Rusta AB (publ)

Good morning and welcome to the presentation of the first quarter of Rusta. In our financial year that stretches from May until April, this represents then the first three months of May, June and July. Presenting will be myself, Göran Westerberg, CEO of Rusta, and I'm joined by Sofie Malmunger, our CFO. The agenda for today, we will start with a short business update to explain what's been happening during the quarter. We'll then move into more of a deep dive into the financial performance by Sofie. And then we will also add this time an update on some of the projects that are going on to give you a little bit of a flavor of what is happening in the chain. And then finally, we will summarize, tell you a little bit about current trading, and then open up for Q&A. Let's start with the business update, and as usual, give you a picture of what the retail chain looks like right now. During the quarter, we did not open any stores. This is normal. We never do during peak seasons, meaning summer and Christmas. However, after the quarter, we have opened up two new stores. And in fact, those opened up yesterday, one in Sweden and one in Finland. That takes our total number of stores in the network to 227 stores. We have continued to have an inflow of new locations that we have signed and that's also why the pipeline remains at the record high 47 stores. So looking at the guidance for opening, we've had the span between 50 to 80 stores in the coming three years. We reiterate our guidance towards the upper end of that spectrum, supported, of course, by the continued inflow of new stores. And we continue to see a softer rental market in the Nordics. Then having a look at the numbers for quarter one, we had, if we start with the numbers, we had a growth of 6% in total and 1.2% like for like, both of those numbers excluding currency effects. Our gross margin ended up at 42.6% and we have an EBITDA margin of 8.8%. Now, breaking this down, if we look at the top line, we can say that we started off this season with quite a weak and soft May, very much because we were meeting very tough comps from last year. Our hope and aim was to pick up some of this slack during June and July. This happened in our biggest segments, so in Sweden and Norway we continued to see a healthy growth, supported both by the market and where also the strategy that we had in place for this season worked out quite well. However, it was another picture in the segment other markets, and this is very much to do with Finland, where we saw that we had weaker than expected sales driven very much about the customer that returned more to lower ticket items and did not respond as well as we had hoped on our summer season sale. And I would like to remind you here that This is the quarter where we have the highest share of high-ticket items, meaning the typical summer items, barbecues, garden furniture, and so on. We increased our gross profit by 0.6%. And when it comes to the EBITDA, we had a drop. And you can say that this is pretty much entirely explained by two things. One is that we're meeting the compensation from the IT attack that we experienced more than a year ago. That came in and that affected the EBITDA margin here, together with the currency effects, the currency headwind that we had. And here I would like to underline that our judgment here on this is that the Forex headwind peaked during Q1, and that we have now experienced the brunt of the negative effects of the Forex exchange. And I would like to underline also that we believe that in total the stronger Swedish crown is net positive for us, but it's a difference in timing of the negative effects and the positive effects. And the positive effects are now ahead of us and we're starting to see signs of that. If we look at the EBITDA, just to give you some clarity, and Sophie will give you more, if we look at the constant currency EBITDA, that would have been at 10.4%. So together with the compensation for Tieto, that pretty much explains the whole drop in EBITDA. Right, looking at the key events during the quarter, there's a couple of things that we would like to underline. One, again, regarding our biggest segments, Sweden and Norway, we saw a very healthy underlying trend, and that is one that we had increased footfall to our stores. There were more people coming there. That also resulted in a higher number of tickets, but also that the average value of those tickets went up. At the same time, we also saw a healthier development in terms of mix within those customer baskets, meaning that customers actually moved up the ladder, the pricing ladder, buying less of the low ticket items and more in the mid and higher end of the spectrum. And that is exactly what we would like to see. It was a bit of the opposite in Finland, where we had a weaker than expected development. We saw a careful consumer that hesitated to buy the higher ticket items. We had an increase in low ticket items. And this is very much something that is reminding of what we saw during the peak of inflation. And I think the market data regarding macro factors in Finland suggests that this has to do with a weaker consumer outlook on the market. And this is something that we're working hard now with addressing. And we believe the answer here is really to address the needs for lower prices that seems to be especially strong in Finland. Looking at the other trends, I think we also see similar things that we've seen in the past quarters, meaning that we are continuing to recruit new customers. Looking at our Club Rusta, we had 6.5 million Club Rusta members. That's an increase of 12%. And in fact, in terms of percentages, we actually saw the strongest growth in Finland and Germany. So there is definitely an interest for us and for low prices. We continue to have a positive view on the expansion potential. As I addressed on the previous slide, we see that there is a soft market and it will continue to flow in new stores. And as we also released yesterday, when we opened two new stores here, we will have about six stores in the autumn, or we will have exactly six stores during the autumn. And that also marks a step up in our accelerating store opening pace. We also judge that the rental market remains positive, so we believe that this will continue. With that, I hand over for the time being to Sofie for financial performance.

