AB Electrolux (publ)

Good morning, and welcome to Electra's third quarter 2023 earnings presentation. With me this morning, I have Therese Fridberg, our CFO, Anna Olsson-Leon, Chief Commercial Officer, and Sofia Arnjus, Head of Investor Relations. I'd like to mention this session is recorded and will be available on our website as an on-demand version. Before we go into our performance in the third quarter, I'd like to take this opportunity to say a few words about the announcement we made earlier this morning. As we said in the Q2 call, we were evaluating further structural simplification and complexity reductions in order to execute our strategy with focus, speed, scale, and lower cost. This is even more vital in the current market situation. The weak market demand with consumers mixing down to lower price points has been accompanied by increasing price pressure in most markets globally, particularly impacting North America. This has been enabled by the resolution of post-pandemic supply chain constraints, significantly lower freight rates, a strong US dollar versus Asian currencies, and large cost inflation discrepancies between Europe and North America on one hand, and in certain parts of Asia on the other hand, resulting in high promotional activity with increased pressure on margins. To restore margins, with the objective to achieve an operating margin of at least 6% mid-term, We're both stepping up cost reductions and driving an even more targeted portfolio management. If we start with cost reductions, here we're accelerating structural cost reduction and execution of product cost measures. This is the ongoing substantial cost reduction progress while ahead of plan is not sufficient to restore margins given the price pressure from input cost discrepancies as I mentioned. The cost reduction target for 2024 versus 2022 is increased to 10 to 11 billion Swedish krona in net savings from cost efficiency and investments in innovation and marketing combined. This compared to the previous target of over 7 billion SEK, of which additional savings in 2024 then was a gross number. Now we're talking about net 10 to 11 billion. Already in 2023, we target to deliver approximately 6 billion SEK of these net cost savings, which is an increase compared to the previous target of at least 5 billion SEK. In addition to these targeted cost savings, we will continue to annually reduce product cost at a similar rate as during the period 2023-2024. This will be to to be able to achieve an operating margin of at least 6% mid-term under current market conditions. The other key factor in regaining profitability and delivering on this margin target is to drive commercial growth in selected mid- and premium categories and under our main brands, Electrox, AEG, and Frigidaire. This also means that we will reduce focus on and divest tactical brands and categories, which are not core to us anymore and do not have sufficiently strong synergies with our core strategy to warrant a required focus and investment from us as a group. The ongoing strategic divestment initiatives of non-core brands, including Zanussi and the water heater operations in Egypt and South Africa that we announced in July, is an example of the increased strategic focus. A new simplified organization is a key enabler to execute successfully both in terms of the cost actions and accelerating targeted commercial growth. We will therefore reorganize into three regional business areas and two global product lines, all reporting to me, leveraging the group's global scale with fewer layers, resulting in increased focus and reduced costs. The two product lines, Taste and Care, will have the global end-to-end responsibility to prioritize the growing and profitable product categories where we will focus our business and investments, and leveraging global scale with speed and lower cost. To further leverage product and brand synergies between Europe and Asia-Pacific, Middle East, and Africa, and to adapt the organization to the upcoming divestment of the operations in Egypt and South Africa, the current two business areas in the region will form one business area. The other two business areas, North America and Latin America, remain as is. The new organizational setup is expected to affect approximately 3,000 positions, resulting in a restructuring charge in Q4 2022 of 2 to 2.5 billion Swedish kronor, which will be reported as a non-recurring item. From the second quarter 2022 until the third quarter 2023, the average number of employees has reduced from approximately 53,000 employees to approximately 44,500. The announced actions are estimated to reduce headcount further to just over 40,000 by the end of 2024. The organizational changes impacting product lines will be effective as of November 1, and the BAs will be effective January 1, 2024. And we will report on the new business area structure in the interim report from the first quarter of 2024. Now, let's look at the performance in the third quarter. The market environment continued to be weak, with lower consumer purchasing power. As a result, our volumes dropped also this quarter, and our organic sales declined. The market continued to be particularly challenging in the built-in kitchen category, which is very important for us in Europe and Australia. In light of this, I'm pleased that that mix was positive, driven by our attractive offerings. As expected, price turned negative this quarter as the contribution from list price increases last year tapered off sequentially, while promotional activity remained high across our major markets. The underlying EBIT improved compared to last year, mainly as a result of the strong execution ahead of plan of our group-wide cost reduction and North America turnaround program. And I will later in our presentation come back to this in more detail. However, in our North America business area, despite these savings, The industry's high promotional activity negatively impacted primarily gross margin realization, but also sales volumes. This resulted in a loss in Q3, which is disappointing, despite the significant improvements year over year. Raw material costs turned positive year over year, but deteriorating currency and higher cost inflation from labor and energy resulted in a combined headwind from external factors also in Q3. EBIT included a non-recurring item of 294 million SEK related to the divestment of the manufacturing facility in Nerejasa, Hungary. Therese will now walk us through the main drivers behind the change in operating income.

