Clas Ohlson AB (publ)

Good morning and welcome to the Claes Olsson Q3 report presentation. My name is Kristoffer Trondström, I'm CEO and I'm here with Pernilla Walfridsson, CFO. So as always, we'll go through a business update. I'll do that fairly quickly and then we'll move into the financial development with Pernilla and then I will cover the events after the reporting period, summarize and then we'll move into questions and answers. So overall, looking at the third quarter, We continue to execute on the updated plan and strategy that we laid out approximately two years ago. And looking at the results for the quarter, we continue to see solid sales developments with organic growth results amounting to plus 12%. We've also seen the operating profit improving to 422%. And as in previous quarters, we also see that the prioritized categories, our five consumer missions continue to be a driver of growth together with relevant product news within those five missions. We have had a high focus and continue to have a high focus on efficiency and flexibility. We have executed on our cost saving programs and we're becoming faster and faster as an organization. Looking at the cash flow for the first three quarters, it's amounting to almost 1.6 billion versus 947 million last year. And our financial position is very solid with a net debt 0.5. So net cash at hand closing the quarter. Also, the fourth quarter has started well with 19% organic growth in February. So we'll go through this a bit more in detail now. So we'll move into the business update. So starting by recapping a little bit on our objectives, we want to grow 5% organically every year, and we want to deliver 79% operating margin. We also want to be industry leading in sustainability and work to make our business model more and more sustainable. Looking then at the execution of this strategy over this year, we laid out when we kicked off this year, three main drivers of growth. And the first one is making our assortment relevant 12 months a year. And the second one is driving a profitable and growing online business and also expanding the store network after a few years of optimization. Starting with assortment, again, we see that growth is driven across all the five consumer missions. And we have also been able to quickly adapt to changing consumer needs. And I'll have a few examples of that. We also see that our customers are very engaged. We have almost 170,000 product reviews only in this quarter, which is significantly up versus last year. So the engagement in the assortment is high. On the online side, we've grown 19% in Q3 and still we see big operating leverage in terms of working with our online through the physical stores. So still 50% of orders are delivered in one way or the other via the physical store network. And now also consolidating the spares group into the numbers in Q3, 17% of total sales now is online. When it comes to the expansion of store network, we've done a lot of hard work over the last year. And so far, we've opened four new stores in 2023-2024. And we plan to open another seven in Q4. We've also rebuilt 10 stores and rebuilt slash moved during this year. And it's important for us to continue to improve the store network that we have. We're also announcing today a concrete target for 24-25, the year that starts May 1st. And here we have an ambition to also open another 10 new stores during this year. And we've already signed eight new contracts. A big enabler. This growth, these growth drivers is to continue to be very effective in terms of our marketing. And we do see that a majority of spend goes digital. And we also see a lot of organic growth in terms of engagement from customers in our digital channels. And we also start seeing a expansion of the younger customer groups into our club class membership program. It's critical to continue to be very cost conscious. We have done a lot of changes to have a very competitive cost base and leaner overheads to allow us to invest in growth for the future. We have realized that plan. We have executed on what we laid out to do. And it's critical to continue now all the work driving growth while not expanding our overhead. When it comes to execution on the sustainability agenda, obviously a key part is making our business model more and more sustainable. But it's also encouraging to see that as an example in this quarter, we were recognized as one of the most sustainable companies on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange in Stockholm. We came in as number seven out of 130 companies. Digging a bit deeper into our assortment, we are obviously a product and assortment company. It's the foundation of everything. As part of that, the plan and strategy years ago, we laid out a clear focus on five areas that we call our consumer missions. It's critical to be relevant across those five. And at the time, we saw growth in tied up your home and light up your home. And what we've seen over the last year is the other categories picking up as well. especially strong growth across Connect and Enjoy Your Home with a lot of tech accessories, mobile accessories, etc. And here we deem that we have been growing market shares. We also have a high focus on our spare parts assortment and now with the addition of the spares group, it becomes more and more important and we see a lot of underlying market demand growing on spare parts. Also, if you visit the store today versus a couple of years ago, we have also more consumable articles. So the five missions are traffic drivers and the consumables are more relevant basket fillers. So you