Good morning, everyone, and a warm welcome to Anora's Presentation of Q3 Results. I am Tua Stenius-Örnhjelm from Anora's Investor Relations. CEO Pekka Tennilä and CFO Sigmund Toth will talk you through the results. After the presentations, we have a Q&A session, and we look forward to many interesting questions from you. Please use the team's chat to send in your questions, and you can do so already during the presentations. As usual, we kindly ask you to mute your microphones, and please note also that we are recording this event, and the on-demand version will be available later today on our website anora.com. Without further ado, we are ready to start. Pekka, please go ahead.
Thank you, Tua. Welcome on my behalf as well. I would like to start with a short summary of Q3. This was a challenging quarter for us, but thanks to the strong performance of the newly acquired Globus Wine in Denmark, and the net sales growth in industrial, our net sales grew by 10% from previous year to EUR 182 million. We have also continued to see positive market share development in spirits in the monopolies. Our profitability declined by 22% to EUR 23 million, which equals a margin of 12.8%. Decline was due to lower volumes, higher OPEX, and lower gross margin. The implemented price increases have not fully mitigated the increasing input costs. On next page, we have a look at the market development.
As of this report, we are now also commenting and providing market data on Denmark. It is good to bear in mind that the Danish market is so-called open market, and the market dynamics are different compared to the monopoly markets, Finland, Sweden, and Norway. The data for Denmark that we show here covers the off-trade data, i.e., mainly, grocery trade. Overall, we can say that the main driver for the negative development in all markets was related to the normalization after COVID-19. Consumptions has returned to the on-trade, traveling has picked up, especially during the holiday season, and border trade is open. When comparing monopoly volumes against the pre-pandemic levels, we can see that in Finland, the Q3 volumes were at a lower level, while the volumes, especially in Norway, were still up to 17% higher.
Combined for the four countries, the Q3 volumes in spirits declined by 8% and in wine by 7%. In wine, we can see that the decline is 3%, but percentage points lower than year to date, while the decline in spirits is still at the same level. We move on to segments and start off with wine. In Q3, net sales in the wine segment grew by 70% to EUR 85 million, versus EUR 73 million last year. Growth was driven by the acquisition of Globus Wine. Globus Wine had a strong Q3 with net sales growing in a declining market. Globus Wine gained market share and further strengthened its position as the market leader.
In the monopoly markets, net sales declined, largely following a declining market and due to the earlier partner losses. The out-of-stock situation, especially known wines, has impacted net sales, but we saw that the situation improved towards the end of quarter. We have also seen a positive development in own wines in all monopoly countries. However, market shares in Sweden and Finland declined, while the overall market share decline in Norway was less than in first half of the year. On the profitability side, the low net sales in the monopolies and high input costs have impacted EBITDA. Comparable EBITDA was EUR 9 million versus EUR 10 million last year, which gives a margin of 10.6%. Our tender winning rate has been good, we have launched several interesting novelties during the quarter.
We relaunched our own wine brand, Chill Out, in all monopoly markets with a new design and offering. The new Chill Out has been extremely well-received with a positive sales start. We also won a tender for CAMP Sparkling, a sparkling wine in a can in Sweden, and for Expedition wine in Tetra in Finland, and for the non-alc Blossa in Norway. Blossa has again a strong and diverse offering of glöggs, both monopolies, grocery trade, and on-trade. The novelty of this year is the Blossa Glögg Rosé, which was launched also as a non-alcoholic variant. We continue to work hard to mitigate partner losses, and we have already been successful with gaining new partners, such as Zonin and AdVini. On the wine brand side, we aim to expand Globus Wine's strong own wine portfolio to the high-volume wine segments in Sweden, Norway, and Finland.
With this, we move on to spirits. In Q3, spirits net sales were at last year's level at EUR 53 million. This development was supported by the continued growth in international, where net sales grew in exports, Baltics, and duty-free travel retail. In the monopoly markets, our net sales declined following the declining market, but we gained market shares in all countries. The decline in profitability was driven by reduced gross profit due to higher input costs and higher OpEx. Comparable EBITDA was EUR 9 million, versus EUR 12 million last year, and equals a margin of 16.1%. I would like to mention a few examples on our launches in Q3. First of all, our premium gin brand, Skagerrak, has won full distribution in the Norwegian monopoly. The Q4, and especially the Christmas, is an important season for our aquavit brands.