We had a negative organic contribution to earnings in the quarter, driven by a significant volume decline year over year, as a result of large demand drop, especially in product categories that are important to us. The accretion on EBIT margin from price and mix combined was negative 0.9% in the quarter, with negative price and positive mix, despite that consumers in the market are mixing down. Cost was in total reduced by 2.4 billion Swedish krona as a result of the focused execution on the cost reduction program, which we will come back to the different components of. External factors remained negative in the third quarter, despite that raw material was positive. The main negative effect derived from currency headwinds, but also headwinds related to labor inflation and energy cost increases. The negative external factors year over year are sequentially reducing during the year. The group-wide cost reduction program and North America turnaround program is progressing well, and Jonas will now give an update on the progress.

Yes, so as mentioned, we're on track to deliver about $6 billion savings in 2023, which is above the previous target of over $5 billion. Year-to-date, we've delivered 4.4 billion of this, driven by product cost and structural cost. We've reduced premium freight and spot bias of components. We've negotiated new logistics rates, and we've significantly improved production line efficiency. This has enabled us to reduce 98% of the blue colors that we announced in the restructuring program. On structural cost, we've streamlined our factory organizational setup. We've reduced maintenance costs and scrap rates. We've also optimized marketing spend and implemented further efficiency in all of our SG&A functions. This has enabled us to reduce 92% of the announced white collar reductions. So as mentioned, we're now down to 44,600 employees in Q3. So we have upped our target as mentioned for 2024 to 10 to 11 billion versus 22. which then 4 to 5 billion will happen in 2024 versus 2023. And beyond that, we're continuing to target annual product cost reductions mid-term at a similar rate as we achieved in 2023-2024. This will come from increased sourcing from low-cost countries. We will continue to consolidate our supplier base and number of components by further leveraging our modularized product platforms. In the recent years, we've had a significant number of new product introductions, and as those are now in the market, we are able to step up our cost engineering initiatives, i.e. driving out material and component costs by reviewing our existing products in the market. Let's have a look at our cash flow and liquidity threat.

Cash flow after investments was positive 1.1 billion SEK in the quarter. This was positively impacted by the divestment of the manufacturing facility in Hungary of 0.5 billion SEK. But also excluding this one-time effect, the underlying cash flow is significantly higher than last year. And our aim remains to have a positive cash flow after investments for the full year of 2023. And looking at our liquidity and maturity profile, From a balance sheet perspective, we have solid liquidity of SEK 33.7 billion including revolving credit facilities as of the end of September. We have a well-balanced maturity profile with no additional loans maturing during 2023 and we have no financial covenants. The target remains to maintain a solid investment grade rating by delivering on the cost reduction program, generating a positive cash flow after investments in 2023 as well as divesting the previously communicated non-core assets over the coming years. And Anna will now go into the business areas performance in Q3, starting with Europe.