can pick up washing liquid, cleaning products, et cetera, while you're anyway visiting. The third quarter is obviously the biggest quarter for the year, and it includes the important Christmas season. We saw that the market was still fairly challenged, but we were able to deliver a very solid Christmas with November-December sales on very high levels, amounting to almost 2.5 billion SEK. Moving into a little bit deep dive on our brand. It's clear that the Claes Olsson brand strength is significant. We have done a lot of work in terms of our consumer communication. Now almost 25% of the population in our three markets are members in our Club Claes membership program, and we've seen growth of 8%. So amounting now to 5.4 million members. It's also encouraging to see that the fastest growing segment is among younger consumers. We see huge organic reach and you see a couple of examples on the slide where customers themselves share a lot of videos on TikTok, et cetera, displaying, organizing products, et cetera. And we were actually awarded as the retailer of the year within TikTok. So a lot of that is driven organically. And we see engagement from younger customers. That's a key thing for us looking longer term as well. Also, in terms of being quick and flexible with our assortment, we see that when external events happen, we have a good way of adapting and we are a go-to place for things to help you at home. We have seen, as an example, some extreme weather in Norway over the recent couple of months. And we have been very relevant in terms of getting the customers the right assortment. And that has also generated a lot of media. We saw the same thing in Sweden during January when there was a spike in prepping products, given the media attention around that. And we were very much a go-to place then as well. From a total sales point of view, not super material, but still it's a sign of the strength of our brand. And last but not least, when we're announcing our store openings, we do generate a lot of especially local media attention for every new store that we announce. So again, the brand Klass Olsson stands strong. Going a bit more into depth then on our expansion of the store network. So here you see the maps of Sweden over Finland. and we have laid out here the stores that already opened in 2023-2024 and also the ones that are planned for 2023-2024. We also want to highlight the fact that we are working with Rebuilds to upgrade the store network and here the focus is not to bake the stores nicer, it's really about making the stores more optimal. Right square meters, right ability to fill it up with the right assortment, et cetera. So we are working both with improving current network and then adding. So looking at the next year, again, we plan to open another 10 or have another 10 net addition during fiscal year 24-25. And we want to do this in a very controlled way. We go for quality rather than quantity. And it's critical for us that each new store that we add become profitable within the first year and that it really drives and adds profitability to the full group. And also without adding in the overhead. As you can see, it's also the highest focus is within Sweden and Norway when it comes to expansion, but we're also making a few changes within Finland. Then turning a bit to the spares group. So we announced back in November, or we announced it back in September, but the acquisition closed in November. It was also acquiring the spares group consisting of four different parts. So, teknikdelar and batteriexperting, business-to-consumer brands, and then to business-to-business parts, spares and land parts. Now, it's the first quarter where spares is integrated and included in the Claes Olsson numbers, and it's developing according to plan. We see a very strong underlying trend. Just as a recent example, we see the Right to Repair Act being approved now by the EU, so we expect a continuous market demand for spare parts. And there's a lot of work in progress now to drive joint value creation between the two companies. We do have a one-segment reporting, and we have integrated, consolidated spares into Klaus Olsson as of the third quarter. The purchase price was $431 million for 91.4% of the shares. The founders and the management team reinvested and is staying on. And we do not expect any further payments on this purchase price at this time. Then, the final point, we do see that the consumer sentiment, the consumer confidence is slightly improving across Sweden. We're still below historical levels, but it's improving in Sweden, and it's softer in Norway and Finland. And it's critical for us to remind our value, strong value equation versus customers. We measure this on a going basis. And for us, it's about having high quality products at attractive prices. It's not about always having the lowest, lowest price point, because then you risk jeopardizing the quality. And our customers expect us to deliver value, which is right price, right quality. And as seen in the graph at the middle, We do stand out as delivering value, even when we compare ourselves to discounters and low price traders. Together with this, our customer service is critical. And again, this quarter, we see an MPS level of 65, despite the strong growth and many more customers coming into Klaus Olsson. We're maintaining a very high customer service. So huge credit to everybody facing and meeting our customers every day in our stores, across customer service and on e-com. So that summarizes the business update, and I'll then hand over to Pernilla to take us through the financial development.

