Good morning and welcome to Electrolux Professional Group, the result presentation of the third quarter of this year. My name is Jacob Broberg, I'm heading up Investor Relations. With me, as always, I have Fabio Zarpellon, the CFO, and Alberto Zanata, CEO. As always, also Alberto starts. Please go ahead, Alberto.
Thank you, Jacob. Morning to everybody. I would describe the third quarter of 2025 as a good quarter considering the context. The context is a context where the market conditions are still not stabilized. There is still the uncertainty, in particular in the United States, and in particular after the tariff announcement in July. The market in the United States is full of uncertainty, and the decision, in particular, if we talk about the chains rollout or big project, has been put on hold or postponed. It is an environment that is clearly marked by tariffs and currency that have been negatively impacting our business. Despite all these things, and that is the reason why I consider it a positive quarter, we performed delivering organic growth, delivering improved margin, delivering improved EBITDA. Currency impacted for 0.5%, so quite significant in the quarter.
It is a quarter where we deliver solid cash flow, operating cash flow, also in this case continuing to invest. I mentioned more than once performed while transforming, and these are the quarters where this company is going through a big transformation in terms of new product that we will finally start to bring to market from January 2026. It's a transformation that is not only considering the investments and the new product, but it's considering also the organization. Beginning of the year, beginning of September, sorry, we launched a program that has the objective to streamline the operation, reducing the operating cost, but also has the objective to change the skills of the company. We launched this program that has an impact of roughly SEK 85 million in terms of cost reduction already next year.
It's a program that is impacting a quite significant number of employees, 350 employees, even if the net, as you can see, is not the total number of affected employees. The objective of the program is also to transform our organization. Next year, we want to move more resources. After having invested so much in R&D, in developing product, in investing in the automatization of our factory, in the digitalization of our operation, next year we want also to invest, to make use of these investments, and to focus on the front end, on the sales. The program, by the way, is progressing pretty well. It is according to our expectations, and we believe we will be able to deliver what we have been promising.
If we move about the market, I think I already commented the U.S., where you see that we are basically flattish on Food & Beverage, with the food still growing, particularly the chains. Chain business is still growing, and I believe it's seven, eight, nine quarters in a row that we are growing chains. They are not the big chains, they are the mid, small-sized chains. They are not big rollouts, but it is the replacement business, new openings, or as I said, small chains, but it's growing. One comment is to Laundry. You see Laundry here down, but I'm repeating things that I said also in the past. Here you should read these numbers considering that in the U.S. we have a large importer that is stocking the product, and the fluctuation of the inventory and the shipment to this importer are clearly affecting the number that you see.
The thing that I can say is that the external sales, because we have visibility on the external sales of our distributor, of our partner in the United States, are healthy. We have an order stock, or our distributor has an order stock in the United States that is at the historical peak. There is good business, and indeed the order intake during the month of October is basically on the double level of last year. That was expected considering this number for Q3. What is good, and I'd like to underline, is the trend in Europe. At the beginning of this year, we have been talking about Europe, saying that we would have expected a slowdown after years of growth, in particular in the South European markets, in the Mediterranean region. The reality is that Europe is still holding very well.
Both Laundry and Food are holding well, and we see also not only the Mediterranean region contributing, but also the central and Nordic region doing positive. I think this is important because despite the fact that we have a clearly global business, Europe still remains a very important part of our business, with roughly 50% of the sales executed in this part of the world. A few words also about the two segments, Food & Beverage. Food & Beverage delivered organic growth. Food & Beverage delivered improved profitability and improved margin. Food & Beverage is also partially affected by tariffs and currency, in particular for what the Beverage business is concerned, that is produced in Thailand, most of the product in Thailand and Italy, and the main market is the United States. Nevertheless, despite these things, I repeat organic growth, improving earnings, EBITDA, and improved margin.
