Clas Ohlson AB (publ) (STO:CLAS.B)
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Q1 19/20

Sep 4, 2019

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Morning, welcome to this presentation of the Q1 results 2019/2020 for Clas Ohlson. My name is Lotta Lyrå. I'm the CEO and President. I will do this presentation together with our CFO, Pär Christiansen. It was a good summer. We see this in a good sales performance and a strengthened result. This comes from the fact that we have been able to offer our customers a relevant assortment and run successful campaigns. Today, we also announce a new step in offering our Norwegian customers convenience and availability through a new cooperation with Kolonial.no, the largest online grocery retailer in Norway. We continue to optimize our store network with the announcement of five store closures today. Overall, the implementation of our strategic program, Clas Ohlson 100+, is on track.

We see good signs and good results of the efforts we are making, and we continue to work with high speed in the implementation of the program. All in all, this leads to that we are delivering in line with the guidance on margin that we have given. The agenda for today's presentation is that I will start off with a business update. Pär will then take us through the financial developments and some events after the reporting period. I will do a summary, and then we will do a Q&A facilitated by Magnus Råman from Handelsbanken. In short, Q1, we deliver a Q1 with a sales growth of 4%. Organic sales is up 4%, and so is like-for-like sales. Worth mentioning is that organic sales growth in the Nordics was up 6%. Online sales grew 20%.

Gross margin is at 38.1%, and we improve both the underlying result and the reported result. Through the quarter, an important part has been to keep the full focus on the lowering cost efforts that we have in our strategic program. Going in then to a little bit of an update on the strategic action program, Clas Ohlson 100+. As many of you already know, we have two main financial targets in Clas Ohlson. One is to grow organically on average 5% during the current five-year period, and the second one is to deliver an operating margin of 6%-8% starting 2021. To get us in shape for delivering these targets, we are doing growth initiatives and cost initiatives.

The growth initiatives are very much targeted towards delivering a higher sales per square meter and a higher sales per customer. An important part is also to benefit from the growing online market, where our ambition is to double online sales every other year, meaning a 50% growth approximately every year. On the cost side, our goal is to deliver SEK 200 million-SEK 250 million in cost saving by optimizing our assortment, being more systematic in how we purchase, and having an efficient organization with the right competence. To pursue these initiatives, we are investing 1%-2% of the operating margin during 2018-2019 and this year, 2019-2020. One red thread in our strategic program is to strengthen the convenience and availability of our offering and thereby come really close to the customer. We believe that this is key going forward.

It's always been a strength in Clas Ohlson to offer that through our stores. Now we are taking significant steps in offering the same convenience level and availability in our online channel. A step in that direction was the collaboration with MatHem that we kicked off approximately 18 months ago. We see now that every 10th shopping bag in MatHem contains a Clas Ohlson product. As an anecdote, every fifth bag that was delivered in the archipelago through boat actually contained a Clas Ohlson product during the summer. We really do offer convenience and availability through the partnership with MatHem. As a step in the same direction, we now offer our Norwegian customers better convenience and availability through a new cooperation with Kolonial.no. Kolonial is the largest grocery online store in Norway.

As of launch today, our customers in Norway will be able to shop Clas Ohlson products through Kolonial. We have, of course, high expectations on the cooperation with Kolonial, and it follows the same logic and setup as the cooperation we have with MatHem. All in all, we see good progress in our online sales. They were up 20% in the first quarter. This figure is very much impacted by significant numbers last year in June due to our 100 years celebration. We are happy with the development that our online sales have had during the quarter, and we are especially satisfied to see that also the profitability in this channel is improving. As we speak, we are taking important steps in developing a responsive site to be ready for Black Friday.

This we are doing through a rebuild of the back end of the site. The costs for that rebuild is part of the 1%-2% of the operating margin that we are investing in our strategic program. Still, the majority of our sales happen in our stores, and therefore, having a profitable store network is key for us. There are many parameters and perspectives to work with to secure a profitable store network. It's about having the right store in the right place, the right cost base, the right assortment, and to offer the right experience for that customer base. As part of this, we are working to find the right footprint for our stores, meaning that we will close and relocate stores, and we will, in selective cases, open new stores.

