Cloetta AB (publ)

A warm welcome and thank you for joining Cloetta's Q4 interim report presentation. I'm Laura Lindholm, the Director of Communications and Investor Relations. We extend a special welcome to the more than 5,000 new shareholders that joined our journey last year and of course hope that many of you are listening in today. Our CEO Katarina and CFO Frans will, as per usual, first go through our results, after which we will move to the Q&A, where you either have the possibility to dial in and ask questions live or alternatively post your questions through the chat. The chat has already opened up for your questions. Over to you, Katarina.

Thank you, Laura. I am really proud to share our fourth quarter and full year result with you today. And I'm so pleased that 2025 turned out to be a successful year. We closed it with an exceptionally strong profit in the quarter, and we are now taking another step closer to delivering on all our long-term financial targets. But first over to the agenda. Today it looks as following. I will start with Clueta in a brief. Then I recap our strategic framework and our updated financial targets. After that, I'll move to our quarterly highlights. Our CFO, Frans, will then walk you through our quarterly and full year financials. And then always we'll wrap up with a Q&A. For any new listeners on the call, let me start to tell you a bit about Cloetta. As Laura already shared, during last year we welcomed more than 5,000 new shareholders, so this slide might be a good recap, especially for you. Cloetta was founded in 1862, and today we are the leading confectionery company in Northern Europe. We strongly believe in the power of true joy, and our everyday purpose is to spread joy through our iconic brands. We have grown a lot since the early days, and we now have operations in 12 countries. In 2025, we hit 8.5 billion Swedish crowns in sales, and our operating margin was 12.1%, to be compared with 10.6% in 2024. As I already mentioned last quarter, we have established a strong profitability uplift, which we will talk more about today. Over half our sales come from our 10 biggest brands, and we call them our super brands. Despite the current geopolitical uncertainty, including a tariff situation, our company remains largely unaffected. This resilience is due to several key factors. Firstly, we operate in a non-cyclical market with stable consumer demand, which provides a solid foundation even in uncertain times. Second, our strong and trusted brands gives us the ability to adjust prices when needed without losing consumer loyalty. Thirdly, our broad product portfolio allows us to offer a range of alternatives, helping us adapt quickly to shift in consumer behavior. And finally, we have, despite the current geopolitical uncertainties, still many attractive growth opportunities like the expansion of our super brands, our step up in innovation and growing beyond our core markets. These strengths gives us the confidence to continue delivering solid performance and building long-term value for our investors, our customers and consumers, and the people at Cloetta. I will now briefly walk you through how we bring our vision to life through our strategic framework. And then in relation to this, also our updated financial targets. To learn more, please see the recording of our Investor Days 2025, which is available on our website. So let me start to talk about our vision at Clueta, because it's really captured what we're all about. Our vision is to be the winning confectioner company, inspiring a more joyful world. And it's not just something we say. For us, this is a real promise to do great work, to keep innovating, and most of all, to bring joy to people every day. This vision is what guides us, is what keeps us learning, improving, and leading the way in our industry. We have created a clear strategic framework to guide us forward. Right at the center is, of course, our vision to be the winning confectioner company, inspiring a more joyful world. Our strategy is about some clear choices, choices that will help us scale, grow and make the biggest impact where it truly matters. We have five core markets. It's Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and the Netherlands. And today, around 80% of our total sales come from these markets. Frans will talk more about our geographic mix a bit later. Our first strategic priority is to focus on our 10 super brands within these core markets. These are the brands with the strongest potential. By leaning into our expansion strategy, we can open new opportunities, grow faster and build real scale. I will also share one example today of how we are working with one of these brands in our core markets. We are not stopping there. We're also looking beyond our core markets. We have identified three high potential markets that sits outside our core. That's the UK, Germany and North America. Today, I will share an update about our progress in North America, but also a short update about our global agreement with IKEA. Our third priority is to elevate our marketing and acceleration in innovation. The market