Good morning and warm welcome to Tokmanni Group's fourth quarter 2025 result presentation. My name is Mika Rautiainen, and today together with me is Tokmanni Group's CFO, Mr. Tapio Arimo. I will first go through the main points of the fourth quarter. Tapio will come and explain a little bit more specifically the financial figures. I will come back with the 2026 guidance and the proposal for dividend. After that, it's time for questions. Let's get started. First of all, Tokmanni segment was performing well regarding the profit. On the other hand, Dollarstore segment has a lot of room too for improvement, but the actions are ongoing. Let's take a look a little bit closer on this. Familiar picture.
I would like to point out a couple of things from here. First of all, the revenue of Dollars tore segment is growing in the group and it was, during the last quarter, it was already 28% compared with previous year's 26%. The sale of groceries for the whole group was 53.5%, and it was growing actually. It is something to do with economic situation in both countries, but especially in Finland. The sale of private labels was 27.5%. It very nice increase over there, mainly coming from Sweden and Denmark. Previous year, the figure for private labels was 26.8%. At the moment, we're having, in the whole group, 5,900 shared products.
During the Christmas season, it was already more than 6,000 due to the Christmas seasonal products. At the moment it's more than 5,900 shared products, and this is of course something we're very happy with. About the store network. Yes, we're developing the store network all the time, mainly in Sweden and Denmark. 12 new stores compared with previous year. These Dollarstore segment new stores, especially in the end of the year, they include the new pilot stores for the joint assortment together with Tokmanni. I will be coming back to that part a little bit later. About the fourth quarter figures regarding the group. First of all, Tokmanni Group Group's revenue increased by 2.8%.
Tokmanni segment's revenue declined due to lower basket size, which is basically the end result from the very weak consumer trust basically on the economics situation. Dollarstore segment revenue grew and the average basket size increased, but the comparable customer visits declined. The gross margin percent improvement was driven by Tokmanni segment during the fourth quarter, and also the cost management was very successful in Finland, but expenses at Dollarstore segment increased due to the new store openings and development actions. These two new store openings as I mentioned, they included the new pilot stores where we're basically testing the joint larger assortment in Sweden, actually.
Obviously this was, since we don't have the same database yet, so mainly all of the work was done manually, and of course, it cost us quite a lot of additional expenses. However, we're extremely satisfied with the new store openings. The new pilot stores are almost double with the sales regarding the average Dollarstore stores. Well, the other development actions we're working on the IT and the supply chain very hard at the moment. For example, the master data operations is very crucial for our future success and efficiencies, as well as the warehouse management, which we basically, well, renewed almost like totally during 2025.
The group's EBIT improved, especially due to the good cost control in Finland. The group EBIT actually was the all-time high for the fourth quarter for Tokmanni Group when you look at the absolute euros. A couple of words about Tokmanni segment. The revenue declined as also already mentioned, due to the customers' lower basket size. We could clearly see that there were like very careful customers during the fourth quarter for the Christmas season. Unfortunately, the economic situation in Finland was on a very low level and also the belief in the personal economy was on a very low level. Very high unemployment rate and things like this, they affect customers' behavior quite a lot.
The comparable gross profit improved by EUR 1.5 million compared with the previous year. The operating expenses decreased due to very successful cost control. We were very satisfied with the cost control in Finland, in general. The comparable EBIT improved by EUR 3.9 million to EUR 40.9 million during the fourth quarter. In Finland, the first three Tokmanni- EUROSPAR stores are performing very well. These were the first one was opened last June, and then in October and November, the openings obviously they were very successful. And double-digit sales increase in all the three stores.
I'm especially very happy about the fact that for some during this year, the double-digit development for both food and the whole stores, it's continued. This, this is obviously a way for growth also for Tokmanni segment. Actually, the next EUROSPAR opening will be happening in Järvenpää in the southern part of Finland, in March, so in couple of weeks' time. Then of course, we will move for move on with other food stores in Tokmanni chain and we will convert basically all of the food selling stores to SPAR stores. We'll come back to that then later on.
I have to say that we've been learning and studying the SPAR way of doing the food business with these first three stores. We're very happy of the learnings, and now we're basically ready to move on faster. Dollarstore segment. Revenue grew by 12.2%. In euros it reached EUR 148.5 million, supported by the new store openings and the stronger Swedish krona against EUR. In local currencies, the revenue increased by 6.8%. As you can see, the difference with foreign exchange is quite dramatic. The Swedish krona is definitely stronger. Tapio might touch this slightly when it comes to the financial figures later on.
