Good morning from a beautiful winter day here in Oslo. Welcome to the presentation of Komplett Group's Q4 results. My name is Kristin Hovland, and I'm Head of Communications. We will start today's presentation with our CEO, Jaan Ivar Semlitsch, who will go through the highlights for the quarter. Then our CFO, Thomas Røkke, will give you some more details about the financials. And at the end, Jaan Ivar will summarize the quarter and give you some perspectives on the outlook. Today's presentation will take approximately 20 minutes, and during the presentation, you are welcome to pose questions via web, and we will answer them at the end, together with any questions from the audience. So over to Jaan Ivar. The floor is yours.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Kristin, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to Komplett Group's Q4 presentation here from Oslo. Today, I hope to leave you with three key messages: Markets remain challenging, but Komplett is coping well. Second, we are on track with our priorities to improve our operations and our profitability. And we remain confident about our competitive strength, which is underpinned by our strong local brands, a scalable business model, and a very cost-efficient business model. But first, let me start by sharing some of the perspectives from 2023 before diving into the quarter, Q4. When I joined Komplett Group nearly a year ago, I saw great potential from our strong consumer brands, our strong local consumer brands, in combination with our cost-effective model and the scale benefits.
During the past year, I'm glad to say that we have remained dedicated to further expanding our market position by increasing brand awareness through some very successful campaigns and delivering great customer satisfaction, great customer service, in fact, best-in-class ratings during the year. We have grown our market shares, but at the same time, we have been mindful about our cost base and maintained our industry-leading cost position. Our market share increase during the year is well documented through detailed GfK data. Second, along with selected strategic marketing investments, we have made key recruitments at a group level and in the local business units. First of May, Erlend Stefansson as a new Managing Director of Komplett Services. Alexander Bergedalen, new Managing Director of Ironstone, first of August. And then Josefin Dalum, new Managing Director, NetOnNet, 1st of December.
And now, most recently, Trygve Hillesland, new Managing Director of Webhallen from 1st of February, or 17th of January, to be precise. I'm also very glad to say that we have a strong commercial team now in place, started with Andreas Westgaard the 1st of August, and he has now his team in place. In the recent quarters, the group has made good financial progress, especially the last two quarters, and we have a controlled financial position for the group throughout the year. Although we see no clear signs of near-term market recovery, the underlying market fundamentals remain strong and attractive, and we'll continue to scale up our competitive advantages. Also, the online growth trajectory, the long-term online growth trajectory, continues.
Before we move into some of the highlights, the financial highlights for the quarter, I would like to give you some some examples of the five areas I illustrated during my Q3 presentation. We are on track with our near-term priorities. We have delivered a strong peak season, weaker 2H of December, but in total, a strong peak season. Good development for private label and market shares maintained or increased also during peak, and a healthy inventory position and good service levels. At year-end, our inventory composition remained healthy, but we will adjust levels down after weaker sales 2H of December, but in a controlled way. Second, we have delivered operational excellence and profitability during the quarter.
The EBIT is up 30% during the quarter, and we have continued the customer journey with a good customer satisfaction ratings, and also been given some very good awards during the quarter, both NetOnNet and Komplett. The expansion in Norway, NetOnNet, is going according to plan, a very successful reopening of Alnabru, and at the end of this quarter, we'll have a reopening in Stavanger, doubling the size of that store. The further organizational changes, as I mentioned, have been implemented and also a bit ahead of plan. And at our Capital Markets Day, we will continue and highlight some of our expansion going forward, in particular in the areas of MDA, large white goods, SDA, small domestic appliances, and mobile with subscriptions. Further details on that on our capital markets day, the 29th of February.
But moving into some of the details of the quarter, we have a 30% increase in operating results on stable sales, sustained the gross margin expansion with 1.2 percentage points, stable sales, as mentioned, and good cost control. The financial position is stable, with a leverage ratio of 2.4 on lower debt and strong liquidity. Good progress on operational initiatives, including the securing the strategic potential and scale efficiencies from the NetOnNet acquisition. We'd also like to highlight our non-cash impairment of goodwill attributed to the NetOnNet acquisition and de-risking of balance sheet according to IFRS. This is illustrated through the current industry valuation, impacted by challenging markets, but no changes to strategic potential or plans. So with that, I will leave the word to Thomas, who will take us through more of the details of the financials of the quarter.
