Hi, good morning, and welcome to the Kamux Q4 and full year 2022 results presentation. My name is Juha Kalliokoski. I'm CEO and Founder of Kamux.
Good morning. My name is Marko Lehtonen. I'm Kamux CFO.
As usual, I will present an overview, and Marko will then present more details on the financials as on our country-by-country performance. Here is our agenda for today's presentation. Financial development, strategy, outlook, and financial targets. Then we summarize those. Our vision is to be number one on the used car retailer in Europe. Our vision is to be number one used car retailer in Europe remains unchanged. When we come to the market, what happens last year, it was very tough year for us and of course, the whole used car industry. The market environment was very challenging in Q4.
For the first time in Kamux history, the group revenue decreased and was EUR 222.9 million. Gross profit and adjusted operating profit decreased significantly. The good news of the quarter were sales of integrated services, which developed very well in all our operating countries, and we were as high as EUR 15.3 million and nearly 7%. As said, the market environment was very challenging, and consumer confidence was low, and the market for used car contracted in all Kamux operating countries. During the last quarter, we maintained our market share in all our operating countries. For the whole year, we maintained our share in Finland. In Sweden, our market share grew slightly. It was approximately 1.2% in Sweden and earlier, roughly 1%.
In Europe, registration of new cars started to grow again in August to December, and especially in Germany, the year ended on the high note. In Sweden, Q4 in used car sales last year was very high. The beginning of 2023 has again been weaker in all countries. During the last quarter, the U.K.-based Cazoo sold its business in Italy and Spain and downsized its operations in Germany and France, as it withdrew from continental Europe as per its earlier announcement. The Aramis Group acquired Cazoo's Italian business. During the Q4, CarNext also continued the withdrawal from its business to consumer activities and closed its operations in the Netherlands, Italy and France. About market development in January to February, consumer confidence is still on a low level, but has improved slightly.
In January, the market in Germany started to grow. In Sweden, the double-digit negative development is now one digit only. In Finland, the market decline in January was very small, only 1.1%, and in February, the market grew by 1.5%. It's nice to see that market recovered in the start of 2023. The decrease in revenue was primarily due to a lower number of sold cars. Adjusted operating profit was also burdened by the weak car margin. There was a fair amount of pressure in the market and some players made quite big offers, for example, offering cash backs and low interest rates. Many were trying to push cars to the market from their inventory.
If the demand was there and there was so much cars available, it means that the prices went down very rapidly. Prices for used cars declined, especially in the more expensive price classes. As an example, prices of Tesla Model Y, for example, start of August, and compared to the December last year, it's declined roughly EUR 15,000. This is only one example, but you understand what happened in the market. Professional sellers were blocked. No one wanted to buy. The market contracted in all our operating countries throughout the year. All quarters in all countries decreased versus previous years. In all my 30 years in the business, I have not seen the market dive this way.
At the end of the year, consumer confidence was at its lowest level in 30 years in all countries. We can be very happy and satisfied about the development of the integrated services. The sales of integrated services increased by 19% and were almost 7% of revenue. This marks the highest ever sales of integrated services at Kamux history in euros. We were very successful in selling financing and Kamux Plus products. Sales of integrated sales of insurance services developed positively in Sweden. In Finland, especially the renewed Kamux Plus service sold well, the penetration growing from 19%- 29%. Since of the beginning of 2023, we have also renewed Kamux Plus on Sweden. In Germany, the penetration of financing services increased significantly from 19%-31%.
It should be noted that the income from financing services and Kamux Plus is distributed over the entire contract period. On February 10th, we announced that we will open a new showroom in Düren, Southwest of Cologne. The showroom will have approximately 200 cars, it is our first showroom in Germany outside the Greater Hamburg area. The location is excellent, as more than three million people live in the triangle formed by the nearby Cologne, Aachen, and Düsseldorf. The area also borders Belgium and the Netherlands. In early January, we announced that we will combine two showrooms in Tampere, Finland. In connection to this, the utility vehicle sales in Tampere moved to the dedicated location in the Lakalaiva area. In this year, the focus is improve our profitable. Concerning strategy and financial targets, this will be updated in early 2024. Here you are, Marko. Take over about the financial development.
