ITAB Shop Concept AB (publ)

Hi, good morning. Good morning to everyone. I just want to give you some information about myself. I stepped in as interim CEO on January 7 to replace Andrea Selgard and I will be interim CEO until end of April when Björn Borna will step in. Just a few words about myself. I started in this industry in 1979. So I have a 47-year experience until I was CEO at La Fortezza when in 2016 we sold to ETAB. Then I stayed in ETAB. I started as a CBO, Chief Business Officer for South Europe. Then from 2019, I was Senior Vice President South Europe. And then from 2023, I was Senior Advisor. And then from January, as I say, I am now Interim CEO and President. I just want to give some information about ETAP Group because I don't know if everybody knows about us. After the acquisition of HMY, now we have around 24 production facilities in 17 countries. We have around 40 operations plus in different countries and we have around 5,300 employees. Our net sale, our revenue is 13 billion SEC with 847 million adjusted EBIT that is around 6.4 adjusted EBIT margin on our revenue. Our main customer groups are grocery, where it is the major one, where we have around 51% of our sales. Then we have DIY and home improvement, where we have around 10%. Then we have fashion, apparel, 12%, health and beauty. It is around 6%. Then we have other customer groups that makes around 21%. Our solutions are in retail interior, that is our major brand. We have retail technology, retail lighting, retail services. In Intab, for sure, what we say is that we try to rethink retail together with our customers. So we try to work with them. We try to understand how to deliver what they want, what is their expectation. And I think today with our portfolio is so intensive, so wide that we really can help them in many, many different solutions. So now I end to Andreas Ellerson.

Thank you, Gladko. Good morning, everybody. Looking at the highlights from the Q4 report, I would like to put some focus on stable sales, some growth in Q4, and also a stable earnings trend in relation to last year. We see an extraordinary strong cash flow in Q4, which is also something we've been indicating, especially driven by accounts receivables releasing. We have a continued focus on synergy execution with year-on-year operating expenses being reduced as well as procurement synergies becoming more difficult. We also have a clear plan for the future and next steps of the synergy plan are being planned and will be launched starting this year with full impact of the synergies in 2027. As always, to give a representative view of the development of the group, we have mainly focused on the performer development in this presentation. In the interim report, of course, published now, you will also see all the details, including reported figures with HNY consolidated from 1st of February. If we zoom out and look at the historical performance, we can see that 2025 has been a stable year with regards to sales growth. Despite significant currency headwind, we have 5% growth excluding currency. And focus has been on business continuity for us due to this very significant acquisition. And we've also executed on the low hanging fruit with regards to synergies. And we've laid the foundation for future synergies as a new group together. Profitability in 25 has been stable, slightly behind 24 when we had some extraordinary projects, especially in Spain, but also Middle East. In Q4, EBIT adjusted for non-recurring costs and amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets amounted to 199 million SEK, in line with last year's performance. Looking at the financial highlights for Q4, we can see that net sales is down 6%, but significant currency effect from the euro to SEK, and if excluding that, it's actually up 3%. At the same time, adjusted EBIT is stable, impacted positively by product mix. Our loss prevention rollouts in both Europe and Australia has helped us, as well as early synergies on productivity and procurement scale. It's worth mentioning also that Q4 is normally somewhat weaker than Q3 with the grocery volume. We have a December month with Christmas, where it's difficult for us to be in the stores. Given the slightly lower volume, that's always sort of part of our seasonality effect on gross margin. Focus onwards is to continue execute on synergies. Majority of the synergy realization is expected for 26 and 27. Improving our cost efficiency, where we have several initiatives planned for the first half of 26. and to continue with the turnaround activities in France and Turkey, which is a real driver for Yebit, but also to become more tax-efficient, if possible. In 2025, we have set the foundation for synergies, as well as executed on some within a special organizational efficiency in procurement. And for 26, the execution will continue, of course, to both those initiatives. But at the same time, we will increase focus on cross-selling, 2025, the cross-selling initiative built the foundation where we train each other on our portfolios and also built joint showrooms across the group. We will also plan for the next steps of the Synergy execution, which is soon launched. We'll focus on select markets such as France and Turkey, where potential is high. If we look at our net sales by customer groups, we can see that our largest sector, grocery, shows slight growth, excluding currency effect, and that home improvement due to sales continues to grow double digits if excluding currency effect. This is especially driven by our clients in Southern Europe. Fashion was stable in Q4, if excluding currency effects, but we had a decline in the health segment, where we had exceptionally strong Q4 last year with some one-off projects. The other segment showed a larger decline as we had exclusivity on a few larger international rollouts last year due to design and development work. Looking at our geographies, we see that Q4, we had strong development in both Central Europe, Southern Europe, and also UK and Ireland. So it's good to see the UK and Ireland really being back on track and showing growth again. Eastern Europe and Northern Europe declined, partially due to strong comparisons, but also lower activity in specific key accounts, and especially Eastern Europe. The rest of the world declined due to large amount of projects in Q4, especially in the latest. Our operating cash flow for Q4 came in at 821 million and rolling 12 at 785 million. Obviously, we have not shown performer numbers here for cash flow, but just showing it. And it was impacted positively by NetWin Capital development, as we also indicated in the last earnings course. We saw a release of account receivables driven by of course the strong increase we saw in Q1 and Q3 and then normal seasonality where we do see a peak in September, October and those payments normally come in around Christmas and then And then December is a week a month since we're not really allowed in the stores due to the Christmas shopping. So that's our normal seasonality. And we've also had select initiatives focusing on both factoring and improving payment terms. Now we're twice the size and we're becoming larger and improving our purchasing power and also our power with our customers. During 2026, we will continue to leverage pockets of best practice across the organization with regards to capital efficiency, where we see that the strength of our new group will help us through procurement power, financial market attractiveness, and consolidation of both inventory and supply chains. Zooming out a bit from the Q4 result and returning to what we have previously said about our plans and merger implementation-wise. During 2023, Legacy ITAB had adjusted EBIT margin of around 7% and Legacy HNY around 5%. This was then leading us to a combined margin of around 6%. We are now at 6.4%. This is around 11 million euros up versus the 2023 baseline. As we have said and guided for the synergies, we expect a full effect starting from 2027. There is a strong strategic rationale for this acquisition, as well as it being financially attractive. With synergies identified at 30 million euros, increasing our net income with 90%, with only 16% share dilution, all other equal, it indicates significant earnings per share growth. And with that, I hand the word back to Glocko Fassbord.

