Hi, everyone, and welcome to Musti's presentation of the interim report from 1st of October to 31st of December. We are happy to present the report here today. We are going to go through some interesting slides. We can maybe start with the showing the first one then, who's sharing. Are you sharing? Great. If you look at the first slide, the summary of the first quarter of the financial year 2023, we are extremely proud of the numbers that we have communicated today. We had a net increase with the net decrease sales of 13.1% in local currency. We had, of course, a negative effect in the FX, mainly impacting the Sweden and the Norwegian business.
We had a strong like-for-like in the quarter, came in at 7%. We also saw that our own and exclusive share of sales in the brands was coming at 53.7%, so a good number. We saw that we had a record cash flow in the quarter, extremely strong, EUR 18.7 million. During the quarter, we opened six stores. The last 12 months, it was actually 31. So we've been slowing down a bit. The adjusted EBITDA came in at EUR 19.1 million, partly had the negative impact of the FX. The FX impact was about EUR 1 million. So if we adjust for that, we were a bit ahead of last year.
Overall, good numbers, and maybe the one that we are most proud of is the loyalty base growth that was increasing with 11%. It's obvious that we are taking market share. If you look at the next slide, and go more into the numbers in detail, as I said, record sales and cash flow in the quarter, increased sales with 8.9%, 13.1% in local currency. We actually came in at the highest sales in EUR ever, EUR 110.4 million. The last 12 months, we are now over EUR 400 million in sales. So we are extremely proud about that. We were seeing that the growth of 13.1% was mainly coming from getting new customers into all three markets.
We are continuing to taking market share. If we look at the 7% like-for-like, we have seen that food and consumables was growing well, where the discretionary categories was growing a bit, not as fast as the other ones. We will come back to that later in the presentation. If we look at the Group's adjusted EBITDA, that decreased by 3.5% to EUR 19.1 in Q1, we saw that that was impacted by the FX of EUR 1 million in the period. That also had an impact, of course, of the EBITDA margin. That was 17.3 versus 19.6. Also have in mind that last year's Q1 was an exceptional quarter, with a very fantastic Christmas sales. The number of loyal customers was growing with 11%.
We have approximately now 1.5 million customers in the loyalty program. If we include all the customers that we have in the online verticals, we are at about 1.8 million customers. In Q1, the group's adjusted EBITDA decreased by 12.2% to EUR 11.7. Main reason of the decrease versus last year's quarter was due to discretionary products and negative FX effects. Also here, the FX effects was calculated to EUR 0.7 million. As I said, cash flow was good, up 41% to EUR 18.7 million. We can look more into the puppy acquisitions. Musti's puppy acquisitions continue to be very strong. That is indicating that we're taking market share.
Here in the slide, you can see that the last three months, puppy registrations or in Sweden was 4%. If you then compare it to what it was, -4%, if you look what we had as registration in the Musti Group, that was +3%. It's obvious that we are taking market share. If you look at the pre-COVID numbers, October to December 2019, the registrations in Svenska Djurhälsberget was 11%, and at the same time, we had 56%. Once again, we are taking market share, and it's proven that we are getting about 50%-60% of all puppies that is coming out to the market into our loyalty program, which is extremely good for us.
These puppies, as you know, will probably stick around for 10 years, which is of course extremely good for our long-term growth. Let's look more into the growth of the product categories. We had double-digit growth in the resilient food and consumable categories. As you can see here. The three categories here is the food, the consumables, and discretionary. Discretionary is standing for 25%-27% of our sales, whereas food and consumables is the rest, so over 70%. The food and the consumables has been very stable here as you can see over the quarters, growing with 15%-20%, and it's the discretionary products that's been swinging a bit over the quarters. The positive thing is that, even though the discretionary sales has been growing less, we've still had good growth.
This is in local currency. We also see that in Q1 2023, we were meeting then very strong comps in Q1 2022, but still we were having good growth. This will of course swing a bit back and forth during the discretionary products, and we have seen that the discretionary category has been impacted in a tougher demand environment. but nevertheless, good growth even though we've seen that the discretionary products is growing less than the food and the consumables. So let's look more into the sales. We had record sales in the quarter. said before EUR 110.4 million, 13% growth in local currency. If we look more into the countries, we can see that Finland had 8.5% growth in Q1, strong growth in stores and online.
Sweden had 13% growth in local currency, strong growth in stores and a bit lower online. Norway had 28% growth in local currency, so very strong growth in both stores and online. If we look at online share of sales, that came in about 22%, versus last year at 21.5%, so also more or less at the same levels. If you look at the sales over a longer period, the CAGR yearly sales between 2019 to 2022, it has been stable at 16%. Rolling the last 12 months, rolling 12 months was EUR 400 million. If we FX adjust it and look in local currency, it actually comes up to EUR 415 million.