In line with this, we are today announcing that we are closing four stores in Finland and one in Sweden. This is due to lack of profitability. We have one more compact store opening later here in September in Fältöversten here in Stockholm. I think that is one good example of where you see that we do see potential, which is really about having a higher store density in the metro areas. We see that our compact stores work very well in that setting. We have also during the quarter worked with the closure of the stores in Germany and the U.K. That is proceeding according to plan. The final store to be closed in the U.K. will be closed end of September. With that, I will hand over to you, Pär, to go through the financial development.

Pär Christiansen
CFO, Clas Ohlson

Thank you, Lotta. Good morning, everyone. Looking at the financial development in Q1, the sales was SEK 2 billion 44 million, up 4% compared to last year. Organic sales up 4% and like-for-like sales up 4%. As Lotta said, the online sales was up 20%. Looking at the sales per market, we saw growth in all Nordic countries and also on online. All countries in Nordics and also all channels were growing, which was good. The outside Nordic was declining according to the plan. Looking at the gross margin, it was down 0.4 percentage points to 38.1%. The main impact comes from the stronger US dollar.

We are now looking to reduce the purchasing price as part of the CO100+ program, as well as continuously reviewing the pricing for products on the market. The share of selling expenses in Q1 was down by 2.3% units. If you exclude the IFRS16 effects, it was down by 1.1%. This was also impacted by the closure of stores in UK and Germany. The administrative expenses was down also according to plan and part of the CO100+ program. Looking then at the new reporting standard, IFRS16, we sent out a little bit of a first indication last Wednesday to prepare you for reading our quarterly report.

In short, the main impact comes from the reporting standard now recognize the leases as asset, and we will have, instead of a rent, we will have a depreciation. This impact is a lot in our report, and we have tried to indicate where it is so for you as readers to understand as much as possible. In short, the positive impact on the operating profit was SEK 27 million, and the EBITDA was impacted positively by SEK 139 million. Looking at the profits for Q1, the operating profit improved to SEK 79 million. The underlying EBIT improved to SEK 91 million, and operating margin was 3.9%. Investments in the quarter amounted to SEK 22 million, distributed by 50% on the stores and almost 50% on the IT systems.

I guess this will be a trend we see going forward, where we invest more in e-com and IT systems and probably a little less in the store network. We still have a very financial strong position. We had a very strong cash flow in the first quarter, little bit due to the buildup of inventory last year for the score implementation. We had a positive cash flow also after financing activities and a net cash position, or rather net debt position of SEK 40 million. Looking at the events of the reporting period, the August sales came in to SEK 740 million, up 2%. The organic sales was also up 2%, like-for-like sales up 3%. Online was up 36%, and we have reduced one store compared to last year.

Handing over to Lotta Lyrå.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Thanks. Our Clas Ohlson 100+ strategy is very much built on that we see potential for Clas Ohlson to grow in the Nordics based on the brand that we have built during 100 years, a loyal customer base, and a strong financial position. In that context, I think it's good to see that during the 1st quarter and August, we do grow in the Nordics 6% organically in quarter 1 and 4% in August, also growing both in stores and online. This is very much the reason why we also improve result-wise, both reporting and underlying, and deliver in line with the margins that we have guided on. Improving availability and convenience for Clas Ohlson customers is key, and we are happy to announce the cooperation with Kolonial.no today, which delivers exactly that to our customers in Norway.

We continue our work with ensuring a profitable store network, today announce 5 closures of stores. We will continue to have high pace in implementing all parts of the Clas Ohlson One Hundred Plus agenda, both growth initiatives and cost initiatives, all with the purpose of delivering long-term profitable growth and shareholder value. Thank you very much. Niklas, sorry, Magnus, please join us.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Thank you, Lotta. All right, I will open up with a few questions, and then I hope there are several questions in the audience and perhaps also online. I'd like to first start out by asking about the cost savings program. You've been quite clear previously in the reports that you expect full effect from the cost measures that you plan already by 2020-2021, next fiscal year. In this report I find the comments a little bit more vague, so has that changed?