Volume declined significantly in the quarter. Similar to Q2, the for us important built-in kitchen segment was negatively impacted. This on the back of declining residential construction and remodeling. We continue to see weak consumer confidence, with consumers mixing down as a result. Despite this trend, mix contributed positively in the quarter. Price remained positive in the quarter, but decreased sequentially. The effects from price increases implemented earlier tapered off while promotions increased. We expect price to turn negative in the fourth quarter. To summarize, the EBIT margin for the quarter was 1.8%. Now let's take a look at the European market. Market demand in Europe continued to decline in the third quarter and was down by 7% in both Western and Eastern Europe, excluding Russia. Compared to the third quarter of 2019, the pre-pandemic levels, market demand declined by 12%. This decline is on a similar level as we've seen in the previous quarters. The consumer confidence levels remained low, with the consumer demand being negatively impacted by geopolitical tensions, high general inflation and the increased interest rates. We also continue to see that the reduced purchasing power resulted in more consumers shifting to lower price points and postponing purchases in discretionary categories. In this weaker market, promotional activity also increased year over year. In addition, the trend of declining residential construction and remodeling activity continue to result in weaker built-in kitchen demand. When it comes to retailer inventory, there was a focus on stock reductions during Q3, bringing inventory levels back to normal. Let's continue with our business area in North America. The combination of low consumer sentiment and competitive pressure led to continued high promotional activity in the market. Despite taking a selective approach to promotions, the negative price had a significant impact on the North American earnings. And even if the turnaround program delivered significant savings, this was not enough, and the business area reported a loss as a result. The volume was impacted by a number of factors in the quarter, one being the previously mentioned selective approach to promotion another the ongoing ramp-up of the freestanding cooking products, and the third being a challenging situation at the state of Texas-Mexico border. And even though temporary in nature, we see these volume factors continuing into the fourth quarter. We also saw excess inventory in retail being reduced in the quarter. Mix was positive in the quarter on the back of growth in the higher value categories we focus on, And it is encouraging to see that these categories increase their share of the total portfolio. All in all, the business area reported a loss of 440 million Swedish kronor. Now let's take a look at the U.S. markets. The industry shipments of core appliances in the U.S. increased overall by 7%. This is in terms of units. driven by high promotional activity and compared to a weak third quarter of last year. The growth was primarily in laundry. Compared to the third quarter of 2019, the industry shipments were up by 8%. Consumer sentiment continued to be negatively impacted by high general inflation and increased interest rates, with more consumers shifting to lower price points. Market demand for all major appliances, including microwaves, ovens, and home comfort products, increased by 6% year over year. Let's move to Latin America. Demand for core appliances increased in the region, driven by Brazil, with low comps last year and also retail shifting focus to the category from TVs and electronics. The organic growth was driven by volume across categories, as well as in the aftermarket segment. The positive price was predominantly related to adjusting for the headwinds from the Argentinian peso. The FX risk related to the Argentinian peso remain in the fourth quarter. The business area reported an EBIT of 405 million SEC in the quarter. Finally, turning to Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa. In the quarter, consumer demand decreased especially in the Southeast Asia and Australia. This contributed to higher promotional activity levels. Volumes were down compared to the strong quarter of last year when supply constraints were resolved. Mix improved on the back of new product introductions in Australia. The external factors in the quarters were negative on the back of currency, and all in all, the business area reported a margin of 6.6%. Now I'll hand it back to Jonas to give our market outlook.