With Europe being the main market delivering the positive results, U.S. food in particular, while we had a decline in Asia and Middle East and Africa. That is, again, these are regions with many projects, and it is similar to the discussion we had, even if not affecting the inventory, but the fluctuation of the order that can change the number pretty well. In that area, we are sitting on a good order stock, so we should be able to have the result done. Positive notice about this segment is that the order intake was positive, was positive for Food & Beverage. If we move to the Laundry, that is the segment that is more impacted by tariffs and currency because a large portion of this Laundry business is in the United States.
Organic sales are unchanged, so we have basically a flat development with the order intake that was down. Remember the comment I made earlier, it's mainly because of this fluctuation. We already see this in the month of October. We are close to the end of the month, and the order intake is very good in Laundry, in particular in the United States. Despite the significant impact, close to one point of EBIT due to the currency, the margin in Laundry in the quarter improved. EBITDA in absolute values was more or less flat, but the margin improved. This is significant in relation to how healthy is the underlying business of this segment. With this said, I believe we can get a little bit more into the details. Fabio, you're yours.
Thank you, Alberto, and good morning to everybody. As Alberto mentioned, in the quarter, we made an additional step in our profitable growth journey. Sales grew organically. We improved profitability before the provision for a restructuring cost. Despite the headwinds we had to face, both from currency tariffs, and by the way, wise to continue to invest in product innovation and digitalization of our group. From a geographical perspective, we continue to have a pretty well-balanced situation with America contributing roughly 26% of the total sales, APAC 16%, and now Europe below the 16%. When it looks to the margin development in the quarter, we got a positive contribution from price, lowering material cost, and the operational cost were more or less in line with last year, with a different mix, meaning we continue to increase the investment for innovation and digitalization of the group.
Thanks to this good price management, mainly U.S. dollar and euro, has reduced our, let me say, margin by 0.5 percentage point. Currency transaction that, as we have reported in the previous quarter, has not affected just this quarter, but is somehow a negative contribution we face along this year. If I sum up the currency transaction effect on EBITDA in the year-to-date data, we are close to SEK 16 million, or 0.6 points in terms of margin. A few more words then on the program we have launched to streamline our operation and improve the profitability. Total cost, as you know, was SEK 235 million. We treat it as item-affected comparability, partially booking gross margin, and this is the reason why you see a reported decline of gross margin imparting SG&A. The program is affecting both segments. Food & Beverage represent roughly 70% of the cost and the remaining of Laundry.
You see that it is more in line with the size of the two businesses. Execution started is proceeding according to plan, and we expect to receive material savings out of it. Based on current sales development already in 2026, about anticipated the SEK 80 million, they are equivalent to 0.6 point in margin. For 2027, where we are going to enjoy, I would say, the full contribution from the plan, we talk about 1.4 point of margin. Execution according to plan, material contribution to our margin expansion. A few words then on the other component of our income. Finance net was SEK 21 million, significantly lower than last year, thanks to the fact that we continue to reduce our borrowing, thanks to the good cash generation. A peculiarity in the quarter, we have a positive contribution to income from tax. What happened in the quarter?
The income before tax was pretty low due to the restructuring provision, and we have some previous period adjustment that brought the overall tax to positive. If we exclude this, let me say one-off situation, the underlying tax rate is in line with the guidance we gave in the past, that is around 26%. EPS was pretty low in the quarter, SEK 0.14 per share, and this is due to the restructuring provision. Without it, we are in line with the previous year earning per share. Our cash flow generation continued to be solid. Over SEK 400 million was the cash flow delivered in the quarter, somehow lower than last year due to lower contribution from working capital and higher CapEx. A few more words then on CapEx. We anticipated an increase of CapEx. It is happening year-to-date.
We are close to 2%, but I would say we will see more CapEx in absolute term and in percentage of sales coming in the incoming quarters this year and next year due to the investment we are doing in product innovation. This said, it is something that we can manage and will not affect materially our capacity to generate cash quarter on quarter. A capacity that is supported by a positive development on operating working capital. We are definitely well below last year. We somehow temporarily stop the increase, the decrease, sorry, compared to June. This is a temporary effect due to some stock pile-up due to production movement, particularly in Laundry. A few last words then on our financial position that you see the graphs are strong and continue to be strong. We continue to repeat that our net debt to EBITDA is reduced now to 1.2 x.