The total number of customers increased by 2.2%, but the comparable customers visit decreased. Basket size grew by 3.4%. Grocery sales increased by 7.8%. Also like, in Dollarstore, the development in groceries were higher compared with previous year. The comparable gross profit improved by EUR 5.4 million. The operating expenses coming from the store openings and the development project, whether it was like, the pilot stores, the master data or the warehouse management, they caused additional expenses, and that's why the comparable EBIT was clearly lower compared with previous year, EUR 8.3 million. Now, a couple of words about Dollarstore. First of all, we consider this as a turnaround company.
At the time of the acquisition, summer 2023, Dollarstore had the lowest price level in Sweden and was absolutely the place to buy entry-level products. The aim of the company was to offer the cheapest alternatives in all products. This of course is for a discount reason is a fantastic strategy, but if you don't have the highest volumes, you end up in a situation where there needs to be some compromises with the product quality. For Tokmanni Group, this kind of issues are basically a no-go situation, we needed to start to change to more sustainable products because for the whole group, we basically couldn't continue with very poor quality, not sustainable products.
Of course, it shows with for our customers, like, the change is actually quite dramatic in some areas. Today, Dollarstore is offering still the best in class in terms of price. We're very compatible, competitive with the prices as the local newspaper Aftonbladet also approved in January with the price comparison. Now we can rely, and especially the customers can rely on the quality of the products. At the moment, as already mentioned, Dollarstore is offering more than 5,900 common SKUs with Tokmanni. This is basically definitely the direction we're going. We're already seeing with the pilot stores that the similar type of assortment works actually very well.
We definitely do need to take to consideration the Swedish consumption habits, so there will be like the local assortment in Sweden and a local assortment in Denmark as well. As we know, there is a local assortment in Finland, in this case, for example, SPAR products. By the way, there are at the moment in Finland, in all Tokmanni stores, there are almost like 200 SPAR SKUs for sale at the moment. Yes, there will be like a joint assortment with the local assortments. What I'm very happy is the next bullet point. During the last weeks, we've been working for the first time with the joint commercial planning and implementation for both Tokmanni and Dollarstore.
Obviously, this is basically the first time we're really able to basically use the strength from the volumes that we have all together. In Dollarstore, we'll also concentrate on improving the Dollarstore's operational efficiency with joint IT systems and streamlined supply chain operations. We've started already last year. It will take time, but we're already seeing like very good development in these areas. These are some fundamental base building for the future success for Dollarstore and the whole group. Next one, a couple of comments regarding the strategy period which ended by the end of 2025.
When we look at the strategic targets for the strategy period 2021-2025, and how we succeeded with that, as you can see, the revenue which was actually lifted during the acquisition of Dollarstore, we're quite close with the revenue target. Obviously, the next one, the comparable EBIT is something where we're extremely disappointed. It's only on the level of a little bit less than EUR 85 million, where the target was EUR 150 million. When we were basically building this or setting the strategic targets for the strategy period, it was end 2020, beginning of 2021. Obviously, the world was very different that time. We were in the middle of pandemic. Obviously, when the pandemic time was actually very, very good for the retailers.
After that, a huge inflation increase, the war in Ukraine, a lot of things have happened. Still, we should have performed much better with the EBIT level. Now, of course, all the actions are for this year, and I could imagine that also for the next strategy period, it will be on profitability. With the store network, the target was 360 stores in Nordics. Now we're in 356, so actually that's quite okay. With the net debt, divided by comparable EBITDA, the target was less than 2.25, so we're slightly over that with 2.71. Dividend, the target was about 70% of net result for the financial year.
For 2021, 2022, 2023, I think we were doing very well with this. For 2024, 2025, it's clearly less than the 70% due to the target of strengthening the group's balance sheet. This is basically the setup with the strategic period. Obviously, one of the key issues regarding this strategic period that we just ended was that we will also enter the Nordic countries, and that of course has happened. Our job is to focus on the profitability on the whole group level and to move on from here. That, that's about the strategy period which ended and the next one is the financial figures. Tapio, please could you come and explain them a little bit more specifically? Thank you.
Thank you, Mika. Good morning, everybody on my behalf as well. Let's jump a little bit deeper into the figures. First, just the headline numbers for the fourth quarter. Our total group revenue grew by 2.8%, reaching EUR 510.8 million. As Mika mentioned, that is our all-time high, naturally. Our like-for-like revenue decreased slightly about 1.7% for the fourth quarter. Our comparable gross margin increased to EUR 183.8 million. Also, the comparable gross margin percent increased slightly to 36.0% for the fourth quarter. Our comparable EBIT totaled EUR 48.2 million. That again is an all-time high for the group for any quarter in the history of the company. Not a bad result as such.
