Hello, and welcome to Fiskars Group's Q3 results webcast. I'm Noora Huttula from Fiskars Group's Investor Relations, and I'm here with our President and CEO, Nathalie Ahlström, and CFO, Jussi Siitonen.
Hello.
We have slightly different program from usual. Nathalie will give a brief summary about that in just a moment. After that, Jussi will take you through the Q3 highlights, and then Nathalie will give a strategic update. We will then have time for your questions, and you can already type in your questions in the chat during the presentations. Nathalie, please go ahead.
Thank you, Noora, and welcome everybody to this call today. There's a lot of happening in Fiskars Group at the moment, so happy to talk about that. But first, a few glance on the quarter and the key messages. We had another solid quarter in Q3, despite the challenging market conditions. We improved our profitability despite volumes decreasing, and yet again, all-time high gross margin in Q3, driven by very good work in our supply chain. Our strategic growth fundamentals continue to deliver, and we're at the final leg of delivering our transformation, and we have today come out also saying that we now are completing the Brands First approach to drive speed and impact, really drive speed and impact, and the full potential of the businesses, and we're separating the business areas into two different operational independent companies.
We keep our guidance for 2024 unchanged. That means that our comparable EBIT is expected to be slightly above 2023 level. So that's the key messages for today. As Noora was alluding, we have a slightly different agenda today. We'll start with Q3. Jussi will walk through Q3, the solid Q3 that we just reported, and then I'll talk about the strategic update, followed then by a Q&A. But over to you, Jussi.
Thank you, Nathalie, and hello, everyone. As already mentioned, we had a very solid quarter here. We improved profitability with, despite the lower volumes. Our top line reported net sales, are including also Georg Jensen now, for Q3, we were up 6.1%. Organically, we were down 7.3%. More importantly, we succeeded to improve both profit and profitability, especially now in Q3 versus last year. Our EBIT went up EUR 6.4 million to EUR 24.3 million, and EBIT margin over two percentage points up to 9.5%. When it comes to businesses, and I'll walk you through them a bit later, on EBIT, EBIT was down, Fiskars was up versus last year, and then this other segment was back to normal level versus last year.
The main driver for this improvement, or main drivers for this improvement, were gross margin improvements, so we succeeded on quarterly basis, improved gross margin to 48.1 from last year's 47.2. Also, on the year-to-date basis, we were 1.7 points up versus last year at level of 48.5. Free cash flow was down due to net working capital phasing, and I'll get back to that also later, and our comparable earnings per share was EUR 0.01 up to EUR 0.16, and of course, cash flow, or cash flow per share, or cash earnings per share, was at break-even level, reflecting cash flow. When it comes to Q3 comparable EBIT, as I said, it improved to EUR 24.3 million.
If you take a more analytical view and then move to year-to-date, EBIT, EBIT bridge here, we succeeded to secure our performance, secure year-to-date EBIT through strong performance management. And let me walk you through how it actually went. We started the second half, EUR 10 million behind last year. Now, in Q3, we succeeded to catch up EUR 6 million out of that. So on a year-to-date basis, we are EUR 4.1 million behind last year. But when we open that up more in detail, you can see here that the saving actions we have put in place in 2023, also this year, continued driving those savings. They delivered over EUR 30 million EBIT improvement there, which was then practically fully offset by lower volumes.
Then also, depreciation, amortization, mainly our historical investments in digital IT, took down the profitability. Georg Jensen, EUR 3.9 million contribution to our year-to-date EBIT there. Bearing in mind that typically, the first nine months of Georg Jensen in the past has been at break-even or even loss-making, like it was in 2023. So this shows that we have succeeded to significantly improve performance in Georg Jensen. Then more on BAs. So Vita was up 16.5% there, including Georg Jensen, 10.1% down organically. And then on EBIT, EBIT was down EUR 4.2 million due to those low volumes, which were partially offset by the savings what we have achieved also in Vita business. Some highlights there.