Thank you, Christoffer, and good morning, everyone. Let me give you some details on the financials of Q3 and the first nine months of this financial year. Q3 is, as you know, our biggest and most important quarter. We have maintained a positive momentum from the first six months and increased sales by 9%, excluding the spares group. The organic sales increase was 12%. Like-for-like sales, meaning sales in comparable stores, was up 12%. Online sales, excluding spares, was up 19%. As previously reported, this is the first quarter when the acquired spares group is consolidated. This means that we do not have comparables for spares yet, and this is the reason why we have decided to report sales both including and excluding spares for the time being. Total sales including spares was 3.4 billion SEK in the quarter. As you can see, the inclusion of spares also means a big leap in total online sales, amounting to 589 million SEK in the quarter. For the nine-month period, we had an organic sales increase of 10% compared to last year, which is well above a growth target of 5% organic growth. When it comes to different markets, we have solid total sales growth in all markets in Q3. As you can see, organic growth has been particularly strong in our biggest markets, Sweden and Norway. As always, I would like to briefly remind you of some of the macro factors impacting our business. There's been quite a lot of focus on the situation in the Red Sea lately. And as you can see, spot prices for container freight have increased in the past month. However, we see positive indications in terms of stabilizing and somewhat decreasing prices and do not view this as something that will have the same kind of impact as the bottleneck effects during the pandemic. It is, of course, impacting us and we will continue monitoring the situation closely. But for now, we believe that costs and attempt to delay from rerouting ships are manageable. When it comes to currencies, we continue to be impacted by the US dollar versus the SEC, and now also the weaker NOC, as we have a large share of our total sales in Norwegian currency. The currency effect is something you see clearly impacting on gross margins. Although we have had positive effects in the quarter from our hedging, the weaker SEC and weaker NOX has by far offset those gains. Cost for sourcing and transportation is continuing to be factors that are gross margins. We have communicated before the fact that consumers have responded More on campaigns and offerings has a big impact on profitability in the sector. I might add that we have not been more aggressive on campaigns. It is rather the more and more price-sensitive customer who has chosen to do more once they have found good. In summary, we reached a slightly higher gross margin than last year at 38.4 compared to 38.2%. Summarizing our income statement, we have improved operating profit substantially. The operating profit almost doubled to 422 million SEK. Last year's Q3 was, of course, heavily impacted by non-recurring items. But also looking at operating profit excluding items affecting comparability, profits are significantly up to 425 million SEK. compared to 334 million SEK. Share of selling expenses decreased by 1.2% to 24.5%, mainly thanks to increased savings and previously communicated cost savings. Admin expenses were more or less flat. For the first nine months of the year, operating profit landed at 651 million SEK, including one of us. We have a good and well-balanced inventory. The total inventory level is up compared to last year, but now we're including inventory in spares group. Cash flow for the first nine months of the year, symbolizing one of our key strengths. Cash flow from operating activity, total, 1,597,000,000 SEK compared to 947,000,000 SEK last year. Bear in mind that the cash flow was affected by the acquisition of spares, but also an even greater effect on lower dividend this year compared to last year. Looking at net debt EBITDA excluding IFX 16, we can conclude that we have a net cash position in end of Q3. I then hand over to Kristoffer again.

Thank you, Pernilla. So quickly looking at the February numbers before moving into Q&A. So February, we saw continued solid organic sales development, adding up in total 19% and 19% like for like. And this was broad based, 18% in Sweden, 22% in Norway and 14% in Finland. And we have continuously also seen our online business growing 20% if we exclude spares. And you also see the numbers including spares here on the slide. Looking at February specifically, the store network was unchanged compared to end of last year. So we haven't yet started to see the effects of the store openings. So to quickly conclude, as I said initially, we continue to execute on the strategic plan that we laid out two years ago. We know that the market continues to be challenging, yet some improvements in consumer confidence in Sweden, but there's still uncertainty around consumer spending. So for us, it's critical to maintain relevance when it comes to assortment. We need to do everything to deliver value for money. And also, of course, to continue to be flexible, given how fast the demand changes across lots of different product categories. And we also do a lot of work to develop the sales channels to continue to drive growth and to deliver the five percent organic growth also next year. Here, the store expansion is critical and we laid that out, but also to continue growing our online sites and get the effect of both those together. And as said before, we need to continue, we want to continue to be very cost focused and keep a lean overhead because that gives us the ability to also invest in the future.

