Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Alligo Interim Report Q3 2023 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please use the Q&A box available on the webcast link anytime during the conference. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I'd now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Clein Johansson Ullenvik. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Heidi. Okay, everybody, welcome to Alligo Q3 report. My God, it feels like we just presented the Q2 report, time flies. We are super happy to share with you what we've been up to this last quarter. And by we, I mean, two presenters today, that is Irene Wisenborn Bellander, our CFO, and myself, Clein Johansson Ullenvik, CEO. As always, we try to, bring up some things we'd like to highlight in the report, not the, report in its entirety. And as you also know, we bring up some themes. We've had logistics, we've had assortment, we've had sustainability, we had acquisitions, we had customer strategy, we had own brand, and today we dive a little bit into brand consolidation and sales strategy. We hope you will enjoy it.
So a little flyover, we are a leading player in workwear, personal protection, tools, and supplies in the Nordics. Rolling twelve, some SEK 9.5 billion turnover, a little shy of 2,500 employees and 213 stores with our concept brands, TOOLS, Swedol, Univern, and Grolls, but more of that later on, as you know. Yeah, we have managed to confuse a lot of people with all the changes in the group. And we as a group is, we're fairly new, as a name, at least, even if our heritage dates back to 1832. Swedol was founded 60 years ago, TOOLS around the millennium shift.
But at the later part, we managed to confuse people by the merger of TOOLS and Swedol forming Alligo, spinning off the industrial parts in 2022, which now is called Momentum Group, as the group name was earlier on, and today we are Alligo. But even if the name is new, our heritage dates back quite some time. As you know, we are Sweden-dependent. More than half of our turnover comes from Sweden, and even more, even bigger share, if you look at the results. EBITDA is 72% of group results, and the share of own brands is steadily increasing, and we are now at 19%. We were at 33%-34% in the old Swedol group. Then we merged, and then we spun off or sold Gigant.
So this is the share as it is today, and it's increasing. It's no use of its own having as high share of own brands as possible. If we can be competitive together with our strong suppliers and partners, that is, of course, easier, but we use it when we need to increase our competitiveness, and we are happy to see that it's working. We're using it as a weapon to win market shares and improve our profitability. Our market, we divide it up in six customer segments, which makes us a little bit resilient to downturns in specific segments. Whereas we today, it's very obvious for most of us all that the construction sector is suffering, mainly in Sweden.
But then we have seven other customer segments we are relying on. So the industrial side, the manufacturing side, is showing fair stability: public sector, transportation, storage, repair, maintenance, agriculture, and then two segments, which, of course, is mostly focused in Norway, the fishing, agriculture, aquaculture, and oil and gas. And we like to focus on small and medium-sized customers. We welcome all type of businesses, of course, and we need to run the bigger customers in a more efficient and professional way. But our main focus, as you know, is the small and medium-sized customer. The company is built to serve them in the best possible way. And we have good competitors, different chains, the obvious players that we compete with on a daily basis. Some highlights, business conditions.
You've seen this slide a couple of times. It's a little bit outdated, but things are developing more or less exactly as we have predicted. So the market development, we have foreseen that in Sweden. I look back at old comments we made a year ago, and we already saw signs then, even if many thought we were a bit early signaling that, but it's developing just as we have predicted. We have strong demand in oil and gas in Norway, which is good. That gives us headroom in Norway to now invest into small and medium-sized customers in the construction sector while they have a very nicely developing oil and gas sector. We as a management, we have been through this many times before.
We run the company a little bit like a private equity company would run their business with a lot of initiatives. Could be cost initiatives, could be growth initiatives. We are fine-tuning the sales, how we organize and, and manage our sales force, constantly. We adjust our prices. Of course, we need to increase prices due to the worsening exchange rate with the SEK and NOK. But we also need to, to, take great responsibility for the concept we have and not price ourselves out of the market, because our concept is very relevant, especially in these times we are in today. Inventories, we work constantly with fine-tuning that, and as you know, we are rolling out own brands in our shops, and that is tying up a lot of capital, and we are fine-tuning that.
Cost reductions, we'd like to do that as we follow the market development, not doing too much, too early, or too little, too late, but trying to do it at the speed of the development in the market, and so far, I think we've done it in a good way. Yeah, delivery capacity is good. That is the synonym of saying that we have high, too high stocks, I guess, but it's good and stable. The logistics structure works well, and we have good availability. And the macroeconomic factors, you are well aware of. There are some turbulence in the world, and the business climate is, to a certain extent, challenging.