Thank you very much, Jaan Ivar. And for the Q4, we thought first and foremost to delve into the operational side of the business before giving you some more details on the write-downs on the intangibles, as Jaan Ivar alluded to. I think overall, if you look at the page and look at the quarter, it's been a fairly decent quarter. Difficult market continued, but we performed well, again. Looking at the market first and foremost, and I think we have elaborated on that previously, it remains difficult in the sense that it goes up and it goes down. It's been a fairly volatile quarter. And while we do see that, you know, households are realizing their economic position will be better in 2024, the willingness to buy material items is still fairly subdued.
Comparing the regional markets, it's clear that the Swedish market has been tougher than the Norwegian market, which still is developing better. It's also so that we've actually had a better development in the B2C segment during the quarter than we had in the other segments, which is continuing years on trends from before. As you can also see, we have, again, a good margin uplift in the quarter, both sustained by a good and continued, more benign market environment when it comes to pricing, but also from our internal measures, as discussed previously, and our sourcing program continues to be on track, and corrected for, you know, volume differences, delivers according to plan, as previously stated.
The cost uplift in the quarter, up NOK 36 million, is 60% driven by currency changes. So it's on a limited part, which is actually real cost increases, and half of that is actually attributable to deliberate marketing investments in the, in, in the market. Our cost reduction measures are going according to plan, and we are reinforcing, obviously, those, in light of the continued difficult environment as Jaan Ivar has been alluding to. So, the solid uplift of 30% in the quarter, is, is, you know, good, given the market circumstances.
It's a bit uneven distributed, with very strong development in the B2C segment this year, and a weaker development in the B2B and the, and the distribution segment, reversing actually the development from last year, and also kind of, signaling, some diversification in the underlying business model, which is a positive. Looking more at the B2C segment, you can see here that in the quarter, we had a good growth in Norway, but a decline in Sweden, and as Jaan-Ivar alluded to, the growth in Norway was primarily, you know, driven by the October and November months.
We also looked at the Black Week and the peak season, and we delivered a unusually strong Black Week, but lost out a little bit in December, and I think that is also an industry phenomenon, which we have actually seen in the data. Again, here, there is a good margin uplift towards last year, 1.8%, partly from you know, better inventory position, but also, you know, part of the sourcing program, and this is also one of the areas where we're seeing the most benefit of the sourcing program. Here, the cost base is very strongly impacted by the currency effect.
This is where we actually have the Swedish operations, so obviously, that is a major component, but up NOK 43 million year-on-year. That to be said, Q4 last year was a difficult quarter for this segment. But I think, you know, if you look at the overall annual figures, you can see the earnings going from NOK 12 million to NOK 150 million, and that is broadly distributed across all the brands. So overall, a significant improvement in this area.
The B2B segment is at a weak ending to the year, and mainly due to the fact that the trends from previously have been continuing, in the sense that there's a weak underlying market that was overlaid in Q3 through educational and back-to-school campaigns, but hit us again now in the Q4. And also, on the margin side, two factors impacting a stronger competition from our competitors in this segment, which have discovered that this is actually an attractive niche. We are not losing market share, but it kind of puts limits on the margin potential.
I think this is also one area where the sales mix hurt us a little bit in Q4, where we saw that, you know, the classical bread-and-butter products with the better margins being replaced by lower-margin products. It should also be said, when it comes to the EBIT decline in the quarter, that the Q4 last year was impacted by phasing effects in the Ironstone subsidiary and actually had an unusually good development. So, here, the comparable is also very high. We do see similar trends in the distribution business being down slightly.
But this is also one area where policies of our key customers have had an effect in the sense that deliveries and phasing last year were not repeated this year, and certain campaigns of our key customers affected sales being then shifted into January. Overall, the margin is also affected by mix effects, and as you know, this is one area where we have a limited set of very large customers, so small shifts can actually make a big difference, yielding a slight decline than in earnings versus last year.