Both Royal Copenhagen and Moomin delivered a strong growth in Q3, and that's also especially when it comes to Moomin Arabia, that we have strong momentum in that business. On Fiskars BA, our top line was down 4.9% comparable basis, 4.5% reported. U.S., which is the biggest market for Fiskars BA, roughly half of our Fiskars BA business is in USA. USA was down due to softness in sell-out. On the other hand, Germany and Nordics, and especially Germany there, we don't see any strong improvement there when it comes to consumer sentiment. So we succeeded to grow strongly in Germany due to the actions we have put in place. More distribution, more categories, and the likes.
All the commercial excellent actions have been in place, both in Nordics and Germany, to improve top line. In Fiskars BA, we succeeded to improve EBIT by EUR 2.5 million, and the drivers were both improving gross margin and SG&A savings there in Fiskars BA. Moving from P&L to cash flow, as I mentioned, our free cash flow in Q3 was negative of EUR 16.9 million. This is mainly due to phasing of trade payables. The phasing coming from both end of Q3, both from Q2 to Q3, and then also what we paid now in Q3 instead of Q4. So this is very much this kind of phasing issue now between the quarters. When it comes to Net Debt/ EBITDA, it was slightly up to 2.8 times.
The target being this 2.5 or lower. This 2.8 is now ahead of our seasonally strongest cash flow quarter. The historical pattern of a cash flow is that typically Q4 is the strongest, and therefore, we assume that we also get net debt to EBITDA back to the more targeted level now in Q4. Cash conversion is still at healthy level. When it comes to our financial targets, the four targets there from a net sales growth, profitability, cash flow, and balance sheet, we can continue saying what we have said in many times, that those enablers, cash flow and balance sheet, remain healthy, healthy level, strong level, even when it comes to cash flow conversion on a rolling twelve months basis. They can enable the future investments what we have in growth.
EBIT margin 9.1% on rolling twelve months basis. I would say it's not bad, but it's going a bit wrong directions there. Very much it reflecting the challenging operating environment there and low volumes. What you can see also here when we talk about organic net sales, which was down 4.4% on rolling twelve months basis. Then about those savings programs. So we announced two programs last year. We started one in January and then September. When it comes to SG&A, part of those savings plans, the SG&A part is now completed. The actions are implemented. We still enjoy and benefit from those programs also in Q4, but this kind of incremental improvement when it comes to SG&A efficiency start gradually declining.
When it comes to supply chain actions, there we still have to deliver, and then we can see that Q4 and also 2025, the programs continue delivering profitability improvement. The new structure, Nathalie will walk it through more in detail a bit later. With this new structure, they are further enabling savings there throughout simplification. We expect that additional annual run rate of those cost-saving plans is approximately EUR 12 million, starting already in 2025. So majority of these savings should be now in the year 2025 numbers, the rest being in 2026. The expected one-off relating to this organizational change here is now EUR 8 million, and that will be recorded during the transition period until first quarter of 2026.
When it comes to the model itself, the decentralized structure will also improve flexibility and speed of executions, which is not yet visible in all those numbers. Having said that, giving back to you, Nathalie.
Thank you, Jussi. So as said, that's Q3, as another solid quarter, improving profitability despite lower volumes. Now I'm going to give you a strategic update where the business is heading. I'm first going to talk about the market and also the rationale why we are doing now the split into the two operationally independent companies. I'm starting by looking at what does Fiskars and Vita look like? They are two distinct, different businesses, and they have good performance despite the current soft market. If I start with Fiskars, Fiskars is a market leader in its own categories. Fiskars is very innovation-driven. We have, over the years, won more than 64 Red Dot Design Awards. That's quite the achievement, and here in my hand, I also have an upcoming launch of a water bottle from Fiskars, so that's more tactical products for the innovation side.
Our sales, primarily, and you see from the chart, 97% is through big box players, third-party retailers, the likes of Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe's, and so on. Our key customers are the number one, number two, number three players in the big countries, Bauhaus, Amazon, and so on. U.S. is clearly the largest country for Fiskars. So that's Fiskars. Then when we look at Vita, Vita has a unique portfolio of luxury and premium lifestyle brands. Vita is known for its creative design, and Vita's sales is also in our own hands. It's direct to consumer-led, with 50% of the net sales is in our own channels, our own stores. We have today more than 450 stores globally and online, so direct to consumer-led. Vita also has much higher gross margins, also by the nature of the direct to consumer business.
