armour and a bunch of other brands. And of course, this means that there's just a huge potential for us to continue to drive sports apparel growth. More people out there wants to buy our stuff than what they're currently doing. That is what this sign or slide is telling us. So that is, of course, good news. But let me bring you back in time a bit. Not that far. But I think for me personally, the highlight in Q3 was August 16th. So it was Saturday. The weather was as beautiful as it is today. late evening and i was surrounded by 35 500 runners all wearing our diva pink boric tea and this was only the stockholm midnight run we also did that of course in other cities but i participated in the stockholm race it was absolutely incredible and of course it really showcased how far we have come you know compared to when we started this journey back in 2014 and Just being surrounded by all these runners all wearing the Borg tee was absolutely incredible. And also, I think Middansloppet really resonates well with how we want to approach sports. So, of course, there was a few that did it really, really quick and were competing. But for the most part, those that participated did it because it's fun. You know, it's good. to have a run and they work out with different things, you know, throughout the week simply to be better and perhaps live a bit longer and do it simply because they feel stronger by doing it. And that's why I think the Midnight Sloppet really resonates with what we do. You know, it's all about trained to live and not the other way around. So absolutely fantastic. Looking at our top line again, so we broke the world record. Well, these for us, so 300 million, so never sold anything more in an isolated quarter. If we divide into the countries, of course, super happy to share with you that both of our big markets, so Sweden and Netherlands, is continuing to grow. Germany and Belgium are the only ones declining. Germany is a bit concerning. It comes down to Zalando. Of course, here we need to be better you know it's all about managing discounts you know putting the right product in the right distribution channels and here we can do more and and we need to do better in order to to change that negative trend uh looking at our channels you know wholesale is doing really really well so growing you know double digit uh e-commerce slowed down a bit it's uh partly due to us being a bit more selective with um with discounts uh And of course, you know, finding our way with all the changes that is coming our way with Google as such. But we believe, of course, ongoing that e-commerce is a very, very important channel for us. And looking at the year to date numbers, of course, you know, we're still up close to 18 percent. So very, very strong performance on retail. So here we're closing down stores. This will be. close to the last year where we closed down stores looking at next year you know the store base is where it needs to be and from there we will rather actually add retail stores if we would want to do anything so we found a good balance now with outlets that are really performing well that can take care of excess inventories they're all you know profitable so now it's about really you know building them so we can expect then you know retail numbers to start growing again as opposed to, of course, them be declining the last couple of years due to us cleaning up our store portfolio. Distributors are struggling. There are some good news depending on where you look. So Austria is doing really, really well. But the biggest one, Norway, is declining. So, of course, here we need to do a better job. It's not a... priority of ours but still of course we need to maintain our business there as well the big focus for us obviously is own ecom and really partnering up with the right wholesale partners to drive growth in those two channels and continue to win consumers i think we we do that fairly good And here we've been tracking, you know, since 2018, you know, our share of online business. And it goes down a bit in Q3, but of course, you know, still a very high share of our business is done online. And that's, of course, been a part of our digital first strategy that's working out really, really well. uh looking at some categories so brought some highlights um we launched a new category called loungewear it's just building on our underwear but uh really you know a soft hand field uh apparel for men we will do a collection for women's also in the future but that's gonna come next year and that is working very very well so plus 57 versus last year again our apparel is continued to grow so in the quarter 24 you know full year it's growing you know more than 20 the bags is also growing in the quarter uh i haven't showcased it here but of course the disappointment in the quarter is the footwear collection so we need to do it better we have reinforced the team we do a lot of product test things and i'm really happy to share with you that the product that we're trying right now that we're currently selling in are performing really, really, really well. So footwear, that's the area where I see the biggest potential, but also, of course, where it requires most of our focus to really enable that to also then become a growth engine, which is currently not the case. With that said, of course, there's also a lot of numbers in terms of the bottom line. And as you already know, we're earning more than last year. That's good news. But Jens will share some more lights into that. So Jens, why don't you fire away?

Thanks a lot.

Thank you. Thank you.