Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome to the presentation of Embellence Group's Q1 Report. Next page, please. My name is Olle Svensk, and I'm the CEO of Embellence Group. With me today is Pär Ihrskog, CFO, and he will walk you through the financials. Next page, please. This is Embellence Group. We are a group that acquire, own, and develop strong brands in wallpaper, textiles, rugs, and other interior decoration. We have a strong brand focus in whatever we do. Next page, please. Highlights of the first quarter then. We deliver continued profitable growth, and this despite that we see a weaker consumer demand coming through in the Nordic region and the three countries there that are most important for us, which is Sweden, Finland, and Norway. Net sales amounted to SEK 184.4 million, up 3.9%.
Adjusted EBITDA came in strong with 32.8, which is up 16%, a little bit more than 16%, but we had negative organic growth in the quarter with 6.3%, and all of that coming from the Nordic region. Europe and rest of the world, it's growth drivers for us, those two segments. We see especially coming with our Italian brand Wall&decò, but also with Cole & Son from the U.K. We have a solid uptick in hospitality segment. What we talked about here for a couple of quarters in terms of activity levels is now materializing into solid orders and in the quarter. This is happening across Europe, but also in North America.
Another item I want to mention is that cost inflation for us, as for anyone else, I would say it's continued to be strong. The headwind we have actually been able to mitigate by mix improvements, but also through price increases. That has resulted in a very strong gross margin improvement for the quarter where we were up to 59.4%. If we look at the comparison for last year's first quarter, 63.7%. Very strong, and really good work being done across the business. Last but not least, obviously very important for us. On March fourth, we completed the acquisition of Artscape, as we have previously communicated. They are in the March numbers with not a full month, but almost. Next page, please.
Okay. Some more numbers here on the key figures. Net sales ended up at SEK 184 million, which is an increase of 3.9%. As Olle mentioned, we had a negative organic growth in the Nordic region, but organic growth in the two other regions. The Artscape acquisition helped us, of course, with the growth in this quarter. We acquired Artscape fourth of March, so we have 20 days of business from Artscape, including the numbers. When it comes to our profitability, adjusted EBITDA, we ended up at SEK 32.8 million, and adjusted EBITDA margin of 17.8%. That should be compared to 15.9% same quarter last year.
The improvement in margin is driven by both improved gross margin mainly in Europe, but also rest of the world, but also that the growth in Europe and rest of the world take a bigger portion of the total sales cake. I'll come back to that later when I go through the segments, region segments. Then finally, the cash flow ended up at SEK 37 million in cash flow compared to SEK 12.9 million first quarter last year. The main reason for the relatively good cash flow is positive changes in working capital, I would say on all lines, but in particular in the inventories as a result of dedicated focus on having a healthy working capital. Next. Look at the sales graph here.
You can see that, quarter one, on the bar, you could see that it's in this graph is the highest bar. Despite the lower market demand in the Nordic, it was compensated by good growth in Europe and rest of the world and of course, the acquisition of Artscape. Also when it comes to the adjusted EBITDA and the EBITDA margin, we are now on an all-time high in this graph, 17.8 in the first quarter this year. The share of premium, which is 57% in Q1. Next. Take a closer look at the Nordic. Again, weak demand in the region due to lower consumer demand across all Nordic countries.
But despite that, the lower volume, we managed to defend the margin level ending up at 17% also in this quarter compared to first quarter last year. Interesting note here on the share of the total sales ended up at 48% compared to last year, it was 55%. This is a trend we have seen for many, many years. Nordic becomes slightly smaller portion of the total sales, and we are getting a more healthy balance between the three different regions. As well, our share of the premium in the Nordic region is now 29%, which is a slight improvement from first quarter last year when it was 28%.
Premium, the premium segment has a higher gross margin, so the more premium, the better profitability. Yeah. Next, please. Then Europe. Here we saw a sales increase of 4.9%. It's coming from strong sales in three of our key markets, Germany, U.K., and Italy, in general. Of course, as Ole mentioned, increase sales to the hospitality segment. Also here we see very good margins, I would say, compared to the same quarter last year. We ended up at 21% in adjusted EBITDA margin compared to 15% last year. Europe represent now 35% of the total sales and with a share premium of 80%, which is in line with previous periods. Next.
