Clas Ohlson AB (publ)

Good morning and welcome to the Klaus Olsson Q2 report presentation. My name is Kristoffer Tornström and I'm CEO and I'm here with Pernilla Walfridsson, CFO. So we'll today cover a business update, financial development for the quarter and then move into events after the reporting period. Then we'll summarize and then move into Q&A. So starting with highlighting the second quarter. Overall, we continue to moving forward with fast pace and have seen strong both profit and sales growth in the quarter. So the second quarter came in at 3 billion SEK, which was organic growth of 9%. And the operating profit for the quarter came in at 410 million, which then translates into an operating margin of 13.6%. And in absolute terms is up a bit more than 30% versus last year. When it comes to our online sales on the B2C side with the continued strong sales growth in the quarter, and I'll come back to that in a second. Also from a financial position point of view, we do have a solid financial position and also a cash flow that is up in the first half versus a year ago. Earnings per share amounted to 4.85 kronas versus 3.63 last year. We've also reported the sales numbers for November today and we'll come back to those in a second. But overall, we continued to see organic growth and it amounted to 6% during this month. Then moving into the business update, our strategic framework remains the same and we are very much continuing to strengthen our competitive advantages and investing in our assortment brand and the customer meetings. and doing everything to leverage this. We do have a differentiation strategy where we focus on our five distinct product niches where we want to be very strong. We also continue to do everything to become competitive across all parts of the organization and ensure that we do have the cost and efficiency that is in line also with discount competitors. And our ambition is to generate a strong free cash flow that we can then reinvest into our ABC. Then looking at the strategy execution for the second quarter. And at the top, we have the three growth drivers that we're focusing on. And at the bottom, we have the enablers. So starting with the first growth driver, which is assortment related. And here, our ambition is to have a relevant assortment all year round via the prioritized niches. We have kept up a very high pace. in terms of assortment renewal, and we have launched a lot of new products during the quarter. And we continue to see strong performance across all the five niches. On the profitable and growing online business, the strong development continues. Looking purely at Claes Olsson.com e-com, we grew actually 20% during the quarter, so continued high growth there. I'll also come back to the acquisitions that we have done in the events after the reporting period. But we are obviously increasing our online footprint via those two recent acquisitions. Looking at the store network, we continue to build out but also operate the store network that we have. And it's encouraging to see continued strong like-for-like development in the quarter. And also in terms of store openings, we opened three new stores during the quarter. And the high customer satisfaction remains. And I'll also come back to that. When it comes to customer communication, Club Class is an important priority for us. And during the quarter, we reached 6 million members. And we also continue to invest in digital marketing and performance marketing to fuel growth. And we'll come back to that as well. When it comes to the competitive cost base, here we continue to work relentlessly on making the organization competitive across all parts of the business. And we also announced after the quarter ended a long-term investment in our logistics. And I'll also come back to that at the end. When it comes to sustainability and organization, also here the acquisition of Reservadela Online is a clear statement that we're also moving forward when it comes to the more circular business model of also being a spare part of this donation. And we'll talk a bit more about that later on as well. Looking at the key things that when we track our ABC, we continuously follow the product reviews that we get from our customers. And as always, we have a very high amount of reviews coming in. And we are consistently at high levels when it comes to the customer's satisfaction with our products. This is an important priority. When it comes to the affordability, Also here we are very competitive and our customers really view Klass Olsson as an affordable choice with the right products at the right price. Customer satisfaction remains at high level and our net promoter score during the quarter came in at 57. Then looking at the five niches, this is an important priority for us. We do focus on those five niches and we want to become best across each five. And looking at the quarter, we have seen growth across all five niches, actually. And at the bottom, you also see the priority on spare parts, which we continue to also focus on. So with that, I'll hand over to Pernilla to take us through the financial development.