Vita is a clear market leader, for example, in China, in tableware. Today, already, the share of luxury net sales in Vita is 65% of the totality. So we have Fiskars innovation-driven together with big box players globally. We have Vita, direct-to-consumer driven, a lot of luxury of the net sales, so two distinct different businesses. The group focuses on rigorous performance management, fund and allocation, where do we invest to drive growth, profitability, and cash. A few words about China. There's a lot of discussion about China now, and where is the market going, and this is from what we are seeing. We see that China market continues to be attractive despite the uncertainty we are seeing at the moment. Already in the first half, we saw that traffic in the key luxury shopping malls was substantially down, double-digit down.
Apologies. We see that customers are more price sensitive, and they're also cautious buyers when they are doing luxury purchases. It takes longer time for the decision. The good government stimulus packages that came in October, we still don't see the impact in the consumer goods in our field. What is going to be a big event is the Double 11 that's already started now and has been extended in China, in the China market, into one month instead of being only 11th of November. And then in December, and the market starts to prepare for Chinese New Year in January. So that's the uncertain market at the moment in China. The long-term structural opportunity in China remains attractive.
Today, roughly 22%-24% of the whole luxury consumption in the world is in China, and that's foreseen to grow to 35%-40% of the global consumption of luxury by 2030, so huge structural continued growth of luxury in China. We also see that the middle class and affluent consumer population will increase to 80 million by 2030, so big, booming, growing market in the long term, and we, in Vita, we have strong fundamentals in place. We are benefiting from the brand desire. Wedgwood is clearly number one in its category in China, and we started with Wedgwood, and now we are accelerating a broader portfolio. Royal Copenhagen, we introduced to the market 2021, and that's growing. Now, following the acquisition of Georg Jensen, we are accelerating also Georg Jensen in China.
So we have brands in our portfolio that we can take to China. China, our business in China is totally direct-to-consumer led. We have more than fifty, five, zero, own stores in China, and it's these stores in a strong combination with omni-channel interaction with the e-com that we are having. So it's a direct-to-consumer led, omni-channel interaction. How we operate in China is also a direct, China-first approach. We have product innovation. We have product design, unique pieces that are made for China, for the consumer in China. And also, how we communicate, how we market, how we interact with WeChat and so on, that's all designed for the local consumer in China. And making this all possible is, of course, our strong, strong, very strong local Chinese team.
China, for us in Fiskars Group, is a Vita country only, so it's Vita that we have there, and for Vita, it's a top five country. Despite the uncertainties in the Chinese market, we've been able to drive a year-to-date growth of 3% in China, so good long-term prospects in China. Then looking at the world's biggest consumer goods market, U.S., there's been headwinds, but at the same time, we see that our own platform is increasingly strong. In our categories, there's been low consumer confidence despite the strong economic fundamentals in the U.S. We see that customers, our big box customers, our wholesale department and department stores, they are more prudent, and there's a new normal. When we talk about the prudence, Black Friday, now in November, is going to be very crucial.
Our big customers are looking, "How is the consumer sentiment? How is the traffic for Black Friday?" Before they then replenish for the holiday season. Of course, the first fill up of the shelves have happened already before Black Friday now, but then Black Friday is very determinantal how the whole holiday season will go. We also say, when we talk about the new normal, and that's how we are now just assuming this is a new normal, is that customers continue to be very strict on inventory and cash management. For BA Fiskars, our big box players, our DIY customers, they are cautious with their own communicated outlooks. For BA Vita, we see that U.S. is really a market with.
Driven by affluence and a strong gifting culture, a totally different gifting culture that we see, for example, in Europe, despite the headwinds. Then, how are we performing as a company? Our platform is becoming increasingly strong. The Fiskars brand is clearly the number one market leader in the U.S. in its categories. A market share of between 20%- 40%, depending on the category. Vita is strong with its heritage brands, for example, Waterford, also thanks to the Irish heritage in the U.S. All of our brands have a premium positioning, driven by innovation and brand desire. And our relationships with the key accounts, the key customers, are deepening and continue to be stronger, also driven by innovation that we are bringing for the future.
