To the Nimbus Q1 2025 presentation. During the Q&A session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key five on their telephone keypad. Now I will hand the conference over to the CEO, Jan-Erik Lindström, CFO Rasmus Alvemyr, and Head of Investor Relations Gunilla Öhman. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good morning, and welcome. We start then with the, we had a very nice picture, the first one. Actually, that is what it's all about, so to say, the recreational, the dream, so to say, of a good recreational time then. We start then with the business update for the first quarter 2025. The sales then amounted to SEK 300 million, actually then down by 13%. So far then in pair with our peers that we follow, both in Europe and America. It is tricky in our industry to get the total pictures so quick, so to say, but a fair guess is, well, that the market has moved down maybe a couple of percentage points more than we have done then and our peers. Actually, one of the giants in the business, Brunswick, has reported just -13%. There is where the market is today.
We have the EBITDA then on minus SEK 13 million, slightly lower loss actually then despite the decrease in volume. We had an order intake of SEK 334 million below last year. What we can say there is that we had a good start for the year, but we then saw a slower, a soft March that somehow then affected these figures. What we have then is a weakening market in relation then to the estimate from year-end last year then, which has affected the commercial sales. What we maybe then especially see is this steep decline then in other markets or rest of the world. It is only representing 4% of our total business during 2024, but a lot of these markets' sales was then from quarter one last year.
Of course, a lot of companies have already reported about that, but the tariff situation fuels this uncertainty and this hesitancy among customers. We are back again to the picture that we had during 2024. I think it's fair to say that the picture is unpredictable for the moment. We also have on the positive side, we have a positive development in our retail sales, although it's a small quarter also for them, but it's good to see they're moving according to our plans. The sales level gives us a situation where we don't have fully leveraged our investments in the business setup, or you can say that meaning that we still have capacity available. The Kuopio closing project or the ValueBoat closing is moving according to plan.
We also then during the quarter had this our rights issue process that started during the end of 2024, was then successfully completed during this quarter in January, actually then 2025. That gave us SEK 345 million after the transaction costs. During the quarter, we have also, you have certainly seen the press releases, but we have established several new marketplaces, actually globally then around the world, but maybe then especially Europe and also one in Stockholm. Of course, we're looking forward then to see what these splendid and first-class locations can give us for the future. I have also announced and notified the board that I'm planning to retire next time. I'm celebrating my birthday. I will be 60. It's a perfect time then to leave the baton to the successor.
Of course, I will continue to support in every possible way the company, and I will also remain then, of course, as a shareholder. If we switch the page, a part of our history then, we're looking back. Nimbus Group, we were founded in 1968, a long experience. We have a long history of international trade. We started actually already in the beginning of the 1970s. We have chosen the strategy, a well-proven and successful strategy of House of Brands. That we did somewhere around 2015. If we look at some highlights on this picture and the most recent ones, the last 12 months, during 2024, we have produced our first Nimbus boat in the U.S. This is, of course, important for us. That is not really related to the tariffs, even if that could be something, of course, but that's not the purpose.
95% of the sales in the U.S. during 2024 was U.S.-made. That is important. Our intention then is to have U.S. as a home market. In September, we launched the 495 in Cannes. Also important. As we say in the report, the 2025 production slots is sold out. It is exciting to see what we can do with this beautiful boat. That was actually the boat you saw on the first page. In October, also an important step for us, Alukin was entering the governmental segment with the order from the Swedish Armed Forces. We will get back to that later on in the presentation. If we then switch page, here is something new. From now on and going forward, we will report our commercial sales and retail sales separately and on a more detailed level.
It is good from a corporate governance perspective, of course, but we also believe that it will give our stakeholders a better picture and an understanding of what Nimbus Group really is, so to say. This is a project that we have worked with quite hard for the past six to nine months, I should say. Important for us. I will present the commercial sales, and later on, you will hear Rasmus present the retail sales. If we then look at commercial sales and quarter one, and we start with the sales, the sales dropped by 17% or SEK 51 million. Mainly, as I said before, driven by the rest of the world market, which is, again, small business, 4% of our business.