Yes. Let's see if I can click here. Okay, so in Rusta's first quarter, we achieved total net sales growth of 3.4%, which was negatively impacted by currency effects of 2.6%. Excluding the currency effects, the total net sales growth was 6%, and like-for-like growth excluding currency effects was 1.2%. The summer season, that starts already in March at Rusta, was all in all strong, but the sales pattern shifted compared to last year. This year, a warm April led to an earlier start to the season, and this is in contrast to last year when the peak was in May, which then boosted Rusta's first quarter. This shift means that approximately 3.6% of this year's seasonal sales were reflected in our fourth quarter instead of in our first quarter. Gross profit increased by 0.6% compared to the same quarter last year. The gross margin decreased by 1.2 percentage points, but 1.7 percentage points was due to negative currency effects, which then fully explained the decrease and shows that we have a positive underlying productivity in the gross margin. Our assessment is, just as Göran said, that with the current FX levels, the peak of the negative FX effects was reached in this quarter, and that from the second half of the financial year, the net currency effects for the group will be positive. Our EBITDA for the quarter decreased compared to the same quarter last year, which is explained by the negative currency effects and the compensation we received last year from Tieto Every regarding the IT attack. The EBITDA margin amounts to 8.8% and the EBITDA with constant currency is at 10.4%. If we look at our segments and start with Sweden, we continue to see a positive trend like the previous quarter, with stronger customer willingness to buy and an increasing preference for products in higher price ranges. Both the number of customers and the average receipt continue to grow compared to last year. Seasonal sales have been strong overall, combined with increased sales of DIY products. Total net sales increased with 7.1% and like for like 2.6%. The EBITDA margin is 90%, a decrease of 1.8 percentage points, which is explained by a higher share of OPEX due to many new stores openings at the end of last quarter. The positive development for DUSTA in the Norwegian market has continued with strong growth both in sales and customers. Purchasing willingness is increasing and customers, just like in Sweden, are increasingly buying products in higher price ranges. The total net sales growth excluding currency effects is 10.4% and like for like excluding currency effects is 3.3%. The EBITDA margin decreased with 1.8 percentage points to 11.9% for the quarter, mainly due to negative currency effects from a weaker NOC compared to the previous year. Other markets were weighted down by a weak Finnish market where macroeconomic factors and unfavorable weather damped the summer sales. Net sales growth for other markets excluding currency effects was minus 1.3% and like for like excluding currency effects minus 5.4%. The EBITDA decreased during the quarter by 2 percentage points to 3.7%, mainly due to weaker sales and negative currency effects from the euro compared to last year. Our profitability in the first quarter has decreased compared to last year, which is mainly explained by the negative currency effects mentioned earlier and that we last year received a contribution from Tietoebri for the IT attack. It's our belief that the currency effect peaked during this quarter and that the headwind will gradually ease over time and instead strengthen our profitability during the second half of our financial year. We have a well-balanced campaign strategy in the quarter, positive sales mix effects and use in our assortment that has strengthened our profitability. Sea freight costs are lower than last year and we are starting to see lower costs for duty to Norway thanks to our bonded warehouse. The increase in OPEX is planned and explained by more store openings at the end of last quarter. Rusta has a short payback time for new stores, about a year on average, but the short-term impact can differ between the quarters and between the years depending on timing. And then some comments on our balance sheet and cash flow. The increase in working capital is a planned inventory build-up due to more stores and increased demand. We have a positive cash balance at 123 million SEK. Cash flow from operating activities in the quarter is lower than last year. and is explained by earlier deliveries and payments of goods this year in Q1 compared to last year. Due to the uncertainty regarding possible supply chain disturbances because of the tariffs during the spring, we wanted to make sure that our autumn and Christmas assortment was delivered on time and without disturbances. With our strong balance sheet and financial position, this is all positive and the result of Rusta mitigating risks. Cash flow from investing activities for the quarter amounted to minus 102 million SEK, which is in line with last year. All in all, we continue to have a solid balance sheet and a stable financial position, which will support our future growth. All said and done, we are on track and remain committed to deliver on our financial targets. As announced in the last quarterly presentation, the board has proposed a dividend of 1.45 SEK per share, which is an increase of 26% compared to last year. This corresponds to 47% of the net profit for the year and is thereby in the upper end of our dividend policy. This is made possible by our strong financial position, where we can both invest in future growth and efficiency, and at the same time increase the dividend to our shareholders. The dividend will be decided on our annual meeting on the 19th of September. And with that, I hand over to Göran.