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Definitely not. We are still working according to that plan, that's part also of delivering 6%-8% profitability in 2021.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Coming to that profitability 6%-8%, now that you report with IFRS16 back the operating profitability, I mean that would add maybe a little bit above SEK 100 million to your operating results, which would translate to a little bit more than 1 percentage point in EBIT margin. Going forward, this long-term target that you have of 6%-8%, will you adjust that accordingly to, say, 7%-9% instead?

Pär Christiansen
CFO, Clas Ohlson

We have stated in the report that we at least for one year will continue to report everything without IFRS, so you have comparability between the targets and the reports. Going forward, let's see what we will do then with the goal setting.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Not clear for the longer term, yet?

Pär Christiansen
CFO, Clas Ohlson

No. Of course it, the SEK 100 million will be above our targets.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Right. That sounds good.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

We're clear that the SEK 52 million in reporting result this quarter versus SEK 32 quarter one. That is completely comparable without the IFRS effect. We're clear what's coming from the business and what's coming from the changing reporting standards.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Yes. To the closure of stores, those four stores are about to be closed in Finland. I believe those were smaller formatted stores. Can you describe that? Is that the compact format of yours that you're closing in Finland?

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Two of them is really small stores. One is what we would call a compact store compared to what you see here in Stockholm, for example, and one is a more normal-sized stores. I think in general, it's very much in line with the optimizing the store network strategy that we have, that we want to have the right format in the right place, and that we need to see profitability. Also a little bit, which I think what I've been quite clear on, that it's important in the phase that we are in to be able to kill your darlings. So what we have seen is that a couple of these stores, exactly as you say, are smaller, more tailored stores, and they weren't right. Therefore we decide to kill that darling, so to say, already now rather than keeping it alive.

That is how we will work, continue to look at profitability and act upon that.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

I was just a bit surprised because you've previously talked about the new smaller formats being very successful.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Yes.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

I think you mentioned that here as well.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Yes. Yes

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

...when, in relation to Sweden.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

I think if you would look at the smaller stores we have across the company in its totality, the general trend is that they are successful, but it doesn't mean that they are successful everywhere. I think as we've said before, you have to be on top of every store and secure that every piece of the network is profitable. That's how we make Clas Ohlson profitable. The general statement is still true, but for these specific cases, they were not profitable.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Just looking more broadly on the, on the Nordics, after these measures, I think previously you said that all stores are contributing positively to the group.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Mm.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

...and obviously those five were not in that bracket. After you've done this work, do you think that holds true again, that all stores contributes positively to group profitability?

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

It's one thing to contribute, but it's another thing to be within the bracket of 6%-8%. I think we talked before about that it's almost 3 groups, right? You have the ones which actually burden the result. You have the one that contribute, and you have the one that actually live up to the profitability target. What we're doing a lot right now is initiating measures to secure that everyone delivers 6%-8%. For the cases that don't do that, I think we will go through this process. We will also, as we've said before, be smart about when we close and how in order not to burden the result with unnecessary extraordinary costs.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Sure. That's my... why my question-

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Yeah.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

is that when you close those five-

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Yeah.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

are there any still-

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

No.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

left in the bracket burdening results?

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

No.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Okay.

Pär Christiansen
CFO, Clas Ohlson

I think also it's worth mentioning that the stores will not incur any extra cost-.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

No.

Pär Christiansen
CFO, Clas Ohlson

Because it's contracts that are ending. Instead of continuous those, we will close it. There's no cost of closing the stores. It's a very logical decision point for us to do that.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Mm-hmm.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

You stick to your 4%-5% average annual organic growth target.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Mm-hmm.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Of course, online is growing faster, but it's only 5% penetration roughly.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Mm-hmm.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

If you have a net negative store expansion, I have a little bit difficulty to get that math to sum up.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

First of all, we have said that it's on average 5% during the 5-year period. It's not every month, every quarter, every year. It's on average that during the 5-year period. I think this is about getting a healthy core in place. I think we said that last when we talked about Finland the last time as well, that the important step we need to take in Finland is to secure that we increase sales per square meter. That is the main, I would say lever to get profitability at the right level, meaning that we need to take these measures to get there. Even though, exactly as you say, online is still a small share, if you look at the contribution to our growth, it's starting to become quite significant.