Looking at the non-operational parts, you can see the depreciation has increased, and the main reason for that is increased depreciation on IT investment, but also some cost inflation creeping in through the IFRS 16 depreciations. We have one-off costs of about NOK 12 million. The real number is NOK 20 million, but for technical reasons, NOK 8 million of those restructuring costs are taken as an impairment on the right of use assets. I will not delve into the details of that, but the real number is NOK 20 million, and it's mainly related to the closure of the stores in Webhallen. Then there is a significant non-cash impairment of a more technical nature. I'll come back to that on the next page.
But the net financials are in line with previous quarters, and obviously, while our net, interest-bearing debt is down, interest rates have gone up, and it continues at this level for the time being. Loss for the period is a significant negative NOK 947 million, of which obviously, most of it is relating to the impairment charges and is not operational. So looking at the impairment on the goodwill and the intangible assets, this relates to mainly to values being booked as the acquisition of NetOnNet was conducted some years ago. And in the meantime, I think everybody has realized that there's been a fairly volatile period. We had the COVID period, where everything went up and interest rates down.
We have had a post-COVID period, where have been turbulent market changes and interest rates going up. We've seen performance industry reversing. So there's actually been quite a lot of different developments in the industry and large changes, and that obviously triggers a need to reappraise either, you know, from a good judgment point of view, but also in this case, from IFRS, triggering a reappraisal of the values in the books. On that area, we have gone through you know the plans, the projections, and also, given the time since the acquisition, it also is clear that we have to put more emphasis on external market benchmarks, market data, less on the original plans that are being developed for this transaction.
IFRS also put some limitations on which parts and types of projects and initiatives that can be included in the calculation. So, the consequence of that is obviously that we have had to reevaluate the projection from here. We have, you know, starting from today, and going forward, and for the sake of prudence, we're taking down these projections slightly. That leads to a reappraisal and a readjustment of NOK 932 million on the goodwill, mainly or in the NetOnNet CGU, also where it's been allocated, but also in Webhallen, but both of them mainly relate and can be translated back to the NetOnNet transaction.
An additional 37 is more due to development projects in relation to the supply chain project in the group, which have changed in nature. i.e., we have not changed our intention to build a supply chain platform for the group, but quite a lot of this development work is now quite dated, and it's also uncertain to what extent we can actually reuse that in the future work. And given the uncertainty surrounding that asset, we have decided to write it down. Further, NOK 8 million, as I've previously stated, relates to the Webhallen restructuring projects and is more of an accounting technical nature.
I think it's very important to stress here that as Jaan Ivar alluded to, this doesn't change our expectations for the synergies for the benefits and the combined strategic rationale of the acquisition, nor does it change our financial expectations, but is basically due to technical and prudent accounting requirements. And leaves kind of the operational side of this unchanged, but then gives the obviously advantage of going into 2024 with a de-risked balance sheet in this respect. Cash flow and working capital is obviously not affected by this adjustment. But in the Q4, beyond the positive EBITDA, we've obviously had a buildup in inventory, which we could compensate through our supplier payments.
We also had some continued investments in the IT infrastructure. The net cash used in financing activities is mainly related to leasing and also rebalancing of our facilities, ending up at a cash flow for the quarter of NOK 62 million and NOK 81 million for the full year. I think Jaan Ivar already alluded to the fact that our inventories are higher than we actually would like them to be, given the swift reversal in the 2H of December. Those are being managed down in an orderly fashion, and it's still a healthy inventory, so we don't see any need for major fast sell-down. That leaves us with the financial position, which remains stable and controlled. Our net interest-bearing debt is down year-on-year.
Our equity ratio, despite the write-down and the non-cash impairment, is still on a healthy, almost 40%. Our net interest-bearing debt, as I said, is going down. Our liquidity reserve is very solid, with NOK 1.2 billion. And while slightly down technically year-on-year, it's not really comparable given that year-end last year saw a transition period between the old facility program and the new facility program. And last but not least, our leverage ratio remains on a good level, and also very stable compared to Q3. And on that note, I'll leave the word back to you, Jaan Ivar.