The EBIT margin was 9.4%, a slight decline from last year. Also, our cash flow during the fourth quarter was very strong. Operating cash flow totaled EUR 108.6 million, an increase of over EUR 30 million from a year ago. Our earnings per share for the fourth quarter was EUR 0.52 per share. Going a bit deeper into the revenues, both for the quarter and for the year. I said for the quarter we had EUR 510.8 million, a growth of about 2.8%, and the growth really coming from Dollarstore segment. That growth was helped partially by the foreign exchange rate, obviously. Our like-for-like revenue again decreased by 1.7%.
If you look at the total year, Tokmanni segment grew by EUR 10 million, roughly the revenues for the full year, while Dollarstore grew around EUR 45 million for the whole year. Again, they are partly due to the more favorable exchange rate. In percentage terms, the Dollarstore revenue increased by 12.2% and by 6.8% on comparable currencies. Looking at our revenue split. Tokmanni in Q4 was, you could say, perfect balance, 50/50 grocery and non-groceries. While Dollarstore, the percentage of non-groceries grew slightly from a year ago and reached 52.2 percentage points. Looking at our private labels. Here again, we saw very good development during the fourth quarter.
Our private labels share of total sales reached over 30%, so 30.7% during the fourth quarter, an increase of 3.1 percentage points. This again, was driven mainly by Dollarstore, where we continued to increase the common offering and introduce Tokmanni private labels into the Dollarstore offering. When you look at our comparable gross profit, again on the Q4 basis, the gross profit grew to EUR 183.8 million and the gross margin to 36.0 percentage points, a slight increase from a year ago. When you look at the full year, our gross margin increased, but the gross margin percent declined slightly from 35.6% to 35.1%.
Of course, the Dollars tore growth in the gross profit was quite good in the fourth quarter, reaching EUR 56.9 million, growth of EUR 5.4 million. The gross margin percent at Dollars tore during the fourth quarter declined slightly to 38.3 % . When you look at our operating expenses, the picture is a bit different. The operating expenses were at 20.2% of revenue in the fourth quarter, a very slight increase of 0.1% from the previous year. This was driven by the Dollar Store segment. Our personnel expenses, which are a major part, of course, of the operating expenses, also grew slightly to 12% of revenue from a year ago of 11.8% of revenue.
On the Tokmanni segment side, we're very happy with the results. We managed to decrease the absolute operating expenses during the fourth quarter, and of course, also then the relative percent of sales declined also. Tokmanni segment, the comparable operating expenses were EUR 68.4 million during the fourth quarter, a decline of EUR 1.8 million. Dollarstore segment, on the other hand, the operating expenses grew quite a bit, and also the percent of sales grew quite a bit then. Obviously, we continue to work very hard with Dollarstore to ensure the future growth and profitability of the business.
For the Dollarstore segment, the operating expenses in euro terms were EUR 35.4 million in the fourth quarter compared to EUR 29.5 million a year ago. When you look at our comparable EBIT, again, the fourth quarter EBIT reached EUR 48.2 million, which is the all-time high result for the group, which is, of course, we're happy with that. Group functions expenses increased also slightly to EUR 1 million. When you look at the full year, the picture is not so great, unfortunately. Our comparable EBIT declined during the whole year to EUR 84.8 million, and the EBIT margin was 4.9% decline from 6% a year ago. Again, the decline was mainly driven by the Dollarstore segment.
If also Tokmanni segment declined slightly and really the decline in the Tokmanni segment was during the first half of last year. Our inventories. We've been working quite hard with the inventory during the past six to nine months, and I'm very happy with the results. We actually managed to decrease the inventory slightly from a year ago, about EUR 4 million in absolute terms. You have to remember here that we have 12 more stores at the end of last year compared to a year ago. If you take that into account, the result is actually very good. In the Tokmanni segment, the inventories declined by almost EUR 6 million. In the Dollarstore segment, the inventories increased by a little bit more than EUR 2 million.
Again, you remember that most of the 12 new stores were in the Dollarstore segment. 10 new stores at Dollarstore segment and only EUR 2 million increase in the inventory from a year ago situation. You couple that with the fact that we continue to increase our own direct imports, which naturally leads to a sort of an increase in the inventories if everything is constant. We've been doing extremely well with the inventory management also at Dollarstore last year. A little bit about our financial situation. Here you can see our group debt situation in total. As you can see, the lease liabilities continue their upward trend. At the end of last year, our total interest-bearing debt was EUR 955.9 million. That's a growth of over EUR 120 million.