keeps changing and we need to stay ahead. not just following trends, but also help to shape them. In our strategic framework, we are now also opening up to explore M&A, but only if it fits our strategy in it when it makes good business sense. That said, any M&A would serve as an accelerator. It's not something we rely on to reach our financial targets. And to make all of this work, we need, of course, the right enablers in place. This means having a focused, efficient operating model and a structure that actually supports our strategy and goals. In Q2 last year, we announced changes to our organizational setup, including some role reductions and updates to our group management team. Those changes are now in place and we have aligned our structure with our strategy so we can move faster and strengthen our path to profitable growth. People and culture are, of course, at the heart of everything. Without them, the rest is just a black box. Our culture is the foundation of how we work and we're committing to building an organization that is strong, capable and filled with joy in what we do. So let me share an example of how we expand with our super brands into new market. And this time I will use Keksfoglad as an example. In Sweden, Keksfoglad isn't just a popular chocolate. It's actually the best selling product in the entire food and beverage industry. Everyone in Sweden knows the yellow checkered pattern. Many of us also connect Keksfuglad with skiing and an active lifestyle. Keksfuglad is part of Swedish everyday life. We have been selling Keksfuglad in Denmark too, but only through a few retailers with limited distribution and often discounted. It has not reflected the strength of the brand. So last year, we decided to change that. We took the marketing material that works so well in Sweden, translated it, and brought the same strong story to Danish consumers. And it worked. Demand grew, and so did the sales. Now, Finland is starting the same journey. We just launched Keksjoklad there, and the response has been very good. At launch, we reached 90% weighted distribution, and we also hit our market share target during the first week. It's early days, but momentum is strong, and it shows what's possible when we bring our super brands to new markets with the right focus and investment with a good return. Then let me move to two examples connected to our strategy of growing beyond our core markets. The first one is IKEA. In 2025, we signed a global agreement with IKEA, and today, The now broader assortment has been made available in 14 countries in Europe. This means that some of our most iconic super brands are now also available at IKEA stores. And we're not stopping there. We plan to roll out these products in even more markets during 2026 and 2027. The details of the agreement with IKEA and Clueta are, of course, confidential. but we will continue to share updates whenever the agreement allows us to. Now, let us look at another example how we're growing beyond our core markets. It's about our progress in North America. Today, we have a small but growing business there. We're continuing to build on what we started while at the same time preparing for the next stage of expansion and putting the right long-term infrastructure in place. We have set a three-year plan because for us it's more important to have a solid, well-thought-out business plan than to rush. We want to make sure that every investment really counts. Building a brand and expanding on a new continent is exciting and is really full of opportunities, but it has to be done in a controlled and pragmatic way. And we are already taking important steps. We have signed a contract with a local commercial leader who will further drive our go-to-market strategy and build the local organization. We also finalized the packaging and recipes for our key branded packaging products. These are now needed for any larger fast-moving consumer goods company to be able to operate in the US. This was an important step to meet the different food regulation in North America And it positioned us well for the rollout in 2026 and 2027. For Pick and Mix, we run a pilot product to gain deeper consumer insight, which now guides us our long-term rollout. And as a part of building our Pick and Mix brand and awareness, we also open a Candy King store at Bleecker Street on Manhattan. And I will tell you more about that on the next slide. So we are moving on to the update on our newly opened Candy King store on Manhattan. This store is an important step for us. It helps us build a brand, increase awareness of our leading concept and introduce local consumers and retailers to the Nordic tradition of pick and mix. The store is an excellent way to showcase what we can do and have done in more than 4,000 retailer stores in Europe. The store opened two months ago and the response has so far been fantastic. Both consumers and the press have welcomed us warmly and the store has been profitable from day one. Yes, now over to the long-term financial targets. So in March, 2025, we updated our long-term financial targets to match our strategic priorities and our