SkiStar AB

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the SkiStar year-end report Q4, 1st of September 25 to 31st of August 2026 webcast and conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speakers today, Stefan Jostrand, CEO, and Zahra Ogbeck, CFO. Please go ahead.

Thank you so much and welcome everyone for this quarter and full year presentation and we will start to take you through this today and we have an agenda where we will talk about first of all the quarter then the full year performance. Sarah will give you a full update about the financial and the numbers and I will ending with an outlook and a summary. so if we just start like an introduction SkiStar is the market leader for Scandinavian mountain tourism and we have this 50 years anniversary last year and we are really passionate about the mountains and how we can continue to develop all the experiences within the mountains and we have an extensive land and property holdings which could which will enable us to and also continue the organic growth within all our destinations. And we can also see that we have a strong growth opportunity through our year-round operation. And we can also see that the last couple of years and also in the future, we can continue to build new businesses. Since we build new businesses, it will also be connected to our business model we will also show you later on. We also have a very strong and also a growing interest from international guests, which has been proven the last couple of years. And also something we sometimes forget to talk about that SkiStar is the fourth largest player within this area. So the number one is Veil Resort, which is listed on the NASDAQ New York. And the second one is Altera, which is owned by Private Equity. Then we have Compagnia Alps, which is listed on the French stock market. And then we have SkiStar as number four. And just as a comparison, the fifth largest player within Scandinavia. It's a little bit smaller than we are. So we have a strong position, and Sälen, which is the largest destination within our portfolio, is also the 13th largest ski resort in the world. If we then go in to look into our Q4 and our full year performance, I'm really happy and also really glad to present the strong report after a very intensive year. And we can really clearly see that our company is growing as a result of all the efforts we have done together. So if you look into the last quarter, Q4, and the summary of that one, it's our fifth summer season. We can really show now that this all year around strategy starts to be proven. In the beginning, five years ago, we invested a lot within summer activities. We invested in climbing parts, in biking roads, we invested in different type of summer activities. But now we have learned how to create bundling of all these activities together and also launch an activity path which has been very appreciated among all our guests during the summer. And when we also have a lot of guests, which I've had during the quarter, we can also see that our business model deliver and all our revenue streams actually growing within the quarter. So that resulted in a strong growth, 29%, and also an increased profitability of 12%. And we can also see that another additional thing we have started with is to provide different type of events. That could be training events. It could be running events, marathons, et cetera, within the mountains. And very luckily, all those ones have been sold out. And that also, again, when the guest is coming to us, they stay at our booking, they stay at our hotel or lounge, or at the cabin, or they have their own. Then they start to buy up, they buy an activity pass, they buy lunch, since we're also providing a lot of restaurants. They buy things in our sports shops, et cetera, et cetera. Again, our year-round strategy really starts to be proven, and the management also believe that we have cracked the code how to run the summer business. If we then look into the full year, we're also really proud of our result and how we have performed this year. So our strategy is confirmed by work with skistar.com and also add different type of revenue streams. Since we have done that, we have growth in all revenue streams and we can see that we continue the growth. We can also see that there is a strong demand for mountain vacations and all year round activities. that is also helping us that we are filling up our destinations and we do it very successfully and we can see that we have an increased number of international guests. We ended up last year with 40% international guests and even though that the Swedish guest has been slower the last couple of years we can see that they are now returning back to our destination. And we also continue to invest. We continue to invest very specific. We are very coordinated of how we are doing our investments. And we're doing them all the time to increase our guest experiences. And we can clearly see that all the investments we made last year has increased our MPS value with guest experience. So, 8% increase in net sales, two points above our financial targets. We deliver a very strong operating profit of 872 million and 11% increase, however, We didn't do any exploitation gains last year, which creates this result even stronger and we actually increased with 18% and also deliver an operating margin with 17.5 and starts to become closely to our goal of 18%. and again we have 6.4 million ski and activity days which is a slightly increase from the year before but again we had an increase. Just like an update about our business model because we really believe that this business model is so important and we own our distribution channel. We own the distribution channel for skistar.com our equip brand equipstore.com and also skistarshop.com where we also providing other brands so this is very important we don't need to pay any booking fees like if you are connected like to booking.com etc so skistar.com we own our own distribution channel And of course, the last couple of years, we have been very successful of developing new revenue stream and they are very diversified. And that of course, helping us to continue the growth. And what we're also showing on this slide is that in the bottom of it, we are showing all the different parts of the revenue streams and how the customer buying up before they arrive to our destinations. And when they arrive, they come with a full wallet and continue to spend. And we're also using our dynamic pricing model, which has also been very successful the last couple of years. And also