Welcome to the Embellence Group Q3 2024 report presentation. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions and answer 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 speakers, CEO Olle Svensk, and CFO Karin Lideen. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Yes, welcome to Embellence report for Q3 2024. My name is Olle Svensk, and I'm the CEO, and with me today, as usual, is Karin Lidén, our CFO. Needless to say, sales-wise, this was a weak quarter, with reduced orders from a very cautious retail channel. What was positive, though, was that our efforts to improve our margins are continuing to pay off, with gross margins reaching 67% in the quarter, compared to 57.7% last year. Our EBITDA margin also improved and reached 15.1%. Our manufacturing unit, Borås Tapetfabrik, continues to win market share, almost double its. Moving on to brand reasons. Cautious approach and limited orders mentioned during our Capital Markets Day in May. We don't expect to see solid market growth until 2025.
On the positive side, though, we saw a strong product mix, and that was key in lifting the group's overall gross margin to 60.7%. Manufacturing, well, we are winning market share in the Nordic market. The teams work to make our manufacturing offer more efficient, first and foremost, of course, to service our own brands, but also external customer, and it is paying off. The progress shows that we are on a good track, but we have a lot of things to do still. Well, now, let's look into some of the exciting stuff that our brands have been up to in the quarter. First of all, Cole & Son. Well, Cole & Son previewed the Japanese-inspired collection, Shinrin-Yoku, in London during FOCUS/24, and we did that in the showroom the brand has in Chelsea Harbour.
This collection was introduced to media, interior designers, and trade during an event in London. FOCUS/24. It's important to know that it is a big happening in London. More than six hundred brands showing their products at more than one hundred and thirty showrooms in Chelsea Harbour, and with a very strong international media presence as well. Moving on to Borås Tapeter. Borås Tapeter showcased some of the iconic designed wallpaper, but also fabrics at Formex in Stockholm. This is also an important arena for Nordic interior decoration and with many, many visitors. Another brand I want to mention here is Pappelina.
Pappelina celebrates twenty-five years this year, and we did this by launching a limited edition of a rug made 100% out of linen, and linen is really an exciting material. It has a very low carbon footprint compared to cotton, or wool, or anything else. So it's a very sustainable offer, and we're so happy to have that in our collection now. Now, over to you, Karin.
Thank you, Olle. Back to the numbers. A weak sales quarter with a decline of 7% in net sales. The main reason, as Olle pointed out, was the cautious approach and limited orders from retailers, primarily in Europe. Gross margin, 60.7%, is stronger than prior year, when it was 57.7%. The main contributor was the strong product mix. EBITDA is flat, SEK 26 million in absolute terms, but it's an improvement in margin to 15.1% compared to 13.5% last year. Main reason for this is the improved gross margin and also lower operating expenses contributed. The operating cash flow was SEK 17 million. This is an improvement compared to prior year, and the main reason is a better development of working capital, compared to last year.
We need to remember that accounts receivable due to sales pattern increased significantly during 2023. Year to date sales grows 5%, EBITDA margin is 14.6%, year to date, compared to 12.5% prior year, which shows that we are on the right direction when it comes to our target level. The operating cash flow is SEK 74 million, compared to SEK 28 million during the same period last year. This slide summarizes the net sales and EBITDA development over time. LTM sales is now at SEK 765 million, and to the right, we see that the EBITDA margin trend is improving during the year. If we look at the sales details by segment, we see it was a weak quarter for the brands that report 13% down.
But also, Borås Tapeter experienced weak retail sales in Nordics, while export continues to develop better. Cole & Son, Wall&decò, and Pappelina all experienced soft sales to customers, primarily in Europe. Artscape has varying trading pattern and met a tough comparison period due to timing of stock orders last year. Year to date, growth of Artscape is still 18%. If we look at the manufacturing, they continue to perform well and had a sales growth of 97%. That is almost double compared to last year. If we look at the full year to date, sales growth is 5%. Brands are almost flat compared to last year, and manufacturing grows above 80%. With this, I would like to hand back to Olle for some final words.