Yes, thank you. Priority, I want to talk a little about priority for the future, but I want also to underline that, as Andreas mentioned before, that for us the acquisition of HMIs has been very strategic. And I think that we have a lot of opportunities in the future together. because they can bring to us a lot of competence and we can bring to them the same. So we can be really very strong together. And I think we have a very strong team to take care about this integration. So what we want to do for sure is to sustain the existing business with customers, as I say, but also improving our portfolio, our possibility to be more attractive for our customer. and also establishing common financial reporting and securing the legal compliance. We want also to establish a common organization. So we want to establish organizing structure, exploring wanted leadership and cultural behaviors. Also, I want to underline here that for us, people are the most important things because we give a lot of attention to them. And I think only thanks to the people you can grow in the business. deliver, we want to start to deliver, continue to deliver the synergies, starting to realize procurement, commercial and SG&A synergies, developing also common strategy priorities. Our main priorities also is anyways to, as we say, better together, better together means to be together, to work together and also have a common way of working and try to be performant as much as possible. So this is our strategy for the future. As I say also, we want to continue to be focused on the integration because we have to realize, as Andrea Sermon said before, 30 million expected in 2027 to finalize these synergies. We want to measure to improve our profitability continuously, assessing the implemented if needed in all parts of the group. Efforts also to reduce our tied up capital and debts and also launch of shared values and cultures, way of working and strategic teams and priorities for ETA group in 2026. Presentation of the group joint expertise and solution to the retail market on Euroshop on 2026 from 22nd to 26th of February. that for us will be very important because it's a very important exhibition and the first time that we'll be together with hny so i we end our presentation if there are any questions

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 Erik Sandstedt from Kepler Shoebrew. Please go ahead.