So with that, let's move into Q&A.

If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key five.

6 on your telephone keypad the next question comes from Nicholas Ekman from Carnegie please go ahead thank you yes can I start with the question on the top line and this organic growth here of 12 percent in q3 that said One of the strongest organic growth figures you've ever reported, I think. Can you tell us a little bit more, just elaborate a bit more on what are the key growth drivers here? How much of this is driven by inflation? You mentioned prepping here, but you're kind of downplaying that effect. You're talking about consumables. And as a follow-up, I guess, to that also, how... confident are you that you can reach more than 5% growth next year, considering that you're now facing very, very tough comparisons?

Good morning, Niklas. Overall, the organic growth is very much driven by number one assortment. And if I look across the five big areas, we have seen the fastest growth across what we call the connect and enjoy your home, which is very much mobile accessories, tech accessories, et cetera, but also products within gaming, et cetera. So we've added a lot of products there and we've seen fast growth. Also FIX, which historically was a bit of a lower priority. We have done a lot of work to upgrade that assortment as well. So we've also seen growth there. But still the biggest and also a big growing mission is to tide up your home. So everything that has to do with organizing, et cetera. So assortment is a big driver. A big part of the organic sales growth comes from new articles. And also we do see fairly significant volume growth in this quarter. As you know, we do not report volume and value, but with those numbers, it's clearly volume driven as well. As you know, we have done a lot of work on pricing over the last year and structurally taken down any prices in terms of the black prices. And we continue to work smartly. So, of course, there's a bit of a price effect in the growth as well. Turning them to next year, as you say, of course, our objective is to grow 5% organically every year. Now the base is much higher as we move into next year. So we do not expect these growth levels to continue when we start moving into May, June and July. But our ambition is clearly to deliver the 5% organic growth also for next year. And as I mentioned earlier, obviously the growth we see today is with more or less an unchanged store network. So it's critical for us to execute well on the store expansion plan to be a driver of the 5% also next year. So that's going to be a new thing. And then meanwhile, of course, we're going to continue to work on assortment also in the coming years. But that's in short.

Very good. Thanks. And a quick follow-up there. When you talk about 10 new stores for 24-25 is that a net number or do you think there will be one or two store closures on top of that or that we're drawn from that that's a net number so we are also most likely going to close a few stores as well so we're expecting a net increase of them very clear Can I ask about your margin target as well here, 7% to 9%? I think in the last 12 months here, you are at 8.6%. You're in the very upper end of that range. Is this, you think, a conservative target that you have now, or are you at exceptionally high levels at the moment? What's your view on that?

Obviously, these targets are laid out to be delivered on the longer term. And I do believe that 5% organic top line and 7% to 9% bottom line is a very good balance. Then, of course, there will be slight variations within that range yearly. But I think it is a fairly good and fair balance. And yeah, so that's how we view it.

But do you see imminently any risks of that margin trending lower?

Now, again, it's between the seven to nine, so I don't want to guide more specifically for next year, given that the year hasn't started yet. And of course, there are lots of variables that need to work out. So between seven to nine without guiding specifically if it's going to be upper or lower range.

Okay, fair enough. And just a detail here as well on spares. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they had annual sales of 820 million. And if you look at the first four months of being consolidated now, they've added less than 230. That seems to be quite a bit below the run rate. Is there any significant seasonality here that we should be aware of? Or have you seen a decline in spares since that business was acquired?

In general, the seasonality is much less than for Claes Olsson. And then also, half of the business is business to business and half is business to consumer. We see a very good development on business to consumer and then business to business is a bit more volatile because the underlying demand is high. but it's also driven a lot by the availability of products, and that can vary. But NetNet, we are happy with the overall trend, but of course we want to continue driving this together with us forward.