Thank you, Hisoffer. And good morning, everyone. It has been an eventful autumn, and I'm pleased to guide you through the strong financials of the second quarter. Looking at sales in the second quarter, total sales were up 7%, and organic sales were up 9%. 7% of the increase relates to like-for-like growth, and 2% relates to expansion of our store network. Online sales grew by 8% in total, but as previously mentioned, business-to-consumer sales grew significantly more, at the same time as business-to-business online sales still is heavily impacted by the weak US dollar. For the six-month period, the growth figures are similar through the quarter, with organic growth of 9% and total sales growth of 7%. Sales per market follow a similar pattern as in the last quarter, with extraordinary organic growth in Norway, continued strong sales in Sweden and positive development in Finland, despite a relatively tough market. Also, when it comes to macro trends, impacting our business, we see a similar development as in the past quarter. Transportation costs remain at reasonable levels, Purchasing price and production capacity are favorable at the moment. The weak sales currency NOC continue to have an immediate negative impact. The US dollar remains more favorable than the average for the last couple of years. As I mentioned, input cost are favorable right now and together with positive mix effect relating to price and products we see a big improvement in gross margin by 2.6% to 48.7%. Please also note that as per the last quarter, the gross margin reflects on new reporting methods, so the nature of expense method. The income statement shows a strong increase in operating profit at 410 million second, an EBIT margin of 13.6%. The increase in personal expenses relates to higher volume in our logistical chain, wage increases and new stores. The other external expenses also increased in the quarter, mainly due to increased investment in marketing. The RPS for the quarter was 4.85 SEK, an increase from 3.63 SEK in last year's Q2. As for the inventory, we see the usual build up for the third quarter sales period, which includes the Christmas sales. Compared to last year, we are on the same level despite new stores and more products, thanks to higher efficiency, lower purchasing currencies and higher sales. Cash flow for the first half of the year. Improved versus last year, cash flow from operating activities took the 552 million SEK, an improvement from 530 million SEK last year. Free cash flow for the first six months amounted to 202 million SEK compared with 176 million SEK last year, which is explained by higher operating result and change in working capital relating to accounts payable. Net debt, EBITDA, excluding IFRS 16, was minus 0.7. So we maintained a net cash position. And with that, I hand back the presentation to Christopher.

Thank you, Pernilla. So now we will move into the events after the reporting period. And I'll start by talking a little bit about the acquisitions that we have announced and also the logistics investment and then moving into the sales numbers for November. So starting with the two acquisitions, we do this to, we announced this a couple of weeks ago, and we do this to further strengthen our presence across our prioritized niches. Specifically, when it comes to the acquisition of PhoneLife and Teknikmagasinet, it's a way for us to further strengthen within the Connect and Enjoy Your Home niche, both via bigger assortment and a stronger online presence. And the acquisition of Reservdelen online is a way for us to further strengthen our presence across spare parts. So looking a little bit more into the details of those two companies, both companies are strong online retailers that have grown profitably for many years. And the first one, Phone Life Teknik Magasinet, has been around over the last 12 years and has been built with a very big focus on accessories to mobile phones. We do see this category as growing. Consumers buy less and less new mobile devices, but the accessories market is growing significantly and we've seen that on the Claes Olsson side as well. PhoneLife two years ago acquired the brand Teknikmagasinet and since then have seen the growth pick up further. They offer 26,000 products in tech and tech accessories across the Nordics and also some additional European markets. The second company, Reserved Dealer Online, has also been built specifically as an online retailer since 2017. And they are very focused on the niche, spare part niche across garden machinery, etc., And today they carry more than 8,000 spare parts in their own distribution center, but they also have access to more than 100,000 spare parts across the range. So strong brands partner with Reserved Data Online, and it's a good addition to the focus that Claes Olsson has both across garden machinery, but also when it comes to complementing with very relevant spare parts. And then I'll hand over to Pernilla to talk a little bit about the transaction overviews for both of those acquisitions.

