Very good. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Musti Q4 and Financial Year 2025 webcast. David and Robert will run the presentation, and once they are done, we have spared some time for a Q&A session. So I will hand over to David.
Thank you very much, and welcome everyone listening into our financial statements release for 2025. Starting off with the landscape where we are today with our 497 locations, 54 vet clinics, and 173 spas. So we have been growing a lot, as you can see, in new markets as well. Starting off in Finland with Musti ja Mirri & Peten, we have 136 stores and also, of course, our e-com, both pure play and omni. When we look at Sweden, 137 stores in Arken and one in VetZoo. We are going to open more stores in VetZoo, Sweden, this year. In Norway, growing rapidly, as we saw in the headlines in the report, performing extremely well with 91 stores, and also our e-com and pure play.
The new countries that we took in during the year, Baltics with 67 stores in e-com, and then the new acquisition of ZU, 65 stores. We are soon going over 500 locations, and this year we have a plan to open more than 50 stores in total. It's going to be interesting to see the growth going forward. If we move on and look a bit more into the numbers, we can see that the financial year 2025 came in super good. If we look at the quarter, EUR 140 million sales, good growth versus last year. Net sales increased 14.6%, so really, really strong number. Like-for-like also increased more than last year, 2.8%. Something that we've been talking a lot about, and still are focusing a lot in is our own and exclusive brands, and share of sales of that was 52.4%.
Also an increase versus last year, fourth quarter. Cash flow, super strong, mainly related to net working capital, came in at EUR 23.4 million. Online net sales, the online like-for-like sales was quite slow. We did a platform change during the quarter in VetZoo, so that's why the sales in the pureplay part was a bit lower. But it's ramping up nice now. So we did it during the quarter, now good momentum in this quarter. Number of customers growth, a bit slower, also related to platform change. Gross margin had a fantastic development, 45.1% versus 44% last year's quarter. O&E percentage net sales was impacting that. So, and of course, less discounting, more full price, and also all the initiatives that we've been working with during the year with our own brands is now giving good impact.
So coming down then to the Adjusted EBITDA, EUR 19.5 versus last year's EUR 17.2. And in those 19.5, there are also a couple of million EUR that has been burdened as a result during the quarter that we relate to investments for, for getting more efficiency in growth going forward. So very, very happy with the quarter, and the year, but especially the quarter was very strong from our side. So if we move on and, and look more into the topics, we can see that we were performing really well in the quarter from, from a sales perspective, 14.6%. That's including then, of course, acquisition of Pet City and ZU. Norway was performing really well, strong development in, in more or less all the areas. So sales, gross margin, and profitability. And we can see that we ended up at the full year of EUR 508.9 million, also very good growth.
So, stable 8% growth CAGR since 2022. And when we look at the sales per the countries, still, so Finland, still the biggest part of the pie, but we're seeing that Sweden is getting close. And then also Norway growing fast, and we have added the new markets with 9%. So stable and good growth and very strong performance, especially in the last, in this last quarter of the year. If we move on and look at the margin, super happy to see that the gross margin is also coming up, even though we're having this fantastic growth. So, high double-digit growth numbers with increasing gross margin. So a couple of things driving that gross margin uplift. And as I said earlier, O&E, very important, as you can see, increasing versus last year.
Still not at the level where it was, but we should also have in mind that we've added new countries that is taking it down a bit. But of course, moving our production to our production facility in PPF is having an impact. Sales, with more full price, less discounting, having an impact, and also, of course, then the higher sales of own brands. So good performance, and a good trend in our gross margin. And we look at the profitability. So if we look at the middle of the page, of course, you can see that we have been declining a bit. So we came in more or less flat, versus last year in Adjusted EBITDA, so EUR 62.6, EUR 61.2. But I think the most important thing here is to see the trend.
So we started off with a quite weak first quarter of the year. It was not mainly sales, but it was more from a gross margin and a cost perspective. During the year, we have been improving sales, but also gross margin. And then in the last quarter now, we really broke through with a fantastic growth. And as I said a bit earlier, that we have a couple of million EUR that has been impacting the result related to initiatives for further investment, further expansion, efficiency, and growth. So without those, it would be even better. But still, fantastic trend, I would say, especially when starting the year a bit slower, and now we are going out the year very, very much stronger. So good trend in the business, good top-line growth, good gross margin growth, and now also the profitability.