Rest of the world. Here we saw strong growth, of course, very much coming from the acquisition, but also very nice organic growth in this region. Sales is up 78%, and then we should keep in mind here that in this number, we have 20 days of sales from Artscape. When we have a full quarter from Artscape in the future, the rest of the world will be more balanced when it comes to the share among our three markets. Our adjusted EBIT ended up at SEK 4.6 million, which is equal to 14% adjusted EBIT margin. It is slightly better than same quarter last year. The total share now is 17% compared to 10%, Q1 last year.
The share of premium is 92% in this region, which is an improvement from 88%, Q1 last year. That is driven by Artscape is increasing the premium. Okay. An update where we are in our financial targets. Net sales growth, we say that we should double our business, reaching SEK 1.2 billion by 2025. Q1, as we said, ended up at SEK 184.4 million, which was a growth of 3.9%. The next target is EBIT margin equal or better than 16%. Q1 this year, we ended up at 16.7%, and to be compared to the full year last year, we ended up at 13.7%.
On our leverage, here our target is 2.5, and at end of quarter one, we were at 2.2. Here I would like to clarify that our target is including the IFRS 16 effect, but we also would like to express the same leverage excluding the IFRS effect, and then it ends up at 1.8. It's also important to keep in mind that in these two numbers we have as is, 12-month rolling EBITA or in this calculation, we have one month of EBITA contribution from Artscape, but we have the full net debt effect. As we go along, of course, this will be reduced when we get more months into the calculation from Artscape.
Finally then we have our dividend policy, which is the dividend should be between 30%-50% of the profit of the period. We, the board have now proposed a dividend of 80 øre or 0.8 SEK per share, which represents approximately 30% of the profit for the period.
It's Olle, I think. Yes. Thank you. Sorry. To summarize then what we talked about here then. We continue our journey of profitable growth.
This quarter fueled by add-on acquisition, of course, and providing us with a more balanced business portfolio. Europe and the rest of the world are growth drivers for us. They are now representing just above 50% of our total sales, but more importantly also with a higher EBITDA of 18.8. We saw weak consumer demand in the Nordics, with sales back to pre-pandemic levels. We are just a little bit better than 2019 actually. Solid uptick in hospitality across Europe and in North America. Cost inflation, we have been able to mitigate that in the quarter here by mix improvements, higher share of premium, but also in terms of the brands that are growing, and also, of course, price increases.
We have completed a very important acquisition for us here of Artscape in the beginning of March, and we are working full steam ahead now just to with the integration process. Thank you. This was all we wanted to present here now. Next page is actually we are open now for questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Our first question comes from the line of Anna Danfors of ABG. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you for a really good presentation, Olle and Pär . I have a couple of questions. Let's start off with the first one. You mentioned that the lion's share of the sales growth in Europe and rest of world was driven by an increased demand in the hospitality segment. Do you expect this trend to continue for the rest of the year? And do you possibly have any ballpark numbers on how much of the group sales this constitutes within the quarter?
Thank you. First of all, I would say, I mean, we are coming from a level where it has been virtually zero for us during the pandemic times. I mean, normally, more or less, it's around 10% of our business. This is the first quarter for a long period of time, I would say, where we see, you know, a strong demand of it. I expect that to continue throughout the year. We continue to see high activity, especially from hotel segment and especially from large international hotel companies across the world. Yes, I expect it to continue.
All right. Thank you. Also in the wake of we are seeing a surging inflation, we also have a consumer confidence that is at the bottom levels. How have you experienced the demand with now being we're one month into Q2, and how good would you say that your visibility is on this ahead?
I mean, I would answer it a little bit like this. I mean, we see it especially in the Nordic, as we said here before. When we try to summarize it, what are the root causes, so to say. First of all, of the three geographical segments we have, Nordic is the region that has had a positive effect throughout the pandemic. We see that, you know, slowly, gradually have been going down and it's more or less on normal levels, so to say. That positive effect we've had is disappearing. Secondly, you know, the cost inflation that is hitting all households now with on energy, on food, and so on, that is of course also affecting us to a certain extent.
