Good morning, and welcome to Electrolux Professional Group Q3 Results Presentation. My name is Jacob Broberg. I'm heading up Investor Relations and Communications. With me today, I have, as always, Alberto Zanata, our CEO, and Fabio Zarpellon, our CFO, and I hand over to you to start, Alberto. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Jacob, and good morning to everybody. So, Q3, as the headline says, in Q3, we improved profitability, so another step towards the achievement of our financial target, and different from the previous quarter, we also develop organically, organic sales. I would summarize the quarter as the quarter where all the financial KPI has been improved. We grew sales, organic sales, we improved the EBITDA, and we improved the EBITDA margin. We also continued to generate a strong cash flow, more than 100% cash conversion, taking down the operating working capital on sales, and further improving also the order intake, so the collection of orders. So a positive quarter in the right direction, despite the negative impact of the currency that was hitting us negatively, in the quarter, in particular in the laundry business.
If we look at the sales, the development of the sales by region, we have a different dynamics, in the meaning that overall sales were positively, organically, positively growing, both in Europe and in the Americas, while they've been declining both in food and beverage and laundry in the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa region. I take also the opportunity to give some highlights about the market, because with this our sales, where is the market? Europe is still holding. In general, Europe is still holding, mainly driven by the South European markets, that are, or the Mediterranean region, that have been performing extremely well during the summer, thanks to the touristic season, but it seems to be holding well also during the fall.
The Asia Pac region, I'm talking about the market again, the by far largest market, that is Japan, is soft, still soft, for different reason, because of the increasing on the interest rate, that is in some ways slowing down the investment because of the inflation, that for at least that market is high because of, let me say, the softening of the demand after the peak of the pre-COVID recovery. In the other countries of the Asian region, Southeast Asia, in general, China, we see a improving market condition. Still pretty tough, the situation in Middle East. We have a big region, Middle East and Africa, but I would focus on Middle East mainly, where the situation is still pretty challenging, as you, I believe everybody can clearly understand.
In America, we see an improvement of the situation. It is still not as good as, obviously, we would like to see the American market, but, as we said, also the other time, we are living uncertain days, so days where many decision are postponed because of what is going to happen during the coming weeks. If we go to the segment food and beverage, we have some words about the two segments, starting from the food and beverage, as I said. The first things I want to say is that both segments have been improving, the profitability and the margin. In the food and beverage, we did this despite an organic decline, and I think it's important to spend a little bit of time on this one, because, the decline, the organic decline of the sales is entirely due to the situation in Middle East.
If I would have excluded the Middle East and Africa, Middle East, not Africa, only Middle East, I would have delivered organic growth. In this region, in particular in the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East is the most profitable, or at least it was the most profitable market. So the organic decline is coming from this specific region. An additional comment about the sales development in food and beverage I want to make is about an action that we consciously took. What I mean is that since the beginning of the year or last year, we took the decision to phase out a product family that we call Semi-Pro with refrigerators. It's a subfamily in the cold line that we decided to phase out because the margin was very low. So we consciously decided to lose sales to improve the profitability.
Indeed, you see that despite the organic decline, the margin improved, and the other important thing is that the order intake is improving, in particular, in North America. Because we already commented that the Asia Pac region, Europe is doing well, continuing to do well, generating profitable growth, and Europe is the largest market that we have. Again, North America is still suffering. I have a specific comment about a deep dive in North America, because we always had at least I always receive a question about that. North America is improving. It's still negative, so we are still declining sales, but much less than in the previous quarter. What we are doing is starting to provide the good result. You know that 50% of our business is chains, and chains are growing 5%.
So finally, chains are starting to let me say to convert the test that we've been doing since the beginning of the year, or better, since last year, into orders. And this is obviously very, very good. The other thing that I want to mention is that since September last year, we reviewed our or we relaunched, revamped our go-to-market, reestablishing all the processes. I call them back to basic, in the meaning, demonstration, training, support, and so on, and so on. And the results are coming. We started from the largest region, that is Texas. The results are very good because we collected orders for the combi oven, that you know is being the one of the most profitable line that we have, in $1 million for the coming two quarters.
