Dustin Group AB (publ)

Thank you, thank you, and good morning everyone. Happy New Year also, and welcome to our first quarter presentation conference call. I hope you're all well. Here on our side it's me, myself, Tomas Ekman, and Johan Karlsson, and also Felix Kjellström in the room as well. So today we present our first quarter results for the year 2022-2023. Our Q1 from September to November 2022 on a macro level being characterized by the obviously continued escalation of the war in Ukraine, high inflation, followed by increased interest rates, a featherweight Swedish krona, and high cost of energy, which is obviously a dramatic change compared to our comparable Q1 just a year ago. We kicked off the financial year with the continued total growth, despite an anticipated and fairly cautious development in SMB, access to standard hardware, increased sharply, and that has fueled a certain degree of price pressure in the market, which combined with the cost inflation affected the margin for the quarter. We see the same patterns as we have seen in previous economic crisis periods, where the SMBs are the first ones to react. Corporates are slower, and the public sector continues to spend. Typically, these periods have lasted around three quarters, and we have now passed the second one, which is a clear low point. We are now, and with that said also, we are now further intensifying our cost focus to adapt our operations, of course, to the prevailing economic climate. I am, though, pleased to say that the integration process in Benelux is proceeding according to plan, and that will enable continuous positive growth and, of course, synergy effects and lower costs over time. So let's go into the Q1 presentation and for your reference we have Dustin Antiglans on slide two but I think we can move directly to slide three for the financial highlights to see how we are performing and now during Q1. The first quarter of the financial year was distinguished by a general economic uncertainty and thus a clearly cautious trend among some of our customer groups from LSMV. The supply situation for Standard Harbor was highly favorable you can say which impacted the price and campaigns in the market and for us that have had a negative impact on growth among smaller SMBs as well as consumers primarily. Greater availability though and the continued healthy demand among our large customers and public sector laid the foundation for a strong sales growth in the first quarter despite by small and mid-sized companies. Organic growth was 8.5%, of which a negative 8.1% for SMB, a very good 17% for LCP organic growth, and a minus 3.3% for B2C. Like recent quarters, growth was mainly driven by strong sales of standard hardware, such as mobile phones and computers. In the quarter, availability of the more advanced hardware has improved within certain product categories, not everywhere, but within certain product categories. And the net sales in total rose to 6.6 billion SEK versus 5.8 in the corresponding quarter last year. And that, of course, leads us to 13.9% reported total growth. The gross profit was 893 million SEK compared to last year's 894 million SEK, giving us a gross margin of 13.5. The change in gross margin versus last year is mainly due to pricing and all the mix with high share of sales within LCP together with the organic growth in LCP. Adjusted EBITDA amounted to 201 million SEK compared to 301 last year and the adjusted EBITDA margin was 3% compared to the 5.2 last year. So the lower margin was mainly related to lower gross margin combined with the and cost inflation which we are adapting to but it has not filtered through yet. EBIT amounted to 138 million SEK and including items affecting comparability of a negative 19 million SEK compared to negative 7 million SEK previous quarter. Primarily that of course relates to the integration of wind shear and center points. And ETFs earning per share was 0.59 SEK per share versus last year's 1.47. And the cash flow from operating activities amounted to minus 85 million SEK during the quarter, mainly impacted obviously by the low EBIT, combined with the higher net worth in capital. And this was predominantly the result of the further accumulation of inventory for innovative customers in the public sector. As a result of the increase in net worth in capital and negative exchange rate differences, combined with low profit, net debt in relation to adjusted EBIT increased to 4.3 versus 3.7 last year. And the current leverage though is higher than our target and it is still assessed as being temporary and it's expected to fall significantly in the next few quarters as inventory reduces as a result of the deliveries or anticipated deliveries of large orders to individual customers with high stock values. Given that there are questions in general on inventory levels in the industry, it is good to remind them that the majority of our interviews are to customers specifically or inventory below the risk. Nevertheless, we are working our way down in inventory levels from the overstock in the pandemic period. So apart from an intense quarter in general from an operational perspective, we have continued the integration work with our Benelux companies, where clear steps have been taken. We are on track with the Xfinity extraction and the identified 200 to 220 million takes, which we show with clear effects from the second half of this financial year. And as an example, the private label is really taking off in Benelux, which is very promising and encouraging. We've also merged our SMB organization and that starts to surface also with efficiency from that. Yesterday we announced a cut of 35 SD in the managed service organization and that is just one example of what happens when we merge the organization. We can be more efficient and work as one organization for SMB over the group. And as you know I will soon move on and the recruitment for my successor is ongoing and hopefully we'll be able to communicate that in the coming weeks. But now Johan, you can take us through the financial for different segments and how we are performing in QR.

