Good morning, and welcome to this third quarter presentation of Bohus. Together with me today, I have also CFO Krister Pedersen, and we will share parts of this presentation. This is the agenda. First, I will give some highlights on the third quarters. We are happy to present good results. We had the acquisition of 55 franchises during 2025, and the comparisons is used to those figures to show the management information here later on. We had a growth year-on-year of 16.7% turnover, which gave a total turnover of NOK 1,033,000,000 , which also compares to a like-for-like growth of 12.2%, which is quite strong. Also gaining market shares.
We improved the gross margin by 0.6%, up to 49%, which is strong, and the adjusted EBIT also increased to NOK 136 million compared to last year, which gave an EBIT margin of 13.2%, which also was an increase of 1.8% from last year's 11.4%. We didn't add any stores operational in Q3, but we have five new stores signed already for 2027. That includes also one franchise stores which is bought and will be fully owned by the chain from 1st of January 2027. The last point here is that the cash flow from operating activities was NOK 258.6 million, and we'll come back more to that later on. As we are quite new at the stock exchange and have a lot of new shareholders, we will also reiterate a little bit about the Bohus story.
Now we have increased our market share in the Norwegian furniture market to approximately 21%, which is a growth through the last years. We have a customer club which has now 639,000 members, and we had steady growth for many years now, 9.2% CAGR, and which is quite above the market. As I said, above NOK 1 billion in turnover for the last quarter and improved gross margin and an EBIT margin. We have, as of today, 72 stores operated, 66 fully owned, and we will add to that for the next years. The main characteristics of Bohus and the main reasons for our strong performance and our strong expectation for the future is that we are in a very attractive market with a lot of entry barriers, which is strong. We have goods, which is big, complex, which you need stores to operate.
We have a complex logistics, which gives the need of an efficient logistics and transport system. We have destination categories, which is an advantage, and we have very low brand dominance, which also gives some important opportunities and benefits on pricing and margins. We have seen through decades that the furniture market, and especially this mid-market furniture market, is a very strong and resilient market, which is steadily growing and is not very much influenced by cyclic effects. It's been steadily growing, not very much, but steadily growing, and we still see that through this year. Though we have quite many challenges in the international environment, high interest rate and so on, and low housing and building. So it's a good market to be a part of. Bohus is one of the four mid-market players and is the leading of the mid-markets.
It's significantly larger than the rest, it's growing more, and it's very profitable compared to the competitors. We have, as the only Norwegian furniture chain, our own central warehouse, which is large and which is very important for the efficiency and the delivery possibilities, and also the category development potentials, which have been taken out for many years, but we still work hard on to take out more of. That's very important, and we have also now an option of an enlargement of the central warehouse, which is effective, and we will start building next year, which will be fulfilled in approximately two years to be able to carry and so we can have more stores and also increase turnover for the years to come. We have a very strong competitive structure. Our competitiveness is very strong.
We have the scale, which is very important for purchasing, pricing, for efficiency. We have very good and attractive locations almost all around the country, but still white spots to go into. We have a very efficient logistics, and we have a very strong brand, and it's also the preferred brand by the customers for many years. We have a very good position. We also know that the break-even level of our stores are quite much lower than the break-even level of our competitors, and that's one of the also very important parts of our competitive strength. We can see when we do the expansion and the growth, and when we add new stores, we also add the internet trade even more than the store creates in increased turnover. Let's have a quick look at the figures.
As I said, Q3 had very good growth, and it's across all core categories. For Q2, we were very much focusing on garden furniture, which has been very successful for Bohus for the last years. We improved, but now we also demonstrate that this is not just about garden furniture, this is about the whole business concept. We are growing very much on the bedroom and the living room, and it's due to category development. It's also value chain effects. We have a very solid core category development. As I said, we haven't added any new stores operationally now in Q3, but we have added already four from the first half of 2026, and five new stores are signed for 2027, including one of the franchise store, which will then be converted. The pipeline for stores is also quite good.
This shows how the market share development is, and this is, I will say, probably the strongest sign of why and how Bohus is so competitive. We have grown that significantly now over a long period of time, and now also from Q2 to Q3 in 2026, we have increased, and now we are above 20% market share, which we think is very strong. It's still a positive market, and we still see potentials for growing the market share. As I said, the revenue growth of 16.7%, no new stores added in this quarter. 66 of the stores are fully owned. Six is, in this quarter, still franchise. One of those will be fully owned from 1st of January. The like-for-like is then 12.2%.