Thanks, Juha. As Juha was describing, the market situation was difficult also in quarter four, and the demand of cars was sluggish. However, in the big picture, we can see that the gross margin per car was EUR 1,442 and it slightly weakened from the previous year. Revenue from the integrated services grew 19%, and clearly faster than the revenue from the than the revenue itself. Operating costs were at the previous year level, the net cash flow from operating activities was EUR 26.9 million, a significant improvement from the previous year. I will come back to that bit later.
The return on equity was 10.1%, weakening from the previous year. The equity ratio was strong, 53.2%, improving from the previous year. If you think about the end of the year, we basically had interest-bearing debts EUR 22.8 million and lease liabilities, according to IFRS 16, EUR 40.5 million. We had also a net cash, so cash in in the bank account, EUR 4.2 million. Technically speaking, the interest-bearing net debt at the end of the year was EUR 18.6 million. The balance sheet was in really good shape at the end of the year. Earnings per share was 0 in the last quarter and decreased significantly from the previous year.
As I have been also talking before, the strong balance sheet has been the backbone of our growth strategy. Juha was going through the quarter four results and the key figures there, I will not repeat them all. A few notes there. The gross profit declined compared to the previous year being EUR 21.2 million, -25.9%. As we said, the integrated services sales was developing well, but that didn't offset the car trading margin or car trading results. Also at the end of the year, we made a significantly higher write-off to the inventory in Finland and Sweden. That was also impacting negatively to the gross profit.
When you're looking at the whole year, the revenue was EUR 968.7 million, growing 3.3%. Even in this very challenging situation, we managed to grow the revenue. The operating profit was EUR 17 million, and Adjusted operating profit EUR 17.5 million. The inventory turnover was 51.5 days, which is slightly less, or worse than previous year being 49, 9.3. In the quarter four, it was 52.9 days, so the direction or the development is in correct direction. As I was saying, the equity ratio was strong and the balance sheet was in really good shape at the end of the year.
If we look our segments and start with the Finland. In Finland, the decrease in revenue was mainly due to a decrease in number of sold cars, and of course, the decrease in used car prices also contributed to the decrease in revenue. The revenue decreased 7.4% being EUR 146.1 million, and the gross margin decreased compared to the previous year was EUR 15.1 million or 10.3% of the revenue. Operating profit decreased by 52% compared to the previous year being EUR 4.9 million, and this was due to the decrease of number in sold cars as well as the average profit margin per car. The car margin, so margin from car trading, was very weak.
We have, of course, made measures to change the inventory to meet the changed demand and the situation in the market, and that also had a negative impact on the operating profit. Revenue from the integrated services increased to EUR 11.5 million, being 7.9% of revenue. Sweden. In Sweden, the market was difficult in the last quarter. In our business, the total revenue decreased by 22.5% compared to the previous year and was EUR 59.7 million. Have to bear in mind that total revenue also include the sales to other Kamux countries, mainly to Finland, and the demand was also in Finland, so fewer cars were imported or sold to Finland than the previous year.
External revenue or turnover declined 11.6%. Gross margin decreased compared to the previous year and was EUR 3.5 million or 5.9% of revenue. The operating income decreased compared to the previous year being EUR 0.9 million operating loss compared to EUR 0.1 million previous year. Integrated services developed also favorably in Sweden, and the penetration of insurance services increased. The integrated revenues services revenue increased to EUR 1.9 million or being 3.5% of external revenue. Operating profit decreased due to the decrease in number of sold cars as well as decrease in the average margin per car. Investments in growth also weakened operating profit, and we opened two new showrooms in Sweden.
We are at the moment not planning to open any new showrooms in Sweden, but we focus on improving the profitability of our current operations in Sweden. In Germany, market was also difficult, but have to say that the similar market development what we had concerning EVs, so electric vehicles, or plug-in hybrids, was not exactly consisting Germany. There, of course, the business was or market was a bit more solid. In this situation, external revenue decreased by 9.5% and the total revenue 13%. Also there, the deliveries to other Kamux countries was slightly decreasing compared to the previous year. The total revenue was EUR 23 million. Gross margin was at previous year level and amounted to EUR 0.6 million or 11.2% of revenue.