Solid group with solid performance and with ingredients to continue to profitable growth journey. With that, back to you, Alberto.
Thank you, Fabio. As usual, some words about the quarter events. I'm very proud to report back or to inform you about the award, the Product Innovation Award that we won. It's not the first time, but this year is important because it is in the U.S. first. Secondly, because we got these awards thanks to the technology that we have been embedding in the Electrolux Professional product and presented in the U.S., but technology that we got from Tosei. From the Japanese company we acquired one and a half years ago, close to two years ago now. I think it is an example of how we have been able to leverage the acquisition.
The Tosei business is not performing as we were expecting, in particular on the food area, I would say. Nevertheless, and it is not because of the performance of the company, it's because of the market conditions that have been deteriorated during the past 18 months. Nevertheless, we developed the Electrolux Professional version of the combo machine. Combo machine is a peculiar technology where you combine in one machine the wash and drying cycle. You are probably used to have it at home in some situation. In the professional environment, it's only used in Japan because of the space constraint that you have there. The big challenge is to have the two cycles in a way that the time is not so long as you probably had experienced if you had been using this machine at home. The technology that we have in Japan is great. It works.
It was a great success also in the U.S. because in reality, space constraint you have also in a country like the U.S. if you think about the big city. We got the award. It's confirming our innovation. These are products that now we are marketing also outside the United States. In the synergy plan, it was only supposed to replace the external supplier that we use in Japan. We did it. It's already done, this one. Now we are also marketing this product outside Japan. Great things. Even if it is not here, we are also using the technology of Adventys, the other company we acquired last year. We are embedding in the cooking lines that we presented last week, and we will start selling in January. We will talk about that next week during the capital market day.
With this said, if we have to summarize the quarter, as I said, I believe it's a quarter where we perform while transforming the organization. We perform because we improve our organic sales, growing organically. We improve the underlying profitability, the margin, and the EBITDA. It is another step. I consider this one an additional step in our journey towards the financial target that we have. It's mainly driven by the large businesses, so the Food & Beverage and Laundry in Europe and the food in the United States. We ended the quarter with a positive order intake for Food & Beverage. I would consider positive also the Laundry one if I look at the number month to date. The order intake is still positive. It's still positive despite the uncertainty that we have to recognize and acknowledge in the market.
Exactly to face a possible downturn, not only for that, we launched the program that is in the execution phase to reduce our operating cost. As I said, clearly it's giving us the possibility to be leaner, more flexible, agile, ready eventually for situations that we don't see in front of us today, but we could and we should be prepared for. It's also a program that is giving us the possibility to have a shift in competencies in our organization, to invest in resources that will make use of the product that we develop to further accelerate the growth of the sales. It is a quarter also where we have been working hard, and we will talk more about that next week during the capital market day to prepare the launches of this product. We had a peak.
We are in the middle of a peak of investment, both in R&D and industrial investments, tooling, factory, lines that obviously they have to bring fruits. They have to generate something. These are the products that we will start selling from January 1, 2026. With this said, back to you, Jacob.
Thank you, Alberto. Thank you, Fabio. 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 their telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered in the 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 who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question comes from the line of Hagéus Gustav from SEB. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you. This is Gustav Hagéus with SEB. Might I start with the comments on the R&D spend into the second half of next year? Could you remind us where you are at at the moment in terms of R&D to sales? Would you think this business commends or, if not, where you've been historically in that relationship to get some sense of what the margin potential uplift could be here going into end of 2026? Thanks.
Okay. Hi, Gustav. The average R&D spending on net sales is 4.5%. I mean average, and I'm underlining average because it is higher, in particular for what the business area, Food & Beverage and Laundry, are concerned. It is a peak, as I said, because we mentioned this more than once that we are renovating the complete platform of Laundry and the platform of cooking in Europe. We expect that we will continue to spend this level, slightly lower probably, also during the first part of next year, starting to bring it back to a normalized, we call it a normalized level that is still high for the average of the industry, but it's part of what we do always during the second part of the year and going on into 2027. What's the normalized level? It's roughly a point less than what I said.