So Q3, in brief, we had just looking at the as-reported revenue, it's flat, but if you look at it, it's in an organic way, it's -3%. But we're happy to say that we managed to increase the result by SEK 10 million, 6%, and we're right at an EBITDA margin of 9%, so up from 8.5% to 9%. Cash flow is steadily improving as we are now focusing more and more on managing our stocks. We have now got the keys for the logistics center in Vestby outside Oslo, and I learned yesterday that we are now to 60% installed shelves and automated machines and whatever we need there, so it's running along nicely.
We're making some changes in the sales organization, getting tighter control of the sales organization, so we have made a few changes. So they all celebrated the sixtieth birthday, and we've made some buyback of shares. So brand consolidation, today's theme, and possibly you have seen the press release that went out, that we have now decided... I think we have communicated earlier on that we will go for TOOLS in Norway and Finland, and in Sweden, we have said the jury is still out. What is the most clever way to do it? But if we start from the right, so Finland, Grolls, will merge into TOOLS. TOOLS is the strongest brand in Finland. So in Finland, we will be called TOOLS, except for all the nice businesses we have bought.
That we'll see when it suits, and it most safe and best way to merge them into TOOLS, and if ever, in certain examples. Norway, we used to have even three brand names. Swedol existed in Norway, but that was closed earlier on, not the shops, but the brand. And now we've had Univarn shops, and they are step by step being converted into TOOLS, even TOOLS workwear. And in Sweden, we have now arrived at the conclusion that we will use the brand Swedol. So TOOLS and Grolls will move over under the Swedol brand.
By having done that, then this—we'd like to build this, as you know, the scalable platform, have the same ERP system everywhere, have the same logistic structure everywhere, as few legal entities as possible, and also, of course, not having too many concept brands, because it's more cost efficient and effective in all ways to build brands in our local markets, not having too many of them. So this will increase our efficiency and making the sales management easier. Let's see, then we have ongoing actions, stores, how to attract small and medium-sized enterprises. That we know how to do. We are refining how we run the sales in all our countries, and we need to learn from each other.
We have a lot to learn how we drive marketing, how we in mechanical way drive customers to our shops, and we have got that started nicely. We are working more and more with marketing. I hope you can hear that on the radio, and you can see that in the papers and in your local city. So we are pushing to be more visible. Some new locations, Boden opening. We have an outlet in Norrköping, where we try to sell and get rid of some slow-moving articles. That we have done that in the past, and it's been very successful and a good way to do that. And then we are refurbishing existing stores.
We talked about that last time, especially in Finland, in relation to the country size and the number of shops, is perhaps the biggest investment in relative terms in Finland. And large customers, we do have large customers. It's not the same strategic focus, but we need to handle them in the best possible way. So as you know, we have formed this role, industry segment manager, and that's supporting the local sales organization. We have one half unique offering, which is our small service solutions, on-site storage, storage close to the workplace.... And we believe that we have the best offering in the market from a technical perspective, from the whole setup, how you fill up this, which increases the efficiency for our customers dramatically.
And then, of course, the PPE solutions, we have a lot of different solutions for. So financials, Irene?
Yes, thank you. As Clein mentioned, we increased profit and improved cash flow during the quarter, despite the weaker sales trend. Revenue was slightly ahead of last year, driven by completed acquisitions and positive currency effects, but contracted by negative organic growth in Sweden and Finland, and one trading day less. The slowdown that was observed in Sweden in the fourth quarter of last year, and in Finland during the second quarter of this year, has continued and gradually intensified and applied to most customer segments. EBITDA increased by 6% to SEK 191 million in the quarter, corresponding to an EBITDA margin of 9%. Norway drives the improvement in profit, resulting from stable growth, improved margins, and cost reductions. The effect is, to some extent, offset by weaker development in Finland.
The gross margin improvement is mainly related to the increased share of sales of own brands and general sales and assortment management. These positive effects are, to some extent, contracted by negative country mix. During the quarter, we had a 15 million SEK release of the restructuring reserve. The amount is higher compared to previous quarters this year, following the finalization of the assortment merge and prolonged sublease of the warehouse premises in Alingsås. The financial net amounted to -23 million SEK, excluding IFRS 16, compared to -10 million SEK last year. The deteriorated financial net is related to higher CIBOR, but has, to some extent, been contracted by lower interest market due to improved leverage. Turning to next slide, and let's have a closer look at the development in each market.