Per segment, still Finland is the biggest country, 43% of the sales, where Sweden is close by, probably gonna grow ahead of Finland soon. Norway are at 16%. Yeah, so good progress on the top line. If we look at sales on a longer perspective, we can see that it has been coming down a bit since Q1 2022. Since then it has been on FX adjusted about 13% growth. If we move into 2-year growth, it's even more stable. You can see that it's been the peak there during the COVID periods, growing 40%-44%, and now coming down to maybe 30%-35%. On a 3-year basis, it's super stable. There it's close to 50%-60% on a 3-year basis.
These 3 years has been a fast-growing period for Musti, and the COVID pandemic increased growth for the pet sector globally, which is affecting those 1-year and 2-year comps. On a 3-year comps, it looks much more stable. Good growth, or especially if you look on a 3-year basis. Let's look at the gross margin development. Gross margin and O&E, you can see here on the slide, O&E came in at 53.7%, more or less the same level as last year. Overall, the O&E has been growing steadily the last years. There are a couple of things impacting gross margin. One is O&E. But in this case, in this quarter, we've seen that the gross margin came down from 47.5% to 45.9%.
The negative impact in the quarter is mainly driven through inflation, unfavorable currency rate development with FX, and lower sales in the discretionary products. We believe that we will also be able to do some price increases going forward to be able to adjust this gross margin part. Overall, a quite good development in the gross margin in especially in these demanding times, but we think that we can do better going forward. Now I will hand over to Toni that will go through Q4 EBITDA and the segments.
Thank you, David. Looking at the EBITDA track record years back, steadily going upwards and recalling those tough comps from the last year, what David mentioned and the currency headwinds are quite an okay and based on expectations, reaching those level targets in profitability. Going more into detail in the EBITDA, as David described, there's a lot of pressure in the gross margin, what we have faced. Vast majority of the impact in profitability compared to last year derives from there. We have defended against this by tough negotiation with the suppliers who want their price increases. We have pushed forward towards our customers a net price increase of 5%. Gross price increase is some extent higher from that.
The net price increase of 5% and kind of looking into the company internal processes to make it more efficient end-to-end supply chain and gain from that. Headwind also on EBITDA level, EUR 700,000 in the quarter compared to EUR 200,000 tailwind in year before. Positives also in the kind of cost side the group functions compared to last year. Cost towards sales from 8.1% towards 7.5%. We're on the right track with decisive actions on the scalability of the group. Especially group head office and central warehouse are performing more and more efficiently from quarter to quarter. Let's take a deeper dive into each market.
Finland, our most mature market with 140 stores, impressed us with 8.5% growth in the quarter. Really good performance on Finland on the top level and also on the profitability side. Looking at the percentages from kind of a record high level of 24%, declining after us, adding more hours into the stores and balancing our capabilities to serve customers better. We are now trending back towards somewhere on the midpoint of the kind of our lowest there, and the highest percentage towards 21%-22% levels in Finland. Sweden, getting the toughest beating on the exchange rate. Clearing the FX impact from Sweden growth, big difference between 4.3% reported and FX neutral of 13%.
Also the gross margin pressure, tougher in Sweden and in Norway due to the currency exchange. Kind of inflation in all of the countries quite on the same level, but then having sort of a double inflation in Sweden as the currency rate is changing so much compared year-on-year. Strong like-for-like, over 7%. Still EBITDA decreasing from last year a bit over EUR 1 million and a lot of negative currency exchange rate impacting in that one as well. Norway, our fastest growing market. At the moment, we are around 60 stores in Norway and opening on average one new store every month pace all over the country.
Bit of a headwind also in the currencies, what comes to the Norway, but excellent result, like-for-like of 6.5%. Cleaning the exchange rate impacts in Q1 had the kind of a impact from 23.7% to almost 28%. Gap there as well. EBITDA margin declining a bit from last year, but in EUR, improvement on year-on-year. Going to the financial position of the company. Like David mentioned in the beginning, Musti Group record cash flow in the quarter, almost EUR 19 million, resulting from the efficiency gained in the working capital structure and otherwise focusing more on the cash and ensuring that we have good cash flow for fueling our growth.
Gearing also improving from last year and net debt improving from last year coming down from the levels there. We have loans and commercial papers worth of EUR 72 million, and then lease liabilities closer to EUR 80 million in the group. And that's the composition of the net debt. Our target is to keep the leverage ratio below 2.5. And in the end of quarter, this was exactly 2 times EBITDA compared to adjusted last 12 months. Cash at the end of the period, EUR 15 million, and investments total to EUR 3 million. As mentioned already before, we are a bit slowing down on the pace of opening the new stores.