A majority of that is coming from the lease liabilities. If you look at our total debt, excluding the lease liabilities, there's a slight increase from last year. During the last year, starting from Q1, we managed to decrease the total debt quarter-over-quarter. It's now three quarters of declining debt and the interest-bearing debt at the end of last year, excluding lease liabilities, total EUR 350 million. We also did a little bit of a shuffling of our debt during the fourth quarter last year. We launched a bond to the investor community, our first bond ever, which was EUR 100 million in nominal value. Part of that money we used to repay down our bank debt, and then part of the money is going to working capital purposes.
If you look at our net debt, I'm very happy that our net debt has actually gone down from last year, so it's down about EUR 10 million. If you look at our net debt to comparable EBITDA ratios, we had a very strong decline during the fourth quarter, as is the case usually. We're still above our long-term target of 2.25 and slightly above last year. Again, that is really driven by this IFRS leasing calculations. The actual bank net debt is down about EUR 10 million from a year ago, including the cash part. Here again, our operating cash flow. Again, this was a very good quarter for us, this fourth quarter last year. Our operating cash flow was EUR 108.6 million.
Again, that was driven mainly by our good management of our inventory. If you look at the full year, we had a quite decent cash flow from the full year from the operating perspective, EUR 139.5 million, which is about EUR 50 million more than we had the previous year, so 2024. Our capital expenditure, and here we continue to see the sort of normal trend. Our total capital expenditure for last year was about EUR 30 million. For the fourth quarter, the total capital expenditure was EUR 12.1 million. Out of that, the Tokmanni segment was EUR 8.6 million and the Dollarstore segment, EUR 3.5 million.
As previously, our capital expenditure continues to be related to our network expansion, development, and maintenance of our store network and our digital services. We expect the sort of the cash, capital expenditure to remain roughly on the same level in the coming years as well. I'll hand the stage back over to Mika to talk about our guidance.
Thank you, Tapio. Please don't go too far because we're gonna soon start with the questions. Yes, first, Tokmanni Group's guidance. We expect Tokmanni Group's revenue to be in the range of EUR 1.78 billion-EUR 1.86 billion. The comparable EBIT we expect to be in the range of EUR 85 million-EUR 105 million. The payment of the dividend, the Board of Directors proposes to the AGM that the maximum dividend of EUR 0.34 per share be paid for 2025. The BOD proposes that the dividend will be paid in two installments. The first one, EUR 0.17 per share would be on, t he payment day would be the 13th of May, 2026.
The BOD proposes that the 2026 AGM authorizes BOD to later decide on the distribution of maximum dividend of EUR 0.17 per share in another installment during fall 2026. This is the guidance and the proposal for the dividend for Tokmanni Group. As already mentioned, the strategy period ended in the end of 2025 for Tokmanni Group. But during 2026, Tokmanni Group will publish the new strategy for the next strategy period. And obviously, the coming CEO will be explaining this by the end of this year. But meanwhile, we just a couple of words, we're concentrating on the strategic projects or actions to improve Tokmanni Group profitability this year.
Obviously it starts from the sources of growth, as we call it, the low price program, which is extremely good, and it's already launched for both segments. The performance seems to be actually very good. As already mentioned, in Dollarstore, we have a lot of actions ongoing, and obviously, we expect this year to be the turnaround year for Dollarstore. Also, I mentioned SPAR as a source of growth for Tokmanni and already in couple of weeks' time, the next SPAR store will be open and we will speed up the conversion of the current food stores to SPAR during this year.
The sources of profitability, obviously joint buying and sourcing, and then the more we do things together, the more we have the same assortment, the more volume we have with the joint buying. Obviously we're gonna continue with that. Cost control seems to work very well in Finland, and also we are taking the same actions in Sweden and Denmark. The inventory management, as Tapio was explaining, just a while ago, is working pretty well. We'll continue with that, and especially in Sweden with the new warehouse management system, the supply chain is doing very, very good. The sources of success as we talk about, as we call it, one company, obviously it's like three countries, but it is one company and we...