We have again, a strong lineup of Christmas aquavits, both in Norway and Sweden, under brands such as Uppland, Gilde, Aalborg, and O.P. Anderson. In Finland, the Koskenkorva brand was extended with a new cream caramel cream liqueur. In the grocery trade, we launched a new brand, Brookvale Union. I'm very pleased with the market share development in the monopolies, which shows the strength of our brands and innovations. Next, we move on to the industrial segment. The external net sales industrial grew by 17%. Growth was driven by higher sales prices in industrial products and contract manufacturing following the increase in the cost of barley.
Volumes in industrial products were below last year's level as we continued to run Koskenkorva Distillery at a lower running speed to mitigate the cost push from the high cost of barley. Contract manufacturing volumes were stable, and Vectura sales declined as distributed volumes were lower. Comparable EBITDA in Q3 declined to EUR 6 million, versus EUR 7 million last year, and gives a margin of 7%. Decline in profitability is due to high cost of barley and higher OpEx. With this, I'm ready with the business review. Sigmund, please go ahead with financials.
Thank you very much, Pekka. Warm welcome from me as well. If we go to the, to the first slide, which talks about barley. Bit of a roller coaster ride as you have, as you all know about barley. Comparing to, you know, in Q3 to the same period last year, the increase was 82%. And, and, you know, when you have levels that are up in the EUR 300s, EUR 400s, this is to be compared, you know, to the five-year average price of EUR 161. We are really talking, you know, additional, the, you know, exceptional times.
The good news is that Q3 has been more normal or closer to last year than Q2 was because that's really when the peak was. As mentioned earlier, you know, a means for us to mitigate the high cost of barley has been to run the Koskenkorva Distillery at a lower running speed. That's something that we've done throughout the year and also continued in Q3, which can be seen, you know, in the amount of grain that's consumed at Koskenkorva, which was 13% lower than Q3 last year. Now, the good news is that the barley crop this year was good. It's up 33% compared to the previous year, which should cover the domestic demand.
I mean, that's also the reason and something that you can see in the price level. The prices have come down from the peak level seen earlier the year. There continues to be a lot of uncertainties, as you know, in the global grain market and which is why we expect that though the, you know, level has come down, it will remain at a high level compared to historical levels. We have to say that this has been an extraordinary year for the sourcing team, and they've managed this very, very well by securing availability during this whole difficult period. If we then go to the next page on the net sales.
As Pekka mentioned, the net sales are about 10% versus previous year when you're including Globus Wine, that is actually the explanation. Excluding Globus Wine, sales were somewhat down at EUR 159 million. That's still higher though than Q3. I think that you can see on the graph on the left that though there is a normalization from COVID all together, you know, sales in Q3 they were still higher than the same period in 2019 prior to the pandemic.
Really the explanation here is that the monopoly volumes, especially in Norway, they are, you know, continue to heavily decline as consumption patterns return to the pre-pandemic level, border trade, you know, starts up again. When you exclude the sales from Globus Wine, this is what's impacting our monopoly sales of wine in the previous business. In the spirits, you know, Globus Wine itself here, of course, you know, we see the full impact of their contribution. It's important to mention that even, you know, if you were to compare, pair on a like by like basis, Globus Wine has performed better than it did, you know, last year, also in a tough market.
Performing very well from a market share point of view. If you look at the spirits net sales, they were essentially flattish, you know, versus last year. They are the sort of effects of the decreasing markets. They are a bit more mixed because of course you have then the international business with duty-free sales, you know, picking up, and that is compensating for the decline in the monopoly markets. In addition, our share price performance, sorry, our market share performance in the spirits segment in the monopolies was also good, as mentioned earlier. Then, last but not least, industrial net sales development is supported by the higher prices. Moving then on to the EBITDA.
I mean, here again, you know, it's a bit repetitive, but we are facing very, very tough comparables. You know, this decline in profitability is related then to the normalization after COVID-19. You know, as sales return to a more normal level in very profitable markets to us, especially then in Norway, on top, you have a normalization of operating expenses. We are starting to travel again, you know, which is a good thing to manage our business. We are starting to spend marketing again at normal levels, which is again, for the long-term health of the business, a good thing.