So very, very good result that are giving confidence that finally, the situation should turn into a positive for U.S. food and beverage, too. If we move to the other segment, here, the picture is quite different. I believe that in the laundry, we are confirming our strong position in the market, our leading position in the market, with a strong growth of the sales, but also a strong organic growth. I would say that the market is not growing so much. You know that this is an industry where it's tough to have a hard number. We have them for U.S. and Japan, typically these two market, but not for the overall, of, for the overall market. Nevertheless, for the information that we are able to collect from the, what has been in the past year, the market is not growing so much.
Clearly, our position is becoming even stronger, and it is across the different region, across the different markets. Also in this case, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, is the one suffering, so reflecting the same picture that we had for food and beverage, and is mainly due to the situation in the Middle East. Couple of words about the profitability, because I believe it has to be mentioned, this one. Tosei Corporation was slightly accretive at group level. It has to be said, because in Q2 it was dilutive, so it is slightly accretive. It is good, despite the market condition that are not so good, but thanks to the effect that in the two category where we play, laundry and vacuum, we are market leader.
We have been able to hold the market share, and as a consequence, we have been able also to take action to defend the profitability. So slightly accretive at group level, but for the laundry business, Tosei is dilutive. So if I don't look, the organic, let me say, profitability of our laundry business is one point more. And again, you know that we said it also when we acquired Tosei, that Tosei would have been dilutive to laundry before synergies. So we are still expecting synergies to kick in. We started replacing the external supplier for the combo machine, but that is just the first step of a long line of process that in some way will find the peak between the first and the second quarter of next year, when all this project we should turn into actions, and then starting to deliver the synergies.
So one point more, basically, in term of organic, and when I mentioned at the beginning that our quarter was affected negatively by currency, I was mainly referring to laundry, because in the case of laundry the currency impact is a couple of points. So this means that the quarter of laundry would have been around 20%, so very, very good. In addition to that, laundry is giving us confidence that we will be able to continue to perform pretty well also the coming quarter, because the order intakes continue to be strong. With this said, I believe I'll let you comment in detail the financials, Fabio. So please.
Thank you, Alberto, and good morning to everybody. As Alberto anticipated, quarter three was another step toward our margin expansion. As you see, EBITDA move from 10.5% of last year to 11.5% of this year, up in absolute value by 12%. Acquisition integration cost for Adventys and Tosei, burden the result for roughly SEK 3 million. When we look at the accumulated performance, meaning, moving from the quarter to measure the performance of the three quarters together, EBITDA margin is currently at 11.5%, up roughly 5% in value compared to the same period of last year. If we do the exercise to exclude the acquisition cost and the integration cost that burden the result of this year for roughly SEK 50 million , to be noted that the underlying business performance this year is already at 12%.
Let me say, a remarkable step forward. In the quarter, we improved margin, thanks to pricing, more than compensating inflationary item like the labor cost. We continue to enjoy lower material cost. And as Alberto just mentioned, we have a remarkable sales increase of the high margin laundry business that grew organically over 5%, generating more than 20% EBITDA value, and definitely also a very good performance of food and beverage in Europe. Currency negatively affected the quarter. This quarter together was a negative impact, both in terms of translation, transaction. Currently, translation reduced top line roughly a couple of points, and somehow in the same order of magnitude for what concerns the EBITDA. But let me say, with a neutral effect in terms of margin.
Currency transaction instead had a minimal effect on the top line, but a significant burden to the bottom line, the EBITDA, with roughly SEK 30 million negative impact in the quarter, mainly in laundry. And this due specifically due to the, I would say, swift strengthening of the Thai baht, that is our sourcing currency, versus euro, U.S. dollar, and SEK, combined with a continued weakening of the U.S. dollar, in particular versus SEK. As in the past, we are not staying still facing this situation, but we have already taken proactive action on price to compensate the weaknesses, in particular, of the Thai baht. Alberto mentioned that the acquired companies overall in the quarter had a reasonable good improvement in term of margin.
They are accretive on a group perspective, and even if they were not part of the group, besides the softer development of the market, they were expanding the margin compared to the same period last year. Moving into more the other part of the balance sheet, finance net was SEK 29 million , lower than last year, despite roughly SEK 1 billion more in term of borrowing. Borrowing that we have enlarged to support the acquisition of Tosei and Adventys. This, I would say, remarkable result has been achieved, thanks to a well-structured funding structure. For example, in the quarter, we have closed fully the bridge facility that we were activating for the acquisition of Tosei, and replace it with a medium-term loan. Currently, a large portion of the debt is in yen-based, let me say, currency, and also we enjoy the reduction, the interest cost in the market.