Have to bear in mind that in the previous year, in the 2021 quarter four, we had EUR 0.4 million related to the VAT return of this purchasing incident we had in Germany. Operating profit decreased compared to the previous year and was EUR 0.3 million. In comparable terms or basis, we were actually a bit better. It was EUR 0.3 million or 1.3% of total revenue. Penetration of financing services developed really well, from 19%-31%, and the sales of financing services was EUR 1.9 million or 8.4% of external revenue. It of course, in difficult conditions, our German business was performing well.
If we move on to the balance sheet side, as I was telling in the quarter three results presentation, the purchasing market was starting to ease and the purchasing market was not so tight as before. We did not need to anymore keep so high inventory in the fear that we are not able to replenish it if we need to. We were now able to really adjust the inventory amount considering the current demand on hand. Of course, in that sense, we were able to reduce well the amount of inventories and also net working capital. Also, we were increasing the usage of data when guiding the inventory and this DSP process, so demand-supply planning process, is now in use in all operating countries.
When this purchasing market has been normalizing, when the demand, overall demand was a bit weaker, but also the new car delivery times has been starting to get a bit shorter, which has been, of course, releasing more used cars to the markets as well. In the net net working capital compared to the previous year, quarter four, the development was not so rapid as in the inventories. This is mainly due to the Finnish customs IT system change, which was causing delays for the car tax decisions, meaning that our accounts payables that time were higher than normally. That situation has of course now normalized during the year 2022, so it doesn't anymore impact.
It impacts the comparison number last year. When we look at the cash flow from the operating activities, it is of course directly impacted by the changes in the inventory we have and of course, in the operating activities, we can now see really well the change in working capital and this reduction in inventory impacting us positively. The cash flow from operating activities was EUR 26.9 million, which is the all-time high in Kamux history in one individual single quarter. About the investments. We still continue to invest in leading with the knowledge, and here the focus is very much building in-house competence.
In Q4, the investments were EUR 0.7 million, we invested roughly EUR 0.4 million to material goods and mainly to the new stores, and EUR 0.3 million to immaterial goods. I also would like to remind that with the new IFRS treatment, when we invest to ready-made softwares which are SaaS-based, those investments are not fully capitalized, but they are basically written as operating expenses as those projects continue or as they develop. That of course has some impact, the investments going forward and comparing to the previous periods. We have also enforced our own digital capabilities, that of course is visible now when looking the group function costs compared to the investments.
Meaning group functions cost has been slightly increasing, and investments has been slightly decreasing. We are doing now more in this field ourselves. The board of directors is proposing a dividend of EUR 0.15 per share to be distributed from the year 2022, and it would be paid in two installments. The first dividend installment, EUR 0.05 per share on May 2nd, and the second dividend installment, EUR 0.10 per share October 31st. In 2022, the earnings per share were EUR 0.27, and the proposed dividend is 55% of the net profit. The annual general meeting will be held on April 20, and where this matter will be also decided. I will move to the strategy outlook and financial targets. In this strategy period, the very focus point or component has been accelerating growth.
Of course, the market situation itself has been not supporting this, but making it quite difficult. Difficult task, of course. In this situation, when the market has been difficult, of course, we have been also concentrating much on Fundamental issues, basic issues, meaning buying, selling, and of course the customer experience. If thinking about the different strategic pylons or areas where we are driving the improvements, we have now, concerning the customer experience, we have now improved our web pages in the last quarter, and they are now more customer-friendly or helping customers to select and find cars with us. Also, I was mentioning about the utilization of data, so the DSP process is now in use in all countries.
Concerning the efficient processes, scalability and store strategy, we opened 2 new stores in Sweden, we constantly invest on capabilities and our employee training. Concerning the financial targets, I will maybe shortly go through just the actual from the last year. Revenue growth of annually was 3.3%. Adjusted operating profit, EUR 17.5 million. Adjusted operating profit margin, 1.8%. Return on equity, 10.1%. Dividend, proposed dividend for the year 2022 is 55%. For the main performance components in this very difficult year, we didn't achieve the financial targets for the strategy period. Outlook for the 2023. In used car market there is still a great deal of concern and different uncertainties. The consumer confidence is still relatively low.