If we look on the right side then and look at the net sales and comparable quarters for 2023, 2024, and 2025, we can see then that we have these downward trends on not only other markets, and then especially then between 2024 and 2025. We also see that we have a downward trend on the Nordics. And that Nordics, to begin with, that is, of course, related to the fact that we are leaving the ValueBoat segment. And it's an ongoing process, of course, but that affects that figure. Other market is the big part, minus SEK 46 million, actually. Partly then mitigated, and this we are really happy for, of Europe, that is coming up then from during the recent years, a very soft market. And what we see in Europe then is, of course, we are glad to see that picture.
Let's see, of course, what will be the next step, so to say. It is satisfactory to see. If we then look on the order intake, and as we say, stronger order intake in Europe, but North America softening. You find that one below to the left. Europe up, actually, the whole period, which is good. Europe was our biggest part before U.S. took over, but it was two things with that. One was, of course, that U.S. was growing, and that was good, but Europe also went down at the same period. Now we see this recovery, which is extremely good for us, of course. Nordics more or less flat, and as I already said, North America has a downward trend for the moment then.
If we then jump into the order book, and again, only confirmed orders, of course, in the order book with prepayment, important step. Also important to know is that the order from the Swedish Armed Forces is not included under the pre-series. We are expecting that after the summer, we will see these orders coming in to us then, during a period of, I should say, two to three years then. If we look at the picture below to the right then, the order book, we have talked quite a lot during the recent quarters about this normalization, and that continues. It is shorter, but at a good level for the moment. Especially then, which is important, compared then with the pre-pandemic figures, which clearly showing us that the things we have done is making a difference.
The product development, the growth that we have had, and also the way we organize our business has been successful, and we are, of course, aiming to continue that journey. If we then take the next picture, and at the same time, I leave the word to Rasmus.
Yeah, thank you, Jan-Erik. We move to the retail sales. In the retail sales, the first quarter is a seasonally very small quarter in terms of sales because of the strong presence in the Nordics. For reference, the first quarter last year represented only about 10% of the annual retail sales, and that is a fair figure. Having that said, the sales increased by 15% in the quarter up to SEK 57 million. The increase was driven by higher sales of premium owned brand boats, traded boats, and service and accessories came out rather flat in relation to last year and amounted to SEK 30 million. Down to the left there, you see the order intake, and it continued on a positive trend that we saw since the second quarter 2024. It now ended up at SEK 120 million, which is up SEK 2 million since last year.
The order book down to the right continued to increase and reached 154, which is the highest level since the first quarter 2023. Remember that at that time, the order book was also affected by older orders from the pandemic period, which increased the levels a bit. It is not really comparable in that way. The accumulated order intake since the second quarter of 2024 is now up 36% versus last year. We switch to the P&L development. As said, net sales in the first quarter amounted to SEK 300 million, which is down 30% since last year, SEK 344 million, and indeed they amounted to minus SEK 13 million versus minus SEK 14 million last year. The gross margin reached 12.3%, which is the same as last year. The gross margin is still affected by the cost under- absorption effect from low production volumes.
The gross margin is also affected by different market campaigns that we have done to reduce levels of inventory. Combined, those two have offset the positive effects that we have seen from each quarter of SEK 16 million on EBITDA level and from the increased retail business. OPEX amounted to SEK 50 million, which is an improvement by 12% since last year. The gross savings are though higher, but we have also done investments to strengthen the sales organization, which increases the cost a bit. Net, minus 12%. Regarding the restructuring provision in Finland, the outcome has so far matched the estimated cost level quite well. Only minor deviations have been noted so far. A final sum up of the effects is expected to be made in the third or fourth quarter.