with this multiple point of guest interaction, it's also helping us to continue the growth and also all this customer data we are collecting enable us to also tailor the sales and also becoming very successful of how to be more specific in and where we want the customer to look after different type of offers. If we then look into the international guests They have been very important for us the last couple of years. When we have seen a weaker domestic market, the international guests have supported us to drive revenue and growth. Now we can see that we are also increasing the domestic guests again, and that means that we can have a high leverage of the base. So international guests will continue to be here, and also they will help us to drive even more growth because they also book full package in advance. They stay longer. They also spend more. And also their peak weeks have a different week than the Swedish holidays, which is, of course, very good from a, say, filling perspective or booking pattern perspective. Sarah will also show you that we have now a new segment reporting and that also shows SkiStoreShop in another dimension than we have showed it previously. And here we can proudly present a CAGR growth of 12% over a very long period of time, but also very strong growth both this last year, where we grow 10% within SkiStar Shop, even when we can see that this market in general have had tough times. We continue to grow both physical stores and online. and also very glad to see that Equip, our own brand, is increasing with 25%. And lastly, from my side, before we go into the financials, we have been very successful in our investments and we are doing investments in a very specific way and very clear to all the time increase the guest experience. Just as an example, this project we put up last year in Åre Björnen where we provided with more lighting in the slopes. We put up a new lift and by that we could open up the lift two hour earlier and the ski area two hours earlier and closing two hours later, which means that we could give a completely different offer to our guests. Another example, when we open up a new ski area in Hovdesid in Vemdalen, where we had a lot of traffic during peak weeks, all of a sudden we open up completely and we actually managed to open up without this queuing. But maybe one of the most investments we are doing, and which is something we have done very heavily during this off-winter peak, so to say, is the investment in snow production. We will, or we launched in the end of the winter season last year, and we have spoken about the whole summer period, and we'll be actually our main marketing message that we will provide the best snow guarantee in Scandinavia. And of course, with these snow investments, that will be a strong competitive advantage going forward. So by that, Sara, I hand over to you, and let's look at the financials in detail.

Thank you, Stefan. And first of all, I would like to begin with the change in segment reporting that has been made during the fourth quarter, 2025 to 26. And the reporting or the change has also had a retrospective effect. And now we report into two segments, which are Mountain Resource and Ski Star Shop. And the change has been made to better reflect the internal steering and the internal reporting and governance. And we will also publish restated numbers for the quarter one, quarter two, and quarter three last year. And that will be published on our website for you to better compare the segments for the full year and last year. And that will be published within a week or so. And then if we continue with the development in net sales, and as you can see in the graph, we ended up with a net sales 4.9 or more or less 5 billion SEKs, and that was a revenue growth of 8.3%, excluding exploitation revenue that is no longer included in net sales. If we adjust, For acquisition and currency, the growth was 5.4%. And the reason for the revenue increase is, as Stefan mentioned, first of all, of course, our integrated business model that drives volume and growth. We do have a pricing power and we have the ability and we continue to increase our price related to ski paths and accommodation, etc., and the growing international share is also helping us to improve our margins and the growth. We have a lot of diversified revenue stream as Stefan mentioned, which of course is very much appreciated by our guests because all of them trace in the guest experience. We have, as Stefan also mentioned, we have made significant investments last year. for example, the Gondola Entry Seal, the new ski area in Hovdesby, Vemdalen, and also Lightning and Skilift in Björn and Åre. Just to mention a few of the investments that were made last year. And we will continue to invest in the guest experience going forward. And if we continue with The operating income, this is not net sales. This is operating income, which is more or less the same as net sales by category. And if we start with CPAS, the price or the total effect, the revenue growth was 6%, of which price and mix stands for 5.7, and the volume growth was 0.3%. The accommodation growth, 6.3%. and that was also related to, the major effect was related to price and mix, 5.9, and volume growth 0.4%. And also the acquisition of Herk Fjell Fortellet that was 1.6% of the growth. If we continue with sports shops, which is part of the new segment SkinStar Shop, we improved the retail sales by 13.2% and that was driven by the increase in EQIP that stands for 25% of the growth. We increased the growth related to restaurants and the majority of that was driven by the acquisition of Hershey & Botellet. And then we had, including in other income, we had a compensation, a claim compensation or an insurance compensation of 11%. As we mentioned, I think, in the previous quarter last year, we had got a claim compensation related to a bridge that was demolished last year in Vemdalen. So all in all, the revenue growth was 8% for the year. If we continue with the operating margin, the operating margin was 17.5%, which is a quite significant increase in comparison with last year, 1.4 point unit. And the reason for the growth was, of course, the revenue growth, 8.3%, and that we have continued to improve both the guest experience that increased the volume and then of course we have improved the resource allocation or the cost control that has enabled us to have a rather solid increase in costs and we've also had increased profit from our joint ventures now in the fourth quarter and that relates to Skiab and also the associated company Lima