All the time we do actions to make this look like one company, even though it's like three countries at the moment. Of course, with the different kind of AI projects, they will affect the work and cause transformation over there and also improve the productivity. These are probably issues that we'll touch a little bit later. One of our key values is that we do things together and we, especially with SPAR, we call it nowadays Better Together. These are the actions to improve Tokmanni Group profitability during this year. Thank you very much. I think now it's time for questions. Let's move on and if I see correct, the first one to set the questions is Arttu Heikura from Inderes. Arttu, please go ahead.
Good morning. It's Arttu Heikura, Inderes. Hope you can hear me.
Yes.
Yes.
Okay. first of all, could you elaborate on your actions regarding the low price program?
Sure. It's actually already going on in Tokmanni we're talking about this Suomen Halvin, the lowest price in Finland operations. We've already started that in the beginning of this year with very good results. As a discounter and as you are also very well aware of the economic situation in Finland, especially right now with quite strong winter and high electric bills, it's very, very good for Tokmanni to offer the lowest prices in Finland, and we'll continue with that. In Sweden, actually, the Aftonbladet has been helping us with the Billigast low price program, which is like the cheapest or lowest price in Sweden and in Denmark.
We've started that already also a couple of weeks ago, or actually a month ago with the price comparisons. Price comparison done by Aftonbladet was done in January. Basically, in from the competitor group, Dollarstore was clearly the cheapest retailer. That's giving us a pretty good setup for the so-called Billigast program.
Okay. About the guidance for this year, what is the main driver for the profit growth? Do you believe that Dollarstore is able to improve its results, and if so, how?
First of all, from the whole group point of view, year 2025 wasn't good at all for Tokmanni Group. I think, or maybe you also remember that, especially the first half of 2025 was very bad for Tokmanni segment. Yes, I don't think that. Or, we believe that this year, the first half will be much better compared with previous year. Obviously, especially in Finland, for Tokmanni segment, it is quite weather related, especially with the spring season. We don't believe that we'll have like, we'll be missing the spring season, two years in row in Finland.
That's why we believe that Tokmanni will be on a better position than in this year. Regarding the Dollarstore, we've been working so hard with Dollarstore. It has been causing some additional costs and probably it will still be on, you know, like, let's say the work will be in progress. We are very confident that there will be a turnaround this year.
Okay. About the spring season and maybe on the products and inventory, have you already gotten the crucial part of, spring products in your inventory?
Yes. They're basically, they are in the port or the last one, the containers are on their way. We don't see any problems at the moment with the spring, summer season containers. Everything's basically set with that. As Sweden had, due to the fact that the springtime in Sweden, especially in the southern part of Sweden and in Denmark, is obviously ahead of Finland. There, basically the seasonal products are already over there, and the last container's coming to Finland. So yes, we're quite confident that we're able to deliver the spring, summer season as planned.
Okay. That's good to hear. Maybe about Dollarstore and its decline in like-for-like customer flow. Have you analyzed deeply that what is causing this negative effect? I think, no. Well, maybe you can say in your own words, please.
Thank you. Yes. Well, first of all, it's obviously it's a big change for Dollarstore customers. As mentioned, it used to be the entry-level products and very low-priced products. The biggest part, the absolutely the biggest part of the business was done with the product which cost either SEK 10 or SEK 20 , meaning like EUR 0.90 or EUR 1.80. These products, we had quite a lot of problems with, especially with the quality and the sustainability with this product. Now we've basically we've cleared a big part of this assortment in Dollarstore, in the stores. Nowadays it's a lot of Tokmanni private labels, which are all are tested and sustainable products.
We know where they're coming from, we know exactly how they are, and we can rely on the quality as well as the customers can rely on the quality. As we, well, had the price comparison with the Aftonbladet, we're able to compete with the price level as well, even though the price level is slightly higher due to the better quality. It is a big change for customers. Obviously we've been interviewing customers and how they see the change. Obviously, they don't know the products. Yes, there are like, for example, Kotikulta products, which actually are considered good quality products, but it's Kotikulta.
It's a completely new brand in the Swedish market. Obviously the customers, they need to get used to with the Tokmanni private labels. With the pilot stores that we've opened, we're very happy with the sales. These stores are even bigger joint assortment than the 6,000 products. Some of the product groups where we are actually even surprised that they're working or performing that well are, for example, apparel. The Tokmanni private label brand, Pola, if you have the picture over here, Catmandoo and Vaeltaja, they're actually doing pretty well in Sweden and in Denmark. These are very, let's say, convincing developments.
Yes, it is new products for customers, a new setup. It's not doesn't happen like this, that the customers will be right away happy with everything. We are doing a lot of commercial actions to ensure customers and encourage them to buy the new product. That was a long answer. Sorry for that.