There's still a lot of potential for us in the U.S., even though it's our biggest market for whole of Fiskars Group, there's still a lot of runway because there's a lot of distribution points we can still, go to, a lot of breadth and depth in how we can grow. For Fiskars Group, U.S. for Fiskars brand or Fiskars BA, it's a biggest country, and for Vita, it's also big. It's the fourth biggest country for Vita. So China, booming, second-largest, consumer goods market in the world. U.S., the biggest one, and very important for us in Fiskars Group.
As you know, we've had challenges since the macroeconomics changed in the U.S. for a while, and year-to-date growth is only minus 8%, so not where we want it to be, but we are focused on the fundamentals to ensure it's strong when the market in our categories picks up. This is more the short term. Looking at the long term, what's the prospects for Fiskars Group and the brands where we are playing? If we're looking at the long-term dynamics and why we are attractive long term, it's all about the powerful brands. Consumers are driven by powerful brands, and they are willing to spend more and buy more of powerful brands. Also, design and innovation is crucial.
We see that innovative companies create three times, 3x more value than peers who are not innovative, so full focus on innovation and design. Direct-to-consumer, that's already 50% of Vita, is also important. This is Vita specific. Because in the direct-to-consumer channel, you can talk about your own story, the experience, the heritage, the uniqueness of the brand. Luxury, despite the uncertainty at the moment, especially driven by China, will remain attractive long term, with a CAGR of 6%-8%. That's also Vita specific. And sustainability, that goes across all the board. It's at the core of the DNA of Fiskars Group. Sustainability is key for our strategy, and we know that consumers are concerned about sustainability, and we are there to make their choices easier on sustainability.
This is the current market trends in China, U.S., and also the long-term dynamics behind Fiskars and Vita. Looking at our strategy, we have been really systematic since we started our transformation in 2021 to systematically execute our strategy and continue to transform the company. We have the transformation levers that are making the company stronger. I will soon show it. We've also sharpened our portfolio logic with clear roles for each brand, clear investment logic, and we've seen that our operating model has been evolving, and now we are completing the Brand First approach. This has been a systematic journey since 2021. Looking at the transformation levers that are delivering, here you see the journey we've been on.
If we start with the gross margin, and Jussi already mentioned that the gross margin improvement, quarter by quarter, has been significant, and here you see the trajectory since we started in late 2020. This is driven by channel mix, product mix, like I said, innovation, and also by supply chain, the great work supply chain is doing to drive costs down, so we made our foundation much stronger with this fantastic development of the gross margin, and we'll continue to evolve. We are not going to stop here. When we started in 2021, we also said we want to focus on direct-to-consumer because that's a future place for consumers in Vita, and we see today that 50% of the net sales in Vita is direct-to-consumer led.
Also there, we focused, and we are delivering and making Vita stronger for the future, and more future-proof. China, I already spoke about. We've tripled the net sales over a few years, and the CAGR now is roughly 50%. That's pretty, pretty good, and if we look at the LTM figures, it's a 5% growth. So China has been very good for us. We've focused a lot on it, and it's delivering. U.S. has been the challenge, and we'll continue to focus on U.S. because opportunity in U.S. is so big, and we know the fundamentals we now have in place are strong. So when the market recovers in our categories, we are in a good position. So the transformation journey we started in 2021 really has made our brands, our business, much stronger for the future.
Then looking at the portfolio roles, this we launched last year in November in the capital markets day, where we said that we have clear roles for each brand. We have clear investment logic. And what we are doing with this investment and resource allocation logic, we want to enhance value. We want to make the big brands bigger. We want to surround the consumer with category expansion, like we do, that we do in all brands. And for the Vita brands, we want to command a high-end positioning and also expand direct to consumer. We have our brands we call Accelerate, the three large luxury brands, where we've over-invest to drive the growth. So we over-invest in Wedgwood, Georg Jensen, Royal Copenhagen, to drive the growth faster.