Thanks. That's helpful. If I can stay on that with the developments you're doing in the facilities and with the new product, could you help us a bit understand, firstly, if there will be sort of the phasing of the new versus old products? Is there going to be a gap here of pre-buying? Do you think from experience as you roll out the new platform? Secondly, in terms of margin and the mix from the new products versus the old, and if depreciations will be a factor here going into as you roll these new products from the new facilities out to the new lineup, that'd be helpful. Thanks.
Okay. I don't believe that there will be so much pre-buying of old product for several reasons. First, the first line coming to market is the cooking line that will come in Q1 next year, from January on. It is an important line because it's basically a third of the business in Food & Beverage Europe. It is the line with the highest margin. We are relaunching that. We are expecting a push of sales clearly for the product that have the best margin in our European product portfolio. It is not only what we call horizontal cooking, the stoves, but in addition to the stoves, also a relaunch of the combi oven with new features. You know that the combi oven are high-margin products and the tabletop cooking. It's all whatever is hot, let me say, in our portfolio.
It's an important part, and we are expecting to have an impact all along the year. To launch it in the beginning of the year is very, very important. I repeat, these are products, these are the most profitable products in our European portfolio. They are a replacement. They are going to replace the product that we today have in production. The launch that will happen during the second quarter, that is the first batch of Laundry, is 30% of the Laundry sales. It's also important. It's partially replacing something that we have in the portfolio today, but it's also giving us the possibility to be much more competitive, mainly in Europe again, with the small capacity washers. I don't have to say that Laundry is a high-margin product category.
The third line is the third product that we will bring during the summer, again in Europe, and it is cooking. This is a completely new product for new segments. There are no replacements that will be only added to the sales in an unsaturated segment of the market. I think probably I'm talking too much about these things because there will be a lot to say next week during the capital market day.
Thank you. Could you just remind us what the delta will be from the potential gross margin uplift from these products versus, I guess, more efficient productions with your new line versus higher depreciations from whatever you have invested in the new lines? What is the delta positive as you see it on operating margins from this?
Yes. We expect this product to positively contribute to the margin expansion. Yes, we are going to have additional depreciation due to the investment we are doing on this product. At the same time, this will be compensated by better, lower production costs in other items and better price and mix. We expect a gross profit and margin expansion and EBITDA expansion all included.
Thanks. That's very clear. If I can continue a little bit on and integrate this with the cash flow, maybe you can help me sort out the discrepancy between the cash taxes and the reported taxes, both quite big in the quarter and almost SEK 300 million right in the year to date. It seems like you're paying more taxes than your accounts for. Will there be a reversal at some stage here, or is there anything I'm missing?
Yes, this is mainly related to the provision for the restructuring. That has an impact on the tax, with no material yet on the cash flow. Temporarily, we have been reducing the cash payment, but this one will come step by step.
You should have a lower cash tax in Q4 of 2026, or how do I read it?
No, all the rest equal. The tax rate for quarter four onwards is expected to be in line with the guidance I gave earlier of the 26%. In the quarter, the tax rate was, let me say, even positive because, as I mentioned, due to the restructuring provision, the income before tax was pretty tiny. We have a tax cost pretty small in the quarter, and we have a couple of positive previous period adjustments that brought the tax amount to a positive of roughly SEK 25 million in the quarter. This was temporarily related to the provision for restructuring. This previous period adjustment, the tax rate and tax impact going forward is confirmed in line with what I mentioned, the 26% guidance.
Okay. In general, then cash flow into Q4 seems like last year at least was quite strong. Can you comment on the seasonality as you see it this year for the cash flow into Q4?