Thank you, Anna. We expect consumer sentiment related to consumer durables purchases to remain negatively impacted by the high inflation and interest rate environment throughout 2023, although with regional differences. Forced replacement is expected to continue to be the main demand driver throughout the year. Reduced consumer purchasing power is not only resulting in more consumers shifting to lower price points, but also in lower remodeling activity and postponement of discretionary purchases. The market for new and existing houses, which is a key driver for appliance demand in mature markets like Europe and North America, is expected to decline in 2023. The demand growth seen in Latin America in the third quarter was primarily driven by Brazil, and it's explained by weak baseline and retailers shifting focus to push sales of white goods. On back of this, we maintain a regional market outlook for Europe, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific, Middle East, and Africa regions, and expect demand for appliances for these regions in 2023 full year to be negative compared to 2022. However, given high promotional activity, we revised the market demand outlook in terms of units for North America for the full year 2023 to be neutral compared to our previously negative estimates. while we continue to expect total market value development in the region to be negative. The highly volatile macro and market environment across regions limits, however, the visibility for the rest of the year. Let's take a look at our business outlook. So based on our market outlook, we estimate our volumes in 2023 to decline year over year. In addition to the general weak market, we expect lower residential construction and remodeling activity to lead to weaker market demand within the for Europe and Australia important building kitchen category for the remainder of the year. This, in combination with postponed purchases of certain appliances, such as dryers, is expected to lead to a less positive seasonality than normal, also in Q4. For North America specifically, as Anna mentioned, the border situation between the state of Texas and Mexico, which emerged towards the end of the third quarter, involving lengthy vehicle inspections, is anticipated to have a negative impact on the availability of our high-value products manufactured in our QRS factories in Mexico in the fourth quarter. To what extent is hard to say now, as this depends on how long the situation continues. As we previously communicated, the plan is to finalize the transition of cooking manufacturing in Springfield from the legacy facility to the new one in the fourth quarter. Similar to previous manufacturing transitions, we also this time expect some additional cost and impact on product availability. It's great to see how well received the new products from Springfield are, and this provides us with a great platform to drive mix going forward. We continue to expect the volume decline to be partly mitigated by mix improvements from a strong offering where 2023 is another launch-intensive year. A challenging macro environment with more consumers shifting to lower price points and demand driven to a large extent by force replacement is, however, limiting our ability to drive mix improvement fully. In the third quarter, mix was positive, and we anticipate this also to be the case for the fourth quarter. Looking at price, we expect a positive impact for the full year, though not large enough to offset the negative impact from external factors. The price dynamic is very different for the second half of the year compared to the first half. As expected, prices are negative in the third quarter as promotions increase significantly year over year, and we anticipate a negative price impact also in the fourth quarter. This is as promotions are expected to remain high also during the remainder of the year in all major markets. Normally, the second half of the year, and particularly the fourth quarter, is the more promotionally heavy period compared to the first half, especially in North America. As mentioned, we expect external factors to be negative for the year, driven by energy and labor inflation, as well as currency headwind. This was also the case in the third quarter, despite raw material turning positive from being negative in the first half of the year. Lately, currency has further deteriorated, especially in Latin America with the situation in Argentina. Hence, we expect external factors to be negative also in the remainder of the year, and the magnitude is hard to assess since it depends on these currency movements. I'm pleased that the Group 5 cost reduction and North America turnaround program is progressing well. However, the ongoing cost reduction progress while ahead of plan is, as mentioned, not sufficient to restore margins given the continued weak consumer demand and the competitive pressure in the market, which is significantly exacerbated by the large discrepancies in input cost inflation between Europe and North America, and certain parts of Asia. We are, as mentioned before, therefore stepping up our cost reduction efforts and focus our commercial growth on selected mid and premium categories with our main brands and driving an even more targeted portfolio management. This means that the cost reduction targets for 24 versus 2022 is increased to 10 to 11 billion SEC compared to the previous target of over 7 billion. The new target comprises net cost reductions from cost efficiency and investments in innovation and marketing combined. For 2023, the target is to reach cost reduction from cost efficiency and innovation and marketing combined of approximately 6 billion SEK year-over-year compared to the previous target of at least 5 billion SEK. Given the time lag, before the actions now put in place will have full earnings impact we do not expect sequential improvement of underlying operating income in the fourth quarter. Investments to strengthen our competitiveness through innovation, automation, modernization continue in 2023, but here we revised our total capital expenditure for the full year and estimate it to be below 6 billion SEK compared to previously approximately 6 billion. So, to sum up the quarter and the strategic drivers that we've delivered on, We delivered a positive mix in the quarter. This was achieved despite the weak market demand with consumers shifting to lower price points. This is a sign of strength, showing that our target consumers clearly appreciate our innovative product offering under our main brands. We continued to progress well on the group-wide cost reduction and North American turnaround program, delivering substantial savings also this quarter. And additionally, we made progress on our strategic divestment initiatives of non-core assets announcing over one billion SECO divestments, where half a billion has been realized. With today's announcements, we're stepping up our cost reduction efforts significantly. This also means that we focus our growth efforts on selected mid and premium categories under our three main brands and drive even more targeted portfolio management and simplification to achieve faster cost reductions. This is enabled by the implementation of our new organizational structure. With that, I leave the word to Sophie for Q&A.

Thank you, Jonas. So we will now open up for questions. And I know that there are many of you that want to ask questions. So please limit it to one question per person. And if time allows, you're of course welcome to join the Q&A queue again. So with that, I leave it to our operator. Please go ahead.

Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Please stand by as we compile a Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Gustav Heges of SEB. Your line is open.

