Good morning. Thank you for attending today's Byggmax Quarter 3 Interim Report. My name is Sarah, and I'll be your moderator today. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call, with an opportunity for questions and answers at the end. If you'd like to ask a question, press star one on your telephone keypad. I'd like to pass the conference over to our host, Karl Sandlund, CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Thank you very much. And again, welcome to this conference call where we will present the Byggmax Report for the third quarter of 2025. I'm Karl Sandlund, CEO, and with me is Helena Nathhorst, our CFO. And as usual, you find the presentation that we are referring to on our website, and we will try to guide you to the relevant page during this call. After a short business update from my side, Helena will walk you through the Q3 financials. And once the presentations are finished, we open up for your questions. But let's begin. And please go to page number two in the presentation. And as I hope you already have seen, we continue to improve our profitability in this quarter. Even though we've been operating in a weak market, we deliver on our focus areas, and we adapt to the market conditions.
The third quarter is part of our high season, and we have strong focus on operations, and performance has been robust throughout this season. Our sales in the quarter is 0.8% lower than last year. We have some negative currency effect on sales, which means that like-for-like sales is 0.2% lower than 2024 in the quarter, so very similar to last year, but I will come back to different categories, but overall, positive development in weather-related categories, while estimating consumer sentiment weaker performance when it comes to larger renovations, and we also have effects on our refined e-comm offering with high margin and positive contribution to profitability, but negative impact on sales during the quarter, about 2% on total sales. We continue to maintain a high gross margin, and I touched upon two of the reasons for this: demand mix and changes to e-comm.
But early payment and strong operational performance with low waste levels also contribute. And the high gross margin in combination with strong cost control means better results. Our profitability improved for the sixth consecutive quarter, and the EBITA margin in the quarter was up to 14%. In addition to improved results, we reduced both net debt and leverage, and our net debt is now below SEK 200 million at the end of the quarter. So overall, strong operations and improved profitability in the quarter. Before we get into more details, let me give a short overview. Byggmax was founded back in 1993, and today we have 212 stores across four Nordic markets. Our core is built on a strong selection of products for home renovation and maintenance, heavy building materials, primarily for consumers.
And we offer everything from building materials and paint and tiles to flooring and more. And our in-store assortment is enhanced by online, providing both a wide range but also home delivery of heavy building materials and customized products. We are a true discount retailer and offering the best prices requires, of course, maintaining the lowest possible cost. And our store design not only keeps operational costs low but also ensures an efficient shopping experience, which we see that our customers highly appreciate. And in addition to the Byggmax brand, we have Right Price Tiles in Norway, focusing on tiles and bathrooms, and Skånska Byggvaror, which offers products and buildings for home and gardens, such as conservatories or greenhouses. Please continue to page number four, and there you see that our sales last 12 months was SEK 6.1 billion, and we delivered 348 million in EBITA.
That's an EBITA margin of 5.7%. Our business model is efficient, and we have high cash generation and cash conversion, and this is seen in strong cash flow, as you will hear more about later. We have a good, strong mix of physical stores and e-comm, and today about 80% of our total sales is through our online or digital channels. On page number five, we have some macro context, and the market remains weak. Consumer confidence improved during last year and were more positive in the beginning of this year, but weakened during the spring. When comparing Q3 this year to last year, the consumer confidence remains below last year in Sweden and Denmark, and it's stable at a low level in Finland. In most of our markets, confidence among consumers is actually weaker or as weak as the same time last year.
I guess the general view is that consumers continue to be cautious, especially when it comes to larger investments and purchases, and that we've seen increased household saving. At the same time, it's good to see that house transactions continue to develop in the right direction. The level is now similar to what we saw before the inflation shock. Together with disposable income and view of the future and so on, those are historical drivers for our type of business renovation projects. As we used to say, it's always hard to predict the future. That's why we follow the market developments very carefully. We have short lead times, and we are used to quickly adapting our business to different levels of demand, something that we have shown through the last quarters. The current market context is also reflected in our sales.