So with this, I'd like to hand over to Robert that will go through the segments more in detail.
Yes, thanks, David. So let's start with Finland. Finland ended up in a sales increase of 3.2%, but actually the like-for-like sales increase was 4.5%, which actually is quite good given the current market conditions. And we ended up at the sales of EUR 53 million. We also saw an increasing absolute profitability of Adjusted EBITDA, now EUR 13.2 million compared to EUR 12.8 million last year, same quarter, and with the same margin as the quarter last year, a bit. So, of course, with better like-for-like, we also get better scalability, and that contributes. But as David said, this, we at this stage still kind of invest into a few in the future, which brings then costs into the business that offset maybe the kind of a growth, the profitability improvement potential.
And our Adjusted EBITDA for the full year then ended up at EUR 37.3 million and a margin at 33.9%. Then moving on to Sweden. Sweden sales increased by EUR 7.1 million. However, like for like was actually negative and -1.7%. David mentioned about the platform changes that, of course, temporarily had an impact. We also see strong price competition on the online market that drives down the kind of a sales growth. Otherwise, store network performed quite okay, and then we also had a strong kind of a impact from the exchange rate of EUR 1.7 million. Profitability, Adjusted EBITDA landed at EUR 9.5 million compared to EUR 8.8 million last year. So also here, an increase, given the price fight and the platform change. However, the Adjusted EBITDA margin stayed at the same level.
For the full year, we ended up at EUR 33.1 million adjusted EBITDA and 17.6%. Then moving into Sweden to Norway, and this is maybe quite a repetition of earlier quarters. Norway is performing, continues to perform very well. Now the sales increase was 17.6%, like for like was 9.7%, with very small impact from FX changes. We ended up at the sales of EUR 24.3 million. Also we saw an improving margin, both kind of improving profitability, both absolute and also compared to sales. So the adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was EUR 6.1 million compared to EUR 5 million last year and ended up at 25% EBITDA margin. On a year level, the adjusted EBITDA was now EUR 18.2 million. And then last but not least, the new markets segment, including the acquired business Pet City, which we acquired in November 2024, and Zu that we acquired in December 2025.
Sales of this, for Zu we only have one month in, for Pet City, we have the full year. So now the sales for this quarter, Q4 was EUR 12.4 million and adjusted EBITDA EUR 1.5 million. It's good to remember that both these kind of acquisitions are still in the integration phase. Pet City will be shortly finalized and Zu, of course, will now start. So the profitability is planned to kind of move in the right direction when we get the integration finalized. Then let's move to the financial position. We had a strong cash flow, operating cash flow ended at EUR 23.4 million, compared to EUR 7.6 million last year, same quarter. A big part of this is actually driven by timing of accounts payables.
The level last year was actually lower than normal and this level was actually higher than normal. It's really had to do with kind of a payment timing and kind of how the weekdays and holidays kind of which weekdays the holidays are. But also we had a positive actually cash flow impact from taxes, and also the kind of a operating results before net working capital changes. Gearing ended up at 123.8%, net debt at 209.4%, which includes interest-bearing loans or commercial papers of EUR 124.9 million and net more than EUR 100 million leasing liabilities. Net debt, in relation to LTM adjusted EBITDA was now 3.4x. We had still good liquidity in the company, at the end of the year, EUR 16.2 million in cash and cash equivalents. Investments amounted to EUR 5.6 million.
But here it's good to remember that part of the platform, investments are actually, are not capitalized. They are treated as non-recurring items. That was all from my part, and I hand over to David for concluding remarks.