Thank you. All right. I think you'll find it interesting also to see some updates on the projects that we're running. There's quite a few being run at the company right now. And one of the ones that I found really, really fun, engaging and valuable is the concept renewal. And just a quick reminder, we're doing all of the stores in the Rusta chain in record time. So between week 32 and 37, we're rebuilding large parts of all of our 227 stores. Obviously, all of our new stores are open up with this concept from the very beginning. But we're also rebuilding even our existing and even our oldest stores into this concept. And approximately 40% of our sales space is directly affected by this rollout of the new concept. We have never done it this fast. We have also never done it within this very limited cost stream, never done it as cheaply as we have done it this time. And I'm happy to say that this seems to be completed exactly on time. According to the plan, we are going to finish at week 37, which is this week. And that's exactly what is happening out there. And I can also tell you that this seems to be very well received by our customers. It's very much about an upgraded way of presenting our product groups. They're more combined, supporting each other in a more logical way in the customer, in the flow, in the stores. But we have also introduced new ranges. We're also utilizing new techniques where we can display more products on the same area. So it's simply more efficient as well. And the early performance is well in line with the guidance on the like for like impact, which we set at one and a half to two percent above what we would otherwise have had. And this is something that we have tested, we've seen it, and now we start to see it also in the full rollout. And you can say that most of the full impact of this will start to show during Q2, since Q1 was basically more affected by the rollout of this new concept. One of the ranges that we rolled out is Elsa Form Kids and for those of you who know us Elsa Form is one of our private labels within home furnishing where we package basically slightly higher quality items within home furnishing very much in nature materials and so on. And what we are doing here is that we're taking a step towards families with children, people that want to furnish the room for young children. And this is Elsa Form Kids. It's about 30 items that we're adding. It's presented together. It's rolled out in all of our stores and it has been very well received by our customers. I think this is... both something that drives our average ticket, it also expands our offering towards the customers, but it's also supporting margins. Another area that we have rolled out is in our very large product category within home textiles. It's a big and important part for Rösta. We're now taking another step with more of premium products at a very affordable price. This is called the hotel collection. This is higher tread counts, bed linen, it's higher grammage towels, terry towels, and it's other things like incense candles and so on that you would basically see in a hotel context. And this is packaged and it's sold really, really well. We're actually struggling to keep up with the demand in this area. And again, this is something that supports both the strength in our brand going upwards in the ladder, which supports both value of tickets, but also top line and also, of course, our gross margin. So very well received. Other than that, we have a couple of efficiency projects that's running. One of the biggest ones that we have at present is the automation system that we're implementing in our distribution center. And actually, if you look at the picture, all of those buildings is actually, in fact, the Rusta DC. We have everything there in one place. That project is on track and it's expected to finish as per plan in spring 2026. And so far into the project, we can say that all lamps on the headboard are showing green here. So it's continuing as per plan. We also have the bonded warehouse implemented, which we also talked about in previous quarterly reports. This is basically a way of saving on custom duties when we are exporting to Norway. We don't have to shell out that money until we're ready to sell it in Norway. So instead of paying the custom duties already when we bring it into the European Union, or to Sweden, we can do it when we're ready to sell it in Norway. And we expect that to give an annual cost saving of approximately 30 million, of which we will see approximately 7 million during this financial year. And this is also what we're seeing. So we also stand by that guidance. Right, so summary, you can say in short, is that all current projects, and there are quite a few of them, are progressing according to the plan. The DC automation, the bonded warehouse, the concept rollout in our stores, and perhaps I should also add that now Having tested this faster rollout with more efficient techniques, when we see that as being successful, of course, that increases our appetite for doing more of that more often. It's a possibility for us that we see in front of us. Store pipeline, we see a sustained inflow of new stores and we remain on an all-time high with 47 stores in the pipeline. So we remain optimistic about the expansion opportunities and we again continue to guide towards the upper end of the 50 to 80 store range that we have presented in earlier presentations. When it comes to current trading, I can say that August, when it comes to sales, to top line, it was in line with what we have seen in Q1. Being a summer month, I would say August didn't differ very much from May, June, July. Finland remained challenging on top line, while Sweden and Norway continued to show the same strength as we have seen before. However, I can say in a comment without going into details, the gross margin looks different as compared with Q1. Here we see an improvement, and that's very much on the back of the things that we have reiterated during this call. that the FX effect, the brunt of the negative effects, have now peaked during Q1. And we have most of the negative effects behind us. And now the larger and positive effects are in front of us. And we have started to see signs of that, and we believe that the net effect of that will show us a strength in GM during the second half of this fiscal year. So we repeat that same guidance as we had from last time. All right. And with that, I would like to open up for Q&A.