If you turn to page number six, please. Cautious consumers and customers concerned about their personal finances tend to hold back on larger purchases and investments. We have seen it before, and we see it in this quarter. Major renovation projects, such as home extensions, large indoor refurbishments or roof replacements, have developed more weakly. This is natural. Customers are keeping a close eye on their wallet, so that as a result, there are fewer big-ticket items in the mix. At the same time, other parts of our assortment have performed well, particularly products related to gardening and outdoor living, and this includes everything from planting and garden maintenance to decking, fencing, and repainting, and we're also pleased to see growth in windows, garden buildings, and greenhouses, especially the new greenhouse range sold under our own private label, and this mix has affected the gross margin.
Demand has been more tilted than usual towards products with higher margin. Earlier this morning, actually, new data from the Swedish Building Materials Index was released, and on the consumer side, that data showed that the market grew by 1% in Q3 compared to last year, so we are performing at least as good, especially considering that we have removed e-comm sales corresponding to 2%. Current market conditions mean that operation control is, of course, extra important, as you see page number seven, and during the high season, operational excellence is one of our most important priorities, and this year, perhaps more than before, we have stayed focused on the core. We have dedicated more time and energy to strengthen our existing business, and this has resulted in strong performance throughout the quarter. When working with materials such as timber, operational discipline is key.
To minimize waste, it's essential to always maintain a good order, and our store teams have done an excellent job maintaining very high standards, and in addition to satisfied customers, this has resulted in very low waste levels, and all this is made while maintaining strong cost control. As some of you might remember, we increased the staffing levels a bit earlier in Q2 to make sure to have full capacity from the start of the season, and during Q3, this has been adapted to the volumes, and despite inflation and wage growth, we managed to keep our costs at almost the same level as last year, and finally, we have put in a lot of effort into securing a smart build-up of inventory. With successful prioritization of products, we have secured strong product availability and well-stocked stores.
While maintaining the total inventory on a good level, it's actually slightly lower than last year. Please stick to the next page, and you will see more improvements to the customer offer or experience during the quarter. Let's start with the left-hand chart on this page because that is closely connected to the right-hand chart on the previous slide. Because, of course, the flip side of lower inventory levels could be that the product availability in stores goes down. But we have worked very carefully with this, and for products with higher demand, we have raised stock levels while adapting, sometimes reducing inventory for products with lower turnover, and this has resulted in both improved service levels with even higher product availability in our stores than before, even though total inventory is slightly lower than last year.
And in addition to better product availability, we continue to improve the customer experience in our stores, both through rearrangements to secure better customer flows and by enhancing our self-service checkouts and other services. This strengthens our ability, for example, to communicate with customers by displaying offers or reminding of products that they might have forgotten when they are in the checkout. And in addition, those self-service checkouts that we have free up our staff from the cash registers, allowing them to be more present in the store and to assist and support customers during their visit to us. And this is more than 50% of the customers in Sweden use self-service when they check out from our stores. And then speaking of digital tools, we are also continuing to develop the digital support tools that we offer our customers on our website, for example, our AI-driven Snap & Shop.
It helps customers with their project and adds the selected product to the shopping cart. And this service is still on an early stage, but we can already see that it contributes both to customer experience and satisfaction, but also to sales. On page nine, some words on e-comm. Our ambition is always to offer the most attractive assortment to our customers, where our store assortment is complemented with a wider range online. And to secure relevant products for our customers, we add products where we see potential, but we also phase out selected non-core ones. And lately, we have further refined the e-comm offering, where we have removed some categories to secure higher relevance, but also to improve profitability. And short term, this had somewhat negative impact on sales. And as we mentioned, approximately 2% in the quarter on total sales.