Tax rate for the quarter was approximately 22%. It's somehow, let me say, a down weight in this quarter, but overall, I give you a guidance that on a full year basis, the expected guidance of 25%-26% is still valid, also going forward. EPS was SEK 0.66 per share, up roughly 18% compared to the same period last year. As you see in the graph, we continue to deliver good cash flow performance. In the quarter, we deliver over SEK 440 million, confirming somehow the consistent cash generation quarter on quarter that this group is able to provide. A note on CapEx.
Here you see in the quarter, CapEx was somehow relatively low, lower than the same quarter of last year, but somehow I want to give some sort of guidance as going forward, because of significant investment, in particular, on the product that we are doing, both in laundry and in food and beverage, we should expect somehow an increase of CapEx on sales, compared to the historical average. In terms of asset management, we continue to improve. Operating working capital on sales was reduced to 16.8%, and you see, we are continuing trending in the right direction. With, let me say, the major improvement coming from the inventory, that, as you know, was the area where we suffered the most, in particular, during 2022 and 2023.
Our financial position after the acquisition of Adventys remains strong, and you see that we are continuing to improve also in terms of balance sheet solidity with the ratio net debt on EBITDA down at 1.7x . So I would say that, overall, we are closing a quarter, as Alberto anticipated, with all the financial KPI moving in the right direction, a pretty solid balance sheet, meaning with the right condition to continue to deliver both in quarter four and in coming year. And with that, back to you, Alberto.
Thank you, Fabio, and Fabio was mentioning about the investment, he was specifically referring to the CapEx. I would extend this one also to the overall cost. If you look at our profit and loss, you will see that we have an increase of the operating cost. But the by far majority of this increase is due to the investment we are doing in R&D, in research and development, and innovation. We said more than once that we are investing well above the average of the industry in R&D. Roughly 4% of our net sales are reinvested in research and development. And we do this because we want to continue bringing to market product that are innovative, that they bring new features to the market, in particular, for what concern the sustainability.
I'm really proud to introduce the product that we launched in September and that we started in production last week, exactly last week. We started up with low volume to ramp up gradually, and it is the first product of a family of dishwasher. These are the high-volume dishwashers, similar size to the ones that you have at home, if you want to say, with a small difference, that in one minute, you have your dishes done, compared to the typical couple of hours that it takes, a domestic dishwasher. We do this with the first in the market machine that is totally digital. Also from the picture, you clearly see that there is no control panel, and the control panel is on your mobile phone.
So all the electronics is moved to the web and to the mobile phone that everybody has in his hands. All the electronics, obviously, the control of the electronics, the user interface. And this is important because gradually is giving us the possibility to develop a lot of services to our customers. Not only the possibility to remotely monitor the machine, operate the machine, change the program machine, but also this can be done both by the users and the service technicians. But not only, this is the first machine that we develop, thinking about the aftermarket business, so the consumable in particular, because we are going to create the automatic reordering of detergent that is used by the machine through the app.
This is additional business that we, in this case, for the first time, introducing the business plan to develop this product, so totally digital, thinking about the aftermarket, and last but not least, this is the by far best machine for what sustainability is concerned in the market: reducing the water consumption, the energy consumption, the detergent consumption, and as a consequence, helping us to achieve our ambitious target to reduce the CO₂ emissions also for the Scope 3. That is the most challenging one, but also the most impactful one, because it relates to the product or the usage of our product done in the market. So I'm very proud, very happy for that. And with this said, I believe we are at the end, so back again to summarize a quarter.
A quarter where net sales improved, both total net sales and organic net sales, despite the headwinds in some markets, in particular Middle East, soft Japan, still uncertain in the United States. EBITA, EBIT margin improved, in this case, despite a pretty significant currency headwind, and despite the fact that the U.S. market that we all know being the most profitable market, where we can grow the EBITA margin, and also Middle East, that for us is a profitable market, have not been performing as they supposed to be. We continue to generate a strong cash flow. This is giving us to be strong financially, but also to be strong in terms of ability to reinvest and develop new product. We improved the operating working capital, finally. I would say on this matter.
