Earnings Call: Q2 2021

Aug 23, 2021

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. My name is Olle Svensk. I'm the CEO of Embellence Group. Presenting, as mentioned today, is Pär Ihrskog as well. Next page, please. Obviously, we will go through the Q2 report. I, of course, want to take the opportunity to give you some background about the Embellence Group. We're a group that acquire, owns, and develops strong brands, or brand houses as we like to call it, in wallpaper, textiles, and rugs. We have a certain focus or large focus on developing premium brands and even up to luxury. Next page, please. We have today a competitive brand platform which we want to develop further. Today, we have Boråstapeter being the largest brand, then followed by Cole & Son, Wall&decò, Perswall, and Pappelina. We're in wallpapers, rugs, and textiles, and other categories where we can see that we can utilize and develop our fantastic pattern archive as well. Next page, please. Our three strategic focus areas is first of all, is to leverage on the premium development in the market where we see market growth of at least 5% in more or less all markets around the world. Secondly, it's to have further international growth, mainly focusing in Europe on, and some selected markets in what we call rest of the world. We also want to add the organic growth with the add-on acquisitions. The third part is to develop a closer relationship with consumers, but also aim the architects and designers. We do that by launching our own direct to consumer into new geographies, which we've done now during this quarter, but also further investment in different digital tools. Next page, please. Some Q2 highlights then. We delivered this quarter as well, strong, profitable growth, exactly in line in what we have communicated and discussed during the IPO process. Our net sales is up 33% versus last year, which I can say we were expecting a strong quarter here as the market last year was very much impacted by pandemic close downs and lockdowns. We are really happy to see that we also grow versus 2019, which was more of a normal year. We can report a growth with 16% compared to that year. Our adjusted EBITDA is 14.3%. I will go through this more in the coming slides. We could see a strong demand in more or less all markets. There are some few exceptions around the world which are important markets for us. That continue to reflect the increase in home related spending, where people spend more time at home, working from home, and they want to develop or invest in their homes. We also, in the market, could see a certain pent-up demand as markets in Europe were opening up. During the quarter, especially in April, but also somewhat in May, we had some supply constraints and shortages. However, we managed to overcome that, and there were some really strong price increases temporarily, but it is falling down now. Another very important event during the quarter was that we have appointed a new Managing Director for our Italian brand, Wall&decò, Christian Tomadini, and he brings a lot of experience and network and lot of passion into the business, and he's with us now since beginning of May. Last but not least, I want to mention also that the 1st of June, we launched the Boråstapeter's digital flagship store with its own e-commerce there, with Sweden being the first market. On the right-hand side here, you see an installation we made in Italy, in London with Wall&decò, we are starting to see some hospitality development in many important markets for us. It's not only residential. Contract, as we call it, is slowly coming back as well. Next page, please. Over to you, Pär. Thank you. Pär Ihrskog here. Our demand continues to increase. Our net sales for the quarter 2 was SEK 160 million, compared to SEK 120.4 million same quarter last year, which is an increase, as Olle mentioned, of 33%. The organic growth in the quarter was 21%. I will show you some more details on the growth on the next slide. Our EBITDA ended up in SEK 22.9 million compared to SEK 16.7 million same quarter last year, which is an improvement of 37%. Also our EBITDA margin, as Olle mentioned, ended up at 14.3% compared to 13.9% quarter 2 last year. Our profitability is driven by the growth, but also an increased share of premium sales, which represent high gross margins. In total, we don't have any major currency impact on EBITDA level. We have a negative impact on the sales, we have a positive impact on the cost side, which neutralizes itself. On the cash flow side, we ended up on a positive cash flow of almost SEK 18 million in the quarter, which is lower than last year's same quarter, that is explained by the delayed payment in Sweden, the tax payment that was related to the COVID-19 support from the Swedish government. Next slide. Some details on the growth. As explained, we ended up at SEK 160 million quarter 2 this year. The growth came from acquired Pappelina AB, representing 13.5% of the growth and the organic growth, as explained already, 21.1%. A slightly negative currency impact on top line. Going into some details in our segments, which is Nordic, Europe, and rest of the world, starting with Nordic. Our net sales ended up at SEK 75 million, compared