Thank you, Thomas. I'll sum up just with a few slides and then opening up for Q&A. So, we've had a significant profit uplift in a challenging market environment. Good progress on initiatives to strengthen our market position, increased our market share during the year and during the quarter. Also utilizing our scale benefits, and we have improved our service levels, and at the same time, maintaining our industry-leading cost position. Also important to say here that in an inflation environment, our relative position has also improved significantly, given the huge cost for the incumbents on stores and electricity. Actions to improve operational and financial performance have been combined with new management teams and key recruitments. I'm very happy with my team, and you will also see parts of that team presenting on the Capital Markets Day.
Significant de-risking of the balance sheet through non-cash impairments, and Thomas has gone through that in detail, and we are well positioned to handle a continued difficult market expected into 2024. But there are no clear signs of a swift market recovery, but we are entering 2024 with a controlled financial position as planned, and there is potential for additional margin upside in the coming periods, supported by the new strong commercial team, working very closely with the local organization. And we are, of course, reinforcing the efforts to counteract cost inflation. And the brand positioning and the market share expansion will continue, and it remains a core priority. Some very strong campaigns coming up. Petter Northug launched this week with NetOnNet in Norway. Very successful, good timing.
Same with a new gaming campaign being launched for Komplett this week, and in a couple of weeks, we will also have some new ideas into the Swedish market. And also Webhallen will be even more oriented towards gaming, headphones, mobile phones, mobile with subscription. But on that note, we'll open up for Q&A. Just a final reminder of our Capital Markets Day. Hope that many of you can attend, both here in person or through the webcast. The 29th of February from 9:00 A.M. to 12:00 P.M., and here you see the different people who will present. But I'll keep the rest for a little secret, so let's open up for Q&A.
Thank you. Is there any questions from the room here also? If not, we can... Yeah. Please state your name first. Thank you.
Arne Reinemo. I guess I have to speak in English. If you look at the 4Q revenue, it's approximately the same as last year, so in real terms, it's actually down. But despite that development, you had employee costs that increased almost NOK 40 million. Could you please elaborate a little bit on why that happened, or what's the underlying reason for that?
I think, as if you're talking in absolute terms, right?
Right.
As I alluded to, the cost buildup in the Q4 is mainly related to currency. In the total there, about 60% of the cost buildup is currency related, i.e., we have big operations in Sweden, when the Norwegian kroner becomes weak, the cost that basically is translated into our accounts at a higher rate, which means that that is just of a technical nature. In the Q4, you also have restructuring charges, which I guess is the one line you are looking into there. So we also took quite a lot of restructuring charges, both in Webhallen. We are closing the stores, but also in some of the other operations, which comes on top. So part of that is also non-operational.
So it's mainly restructuring charges, and it's basically FX effects, while the underlying unmitigated cost inflation is actually fairly limited in Q4.
The number of employees is not that different from last year?
No, but the number of employees is also driven by temporary workers and capacity in the supply chain.
Yeah, but let's say FTEs then. Is that very changed, or is that almost the same, or?
Yeah, I think it's quite the same, and also during the peak season, we've had the same temporary and staff as the year before.
Okay. The gross margin increased both compared to last year and last quarter. As far as I... Could you just repeat why you have quite a good development on the gross margin? What's the key factors behind that?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I can start off, and then Thomas into more details. But I think first of all, we have utilized our scale benefits now as we are a combined unit, NetOnNet and Komplett, so that's been successful. Also, the central sourcing team has been quite instrumental in some specific suppliers. For some suppliers, we've also gotten access to assortment we have had, haven't had before, like The Frame with Samsung, which was the first time, which is a, it's a, a good margin program to have. And also it's around our culture in terms of thinking through the total value chain margin. So it's also the way we do campaigns and how we plan for the next campaigns and the mix between campaign items and, let's say, the standard assortment.