Thank you. Thank you for that. I guess you are aware of the situation with ÖoB and Europris. They have kind of similar, concept chains in Sweden. Q4 was good for them in like-for-like terms. How do you see the market environment in Sweden and competitive perspective of that?
Yeah, first of all, competition is obviously very hard in, in Sweden, as it's all over. That's no news, basically. Yes, of course, ÖoB is one of the competitors, but there are much bigger competitors as well. And, yes, obviously we're very well aware of the development with Europris and ÖoB. I could imagine actually that they, the Europris and ÖoB is slightly ahead of Tokmanni Dollarstore with the development. Yes, we are going to the same direction, and I think that the Swedish market if we compare, for example, with Finland, it's, it's more positive. There's room for, well, in this case, both retailers for ÖoB and Dollarstore.
Yeah, there are much bigger competitors where we can also, like, win some market share, actually, the both companies. Yes, of course, the competition is there. We have slightly different strategies with Europris and Tokmanni regarding Sweden, I think there is plenty of room for both companies.
Okay. My last question is, you had some legal situation in Denmark. Is it just limited to one store or could that be kind of larger impact from the legal perspective? Could you maybe open up the situation for us?
Yes, it's considered in one store, but yes, of course, it could affect on the well, basically the whole Danish market. It's not only Big Dollar that we have in Denmark, but it's the whole Danish market, and it's about the grocery sales. First of all, I think that it will take some time before the decisions will be over there and we have plenty of time to adapt the situation. Obviously, we're happy to sell non-food products and we've been studying the Danish market as well, like, okay, where can we especially invest with the non-food products, well, and how can we be successful with the non-food products if we need to limit the groceries?
Of course, it's very, well, it needs to first of all, for example, define like what is considered groceries and this kind of thing. It's gonna take some time, but I think we're pretty well prepared with the future situation in Denmark. Of course, it, we do have, like, a limited amount of stores in Denmark at the moment, 11-12 stores. We're able to make quick moves over there as well.
Okay. Thank you, and good luck for you guys for the coming years.
Thank you. We take the next one, Miika Ihamäki. Please, Miika, go ahead.
Thanks. This is Miika from DNB Carnegie. Can everyone hear me?
Yes.
Yes.
Excellent. Quickly on the sales guidance for 2026, which implies approximately 3%-8% growth from last year, even though like-for-like revenue declined in both segments now in Q4, whilst we see the reported revenue growing 3% mainly due to new openings and FX tailwinds. I would like to understand how much of the 2026 sales growth expectation is driven by new store openings and improvement in like-for-like sales. Given that we're seeing the like-for-like customer flows decreasing at Dollarstore now second quarter a row, and in fact quite deeply given these assortment changes, why should we expect the sales to return to positive territory already next year?
For this year, actually.
Yeah. Yeah, this year.
Yes. Well, as already mentioned several times, Dollarstore is, it's a lot of things over there under construction. We feel that we've done some very, very good action points. For example, especially with the pilot stores. As mentioned already, it's almost like double the sales with the pilot stores, which we will go to. I mean, we will be developing Dollarstore to that direction because the results with sales are very encouraging. Yes, we definitely do believe that we are able to make the change in Dollarstore. Of course, as already mentioned, year 2025 was sales-wise very bad also in Finland, and especially the first half. The second half wasn't that good either.
We expect the economic atmosphere to improve during 2026, obviously we expect a better development from Tokmanni as well. Of course, the main, and as you also mentioned, the main focus is on Dollarstore. I think that we know pretty well what to do as soon as we get the IT systems and the supply chain working efficiently, then we're able to also speed up with conversion with this kind of new concept that we've been testing now for a while already in Sweden.
Right. Thank you. Second question is on your SPAR performance. You said that the stores have delivered excellent results. Can you further elaborate on this one and confirm whether their Q4 sales growth exceeded the market growth of 1.9%?
Sorry, could you please repeat? I kind of missed one part of your sentence or question.
The question was that, as you say, SPAR stores in Finland have delivered excellent results. Can you further elaborate on this one, and then confirm whether the SPAR Q4 sales growth exceeded the market growth of sorry, 1.9%?
Yeah. For. Well, if I touch the last point, as I mentioned, last year, the both, the food sales in these SPAR stores, the food sales and the total sales, it was like double-digit sales increase. It has continued this year as well. Hopefully that answers your questions regarding the market situation. Yes, we're very happy with that. Obviously, we are learning a lot from SPAR at the moment. There are, actually a bunch of SPAR people this week and more coming next week to Finland since they're supporting us with the Järvenpää opening. I think that is the very crucial point for the learning for Tokmanni Group regarding the SPAR.