For Fiskars, that's a huge brand, our biggest brand, we have now a very good strategy in place and want to unlock the potential by having a detailed strategy for the different categories, the different countries, to unlock the growth potential of Fiskars. Maximized potential brands are the brands where, that are already performing well, already delivering, and where we say, "This is like a, a helicopter. The better you do, the more you, faster you can invest yourself back into the business." Having launched this portfolio logic last year, we already see impact, and we see, for example, when we look at Vita here on the right side and in the corner, we've seen that the share of luxury net sales in the Vita portfolio has substantially increased and is today 65% LTM of our net sales in Vita.
So also the portfolio logic, the focus on investment is driving value. It's not only the transformation levers, portfolio logic that we are doing. We've also focused on M&A. M&A is now part of our toolbox, and M&A will continue to be an important value driver for us going forward. As you know, we purchased Georg Jensen 1st of October last year, so one year ago, we purchased Georg Jensen, and I think that's a good way of showing how we are reshaping our portfolio with systematic and disciplined approach to M&A, so Georg Jensen is a good case example. When we identify and acquire potential targets, we really look at the strategic fit, then in the case of Georg Jensen, it was also gave us the expansion opportunity into jewelry.
After closing the deal last October, we have had no surprises in post-closing, and we've gotten on board complementary capabilities and culture, so very good strategic fit. We were also, with the systematic approach, able to acquire Georg Jensen at an attractive valuation. Our EV/EBITDA multiple with cost synergies was 4.7, so quite attractive acquisition, and we also reported negative transaction goodwill. That's how we identify and acquire. When we integrate, we focus on driving the performance of the business case we have in place, and the purchase of Georg Jensen was very well-received by key customers, and we've been in a business-as-usual mode already since July. We did the integration in nine months. That's pretty fast. The only remaining thing is still IT integration, so we are on track with synergy realization.
We have said that we are driving EUR 18 million of synergies out of the Georg Jensen acquisition, and Jussi was previously in his year-to-date EBIT bridge, showing the EBIT coming already now from Georg Jensen, which is quite a big swing from when they previously, year to date, would have been making break even or negative figures, already now making positive, driven by the synergies. Seventy-five percent of the synergies are in implementation, and we've also reduced, that was very quick in the beginning of the acquisition, 10% net of the headcount, both from Georg Jensen and Vita side. Now we are business as usual, fully operational. There's a lot of complementary strengths from both of us. We see even a lot more streamlined structure with improved clarity on the portfolio, on the brand, where we want to play on the strategy.
We've gotten on board a lot of fantastic talents and also been able, for our own, Vita Fiskars Group talents, to offer new leadership opportunities. So the business is in better shape now, and this, I think, is a good example of our M&A toolbox that we have in place. So then coming back to our journey of going towards Brands First. We are today completing, or we are announcing today that we are completing our Brands First approach, and that means that we are separating the business areas into two independent companies. If I walk you through the evolution since 2021, and I said, this has been very focused on how we've done the transformation of the company. We started as quite a heavy matrix organization, quite functionally led, quite centrally led.
Already, l ast year, in November, in the Capital Markets Day 2023, we said that we are focusing on end-to-end accountability for the BAs, Fiskars and Vita, and they are fully owners of the business with P&L accountability and then only have scalable platforms that support, and today, we've announced that we are completing this Brands First approach, and why Brands First? This is what's relevant for consumers. This is really the DNA of a brand company who wants to be innovative, who wants to drive innovative design, to be Brands First, to be relevant for the consumers and our fantastic customers as well, so we are splitting now the remaining functions into Fiskars, the new company Fiskars, the new company Vita. These new operationally independent companies will be run by their own CEOs.