But at the same time, it contributed positively to margin and profitability. Before handing over to Helena, next slide. Looking at the bigger picture and the longer term, over the past two years, we have secured a strong financial position with low net debt and low leverage. In addition, we have a very strong operational control, and we have made improvements to our customer offering, and we continue our long-term ambition to be the leading low-cost home improvement retailer in our markets. We operate a very high-efficiency retail model that delivers positive customer experience and the right quality to the best prices through scale and simplicity. We will develop our core with a strong customer focus to further enhance our offering, and our ambition is to increase sales and volume in our existing store portfolio, and we will continue to secure efficiency and leverage our operations.
With deeper customer insights, development of the commercial offering, and strong execution capabilities, we secure a foundation for profitable growth. To summarize, focus on what matters most to our customers, expand through smart commercialization of our offering, and scale with ambition and discipline. Now over to Helena and this quarter's financials.
Thank you, Karl. The actions and priorities you have described are clearly reflected in our numbers. On slide 11, we show the rolling 12-month sales and margin development over the past three years. It's been a long period of weak and volatile demand, but our early actions have helped mitigate the impact and stabilize performance. During 2025, we are now seeing a gradual recovery in sales, even though macro and our consumers remain cautious. At the same time, profitability has strengthened for the sixth consecutive quarters, lifting the rolling 12-month EBITA margin to 5.7%.
This demonstrates that our strategy of being efficient and focused on our core is paying off in this uncertain market. On slide 12, this quarter illustrates that our focus on core and simplification of our offer drives profitability even when sales are stable. In the third quarter, sales are 7.8% lower than last year, reaching SEK 1,965,000,000, and two main factors explain this. First, the negative currency impact, primarily from the Norwegian currency, of around 0.8%, and second, our deliberate removal of parts of the e-comm assortment, which had a further 2% impact on sales. We ended this quarter with 212 stores, one new store in Sweden, and a net of zero chains in the other Nordics, sales in Sweden performing somewhat stronger than the rest of the Nordics in this quarter, but the real strength lies in our gross margin, which improved by 150 basis points.
And the improvement comes from several drivers: a more profitable product mix, especially, as commented, from garden and maintenance categories, targeted initiatives in e-commerce with streamlined assortments, early payment discounts from suppliers, and low waste levels in our stores. Altogether, it's a broad-based margin improvement, not one single factor, but many disciplined actions reinforcing each other. If we move to slide 13, as Karl described, operational excellence is one of the cornerstones of our strategy. Over the past two years, we have adjusted our cost base to match lower volumes while improving flexibility and speed. Costs have been reduced in both stores and administration, creating lean processes and an organization that can scale up and down. In this quarter, total operating expenses increased by 0.8%. This confirms that our core discipline remains solid even as we continue investing in the consumer experience and in digital tools that simplify operations.
By simplifying how we work and keep close control, we build an organization that is both efficient and flexible going forward. And on `slide 14, we can clearly see how our efforts translate into profitability. Looking at the performance year to date, EBITA has improved by SEK 150 million versus the same period last year. This improvement reflects the scale advantages we built up across the business. The operation has become more aligned, and the incremental sales contribute directly to profit. But also, in depre ciation related to lease agreements, we remain stable, while the lower investment levels have contributed to the decrease in total depreciation. This contributes to higher profitability as the volume increases and also continuing to page 15. Finally, we have the rolling 12-month cash flow from operating activities amounting to SEK 830 million demonstrating the strong continued cash generation.
It reflects that not only improved profitability, but also efficient working capital management with stable inventory levels and disciplined investment decision continues. Net debt has been further reduced, and the leverage is now 0.4 times. It's down from 1.3 times last year. Our balance sheet is, by that, stronger, and it gives us both flexibility and resilience. And by that, I'll hand back to Karl before we open up for questions.
Thank you, Helena. And please move to the next slide in the presentation. I think it's number 16. Our key messages again. We continue to increase profitability in the third quarter of 2025. We have a strong and stable position. Leverage ratio is down to 0.4. And as you heard from Helena, we have a very efficient model. Year to date, we have improved gross profit by SEK 110 million, while increasing OpEx with SEK 14 million.