Then I think it's also related to a lot of work in the daily business by just being very close to each campaign and the way we run campaigns. So it's difficult to put into one factor, but I think also it's been a healthier inventory position for all players in the market, and that's also helpful in terms of margin expansion.
Is there any difference between the gross margin development in Norway versus Sweden, or is it the same increase in both markets?
It's a quite similar development.
Similar.
It's a positive development in all markets and with all brands, all the local brands.
But, when it then comes to the revenue side, the revenue increase in Norway is obviously positive, but it wasn't that high in this quarter. At the same time, I see that the Elkjøp is reporting quite a substantial revenue increase in Norway. Could you please talk a little bit about how you see the competitive situation, especially in Norway- ... during the quarter?
Yeah. I think, in general, we looked into the data, and it's difficult to say what's the sort of reporting level from the competitors. But in general, when we look at the data, we have maintained or increased our market share, both in Norway and in Sweden. Then we know that the Finnish market is probably the toughest market for the moment, where we are not present. But for the Norwegian market, we see that we have taken share. Then when you analyze the GfK data, it's important to say that, you know, some of those categories are not fully captured, like in our gaming category, where we have a very strong market position. Not all of those data are reflected in GfK.
We have had, for example, within our own Komplett computers, we've had, record sales, you know, 5,000 computers during November and 5,000 computers during December, our own PCs. They're quite unique, and they are not fully captured in all, all data.
I think the long and the short of it is that, you know, if you compare to the market data, we are doing quite well. If you pick out that GfK, you know, the like-for-like products that we are selling, we're doing even better. So, you know, we are, actually quite, quite comfortable with the peak season overall.
Would it be correct to say that you and Elkjøp is taking a market share, or would it be correct to say that only you are taking market share?
Well, I think,
In Norway.
I think more Elkjøp and Power should answer on their behalf, but we're quite confident that we have taken the market share.
The way you see it?
The way I see it, I'm tempted to answer, but I'd like to leave it to the competitors.
Okay, going to...
Like a politician, you know.
You can run for office, Jaans. Going to the capital investments, the investment level increased quite a lot, or almost 100%, from last quarter. Could you please say a little bit about what you had done during the quarter?
We have invested in, in IT infrastructure. That's the main driver behind it. So we started up and did the last investments in the, SAP HANA, and the web platform in Sandefjord. So if you look back and, and probably look into note 6, you will see that it's the, the CapEx is mainly related to software.
... Yeah, and we went live with the new ERP system. It's built on, yeah, SAP for many years, and it's been very successful from a customer perspective, and it's gone very well. It will give lots of new functionality into 2024 and 2025, but of course, it has come with an investment and a sort of final piece of the puzzle in some of you.
Well, moving to financing. If you look at the debt level compared to the running profit level, it's quite high. The EBIT is around NOK 100 million. The EBITDA in the traditional non-IFRS world is around NOK 200 million. What is kind of your thoughts around the debt versus the quite tough competitive situation and revenue situation you are in?
Could you please share a little bit about how you're thinking about the current debt level?
Well, we think, as Jaan Ivar alluded to, we think the financial situation is controlled. We fully agree with you that we would like to actually come down slightly more than we do now, but we also see the, you know, a more positive financial development going forward will, you know, de-leverage automatically through a higher performance. So I think we are, you know, carefully monitoring that, and we think with 2.4 on the new metric, we are in compliance with all financial facilities and think we can actually handle this situation also going forward.
But if you increase the revenue, like 10%-15%, obviously your working capital will increase quite a lot from the low, relative low level you have today. So then you will need money.
Yeah, but you have to look at how much working capital do we actually have? I think we have one of the advantages, not, you know, shared with other retail businesses, is that our capital is rotating very fast, be it, you know, a fixed investment or be it our working capital. So we think we can actually handle growth very, very effectively also while maintaining a positive cash development.
Hmm.
I think also with our central team in place, there is more potential on credit terms with some of our key suppliers, so that's part of the negotiations also now going forward.
Hmm. Thank you.
Any other questions from the room?
Good to have some questions from the audience.
Yeah.
It's been a long time since we had that. That's good.