The last bit that we saw in March especially was that the war and the invasion of Ukraine by Russia has also muted the consumer confidence, I would say. We saw when we looked at the activity level on how much search is basically on home interior product that is going down quite a lot in March. Having said that, I would say in terms of visibility, I don't want to say too much here. I don't see it should have a larger impact on our business. We continue to be cautiously, you know, optimistic that it will get back on track, that we had more of a short-term effect in the Nordic region here.
Also the initiatives that we are doing with our own direct consumer sales that we have now during April, we have launched close to 40 markets. Three more with Pappelina, 35 more with Cole & Son, and two more with Boråstapeter. That should help us to kind of mitigate also you know if there is a little bit weaker demand.
Okay. All right. Thank you. Fair enough. Also, would you say that there is any possibility that your customers in the premium segment might be less sensitive to price hikes? Could you say also if you are planning on doing any additional price hikes going forward?
Our assumption, I would say, and our strategy is built very much around that to continue to invest in building strong brands, addressing the premium luxury end of the market. It's not so much affected by the situation we have now. We believe that and we are pretty confident that it will continue to be, that it will not be impacted as much. With regards to price increases, we have done price increases in October, in January, in February. We have done, not for all brands and every month, but all brands have increased in prices. We have more price increases now coming through in May and in July as well, and around 4 or 5%.
Continuing on that, could you also perhaps break down the components of the gross margin and what you would say are the main drivers behind it in the quarter? For instance, how well have these price hikes that you have done offset the cost inflation that you've seen?
I leave that to you, Pär.
Yeah. No, of course, we have worked on the pricing in all regions. We have worked on the mix. We have positive impact in all regions, especially Europe, as I mentioned, very good improvement in the margins there, and it's coming from the gross margin. But also in the rest of the world, we have improved margins, both on EBIT and gross margins. We have this mix effect as EUR-Nordic, which is slightly lower margin, even though we believe they are good, than Europe. EUR-Nordic takes a smaller portion of the total cake.
We have also this positive mix effect contributing to an overall better gross margin and EBITA margin. We have seen strong improvement in the margins in Europe.
Okay.
In quarter one.
Thank you. Thank you. I also have one last question regarding some M&A pipeline. When you're scouting for new potential targets now going forward, would you say that you are looking more at Europe or any other specific markets? Should we say we are more likely to see another acquisition within a brand new category, or are you more likely to do an acquisition, of a company within one of your existing categories?
I think it's more likely that it will be an acquisition within the what we define as our core categories, which is wallpaper, textile, or rugs. It's more likely that it will happen in Europe or in North America. This is as much as I can say. I mean, it will be in the core categories and in the markets that we mentioned, we talked about before, the larger European markets.
All right. That's everything from me. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Alexander Vilval of Erik Penser Bank. Please go ahead.
Hello, Olle and Pär. I have a few questions regarding Artscape. First of all, how do you see seasonality in Artscape business as it stands? Is it particularly strong during summer or which quarters do you see that you would expect to stand out when it comes to sales?
I mean, Pär, can you take that? I mean, I'm not sure if there is that much of a seasonality, but you probably know the numbers better than I.
No, it's rather flat. There's some seasonality on it, but not as you can see in our pre Artscape numbers, where we have a seasonality with strong Q1 and strong Q4, Artscape is more flat, but some seasonality.
Okay, great. Also when it comes to the performance, I mean, it's been quite a short time so far, obviously, but, how would you evaluate the performance of Artscape so far, as a member of the Embellence Group?
I mean, I would say it is similar to Pappelina. It's a pretty well oiled machine and the business has performed in March and now in April as predicted and as expected as well. The strong business that we have with Artscape in the U.S. and Canada, especially, has been according to plan, I would say.
Okay.
No surprises. Everything has, it's according to what we expected.
Great. Also just final question on, you mentioned the, net debt to EBITA numbers, and obviously there's only quite a short, sort of delivery from Artscape Inc. Do you have, a pro forma number on, net debt to EBITA if you were to include the EBITA for the last 12 months for Artscape?
You know, if this is something that we should provide, I can include that in the next quarter. I have an idea what it is, but I don't wanna throw it out without being sure that I calculate it right. I don't have those calculations in front of me, but I'm happy to share that next quarter, if that's okay with you.
All right. Yes, absolutely.