If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Daniel Schmidt from Danske. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning, Göran and Sofie. A couple of questions from me and starting with Norway. You did talk about the currency situation already at the start of this year, this calendar year. and your ambitions to compensate for the FX. That hasn't been possible, it seems like, given what we've seen in the gross margin for the past couple of quarters. And I'm just wondering, given that you've had good growth and demand seems to be there, and 10% in this quarter in local currency, why isn't that possible, you think?

Well, I think this is really one of the tricks here when we work in situations like this. I think historically, it's always proved to be difficult to take out all of the effects on pricing when, for example, like in this case, the exchange rates are moving quite rapidly and a lot in one direction. I think what we have talked about is to dampen that effect by doing price adjustments, which we have. But we don't want to be first and we definitely do not want to risk our low price position. But you're right. I mean, on the back of what we see now, that there seems to be a healthy market. The customers seem to respond well. We will, of course, continue to, let's say, fine tune prices. our pricing in general over there, and that will be a positive factor going forward. But I think one has to be quite careful on how big steps you take. We don't want to end up in the situation that we are in in Finland right now also. We hope, of course, that the Swedish and Norwegian consumers in general are more resilient, that they are more positive in their outlook, but we will simply have to wait and see and then carefully test new ground in that respect. So it's definitely a factor and we will continue to drive that, but we haven't been able to fully mitigate that and I did not believe that we could do that either.

Okay, so what's your reflect? Sorry, go ahead.

Yeah, I can just add that the drop in the gross margin in Q4 was 2.1 percentage points. And in this quarter, it's 1.2. So in a way, we have mitigated it. And of the 1.2 percentage points, 1.7 is due to currency. So there is an underlying productivity efficiency in the gross margin, just to highlight that.

Yeah, I think sort of what the market is questioning, I guess, a little bit is also in comparison to one of your competitors that reported yesterday that saw a quite good step up in the gross margin despite the same exposure that you have. And they did also mention lower sourcing costs, underlying lower sourcing costs. Could you have done better in terms of your purchase power and your bargaining power when it comes to sourcing?

I think one of the things is that you have to go back to when it comes to, if we talk about pricing to our consumers, is that the main reason customers are coming to Rustam, and they like everything that we do and present and improve in the stores, of course, but the main point is the low price. And I think it's been our experience over decades here working with this that you cannot risk that. And I think that's special with low price. You have to deliver on low price, especially on the products that the customers are very aware of and very picky and they are comparing. That's part of, I think, of this business. Now, having said that, there's always room for improvement. You can always do better. And we have seen potentials to do that better, both in Norway, from the perspective that you're saying, but also strengthening in Finland from another perspective. So this is something that we're continuously trying to elaborate with and work with. But we're very conscious all the time that we are a low price company. This is the most important customer promise we have, and that's not something that we should risk. And that might have the effect that we've seen now in the short run during a quarter. But over time, that is positive. Now, turning to the purchase prices, we've had a good productivity. There's been some, I would say, we have a large share of consumables where there's been another price development, as I'm sure you're well aware. That's quite a big chunk that might differ us from some of the other players on the market where we have a lot of shampoos and stuff like that. There, over the past few years, you haven't had a positive price development. Those prices have increased. So there's been some headwind behind these numbers. But for the rest of it, for our private label products and so on, we continue to be very positive that our model is working and that will continue to drive productivity.

And our guidance regarding purchase prices is that it will be positive in the gross margin for the full financial year.

Yeah, that's sort of the next question, maybe. How confident are you, given how important price is, of course, that you will be able, if you haven't been able to fully compensate the headwind, how confident are you that you will be able to benefit from the tailwind that you will get in the U.S. dollar as we go forward? Are you sort of fearing that you are forced to give that all away?