Thank you operator. Thanks for taking my one question then. It relates to the comment on the lack of expected sequential improvement of underlying operating income into Q4. Could you just clarify that this should not be viewed as sort of adjusted for seasonality or a gross comment but that you actually see operating earnings in this quarter as a decent proxy for Q4, and also if there are any drivers outside of market improvement that would suggest that Q1 would be an improvement over Q4. That would be helpful. Thanks.

Yeah, so sequentially, as mentioned, the underlying conditions that we're experiencing are not expected to change, and we already have good traction of our cost reduction efforts The new initiatives that we're announcing will take some time to get impact. So from Q1 of next year, we do expect to start to get traction on these new announced initiatives. So that will, of course, start to help in the new year. And then typically, the first quarter has fewer, let's say, promotional holidays. So that's a positive. Normally, it's a seasonally weaker quarter. However, of course, we're not seeing much seasonality here in the second half, as I mentioned. I guess those are some of the currently visible drivers, but we can't give any, of course, specific guidance for that. So the comment on Q4 is mainly related to the fact that we are not seeing any major changes of the underlying conditions and the new initiatives will not take effect really until the new year.

But just a quick follow-up, but seasonality historically has been stronger in Q4, but more discussion has been spent, but that is taken into account in this comment, right?

Yes, since we're not seeing any more seasonality.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

We will now take our next question. Please stand by. Our next question comes from the line of Johan Eliasson of Kepler Chevro.

Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hi Jonas, Therese, Anna and Sophie. Thanks for taking my question. It's obviously tough out there. One question about the new net cost benefit 10 to 11 billion by end of 2024 is that it seems to include some expectations on logistics costs coming down but does it include any tailwind from raw materials or If you see a tailwind from raw materials in 2024, will it be on top of these 10 to 11 billion?

Raw material is not included in the 10 to 11 billion. It's only what we show in the line investment in innovation and marketing and the line in the bridge cost efficiency. So it's those two. items that would then sum up to 10 to 11 billion from 22 through 24 accumulated. So for raw materials, we're not ready to give any guidance on the outlook look for 2024 yet. We're obviously seeing a lot of volatility in that area, and it's normal we see most of those negotiations here towards the end of the quarter.

But you would say that, I mean, Whirlpool said they expect more tailwinds next year. There's nothing that would make your sort of situation different from Whirlpool's statements on that.

No, I mean, we act in similar markets, of course.

Okay, and then finally, just to reiterate this comment on positive free cash flow in the year, is this dependent on them divesting the Memphis plant as well?

No, it's not including that. This is for ordinary operations.

Thank you.

We will now take our next question. Please stand by. Our next question comes from the line of David McGregor of Longbow Research. Please go ahead. Your line is open. David McGregor of Longbow Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead. We will now take our next question. Please stand by. Our next question comes from the line of Olaf Sederholm of ABG.

Please go ahead. Your line is open.

yes hi good morning everyone so um i have a question on your ability to grow and or your ability to hold on to market shares it's it seems it's been for a while now that you're you're underperforming the market developments both in europe and north america when do you when do you see this stabilizing obviously there are different drivers in those different regions but please elaborate on that thank you

Yes, thank you for the question. If we start with Europe, of course, as we have highlighted here for a few quarters, we have a strong business when it comes to kitchen built-in, and of course this is challenging relative to the market. We see, of course, that the cost improvement programs that we are focusing on specifically when it comes to the product cost, of course, will improve our ability to be competitive in the market. And we also see here, sequentially improvement here, of course, as these cost efficiency programs are taking effect. So that's one part. And, of course, similar in North America, here we pointed out a few factors that have been hampering our volume potential. Of course, still here with cost efficiency programs now coming in, that will give us also improved possibility to continue to to regain a stabilized market share here with also here sequential improvement and of course the new products that we that we are launching and the ramp up of the new products will will help this and as we have been highlighting before we have these strong innovative products that are well accepted by consumers and and that is that is continuing to be to be the case and also if we look at what we talk about the focus category specifically for North America, what we see is that these are actually now contributing more to the total portfolio. And here we are gaining market share sequentially. So I think that gives us confidence that we are on the right track here over time.

Thank you.

We will now take our next question. Please stand by. Our next question comes from the line of James Moore of Redburn Atlantic.

Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for the time. I wondered if I could just go back to some basics. I'm sorry if I missed this. There's multiple results going on. The $10 to $11 billion of net cost efficiency in marketing, if we're $6 billion this year, can I just make a quick check? That means we get $4 to $5 billion in in FY24, just wanted to check on that. And how would you think within that, two things really, of that four to five billion, is the divisional mix broadly pro forma with the revenue mix for the company, or is it, say, skewed 50, 60% to North America? And could you help us with how the pure line of you would expect innovation and marketing, which I guess is a choice management variable, would you expect that to be... a headwind or a tailwind next year?

Yeah, so this year most of the cost reductions have accrued to North America because that's also where we saw a lot of the inefficiencies hitting us from the post-pandemic supply constraints and the ramp-up of our new factories. So we saw most of those benefits this year. The new program is broader in nature and it's more around really driving out product cost across the board. As Anna mentioned, really focus on the anchor price point and categories to improve our profitability there to enable us to play more profitably in those sort of mid segments of the market. So the product cost initiatives will be very broad based. so impacting both the New Europe and Asia-Pacific region and North America specifically. And similarly, when it comes to the organizational simplification that we're doing, it's a very broad-based de-layering and simplification of the organization that we're driving. That will probably or it will mainly impact actually Europe and Asia-Pacific because they're we have a somewhat more complex setup given the number of markets and brands and categories and so on. So this simplification will disproportionately benefit that part of our business. But the product cost is across. Then I think it's also worth mentioning that, particularly in North America, we've had this very large number of new product introductions in the last several years. And it's, you know, normal then that our engineering organization will mainly focus on launching those new products. As that's now more or less behind us, we can really reallocate significant resources globally as well as in North America to drive cost-out engineering. And this is why we see also a longer tail of savings over the coming years from product cost reductions, which we're going to drive very, very aggressively going forward.

Thanks. I don't know if you could comment on the innovation and marketing piece, Jonas.

Yeah, so that's obviously more discretionary, and we will see, you know, depending on the market opportunities that occur. But in general, we expect, you know, a fairly soft demand environment to continue in 2024, so we don't expect to increase significantly here. But that's included in the net, 10 to 11. Okay.

Would you mind if I just qualified something on the savings? Again, I hope you don't mind, but you're talking about two buckets, really, of the new $4 to $5 billion, the product cost and the de-layering. Should we think of one of them as being bigger than the other, or are they comparably sized?

Yeah, exactly. And we actually show that in one of the slides titled Executing on Cost Reduction Targets. So there's The majority of the savings are product cost related. I want to mention, though, that the headcount reduction of 3,000 also impacts the product cost because the assembly and sort of indirect labor is part of the product cost, and here we're making reductions as well. But the big impact will be on the gross margin side as opposed to the SG&A side, let's say.

Sorry, I missed that slide. Thank you for pointing it out. Sure. Sure, no worries.

Thank you.

We will now take our next question. Please stand by. Our next question comes from the line of Bjorn Ennarsson of Danske Bay.

Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thank you. I have a question. You have in your financial policy stating that the group's long-term ambition is to maintain a long-term rating within a safe Margin from non-investment greater and I would say that that's like BBB and you are now at, maybe the market is at your BBB minus. Although, how do you look upon that? Do you expect improving EBTA or what's your view? And if I can have a comment, please.

Yes, and of course that ambition remains, and I think as we have commented on our financial policy, we translate this to being within the two times net debt DBDA over time, and this ambition remains. Of course, these are many different components, but for sure the cost reduction program and the newly announced additional cost-out efforts are the main, main components, because of course We see that the biggest leverage is improving the profitability. Then also taking into account what we have announced earlier on with the divestments estimated to 10 billion SEC over time over the coming years should also contribute, but the biggest leverage is in the profitability.

And if I may, maybe you said that and I would have missed that, but on the seasonality and cash flow wise, if you can have a cash flow comment on near term.

Yes, I think that where we are at the point in time, we are closer to a normal seasonality cash flow. And normally then we have our weakest quarter in the first quarter and the first half of the year. And then the stronger cash flow in the second half of the year and usually the strongest one in the fourth quarter. And we are more closely back to a normal seasonality when it comes to our cash flow. So we are still then projecting for the operating cash flow to be positive for 2023, which then would mean positive cash flow in the fourth quarter.