We can also add that we have harmonized accounting principles, meaning that freight revenue are excluded from Spells Net Sales, so that is also

also change when we consolidate this basic to class also okay how big an impact was that approximately approximately 40 million something like that okay okay super super clear thank you for taking my questions thank you the next question comes from magnus rahman from kepler shivrux please go ahead

Thank you.

I'd like to come back to the sales of next year first. Since you are guiding for this next store expansion, you will have a contribution from the store expansion in 24, 25 or 4 or 5 percent. Then it comes down to, with these tougher comparisons, if you think that you will not be able to deliver flat or positive life-life growth, or if you think you will so, because In that sense, you already have this contribution from the store expansion. So my question essentially is, what type of price situation do you see in front of you for the coming fiscal year? Is it going to be so tough that you might not even be able to deliver any price increases and thereby have a hard time delivering positive life-like, or should there actually be room for additional price increases?

As on the total, you're right. Of course, a big part of the growth will come from the new stores. At the same time, of course, we are humble about the fact that we haven't done store expansion in a long time. So it's critical for us to ensure the execution of the openings at this amount is successful. So obviously, if everything plays out well, it's going to add approximately what you're mentioning here. Then, of course, our ambition is always to continue to drive life as well. I think that's why it gives us confidence that we have the activities lined up to drive 5% next year. But of course, the store expansion is a bit of a new activity versus the previous five years. Turning to price, I mean, we are working actively with price on a going basis. Our expectation is that the overall inflation level across the kind of across all categories will be slightly softer next year but we're going to continue to work smartly with price and we are not planning for drastically taking down prices but of course that's there are a lot of variables coming into coming into play here with what happens with currencies etc but we're going to continue working smartly on pricing as well but we expect overall inflation levels to be slightly lower than it has been in the last two years

Great. On the gross margin, you showed that you usually do the drivers there in the waterfall chart. And I mean, in terms of how you have been impacted by adverse FX effects, those should at some point annualize and possibly also be reversed in terms of the underlying actual FX rates. But the other factor here with the sales mix that you described, how customers have changed their alter their sort of preferences to cheaper items in the recent period of weakness. But you have also had a sales mix change that sort of deliberately or more structurally implemented by yourself. So what I'm trying to get to here is if we would assume the normalization of sort of customer behavior, do you see that this negative effect on the gross margin from sales mix would reverse completely or will there be a sort of remaining structural negative effects from your permanent mix shift?

Yeah, I think it's going to be driven a bit by the consumer sentiment. I think given the volume growth we've seen in the last quarter, and as Pernilla mentioned, it's not that we have been more aggressive on campaigns. Actually, the contrary. It's more that the volumes sold on the deal have been higher during this quarter. So of course, consumer sentiment could have a factor here to make that a bit less. I think the other thing that is fair to say that we mentioned in the report and also in the previous two sales reports is that given the pace of new product launches, we have also deliberately sold out some older products. It's not that we've had any stock issues, but it's more that we want to keep a very uh active and relevant assortment and ensure that that we maximize uh stock turnover of the skus that we have so we want to make room for new skus and thereby we've also um sold out a few a few products during this high sales period so that one will be um we have continued with it's a smaller part uh the biggest part is the sales mix as you refer to so uh we're going to continue to be very

Careful and work structurally with our pricing together with campaigns And again, it's going to be a little bit driven on the on how the consumers react to that and where the volumes fall All right, thanks and also a follow-up of this Great revenue recognition that you mentioned for for spares this 40 million sec book for what period was that and also Where does this revenue show up? Where is it accounted for?

This was approximately for one year, and we net it against the freight cost on OPEX.

So then it has a result, a margin and has an effect instead?

It affects the OPEX instead of the, yeah, the OPEX. Yeah.

Right.

Okay. The final one for me relates more to the overall balance sheet of the net cash position that you retain now. You mentioned here that it was partly an effect of the lower dividend. How do you think we should view... I mean, if you look forward, do you see any need for material... strategic investments, needs or opportunities, or might there actually be room for an extraordinary distribution to shareholders given the cut in dividend last year?

I mean, obviously, we are now investing more in store expansion, which we haven't done before. So that's obviously one part. And then when it comes to the dividend question, we'll come back on that as part of the part of the Q4. But obviously, we are and we have done this first acquisition, etc. Obviously, we are trying to to allocate capital in an efficient way to also build for the future. So but we'll come back on the dividend question.