I don't believe so. It's going to be different on different markets. What we're seeing now is basically two of our markets being in a certain position in the return to a stronger economy, and then we have a couple of markets that are behind Finland being one. We have to address those in partly different ways. So knowing that and knowing the strength and the momentum that we have in Sweden and Norway, we're quite confident with our pricing position over there. We also know that the net effect of everything that is happening is positive. Again, the timing issue here is that we get most of the negative effects immediately and then the positive effects from our purchasing currencies come a little bit later. And we're exactly in that shift right now. So you can say we're in peak bad right now in Q1, but it's now turning for the better. If we count on that Sweden and Norway will remain having a positive momentum forward, I am confident that we can still afford to invest where we need to in the Finnish market and also put some in our own pocket to use either to boost our earnings and or to continue to invest in our future growth.

Okay. Do you dare to give us any guidance? You did say that the gross margin is looking a bit different as we go into Q2, still negatively impacted. But do you dare to give any guidance on this topic when it comes to FX?

We don't give any exact guidance. I think the guidance is what I said, that top line, it is in line with Q1, but it's improving on the gross margin. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

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

Thank you. Can I follow up a little on that current trading there? When you talk about August and you say that the sales is similar to Q1, I mean, Q1 had a negative facing or weather effect. And in Q2 now, you also should start to see some positive effects here from the rollout of the new concept. And yet you're talking about a similar trend in August. And realizing we're just talking about one month here and it's maybe a little bit of a transition month. But is there any weather impact we should be aware of at the start of August or anything else? I guess that's my first question.

No, if I try to iron out those things, I'll try to be as clear as I can then. When we're talking about August being in line, top line-wise with Q1, we're talking about not the timing. We're not comparing August with May, the start of Q1. we're talking about the average during Q1, just to be clear on that point, top line wise. And when it comes to the rollout of the new concept, you could say that August bore the brunt of rebuilds, basically. Since we were rebuilding our stores between week 32 and 37, that means of all of August, we were partly under construction. We don't think that we had much of a negative effect on the sales, but we certainly did not have much of the positive effects. That will end up in September, so that's after our guidance. Was I clear there? Yes, absolutely.

Thank you. Great. And a second question on Finland. When you look at your store rollout now, you have ramped up significantly in Finland particularly. I think 14 of your store contracts are in Finland. This is a market where the profitability is well below the group average, where the sales trend in recent quarters has been quite poor. How confident are you with that expansion? Why are you choosing to ramp up so much in Finland rather than maybe waiting for that market to improve?

I think in Finland we're still quite small. If you compare to our most relevant competitors, if we put it like that, we are significantly smaller. And I think part of our journey towards higher sales per store and a deeper penetration of the Finnish market, we need to be more present. And I think it is within our strategy also now to expand when many others can't. I mean, the reason that we can find so many stores right now is because so many people or so many players in the retail market are unable to either sign new contracts or even rolling back their contracts. So I think this is a classic strategy to really invest when other people can't and to take market share and move forward. And having said that, I would also like to say that if we look at the first half of the calendar year of 2025, our numbers indicate that even in this level, we're taking market share, even on a like-for-like level. So I think we feel quite confident that this is the right thing to do mid to long term, because it will help us to penetrate the market, to take market share, and really increase our profitability from there.

Very clear. Thank you. Can I also ask about the bonded warehouse? You talk about savings of 30 million. Are we talking mostly working capital effect or actually a lower tax? Because it sounded like the main impact is that you don't pay the tax until when it is shipped to Norway rather than when it arrives in Norrköping. So is it mostly working capital or will it actually result in a lower tax for you as well?

The 30 million is actually a lower cost effect. And as Göran said earlier, the effect in this financial year will be somewhere around 7 million. But for a full financial year, it's 30 million in lower cost due to not paying duty twice. first when the goods come to Europe and then when we send it to Norway. But then, of course, you also get a positive cash effect since we pay later, and that is more than 30 million. That is for all the goods. So instead of paying when we receive the goods to our warehouse or to Europe, basically, we pay when we take it out from the warehouse, which has quite a big impact for us since we...

make sure to have the assortment in our dc a couple of months before the season of sales for example okay very clear so both a lower tax and the working capital positive working capital effect super clear thank you that's all my questions thank you very much there are no more questions at this time so i hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments

Right. Thank you very much for listening. And I'm really looking forward to meet you again for next quarter, Q2, which will be presented on December 9th. And until then, I wish you all a very pleasant autumn. Thank you very much.

Thank you.