We focus on Sweden and Norway markets opening the new stores around 20-25 this year compared to the pace of almost 50 stores in the last 12 months behind us. Long-term targets unchanged. Today is the date also for dividend first part to split from the share and the payment of the first part of dividend is taking place eighth of February. Through that, handing back to you, David, and the summary.
Yes. Thank you very much. If you do the summary of the quarter, you can say that Musti had a record sales and a cash flow quarter. We had a sales increase of 13.1% in local currency with a strong 7% like-for-like. It's obvious that the pet sector has been proven to be resilient. I think that is showing here that over 70% of the products are non-discretionary. We also have proven that we continue winning new customers with 11% and gaining market share, looking at the puppy registrations and also how many customers we're getting into the system. We saw the decrease in profitability versus last record quarter, in the EBITDA it was then mainly related to lower sales of discretionary products and the negative FX effect of EUR 1 million.
Adjusted for the EUR 1 million, we will be a bit above last year. We are well on track with our long-term financial targets. With that, We're handing over to Q&A.
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. The next question comes from Adela Dashian from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. Yeah, my first question relates to your top line growth. With respect to the fact that you mentioned that you've increased prices to customers, net by 5%. Could you give us some more granularity on what the top line growth, the composition of volume versus price mix is?
Yeah, that's right. kind of looking at the traffic and the price. In the quarter it was mostly about the price, so around 5% on the price and 1-2% on the traffic.
Yeah, 2% traffic, 5% net price.
Excellent. Thank you very much. Also on further price increases, are you expecting to have to raise prices more throughout the year, or do you feel like you've done what you needed sufficiently to offset the inflationary pressures?
We are looking more price increases during the year, bit by bit. We are not doing anything, any sudden moves on that one, but continue on the road where we are persistently pushing big portion of the inflation forward.
Got it. Just if I may ask on the current trading now in January, are you seeing any downward pressure on the discretionary product categories in January that looks different from what you've just reported?
I think overall, we've seen that it's been quite stable, quite stable the last, I would say, six months, and it's still the same kind of trends we're seeing in January. quite good performance in the demand, or in a tough market.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Maria Wikström from SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Some of my questions were already answered, but few more. Just to clarify on the store opening, you plan for 20-25 for the full year.
Yeah
The figure that you gave?
Probably in the lower end.
Then you still have, like, some of these franchisees left. I mean, is there any update that? I mean, when you are able to, I mean, guess the idea is to acquire those remaining franchisees as well. Would you see that, I mean, there is, that's possible to complete already this year, or what's the outlook there?
Yeah, we, the franchise acquisition potential stores are included in those 20-25.
All right. Then I think in your closing remarks, David, you said that, I mean, you have a good confidence that you will be reaching your long-term targets and especially, I mean, I would like to ask on the profitability target, this over 30% EBIT margin by 2024. That what makes you so confident that you are going to reach that, given that I think we've been a little bit short on the profitability compared to the market estimates?
Yeah. No, I think we have a good plan of being able to reach it. If you look at the deviation today between about 13%-10%, there are a couple of reasons that will drive the margin upwards. We can say that 1% will come, roughly 1% will come through the J-curves in the stores that we're seeing. We should remember that we've opened, you know, over 30, close to 40 stores the last year and maybe close to 80, 90 stores the last two years. Acquisitions and opening close to 90 stores the last two years. Those are ramping up, so that would be 1%. The other then 1% will come, roughly through internal efficiency and cost reduction, et cetera, that we're working with.
The 3% will come from gross margin, and the gross margin is a cocktail of things. Of course, we know the O&E, it's kind of negotiations with our suppliers, it's lower contained prices, it's moving our own brands to our production facility, et cetera. Those 3%, it's in the plans and we are confident of reaching it.
Maybe there, just to clarify that, I mean, if you get this 1 percentage point from the gross margin, that how much of the, basically the food production comes from your own factory at that time?
Yeah, that's only one portion of that 1%. At the moment, if we look at our own food production, I would estimate that maybe 23%-25% of that production is happening in our own facility. There's a lot of runway on that one. We are ramping up the volumes all the time.
Finally, I mean, some, maybe some remarks on the competition that we've been, I mean, touched about on the recent quarterly reports as well that, like what do you see on the, like, competitive landscape and what do you see is the most, like, valuable asset with your brand to basically defend from, this increasing competition?