The deal structure is similar for the two transactions. We have acquired 70% now and will buy the remaining 30% after three years. Both transactions are financed through a balance sheet, so cash payment. Beginning with phone life, the transaction values phone life at 184 million SEK. including an estimated earn out for the period September to December 2025 with estimated sales of 207 million SEK for 2025 and EBITDA of 18.4 million SEK. EBITDA multiple is 10 times. We expect the transaction to be earning accretive from day one. When it comes to reserve-delar online, the transaction values reserve-delar online at 45 million SEK on a cash and debt-free basis. Looking at EV, EBITDA multiple, this corresponds to six times based on forecast net sales of 59 million SEK and EBITDA of 7.5 million SEK for 2025. Also this transaction is fully financed with existing cash and is expected to be earning accretive immediately. With that I ask you Kristoffer to take over and comment on November sales.

Thank you, Pernilla. So just to conclude on the acquisitions, these are add-on acquisitions to the Spares Group that Klass Olsson acquired two years ago. So we're going to run these companies as part of the Spares Group moving forward and thereby also get scale across the online businesses. So before moving into November, I also wanted to comment on the long-term logistics investment that we announced two weeks ago. So here the board has made the decision to invest between 400 and 450 million in our current distribution center in Innsjön. And we do this to secure capacity for the future. We have seen significant growth over the last few years. And we want to increase our capacity and both extend the building and make it bigger, but also invest in a higher degree of automation within the DC. And the ambition is to increase capacity with 15 to 20 percent, but also to get efficiencies across the value chain. We have kicked this project off and the plan is to get going during the spring around March timings. And we want to be ready with the rebuilds in the second half of 2017. and the payback that we expect is that this will be fully full payback within four years which shows that that we will get it get efficiencies out of this investment and the investment itself will mainly impact the year 27 26 27. also this investment is financed with our existing cash So with that, I'll move into the November sales development. So today we also announced November and here we saw sales amounting to approximately 1.4 billion, which is up 6% organically versus last year. And it's, as you can see on the graph here, it's also following a few strong years of organic growth. Looking across the markets, Sweden and Norway grew 6% and 5% respectively. And it's also encouraging to see the second month in a row now where Finland grows 10% organically. For the other markets, mainly related to the spares B2B side, as for the previous months, we have seen a decline on this business. And here it's 27%. During the month, the store network increased or the store network is six stores higher than it was in November last year. So with that, we'll summarize and then move into Q&A. So first of all, we do know that we're playing in a big, attractive and growing market. So the addressable market for Claes Olsson across the five niches amounts to 340 billion and it's growing. That means that we have a market share of a bit more than 3% today. So we definitely see more growth to be had moving forward across the three markets. We have strong brand awareness and looking at the prioritized club class membership club, we have approximately a fourth of the population today being members with Claes Olsson. So looking ahead, there is a clear path to continue value creating. We are well positioned across the product niches with a big attractive market. We do focus on a needs-driven assortment and we consistently deliver very high customer satisfaction. We also have the central store locations that we continue to invest in to further roll out new stores, but also improve the ones we have. We also have a full-scale e-commerce that's profitable and we are also becoming more and more effective when it comes to marketing. And finally, we do have a strong financial position and we focus on increasing earnings per share over time. So with that, we will 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 six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Nicholas Ekman from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.

Thank you. A couple of questions from my end. Can I start with current trading? Because you say here on the one hand you talk about a strong start to Christmas days, but I've seen in interviews here you also complain a little bit about warm weather. Is one referring to November and the other one is referring to December? Or how would you just elaborate a little bit more on those comments?

Absolutely. So strong start to Christmas for sure. So the Christmas assortment and sales leading up to Christmas is increasing significantly. When it comes to the other comment relates more to products related to heating, etc. And it was prompted by a question whether the warm weather impacts us. So across those categories, sales is much lower, but it's by far compensated by the strong Christmas sales category.

Okay, but is there any notable difference in your growth in November versus December, or is that reading too much into it?

No, I think the key thing is I was relating all these comments to November. So across November, the Christmas assortment, so string lights, Christmas trees, et cetera, we see strong growth. But also in November, obviously, weather-related products did not see a strong pickup given the warm climate across the three countries right now.