Revenue in Sweden decreased by 1.7%, and the organic growth was negative, but was mitigated by the acquisitions of six profile companies. The previously observed slowdown continued and intensified in the third quarter, and organic growth was approximately -6% and related to most customer segments. EBITDA ended at 138 million SEK, which is slightly better than last year, and the focus going forward is on driving sales and the organizational change that Clein mentioned with effect from September is a part of it. The positive sales trend in Norway in local currency continued in Q3 and was driven by the good market development in the oil and gas segment, and the organic growth reached about 2% in the quarter.
The improvement in profit in Norway is driven by stable growth, improved margins, and cost adjustments. The priority going forward is to increase the share of small and mid-sized customers and strengthen sales and assortment management. When it comes to Finland, sales increased by 11.2%, favored by acquisitions and FX effects. The organic growth was negative, and the hesitance in the market noted in Q2 accelerated in Q3, and it's related to most customer segments. The results in Finland was weaker due to investments in new and existing stores to better meet the needs of small and medium-sized customers. The third quarter is seasonally the weakest quarter from a cash flow perspective. In the third quarter, cash flow from operating activities amounted to SEK 34 million, compared to SEK -91 million last year.
The improvement of SEK 125 million is mainly related to a lower pace of inventory buildup and decreased prepayments to our Far East own brand suppliers. The higher inventory levels compared to last year are driven by our own brands and the ongoing assortment merge, and to some extent, also acquisitions. We are not satisfied with the high stock levels, and there will be increased focus going forward to improve capital efficiency. The investing activities for the nine months are related to M&A activities and consist of six completed acquisitions, but also store and central warehouse reductions and IT-related investments. The ratio of CapEx to depreciation amounted to a multiple of 1.5. Finally, the financing activities are mainly related to dividends paid, repurchase of shares, increased borrowings, and amortization of leasing liabilities.
Since the third quarter is the weakest quarter, cash flow-wise, the net debt increased to SEK 1.8 billion at the end of the period, but is in line with September last year. The ratio of net debt to EBITDA amounted to a multiple of 2.0, which is a decrease compared to corresponding period last year, and well within the financial target range. The unutilized credited facilities, including cash, amounted to SEK 938 million. Our covenants are related to interest coverage and equity asset ratios, and these are fulfilled at the end of our period, and there is good headroom before reaching the thresholds. So in summary, we have a strong financial position, and we will continue to invest in organic growth and take advantage of potentially good M&A opportunities in our market.
Handing it over to you, Clein, for summary and outlook.
Thank you, Irene. As you said, summary and outlook. So with our eight different customer segments, we have proven some resilience despite tough conditions in certain sectors. We continue to increase profitability and improve our cash flow, and all the initiatives we are driving is in line with that. The standard assortment, as we've talked about a lot, it's called the F assortment. We work closely with our partner suppliers, which this is a very, very good thing for them, that we sell the defined assortment or, and not too wide assortment. If we can focus on fewer articles, then we have a better supply situation, we get better conditions, and we can fulfill all sustainability measures we have. Strengthen our competitiveness, we do that together with our suppliers, our partners.
We reduce cost step by step, as we said earlier, and we fine-tune our sales organization. We have a very good delivery capacity of external brands or own brands. Three overarching themes. We love to make things simple and to be able to communicate to 1,500 employees in 213 locations. Except for a very clear strategy, we always have a number of overarching themes, and these three have been the same now for quite a while. We used to have a fourth one, which was to finalize the integration of TOOLS and Swedol, but that since we have said it's ready, so that is not an overarching theme anymore. But we have three of them, make our people grow. That's what distinguish ourselves from our competitors.
We have the best people of them all, we think. Improve collaboration and processes. We are a reasonably new built company, as you know, and there's still a lot to do, how we work together and the processes, efficiency. We built this under a burning pandemic, and haven't been able to meet during those times, so it will take a little bit longer to have this as fine-tuned as we would like. And then to get on track with growth and margins in all parts of our business.
We cannot accept having certain entities of our wonderful group not performing, and then we focus on them, and one tremendous change has been Norway, which was not performing at this level at the beginning, and we work closely with our Norwegian friends, and we can now see a very good development in Norway as one example. So then the million-dollar question: where is this heading? We all consume a lot of market statistics from our industry and adjacent industries. They all point in the same direction. It's not a surprise to us. It's been. It's developed as we predicted a year ago, and it's continuing to develop as we have predicted. But the important thing that is that we feel we are well-positioned even in a weaker market. We are focusing on sales.