Interest rates have been raising. Inflation is high. Of course, the discussion, especially in Finland, between the power sources has been strong. Therefore, we are saying that the outlook for 2023 is that we expect the Adjusted operating profit to grow from the year 2022 when the Adjusted operating profit was EUR 17.5 million. I finally summarize this all. Revenue decreased by 8.7% to EUR 222.9 million. Gross profit decreased by 25.9% to EUR 21.1 million. Adjusted operating profit decreased by 76.6% to EUR 2.1 million or an 0.9% of revenue. Like-for-like showroom revenue decreased by 10.9%.
Sales of integrated services progressed very well in all operating countries, and revenue from integrated services was EUR 15.3 million or 6.9% of total revenue. The market environment was exceptionally challenging, consumer confidence was low, and the market contracted in all operating countries. Thank you for your attention, and we are happy to answer your questions.
Thank you, Marko. Thank you, Juha. We will first take questions from the teleconference participants, if there are any.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial star five again on your telephone keypad. If you are using speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off. Voice prompt on phone line will indicate when your line is open. Please state your name before your question. The next question comes from Calle Loikkanen from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, Juha and Marko, and thank you for taking my question. I have a few questions. Maybe we can take them one by one. If we start with the outlook or the guidance, you didn't give any guidance on sales, and the EBIT guidance of course leaves a lot of upside. Could you perhaps elaborate a bit more on what your assumptions here are and, how we kind of think about this guidance?
As I was saying that, there are a great deal of uncertainty and of course the picture around consumer inflation interest rates is challenging. We experienced also in the quarter four, some quite rapid changes in the pricing. Therefore we see that this guidance is right. I think it also underlines that really the focus is in this fiscal year to improve the profitability of Kamux Group.
Okay. Okay. Thank you. Got it. About the, about the kind of visibility that you have now, is it better now when you look at, you know, the next 6 months- 12 months? Is your visibility better now than what it was, you know, half year ago or something? Has it kind of improved now or is it still very difficult to see what's gonna happen in the market?
Of course, we don't know, well, what happens in the market. When we compare to the last year that there is many jumps between the power sources and not so healthy development of used EVs when we speak about the prices which was higher than the new ones. That changed Q4 last year, and now we are at a normal situation when we think about the pricing in the compared to the power source each, to each other. That's why we believe that the market is more normalized. As this two first months, January, February, we see that the market change in all countries more normalizing.
Okay. Thank you. That's very helpful. Maybe a couple of questions on the inventory side. The inventory came down quite significantly during Q4, and you mentioned that the purchasing market has improved, which meant that you could have a lower inventory. Was there any write-downs in the inventory in Q4, or where did that big drop in inventory come from?
If you think about the inventory change in euro-wise, of course, the big drop compared to previous year was coming really that we had less euros tied in inventory, so also less cars or less expensive cars. We were also trying to manage the value of the inventory better and also manage the inventory. In this situation that we really, as I was saying, didn't have this excess inventory on the top, but really the right amount of inventory for the particular situation what we have. As I was saying, that the write-offs, which you can now also see the differences in the cash flow statement, the write-offs were significantly higher than in the past quarters, reflecting the situation in the used car market.
We focus also at the end of last year the purchase, the cheaper one cars. This was when we compared the average price of the car, cars in inventory, it was lower compared to the, for example, Q3.
Okay. Okay, thank you. Then maybe just continuing on the inventory side, we have seen Tesla, for example, lowering prices in January, that has also impacted prices of other EVs. Does this mean kind of further pressure on car margins in Q1 or how should we think about this?
In our inventory there was some tens of Teslas. Of course, it's impacted all the prices of Teslas. If you think about the whole year, we would say that doesn't matter. If you compare it to the end of last year, there was, for example, in net there were over 1,000 Tesla 3 models on sales. Now there is 300 something. It's the normal and healthy level of the cars what are available on just now.