We will have a narrow layer of group business services, less than 3% of our headcount, who will drive efficiencies in certain IT and certain finance services. And then we have the group that's focused on portfolio management, fund allocation, and driving growth through the fund allocations, and also driving performance. That's a very lean group, less than 1% of net sales. So this is now what we are doing in completing our Brands First approach. The benefits of this is, it's really speed and agility to drive impact. We will have end-to-end, the CEOs of these own companies, Vita and Fiskars, they will have full control of their business. They are the owners of the business, so it's ownership culture also here.
They will have the flexibility and the speed to manage their own company, what's right for their brands in their local markets. There's also dedication. We are going to accelerate the different growth opportunities, and as I showed in the beginning, Vita and Fiskars are very different businesses. They have different growth opportunities, their full growth potential is different, and also the investment needs are different. So in this way, we are de-averaging, we are dedicating so that they can be much faster and deliver value and impact. Also, it will be much more transparent. What's the performance of Vita? What's the performance of Fiskars? We will have much more precise targets and the capital allocation from the group side. And this will then be the operationally independent legal entities, which will enable us also then in the future to have structural optionality.
I want to give you an example of commercially, how does this already work? Because we have one example in Fiskars Group. We have many examples, but I'll give you one example. One example of this Brand First approach, where we have seen it winning, is already Moomin Arabia. Moomin Arabia has really been already operating, I would say, the last two, three years as a brands first, quite their own standalone team, who've been giving the mandate to run, as the portfolio role says, "Maximize potential," and with this mindset, this autonomy that they've had to have, and full P&L accountability, they've been able to drive category expansion fast. A few years ago, Moomin Arabia was only ceramics, or mainly ceramics. Today, already 20% of the net sales is textiles, so the category expansion has been really turbocharged by having a brands first mentality.
We've also been able to expand the channel expansion, expand distribution, and as an example, we've opened eight new Moomin Arabia brand stores only in this year, year to date, both in the Nordics and then in Japan, and also the country expansion has been much faster with the Brands First mentality, where we see that Moomin Arabia has been growing with Barnes & Noble in the U.S., and we see that already today, Moomin Arabia net sales, more than 50% is in international sales, so with the Brands First and with the clear building blocks, we see that the dedicated independent team has been able to deliver this speed, good impact, and we'll continue to do this now in the setup with Fiskars and Vita. Moomin Arabia's CAGR in the last years has been 11%, quite impressive figures from the team.
It shows that we have really good growth pockets, growth engines within Fiskars Group. To wrap up, the key messages. Q3, another solid quarter in a tough market. We were able to improve the profitability despite the lower volumes, and had an all-time high gross margin in Q3. Our transformation levers are delivering and are making us much stronger for the future, and we are at the final leg. Therefore, today we have announced that we have a Brands First approach to deliver speed and impact to the businesses, that they can grow where they deserve to grow. We are separating the business areas into two operationally independent companies with their own CEOs. The guidance for the year remains unchanged. We see the comparable EBIT will be slightly above last year's level.
And still on guidance, as said, it's unchanged, and the assumptions behind the guidance is that we continue to see uncertainty in the market. Macroeconomic continues to be challenging. We see wage inflation has already, for a longer time, been elevated. At the same time, what Jussi also showed in the very good year-to-date bridge, you see that the savings that we've done through the completed programs, they are delivering. And also further cost efficiencies to improve the operating operations is delivering intended to deliver Q4. Following the acquisition of Georg Jensen, we see that our group EBIT has significantly shifted to the end of the year, to Q4. And that's now really relevant in 2024.
During this period, Vita's volumes are expected to play a significant role, and we also expect that they are going to be around the levels of last year. This seasonal pattern is very important in the Vita volumes for Q4. With that, let's go for the Q&A.
Yeah. Thank you, Nathalie and Jussi. So we do already have quite a few questions, but you can keep them coming as we go. I think first we could tackle the news of today. Maybe Nathalie, you can start. We touched on this in the presentation, but perhaps a bit more color. So you are separating business areas into independent operations. Should we read this as higher P&L responsibilities within the current business areas? Is business development run independently going forward?
Yes, business development for Fiskars and Vita is independently in their own companies, driven by their own CEOs. Yes, and also, their full potential strategy is there. What we then do from a group point of view, we are focusing on portfolio management. We are portfolio managers of the companies we own in Fiskars Group, and we're also the ones who allocate funds.