Our strategic efforts have secured a solid foundation with an attractive assortment, high customer satisfaction, and short lead times. We are well positioned when the market improves and going forward, we are prioritizing three things: staying close to our customers, driving sales, and doing so with high and good operational efficiency. We focus on simplicity and speed in execution, which gives us the flexibility we need in the day-to-day operation and finally, I really would like to highlight our employees. They have delivered a very strong summer season with high operational performance and customer satisfaction and now we're heading into fall and winter, less busy seasons, but we will secure the same energy and commitment also going forward and with that, we thank you for your attention, and we're now happy to answer your questions. Thank you.
If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. To remove your question, press star followed by two. Again, to ask a question, press star one. As a reminder, if you're using a speakerphone, please remember to pick up your handset before asking a question. We'll pause here briefly as questions are registered. Our first question comes from Benjamin Wahlstedt with ABG. Your line is open.
Good morning. Two questions from me. So first of all, I was wondering if you could give us some more flavor on the like-for-like growth in the quarter, please. What is your view of the market growth?
Hi, Benjamin. W ell, we know that the market continues to be characterized by uncertainty with cautious consumers and increased household savings, and that especially impacts the larger tickets, the larger renovations. It has bounced up before, and we saw that also in the quarter, while at the same time, other categories developed more positively when it comes to garden and more, as we mentioned. When looking at our core categories, we see that we continue to have a very strong position and that we develop at least as good as the market. As mentioned, we just received the Building Materials Index for Sweden, which shows that we are developing at least as the market. And also, as mentioned, when you look at like-for-like for us, we made changes to the e-comm offering corresponding to approximately 2% of total sales in that quarter.
Perfect. Thank you, and I was wondering as well if you could elaborate on the gross margin improvement, please. What is the largest or the main driver behind taking the gross margin to an all-time high level, basically? Yes.
As you heard both from me and Helena, it's driven by several factors in the quarter, and one key thing is the effect of demand. As mentioned, consumers have resulted in fewer big-ticket items in the mix, and demand has been more tilted than usually towards categories for products with higher margin, so this is one impacting factor in the larger of the four that I will mention. In addition, we have the improvements to e-comm when it comes to assortments and logistics, which have a positive effect on the margin as well. As you heard, also a negative one on the sales, but positive both on margin and contribution, and then we have effect on early payment. Our strong financial position enables us to both order and pay early, which gives some discounts, and finally, we have very low waste levels in the quarter.
Very strong operations have led to low waste levels. And the size of the four is in the order that I mentioned them.
Perfect. Thank you very much. That's all I had for now. Thank you.
Thank you, Benjamin.
Thank you. Our next question is from Magnus Råman with SB1 Markets. You may ask the question.
Thank you. Maybe tying in firstly to what you just replied to one of the first questions here on taking out certain low-turning products from your e-comm and stating then having a 2% response negative sales growth effect for the group in Q3. Can you remind us of when you started these initiatives and the effects in the preceding quarters, and thereby also when approximately you expect these measures to annualize?
Well, we started during the spring, and it's been gradually. We are annualizing the assortments continuously to make sure that we have a very attractive assortment, but also very relevant to our customers. So started during the spring and with larger and larger effects. We mentioned in Q2 that it had some effect, but we didn't say number because it was a smaller number than what we see now. Now we see 2%. And I guess that we will have a full effect. So we started during the spring and had larger effect during Q3 than during Q2. And then the effect on total sales depends on category mix during the seasons. We have quite different seasons, right, with much larger Q2 than the winter season. So it will depend on quarter and season patterns.
Understood. But these measures also, apart from them having a negative impact on your top-line growth, it also supports your gross margin on group level.
So I'm trying to figure out if, as it has been sort of having a larger and larger effect over the quarters in the spring on your top-line growth, did it also support to a larger and larger extent your gross margin at the same time?
Yes. Yes. Yes. But again, the gross margin is due to several factors, right, where some of them are our own measures, but also, of course, market conditions. But it's larger, as you said.