On top, the gross margin is being hit by the higher input costs, including then the barley price as we saw. We are taking pricing to compensate for that, but not able to fully compensate, especially due to the time lag that there is between when the input cost hits us and when we are able to implement the price increases, which is then leading to a decline in gross margin. Lower volumes, lower gross margin, and higher OpEx due to cost inflation and also a normalization of expenses. Again, I, you know, I would draw your attention, you know, to the Q3 performance in 2019.
You can see that we are still above the 2019 performance. That's, you know, it's something to bear in mind. It was good times and green comparable numbers for a while during COVID, you know, we are in the year of normalization, still above the 2019 level. Moving on to the next slide. On the balance sheet, I think the most important thing to point out here is that there is an increase in net debt and an increase in net debt over comparable EBITDA, that is related to the acquisition of Globus Wine, which was financed entirely with debt.
I would hasten to point out here that the net debt over comparable EBITDA ratio, which is reported as 3.6, if you're doing the pro forma adjustments, so including the comparable EBITDA for the full rolling 12 months also of Globus, it would be at 3.4, and then that will come down over time as we generate the cash both from Globus and from the rest of our operations. In terms of cash flow from operations, they were impacted by the change in working capital.
We are still running, you know, with the high level of inventory, and that's due to the inventory values being higher. We are also stocking, you know, more barley and ethanol and other products, due to the problems that we've seen, you know, in the global supply chain with out of stock. To protect against those, we are running with higher inventory levels that we hope will come down as things normalize on the logistics front. Moving on to the next slide. Yes, I mean, our, you know, outlook for 2022, the guidance, it remains unchanged. Comparable EBITDA is expected to be between EUR 75 million and EUR 85 million.
This corresponds to a pre-pandemic level. I mean, I think it, you know, goes without saying that Q4 is a big quarter for us. This is when we have a lot of the seasonal sales, be it aquavit in Norway or glögg with Blossa in other countries, especially in Sweden. In general, you know, with the festivities, there is, you know, a lot of traditions related to our product. It's a high sales quarter for us, and a lot of our profit is made in this quarter.
You know, the outlook is something that we are monitoring constantly and, but the guidance, for now it remains unchanged, at the EUR 75 million-EUR 85 million level. With that, I'm happy to hand the word back over to Pekka.
Thank you, Sigmund. Before the Q&A, a few words on the merger integration and sustainability. Our post-merger integration work has progressed as planned and on schedule. The run rate of annualized net synergies was EUR 5.2 million, including the annual impact of EUR 4.6 million from the divestment of brands. The total annual EBITDA net synergy target remains at EUR 8 million-EUR 10 million, of which 80% is expected to be realized within two years from the closing. In Q3, we combined the former Arcus and former Altia Spirits businesses in Denmark under one business unit, Anora Denmark. The distribution of former Altia Spirits brands ends by the end of this year. We also completed logistics transfers in Sweden, which means that all logistics operations in Norway, Finland, and Sweden are now insourced.
The IT and systems integration is proceeding as planned. However, due to the complexity of the integration of finance systems and processes is taking somewhat longer than expected. We have a detailed plan how to conclude the finance integration. Last, an update on sustainability. The acquisition of Globus Wine during Q3 supported Anora's sustainability work and goals. Globus Wine has a strong approach in lowering CO2 emissions during a product's life cycle. Wine filling in Denmark near the end consumption and climate-smart packaging significantly lower CO2 emissions compared to transporting glass bottles. We have continued our energy savings project in Q3. LED lighting was installed at Brunna logistics center in Sweden. In Q3, we made an investment in the award-winning Danish non-alco company called ISH. This is strongly in line with our sustainability work.
Climate-smart packaging is one of our key focus areas. During Q3, we successfully completed trials to include 50% of post-consumer recycled PET in our rPET spirit bottles. This would double the share of rPET from where it is today at 25%. In our wine portfolio, we already have an rPET bottle that is made of 100% recycled PET. Our safety work at Koskenkorva Distillery was recognized for the second consecutive year, as the distillery received the Year Award from Starch Europe. Another great achievement in our safety work is that Koskenkorva Distillery has, together with Rajamäki Industrial Products Unit, reached over 1,000 days without LTI. Now over to you for Q&A.
