Scandic Hotels Group AB (publ)

Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our first Q1 presentation here at Scandic. As said by the speaker, my name is Jens Mathisen. I'm the CEO of Scandic, and I'm here together with Per, our CFO, and together we will walk you through the quarter. But let's start to dive into the presentation. Please, let's go to page two. We have a good start to the year and we deliver a solid first quarter with improved both revenues and results. Net sales improved by 3% and organic growth by close to 4%. It's also pleasing to see that our focus on efficiency and cost control is clearly reflected in the strengthened profitability in this quarter. The performance was also driven by overall good demand across our markets and also the calendar effects with Easter falling in April this year compared to March last year. In February, we hosted a capital market day where we presented our strategy for 2030. We are maintaining a steady momentum in executing on that plan. And later in this presentation, I will provide a brief update on the progress and some of our key initiatives for this year. The first quarter is also seasonally the smallest. It's representing a low portion of the full year result. That's why it's also very pleasing to see that April has started off well and that bookings for the spring and summer are good. Even better than at the same time last year. And of course, I will give you some more comments on the outlook also later in this presentation. We remain mindful of the ongoing geopolitical tensions and their potential impact on our markets. And while it's still early and the situation may evolve, I want to emphasize that based on current booking trends and cancellation rates, we have not seen any impact on our business. That said, we are closely monitoring development across our markets to ensure we can act quickly if needed. All in all, a decent start to the year with a promising outlook as well. So please turn to page three. We deliver a good result with an adjusted EBITDA of Swedish Krona 101 million, which is up from 33 million in the same quarter last year. This corresponds to an improved margin of 2.2% compared to 0.7% last year. The result includes 43 million in one-off, which is related to provisions for pandemic-related state aid in Denmark. Excluding 1.0, we more than doubled the results to 59 million, which is also an improved margin of 1.3%. Per will, of course, share more insights on the financial performance later on in this presentation. Please turn to page 4. Here you can see the market occupancy rate for the first quarter this year compared to the same period last year across the Nordic countries. We experienced an overall good market during the quarter with occupancy levels in each country being higher or on par for every month compared to the same period last year. The timing of ISA contributes positively to demand in March as it falls in April this year compared to March last year. Scandic's occupancy rate was 55.1%. This was slightly higher than the average market occupancy of 54.4%. Please turn to page five. This is market data showing average room rates for Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark indexed to the corresponding month in 2019. At fixed currency rates, the market average room rates continued to develop positively during the quarter, showing a year-on-year increase of 1.5%. Scandic's average room rate declined slightly compared to last year, and when adjusted for currency effects, the development was more or less flat. This was mainly due to the weak price development we saw in Finland with the impact, especially of the events that are going on in Vantaa, where increased capacity compared to last year has put some pressure on rates. That said, demand in Finland continued to recover, indicating that the market are stabilizing with a promising also for the future. Please turn to page six. Here you can see the market REVPAR development index to corresponding month in 2019. At fixed currency rates, the market REVPAR in the quarter grew by 5.7% year-on-year. Scandic's REVPAR increased by 5.8% compared to last year, and at fixed currency rates by 6.7%. So all in all, the year has gotten off to a very good start. Please turn to page 7. where you can see the pipeline. During the quarter, we signed an agreement for a new hotel with 214 rooms in Berlin, with planned opening in the second half of 2026. And following the takeover, we will operate nine hotels in Germany with close to 3,000 rooms. We are working with a clear focus on growing our hotel portfolio There's a strong will to do business in the market, and we are involved in many discussions and negotiations right now. This gives me very good confidence in our growth targets for the entire portfolio. By the end of the quarter, we had 2,734 rooms in the net pipeline. That is also corresponding to roughly 5% of our portfolio. Please turn to page 8. Here for a brief update on some of our key initiatives for 2025. As we have highlighted, we see potential to further strengthen our commercial capabilities and become more efficient. Soon we will launch our new website and app, both designed to enhance the guest journey and make it better, more simple and smoother to choose Scandic over other operators. We're also making good progress in our partnership with SAS. Soon we are launching a status matching between our loyalty programs, Scandic Friends and SAS Eurobonus. This will give loyalty members access to attractive and valuable offers across both programs, making it easier for them to tailor their travel experiences based on their needs. I look very much forward to sharing more about the additional benefits in the partnerships shortly. We are now also in the final stage of implementing our new workforce management platform, Quinex, with the completion expected this quarter. The platform will enable us to plan and optimize scheduling based on expected demand. So all in all, there's a strong momentum at Scandic with several strategic initiatives moving us forward and at good pace. And we will continue to keep you updated as we make good progress with this. Together, these efforts, they mark a shift towards a more commercial and competitive Scandic. With that, I'd like to hand it over to you, Per.

Thank you, Jens.

And please turn to page 10.