SPAR International is like a, i t's a global retailer group with more than 14,000 stores all over the world. Of course, they have a huge amount of professionalism and expertise. They've been studying also together with us, the Finnish market, obviously we have been learning quite a lot with these new three, with the first three stores, now we will be speeding up the conversion of the current stores. Let's see how it happens. We don't publish any, let's say, market share targets. We're working one store at the moment, one by one. We're happy with the development. It looks very good for us at the moment. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Miika.
The next one is Maria Wikström. Please, Maria, go ahead.
Yes. I mean, thank you. I also wanted to touch on the sales growth guidance for 3%-8% for this year. I wonder that, I mean, if the development in the beginning of the year gives you a guidance, I mean, gives you confidence to guide for growth within that range, despite the negative like-for-like development for both of the concepts during Q4.
Yes. Of course, the first quarter for the whole Tokmanni Group, it's the absolutely in the sales wise the lowest and most difficult when it comes to the result. Obviously cannot really make too big conclusions from the first quarter. The second quarter, of course, is the second most important for Tokmanni. At the moment, based on the first two months, it's too early to say that much. Let's see how the spring starts. At the moment it looks pretty well, pretty good, actually, for the coming weekend. Yeah.
Okay. Then also here, I think, I mean, it was Kesko who commented that they had, like a negative mix in the hypermarket non-food sales during Q4, which I interpret that if the winter actually started only after Christmas here in Finland and you as well, I mean, sell a lot of winter clothes. What do you see was the impact in Q4, and do you see that you have more items on sale now during the Q1 that we should be worried about the gross margin development in the first quarter?
Well, first of all, you're absolutely right with, with the winter, as I call it, the strong winter, but that's been in January, February, and until Christmas. Obviously, we had extremely warm weather and yes, there were actually in the beginning, and Tapio might remember better than I do, but we did have pretty strong sales over there, especially with the winter products. Basically, we sold out, for example, heaters and this kind of products. Also, the winter clothing. We were able to clear the inventory pretty nicely.
It affected the fourth quarter, my, let's say, gut feeling is that the low sales, let's say the lower basket size during the fourth quarter, especially for Tokmanni, that was due to the carefulness of our customers. The atmosphere, if you remember, during the end of last year, was very, very negative. I think it's slightly improving at the moment. It showed it was the... We could see, and of course we were doing some surveys as well, where we basically noticed that the customers are really careful. That was probably one of the key drivers for the lower basket in Tokmanni. The comparable customer visits in Tokmanni during the fourth quarter was basically on par with previous year.
That's how I feel the difference with the winter timing. I don't think that we could draw any special conclusions regarding the gross margin with the first quarter. Tapio may answer that.
Yeah. Obviously we have the January results and February sales when we, let's say, confirm the guidance, if that's what you're asking about. Of course, we don't comment on the future performance more than the guidance, which is set for the whole year. I think like Mika said, Dollarstore is a turnaround case at the moment and of course we expect it to turn around during the year.
Yes. Thank you. Then I wanted to go, I mean, more, like, more in, more deeply on the sales performance of the Dollarstore. I mean, you mentioned that, I mean, the pilot stores have been successful, I mean, with the new assortment, but if we think about, like, more broader perspective that were the sales performance very different, like in a normal store, if you compare the private label assortment versus like the branded or the previous assortment of a Dollarstore?
Which product groups you mean?
Yeah. I'm kind of interested in the performance of the private label assortment outside these pilot stores. The ones where you have a smaller assortment, and I think still a lot of the products that you sell in the Dollarstore has not been adjusted for the Swedish market so that they would have, like, the Swedish product name, product title at first, but, like, a lot of product, I think, I mean, has also the Finnish titles, like, mentioned as first in the product. Kind of interested if the Swedish consumer is comfortable buying a product that has, say, the Finnish title, with, like, bigger letters. Very difficult to ask the question, but hopefully you understand what I mean.
With the whole Tokmanni Group that our, let's say, our aim is to find the competitive advantage with the price level and the wider assortment. Yes, you're absolutely right. It's a lot of new products for with the Finnish titles, you know, like, as you, especially Maria, you know that, we're bilingual country, we always have, like, in Swedish as well, the product labels. They've been the private labels, they've been successful. As you can see, the basket size is higher. Basically, the customers are missing the very low price products.