The impact on the organic sales number is still substantial, I would say.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Right. With 20% growth for a 5% penetration, that would be 1 percentage point. If you then close five stores out of 230, it's maybe two percent spots.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Yeah.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

I think that certain...

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

As we said, we are opening stores as well.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Yeah.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Fältöversten will open and so on. I think this is a little bit what it will be like. We will open some, we will close some, we will relocate some.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Perfect. Any questions out in the audience? Maybe Niklas Ekman from SEB first.

Niklas Ekman
Research Analyst, SEB

Thank you, thank you, Magnus. Niklas Ekman with SEB Equities. Let's start by asking a few questions on the actual quarter. I was just wondering, you talk about pricing impacting gross margins. I was just to start wondering how does the like-for-like in current trading or i.e. August and perhaps also in fiscal Q1, how does that break down into price, mix, and volume or footfall to stores? What's the drivers here, the main drivers behind the like-for-like?

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

The main driver is volume. Because Clas Ohlson is a company for many wallets for all kinds of homes, so we will always live by volume. Then secondary, naturally, we're optimizing both how we do our black pricing and our red pricing, so to say. It's volume driven.

Niklas Ekman
Research Analyst, SEB

There is some slight positive price mix impact.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Pricing is a natural part of the business we do, so it will always be. I think the main result that we see from the strategic efforts we have done is actually in how we do red pricing and campaigns and so on, where we are optimizing our promotions in a completely different way today.

Niklas Ekman
Research Analyst, SEB

The follow-up question would be on the gross margin bridge. I think I estimated the dollar impact negative to the tune of 1 full percentage point, so quite negative. Yet you speak about in the text of pricing effects and improved profitability that has positively impacted the gross margin. It would be very useful if you could give us some more color on those main drivers behind the gross margin change, please.

Pär Christiansen
CFO, Clas Ohlson

Looking at the dollar, the effect of the dollar is more than 1%, I can say. It's more in the range of almost 2%. Of course, there's, we hedge 50% of the dollar for 6 months, but the dollar has come up almost 20% if you look 24 months back and 6, 7% if you look at the current 12-month period. Of course, there's a delay in that, and of course, as we said, we are looking at how we then buy the products. Will we buy more products in China's RMB or in dollar and do that? The estimates for the dollar, if you look at consensus, is more flattish, but it's still going up.

I guess we don't want to speculate on the dollar, but I guess it's gone up more than we believed. That is a higher impact. On the positive side, we see that campaigns are better. We see that some of the effects from the NOK is positive, and other things. When you weigh those together, it's a total negative impact of it.

Niklas Ekman
Research Analyst, SEB

That. Thank you very much. That makes perfect sense. It means that to the extent you're actually contributing to the gross margin, the company specifics, you have improved basically.

Pär Christiansen
CFO, Clas Ohlson

Yes. Yes.

Niklas Ekman
Research Analyst, SEB

The dollar you can't control.

Pär Christiansen
CFO, Clas Ohlson

Yes.

Niklas Ekman
Research Analyst, SEB

All right. Can I also ask you,

When it comes to the strategic related costs and investments, I think you said around SEK 40 million or SEK 39 million in this quarter. How do you see that sort of number developing on more of a quarterly basis within your communicated guidance of 1 to 2 percentage points of operating margins? How do you see that sequentially?

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Yeah. I mean, we'll stay within the 1%-2% for the year. I think we've been mentioning that part of the program now is targeting some of the staffs of the organization. When we do that, it will be more of a impact in that quarter. We had some sort of a bigger reductions targeting the administration in Insjön and in some of the countries in Q1, and that will continues. Of course, it's a discussion between us and the employee representatives to find the right, you know, pace of that. Every quarter there will be more of a impact on realization. It will go up a little bit.

I will not, you know, speculate when it is, but it of course be more front-loaded than back-loaded because we want to run into the 6%-8% next year. You probably will expect higher costs in the beginning than in the end, of the program.