Great. And then as relates to the product mix, which was also touched upon already, is it fair to assume when we enter the sort of the winter quarters, our low-season quarters for you, that it is more likely that smaller ticket, i.e., higher gross margin items will be representing a larger share of your sales? Or is the seasonal pattern the same?
Hard to say. Of course, during summer, we have more larger outdoor projects. But at the same time, we have a base of larger renovations and renovation programs going year-round. So I think it's hard to effectively say. And it also depends on the market development almost month by month, right, to see what is the demand for different categories during different times of the year. So I think we will come back to the fourth quarter sales and sales development later when we release that report.
Fair enough. And then just finally here, you have maintained more or less a flat store network over the recent two years. At the same time, as you also showed in your presentation, your balance sheet has strengthened considerably. This, I guess, opens up for you an ability to invest. And in that regard, how do you see the expansion potential or sort of your market maturity, if you wish? Do you think you're fully penetrated in your home markets, or is there a possibility here for you to gain in a rather slowly growing market overall to gain market share through expansion on the basis of your strong balance sheet?
Well, as we say, we have an efficient business model with good cash conversion, enabling both investments in our future business and dividends to our shareholders. And the fact that we have secured a very strong financial position, it's good. It's really good. It's great conditions for operational flexibility, possibility to optimize inventory build-up and utilizing early payments. So we are in a good position. And our overarching strategy remains unchanged. We will continue to drive in profitable growth and aim to outpace the markets.
One reason for this is, of course, number of stores. And we see a lot of still white spots because the building and sales market is very local. So we see more potential. We see more white spots when it comes to number of stores. But we also have significant potential to increase volume and sales within our existing store network. And that is a priority now. But over time, our ambition is for even more customers to have a convenient access, have close to an affordable building material to retailers, i.e., more building stores.
Thank you very much.
Thanks.
Again, if you would like to ask the question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Our next question is from Julien Batteau with Pascal Advisers. You may ask the question.
Yes. Hello, Karl, Helena, good morning to you. I would have one or two questions left, even though you answered many during the last few questions. The first one I really want to understand is this category refinement in the e-comm because I just want to understand the 200 basis points, it's only on Q3 because it's somehow seasonal product, or this 200 will continue in Q4, Q1, and probably fade into Q2026?
Hi, Julien. Yeah. When it comes to the effect on the revised assortment on e-comm, the 2% points was in Q2 on total sales. In Q3. Q3. Sorry. Sorry. It had some effect also during Q2, but it was smaller, so we didn't mention it then. The effect on total sales, of course, will depend on the size of those categories during different times of the year, and that's a little bit hard to say and predict.
So that will depend on category size versus our total sales during the same period. But the 2% was just on the third quarter.
But it will still affect Q4 and Q1?
It will still affect. Yes, it will. And it was during Q2, but to a smaller extent.
And can you give because 2% seems a lot to me, especially e-comm is only 20% of sales. So that would mean 10% of e-comm that has been basically shaved. So can you give examples of products you could discontinue?
Well, we're analyzing our assortment this year. We have had categories that is maybe a little bit far away from our core. Products that maybe the customers didn't expect to find at the big-box store. And to be able to sell them, we have been forced to have very low prices or different logistics setup and so on.
So those are categories that we have reviewed them. And you know that's sad. Is this of value for our customers or not? So those types of categories have been discontinued. And then we also, as mentioned before, we have also looked through our logistics setups and offers and so on, and made some changes from the SM to those. So it's making sure that we have a strong contributing e-comm channel for the group.
So that means that some products have been directly so customers would order directly from the vendor rather than through you?
Yes. That's true.
I think I understood you right. It was just that we have had the products on the site being delivered directly from the suppliers.
Yeah. If I look at the inventory level, which has been very, very low now, I mean, how do you make sure that you're not squeezing a little bit too much? Again, because discussion comes from for me, in line with the previous discussion on your performance versus the market, correct me if I'm wrong, you are a discount player. In current times, discount players should be doing better than the market because price consciousness, as you stated many times, is top of mind for many customers. I'm a little confused at why you're not showing a bigger outperformance. I'm just wondering if the backside of this work on inventory and assortment is not slightly weighing on customer, let's say, choice or experience in the store because he maybe might not find all the products he wants.