Mm.
In that sense, we can drive growth in both Vita and Fiskars.
Great, thank you. And then perhaps a bit more on the practical side, also, Nathalie. So given that Fiskars and Vita are already quite independent, what will be the practical change in the plan announced today? Will they build also separate logistics and warehouse, for example?
It's a good. What's the practical impact? So what we are doing, and you saw that on one of the slides, when we are now moving the functions into BA Vita and BA Fiskars, and we are having areas where we are sharing logistics, for example. We will not separate them, but we will then Vita or Fiskars will sell that service to the sister company. So of course not doing unnecessary dis-synergies. That doesn't make sense. But it's not costs that are allocated, it's really that then the other business can decide, "I want to buy that service from my sister company.
Yep. Great, thank you, and then perhaps one more on-
Yep
On the topic. So, how will the organization change enable EUR 12 million cost cuts, given there was little overlap to begin with, with Fiskars and Vita, or is this more general cost cutting?
On these cost savings, it really comes to this, that for the brands, what do the brands really need to grow? And what are things that maybe in the past have been more from a overall Fiskars Group level, where we have been trying to do both for both?
Mm.
This comes from simplification and thinking about what are the needs of the businesses. You saw also when I talked about what is Fiskars and Vita, they are very different.
Mm.
Fiskars has huge, huge customers per country. Vita is direct-to-consumer. So now when we de-average how we operate, that's when we find the savings.
Yeah. Great, thank you.
Yeah.
And then, perhaps moving to Q3, and maybe, Jussi, you can take this. So, inventories were up year-over-year. What is the reason for higher inventories?
Of course, it's bearing in mind the last year, when we succeeded to cut inventory significantly, so there's this kind of natural bounce back also partially for that one. On a longer term basis, we continue driving down the inventory levels, so I would call this more like this kind of because of very good comparative type of topic.
Yeah. Great, thank you. And then regarding, maybe for Nathalie.
Mm.
Also Q3, why do you think the sales in the U.S. deteriorated sequentially in Q3?
In Q3, it really comes also when we look at if I start with Fiskars. Now, going forward, we are also always going to be very specific, this is Fiskars, this is Vita.
Mm.
With Fiskars, when we look at our big box players in the U.S., they have also come out with a weaker outlook for the full year, and it talks about the consumer behavior in DIY segment. So that's on the Fiskars side. Then on the Vita side, which is more luxury, we see that and also driven by luxury department stores in the U.S. There also we see that the traffic is down.
Mm
A nd the consumer sentiment is down in the categories and the kind of products that we are selling now in this market environment.
Yep. Thank you. So then, moving on to sort of M&A and Georg Jensen topics, perhaps first, a bit more general question to Nathalie. So you stated that now M&A is a part of the toolbox. Does this mean that your view and appetite for M&A has now changed compared to what you've communicated before?
I reiterate what I've communicated before. Like Jussi showed our financial targets, where we said that our net debt EBITDA target is below two point five. We are not there yet, but Jussi also said that we are coming into a strong cash-
Yeah
Cash flow season in Q4, so we first need to get the net debt EBITDA to our target level, and then we'll start to use our toolbox. But we are very systematic. We want to ensure that we identify and acquire the right targets.
Yes.
So not to rush.
No. Okay, thank you. And then regarding Georg Jensen synergies.
Mm-hmm.
As you continue, can you give an update? What's your run rate with Georg Jensen synergies, in end Q3, and what is expected in end of 2024 ?
Yeah. I'll start, and then I
Yeah
Hand over to Jussi. Like we said in July already when we came out with Q2, 75% of the EUR 18 million of cost out synergies in Georg Jensen were already in implementation. Why do I say implementation and not implemented? It's because many of it are volume driven. For example, when we have negotiated new terms with suppliers in sourcing, those don't materialize before we get the volumes in place. So action, execution-wise, we are nearly completed, except what I said, the IT, but we don't see the true run rate yet, and maybe you can comment on it.