All right. Thank you, Karin. Well, to summarize, and from a sales point of view, it is a weak quarter, and a weak sales quarter with - 7%. However, I'm pretty certain, I am certain that with our updated strategy, that we are on the right track by focusing in to increase our share of sales into hospitality and direct to consumer. We are continued to make our company efficient, and nine months into this year, register a 5% sales growth, stronger gross margin, improve the EBITDA margin to 14.6, a better cash flow, and we have reduced our net ratio to one. So we are well underway versus our long-term target to reach one billion in 2028, and with an EBITDA of at least 15%. With this being said, we now move over to questions.
If you wish 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. The next question comes from Marcela Klang from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. Maybe starting with the improved gross margin, you mentioned that it is due to strong product mix. Which products are the most positive for your margins, or was that manufacturing since all brands were down year- over- year this quarter? Can you guide us a little bit more on the product mix and the effects of it?
Well, from a product point of view, it is the pattern that we have seen for several months that we have been better in mixing up and selling more premium products. In the quarter, it's worth to mention that we have less sales of marketing materials as well, that improves as well. But wallpaper from our brands is performing very well. Regarding manufacturing to external customer, this is, of course, a lower gross margin business, and still, even though that is growing, it is pretty strong, I have to say, to grow with three percentage points.
And then a question: during your Capital Markets Day, and even after that, you mentioned the focus on hospitality and direct.
Mm-hmm.
Consumer sales. Can you give us an update on how these initiatives are going?
The direct to consumer sales is performing well, and in line with our plans. Hospitality is also growing during this quarter, and we see a good activity level in terms of requests and interest as well. It is moving, as we're saying, and developing as we talked about at the Capital Markets Day. But it's important to remember that the majority, more than two-thirds of our retail and direct to retail space. That this is what is challenging part during the quarter, as we see a very low activity level. We also get reports from low footfall in showrooms and retail stores in Sweden, Italy, U.K., and other important countries.
In this challenging market, you had -7% in sales. How is the market developing? What is your view? Are you decreasing less than the market, maybe take a market share from somewhere in certain countries? Or what is your development compared to competitors as much as you can?
Our view is that we continue to take market share. In a very small market, we continue to take market share.
The final question, can you update us anything on them, how the recruitment of the new CEO is going? When can we expect any news?
I'm not the one to answer that, right? You have to ask the board.
Thank you so much.
But, I mean, having said that, I'm here, and I will continue to be here, and leading and driving the company until a new person is appointed. So, you will not get rid of me that easy.
Sounds good and reassuring. Thank you so much. That was all for me.
Very good.
The next question comes from Alice Beer from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. This is Alice filling in for Benjamin at ABG. Just you talked a bit about the gross margin improvements, but is there any part of the jump that can be attributed to price increases or similar initiatives?
Karin here. No, there has not been any significant price increases implemented recently that impact gross margin in this way. It's primarily product mix, where we see that more exclusive and more premium products sell up better than the basic assortment.
All right, thank you. And then just the sales decline is said to be due to soft retail channel primarily. Do you see any signs of this trend turning around anytime soon, or how should we think about that? I'm not asking for explicit guidance, just your thoughts from speaking to wallpaper retailers all day.
Yeah. I will go back to what we communicated at the Capital Markets Day. We don't see the market coming back until next year. It will soft. It's most likely what will happen as well. So that's the only kind of outlook we can give right now.
All right. Thank you. That was it for me then.
Thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. There are no more phone questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions.
Thank you. We have received a couple of questions, which are written, and the first one is referring to the relatively high interest costs we have had during the first nine months, and part of the financial net is a debt in U.S. dollar, which impacts the level of interest we have, but the financial costs are going down, and we are working to further reduce them and to make our cash management more efficient. The next question is to elaborate a bit more on the future growth of manufacturing. What do you foresee in the future from manufacturing? Olle.
To start with, it is obvious that we are manufacturing high quality products in a very way that people or other companies are looking for. So we have a very strong platform there. And I mean, well, it takes time to find new customers. The result we see now is the customers that we came in contact with during 2023. But we expect our manufacturing entity, Borås Tapetfabrik, to continue to deliver on a good level, actually. So anyone else, of course, welcome as well. But having said all this, the primary focus for Borås Tapetfabrik is to service our own brands first.
But then if we can add other brands, other companies, we are happy to do so.
I don't think we have any more questions. So with that said, we will close this call, and thank you for listening in.