Regarding the finance net, I would like to mention that this has been heavily impacted by a negative currency effect from intercompany balances amounted to SEK -30 million. This effect comes from the U.S. dollar development. The opposite effect was seen in the fourth quarter, but at that time positive. They have more or less evened out in the fourth quarter and fourth quarter combined. We move to cash flow and net working capital. Due to seasonality effects, the first quarter is normally the peak in net working capital driven by retail business, which has quite high levels of inventory in front of the season this time of year. Networking capital increased in the first quarter and ended up at SEK 710 million. That was driven by timing effects from receivables of SEK 91 million and increased inventory of SEK 48 million.
To mention here is that during the fourth quarter, the receivables was quite low on a normal low level. The increased inventory is related to both those seasonal effects from the retail business, as I mentioned, but also from this unexpected sales drop in the commercial sales driven by tariffs and economic uncertainty that has pushed the anticipated inventory release forward in relation to what we expected in front of this period. Consequently, measures implemented to adapt production volumes to demand have so far not achieved the intended effect. These are our financial targets, which remains unchanged, even if we are aware of that we are a bit behind today. With that, I leave the word to you, Jan-Erik.
Thank you, Rasmus. Actually, before the Q&A, from the financial calendar, we will have here in Gothenburg, actually the annual general meeting, and that will be on the 16th of May, quite soon. The quarter two report will be presented the 17th of July. Then we'll leave to Q&As.
To ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad.
We have one question from the activity feed from George at Gratitude Capital. It's on cash flow. What can we expect with regards to cash flow from changes in working capital going forward? To what extent are you now running with the too high working capital?
Yes. As I said here, the first quarter is the peak normally in working capital in general because of the seasonality effects. What we expect to see is, of course, this release of inventory that we partly thought should have taken place in the first quarter. Now we see that this has been pushed forward. If this occurs now in the second quarter or if it takes longer, it's very hard to predict right now because of the market situation. Our forecast in that way is unchanged. We expect the levels of inventory to be significantly reduced, but it will take longer time than what we said in the last quarter. That is what we can say. If it's the second quarter or later on, that's not possible to really tell right now.
If I may add, it's important to understand the picture is that we have decreased our capacity then on the production sides to open up then for this inventory sales then. Our intention then is that these two curves should meet during the season then.
Thank you. The next question is how come you had a payment of income taxes of SEK 12 million in spite of a negative result last year?
That is related to tax from year 2023. That is old income tax. It is not affected by 2024.
The next question is what would you regard as a normalized payment of interest level, assuming no changes in interest rates?
Because of the setup we have with floor plan, we continuously have interest payments, outgoing interest payments. In a normal situation, of course, depending on the usage of the check limit. If we exclude the check limit and only consider the interest cost, I would say that those would amount to a couple of millions in maximum per quarter. The biggest part in the finance net is related to currency effects.
Gross margin, I guess, impact from reducing finished goods. Is that solely related to small boats or also inventory of premium boats?
It's a combination of both. Of course, small boats are affected, but here we also need to take into account that we did a provision last year to cover up for as much as we could anticipate, but we have had costs. It's also related to big boats because of the stock release. A combination of both.
Okay. The last question from George at Gratitude is, higher inventory than expected. In what regions or areas were you surprised by lower sales activities?
We still have the major parties then, of course, the ValueBoat. And it's not only then on our yards because that is a small part. It's at the dealerships. And then it's then the Nordics then, of course, on the ValueBoat side. Then the U.S. situation, which has been ongoing for a while now with the soft market. I should not say it's surprising, but it's not what we hoped for, so to say. So there is the major part of it.
Thank you, Jan-Erik.
At the same time, I may add in the same question that in Europe, we have the opposite where we actually do not more or less have any inventory at all, which should be the normal case. It is not a normal market. It is unbalanced, so to say, from that perspective. It was important to bear in mind.
Thank you so much, Jan-Erik and Rasmus. Thank you all participants for listening in. Welcome back on our Q2, the 17th of July. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.