Seasonality of cash flow, yes. If we go through the different quarters, normally we have a relatively quarter one and quarter three are somehow the ones that compare to EBITDA. They are lower in terms of seasonality. Normally strong is quarter two and quarter four. We expect also this year quarter four to be in that line.
Perfect. That brings me to my last question. On capital prioritizations, 1.2 x EBITDA now gearing, if I read it correctly, target is 2.5. I appreciate that you're looking to buy companies, but it's been some time now. How do you see that you prioritize between M&A, dividends, buybacks, further investments in organic growth? Thanks.
We are still targeting to buy companies. We are still targeting to make use of this cash to buy companies. That is still our priority. We have been working. I always said that it's hard to predict when it's going to happen. This is a full-time activity, let me say, for some people, some resources in our organization. To be added here, Alberto, if we look at the past, this group since COVID has been able to combine acquisition, investment in product innovation, in organic growth, and pay dividend. We have the strength in place to be able to act on these three dimensions. Somehow the trend of our net debt on EBITDA development is confirming that we have the ingredients to continue to perform on these three important aspects.
Okay. Thank you. Those are all my questions.
Thank you, Gustav. I think I will take two questions from the web. One is from Stefan Stjernholm at Svenska Handelsbanken related to Tosei. If we can give an update on Tosei sales margin development and synergies. You had a question about R&D cost, but I think you answered that before, Alberto. Tosei update, please.
For Tosei, we are experiencing two different dynamics. In Laundry, the business has been weakening, but it seems to recover on a good level with a profitability more or less in line with what it was. A different situation in Food, the vacuum business, due to the fact that the post-COVID was a season of large subsidies from the government, and now the market stabilized on a lower level. We know, and we clearly see this because Japan is one of the few markets where there are statistics that we didn't lose market share. Remember that we have roughly 50% market share in vacuum and 50% in Laundry. We didn't lose market share. Nevertheless, the market in particular on the vacuum share is still growing. We are seeing a lot of improvements. For our competitor, they are typically tested by the distributor.
In our case, we are adding a brand, or a market where it is tested by Tosei that is in some way giving trust to the customer that this is exactly the product fitting the request of the market in Japan. We launched the food preparation, a lot of activities over there with the distributors. These days, we are also introducing the combi oven. From the business synergy point of view, we are doing the things that we said. It's not super fast, but the Japanese market is progressing much slower than other regions. On the Laundry side, I think I mentioned earlier when I was commenting the award that we got in the United States, we already replaced the external supplier that we had for the combo machine with a combo machine produced in Tosei and branded Electrolux Professional.
We are also selling that product in the Asian market, in other Asian markets under the Electrolux Professional brand. At least a couple of weeks ago when I was there, I saw the Tosei dryers that have been produced in the Thai factory and that should be sold in Japan and replace the local production with clearly higher margins and higher performances. From the cost point of view, Tosei is also part of our program because now we merged the two organizations. We have one office, so we closed one office. We have only one office, one legal entity, one system, sharing all the showrooms around the country that are many, by the way, in Japan. We are starting to see the benefit also from the cost point of view.
Thank you. I have two more questions related to the efficiency program. One was from Rodolfo Zeidler at Paradigm Capital. What was the impact on the gross margin of the SEK 235 million in items affecting comparability? How much of this amount was below the gross profit line? There is another question from Henry Christiansen at DB Carnegie. The underlying gross margin, what was that margin? Those were the questions. Fabio.
Overall, the provision was SEK 235 million. Roughly SEK 135 million was included into the gross profit. The underlying gross profit margin, excluding this provision, was in line with last year, meaning the 34.5%. It should be said that when we talk about the currency impact, currency transaction impact of 0.5 points, the tariffs impact, these are affecting the gross profit. The underlying gross profit, excluding these items, is expanding. It's expanding thanks to what I mentioned earlier, good pricing, reduction of product cost, mainly in the area of material. We are not yet able in the quarter to compensate fully the tariffs and the currency, but we have put in place action in terms of pricing to be able to do so over time in the incoming quarters.