Yeah, right. Thank you. Thank you.

We will now take our next question. Please stand by. Our next question comes from the line of Alexander Virgo of Bank of America.

Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Morning, Jonas, Therese, Sophie. Thanks for taking the question. I guess I just wanted to dig a little bit into the development sequentially in terms of demand. We've heard various comments across the board. broader construction and consumer value chain, talking Europe sequentially a bit weaker, US perhaps seeing some signs of stabilization. But you sound a lot more cautious. And I wondered if you could just dig a little bit into some of the So, yeah, the sequential trends that you're seeing, I appreciate your points on remodeling and built-in kitchens are perhaps a little bit more specific. But I wanted to understand your comments on trading down and the mixed effect there as well, just in terms of what you're seeing. That would be super helpful. And then as a follow-up, could you just comment a little bit on where you think inventory levels actually now are? with respect to normalization or seasonal normalization. That would be helpful. Thank you.

If we start with housing construction, we're seeing, as you mentioned, quite soft numbers in Europe, really in most parts of the region, driven by high interest rates and concerned consumers, let's say. But So I think that's aligned. If you think about North America, yes, we are seeing some stabilization on new housing permits, but at low levels. What's really the main negative driver is the number of actual sort of finished house transactions, meaning people moving and buying existing homes. which is normally a big trigger for renovation in kitchens in particular, and that's hitting very, very low levels, historically low levels. That has been somewhat compensated by the fact that people are remaining in sight and seeing that, okay, they're not going to refinance their mortgage, so they will stay, and then they may renovate anyway. But those macro drivers are remaining quite. quite soft also going forward. And I think it will remain so as long as we see these highly elevated mortgage rates. Anna, do you want to comment on inventory, sir?

Yes, so when it comes to inventory levels, of course, it's still a quite volatile market environment as we have talked about. But when it comes to the levels as such, we're coming closer to what we would consider a normalized level. of course and that is from a cash flow perspective of course what we normally see from a seasonality is also additional inventory reductions in the fourth quarter and this is also what we what we are expecting but with the level as such we're close to what we would consider a normal level under these conditions all right thank you thank you we will now take our next question stand by

Our next question comes from the line of David McGregor of Longbow Research. Please go ahead. Your line is open. David McGregor of Longbow Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead. We will now take our next question. Please stand by. Our next question comes from the line of Keri Rinta of Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.

Your line is open.

Yes, good morning. Thank you. I wanted to get back to the cost savings program and the announced one of cost of 2.5 billion. The way that they are mentioned in the press release suggests that they are mainly related to these redundancies of 3,000 positions. So does this mean that this is largely a cash that this will be largely cash flow item that is taken at some point next year or are there some manufacturing optimization capacity closures there as well no no it's only it's only a redundancy cost to cash okay so then that a quick follow-up on that that then maybe 1.5 billion in salary costs that are eliminated so where does the and I you did mention these at product cost and so forth. But it's a little bit more difficult to pinpoint than the previous cost savings program because then the North American costs were so explicitly inflated. But can you just give us a bit more sense on the rest of the cost savings beyond the redundancies?

Yeah, absolutely. So most of the rest will come in the short term mainly from supplier negotiations. And I think we have had a situation, as you know, where we've had a big discrepancy in inflation between what we've seen in Europe in particular with high energy costs and so on, and Asia, but also similarly in North America we've had high costs. So in our supplier base, we are working heavily to find opportunities to reduce component costs. And component costs, as you know, is by far the biggest cost driver that we have. So we see significant opportunities there, driven by these discrepancies and the opportunities that we have. And then over time, as mentioned also, with the heavy focus we've had on new product introduction, shifting resources away from that to drive cost-out engineering gives us a fairly long runway of cost out in the coming years. So that's why we can give an indication that we will continue to get these product costs out also at a similar level for the coming years.

A quick follow-up, if I may. Does this then mean that there is less potential from lower external factors next year, because you're saying supplier negotiations, so implicitly there is a raw material component built into that fading. So how should we think about external factors next year?

No, we really do our best to separate the two and really kind of showing what's happening specific to steel raw material, plastics raw material, copper, aluminum, what have you, and as well as currency impact and excess inflationary direct impact, we group those together in the external factors. But having said that, there are still discrepancies in the cost levels between different locations of our suppliers. So that's something that we're leveraging now, and in combination with the other factors that I mentioned.