Yes, thank you. Moving to slide four and then the SMB segments in some more detail. So sales for the quarter ended at 1,771,000,000 representing a negative organic growth of 8.1%. In the quarter, we saw that the economic uncertainty is continuing to affect mainly our small and medium-sized B2B customers and the consumers. For the larger SMB customers, demand continues to be somewhat stronger. The market sentiment is similar in all our geographies, but the overall growth was strongest in Finland and Norway. As we are realigning the service portfolio, the share of software and service was down from 14.4% last year to 12.2% in Q1 this year. The main reason being the move away from time-managed consulting towards standardized managed services. Segment margin reduced from last year's 12.4% to 10.1%. A higher share of standard hardware, such as computers and mobile phones, had a negative impact on margins in the quarter. Recovering revenue from standardized standard services was developing well and contributed to the margins positively. Also, private labor is continuing to deliver strong sales and margins, contributing positively to the margins and profits. Segment result ended at 180 million compared to 230 last year. Moving on to slide five and the MCP segment. Sales in MCP was 4,727,000,000 in the quarter, an increase of 23.3%, of which 17% was organic. During the quarter, we saw a very strong sales increase in both public sector customers and large corporates. As for the SMB segment, availability of standard hardware has continued to be good and deliveries are now back with more normal lead times. From a geographical perspective, growth was strongest in the Netherlands, Sweden and Belgium. Segment margin was 5.9% down from 7.6% last year. Compared to last year, the higher share of standard hardware had negative impact on margins. And as we are growing at a very high pace by winning new frame agreements, this impacts the margin negatively as the margins at the beginning of a contract period are lower than at the end. As in SMB, private label products affect margins and result positively in the quarter. And we're continuing to see good potential for further development as we're launching more and more products in the Benelux region. The take-back offering continues to show good development, and the interest from customers is strong. Second result in LCP for the quarter was 279 million, down from 293 last year. Then we'll move to slide six on the B2C. And B2C was 139 million. It was down 0.7% compared to last year, and the organic growth was negative 3.3%. The main reason for the sales development was the economic instability affecting negatively, but a better supply situation affecting positively. Segment margins are now normalizing and was 6.9% compared to last year's 11.1%, mainly due to the better availability of products. Segment result was 10 million, which is down from 16 million last year. Then we move to slide seven and networking capital. So net working capital was $336 million compared to last year's negative $334. The higher net working capital is mainly an effect of higher inventory as the supply situation for our main suppliers are improving back to normal and more orders are being shipped. Looking at the details, we can see that inventory in the quarter was $1,610,000 or up $472 million compared to last year. and 270 million compared to Q4. Part of the increase is seasonal, as end of November is in the middle of the peak season for Dustin. However, part of it is also customer-specific inventory being delivered to us as the supply situation has improved. More about inventory a little bit later in the presentation. Accounts received above was up 186 million, mainly as a result of higher safe volume and more safety in the LCB. In accounts payables, which was 3,856,000,000, this was up 143,000,000, and the majority of this comes from higher business volumes. As the supply situation is now improved, and our way of operating mainly in the Benelux region is being changed, we believe that inventory will come down to more normal levels during the year. This makes us continue to believe that our target range of negative 100 to 200 million in net working capital is realistic. As Thomas mentioned, leverage of this net debt in relation to rolling 12-month FTA at the end of Q1 was 4.3, where our target is to stay in the range of 2 to 3. The higher net working capital, the currency differences, and lower result affected net debt and leverage. We then move to slide eight and look at inventory in a little bit more detail. As I said before, inventory in the quarter increased by 270 million compared to the previous quarter. And we have, in order to explain the difference, we have tried to detail a little bit of the what the different kind of inventory that we have in Dustin. So if we start from the bottom, the core inventory increased by 76 million. Core inventory would be the inventory that we use primarily for our online business. And the increase by 76 million here is mainly coming from the seasonality effect of moving from end of August to end of November. In private label, we see a sharp increase in the business volumes and hence inventory is following and the increase of 10 million is really an effect of higher business volumes and when we then look at customer specific inventory we see the increase of 132 million this is mainly attributed to the public sector customers and it's a result of the better deliveries that we now get from our suppliers this part we We then move on to slide nine and cash flow. Cash flow for the quarter was 218 million compared to 294 million last year. Looking at the parts we see that cash flow for operating activities before changing that working capital was 150 compared to 283 last year. This is mainly a result of the lower operating result. Changing networking capital was negative 235 million compared to 86 million last year. The main difference being the increase in customers to public sector customers. And cash flow from investment activities was negative 51 million compared to 40 last year. And out of the 51, 40 was related to IT investment. Cash flow from financing activities was positive, 353 million, mainly coming from new loans rates. Total investment amounted to 63 million compared to last year's 81, of which capex-related IT development was 40 million. And out of the 40, 13 was coming from the project of moving our ERP system to the cloud. And investment in tangible and intangible assets was 17 million, which was down from 46 million last year. And then, finally, investment in assets related to service provision was 7 million, down from 17 million last year. All in all, 51 million out of the 63 in CapEx was affecting cash flow. The others were changed in lease or rent contracts.