Thank you. Operator, please go ahead if there are any other questions from the phone.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. The next question comes from the line of Christiansson Henrik from Carnegie. Please go ahead, sir.
Yes, good morning. A follow-up on that because I noticed there on the slides that you said that you've taken action on pricing to offset FX. I think you said, Fabio, that there was a SEK 60 million negative currency impact year to date, and you now said you have announced price increases as well. When do you expect that to go into effect?
The price has been already announced. They will take effect January 1st for some product categories. The last ones will be March 1st. It's a matter of timing, seasonality, habits, let me say, in the different regions. During the first two, three months, all the price will be effective, as I said, already announced. We know that with this one, we will cover the gap that this year we were not able to cover because of the combination of the negative impact of tariff and currency.
What is the total gap? The 60 million negative currency, and then is there tariffs on top, and do you expect to close that fully next year?
Yes, the tariffs are on top of it, and with the action that Alberto mentioned regarding price, we expect in 2026 to compensate both.
How much is the tariff impact that you haven't been able to close?
The tariffs, if the order of magnitude, just to give a sort of guidance in the quarter, meaning quarter three, is in the area of roughly SEK 10 million. It is negative. This SEK 10 million is net of the price increase. This is somehow the net. It is there, a negative effect, but not really material when you think that we deliver over SEK 300 million in EBITDA in a quarter.
Excellent. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Eliason Johan from SB1. Please go ahead, sir.
Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I have just a minor follow-up. You mentioned in Food & Beverage that beverage declined in the U.S. How big is beverage of Food & Beverage in the U.S. today, and what was the reason for the decline?
Okay. I go by memories because half of the Food & Beverage business is, I would say, less than a third is beverage, and it's 100% imported, majority from Thailand and some from Italy, the frozen from Italy, the cold from Thailand. The reason is that it is the Food & Beverage business, because I said the food grew while the beverage was declining, is that because it's 100% a chain business. The beverage business in the U.S. is a chain business. It is a chain business, and as I mentioned, most of the rollout, they've been put on hold. It is a peculiar situation, the one that we are facing in the United States with the beverage business.
I remember you had this big contract some years ago. Is that one big chain that is sort of behind most of the beverage business in the U.S.?
Okay, that was already five years ago. I have to say that eventually I can expect that we are going to replace this product relatively soon. Beside that, no, the beverage business we have today, in the beverage business in particular, the business we are having are many mid-size chains, some hundreds of restaurants, not the, as it was in that case, the 17,000, 18,000 restaurant chain. The United States is full of regional restaurants, regional chains with some hundred outlets. It is still a profitable, healthy business. At the beginning of the year, it was good, and beverage, it was good until the spring, I would say. Then suddenly everything was on hold.
We discussed Tosei and how the integration and work on that is ongoing. How would you characterize the Unified Brands business today in the U.S.? Is it where you wanted it to be? You had some issues, obviously, in the initial year.
Yes. Okay. U.S., we had the record year in the U.S. was 2022. I tell you that this is a year where we will do probably better. We are improving. All the issues that we have been addressing have been addressed. We opened several places where we can host reps, dealers, customers. We have our own new place in Mississippi. That is a brand new one that we opened in March. I think we are doing well, honestly. We are reestablishing the position that we have in this country, growing both the imported and non-imported products, so the locally manufactured, building around some strong brands. So Groen, Randell, Electrolux Professional, and Crathco. Crathco is the beverage. These are the four pillars of our strategy that is driven by brand and product.
Hot for growing technology in Electrolux Professional, the beverage, leading market, leading brand in cold, and Randell, that is the preferred choice for blue chips chains for what the prep tables are concerned. I would say that now it's clear, the strategy, the way to go, and we have the setup that is able to support these things. We went through some years of difficulty, as you said, but I believe they are behind us right now.
Okay. Excellent. Thank you very much.
Welcome.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are no more questions. I would like now to turn the conference back over to Jacob Broberg. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much for listening in, and hopefully I will meet all of you next week on our Investor Day here in Stockholm on November 6. Thank you and goodbye.