Transtrand. And that stands for 18 million during the fourth quarter, the improved profit in joint ventures. And as we have mentioned before, we have only had minor property transactions during the year or expectation gains. They were 3 million. last year in comparison with 46 in the in the year before and of course the underlying the underlying improvement in operating margin was 18% when we reflect that we did not have any property transaction and we also had I mean if we take a look at the staple the underlying profit or operating profit was 870 and that is actually the best underlying profit in ISA's history which is of course very satisfactory. I would just like to mention that in our third quarter we did mention that we've had underlying one of items that impacted the operating margin. And those were related to the insurance compensation, as I mentioned, but also that we made a reverse impairment of the rental equipment that affected the operating profit with 21 billion. If we take a look at operating profit development by segment, of course, it's more or less the same as I already mentioned, but just a brief description. If we start with mountain resource, the operating profit improved by 9%, and it is due to or related to a strong revenue growth due to price, The majority is, of course, price and also product mix that has been favorable. We also were able to improve our operating margin despite cost inflation that we mentioned in the third quarter and volume-related cost increases. We did not have any property transaction during the quarter, but we've had improved profits related to our joint venture and associated And in the segment SkiStar Shop, we did improve our operating profit by 10%. And it's a combination of strong growth in both online sales, physical stores, and not the least rental business. And the margin was improved by two points up to 13%. And in the full year, the effect for the currency effect was minor. It was just one million SEKs. However, it was a bigger effect or a larger effect during the fourth quarter, but not on the full year. It was just a minor effect related to currency. So, cash flow. We have quite significant improvement in cash flow from our operating activity and that is due to the improvement in operating profit. And we have also made increase in capex during the year and that is more or less related to the increase in snow production. and that will be an effect even if we take a look at sort of the future this next year that will also be impacted by increase in snow production. So the CAPEX ratio was 12.7% last year. And yeah. and our cash position is very strong. So the financial preparedness as of the 31st of August amounted to more or less 1.3 billion, an increase in comparison with last year and that is of course related to improved profit. The increase in interest bearing liabilities was 1.6 billion, a decrease of more or less 7% in comparison with previous year. Total interest-bearing liabilities recognized in accordance with IFRS 16 was 1.9 billion, a decrease in comparison with last year, and the majority relates to leases to our joint venture holding SkiAB. and the rest is more or less related to land leases or the opportunity for us or the opportunity for us to actually rent for very long time ski slopes. And the interesting debt was or the sort of the net debt or the ABTS structure was buying 0.3, which is a very low number and even an increase decreased in comparison with last year. So we have a really strong cash position. Sustainability, we have an ambitious agenda when it comes to sustainability and this page is just an example of a lot of initiatives that are related to sustainability that that took place last year. And the first one is related to activity and recreation. And the long-term goal is to achieve seven million ski and activity days by the end of 2030. And during 2025 to 26, we recorded 6.3 of ski days and activity days. That was an increase in comparison with previous year. The ecosystem, of course, we continue to reduce greenhouse gas emission. And we have actually had a quite, I think, interesting project last year together with SkiAB. We have built a new accommodation in Sälen, which is called Vasa Sjölen. And it's a good example where we actually have been able to reduce climate impact as the production of this accommodation has been made with cement with a low carbon carbon footprint and recycled copper and aluminium. The third one is related to dialogue and interaction and we have I mean the possibility for our guests they all actually have the possibility to travel to our destinations to all our destinations fossil free and we have a new, we launched a new partnership in the fourth quarter with Snem Tåget to improve, further improve the possibility for our guests to travel fossil free to our destinations in Norway. We have also made a quite significant engagement with 30 of our top suppliers. With support from them, we have the ambition to reduce emissions from purchased goods and services together with capital goods. So that is a very important engagement with all of those 30 suppliers. So a summary of our financial targets and all of them, I mean the development have been stable and the development in total of course enabled us to further revenue growth and improve margin. and the revenue growth in total was 8.3% and the financial target was 6%. Operating margin 17.5% and I would like to note again that this 17.5% excludes gains from exploitation or property transactions. So this is just related to our underlying business. The net debt position in relation to EBITDA was very good or low, 1.3, and we have a quite significant headroom to our long-term target of 2.5. We have suggested a dividend of 3.5 SEK per share to the AGM. which is an increase in comparison with last year and that will be 44% of the net profit and this is the final slide and this has been shown before but this is more this one is used internally and I think it's quite good illustration of what kind of initiative that we should focus on and all of those will enable us to actually climb further climb in our value chain and they are divided into the guest experience that is of course our number one priority followed by that we of course need to and want to use our resources efficient and of course the property development and the possibility for us to use our land that is a significant number and that will also enable us to grow organically in the future. So this is an illustration of the journey to have the ability to reach our financial target of the margin of 18%.