Desenio Group AB (publ)

Thank you. So welcome everybody to the Zenit Group's Q1 results presentation conference call. So with me today, I have our CFO, Storre. So we will start as usual by presenting the outcome of the quarter and the Q&A session will follow at the end. So in the year end report, we indicated that the markets continue to be weak during the first half of Q1. This development continued unfortunately during the rest of the quarter, and our net sales decreased by 12% to 229 million SEK. And as you can see, net sales decreased on all the markets. The background to the weak development is partly the weak market within our categories, which I will tell you more about on the next slide. One focus for Q1 has been to reduce marketing spend in relation to net sales. Although we reduced our absolute marketing costs in comparison to the corresponding quarter last year, it increased the relation to net sales to 31.2% compared to 28.5% in Q1 2023. So we are now step-by-step adapting our marketing strategy to the new environment, but have clearly not yet found the perfect formula for our efforts. And this development is of course a satisfactory. Our focus is on gaining efficiency in the marketing efforts and thereby increasing profitability. And we work hard to find the right mix and impact. And this is really the key to our success going forward. On the positive side, we managed to increase our efficiency in the organization. Our fulfillment cost ratio decreased from 26.4% to 26.0%. during the quarter and reduced the number of employees in Sweden by 10%, corresponding to 16 full-time positions. The lower net sales levels and higher share of marketing costs led to adjusted EBITDA decreasing to 22.2 million compared to 42.1 million in Q1 2023. This corresponds to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 9.7%. Adjusted EBITDA excludes the cost for personnel layoffs that we carried out during the quarter, which amounted to 3.2 million. The cash flow in the quarter amounted to minus 19.1 million compared to plus 42.6 million in the first quarter of 2023. The difference is partly explained by the lower beta, which was 23 million lower in Q1 this year compared to last year. In addition, we reduced inventory by almost 7 million. But in Q1 2023, inventory was reduced by 19 million. so furthermore accounts payables and VAT liabilities decreased by 25 million this quarter this Q1 due to lower net sales than previous quarter while in Q1 2023 actually increased by 10 million as of 31st of March this year cash and cash equivalents amounted to 126.6 million i have at this point no new information to disclose regarding our discussions with the outstanding bond as you know we discussed with our main shareholders and bondholders to find a solution for refinancing of our issued bonds of the 1.1 billion SEK that matures in December this year. So discussions will continue during Q2 with the ambition to fire the solution that's acceptable to both shareholders and bondholders. To summarize the quarter, before we analyze further, net sales decreased in the Chinese market, gross margin decreased slightly, The adjusted EBITDA decreased as a result of higher marketing spend in relation to lower net sales than expected, and the operating cash flow decreased compared to the previous year. On this slide, we analyzed the difference in the EBITDA margin in Q1 2024 compared to the corresponding quarter previous year. The product margin decreased slightly due to different product mix, which was almost compensated by the lower cost of fulfillment. The marketing cost in relation to net sales was, as mentioned, higher. And admin and other was higher due to the lower net sales. So now, let me comment more in detail on the development of the business in the markets. By looking at search trends in comparison to sales development in Germany and the UK, we can see that our sales continue to trend higher than the market search volumes in Q1, which is, of course, positive. And comparing the center group to a few of our biggest competitors, we see to the left, Germany, and to the right, the UK. And we see that we slightly increase the share of voice in Germany. But on the other hand, slightly decreased in the UK. And here to the left, we see the share of voice development in the US. So to the left for the senior only compared to share of voice development for the group to the right. And that's including PoserStore. And as you can see, Society6 is the largest competitor in terms of share of voice or brand search. But it's very positive to see that they have a steady increase in share of voice in the US market, taking shares from our American competitors. It's also interesting that to the right here, including Postal Store, Postal Store's share of voice is around 50%, which is high. And that's, of course, since Pulsasol is a generic term also. And that gives opportunities for us to leverage on the search trends. So the group's gross order intake in Q1 was below the recent years, but considerably higher than 2019. On this slide, we compared the developments in the segments compared to last year. In the Nordics, net sales decreased, as mentioned, by 8%. In Europe, by 12%. The rest of Europe decreased by 18%. The rest of the world decreased by 11%. And in North America, which is included in the rest of the world, net sales decreased by 5%. So even though we're taking brand search market shares in North America, we're struggling getting the right traffic, which is indicated that it has challenged the market still. This slide shows customer highlights. We see that our active customers and also number of orders continue to decrease compared to last year. I now hand over to Anna for the financial update.

Yes, thank you, Fredrik. In the following slides, we will take a closer look at some financials. As Fredrik mentioned, net sales decreased by 12% in Q1 this year compared to Q1 last year. Gross margin decreased from 84.3% in Q1 last year to 83.8% in Q1 this year, mainly driven by a slightly different product mix. Adjusted EBITDA in Q1 this year was 22.2 million SEC compared to 42.1 million SEC in Q1 last year. This decrease is mainly driven by lower net sales. The adjusted EBITDA margin was 9.7% in Q1 this year compared to 16.2% in Q1 last year. CAPEX in Q1 this year of 0.2 million is related to smaller investments in a new transportation management system. Excluding the bond, which is as of December 2023 classified as current liabilities, the net working capital in relation to the net sales for the last 12 months is minus 7% and in line with the corresponding quarter last year. Our operating cash flow in the quarter was negative 19.1 million, which is further explained on the next slide. So here is a breakdown of the operating cash flow. The operating cash flow during the quarter was negative 19.1 million. We had a positive adjusted EBITDA of 22.2 million in the quarter, including items affecting comparability of 3.2 million related to redundancies that were expensed during the quarter. We are at a positive EBIT of 19 million in the quarter. The bond interest payment amounted to 26.5 million SEK. Non-cash items include the depreciation, amortization of fixed assets, leasing assets, and intangible assets, and items affecting comparability related to redundancies that were expensed in a quarter but not paid out during the quarter. Altogether, 10.7 million. Paid tax in the period was 8.6 million, and inventory levels decreased by 6.7 million. and changes in current assets and liabilities negatively affected cash flow in the quarter by 24 million, mainly driven by reduced accounts payables and VST liabilities because of lower sales in Q1 compared to Q4. So in summary, operating cash flow during the quarter was negative 19.1 million SEK, mainly driven by reduced current liabilities. I now hand over to Fredrik again for a summary.

Thank you, Anna. So to summarize the first quarter of 2024, we continue to operate in a weak market during the first quarter, combined with weak performance and marketing, which explains the negative net sales development. On the positive side, we can conclude that we achieved increasing operational efficiency, a further load of fixed cost base, leading to a relatively good profitability despite the negative sales trend around a stable cash position. Last but not least, it's worth repeating that the center demonstrates relatively good profitability despite the negative sales development and despite the weak market. We are a leader in a category and we have a strong brand presence in our main markets. Our main challenge now is to return to sustainable growth, leveraging our strong market position in Europe and continue building our business in North America. combined, of course, with a long-term sustainable balance sheet. So thank you all for listening. We're now more than happy to answer your questions. So over to you, operator.

If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 5. 6 on your telephone keypad there are no more phone questions at this time so I hand the conference back to the speakers for written questions any closing comments thank you very much operator and

Thank you all for listening in and for your time. We don't seem to have any more written questions. So, well, if any questions occur, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. And, well, have a good day. Thank you.