Great. Thank you, Pekka and, Sigmund, for your presentations. We have quite a few questions, in the chat. Let's start with the first one that we received. It has to do with the out of stocks, of, wines. How large impact does this have on sales, and have you resolved the issue by now?
The situation is already much better. I mean, we're not totally out of stocks. We had some issues, especially in own wines, and those have been resolved. It had an impact, definitely on ourselves. It's hard to pinpoint exactly the number, but it had an impact. The situation is much better already.
All right. About the partner losses. On a running basis, how much behind last year are you when thinking about partner deals? Pekka?
We are somewhat behind and we have some catching up to do, but we had some really good partner wins. You know, Zonin earlier, AdVini, a big win in Sweden. That definitely helps. We do keep, you know, a close eye on winning more partners. We have a very strong platform for our partners with the strongest route to market in the Nordics on a pan-Nordic basis, like nobody else with especially, you know, a special strength in on-trade and in digital.
Okay. We have two questions about the consumer behavior and if we are seeing any down trading within spirits or wines and, in addition, if there's how has your volumes developed during other crises like 1990s banking crisis or financial crisis in 2008? Looking a bit longer in the history and if there's any changes at the moment.
That is a great question. But, Tua there's actually another great question just before that. If I just read it out loud and answer that. The question is you mentioned that international sales increased within spirits, which product groups are growing in international? There's a pretty simple answer to that. The Koskenkorva vodka is growing fast internationally. On the consumer behavior, if I start with the 90s and another financial crisis, 2008, traditionally wine and spirits, and I guess the alcohol industry overall, you know, the consumption is very stable over those periods.
So, so it's more about shift between maybe, you know, price groups from, from, you know, premium to maybe, to mainstream and then, shift in sales channels. Whether we've seen anything now, we've seen glimpses. We've seen shifts like in Denmark. Purchases are moving to, to, to lower, you know, price chains. We, we see that. We see maybe packing boxes in certain countries, I guess Sweden, you know, declining less than the, declining less than the, than the average wine. But there's actually so much happening in our markets right now. Obviously as you can see, you know, the market volumes from COVID-19 times, is, is changing significantly.
Then obviously the prices are up, so it's hard to kind of pinpoint what is exactly, you know, the significance of the financial downturn versus other big moves on the market. Some examples I already gave. As said, over, you know, a longer period, the wine and spirits consumption tends to be pretty stable.
Thank you. We have a question from Juho Saarinen about the price increases. Do you see that the impact of price increases will be stronger in Q4?
Well, I mean, I guess it remains to be seen. I don't have the market numbers. We have in every quarter increased our prices, and I think the best answer I can maybe say about Q3, Q4 is to say that, you know, we will most probably continue to increase prices next year as well as the, you know, the costs continue to increase.
Good. Following up on that, price increases is a question from Rauli Juva. With cost inflation leveling out and price increases coming through, should we expect price increases to fully offset increased costs from beginning of 2023? Or what would be a fair assumption for the timing?
I guess the fair assumption would be that we probably will continue to increase our prices in the beginning of next year. There's, there are pricing windows in Norway in January and then in Sweden and in Finland in first of April. We will most likely continue to increase our prices then.
Okay. We have a question about barley and Koskenkorva Distillery. At what barley price level would you run the Koskenkorva Distillery at full utilization again? How will that impact your profitability?
Rauli, a good question. I think, it's obviously a combination of barley cost to us and our prices to our customers. It's when that combination is at the right level, then we will run the, you know, the capacity at full. I would expect a positive impact of that scenario for our profitability.
Okay. There's a question about the quality claims that we had commented on in industrial. There were positive impact on industrial EBITDA from quality claims. Are these related to heat recovery system, and are you expecting the system to be operational in Q4?
I think the quality claim was related to Blossa. We had a product issue related to taste last year. That claim is related to that. With the heat recovery system, I think I need to come back to you a bit later, Joni.
I think the expectation for the heat recovery system is to have it up and running in Q4.
Thanks, Tua.
Okay, let's move on with the questions. About energy. Regarding energy prices, how large impact this had in Q3, and what should we expect in Q4 and 2023?
Should I take that? Well, I don't have the exact number for you. I mean, it was not. It's one of the explanations, one of the items that's driving increased OpEx, especially in industrial. I think that you've all seen the increase in electricity prices and other energy prices. I mean, I think that it's a bit difficult to separate out from the rest of the price increases. We are, you know, we are hit by these, you know, directly through our own energy consumption. There we have a large amount of hedging, so it's not impacting us that massively.