Of course, without telling a number, it pro forma, it will go down, of course, to levels, almost like we were before.
Yeah, there was quite a lot of questions regarding organic growth and from gross margin. I think I'll stop here. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Take care.
Our next question comes from the line of Karri Rinta of Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. Hi, Olle and Pär. Just starting with easy numbers questions, the FX gains that you reported in your net financials, should we expect those to continue, or was there something of one-off nature there?
Oh, you tell me. I mean, of course, you mean the currency impact or what? Is that what you ask about?
Yeah, exactly. The currency impact.
Yeah.
In the financials.
Of course, we had a weak krona compared to euro and the pound, which is our two major flows. Now we have the dollar flow as well, which we haven't had to that extent before we acquired Artscape. Yeah, I don't know. I cannot really predict the currency rates where they go in the future. I think since the krona has improved somewhat the last couple of weeks, I think to the euro and pound, so we should maybe see slightly less effect.
All right. Fair enough. You mentioned Pappelina, so, and also that the overall in your Nordic business, you saw this sort of pandemic boost fading. Does the same apply to Pappelina? I guess the question is that, was Pappelina growing or flat or declining compared to Q1 last year?
Q1, it's declining. Q1 last year, Pappelina grew 90%. We were not able to hold on to those 90%. But it was still a very, very good number. It was along the 10% down, or more or less the same as for all the other Nordic.
All right. I'm sure you can promise me that you will do better next time. All right. I understand. The cash flow that you mentioned being positive in the first quarter, is there any sort of impact? Because typically you might see that if the business sort of slows down toward the end of the quarter and you can collect your receivables and that. Is there any reflection in your cash flow from all of what you mentioned about March being a bit weaker due to the ongoing war?
[ crosstalk]
Yeah.
No. You know, I am very happy with the strong cash flow in the quarter, but it is of course partly, as I said, factors that we had a quite poor cash flow or poor quarter. The last quarter, it was the change in working capital was negative last quarter. That is, of course, partly explaining why it was so positive this quarter, because we managed to collect AR, which. Then we also had improvements in the AP part of the working capital. That is, you know, more consequences of when some big customers pay, which side of the year they paid at the year-end. Also the inventory is contributing.
That is the biggest part of the working capital contribution, the reduction in inventory, and that is coming from dedicated work. That we are very proud of. Can we repeat 37 every quarter? I think it can be tough to repeat that, but we will do our best.
All right. Finally, 'cause you hear these anecdotes from real estate companies and home builders that there are these significant bottlenecks in the housing sector and in the building sector, and whether it's that there's no parquet or no oak floors or there's no drywall, i.e., gipsskivor. Could this imply some disruption in the quarters ahead? Or for what you mentioned the Google searches, but even if consumers would want to, will they be able to in the next few months, as long as these quite severe supply chain disruptions are there? Maybe not necessarily for the wallpaper, but for the sort of the adjacent categories needed for renovation and new build.
How worried should we be about maybe specifically about the summer quarters?
I'm not sure really. I don't think you should be worried in terms of availability of wallpaper or rugs or window films. We don't see any disruption when it comes to supply of direct material to any of our brands.
We did have that last summer of some small components, but nothing major then either. Now we don't have any situation like that. When it comes to new production of new homes and so on, I mean, when we last time we did an analysis, how much we are, you know, how much of what we are selling is directly to new production. In a very good month for us, it is maximum 4-5% of our revenue that is going to new build homes. We are not. I would say we don't have any impact. We shouldn't expect that at all.
All right. Finally, can you remind us of what is Artscape's sort of go-to-market strategy? How much direct to consumer online do they do, and how much do they do via traditional retailers? Do you have any early thoughts on how you would want to take the brand to Europe and how?
The first question is that the direct consumer business is a very low one-digit number, one of the lowest ones. Our thoughts going into Europe, we are working on that right now, so I kindly ask you to hold that thought, and we'll get back to that later on.
Perfect. Thank you very much.
Welcome.
May I remind everyone that if you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypads. There are no further questions at this time. Please go ahead, speakers.
All right. I think that was all we wanted to present today. Thank you very much for listening and for very good questions. Looking forward to meet you soon again.
Thank you. Bye.
Thank you.