Okay, very clear. Turning to margins, you had tailwinds here from lower input costs, but I assume that these will be a lot stronger going into Q3 and Q4 based on the lagging effects from a weaker US dollar and lower transportation costs. And on the other hand, you're also facing much tougher comparisons on the gross margin. So how would you kind of weigh these effects when you look at the margin outlook for H2O?

Yeah, so starting with the quarter, obviously the gross margin improvement comes from, as Pernilla talked about, input cost, obviously, so lower purchasing prices. And then second, there's also a bit of a mix effect, given that the business-to-business business is slightly lower. We've seen the sales there. That has a mix effect, given that the margins on business-to-business is lower. That said, obviously, in the quarter, the exchange rate effect were slightly negative. So despite a favorable US dollar, it was offset by the Norwegian krona. So looking ahead into the spring, it's important to remember the exposure to the Norwegian krona. We need to move into April 2026 to start seeing a similar level of the Norwegian krona to where it is today. So the comparables on the Norwegian krona remains fairly high in the next few months. Whereas, of course, the US dollar improvement is gradually going to or is already starting to help us. But we have an immediate effect of the high amount of sales in Norway, and that is offset by the dollar. Still a bit too early to say when that balance will start to become favorable from the dollar, but it's important to look at the Norwegian krona comparables also for the spring.

Okay, very clear. Thank you. Can I also ask, I mean, you now have almost 1 billion in net cash, excluding lease obligations. How would you view the split here, given that you've now made three acquisitions in the past little more than two years? How would your preference look for regarding future M&A or potentially increasing the yield to shareholders?

So obviously it's clear that we want to continue to distribute at least half of EPS to our shareholders. That's a critical priority, of course, moving forward. Then the recent acquisitions, we obviously do that because we expect that also to be a strong return on that investment. And the acquisitions, the three we have done over the last few years, are obviously companies that we believe strategically will complement Claes Olsson, and there will also be a strong and good return on that investment. So we always are open to look at opportunities. There are very few companies out there that meet those criteria. Now we have found three. But looking forward, obviously the priority is to continue to invest in the base business, our ABC, distribute cash via the dividend. And then if there are opportunities, we will consider them. But it's not a... Yeah, so I think that's the comment.

Okay, very clear. Thank you. I'll jump back in the queue. Thanks. Thank you.

The next question comes from Erik Sandstedt from Kepler. Please go ahead.

Hi there, thanks. A couple of questions. Could you share some additional details on the marketing spend in the quarter? Is the year-over-year increase more pronounced than we saw in Q1, for example? And to what extent has elevated marketing sort of been supporting the strong sales seen in recent months?

Yes, good morning, Erik. So overall, when it comes to marketing, we've talked about this for a few quarters now. And what we do is we work with dynamic performance marketing, which means basically that we buy traffic. When we do see a strong return on that spend. So we do not limit it in the month. We actually buy traffic when we see that it's profitable to do so. And that spend needs to be obviously delivering a return. So in this quarter, it was slightly higher, and we have seen over a few quarters that the marketing spend has been slightly higher. That also relates to overall growth, but also we have seen over the last year how the Claes Olsson e-com business has been significantly growing. As I said before, during the quarter, we saw 20% growth on e-com. So obviously, the performance marketing is the driver of that. It's also important to remember that none of these costs are structural. It's basically something we decided to do when there is profitable traffic to be had. But we can also equally turn it off if there's no traffic that we judge will deliver a return. So we will continue working like that as long as it's the right type of investment to do.

Thanks. And a follow up on that in terms of marketing and how you drive the business. What investments are you making in agentic commerce and how do you see that developing and maybe put that a little bit in perspective of sort of more traditional SEO marketing and so forth?

so overall um when it comes to uh marketing looking at klaus olsen in uh overall we obviously have a very strong brand and the store presence for us is a um is a key thing we're building the brand by being very close to our customers so the the store is uh is a big marketing vehicle Then when it comes to the more bought marketing, we are mainly focusing on digital marketing. And also we're leveraging the Club Class membership club where we communicate to customers that actually want to be communicated to. So when it comes to agentic commerce, obviously it's still early days. We are working closely with Google and we're doing both investments internally to strengthen SEO, etc. But when it comes to the more agentic commerce, it's still a bit too early to conclude what impact that will have. But we are working closely with Google and understanding how we can improve and become even more data driven there.