Niklas Ekman
Research Analyst, SEB

Excellent. That's all for now.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Any further questions in the audience? I can continue with a question here, on your new cooperation with Kolonial.no.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Mm-hmm.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Firstly, maybe I can just check with you if I'm correct by assuming that Kolonial.no and MatHem derives roughly the same top line size, around SEK 1 billion in revenue. You stated here now, and then you've written that also that around 1/10 of every basket in the MatHem delivery contains at least one Clas Ohlson article. Could you give us any light on the average value of that Clas Ohlson content in the MatHem baskets?

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

No, I won't give a number, so to say. I can say this, that the starting point of both the MatHem collaboration, sorry, and the Kolonial.no collaboration was very much related to consumables. What we have seen over time is that the share of more capital products is increasing because people have started to discover that you can actually order birthday presents or things, bigger things you need in a home this way as well. Of course, we have high hopes for that also going into Christmas, where this will be a core part of our convenience offer. I think the hypothesis that consumables work in this channel is proved, and then we start to see also other products coming into the game.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

That alter the margin, the margin factor or the margin potential of these corporations?

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

It's still very much based on our own brand. That is the base for it.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Since, my thought was that you have an extra step logistically-wise that could potentially be covered by these merchandise being consumables with higher margins.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Mm-hmm.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

if you start shipping capital.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Mm.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

-uh, like-

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Mm.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

lower gross margin items

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Mm.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Can you still cover for that extra freight?

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Yes, because again, even though it's capital goods, it's still very much focused on what carries our brand ourselves and not so much known brands.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Right.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Yeah.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

I just assume that you would not disclose any number on the value of those apart from the one-tenth. Assuming that it would contribute or make up around 10% of the total basket of MatHem's deliveries, that would imply around SEK 10 million in top-line contribution annually for you. I mean, seeing then that Kolonial.no is around the same size in revenue, my take is that it would not have any, you know, meaningful or large impact on your financials as a group, just as MatHem hasn't. Is that fair to assume?

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

I think it's important to remember that the reason we're doing this is very long, a very long-term reason. People have shopped with Clas Ohlson for 100 years due to that we have been around the corner, very convenient place to go to. I would say that online shopping at Clas Ohlson has been not so convenient because you had to wait a long time, our lead times were far too long, and we had too few delivery options. The journey we are on is to make online as convenient as shopping in the store. Having these delivery options with MatHem and Kolonial.no contributes to exactly that. The financial reasoning is one, the short-term one, I think the long-term effect of this is another one. Let's see where we end up.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Right. When we're talking about online, can you update us on the Amazon pilot that you're doing in the U.K.?

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Yes.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

-uh, on-

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Yeah.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

-on that?

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

I don't know if it's in the Q&A, but maybe I'll say it anyway. It's actually 20% of the online sales that we have in the U.K. comes through the Amazon platform. I would say it's substantial. It's great learnings for us working with these platforms and learning how to do it in a still quite limited scale.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

The margins that you see in that cooperation, does that encourage you to extend this to other regions? Would Amazon then have a presence in other regions in the future?

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

I think that remains to be seen, but that's exactly where the learnings come in also. What products do you put there? Which brands? How much? How do you make sure that you have synergies between what you do on these platforms and our own channels, so to say? This is all part of the learning package.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

It's fair to assume that it's Clas Ohlson labeled-.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Yes.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Private labeled articles.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Yes. Yes.

Speaker 7

Yes. Good morning. My name is Niklas. I just have a question regarding the online sale. The increase of sale of 20% is just with Amazon and MatHem as well?

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Yes.

Speaker 7

Okay. There's nothing increased whatsoever on your regular kind of web sales?

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

No, the 20% includes all online sales. what we do on clasohlson.com, what we do on the platforms we act. It's the totality.

Speaker 7

Okay. I can see that.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 7

Is it just for the increase of revenue with Amazon and MatHem? You know, the ordinary sales of clasohlson.se.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

It's all of it. The big chunk comes from clasohlson.se and .no and .fi.

Speaker 7

Okay, it's not MatHem and Amazon that is the plus 20% then?

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

No, it's all of it.