Hi there. Erik Sandstedt here with Kepler. A few questions. Firstly, I'm trying to better understand your comments in the report about France and Turkey. What is the problem more specifically? Is it the same in France that you have been alluding to in the last couple of quarters or is there something new here?

Thanks for your questions. No, I think it's the same situation as we've seen. We've had situation with some change of management and a lack of focus in the last sort of one and a half year. And we can see that we have taken a lot of actions in the first six months and we've seen some early results from those actions just to improve the whole performance management around customer contracts and costs. So I think it's been a lack of focus for a while. So we see the benefits from that. And now we're sort of looking at the overall market position and we can see that we have a significant market position. I mean, we are sure the number one in that market, which is always a strong base to start off. So we will come back with more details around sort of the final activities that we need to happen to make that sort of in line with the financial targets that we have as a group, more 79% yield.

But has the problems, have they worsened during this quarter? Or is it the same as in Q3 and Q2? Or how are you seeing it develop?

It's not worse, no. No, no. Okay. That's the situation, I would say. But we still need to do more actions in order to create profitability in line with the rest of the group.

Yeah, thanks. But you also mentioned Turkey specifically. Is that the same problems that you see in France?

Maybe I can answer about Turkey. Turkey, I think we are restarting to develop also the internal market that is very important for us because before Turkey was more export, was more intercompany when we acquired HMI. Now we are trying to transform, we are transforming the company to become more direct sales to direct customers, especially to develop also the Turkish market that there is a there is a big potential. So this is what we are doing in Turkey to increase it, to improve the results. So this is what, and we have a lot of expectation because the market is really interesting.

Yeah, thanks. Then on a separate topic, can you share some more details about your progress in retail tech and smart gates and so forth? And more specifically, whether you already now are seeing any cross-selling synergies and opportunities with regards to H&Y and if you are selling to their customers where you were not present before.

Yeah, we have a lot of opportunities with HMI because they haven't sold up to before the acquisition many of our retail tech products because they don't have the retail tech products in their portfolio. So the expectation is really high. We start already to market our products in different countries like France, like Spain, where there are the biggest customers for the group. So really the expectation on cross selling is quite high. And I'm sure that this year the results will start to come for sure. So we are really confident and positive on this.

And in terms of synergies that you may already have realized, not specifically looking at smart gates, but the synergies so far, are they on cross-selling or is it purchasing, lower purchasing costs or on the OPEC side? Just maybe share some details on that.

I can shed some more light on that. I think obviously the easiest thing to do early on is where we have organizational overlap. So we've taken the sort of low-hanging fruit from that and we have next steps sort of ongoing from that perspective. Procurement, we've done a lot during this year. We have set an organization that is sort of working across the new business units, combined data, then HNY. And we've done sort of the biggest contracts with the biggest impact, but some of these contracts are realized late in the year and full annualization will happen for those contracts now in 26. Then that's the first wave of the procurement program. Then we have two more waves that we'll execute on during this year. Then obviously there's more, you mentioned cross-selling. In cross-selling, some of the products are pretty easy because they've been selling some lighting products and some gates and it's easy to just replace with the products and that will grow a margin. But then to train another organization into selling solutions such as loss prevention solutions, that takes more time and you need to build build a foundation for that competence in a new organization. And I think we've done that and we've invested in time together. We've also invested in showrooms because customers need to touch and feel and see the products and the solutions. So it's not something that is easily done in a year, but we have laid the foundation. what's also sort of waiting as a next step for this year that's the more tricky parts where we so sort of we had our operational footprint and hny had their operational footprint and then obviously we in some places need to optimize that network of supply and to some extent consolidate the operational footprint and make sure our cost base is optimized for the new group

Yeah thanks and then just finally from me in terms of the non-recurring costs in the quarter what cost lines are they impacting and specifically I'm talking about the provision for the customer reclaim is that impacting COGS and if so is that partly explaining the lower gross margin in the quarter?

Yes, you're right. It's impacting cores. It's impacting material.

And the other non-recurring cores relating more specifically to H and Y.