to SEK 73.9 million last year, which is a growth of 18%. It's both organic and from Pappelina. Our adjusted EBITDA ended up at SEK 9.5 million, which is slightly lower than Q2 last year. Last year we had a COVID-19 support helping last year. In this year, we also seen an increase in input materials in our production, temporary input increases as we see it. Also we have increased spending on our digitalization. The share Nordic represents 47% of our group, and the level of premium is 29, which is an increasing trend in the Nordic region. Last year it was 21%. Next slide, please. Europe. Here we see net sales of SEK 65 million compared to SEK 45 million last year's quarter, which is an increase of 43%. We see a recovery in most big countries in Europe from the COVID-19 pandemic. Some hit last year quite hard. We also see positive effect from Pappelina supporting our growth in Europe. Our profit adjusted EBITDA ended up at SEK 11.5 million versus SEK 2.6 million Q2 last year, which is of course driven by then the growth as explained. Europe represents 41% of our turnover, which is a higher share compared to Q1. When it comes to level of premium sales, it's 82%, which is in line with last quarter Q1, and same as Q2 last year. Rest of the world. Here we see very strong sales, SEK 19.5 million in the quarter versus SEK 11 Q2 last year. It's also here a general recovery from the COVID-19 effects. We see also an increased demand in the U.S. and also in the hospitality segment. Also Pappelina is strong in the rest of the world and we also have nice growth with Pappelina there. The profit, small numbers perhaps compared to the other two regions, but an improvement of 46% which is driven by then the growth and the acquisition of Pappelina. Rest of the world is representing 12% of our total sales, level of premium is 84% in the quarter two. It was 72% quarter two last year. Leaving the segments, I will finally update you where we are on our financial targets. Our first target is about growth. We say that we should double our sales from the IPO date to 2025. We should double our sales to SEK 1.2 billion. That means approximately 15% growth per year. For the Q2, we saw an increase of 32.9%. For the first half year, we have a growth of 23.6%. On the margin, our second financial target, we say we should be at least at 15% operating margin. The quarter two, we had 13.3% adjusted operating margin or EBITDA margin was 14.3% in the quarter. For the first half-year, we had a margin of 13.1% and the adjusted margin was 15.1%. Our net debt target is we should not go above 2.5. End of Q2, we were at 1.1. The last financial target, our dividend policy was not applicable in Q2. Next slide, please. All right, thank you. Summing up the highlights for the second quarter, but also for the first half year. We are delivering a strong, profitable growth versus 2020 and 2019. We see a gradually improved activity level from hospitality, which means hotels, restaurants, and cafeterias. We have appointed, and Christian has joined us since 2nd of May as the managing director for our Italian company, Wall&decò. We have launched the Boråstapeter digital flagship store in Sweden, with its own e-commerce as well. Looking at the first 6 months, as I said, we are early on, but we are on par and in line with our 5-year plan to double our revenue until 2025. We see good and strong demands in many markets as people are spending more money in their homes. We have seen that for the last couple of years, actually a couple of 2, 3 years. It's not only in the homes. We also see stronger activity in corporate offices as well. When people are then coming to their offices, they are also now being invested in to deliver a more home-like environment. In the quarter, it's fair to say we also saw a certain pent-up demand in the quarter. Overall, we remain comfortable with the view of the overall demand for the category itself in interior decoration. I'm also really happy to see that we have a very high activity level in digitalizing our offering, everything from our production footprint to the way we are developing different tools to support our consumers, but also customers out there in the market. Last but not least, we are working hard now to improve our sustainability offering to make our already green offering even greener. I look forward to report that later on in the third or fourth quarter. With that said, that was all from our side in presentation, and we now go over to questions if there are any. Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please dial 01 on your telephone keypads now to enter the queue. Once your name's been announced, you can ask your question. If you find it's answered before it's your turn to speak, you can dial 02 to cancel. So far, we have 1 question coming through. That's from the line of Karri Rinta of SHB. Please go ahead, your line is open. Yes, thank you. Good morning, Karri from Handelsbanken. I have a few questions. Maybe if I could start with the talk about the input cost pressures and logistics costs. I think you also mentioned in the report that you have implemented some price increases for your products, and you expect to continue doing so later this year. Can you give us any sense of the magnitude of these price increases? Yeah, the price increases, the ones that we have implemented and then the ones that will come later on will be in around 4%-5%. That's the total impact from these two? That's the increase of the end-user prices, yes. That's when you have implemented the second price increase, then the prices after that is 4%-5% higher than it was a year ago? Correct. Yeah. Okay. All right. These input materials that you discussed, can you remind me of how much of your cost of goods sold is input materials? It's around 60%. Okay, 60% of the cost of goods sold? Yeah. Okay. You saw a surge, but then those prices are normalizing or have normalized or have come down, or should we? What we saw, first of all, there was a shortage of certain input materials, not the substrates or other elements, but certain smaller ones that we need to produce a wall covering. Those increases were up to 25%, 30%, but they were temporary, and they represent a small percentage of the total input material. They have now come down to a more normal level, but still an increase, but we are not talking about the 25% or 30%. In beginning of April, it was really a matter of finding those input materials at all. We have overcome that, and we have stable supply now. What we see is that there was a peak on very specific input materials in April, a little bit in May as well. That has come down to a healthier or a stable level, if you like. Okay. You also mentioned the U.K. and the increased cost and complexity. Can you remind me of your setup in the U.K. and how exactly do the flows go imports and exports to and from the U.K. that you have to now manage? More specifically, this new setup that you have put in place, what exactly does that entail? In the U.K., we have our Cole & Son brand house. Cole & Son brand house doesn't have their own production, so to say. Certain part of it is sourced from our factory here in Sweden, but the majority, more than two-thirds of the revenue is sourced mainly locally in the U.K. Our warehouse is in the U.K. as well, where we supply the goods from. When it comes to the supply to our warehouse, that has been quite okay from the all the time, I would say, or even it's been stable. What was the big difference for us was that the 31st of December 2020, to supply from London to Newcastle or London to Milano was the same thing. Overnight, Milano became overseas and a lot of administrational constraints, let's call it that, when it comes to VAT but also customs duties. We, as anyone else, were struggling a lot to find this because the logistic partners, UPS and DHL, they were not ready for it as well. We, as many others, saw some delays in supply the first quarter. It has basically become more expensive to import products from U.K. for a customer or a consumer in France or in Germany. I would say by beginning of April, we had managed most of that or more or less all of it, but it has basically been more costly for customers to order piece by piece from us, and from anyone else as well, as the cost for supplying to those markets has increased. We have implemented new structures and setups with the customers, and we have also made changes together with our supply and logistics providers there. I wouldn't say that we are rather the opposite. We have actually received a lot of praise from our customers that even though we were not perfect, we are in better shape than many of our competitors, we realized. Another part that also impacted a lot during these first months of the year was that it was not only the Brexit impact, but it's also the fact that all the truck drivers that had to pass from U.K. to France had to be tested for COVID-19. That built up a long queue of trucks as well, and we were one of the companies impacted by that. Okay. Just to clarify going forward, let's say that you have a French customer that buys Cole & Son. Would it be possible to completely take away the U.K. from the equation so that the wallpaper is produced outside the U.K. and never needs to enter the U.K., and thereby doesn't get this extra cost? Will it still, due to some sort of legal reasons, need to be sold by the U.K. entity and anything extra cost? It's a good question. That could be, of course, managed, but we are selling to virtually all customers all over the U.K. We are selling ex works. It's the customer who takes the cost of this extra logistic cost that is being implied now or implemented since beginning of the year. So far, we have not received any demand from that side. That's an interesting opportunity, of course. Right. The Nordics, you did mention that we have talked about input costs, and you talked about the digitalization efforts that you made. If we look at the second quarter alone, how much of the margin pressures you would say came from input costs, and how much came from these digital investments? Have you taken all of the digital investment in the Nordic region if we look at where the cost has been allocated? Yeah. The input material impact on the margin is not that big. It's mainly the digitalization investments, and it's It's the flagship store, as Olle Svensk have mentioned, and also Mr Perswall, so that is the Nordic region. The main impact on the