vision. With a clearer plan in place, we raised our long-term organic growth target from 1% to 2% to 3% to 4%. As inflation now is stabilizing, it's obviously difficult to justify price increases driven by inflation. This means that further growth primarily needs to come from higher volumes, exactly what our strategy is designed to deliver. Our long-term adjusted EBIT target stayed at 14%, and our goal is now to also reach at least 12% by 2027. As many of you saw in the report, we're already above 12% in 2025. As Franz will explain later, Q4 got an extra boost, and we will wait to celebrate 12% EBIT when it's fully repeatable. Historically, our net debt target has been around 2.5. Since we have been consistently reached that over the years, we now set a new target below 1.5. Of course, if a strong M&A opportunity appears, we may go above that temporarily, but only if it's clearly support our strategy and we declare the leverage plan in place. And finally, we have also updated our dividend policy Instead of paying out 40 to 60% of profit of the tax, we are now aiming for payout above 50%. Frans will talk more about this year's dividend proposal later on, but I'm of course happy that also our shareholders are able to be part of our successful journey. And now a short quarterly update. As previously mentioned, we had a successful year that ended with a strong quarter, and I'd like to highlight some key takeaway. As a start, I would like to emphasize that I'm really, really pleased that we've shown growth in both business segments this quarter, and more importantly, this growth is coming from stable and increasing volumes. As mentioned earlier, with inflation stabilizing, volume growth becomes even more important for us going forward. We are the leading confectionery company in Northern Europe, and this quarter we continue to see strong performance in the Nordics and in North America. In the rest of Europe, sales were stable compared to the previous quarter. This quarter was also exceptionally profitable. That was driven by our long-term margin enhancing activities, our savings related to the change in our operating structure, and the fact that we received a partial compensation for the supplier quality incident we had early 2024. With this strong result we deliver in 2025, the board will also propose increasing the dividend to 140 per share. So in short, as we close 2025, we can clearly see that we're getting closer to delivering on all our financial targets. Growth is important, and by strengthening our profitability, we're also giving ourselves the room to invest more so we can drive stronger growth ahead. Now it's finally time for the financials, and I hand over to Franz. who I know is more eager than usual to walk you through both our fourth quarter and our annual financials.

Thank you, Katarina. Yeah, let me take you through. both the full year and Q4 in a bit more detail, and four best ever results when it comes to profit, cash, leverage, and subject to shareholder approval, also dividend, and with important steps towards the long-term net sales growth target. And let me start with the sales. So in the quarter, we again delivered stable, profitable, organic sales growth of 1.1%. bringing the full year organic growth to 1.9%. Now Q4 may then at first seem like a slowdown versus year to date. So I want to highlight what I think is our three really interesting things on how our new more focused strategy is gradually starting to take effect. Firstly, the last major round of pricing took place in Q3 2024. So Q4 2025 is the first full quarter without the benefit of strong pricing versus the comparator. So instead, while in Q3, I mentioned that volumes were down about 1%, I can now share that Q4 volumes are stable to growing. So from a perspective of satisfying a consumer demand, we're actually moving in the right direction. Secondly, While for the full year, we have been able to continue to rely on our broad portfolio to ensure organic growth. So where the decline in the packed segment was more than offset by growth in pick and mix. Now in Q4, as Katarina mentioned, both segments are growing again. And that is really important. Thirdly. As in quarter three, in quarter four, we continue to see strong growth in the Nordic region, as well as in North America, but partially offset by the rest of Europe. Although in Q4, also the rest of Europe has stabilized a bit. So that helps us grow stronger in Q4 than what we did in Q3. And again, despite the absence of the pricing benefit that I mentioned. You can actually see this for yourself in the report. So in Q4, the Nordic market adds up to 70% of our total sales. That's up 2% versus 2024. And a 2% bigger slice of the pie, when the pie has grown 1.1% organically, that means, arithmetically, that the Nordics has grown about 4% in the quarter. And that's well within our long-term target. While the other markets have declined, and despite that, a strong North America. We're, of course, not content with 1.9% in the full year. What I just shared indicates that combined with the new organization structure in place as of October 1 to support