Speaker 7

Okay. How, what's the difference between? What's the figures between these three sites?

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

We don't communicate that right now.

Speaker 7

Okay, thank you. Appreciate it.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Mm-hmm.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Any further questions from the audience? I have one here. Maybe we should check also if there's any question from the telephone conference.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you do wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing zero two to cancel. Our first question comes to the line of Stellan Hellström from Nordea. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Stellan Hellström
Research Analyst, Nordea

Yes, thank you very much. Just one question here on the gross margin and the currency effect. It looks like that the impact from the dollar will be much more negative in the coming quarters, and also the impact from hedging will be less positive. Can you comment if you will be able to improve the pricing component, so to say, so that you will be able to offset that?

Pär Christiansen
CFO, Clas Ohlson

I would not speculate on the dollar going forward, but of course, we're working with the purchasing department is working on reducing the prices as we, as we speak. Some of those components will be lesser purchasing price going forward. Of course, if the dollar goes up, continue to go up, we will see impact of that. As you said, the hedge will have a, over time, lesser effect if the dollar flattens out, and then we will have a bigger impact from the dollar. I guess your math is correct. I guess on top of that, we're always looking at the pricing for the products, and balancing the...

Some of the products are branded products where there's a quite open market price, and some of them are non-branded products where we can look at it. There's always a balance to offer the right product mix with the right pricing to our customers.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

I think maybe to add another perspective to this question, what we have seen during summer is also that a lot of people decided to stay home, instead of going on vacation. I visited myself a substantial number of stores in Sweden this summer, and I think every single store I went to, they commented how much English, Norwegian, Danish they have spoken during the summer. I think also this currency situation, on one hand, it, so it impacts negatively the gross margin, but we also see that it leads to that more people stay home, that we have more tourists in Sweden and that people decide to spend their money a little bit differently. There is also a counterbalance had here to take into account.

Stellan Hellström
Research Analyst, Nordea

Sure. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Just as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. There seems to be no further questions from the phone line, so I will hand the word back to the speakers.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

All right. We follow up with an additional question from Niklas.

Niklas Ekman
Research Analyst, SEB

Thank you, Magnus. I think maybe you just answered the question, but put it in a way. You asked your suppliers to lower their prices by about 3% going into this year, and my question is, how far have you actually come in that process?

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

It's part of the SEK 200 million-SEK 250 million, and we don't break that down further, but it's part of that.

Niklas Ekman
Research Analyst, SEB

You're mostly done, you would say?

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

I think when it comes to the whole cost effort, I think we are just in the middle. That's.

Niklas Ekman
Research Analyst, SEB

Okay.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Yeah.

Niklas Ekman
Research Analyst, SEB

Perfect. Next question is, how many of the bracket contributing stores in, at the end of the day are still, you know, subject to being closed if they do not improve? I mean, are we talking about 5, or are we talking about 15? How many stores are at risk? Or opportunity, if you like.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Yeah. I think the starting point of this business is that we have approximately a market share around 10% in the market we act, so that we know there's potential to grow. The question is how. Some stores today are in the right place, others are not. I think this is a little bit shift in mindset. A store is not put on a certain street or in a certain shopping center to be there forever. It's about being where the customer is. I think it's this more agile, flexible mindset that you will see much more in the store network. Meaning that you will see more stores closing, but you will also see stores opening in new places. It's more about sales per customer and sales per square meter and less about number of stores.

It's not a question to give a number on, so to say, because we will be very agile and flexible here.

Pär Christiansen
CFO, Clas Ohlson

It's also worth mentioning that the store itself is becoming a different creature. It's not just shopping for the actual store. It's where you pick up online shopping. It's where you look at products and then you buy online. It's a lot of things that the store will be in the future. It's a showroom. I guess it's not just the store itself, its square meters that is continuity to the store. It's part of a network. I guess it's important for us to look at that and also measure it from a different angle to, as Lotta said before, to look at the sales per customer. How that customer decides to look, shop, and pick up is not, it's not for us to decide.

It's for the customer to decide and us to match that demand.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Mm.

Niklas Ekman
Research Analyst, SEB

Final question, if I may.