digitalization cost is in the Nordic region. You would say that you will continue, of course, making these investments, but would you say that the flagship store being launched in the second quarter, that was a pretty heavy quarter in terms of these investments? Or would you expect them to remain on these levels going forward as well? In addition to what Pär said here, the input material impact was somewhere between SEK 500,000 and SEK 1 million in the quarter. Closer probably to SEK 1 million than to SEK 500,000. When it comes to the digitalization, there has been, of course, investments that has, in the quarter or in the first half year, but also increased costs. Unfortunately, or how I should phrase it, the digitalization is not that you can go from one model to another. Over a certain period of time, you have increased costs because you're running parallel setups, if you like. There will be a higher cost to run this for a certain period of time. We expect to see healthy, and we see healthy gross margins coming through both Cole & Son and Boråstapeter. As you also know, we are now relaunching the Perswall brand, and that has also added up some cost elements as we have recruited a very strong team here who are doing that. We are just ramping that up as we speak. Okay. About that ramp-up, then, is there anything that you can share with us in terms of early traction, numbers, growth, and maybe more specifically, when you sort of turned on the full-blown borastapeter.com e-commerce store instead of consumers having to pick up the stock from the retailers? Did you see any impact on sales traction deliveries? With Boråstapeter, we are so far only in Sweden, and we started in June. With Cole & Son, as you know, we're only in the U.K. so far, but we are opening up more markets. I will answer your question by saying we are not ready to disclose the exact numbers, but we expect that the 10% of our total revenue, it's reasonable to say that we will have that in our direct-to-consumer business. We're not there now. This is where we're heading at. It's August now. We are two and a half months into the Boråstapeter part, so let me come back to that when we have some more data and some more stability. We are absolutely convinced that this is the right initiatives that we have taken here. All right. Final question related to Pappelina. When should we expect to see some sort of cross-selling to start to take place on different platforms? Because when I now look at Pappelina's website, I don't see anything that would suggest that it's owned by Embellence. They don't sell your products. Of course, it's very early, and they don't have any of your designs that they're using. What kind of plans do you have in terms of cross-selling going forward? When it comes to cross-selling, what one could expect to see is cross-selling in terms of product categories. We don't want to blend up and mix up the brands. Pappelina is focusing on that brand offering. We will not start to sell Boråstapeter from Pappelina or vice versa. You can probably expect to see cross-selling in terms of categories sooner than later. What does that mean, cross-selling of categories? That, for instance, that Boråstapeter might start to have an offering outside of wallcovering or wallpaper, maybe in certain textile or rugs, or you can see Pappelina doing wallcovering. This is what I mean. What is really important in order to understand us is that we want to develop brand houses that are very focused on the branded offering there and do what is right for the brand. This is what I mean. We will not start to sell Pappelina from Wall&decò's homepage. Definitely not, because we want to develop and have strong, unique brands with their own stories there. The categories you can expect to find different product categories within the brand. In Pappelina today, we have the rugs, of course, but we also have blankets and other categories as well. We are with the same design and the same thing you should expect to come from Boråstapeter, for instance, later on. All right. A second final question. Of course, the first half of the year has been pretty busy for you with the IPO and the demand picking up and the events that you mentioned in your second quarter. What will be your focus areas now for the second half of the year? First of all, is to continue to deliver on our strategy to develop and deliver organic profitable growth. Needless to say, add-on acquisitions are very high up on the agenda for us. We have now leverage that is 1.1, as Pär Ihrskog explained here. We are in several discussions here. That's very important for us to find the right add-on acquisitions. Maybe we will not necessarily find it as soon as you or someone else from the financial community thinks. When we find the right company, we will see if we can find an agreement to acquire that. Acquisitions is high on the agenda for the second half. All right. Thank you. Very helpful. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. As there are no further questions on the phone at this time, I'll hand the floor back to our speakers. All right. Thank you very much, then. Thanks for lots of good questions there, Kari, and look forward to speak to you soon again. Thank you.