Yeah, thanks. Interesting. Just a few final sort of financial questions. I note that depreciation is down year over year in the quarter. Is this primarily a reflection of the previous write downs of IT systems or is there anything else explaining that?

This is just an order. I mean, we invest on an ongoing basis. And then we have old investment that are fully written off. So this is just nothing special, just an ordinary part of our business.

And the write-ons were made years ago.

Yes, so this is more of an ordinary character.

Yeah, but I mean, is it fair to assume that depreciation will continue to be lower year over year. Now, obviously, you will invest in the distribution center and so forth, but the rest of the business is growing, but not depreciation. So I'm a bit curious whether that relates primarily to a lower IT platform base, basically.

Not just not connected to that. It's more things are fully written off and then we add on a new investment.

Fair enough. Then just finally from me two quick questions relating to the acquisitions that you've done now of phone life and the reserve dealer online. Can I just confirm that this will be excluded from organic sales growth for the coming 12 months? Yes. Also, in terms of how you account for it, you've bought 70%, right? So will you consolidate the whole business and then report a minority interest or how will you account for the acquisition?

Exactly.

Perfect. Thank you very much. Thank you, Erik.

There are no more phone questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions and closing comments.

Yes, we do have one written question from Magnus Roman, SB1 Markets. He's wondering how much of the year-over-year cross-margin increase was explained by changes in the reporting method.

We have changed our reporting from Q1-25-26 to nature of expense method. So up until Q4, 24, 25, costs related to handling and distribution product that DC installs and that the HQ have been included in cost of goods sold. But from Q1, 25, 26, these costs are allocated to personal expenses, other external expenses, depreciation, amortization of tangible and intangible assets. And you will find recalculated data on our website regarding this. So you can see the change that we have done between the lines. This change has no impact on net sales in operating the salt and no impact on financial targets.

Thank you, Pernilla. We don't have any more written questions, but I do see that there's someone queuing up in the teleconference. So we'll hand back to the teleconference.

The next question comes from Andreas Lundberg from SEB. Please go ahead.

Thank you so much. On the competitive landscape, given that you have had a great performance for quite some time, do you see any changes in how competition is behaving? And also, can you mention a little bit about campaigning in general terms and whether companies are taking use of the weaker dollar? Thank you.

So, overall, when it comes to the competitive activity, we haven't seen any big changes. What we saw across, obviously, Black Week, as always, across Black Week, Black Month, et cetera, there were a lot of factors out there, but we don't have any consolidated data whether that was more or less than last year. But, of course, there's been a lot of focus on that month. And so in general, no big shifts that we observed from competitive behavior. When it comes to the US dollar, as you say, rightly so, the US dollar will start to have a positive effect and has already started to have a positive effect across the market and are exposed. So here, of course, we do track pricing across all our categories on a daily basis. And we work dynamically with our pricing to ensure that we're always competitive. But so far, we haven't noticed any big changes to pricing in general. But we're following that.

Okay, cool. Thank you so much. Thank you.

The next question comes from Nicholas Ekman from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Yeah, just a quick follow-up also. I note when you talk about this DC expansion, you talk about a capacity increase of 15% to 20%. But I also note that your sales have grown almost 40% in the last three years. So will this capacity increase of 15% to 20% really be enough? Or will you have to follow this up with additional investments over the next, say, two to three years?

The capacity that we're investing in now is what we believe we need also moving forward. So it's a combination obviously of a bigger building and then more automation to get efficiency across the value chain. We're obviously managing the volumes and the growth we have seen within the existing DC. So this is to become both more effective and higher capacity. But the investment is done in a way where we believe that it's going to support us also in the next few years.

Okay, thanks.

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

Okay, thank you very much for calling in this morning. And we will see all of you again when we report our third quarter in March. So thank you very much.