Pär Christiansen
CFO, Clas Ohlson

Yes.

Niklas Ekman
Research Analyst, SEB

Was there ever a intention or discussion with Kinnevik of sort of buying your way into Kolonial.no? Or would you be willing to take part in a rights issue, you know, tentative rights issue in the future to get an actual equity stake in Kolonial?

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

We invested in MatHem in order to get certain benefits and a strategic position. I think these 18 months have proven that it's really given us a strategic position. With all the learnings and with everything we have done and how these partnerships have developed, I think it really forms the base for what we're doing with Kolonial. There is no purpose in itself for Clas Ohlson to invest money in other companies unless it gives us a very clear business upside in the core business that we do.

Niklas Ekman
Research Analyst, SEB

That means that your stake in MatHem is for sale from a strategic perspective?

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

That I'm not sure of.

Niklas Ekman
Research Analyst, SEB

Okay. How do you view the actual results there in MatHem? I mean, it's around SEK 180 million losses every year. I think management guidance for this year is along the same lines. What's your opinion on that, please?

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

I think, first of all, I think it's for MatHem to comment on their results. MatHem is very clearly on a growth journey, which has been strengthened further by Kinnevik stepping into the company, so to say. That is... There is a very clear plan and an agenda, and Clas Ohlson will profit from that journey.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Maybe I can just be a nail a little bit here and hinge around the gross margin question a little bit. I think that Stellan's question was for you, Pär, was, you know, about the visibility to the that you actually have due to the lag you have from the point of sourcing to the point of sales.

Pär Christiansen
CFO, Clas Ohlson

Yeah.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

that might be a lag of around half a year or so. Then the visibility you have on already, what you know, not speculating about the dollar progression going forward, how you will be impacted in the coming two quarters and if you deem that you see that the market is affected in a similar fashion so that you have room to increase prices to counter this gross margin pressure that we actually see coming.

Pär Christiansen
CFO, Clas Ohlson

I think it will be, of course dependent on each market. If you look at Norwegian press, it's been a lot of talks about the dollar impact, official press, mainly to fashion and shoe and other type of retail. Of course, they might start to do price increases. We look at this market all the time, Sweden, Norway, Finland and outside, and try to optimize that, you know, day by day. Of course, with the forward-looking dollar and also what we see on the counter side with our improved purchasing prices, we try to optimize that because we want to optimize the gross profit.

Some of it we might not, you know, even consider to high prices because we know that we will get the better pricing from our suppliers. Optimizing volume and that, we will always do that. Exactly how everything weighs in, it's really hard to speculate on. I mean, we want to optimize gross profit and market share. If we overpriced even with the prices today, we might need to lower prices in some product and in some prices we need to increase. That is part of daily business for the business units we have.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Right. That's interesting because I think the balance here at the cost savings initiatives, where the sourcing improvement, so to speak, is one component. I think many people view, regards those cost savings as a way back to recover profitability...

Pär Christiansen
CFO, Clas Ohlson

Yeah.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

that you have lost

Pär Christiansen
CFO, Clas Ohlson

Yeah.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

so to speak. If you then have the dynamics of adverse currency effects, if you would use that cost savings to say that you would not.

Pär Christiansen
CFO, Clas Ohlson

Yeah.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

you know, raise prices, that would be a little bit interesting.

Pär Christiansen
CFO, Clas Ohlson

I mean, we mentioned before also that we're doing what we call the category reset, that we're reducing the number of product, increasing volumes. There are many things weighing into getting a better price, and also hopefully then increase sales for those products. Yeah.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Just to be crystal clear, the SEK 200 million-SEK 250 million stands.

Pär Christiansen
CFO, Clas Ohlson

Yeah.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Yeah.

Pär Christiansen
CFO, Clas Ohlson

Yeah, yeah.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Dollar or not.

Pär Christiansen
CFO, Clas Ohlson

Perfectly clear. Yeah.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

All right. If there are no further questions, I think, we sum it up with that.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Mm.

Magnus Råman
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Thank you very much.

Lotta Lyrå
President and CEO, Clas Ohlson

Thank you, Magnus.

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