About 70% of the growth came from bedroom and living room for this quarter, and that is also the main and the most important categories of our operation. It is also tough to say that 1/3 of the total growth come from stores that opened in the last 12 months, and the online is also outperforming the figures here. That is a very nice thing to have on that we see that when we add stores into the network, we also increase the online even more. The gross margin uplift of 0.6%, up to 49.1%. It is a lot of operational and value chain improvements in those figures. It is also about price optimization, and we also done category development that also contributes to this. We are still competitive. We are watching and monitoring prices and the competition very eagerly.
We make sure that we are competitive, and we can see that this is working quite well. The OpEx ratio is declining a little bit [from 28.6% down] to 28.7% down from 29.7%, and this is driven by scale. The OpEx in amount is increasing, and that is due to, of course, new stores. It is about logistics costs, which also, of course, increase when we grow and the general growth in the company. We are also considering now to, as we have this much stronger growth than anticipated so far and also in the business story, we are looking at to increase the logistics capacity a little bit. We have the main central warehouse already, which is a large one. We have one added for the last two years, which has been a success for garden furniture.
We are now looking at to do the same for a third temporary location to handle more of the seasonal articles and articles we can handle quite efficient in a small added extra warehouse until we have our new warehouse ready in two years' time. To sum up, the EBIT margin is then increasing from 11.4% in the quarter last year to 13.2% in the third quarter this year. That is an increase of 1.8%, and it also equals almost NOK 36 million in increased profit. With that, I will hand over to my CFO, Krister.
Thank you, John. For the third quarter, we still have some comparability effects. Bohus have changed from being a franchise structure to being a fully integrated retailer. The figures in this presentation is primarily compared with the management figures from 2025 as we have acquired the stores from 1st of January 2025. This comparison is made to give you the best comparison and the best measurement of performance of the current structure. Breaking down the profit and loss statement, we already have touched upon the strong growth, the gross margin improvement, and also the improvement and the scale effects on operating expenses. The sum of all resulted in an increase in EBIT by 35% for the quarter. Net financial expenses were NOK 31.2 million, whereof IFRS effects was 24.4 and a positive currency effect of 2.9. Net profit for the period was close to NOK 80 million.
Looking at the cash flow for the quarter, net working capital was reduced by NOK 102 million in the third quarter, where we had the opposite effect in the previous quarter. This is normal seasonal changes for Bohus. Cash flow from operations, including CapEx for the quarter, was NOK 237 million for the quarter and year -to -date, NOK 371 million. Most of the cash flow for the quarter was used to reduce debt, which I will come back to. Leaving net cash position at NOK 25 million, which is the same as the previous quarter. We aim to keep the utilization of the RCF facility as low as possible to optimize the capital structure and to reduce unnecessary interest expenses. For the third quarter, we reduced the RCF utilization by additional NOK 200 million.
The liquidity reserve is good and was NOK 624 million by the end of the quarter, with all the undrawn facilities included. Net interest-bearing debt, excluding IFRS 16, ended at NOK 219 million, which is up NOK 74 million compared to the end of last year, but down NOK 154 million compared to the end of second quarter. The debt level equals a leverage ratio of 0.4, excluding IFRS 16. Including IFRS 16, the debt level has increased by NOK 208 million from the beginning of the year, which is mainly driven by opening the new stores we had in the first half 2026. Back to you, John.
Yes. Thank you, Krister. To sum up before questions, we repeat the same message as last time that we are ticking off the IPO boxes, and doing turnover quite above the figures we have stated in the financial targets, with much stronger growth. Also then increased EBIT as stated, but for this quarter, maybe stronger than expected, and also a very strong cash flow. The signing of new stores are on track, and the perspectives are good. The liquidity is also very strong. More or less, very good figures on all parts. I will also then, even though strong figures, we still reiterate our original financial targets, as we have said a lot of times. The performance for the last two quarters and almost or the last year and the previous year has been very strong.
We don't expect that to be the case for all quarters, and especially for the fourth quarter. We have been saying already that we have a very strong competitive comparable figures from last year. We expect to reach the original financial targets in the long run, where we aim for mid-single digit in the short term and mid to high single digit in medium long term. But we also aim to gain market shares each quarter in addition to that. The growth in stores is at the same level, and we are quite confident that we are going to deliver on both the number of stores and the targeted turnover level of the stores.
With more and more synergies coming out, and also in the long run, a more efficient logistics operation, we are quite confident that the synergies will come and also improve the total picture here. That concludes the presentation from our side at this stage. Yes. I do not know if it is only questions from the viewers.
We have a number of questions here coming in online. There are some duplicates, then we would just ask the original question. The first one, I assume, goes for you, John. Do you see any challenges ahead that could hinder your growth plans?