Yes, we've added some of those products to basically to bridge the situation, but we cannot compromise with the quality. We think that when we're able to offer even wider assortment and show in several different categories, as we've done in the pilot stores, that the your assortment is wider and the price level is very competitive. We believe that that will be the successful way forward.
Thank you. Then, I mean, finally on the adjusted EBIT guidance range of EUR 85 million-EUR 105 million, first of all, can you discuss, I mean, what happens, I mean, if you end up on a, I mean, this very low level that what was reached in 2025? Then how much this guidance range, I mean, what is the, how much is the I mean, if we end up in the middle of the range, which has a EUR 10 million growth, how much that is based on the Tokmanni brand and how much on the successful turnaround of the Dollarstore?
Well, Tapio, maybe if I first comment, then you may continue then. Yeah, first of all, if you take a look at the Tokmanni segment, and year 2025, the first two quarters, meaning the first half of 2025, as already mentioned several times, was very difficult for Tokmanni segment. With the second half of 2025, we have been improving the results basically during the both quarters, and especially the fourth quarter was actually quite good improvement with the Tokmanni segment profit. Obviously we're confident that we will continue with this.
The cost control is very tight at the moment, and obviously we're working on this growth issues like the low, low price program and SPAR and so on. Yes, we're first of all, we're quite confident with Tokmanni. Now, for Dollarstore, the performance has been for the whole year of 2025. It was, it was basically very bad and much worse than the previous year.
Basically we've done already better business and we are very much in the, on the building phase. We definitely believe that this year we are already able to get better results and also bring new customers to see the Dollarstore stores with the wider assortment and with a very competitive pricing and the price level. It's... We believe that the result improvement for this year comes from both segments. Tapio-
Yeah.
Would you like to add?
Of course we have, you know, we build scenarios for both segments individually and then the guidance is a combination of those two. If everything goes well, then we're at the high end, and if everything goes not so well, then we're at the low end. It's, you know, pretty simple. It's not, you know, super difficult to think like that.
Okay. Thank you so much. I think I'm good for now.
The next one is Svante Krokfors. Svante.
Tack så mycket, Mika. Thank you, Mika and Tapio, for the presentation. A couple of questions. I know we are a bit overdue here, but regarding Dollarstore and, I mean, in a concept change that you are implementing, it's understandable that the average or like-for-like customers visit decline, and then you try to get like-for-like basket size up. How long do you think that this process and adjustment will take until the basket size like for like exceeds the decline in like-for-like customer visits?
How long? I wish I could tell you the date and knowing my situation, I wouldn't, as you can understand, I wouldn't like to promise anything that I won't be myself responsible. Maybe Tapio, would you like to comment on this one?
Yeah, of course, it's very difficult to say exact date, but we have, of course, a firm belief that the, all the actions that we are doing, they will result in the, let's say, turnaround of the, of the business. Of course, we expect that to happen during this year.
Okay. Regarding the, could you elaborate a bit on the gross margin development in Dollarstore, which has been a bit on a negative trend, and what's the reason behind that and what your actions are to improve that?
Yeah. Well, still in the end of, end of last year, I think that we were having an quite a lot of sales regarding the old inventory and things like this. At the moment, we're pretty confident with the gross margin with Dollarstore. Obviously, first quarter last year was quite a dramatic drop with Dollarstore gross margin. That's of course something that we don't wanna have like dramatic drops with gross margin anymore. Obviously we're taking care of that. Yes, it might be that we. Or we obviously, we want more customers in the stores, and we will be investing on that. I think we're managing that part pretty well at the moment.
Okay. Thank you. That is all from me.
Okay. I think that's all the questions. Thank you very much. There is one more question from Oskar Matheson. Please go ahead, Oskar.
Thank you. Can you hear me all right?
Yes, we can.
Perfect. I was curious about, can you say anything about how you expect the leverage to develop going forward given that your net debt to EBITDA ratio is still above your target and that you're now entering your low season?
Yeah. Of course, it jumps up of always. Q4 is the lowest. It will go up, of course we are managing that very carefully. The inventory management that we are doing at the moment, it will help in the leverage. Of course, the other flip side of the coin is especially if you look at the including the lease liabilities. We do have 12 more stores compared to last year that drives up the lease liability. We expect that to, you know, continue to creep up slowly as we add new stores. The, let's say, the leverage excluding the lease liabilities there, we expect that to go down during the year. Not like super fast, but slowly.
Perfect. Thank you.
Okay. I think that that was all the questions. Thank you very much and have a sunny and a commercial weekend. Thank you.
Thank you.