And there's obviously if it's related to, I mean, some of the non-recurring costs are related to organizational consolidation, that's more sales cost, personnel and salary costs. Procurement initiative, and sort of that's impacting COGS more. And as you say, the customer recall is more of a COGS as well. So I think, again, on gross margin, I think we still see gross margin as strong if we adjust for this. And normally we see an impact of December result because December is for us a very weak month and it happens every year. So it's more or less zero or loss making because it's very difficult to... to sort of keep the business up and running as normal because customers don't want us in the store. So Q4 is a bit weak at the moment.

Yeah, perfect. Thanks. Thanks.

The next question comes from Carl Johan Bonnevir from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning, Glauco-Andreas. Thank you for all the color already. And looking at Q4, I need to come back to your comments and hear about the gross margin. And I'd like to compare you, obviously, with the pro forma numbers, which makes things more difficult that it wasn't real numbers, if you put it like that. But when you look at the gross margin down 100 million, and then you regain that with a 100 million improvement on the OPEC slide, could you just tell us about the dynamics here and what that tells us with the with the numbers going into 2026? What will follow you in there and what will be gone, so to say?

I think I can, I mean, let's see if I understand your question correct. But if I look at performer numbers and the discussions we have internally, when we look at our business now, we see that we are still, you know, significantly, we have positive impacts from loss prevention. We've been on a high level for a while. We have some success in Europe, but also in Australia. And it's, you know, it's not one or two projects, but it's been on a quite strong level for a while. And that's positively impacting our product. Then we see Q4 with a weak December. It's quite normal for us. That's impacting. So the lower volume leads to lower utilization of fixed costs in our factory. So it impacts our costs. So we do see this year also to some extent November. Sometimes November can be really strong. But December for sure is always a bit on the downside with regards to gross margin. And then we've had some one-off cost effects from write-downs, which also are part of December seasonality when we go through inventories and go through projects. I think there are a few, but apart from that, we do see that, as you say, the OPEX is year on year down for formal numbers. So we can see that the synergies are having effect on sort of organizational costs, fixed costs. And yeah. Did that answer your question or did you have any more?

Yeah, it sounds like what you're discussing on the OPEX line is more sustainable, and then what's happening on the COGS line in Q4 is, say, intra-quarter kind of variations that we have to live with, basically. Is that a good way to interpret it?

You're right.

Excellent. And then looking at the exception of strong cash flow, obviously good working capital release. You mentioned that you now are using factoring. Is that a big number in a year-on-year comparison?

No, it's just that one of the things we've seen when we started to really collaborate in details across the new organization is that we do have some potential with really strong customers with very little credit risk and that we can achieve very favorable and attractive factoring deals with financial partners. So I think that's been some... no success from the collaboration during the fall. So I would say around 10 million euros can be chucked back to that.

Excellent. And just looking back to the performance numbers and top line, it still suggests to me that the underlying The HNY part of the operation seems to be down 5-6% organically, whereas the old ETAB legacy operation seems to be up a couple of percent. Is that the kind of right interpretation, and is there anything in that more than now we have finally real numbers for HNY on the quarterly number, so looking at the full year?

I think the way we see, I mean, obviously it's getting more and more difficult to separate the two legacies, but the way we see both the legacy HNY, looking back three years and looking at legacy Hitab, from a growth and sales perspective, we've been very much correlated. We can definitely see that we're both market leaders with a focus on Europe and that we're very much sort of correlating to the underlying markets. So we can see when they're going up, we're going up in the same way. So then obviously, legacy HMY has been really strong on sort of gaining market share. So this is something we're trying to sort of really learn from and pull best practice out of. But zooming in also on 25, we see that from a sales perspective, we've been quite equal. It hasn't been much. We continue to develop in the same. So it's more from a profitability perspective where we really see the largest sort of potential also to learn from each other and to really create the performance culture around profitability. It takes a while.

Excellent. And on the highlighted non-recurring charges in this whole process of getting the organizations together, the 21 million, how much of that has with this quarter now been charged and how do you see the profile of the remaining?