Okay. Okay, good. Then my final question on the integrated services, which developed very, very well in Q4. Was there a lot of kickbacks in the quarter in the integrated services, or was this kind of a normal kind of level of that business?
The Integrated Services revenue was in line with our expectations, so there was not really positive or negative surprises so much. Of course, depending on the country, the profile might be, for example, in maybe in Germany, the annual kickback is relatively large compared, for example, to other countries. In overall, not really like significant surprises there. Of course, one element is important is that the penetration rates, so meaning that the genuine demand for the financing services have been good, and especially, penetration has been raising rapidly in Germany from 19% to 31%. I would call that normalizing now the demand post-COVID-19 times.
Okay. Okay, that's very clear. Thank you. Thank you very much. That's all from me. Thank you.
Thank you, Calle. I believe there are no further questions from the teleconference. We hand into the audience here at Sanomatalo. Any questions here?
Jussi Pullinen. About Kamux competitive advantages, I would like to hear some comments from you, how evolution of those advantage have, let's say, happened during last 2 years- 3 years. For example, database management, multi-channel sales, purchasing, cost management or low cost operations and turnover of inventory and integrated services. How these advantages of Kamux have been developed during last years? Any changes?
If we think about those areas, what you mentioned, along with the strategy period 2021- 2023, as we show always these four focus areas, I describe the focus points there or what we have accomplished there. I think we have done a great deal of work in the customer experience, omni-channel customer experience, also leading with data and knowledge and with the network strategy and with the training. I think all of those have been going. Of course, I mean, let's be honest here, when we look the numbers and this market situation, We don't quite see that that would have been yet yielding a big leap in the sales or the profitability.
We believe that those actions are very correct and some things are going, for example, when we think about operating cost. Even though the inflation is running relatively high, the operating cost was in previous year level in quarter four. In that sense, I think some efficiency we have been capturing there. Of course, overall we are not satisfied with the performance. That's very clear.
Maybe I add on one KMS, which is, which is the coming years our own ERP and own system and we can develop it and handle. The big picture is that we can sell the cars in the Europe and use the old stock, old cars what we have into all countries. This is the big possibility for us.
Second question about Sweden and density of showrooms. You said that in short or medium term, you are not planning to open new ones, but in long term, what is the optimum showroom amount in Sweden? Is it the same as in Finland? Same showroom density in long term?
Yeah. Well, Marko, what Marko mentioned, we mean that this year we don't open any more stores in Sweden and focus totally in profit side. Of course, the market changes, and in our strategy what we mentioned that maybe we don't open so many stores because those are bigger ones and really don't yet know how many we need in Sweden and we are quite carefully how many we open there. How the market, what is the customer, how the customer wants to buy a car? Is it online or on or the stores?
Thank you.
Yes. Thomas Westerholm from Inderes. If we start off with the integrated services, you had a strong penetration this quarter. How much was it about aggressive pricing relatively to your historical levels, and do you expect this high penetration to continue going forward?
I would say, what we discussed also in the quarter three, maybe it was even your question, I don't remember, what happens when the interest rates are raising, we have been also making in the same token, the raises for the customer interest. I would not say that we are doing any aggressive pricing on the integrated services. I would say that the demand there is relatively genuine and solid on that basis.
Great. About the sourcing market, how does it look so far going into 2023? Seems like the demand for used cars has been surprisingly strong here in Finland, are you seeing any shortage of, example given, cheaper models or newer models?
When looking back few years, have to bear in mind in the new car market, years 2021, 2022 have been relatively weak, so near new models and especially, when the car manufacturers have been concentrating more on the higher-end models. I mean, if they had scarcity with the components, they have preferred to produce a bit more higher spec cars than the lower specs. That has been maybe doing that, if looking, like, near new cheaper cars, that, I think, is a quite congested purchasing place at the moment. Other than that, I don't really recognize. I don't know if you, Juha, have?
Great. If we go to your sourcing channels, how have they changed since the pre-pandemic years?
We have quite a similar associates what we have also earlier. Maybe focus is more about the purchase from the private customers. There is we purchase more than earlier.
Could you please provide us with some color on how the share purchase from private customers has developed?
We didn't get it out. It's inside news.