Yeah. Exactly, the last tail what we have left is mainly related to IT. And on IT, now that we announced this, operationally, separate legal entities and the likes, we need to focus on how we succeed to get those benefits out from Georg Jensen IT integration, as well as setting up those separate legal entities. So I would say this further accelerates of having those savings in home.
Yeah.
Yeah. Maybe, Jussi, you can continue. There's also a question of when do we expect to reach the full run rate?
Also I'm referring to our stock exchange release today, when we said that the setup will be up and running now first of April 2025 onwards. The legal entity set-up, however, will be ready ideally after first quarter 2026. So I would say then we have a full well-functioning platform, we can accelerate the synergies.
Great.
Yeah.
Thank you. And then looking towards the end of the year, maybe Nathalie, can you enlighten us how much visibility you have for Q4, and what kind of consumer market do you envision for the important Q4 season?
Yeah. On Q4, like I said, it's very dependent on Black Friday. This is a global phenomenon. Our big customers are looking, what is the traffic in Black Friday? What is the traction? How do consumers behave online, and so on. And it's not purely only on our category, it's more much a broader consumer behavior. And from thereon, they do the replenishment for Christmas. Of course, we've filled all the shelves for Christmas already, but then I'm talking more about the replenishment. Then when it comes to Vita, with 50% of our net sales in direct consumer, it very dependent on consumer sentiment.
Mm.
What is the consumer sentiment, and what is the purchasing patterns for the gifting season, for the holiday season? So that is the whole world. China is a bit different because they have the Double 11 event that is already started now for the 11th of November. That is the main event. And then the build-up to Chinese New Year in December. Chinese New Year is at the end of January 2025.
Great.
Yeah.
We only have one more question left, so if you have any further questions.
Mm
P lease do type in them now. So this is also regarding Q4 and a bit more on the general cost savings, so I don't know, perhaps Jussi-
Yeah, I can take it.
Y ou would like to take that?
Yeah.
So going into Q4, how much net cost savings potential from profit improvement measures do you have left when taking into account, e.g., wage inflation?
Yeah. As I mentioned, year-to-date savings are over EUR 30 million there, out of which SG&A, roughly EUR 17, supply chain savings, roughly EUR 14. We still see that we are benefiting from those actions, what we have made in SG&A side, so there are savings flowing in. However, the incremental increase in those saving is now somewhat stabilizing. When it comes to supply chain, there I have a strong confidence in our supply chain organization that the plans, which we are still executing, they continue delivering the savings, not only in Q4, this year, but also 2025. So we savings overall, flowing in in Q4. Maybe the incremental improvement rate is now somewhat stabilizing from the previous quarter.
Okay, and we did just get one more question. Perhaps, Jussi, you continue on this.
Yeah.
So the other segment, EBIT loss, was small in Q3. Will we see an uptick in Q4, and is there any changes to the annual run rate?
The guidance we have given for this segment, other, where we have real estate, group functions, and the likes, is that the underlying negative EBIT per month is in the range of EUR 1 million to EUR 1.5 million, and that guidance holds. That's our normal underlying cost that we have in that segment. Now, that it was roughly EUR 2 million now in Q3, there are some. We talk about hundreds of case type of other operating income, which were we thought coming in in Q4, they come in now in Q3. But overall, I would say that that guidance holds, and it gives also a good proxy for a full year.
Great. Well, thank you very much. That's it for questions, but please, if you have any further questions, don't hesitate to reach out to the IR team. But now I hand over to Nathalie for some closing words.
Thank you, Noora, and thank you for the many good, good questions. Wrapping up another solid quarter for Fiskars Group, Q3. Higher profits, despite the lower volumes and all-time high gross margin. We are at the final leg of our transformation, and today we have announced the Brands First approach, where we are moving into having two operationally independent legal companies, headed by their own CEO, to drive speed and impact for future growth, and we keep our guidance intact. We also, like you're seeing here on the slide, we're also celebrating three hundred and seventy-five years, and the real anniversary is next week. So that's who we are in Fiskars Group. But thank you for the good discussion today, and take care.
Thank you.