You know, part of what the cost inflation that we were talking about is especially on glass bottles, the production of which is very energy-consuming and done in Europe with gas. When the gas prices are at the levels they are, we are indirectly impacted by that. I'm not sure that I want to or can quantify exactly the impact of the energy prices in isolation other than to say that for electricity, specifically, we are quite well hedged and then that for the cost inflation otherwise, that's actually one of the big drivers for 2023 versus currently is the indirect impact on our dry goods.
For that, you know, we aim, as Pekka said, to try to price for that as best we can.
Good. We have another question, Sigmund, to you.
Mm-hmm.
Were there something non-recurring in depreciations?
You're talking about Q3, right? I'll have to come back to you with more details, I believe it has to do with the Globus acquisition and the write up, write down of inventories there. Let me get back to you on that.
All right. Good. I think we take the next question from Rauli, also to you, Sigmund.
Mm-hmm.
The low end of your guidance indicates EUR 20 million Adjusted EBITDA in Q4, i.e. below Q3 level, despite Q4.
Mm
... seasonally strong. what would need-
Mm
to happen for you to land on that level?
Well, I mean, I think it's difficult to be sort of super specific about what exactly would need to happen. There are so many, so many moving parts. I think that, you know, there are some elements that are... can still potentially go the wrong way. One of them is obviously the market itself. We are in quite uncertain economic times, so it's difficult to predict exactly what will be the consumption patterns. Typically, I mean, our consumption has held up very well in a previous economic crisis, but this is a new setting I think for many of us. You know, with the biggest sales season, you know, there is a certain risk of that.
Second one is then the impact of the impact of COVID, you know, going out of that. How much of an impact is that going to have for us in the high season? Third, currency rates, you know, can continue to go in the wrong direction. There we are hedged to some extent, but not fully. Then of course, you know, there are, there's always the risk of operational operational issues.
I guess, I mean, the main risk obviously in our business with relatively strong sort of gross margins and quite fixed costs and spending plans in the short run is that, you know, in the end the top line and the margins don't develop in the way that that they normally do in Q4. You still have the high cost levels that you typically have with more marketing spend, for example, in Q4. You know, as always, the issue is the flexibility in the short run to adjust, you know, costs when if the top line should not be, you know, as strong as it normally is.
Good. We have one more question in the chat. If anyone wants to.
Mm
... to send in more questions, please do so. Please do so while we take the last question for the time being. This will go also to you, Sigmund. It's from Joni about debt. How much of the debt is fixed rate? Could you comment on current average interest rate?
Not much of our debt is a fixed rate, so we are exposed to floating interest rate. I mean, to commenting on current average interest rate, I don't think that I will want to do that. What I can tell you is that obviously, you know, we are suffering from the same environment as everyone else. That being said, you know, Anora, I think continues to be a good name. Like everyone, you know, we are exposed to the changes in the increases in interest rate and are not protected against that through hedges.
All right. I think these were all the questions that we had have received for now. I will give word over back to Pekka for a quick summary.
Thanks too, and thank you all for great and many questions. To summarize our Q3, it was a quarter with good 10% net sales growth driven by the acquisition of Globus Wine and their strong performance in Denmark. Profitability declined significantly, largely driven by the normalization after COVID-19. When comparing against the pre-pandemic Q3 2019 level, we are ahead thanks to Globus Wine acquisition, and when that is excluded, we were at the 2019 level, which can be considered as solid performance given the challenging conditions. As a final note, I would like to welcome you all to hear more about our growth strategy, financial targets and sustainability roadmap at our Capital Markets Day next week. With this, I would like to hand over back to Tua for the final remarks.
Great. Thank you. Regarding the Capital Markets Day, you can find all information relating to that on our website. There's also the link to the webcast if you want to follow the live webcast. The presentations start at 10:00 A.M. CET. There will be two Q&A sessions when it's also possible to send in your questions via chat function. We look forward to seeing many of you in person at Gjelleråsen or then through the webcast next Tuesday. Thank you for attending and thank you for your questions. As usual, don't hesitate to contact us if you have any follow-up questions. With this, we are ready. We wish you all a very good rest of the day. Thank you.