Yeah, we included a note in the interim report this time. We didn't split it on OPEX or COGS. We'll think about doing that onwards. The integration costs have been around 9 million euros. And as you say, we've indicated around 31. So some of these initiatives have you know, been a bit below what was expected, but it's also, I mean, we haven't concluded on all the activities that will take place during 26 years. So we'll need to get back to that. But so far there's no signals that we will not use the full or that it will be about. So I think we're quite on track with what has been guided for us.

Excellent. And I heard you commenting about the review of the operational footprint being, say, the next phase of the integration. When do you think you can have that same strategies without being detailed?

We are internally planning for completing these reviews and assessments during the first half of 26. That's what I can say.

Excellent. And just one final for me. Obviously, you highlighted going into the Euroshop, which is a big moment for you. Going into that, Glauco, do you feel that clients are out there looking for RFPs for new projects? And how does your pipeline of good project discussions look today, maybe compared to a year ago?

for sure i mean uh euro shop is the best time for our customers to come to see new things new products that we are going to present but also what is very important for us this time is that we are together with hmy so we can really show our strength our capability our competence that are really important because we have different competence but we have also we are strong in different countries but for sure the customers look like a new set of like the occasion to spend time together and also to understand what can be the future solution so we will present for sure new products and i think will be our stand will be quite attractive so i'm really I'm really excited and I'm really positive on what will be the results on our stand in Dusseldorf in our shop.

Sounds promising. All the best and good luck down at your shop.

So we cross the finger. Thank you.

The next question comes from Anton Lund from SB1 Markets. Please go ahead.

Hi, Jens. Can you hear me? Yes. Very good. Many good questions have already been asked. But I notice that the tax rate accelerates this quarter again. Just wondering, what's your view ahead? What do you consider a normalized level? And when do you think you will get there? Thanks.

Thank you. No, this is obviously one of the key projects and it has been for a couple of quarters. And I think the main reason, this is obviously the counting tax and it's not what we actually pay. But still, I understand where the questions are coming from. I think there's three large reasons for tax being quite high in the country. It's partially because we have a debt situation where we're taking on debt in Sweden and we have debt in France which is where the sort of headquarters and other companies are originating from and then we're now in a position or we're now in the project where we push this debt out to sort of be shared across the group so I think That's one of the reasons to make interest payments deductible across the group, improving our tax position. We also have a year in 2025 where we have significant acquisition costs which are also non-deductible. And one of the top reasons also is that we do have some sort of low profit or even loss making units that we need to turn around to improve our tax position. And we're also operating in Latin America and some countries where you pay tax on a quarterly basis. If you have one quarter with profit, you pay tax. And then if another quarter is loss making, you don't pay any tax. So it can also create a bit of a disturbances. But I think we are definitely aiming to become closer to where we've been historically at Vita Group, which is, of course, around 30% or even below. So I think it will take us a few more quarters to achieve that. The turnaround of some of these units that we've indicated is also key initiatives in order to reach that.

Very good. Thank you. And then actually two more questions, if I may. You talked about your shop that's coming up. Do you have any idea of how much cost you will incur related to that?

I think Euroshop is normally costs. Some of those costs are from an accounting perspective. Of course, it's cash out now, but it's costs that we can take over the coming three years. It's every third year. But there will be some costs, let's say, one and a half million euros that will belong to Q1, which is something we take in Q1 and not something we capitalize on.

Got it. And then one final for me. Thanks. You mentioned competition, I believe, in your report. Could you shed some insights on how you view the market overall? How's the price pressure and so on? Thanks.

For sure, I mean, the competition is always very tough, so it's not new that we have competition all over. But what we are trying to do, we are not trying to compete with, let's say, commodity products where we can find products coming from China or from other countries. we are trying to offer solutions. So if we work as a solution provider, I think we can also avoid entering in competition with products, but we enter in competition with companies like us that are really solution providers. I don't think there are many. So in this case, we can really increase our margins and be more attractive for sure for the customer but also for our our result looks much better so we we have to skip any way to stay in competition with the only commodity products this is my advice understood thank you that's all for me thank you very much

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

Okay, thank you for that. We have a few written questions. And the first one is, would you say that the integration costs are in line with what you have assumed at the acquisition of HNY, or are you running a bit over? I think maybe Andreas, you've answered that one already. Do you have any more comments on that? No, I think... And then the second question is, could you give us an estimate of effective tax rate for 2026? Again, something you've already talked about, Andreas. Any more comments on that?