The order intake is still supporting our development, not only in the quarter, but I can also anticipate that the current trading is still in line with this message. So the order intake in October is still supporting us in the development. And this means, as a conclusion, that despite the situation that we see in Middle East in particular, that it is clearly out of our control, totally out of our control, laundry is performing well. It is performing well and is going to perform well. In food and beverage, in particular in Europe, we have a solid business, a solid and profitable business, and the recovery in the U.S. is clearly giving us hope that also in that market, that is very important, in particular for the profitability, we are going to improve our performance.
The combination of all these things making us cautiously optimistic about the quarter to come, and now back to you, Jacob.
Thank you, Alberto. Thank you, Fabio. And with that, we open up for questions. Operator, please go ahead.
We will now begin the question- and- answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered a queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Questions on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode while asking a question. Anyone with a question may press star on one at this time. The first question comes from Gustav Hagéus from SEB. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator, and thanks for taking my question. I was gonna ask you about the numbers, so that I didn't get it wrong. Did you say, Alberto, that 50% of your US sales in US food and beverage sales related to chains, and that those were growing? What was the number? Was it 5% in the quarter? Can you repeat that? That'd be helpful. Thanks.
Everything is right, other than in the quarter. They are here today, 5%, so there's been a recovery from being down at beginning and coming up during the last part, the last months. So other than that, everything is okay.
What about Q3? Could you help us figure out what that would mean for Q3, roughly?
It is positive. Let's say that it is positive also in Q3. We were down in Q1, recovery in Q2, positive in Q3. So it is a constant improvement of the sales, in particular to the chains. So they are showing a recovery much faster than the general market, what we call institutional market.
If you look at the order intake that you have been referencing, being in growth now for quite a few quarters in a row, what is it, what's the split there in terms of chains versus institutions in that mix? Does that differ from how we've seen it in the past?
Look, for the order intake, I don't have exactly this one. I tell you something, that the beverage is not the largest part, obviously, of the food and beverage business, but the beverage order intake is extremely strong in the United States, and 100% of the beverage is chains. So I'm expecting that chains will contribute positively also in Q4.
Perfect. And then given that interest rates now finally seem to be coming down a bit, do you have a view of the amount of sales from Europe that is connected to some type of financing, debt financing in the other end, as you sell them to franchisees and what have you?
Look, and again, but please take it really as a high-level view of the things. The interest rate is super important for the laundry coin business, because these are investments, the opening of new shops, because the replacement is a replacement, you need to replace the product, and that's it. The big thing is about the new investments, and when you talk about chains, when you talk about a laundry coin shop, in particular in the United States, this is influenced by the interest rate. So the interest rate is coming down, and you see that both in laundry and in the chains, we are improving our performances.
That's great. I appreciate those answers. Thank you.
Welcome.
I have.
As a reminder-
Sorry, operator. I have several questions from the web, both from Henrik Christensen at Carnegie and from Stefan from, at Nordea, and they are all related to FX. So, some of the questions you already answered, I think, Fabio, what was driving FX, you know, Thai baht and US dollar, SEK. But the other questions are related to when do you expect the price action taken on Thai baht to come through and negate and neutralize the negative FX impact in laundry? And also, are we thinking of any hedges to mitigate those impacts? So there are two questions.
Okay, let me take one by one. So first of all, the swing of the Thai baht has been, let me say, pretty strong in quarter three, so it has been a pretty swift move, and this is also the reason why we had the major impact, I would say, from currency in quarter three. Action on price are already in progress, and we expect to start to have a mitigation effect somehow in the beginning of next year. When it comes to what concern the hedging, for what concern also our company policy, we are not active hedging future flows. So we are not going to speculate around the currency development.
At the same time, we have taken, instead, a proactive action to hedge on the balance sheet item, receivable and payable, in order to, let me say, to reduce short-term volatility and give us more time to secure that the positive impact on price increase and hitting the P&L.
Thank you. Please, operator, go ahead.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star followed by one. So far, there are no further questions from the phone.
Okay. With that, I think everything has been clarified, I hope, and I would like to say thank you for listening in, and speak to you next time. Thank you and goodbye.