I think, I think overall the, you know, everything that we have in the concept, together makes us extremely competitive. If you look at, first of all, that we have our own brands, we have a wide assortment, we have staff that is giving trusted advice that is that has all the knowledge in the space. We have services, we have convenience, we have stores, and the omnichannel with home deliveries, fast deliveries. Kind of everything in our concept that we're delivering, if we tick all of those boxes and compare it versus groceries, online or small independents, et cetera, I think, we are ticking, you know, a lot more boxes than the others.
Perfect. Thank you. I have no further questions.
Please state your name and company. Please go ahead.
Hi, Svante Krokfors from Nordea. Thank you, David and Toni, for the presentation. Some of the questions have already been answered. Coming back to Finland, Toni, you mentioned that you see Finland at 21%-22% adjusted EBITA level going forward from the current around 20. What are the main components of that improvement?
That's a good question, Svante. It's more how we balance the hours in the stores, optimize the store staffing in different type of stores. We have really small stores with one-person staff and then bigger stores with more employees. At the same time, how we balance the training hour and how we can find efficiencies in our processes, kind of a back office versus the front office. We're looking different type of digital solutions for handheld devices into the stores that optimize the dismantling the shipments into the store. We are installing a new system for price tags into the store and a list of many small things that together contribute to more efficient Musti store.
It's about working with the processes, working with the technology and optimizing the staffing in the stores in a way that we still are able to provide the high-quality Musti trusted advice.
Thank you, Toni. A question about Sweden. I mean, obviously, FX headwinds impacted EBITA margin, were there also other components? I think, to me at least, the margin was a bit low even adjusting for FX.
Yeah, that's right. We have the discretionary sales, which was very strong in Sweden a year ago. The balance between online and store sales, which kind of in Sweden, the online share of sales is higher than in other countries. We have similar type of opportunities in kind of a Sweden store efficiency as we have in Finland and, for sure in Norway as well.
Thanks. Regarding Norway, I mean, we have been used to quite high like-for-like growth numbers. Now two quarters have been clearly below 10. What should we expect from the coming quarters and years?
On the kind of a long-term game, we see that Norway is probably gonna be the most profitable country at some point in these three, which are in the group at the moment. It's the FX and the inflation pushing Norway. Also in Norway, we see maybe kind of a increased competition happening there. If large box store open close by to Musti, we need to also then locally react to the kind of a competition and some aggressive pricing happening in the Norway market. A combination of these things in a short term, but on a longer term, we believe into our model and continue developing that.
A question regarding own and exclusive products, which have now, share has turned up. What have you done actively there? Or, is it more of a normalization after the pandemic?
Yeah, I think, what we've been working with is that, especially with the online verticals, we've been trying to increase the own and exclusive more than before. We're seeing that Sweden has the most potential in increasing it. The last we're meeting of course last year high numbers of discretionary products. Now it was a bit lower in sales, so that takes it down. I think we believe that the O&E will be maybe a bit more stable and slowly upgoing going forward. While we don't believe in this massive jump up to kind of a 55%-60%, it will take gradually going upwards.
Thanks. The last question regarding inventory. I mean, your cash flow was quite strong in Q1 and I think inventories were broadly flat quarter on quarter. What are the concrete measures to lower networking capital for Q2 to Q4?
Yeah, that's a really good one. We are working a lot with the net working capital, so different components. One coming from the payment terms. We have started kind of categorizing our suppliers in different buckets and pushing the payment terms to be more favorable for Musti. Then one big portion is the purchasing levels. During the COVID, when we started to see that the supply chain is a bit shaky, we took our adequacy levels up on purpose. Now we are then starting to adjust into a more normal world in that one and also kind of the top line growth difference between the kind of a couple of past years and how the world looks now.
Turning the purchasing volumes down and then being active on the inventory management that we are looking in a smart way how we can push the slower moving part of the inventory, which is the discretionary part, the dog outdoor, scratchers for cats and beds for dogs and that part out. What is kind of a positive in this one that the inventory which is moving a bit slower is not having a best before date. Food has been circling through the inventory all the time quite rapidly, but we also see opportunities there to be a bit more efficient on the inventory levels. Mainly those three parts. Payment terms, purchasing levels, and then managing the current inventory.
Overall we can see that we are, we're seeing positive on the on the cash flow going forward.
Okay, thanks. One more question regarding the J curve of new stores. You haven't seen any... I mean, the environment has changed quite a bit, obviously. You don't see any kind of... We shouldn't expect anything different now from the store J curve going forward?
Exactly. No, we're constantly looking at the J-curves, and they are still performing as we are hoping. No difference there.
Okay. Thank you, David and Tony. That's all from me.
Thank you.
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