No, I don't think we're in a position to guide for that explicitly on a quarterly basis. But it's a top priority, but it will take a while to come all the way down to where we expect to be long term.

Yeah and then we have another question on the transaction and integration cost we've already touched upon that and also the illustrative calculation on 2027 we with full synergy realization we showed that slide this presentation as well so I'll jump to the next question. Will you adjust the financial targets or are they still in effect?

They are still in effect and we of course will come back if we come to a conclusion that we will. I think what we have guided for, you know, everything else equal is to go to the sort of far end of the interval of 79% from a sort of profitability perspective. That will take us with the synergies to more 8.5% I think. So that's the type of target we put in ourselves for the coming two years.

A question concerning the Q4 gross margins. They are weak versus earlier quarters. And I think you've touched upon that as well earlier. Are there any more comments on the gross margin, Andreas? No, I don't think so. No. One of the questions is how much factoring have you used? And you said about 10 million euros.

Yeah, and that's to clarify, that's the increase in factoring that we've seen and sort of been part of the release of cash flow now in Q4. yeah so we obviously have used factoring before as well and this is since the long-term financing we have that is sort of a deal financing it can be quite attractive to use factoring as a way to lower the long-term financing

And the follow-up on that is, why have you decided to use factoring during quarter? But I interpret it that there's nothing new for us, and we've used factoring before.

Yeah, we have some really stable, strong customers, which financial partners deem to be very creditworthy. And so it's quite attractive for us. And it's difficult for us to almost finance ourselves to the same terms.

and then follow up on the integration and acquisition costs or the primarily the integration cost of 21 million if there are any changes to that estimate and you said earlier that it's no changes

to that estimate. Yes, that's correct. We are assessing the final phases of the synergies, and we will get back to when those plans are set, if we need to update anything.

Can you share the run rate savings reached for fiscal year 2025? Can you share what your target in terms of run rate savings for fiscal year 2026?

I think what we said is that we expect the 30 million euros to be fully in the P&L for 2027 and we're on track to deliver that.

Can you say something about financial costs in 2026?

yeah financial costs are with the operations we have in both Argentina and Turkey which are hyperinflation territory there's always a bit of a so it can go up and down and so but we do see always some hyperinflation impact and some currency impact then of course it's not just interest costs that goes into here it's also costs for taking on this debt and the long-term loan that we have to acquire HMI. Those costs are being accounted for during the full period of the loan. So now we also extended the loan another year. That was a cost that landed in Q4 now.

The question on France, being almost a year in, what integration challenges have appeared that you didn't expect?

Yeah, I mean, it's difficult to fully... to fully assess a company in an acquisition process. We've done some very detailed but now we're getting into the Excel sheets and we're getting to know each other and we're trying to collaborate. So I wouldn't say it's any large surprises to some extent. We have reiterated the real strength of this acquisition and that's some significant capabilities that we didn't have at Lexita that we think we can leverage. It's especially conceptualized in the business in Spain and it's something that we can build on and extend across France but also Lexita.

A follow up on that then, do you expect improvements in 2030 to start coming through year on year in Q2 2026 as you meet tougher comps and drive efficiencies or will it take longer for these initiatives to translate into results?

I think I started to explain sort of what's in wave one and wave two and where we see more complex activities taking place. And I think France and Turkey are more on the complex side and we come late in this guidance that we've said.

Okay, that was the last of the written questions. So I'll hand the word over to Glauco and Andreas for any final remarks. And please, a reminder to everybody, if you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me at ir.itab.com or yeah.

Okay, now I just want to thank everybody for this presentation and for their questions. I want just to remark, I want to underline that we are really on top of the integration with HMI. We feel very positive on that. So thanks to everybody, but thanks also to our people because every day they help us in this integration. So thanks to all. Thank you.