No, not specifically. We do not do that. We are in a very good mood, and we have a very good pace, and we are expected to slow down a little bit, as we have been saying in our targets. We do not see any strong or difficult things happening. But of course, the environment in the world and the geopolitical situation is still quite fragile. But it would be quite positive if some of the struggles were solved in the time to come, and at one time, we will expect that to happen. We are positive and optimistic. Definitely, yes.
Can you give any details on FX contribution to your gross margin, and how was the market campaign intensity during Q3?
I think the marketing campaigns was as normal. Currency effect on the gross margin, I don't have the exact figures, but I think in the area of half of the improvement, in that area. I don't have the exact figures for that.
Can you comment on the size of your stores set to open in 2027?
I think we will stick to the targets we have on average revenue per new store, between NOK 20 million and NOK 25 million. However, we have this franchise opening 1st of January, but the remaining will quite be back-end loaded, so coming in the end of the year.
Will the temporary logistic expansion increase OpEx, and is the current situation a constraint to growth in 2027?
No, not in 2027. That's an important question. We see a possibility to speed up the growth if we increase the logistics capacity, and we also see that we will reduce the risk if we increase the logistics capacity, because it's very limited. This is not a complex logistics expansion. We don't move the warehouse, we just add 6,000 sq m, 7,000 sq m where we can handle, for example, more garden furniture, more Christmas articles, easy categories to just put in, let them be there for a while, and then take them out. We have identified that we can increase the speed in new stores, and we can increase the speed also in category development. We have some categories we have set out to really work on in late 2027, 2028, and 2029, which we can speed up if we have more logistics capacity.
It's more about potentials and risk reduction. But you could say anything 100% comparable, that it will limit the decline of the OpEx compared to the growth potential. So when we have the new warehouse, which is of course more efficient, that will also improve the OpEx even more.
There are a number of questions on the same topic, so I can just summarize in one extensive question. What extra cost should we expect in Q4 and 2027, and how long will the temporary capacity be needed before the planned expansion of the central warehouse is ready?
I don't think that we will see any extra cost in Q4. Nothing is decided, so we cannot say how it affected in OpEx and when it will come.
We'll probably not take on anything in 2026. This will happen in 2027. But as Krister said, the decision is not made. But if we do it, we will keep that extra capacity in 2027 and until we have the new warehouse, and then we are in a quite nice position because we would then have two extra warehouses we can consider to close down, which is the plan. But if we outperform for the years to come, we still have those possibilities to take on further, probably. We see it just as a very good possibility with a very low risk and very good flexibility. We don't expect any backlash on that.
You have a very strong performance in Q3 on a challenging comparable. How should we think about Q4, and how has recent trading in Q4 been so far?
I think we can just repeat that we had a very strong Q4 last year, and for the fourth quarter, November is a very important month, so it's too early to say something about how this quarter will end. Still early.
Also a financial question here. How much of the higher OpEx in Q3 was one-offs, such as SAP, new store start-up cost, and temporary staffing, and how much is structural?
We had this NOK 1.6 million in one-off cost, which is already mentioned in the report. But else than that, it's not any one-off cost. The new stores that we have established have been developing very good, and there is no negative cost effect from them. All in all, good development. The increase in OpEx, of course, new stores equals
Around 1/3 of the additional cost, and the rest of the increase is related to general growth, wage increase and so on.
Do you see any negative consequences of the slow real estate market in Oslo, the south of Norway area?
So far, we can't say that, and we have had that now for some time. We don't see any correlation between that and furniture. We have seen in the figures for 20 years that this market is growing steady, that the refurbishment market is very strong, and we have some theories that when people don't afford to buy a new house, they can buy some furniture, and that's what we see in the stores also. We are doing quite well, and a tougher market is just better for the best players. We are doing quite good.
We're doing one more question, and that is about, you describe the mid-market segment of the furniture industry as resilient. What would it take for that to change?
I would say I don't know because we haven't seen it be weak in my period of time in retail for 25 years. I guess that high unemployment would do that, and that's my experience from other parts of retail. As long as we have low unemployment, the retail market is quite strong if you do your job and do the business good. That's really the only thing. But of course, an explosion in interest rate and so on, we don't know the effect of that. But as it is today with the strong Norwegian economy and all the reserves, we are in a good place both in Bohus and in Norway, I think.
Then back to you, John.
Thank you. I'll just finish up here. Thank you for listening to us. Wish you all a good autumn, Christmas, and we will see you back on 18th of February when we will present the fourth quarter and the full year of 2026. Thank you from us this time.