Thank you. We'll then move on to the questions from the web. I'll start with one from Bengt Jonassen. Can you please give some backdrop on the amount of VD changes in Webhallen over the last few years?
Yeah, so it's a good question. I've been only one year with the Komplett, but I think we've had five MD changes since 2014 in Webhallen. I actually sold Webhallen from Elkjøp in 2013. Then it was a rather stable business, but we've had many changes on MDs, and that's not always helpful. It creates uncertainty and sort of less consistency, but I believe now that we have the right managing director in place, Trygve Hillesland. He did a similar task for me in Finland for Elgiganten, Elgiganten Finland some years back, and also in the Czech Republic, he did the same work. So we believe in him, and going forward, his focus will be even more gaming-focused and headphones, mobile-focused.
And he has a lot of store experience, so that we really optimize the 12 stores we have, and lots of digital experience. Having said that, our MD, before Trygve, who was there for close to two years, Anders Torell, has been very good in terms of building now the foundation for Webhallen. Good cost control, a stable platform to build from. So this is a change to take it to the next level, and it's important to say that Trygve has been internally recruited, coming from the position as MD of NetOnNet Norway. So this is a MD recruitment for the long term. At least that's my goal.
Thank you. We now have five questions from Ole Martin Westgaard. I will read them one by one. I think you've touched upon the first one already, but is there anything you'd like to add regarding the competitive landscape in Norway and Sweden?
I think, it's a challenging market. The competition is tough, but always been tough, so we sort of manage that well. I think, our advantage is that we have very happy customers, and we rate very high. And then when we do marketing... Sorry about my flu. When we do marketing, there is more, there are more positives, through our marketing efforts since we have that sort of positive customer feeling, from the start. So, so I think, that's an advantage for us now moving forward. So yeah, I don't think it's so much more to add on the competitive landscape, than that. We've-
MediaMarkt, you mean?
Yeah, we could say that, you know, it's still a... It's a very good point. There is consolidation in Sweden, now as Power has acquired MediaMarkt, and to us, industry consolidation is always a positive. It's always a positive. And also the fact that NetOnNet and Komplett now are a combined unit, that's also a positive when we do negotiations with our suppliers. So... And of course, during that rebranding period in Sweden, that has created some turmoil with some campaigns and all that, but in general, we see that as a positive.
What was the factoring at the year-end? And what was outstanding under the Swedish tax deferment scheme?
The factoring was 338, i.e., down both quarter-over-quarter and year-on-year. We aim to be around 400, but given, you know, the phasing on sales and customer agreements in the distribution business is a bit down in the Q4. The amount on the tax deferment scheme in Sweden is actually unaltered, but the figure in the report of 457 is basically currency adjusted according to the most recent update.
Perfect. How much of the targeted synergies have you crystallized?
We have come quite far, you know.
I do kind of give the same explanation every time, I guess. But when it comes to the cost synergies, all of those have basically been taken out, but have been kind of counteracted by cost inflation. That said, we are putting on new programs and aim to do, you know, the same exercise again. So while we have realized what we have said before, we are, you know, redoubling the effort going into 2024. When it comes to the sourcing part, we are delivering according to plan, slightly volume adjusted below the target we had for the full year. Aim to actually deliver, again for next year in the same sense.
But it should also be noted that this is going from being a kind of a program to being basically part of the ongoing operation through the new category team which will basically take on the responsibility for coordinating sourcing across the group.
Good. What was your private label share in 2023 compared to 2022?
I'm not sure when we give the full shares, but it has increased quite a lot, but still from low levels in Komplett. Would you like to comment?
No, it has increased, but not enough. And we're basically working on that, but it does show, you know, differences, but I don't think we actually provided the figure previously.
Your inventory is up due to weak December sales. Can you add some colors on the quality of the inventory?
We think the quality of the inventory is good and healthy, which I think we have kind of stated on several occasions. So, so I guess that's the long and short of it.
Then we are moving on to Petter Nyström. You talked about weaker sales 2H of December. Can you share some light on what you experienced between products, geography, et cetera, and do you see this as, as a new trend?