I cannot say that I see it yet, this opportunity. I know we have to take quite a lot of market shares in a slower market. Historically, it has been a very strong offering in tougher conditions, and I can see it partly, but not to the extent you can wish. We have a crystal clear focus on small and medium-sized customers. We work with inventory levels, cost, as we said, and we will take the opportunity, even in turbulent times, to do acquisitions and do other type of investments. So with a strong financial position, as we have, we see great opportunities to improve our position in many areas. We have communicated earlier, certain areas we would like to be stronger in, and we will do acquisitions in those areas to improve our position.
That is good. Very good. That's all from us. Handing back to you, Heidi, for questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please type it in the box and click submit. We will take our first question. Your first question comes from the line of Karl-Johan Bonnevier from DNB Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes, good morning. Just two question from me that I see for the moment, at least. Looking at gross margin, obviously continued very good movement there. Do you still see what I would call, say, purchase price inflation coming into your inventory, or has that stabilized so that that part of price compensation, if you put it like that, is normalizing from here, looking at gross margins?
Yes, it is, as the stock turns, and we are filling up with the new purchases to a higher price. So inflation is one of the things we are fighting against when we do activities to bring down the stock. So it's good you mentioned that, Karl-Johan, because we are doing things which in real terms, in a number of things, is having an effect, but it's being... It's not visible, thanks to the inflation bringing up the value in money. So that will continue for quite some time, but we have a lot of different measures we are implementing to bring down the stock levels in units, so to speak.
When you look at the day-to-day operation, you are still forced to implement price increases to compensate?
We can see that there were not that much price increases in the September increase that we got from our suppliers. We got it to a certain extent, but that was a fairly small increase, and we strategically also chose to be very careful. And as you know, we even lowered the price for quite a number of articles to be more competitive. So we try to use the pricing process where we have, and we historically have been very good at knowing where we need to be to be competitive. And as I've said it earlier, we could, a quarter or two, bring up the margins to sky level, but then we will lose our competitive edge. So we're constantly balancing that.
We can see, talking to our suppliers, that they will most certainly have a price increase for the February price increase, if not for anything else, so due to the currency. So-
Yeah, that's what I was alluding to, because I think the currency environment has clearly not been favorable for you, looking at the Norwegian krone and the Swedish krona. So, impressive work in that way.
Thank you.
Then just trying to pick a little more on your plans for or your outlook for 2024. As you said, it's a million-dollar question, but when you look at your CEO reaching scenes when, and the last part is get on track with growth and margins in all parts of the business, are there certain parts of the business where you would be more impatient of getting things done in 2024? And then how would that be affected by, say, maybe how the business environment turns out?
We are lucky in a sense that we have made-- We've been very selective making acquisitions. So as looking back now, at least one year into the slow downturn, we can see that all the acquisitions we have made, they are performing. So that has been good. Check. We are finding the right acquisition targets, and we're doing them, and we are integrating them in the best possible way. But other things is also to ensure that we do the things we agree on. So even if it's a good, reasonably profitable unit, we need to have the same pace, all of us. So we had a big management team meeting with the top managers here a couple of weeks ago.
We discussed that a lot to really get this execution. If we agree on plan B, which we are through, and we are now partly into plan C when it comes to cost reductions, that whatever we agree on, everybody goes home and actually executes on. Because otherwise, it will be difficult to run a ship like this. We all agree on it, and everybody will do it. But it's not. There is no room for anybody to say that I wait a little with my initiatives, hopefully I don't need to do them. That is not the culture we live in. If we agree on something, you do it.
So there's so many aspects to that, and we are ready, and I can see the commitment from everybody. So, I'm quite sure we will, we will do that.
Excellent to hear. Finally, just looking at capital allocations, you obviously did some share buybacks in this quarter. Just to get your thinking here, when it comes to both buying back your own shares, so to say, to acquisition, what are the different hurdles, and what kind of gearing level would you be, say, fine with managing this business at, as it is for the moment?
Yeah. No, it's honestly it was a little bit of a test. Can we do this? We always ask the general assembly for the mandate to do it, and then we said, "Let's do it. We need a board decision. We need to write press releases. We need to do it together with a bank." It was not a gigantic one, so we tried it. We will use it hopefully for acquisitions, where an acquisition target was to get paid by shares.