All right. Thank you very much.

Thanks.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced.

Please stand by while we take our next question.

Our next question comes from the line of James Moore of Redburn Atlantic. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thanks for the follow-up. And I did get cut off in the Q&A, and there was a question that makes apologies of repetition you mentioned in the first half that mix was a flat impact on earnings and now positive i wonder if there's any way you can sort of scale that and help us understand how does that move into the fourth quarter mix and next year i'm thinking really about mix for next year with the trading down comments should we expect mix to be a headwind next year

No, as you know, over the last quite a number of years, we've delivered a positive mix of around a billion on average a year. This year, I would say absent these consumer behavior changes, we would have continued to deliver at least that one billion with the strong new product offering that we have. the consumer trading down is reducing that impact. So we're still seeing some positive mix, but it's certainly much more muted than what we've seen. And we're not ready to give guidance for 24. Obviously, it's a very volatile environment, as we can all see. But normally, we continue to leverage the strong products that we've launched. We're focusing our portfolio management, as mentioned, even more away from sort of the mass brands and low price categories. So I would, you know, definitely our objective is to continue to drive positive mix also in this quite challenging environment.

Thanks. And just to follow up, I mean, you still have a group target for a 6% margin. Is it still feasible with your new plan? And would you put a timetable on when that with all the environments you see at the moment could potentially be achieved?

Yeah, clearly it's more challenging from a market environment perspective than normal. I mean, we have a weak cycle in terms of consumer demand. We expect that to probably continue for some time. So that's why we're focusing our efforts very, very heavily on cost, you know, de-layering, simplifying our overhead structure, our SD&A, and driving a very, very high focus on product costs, both in terms of manufacturing efficiency and in terms of component costs. So yes, the targets we're driving for the coming year, as well as continuing at that high level of savings for the coming few years, gives us visibility to get to 6% in the midterm, in the next few years. So we're definitely sticking firmly to that objective.

Thanks very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We will now take our next question. Please stand by. Our next question comes from the line of Akash Gupta of JP Morgan.

Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yes. Hi. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for your time. I joined the call a bit later, so apologies if this has been answered. But I'm wondering if you can provide some insight on what would be the normalized capex level when we think of 2024 and beyond. I mean, you have been investing in the past, so we have high level of capex. But given we have also seen inflation, so I'm just wondering if you can talk about the normalized capex one can expect in absence of any growth plans in future. Thank you.

Yeah, so we have more or less completed, not fully, but more or less completed the 8 billion reengineering program. There's some tails still going into next year, but that means that our capex is coming down. It's coming down this year versus last year. And as far as our current visibility, we think it will come down further next year and for the coming years. We're not at the point yet, but we've firmed up our plans plans to the point of giving specific guidance, but yes, the direction is further reduction of CapEx as we go away from factory investments, new products, into more of a cost-out mode. However, our digitalization will continue, and that does require significant amounts of CapEx, but not to the level of the new factories that were built in recent years.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We will now take our final question. Please stand by. Our final question comes from the line of Gustav Hagius of SEB.

Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thank you. Thanks for allowing a follow-up. It relates to the strategic investments. You write in the report that you are making progress on those. Can you clarify if that relates to the real estate, the factories that you already divested, or if that also relates to the other assets and whether or not some of the turmoil geopolitically we see now in the Middle East might impact the Egyptian assets in any way? Thanks.

We're making progress across the board. Clearly, the quickest ones have been some of these real estate assets, but we're making good progress on the others as well, particularly on the mass brands. We're quite progressed in that process. To your point, the instability in the Middle East has a temporary impact. Clearly, we don't want to market this asset in two turbulent environments. We'll see how that develops, but that is a potential timing impact. We're making very good progress in terms of preparing for the divestment, but we'll, of course, monitor the development in the region.

Great. Thanks. Okay.

Thank you for those good questions and comments in the challenging environment that we're experiencing. And our main priority remains to deliver on the cost reduction targets and efficiently implementing this new and simplified organizational setup. And this will allow us to successfully strengthen our position in the selected mid and premium categories to restore margins and to return to profitable growth. Thank you very much and look forward to seeing you all soon again.