Yeah. So, especially the 2H of December, I think first of all, you know, the November trading was very strong and during Black Week, very strong. So I think many consumers have also planned for their Christmas items during that period. That's a learning to take into 2024. And also for the Boxing Days in Sweden, it was quieter than what we've seen before, and much more during the November period. So that's a bit of a difference between the two markets. And then I think for the TV category, that's been the most negative part in the Swedish market during the 2H. While in Norway, it's been more related to the PC category during the 2H. But perhaps you would like to add some more color to that, Thomas, during the period.
I think just to the last part of the question, is this a new trend? No, I think we are just stating that the market remains difficult. It remains more difficult in Sweden than in Norway. But we're not seeing a trend change. We're basically just seeing continued challenging markets.
Then perhaps on a detail note, you know, the interest rate increase. Might be that nobody has heard of anything from me now for the last 30 minutes, but see if it works now. I think also the interest rate increase in Norway in mid-December was not helpful for the psychology in the Norwegian, among the Norwegian consumers, but it's difficult to quantify that. But hopefully, that sort of psychology will sort of be reduced over the next coming, over the coming periods. But again, it's a tough market, it's a soft market, challenging market as we have stated several times.
We have a question from Vebjørn Storvik from HandelsWatch. In what ways are the non-cash impairment charges of NOK 983 million changing Komplett's plans for NetOnNet in Norway?
Yeah, so no changes to that. We stick to those plans, so there's no impact at all.
Yeah.
Important to say and to stress.
Thank you. Then we have a couple of questions from Joachim Husa: Thanks for the presentation. How has sales developed going into 2024? Sweden equally soft?
Yeah, I would say Sweden equally soft. It's a challenging market for the moment.
Should we expect continued year-over-year margin expansion throughout 2024? Can you elaborate a bit on the additional margin upside in coming periods?
Yeah, so we don't comment on the detail margins, but we will continue and work on the expansion, both through the central teams and the local teams.
Yeah, I think that's fair. And also, you know, given the new category team, we do expect there to be further upside, maybe not as strong as in 2023, but yes, you know, that is one of the levers we will keep working on.
I think in a longer term perspective, you know, MDA, white goods, SDA, small domestic appliances, mobile subsc- with subscription, that comes with... All those three categories comes with a quite good margin. So when, when we focus even more on that, that will have some additional effects, but that's not sort of for, for the coming quarter or, or the next two quarters.
Okay, last one from Joakim: Are you concerned about leverage and the covenant for Q1?
I think as we've said before, we think this situation is controllable. We think, you know, with a starting point of 2.4, we are in a good position to handle this. And we, we think we will actually be able to both manage the Q1 and also the rest of the quarters in 2024.
Good. Thank you. Then we have one question from Håkon Fuglseth. Given the improvement in inventory ahead of Q4, can you comment on the basket size for the quarter?
On the?
Basket size. Order size.
The sort of average ticket item or?
Yeah, average order size, I think.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's been increased a little bit during the quarter. And it's primarily price driven. And so we see that the average basket size is higher in Komplett Services than in NetOnNet. Always been that. So, so that's yeah, some highlights to that.
Then the final question for now, from Henrik Andre Brungot: Any reflections on diversity in executive management team and other recruitments?
Yeah. There's more work to do. I would start off by saying that in Komplett Services in Sandefjord, the management team there, there we have 50/50 representation between men and women. Same in Webhallen, where we have 50/50 representation, men and women, in the management team. And I think also in Josefin's team, we are 40% women and 60%, men. Now, in my team, we still have some work to do. Two of my team members are women, my HR director and my recently appointed MD from Sweden, Josefin Dalum. So, that's where we are, and in total, I think for Komplett, we have a rather diverse group, also from very different nationalities, performing very well, for example, in our logistics operations in Sandefjord.
Thank you. There are no further questions, so I will then leave the word back to you, Kristin.
Thank you, Jaan Ivar and Thomas, and thank you for joining us today, and we will be back presenting our first quarter results on the 24th of April. Thank you.