And by that, moving back to Thomas, Good, thank you very much, Johan. Then we'll move on to slide 10, and just let me elaborate a bit on the gross margin development from the quarter. The gross margin, I said earlier, amounted to 13.5% for the quarter, versus last year's 15.4%. The change is primarily attributed to supply-driven price pressure, compared to the opposite scenario last year. which was marked by high demand and limited supply. This combined with larger customer-specific roll-outs in LCP and then also changed the sales mix with a slightly lower margin hardware and increasing share of sales in LCP, which also adversely impacted performance compared to the corresponding period of the last year and also had an effect on the gross margin. But also saying this, supported by our strong position, the SMB has been a great success in maintaining its market, although the decline in growth in SMB. Good, let's move, continue to the, just an update on the synergies and the integration activities we're doing. As we have previously announced, we believed when we did the acquisition of Central Bank that it would be possible for us to extract Synergist at the estimated 150 million SEK, where we, as you know, added another 50 to 70 million SEK in the last quarter, where we have identified more opportunities in Synergist, and now we have an estimated 200 to 220 million SEK annual savings in Synergist. and they will come from and are already starting to surface from both revenues and costs on the revenue side for smb in the netherlands or in denver it is to merge one organization for smb and that is an enabler for what we'll be working in the same way in the same platform with the same offering portfolio and synergies will also be realized in full by year 2023-24 for smb same for lcp where we given our site now have a larger portfolio of contracts and by that being less dependent on certain deals we can choose more thoroughly and with better quality what contracts to hunt for which also of course will help the margin also in LCT going forward. Cost synergies they will primarily come from obviously integration activities we do in the BEMLAX entities merging organizations as I said we did a smaller change with managed services for example yesterday and where we can be more slim and more efficient in our way of communicating and delivering services to our customers. Private Label has had a very good start in Benelux, which is very promising and encouraging. In the reorganization we announced in October, we have also established a group by procurement and vendor management organizations. to make us to make use of our size in food and of course further improving our purchasing power and being even stronger and better partners for vendors distributors as well as customers and we are working uh to launch our own our common cloud-based erp platform in the bandwagon and that will follow us in the nordics and that we ain't complete now during this fiscal year and that will of course also improve the efficiency and reduce the workforce so that would be a good and quality improvement And obviously on quality, process and quality and efficiency it will also contribute to improve cost base. So we see that we will see clear effects from this and they will be visible from the second half of this year, over this financial year 2022-2023. And the full effect of this will be expected to come in 2023-2024, the financial year of 2023-2024. So going through to slide 12. And an update on our financial, or sorry, an update on our 2030 commitments and the current actions we do towards reaching those. For the full year of 2021-2022, we increased our circular revenue share to 25%, and now we have increased that to further 33.7%. As you might know, our target is to reach 100% on 2030, so good development here. Take back where we take back all the product from our customers is progressing very well and we have so far taken back 150,000 units this year. And they are either refurbished or they are recycled or resold and we see continued increase in demand for those services. And our facilities in Sweden, covering for the Nordics, as well as in the Netherlands, covering for the Benelux, is growing and taking on more volumes. And this is obviously great for us, as it is great also for the environment, for sure. So before going into Q&A, let me just sum up the Q1 results on slide 13. Net sales grew with 13.9% to 6.6 billion SEK, where organic growth for the group was 8.5%. With SMB at the negative 8.1%, LCP at a very strong 17%, and BTC at minus 3.3%. Gross profit at 893 million SEK versus 894 last year. And gross margin came in at 13.5% versus 15.4% last year. Changing sales mix, as said, with higher share of LTP sales and loss deliveries of standard hardware is behind the change in gross margin. Adjusting the beta came in at 201 million SEC, giving us a beta margin for the quarter at 3% compared to last year's 5.2. Margin is affected by lower gross margin coming from sales mix, pricing and cost inflation, as well as that we carry more cost right now due to the integration activities. But we see, of course, good progress in those. EBIT was 138 million SEK compared to losses 251 and EPS 0.59 SEK per share. And CASTO, as you all know from operating, is at minus 85 million SEK. Average 4.3 above our target. High at the moment due to currency, working capital and customer specific inventory. So to summarize, September, October, November of 2022 will not go down as the best of our quarters, rather the contrary. But of course, also the geopolitical macro environment has also been among the worst for a long time. Regardless of that, I mean, we are certainly not happy with the numbers or with the performance, but we have a plan going forward and we look forward to that. As I said earlier, we see the same patterns now as in previous economic crisis in how SMBs and LTPs are reacting. And historically, these periods last for three to maybe four quarters. So drawing a conclusion on that would give us that we are in the middle of it and on a typical low point. And that would also have the opportunity to give us a brighter spring. We have now passed also three years of the pandemic with a lot of all-time highs and all-time lows in very short time frames. And a big difference from previous crisis is obviously the level of digitalization and the need for investment in IT, security and mobility, and of course new equipment, even new way of working for all companies. So things can change fast and that plays in our favor and we are very well positioned for that. So for us, it's just to continue to work hard, adapt, adjust, and keep our customers moving. And I must also say from an internal perspective that we are progressing very well with integration and it's very positive to see that our Benelux business is delivering very strong growth. I think with that Johan we can conclude the presentation and are happy to take any questions you might have.