But as you know, and we had talked about it earlier, K-J, it's also interesting, in the international financial environment, to which extent everybody focuses on that Swedish companies especially needs to see buybacks as an, as you said, as an option to making acquisitions for a more efficient capital allocation. So we really need to consider that in all cases. Now, luckily, we see great opportunities to do acquisitions, and I'm quite confident that that will be a good way of investing our hard-earned money, but we need to be better at, and that we can learn from the international environment, to actually see share buybacks as an option.
Looking at the current interest rate environment, having managing the operation at a gearing level around 2-2.5, is that a good measure?
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah, and a fun fact is that 2.0 is actually 1.954. Do we even discuss should we have two decimals also having starting on a two? But it's. We are really focused on that, and this is still the level where we get a very competitive interest rate from our bank.
Yes.
As you know, that increases with the gearing.
Mm-hmm.
But it's a good level.
Excellent. Thank you very much, and all the best out there.
Thank you, Koji.
Thank you. Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please type it in the box and click submit. We will take our next question... The question comes from the line of Emanuel Jansson from Danske Bank. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Hi, Clein, and hi, Irene. Can you hear me?
Yes, absolutely.
Perfect. Sorry, I had some technical issues here before, and sorry if I didn't catch all the questions asked before either, but I think we can start off looking at the gross margin, which you have been able to improve very well in this quarter. You're mentioning about price increases, but also decreases. Can you shed some light on where we still are able to expect price increases and decreases? I mean, you have a large share of private labels in working clothes, for example.
Yeah. No, one thing I can comment on, there's so many things you could say. One is, we'd like to go for growth, and we are not a margin maximization case. So the level is good. It's luckily increasing for our organization that needs to bring up the margin. And even in the high-margin country, Sweden, we have certain type of businesses which we believe are on a too low gross margin level. But what we are doing a lot is that we are working closely with our partner suppliers, because they also want us to be competitive together out in the market.
So we're looking at the terms and conditions together, and we have had already two different teams in the Far East traveling around, one for tools and supplies and one for workwear and personal protection, and doing renegotiations with our large suppliers, factories over there. Because the world demand is coming down, so they are freeing up capacity in the plants, and we need to capitalize on that. So we had one team came back just a week ago, actually from the tools side. So we do all we can, looking at the prices in how we price out. Finland will now, for the first time since we formed this group, from February on, adapt fully to the Alligo pricing policy.
It hasn't been possible earlier for different reasons, but from February price increase, Finland will be at the rest of the group when it comes to how we do the pricing to the market. So luckily, so far so good. But as you know, Emanuel, we could increase the prices a lot, but that will take a couple of months, and then the customers will be quite irritated with us and leave us. So we have a great responsibility to have a well-balanced pricing as well.
Yeah, perfect. That's, that's very, very clear, Clein. Thank you. Yes, as you mentioned, you mentioned Finland, which we saw the EBITDA decrease year-over-year, right?
Yeah.
now, when you're implementing this kind of price points or maybe the assortment well in Finland, as you previously just mentioned, you think that sales will be negatively affected because you have also a large share of industrial and maybe larger customers in that region, it will be harder to implement these price strategic implements, do you think? Or how should we view it?
Yeah, the management team in Finland has done a tremendously good job and show a continuously steady increase in the gross margin, so they are doing it nicely. Then, as you know, we have, from our point of view, an unfavorable customer mix, as you know, with many large customers, a couple of them being quite a dramatic part of our sales. But we invest a lot, and as I said initially, in relative terms, we probably invest the most in Finland in opening and transforming shops to be suitable for the small and medium-sized customers. But we need to focus much more. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer than we would have hoped, and Finland is focusing on that.
So the timing is now for Finland to do the investment, and we do. It's difficult when things are really challenging. So Finland is super dedicated in getting up the share of small and medium-sized customers. Absolutely.
Perfect. And you think that the turnaround, when it comes to growing EBIT again, is it close, or should we expect it to be postponed maybe a few more quarters?
We talked about it in the Q2 presentation, and it felt like everybody agreed that that was the right investment. But we are investing a lot, and the trick for any management team, also our Finnish management team, is not to invest too much in relation to how the business develops. We have launched a number of new shops that cost money before they are profitable as they need to be, and we are transforming a lot of shops. I will not promise a quick upturn in the result. I know that we are doing the right things. I know that it will bring good things in the future, but the future sounds too far away, further on.