Okay, thank you very much. Thank you.

As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Andreas Lundberg from SEB. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning.

Most of my questions have an answer though but what about OPEX on a comparable basis if you strip out the spare parts how is that developed during the third quarter and how will you have outlook for the next fiscal year? Thank you.

So overall, we were fairly flat on one part and a bit down on the other. And obviously we see cost inflation this year with rent increases, salary increases, etc. So we believe that all the mitigating factors we executed on with the 210 million is helping us mitigate that. So we're expecting a bit similar also moving forward and trying to The objective is to, of course, add initiatives like new stores without expanding costs, keeping overhead flat.

But overall, that's what I would say the guidance is. So nothing changed there versus previous quarters, basically? No. Thank you so much. Thank you.

The next question comes from Niklas Skogman from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.

Good morning everyone.

I have a couple of questions. I'll ask the OPEX question another way. How much of the OPEX increase was due to spares in 2006?

Let's see, so I think we haven't written that out, but it's obviously approximately... Let us check, Niklas, and we'll take your other question first.

Right, good. So in Q2, you had a positive impact from product and price mix, and now you had a negative impact from sales mix, I guess you call it. Is the reason that you have these clearances of old products or has the consumer behavior changed in Q3 compared to Q2?

It's more that the volume growth on products on campaign were higher in Q3 than Q2. Um, and, um, so that was the biggest driver. And then of course also the sellout of, of all the products was in parallel, but I think the, um, the overall sales and overall volumes were higher, uh, and it's obviously a much bigger quarter and also the organic growth was higher. So that's the key thing, the volumes that customers bought.

Okay. And now after February, do you still have a need to clear the older inventory to make room for the new products or are you through with this?

I mean, I think we're going to work with it smartly a bit on the going basis to ensure that we always optimize the assortment. We've done a little bit of that also in February, but we don't want to do this in big swings. It's more about keeping the assortment relevant. And given the amount of new products we have launched, of course, we had a bit more of a need now in the recent quarters. But over time, we do not expect that to be a significant factor.

Okay, good stuff. And if you would please give us an outlook for the currency effects now here in Q4, the dollar and the NOC as it looks right now, what's the situation on the gross margin?

So I think maybe to keep it simple, if we look at the transport, if you look at the net effect of the transportation and the currency effects, we believe that the net effect will be slightly positive moving into the next quarter. And then, Pernilla, I don't know if you have any specific on the currency expectations now in Q4. But the net effect of those two we believe will be slightly positive in Q4.

Okay. Very good. And have you had the time now to look at the spares?

I can't give you the absolute numbers, but if you look at the administrative expenses, we have a small effect on spares. So if you bear in mind that last year we had a one-off effect related to headcount reduction. of approximately 5 million, then I think you could see approximately that. If we look at the selling expenses, the spares administrative expenses is slightly higher as a percentage of sales. So if you look at the administrative expenses, they're slightly higher. And looking at the selling expenses, you see that there is a small effect from spares. I don't know if that will help you.

Might need to get back to you on that one. All right. Thanks for answering the questions.

Thanks, Niklas.

There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions or closing comments.

Yes, we do have one written question from Watch Media in Norway. It relates to the reason why you think Norway has the lowest consumer confidence right now.

I think it's hard for me to give a good answer, given that these numbers are consumer confidences for the overall Norwegian market. But if I look at our customers in Norway, if I compare the current period versus previous periods, we do feel that the customers have been more impacted by the macro environment than in maybe previous financial downturns. Of course, with inflation levels, also the weaker Norwegian krona, the high interest rates, at least that's what we get from our customers, that the individual households have been more impacted this time around if we compare to previous years when there's been a challenging macro environment. So I think that's what we get from our customers, but I think I'm not the right person to answer the total Norwegian consumer confidence level. okay we seem to have no further questions on the uh neither the webcast or the uh telephone conference so uh thank you very much uh everybody for calling in um and uh we will continue to uh to execute on our plan and uh and do everything to uh to deliver a close and to this year and then to kick off the next year so we'll see each other back when we report q4 thank you