Yeah. Yes to the first, right? We are a discount retailer. Our core offering is always to offer the best prices to our customers, where we have a carefully curated assortment. We buy large volumes to make sure that we have the best purchase terms and so on, and we are also primarily in the heavy building materials sectors. When it comes to larger renovations and so on, and there we are super strong. Those are sectors or categories that we really saw this quarter have been where consumers still are quite hesitant when it comes to larger products. They are more effective than other ones. When it comes to the inventory build-up, I think that we, better than before, have been very careful when it comes to building up the right assortment, the right inventory, making sure that we have strong availability of products when it comes to products with high demand.
And we have reduced them somewhat when it comes to products with low demand. So we are more precise, more carefully doing this than before. And that has enabled us to both increase our recorded service levels and, at the same time, having the total inventory level at actually slightly lower level than before. But that is something that we are very careful when it comes to and monitoring all the time to make sure that there are products in stock when our customers come to our stores and want to make their purchases.
And maybe last question on the, as you pointed out, they're still, I mean, you are still far away in terms of revenue per store compared to even five years ago. So it makes it sort of pointless to open stores at the moment. But that begs the question on the leverage, right?
I mean, as you pointed out, maybe the debt will increase a little bit because usually Q4 is less favorable in terms of working capital. But nonetheless, you still have some low debt to, let's say, EBITA pre-IFRS, which begs question on the payout. I mean, you have a 50% dividend policy. Would that mean that it could be bumped up a little bit this year to take into account this overcapitalization?
Well, we come back with the proposal for dividends as in latest stage. It's usually part of our Q4 communication where the board presents the recommendations for the AGM. So please be patient, and we will come back to that at our next call.
And shareholder remuneration would be only through dividend, right? Or share buyback?
So we will come back with the proposal, or the board will come back with the proposal at the next, usually at the same time as we release our Q4 results, when we have the year completed.
Okay. Thanks. Have a good day.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from Espen Langrusten with SB1 Markets. You may ask the question.
Hello, guys. Just a question regarding the kind of underlying market development, which has been a theme throughout the call. But just to drill into the ROT market, or what we call the English RMI market, which my understanding is the segment that's driving the growth at the moment. And these are kind of professionals or contractors locally, which maybe are purchasing the equipment and the goods at other stores than Byggmax, which are not particularly involved in the professional segment.
So I was just kind of wondering if you could share some thoughts around the ROT segment and also your share of the professionals.
Yes. Hello, Espen. Well, the absolute majority of our customers are consumers making projects on their own. And for them, this has no direct effect, right? Because through the ROT, it's a tax deduction for at least a subsidy for home renovation when you do it with professionals. And it's not for the material, but for the work. And I guess the temporary ROT changes that we're seeing right now. It's more for the building and construction sectors than for building materials. We haven't seen any material effect from this in the quarter because it's not directed towards us, I guess. It's more for the professional sector and for the services, not the materials.
Yes. But would that imply that when we're discussing the market share loss, which someone has pointed towards, I mean, given market maybe growing 3-4% in Sweden, and most of that growth may be coming from the ROT segment? Would you agree with that, or?
Well, we are a retailer focused on consumers, not professional ones. And looking at when it comes to this building material index data that came earlier today, it showed that the growth in the businesses to consumers, i.e., our sector, was 1%. And we are well there, I guess, for the e-comm changes. So I think it's a little bit two different things, right? And the absolute majority of our customers, the ones that we are focusing on, are the consumers in this.
Thank you.
Thank you, Espen.
Thank you. Again, if you would like to ask the question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. There are no questions at this time, so I'll pass the conference back over to Karl Sandlund for any further remarks.
Well, thank you a lot for your participation and for all the questions. And if not before, we are looking forward to meeting you again after our year-end report. So thank you very much.
That concludes Byggmax Quarter 3 Interim Report. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your line.