the new, more focused strategy, we are in a good position to progress towards our long-term target of 3% to 4% organic growth. There is also a fourth interesting thing I want to mention on the topic of resilience, and that is about the currency effect on our reported net sales. So down 2% on the full year, 3-some percent in quarter four. And based on that, it would be easy to erroneously include Cloetta in the current focus on the negative effect of the strong Swedish krona on Swedish companies. So for obvious reasons, if you are a Swedish company incurring costs in Swedish kronors in Sweden to make products that you then export and sell in euro, you have a challenge today. But Cloetta, we of course, we largely sell our products where we make them. The products made in Sweden are mostly sold in Sweden, and products made in Euro-denominated countries are mostly sold in those countries. So the real effect of the strengthened Swedish krona is limited for us. And the lower reported sales, that's primarily a translation effect. Then moving on to the normal page I have showing the The segments over and under. Actually, I think I've covered what's on this slide pretty well when I said, number one, Q4 growth is without the benefit of pricing. Volumes are actually up. Number two, both segments are growing. And PACT is now back to being over 70% of our sales. And three, the Nordics is doing really well with the rest of Europe a bit more stable. And on the pricing side, You can see the impact on the sales in 2023 and 2024 is pretty clear in the graph. But we're, of course, incredibly proud that consumers appreciate and love our brands and products, have continued to visit our customers to buy them to the same extent as they used to, despite the higher price that they find in the stores. And actually for Q4, buy even more. Now, I also want to call out here that Easter in 2026 is now going to happen a little bit earlier than it did in 2025. So we expect that around 30 to 40 million kronors in sales will shift from Q2 into Q1 as a result of the Easter phasing. And that's largely pick and mix in Sweden. So our sales will be up, but also with a slightly softer gross margin in Q1. Regardless, there are more opportunities for growth. And as mentioned, we are on track to reach long-term growth target, but we want to grow with profit, including us taking a fair share of the value that our products generate. So let's look at the profit. So you have surely noted, and Katarina mentioned, with an exceptionally strong quarter four at 13.9% operating profit margin adjusted. we are for the full year reporting 12.1%. And you should be wondering, so why is that not the headline of the report? To deliver the midterm target of 12%, which was supposed to happen no later than 2027, already in 2025. And Katarina mentioned this, and the reason is quite simple. In 2024, as we shared at the time, we incurred significant cost on account of a supplier having delivered a non-conforming component to us. This Q4 results includes a partial compensation for the cost related to that incident. So the negotiation is still ongoing, and I will not go into detail on the amount for now, but just as those costs weighed down our result in 2024, The partial compensation now lifts the Q4 results, and our full-year operating profit margin tips over to the reported 12.1%. Now, we expect to close this process in the first half of 2026, but we will wait with celebrating reaching 12% until we are there in a repeatable manner. But we shouldn't get distracted by that compensation. because also without it, we are delivering our strongest full year margin in almost a decade and an operating profit adjusted. And this is the first best ever today. As you can see in the report, it's a profit of over 1 billion Swedish kronors. We continue to lift our margins back up again with cost control, including the restructuring of the organization this year, net revenue management, product portfolio, and via fair pricing, and all the while, while continuing to invest behind our 10 super brands. And it is these actions that make Q4 our seventh consecutive quarter with improved margins versus the same period the year before. And it is these consistent improvements that puts our midterm target of at least 12%, no later than 2027, in sight already for 2026. Now, I did say lift back up again. So let's move to the slide showing the margins by segments. And let me comment a little bit on that. So looking at these segments over and under, both segments margins improved in the quarter over last year and for the full year. And the pick and mix segment on the lower half, quarterly margin of over 8%. That's right in the middle of our targets to be between 7% and 9%. We believe the targeted long-term range is the appropriate range to continue to drive growth in the category, as well as geographic expansion in line with our strategy. On the full year, the margin is at the upper end of that range at 9.2%. For the branded segment, the full year margin is just over 13, which is a great recovery of 150 bps versus last year, including with the compensation but this brings