Thank you, Robert. So, yeah, looking at the quarter and the summary of it, I think fantastic growth in all markets, especially Norway standing out, but also the other markets is performing really well. So coming in at 14.6% growth is very, very strong. Like-for-like coming in at 2.8%, also that is much better than last year's quarter. Super nice to see the gross margin that we're able to grow the gross margin with 1.1%, even though we are at the same time growing top-line as much as we're doing. So that's super nice to see. And that's, of course, have the positive effect on the profitability. So Adjusted EBITDA 13% up to 19.5%. And also have in mind that in that number, there are still costs that we treat as non-recurring, that is not coming during 2026.
So, the numbers is actually even higher. So good margin, and good number of customers coming in and strong cash flow. And I think the most important thing is here is to show and see that we are taking a lot of market share. We're gaining market share, I would say, in all countries. And I think also it's proven that our concept, now, is giving fruit from other new areas. But there's still a lot to do. But nice to see that growth has been coming back to double digit and, also very interesting to see during 2026 what more we can do with the fantastic Musti concept. So with that, I'd like to hand over to Q&A.
Yeah, just please raise your hand for any questions. I guess we'll start with Maria.
Yes, hi. It's always nice to check in every now and then.
Hi.
It looks like the Q4 had a, I mean, quite a bit of progress, I mean, compared to the rest of 2025. And just a little bit, like, would like to have a bit of more views on the Finnish like-for-like, I mean, 4% up. And at the same time, I mean, there has been like Tokmanni who have been trying to grow in the space. So what is your view on the underlying growth in the pet care market? So have you grown in line the market or taken market share? And what kind of pricing competition you see in the segment?
So I would say that we believe that the market is growing slower than we are doing. We have seen that the competition's impact on Musti is not as hard as it was maybe one point five years ago or one year ago. Especially, I think there was a push from others during a situation where we were with this smoke incident. I think we have recovered really well and we're seeing much less impact from competitors, I would say.
Maybe one then on Sweden. I mean, you mentioned the price competition in the online vertical. Can you be a bit more specific? I mean, who is currently, I mean, what are the players I mean, you are facing in the online verticals? And is this more like a persistent or this is more like a campaign sales driven to the Black Friday, I mean, holiday season?
Yeah. So when we look at the market, we divide it into the omnichannel, which is the stores and the online, and then we have the pureplay. So two kind of channels. And when we specifically look at Sweden, we talk about Arken Zoo and VetZoo. And when we talk about the price competition, it's mainly in the pureplay. So price competition in Sweden that has been going on for a while. And it's mainly, I would say, from Zooplus. That is pushing. And then there's also newcomers, a bit smaller companies that are pushing prices. But we have taken the decision not to follow that price war. So we have been keeping our prices a bit higher. But of course, during the quarter, as said, we changed the platform on VetZoo. So that has a quite big impact.
Not only that traffic and other things is going down during the platform change, but we also by purpose don't, we're not active with campaigns and marketing, et cetera, when we're doing a platform change because we don't want to kind of have disappointed customers with late deliveries or things that can happen.
You acquired the company from Portugal now at the end of last year. What kind of synergies, I mean, you see from the acquisition to the rest of the business?
It's mainly, so first of all, we, as we've seen, we have a fantastic concept that can travel. So that's something that we're really going to do. We're going to take the Musti concept into new markets. So the concept with the visualization, store layouts and so on. But otherwise, from a synergy perspective, it's mainly our products. So we now have over 60 stores in a new country where we can launch and also sell most of our own brands, which is really good. And the synergies for that is, of course, in our own production and so on.
My final question is, as it seems to be a very topical in the markets, I mean, in recent days, is that how do you see AI impacting your business, if any?
Yeah. I think we are using AI, the boring part of AI. I have done that for quite a long time. And that's related to the store replenishment. So how we replenish the stores and products and so on. We also did a huge project called Assortment and Space during the last six months, which means that you are kind of, from an AI perspective, a lot of data replenish the stores the best way. So that's implemented. But we are, of course, looking into AI as much as anyone else, especially if it's related to content, customer service, and so on.
That's perfect. Thank you. I don't have more questions. Wish you a good new year.
Thank you. Thank you.
Do we have any other hands raised? No? Any final questions to David and Robert? If not.
Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks, everyone, for listening in.
Thank you very much and have a great day.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Thank you. Bye.