Okay. Fair enough. How about metal margins this year? Do you see the difficult pricing environment from Q4 continuing into this year?
Maybe we come to the our outlook, that we believe and expect that our profit is actually, the operating profit is higher this year than previous year.
Okay. That's all for me. Thanks.
Thanks.
Thank you, Thomas. I have a number of questions from the chat, and I'm gonna try and combine some of them in the interest of time and pick the ones that haven't been addressed as of yet. One question going back to the outlook and about, you know, the weighing of sales and profitability, and a question specifically to the other announcement that we published this morning about the change in the earnings criteria of the share-based incentives. Is this also verifying the profitability focus in the share-based incentive criteria?
As I was saying, Juha was also underlining that, given the challenges we had last year, especially some markets we had, challenges, the focus point really is to improve Kamux Group profitability. Answer is yes, that is, of course, in line with this one.
Okay. Thank you. A couple of questions related to potential acquisitions and market environment, particularly perhaps outside of Finland. Firstly, do you see a potential to acquire potentially struggling players or take over showrooms from competitors that are withdrawing from certain countries and/or particularly opportunistic within the gaps that the players are leaving behind?
We are constantly receiving different offers from struggling businesses or where the owners have decided to look different direction. As you very well know, we have been relatively careful with our M&A efforts completing only one acquisition of showroom in Kamux history. That is, of course, not excluded and that is possible, but currently nothing else to say about that.
Okay. Related to Germany, a further question. We have announced one store opening in Düren in April. Are you going to open more stores this year in Germany? I mean, obviously we wouldn't have published, but if you wish to give any color into the expansion plans on Germany.
Maybe it was after Q3 when someone asked about the German and how we or when we open the new stores, and I mentioned that hopefully quite soon, and it took some months after that we announced it. Of course, in Germany we are in a growing mode, and we have a strong leader in there, and hopefully we can see that we open also some other store in this year.
Very good. A question on financing services and risks related to the increase in interest rates. Do you see that they could be negatively impacted, so whether the financing services can be negatively impacted by the increasing interest rates?
As I was saying that, when the interest rates were raising rapidly last year, we have been also in same line. When the interest rates have been raising, we have been raising the pricing. Of course, currently, as you see in the quarter four, the demand was solid, good, and penetration was good. Of course, I mean, if the interest rates would significantly raise, there might be a tipping point in there and when it starts to impact the customer demand. I would say that our risk is mainly coming really on this weakening demand if the price gets too high. Other, w e don't take other risks related to these contracts.
Thank you. A couple of other questions related to in tegrated services and how they are recognized. There's a request for how should investors think about gross margins for integrated services? Is it 100%? A reminder on how financing services from Germany are recognized in the P&L.
If you think about the finance or insurance services, there we are selling third-party products, meaning that what we receive is practically speaking, commissions. You could say that very high margin. In the Germany, the revenue recognition model is slightly different and coming also from the local market conditions. In the German market, the main practice is that when we sell the customer a contract, after sale of contract, we get the revenue fully from the contract for us and of course then we have annual agreement with our provider where is then different criteria defined for us where we also earn.
That is slightly different compared to Finland and Sweden with the main other partners there, where we are recognizing the revenue from the contracts over the time.
Thank you. I've got two further questions. We're starting to run out of time. Let's see if we can have a relatively quick answers to these. EBITDA in Sweden was negative for the first time in four years. What's the focus in Sweden to improve the situation?
We have there five projects where we focus on and it's totally easy tasks as we can say on the purchase side and a little about the sales side and then the in-inventory management. Those KPIs what we have typically also in all countries, but there is the extra focus in Sweden just now. Those are quite basic things what we are doing in Sweden.
Very good. Finally, a request in terms of whether we could publish results quicker in the new year. Is there anything? Could we shorten the period ahead of publishing the results?
I think that is question for me. We have not been a very fast publisher, and I recognize that we could and should be faster. Of course, have to bear in mind that we have been putting significant effort on developing our systems and processes and of course that, at the same time it has been relatively difficult to push also those times a bit faster. Thanks for the feedback. I will keep that in my mind.
Okay. Very good. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Have a great day.