us closer to the average margin we had during 2022 and 2023 when we were just shy of 13%. So, packed margins are still below the pre-pandemic levels, and we will continue to seek to further strengthen these margins and over time return to the level where we were before the pandemic and the pricing compression. Now, I should mention here that Irrespective of the partial compensation, the Q4 margins are normally a bit stronger than in Q3, and the following Q1 margins are generally a bit down versus Q4, including due to portfolio mix. And for Q1 2026, given the mentioned shift with more Easter sales, which is pick and mix, that will negatively affect the margins for quarter one, given the higher relative margin in the packed segment. Nonetheless, let's move to the sales general and administration. So the result is helped by the change in the operating structure we announced in Q2, executed in Q3, and we went live with at the start of Q4. We had shared that we expected that 20% of our full year announced savings of 60 to 70 million would be realized in 2025. And I'm pleased to share that we have done better than that. delivering roughly 30% of the annualized savings this year. So just about 20 million Swedish kronor, and the majority of that, of course, in quarter four. Now, in the table, you can see favorable items affecting comparability. And that's mostly about the provisions for the restructuring being smaller than the impairment for Nuttisol the year before. So the items affecting comparability comes out as a favorable variance. But in Q4, we actually released some earlier provisions relating to the restructuring since we managed below the expected cost in certain area, again, helping the Q4 margin a bit. And we are tracking well against our previously announced total budget of $60 to $70 million. On the column with the currency effect, I should also say, you can see the translation effect that I mentioned earlier has also led to lower reported sales, but it also leads to lower reported SG&A costs. That apart, the rest is a further step up in spend to support our town's super brands, both in the quarter and for the full year. There's also higher merchandising costs given higher volumes. There's a general inflation, and that is largely offset by the in-year savings from the restructuring. So overall, the SG&A costs are held in check. And for Q1, we will step up A&P further. We're launching a lot of new, exciting products, which is a direct effect of our new strategy's third pillar, to excel in marketing and innovation. And we will support these products to ensure they get a good start and help us drive the top line. We have fairly obviously created space in our P&L for a higher level of investments in our 10 super brands, and then drive a virtuous cycle of growth, leading to profit and reinvestments. Coming then to our cash flow, I shared in Q3 that the strong cash flow that quarter and year-to-date was not effacing, and I can also show it with the What is our second best ever is for the full year 2025, we have for the very first time delivered over 1 billion Swedish kronors in operating cash flow. It's actually 1 billion 57 million. Now, the operating cash flow is, of course, in the report, but it's not visible on this slide. But you do get a sense from it when you look at Q4 step up in free cash flow by almost 50% from 264 last year to a strong 394 million there in the middle of the upper graph. Now, the key drivers of free cash flow are, of course, the stronger operating results and then a favorable working capital management strategy. CapEx in the quarter, that's 31 million Swedish kronors. That continues to be on the low side in line with what I have said throughout 2025, which is that the investment will start to rise in the future to secure the growth and profit. And we will come with an update on the strategy for operations in the first half of this year. And that brings me to my last slide, which is on the financial position. And the third best ever, which is that our leverage, where we closed the year with a net debt EBITDA of 0.7. So well below our new target to stay below 1.5. And the result is a combination of the strong cash flow resulting in a lower debt, which is now below 1 billion at 956 million. And of course, the improved earnings. And with the low debt, We have plenty of access to additional unutilized credit facilities and commercial papers, which together with cash on hand totals $2.8 billion as we close the year. So we are pleased to have created good conditions also with respect to our fourth financial target on dividends. And for the board having proposed and assuming shareholder approval, what would be our fourth best ever for Clueta, and that is an ordinary dividend for 2025 of 1 krona and 40 öre. That will be a 27% increase versus last year. And Clueta will have paid out ordinary dividends of 1.6 billion the last five years, which is almost a 50% increase versus the five years prior. And on that promising note, I will again conclude that our financial position developing in line with our set target is really strong. And I am back to you, Laura.