But it is an investment stage in Finland today, but the management team locally there is super focused on getting that on track.
That sounds fair, I think. Looking at the... Could you maybe give us some view on, maybe you already mentioned it, sorry for that, if that's the case. But could you maybe give us some light on how smaller players within both, of course, construction, but also industrial segments are developing-
Yeah
... compared to larger players?
... Oh, I'm happy you asked because the type of customers we love, our wonderful, wonderful small and medium-sized customers, which the company to a great extent is built for, is struggling. I mean, if you take in the construction sector, the larger players are now moving down to quite small projects, squeezing out the smaller players. The smaller players are normally the ones that change their behavior quickest, the quickest. As I've related to many times, my father had a construction company growing up. I knew how quick he was when he saw a business downturn to be more careful with his purchases.
And we've just in the middle of the mid-autumn days in Sweden, where we have the opportunity to meet a lot of customers, and it's not super dark, but they all confirm that they are more cautious when it comes to making acquisitions. A Kärcher pressure washer for 20,000 SEK a year ago, perhaps they just bought it because it felt we need it someday, but now they really buy it when they need it. We have tool cabinets, same price range, 15,000 SEK-25,000 SEK. They wait a little bit and say, "We probably can wait a little bit.
We don't need it super much now. So, it is tough for the smaller players, but we know that when we and our wonderful salespersons contact them now, their willingness to meet and challenge whoever supplier they have today is, as always, much better now than in good times.
Yeah, perfect. And looking at just tougher times, you... Do you think that this could be in a scenario or environment where you could maybe push the sales of your private labels to a higher extent, maybe than in a more positive scenario?
Yeah.
You know what I mean, if you have lower price points on, on-
Absolutely. No, no, no, absolutely. And we took away that section. I think it's mentioned in the CEO part of the report, but we anticipated this two years ago, and we have looked at developing own brands, especially in the clothing section, which is even more price competitive than the ones we have. So, it doesn't. We don't. It's not. We don't need to have only own brands. We prefer to win together with our suppliers and our partner suppliers, but especially in the workwear side, of course, Univern, Björnkläder and Gesto, we have strong own brands, and that is, of course, a super competitive advantage compared to many of our competitors that need to make an offer together with a supplier. We have that in-house.
So for the workwear side, yes, it's a super, powerful weapon, of course. And that's a very good door opener, because everybody needs, working gear. So if, if you only, only could take a little bit colder and snowier weather, things would be much better for us.
Well, yes, I will try to fix that for you. And maybe last question from my side here. You're focusing on growth. If the market continues to deteriorate, do you feel like you have both firepower but also have a pipeline of acquisitions to do here in order to grow from M&A?
Absolutely. We see, I think I communicated at least two, the most recent quarters, but there was a time we had a lot of ongoing discussions, then we saw that the gap between us and the seller was a bit big, and we have waited. We continued the discussion, and we see a lot of opportunities to do good acquisitions. And we'd like to make acquisitions in areas where we'd like to strengthen ourselves in specific competencies, and we clearly communicated what that could be. But in certain areas, we need to strengthen our offer, and we see good opportunities to do that.
Perfect. Well, thank you very much, Clein and Irene, for taking my questions.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. There seems to be no further questions at this time. I would like to hand back to Clein Johansson Ullenvik for closing remarks.
Thank you, Heidi. Thank you, everybody, for tuning in. We have been able to talk about what we love the most, Alligo, and we are happy that we can show some resilience in a tough market. So our eight different customer segments is giving us a good foundation to stand on, and luckily, not all of them are turning south at the same time, and not in all countries. As we said now many times, we will continue to do acquisitions. We have the balance sheet for it, and we have the willingness to do it, and we will continue to do so. We will continue to step-by-step adjust the organization and our cost structure depending on how the market develops, but so far, we haven't been surprised.
It has developed just as we could predict, and we have managed to adapt step-by-step. We have a very, very clear focus going forward. It's super clear: it's not that we have 1,000 different missions in 1,000 different parts. It's super clear: increase the share of F assortment, the standard assortment, increase the share of small and medium-sized customers, and own brands where needed to increase the competitiveness. And that is super clear. Everything else is fixed. Logistics works, purchasing works, everything is in place. The shops are in place. But there is a lot of fine-tuning to do. As you know, we are a fairly new company in our structure, and we need to continue to fine-tune. So as I most of the times end these sessions, the journey continues.
Thank you very much.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.