All right, good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for attending, coming from near and far. I'm pleased to say we have Essity's newest CEO, Ulrika Kolsrud.
Well done, Patrick.
Thank you, thank you. She is going to give a short presentation and intro to the company for about 10 or 15 minutes, and we will follow that up with some Q&A. Over to you, Ulrika.
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm putting a TENA Men product here on the front page for a reason, because I think this segment really represents one of the many reasons why Essity is an attractive investment. One out of four men over 40 are experiencing some kind of urine leakage, and only 5%- 7% are using purpose-made products. That tells you something about the potential that we have in this segment. Also, incontinence care is one of our higher-yielding segments, so growth in this category is certainly value-creating. One of the highlights of the Q2 report, for those of you who follow that, was that we were growing very nicely in incontinence care in retail, not the least in this segment.
In Q2, we also gave the TENA Men assortment a facelift, improving or upgrading our packaging and also introducing some new claims so that we become even more relevant to this target audience and even better positioned to capture the growth potential in this segment. I also think TENA Men is really representing what we are all about, providing essential hygiene and health solutions for everybody and every body. We do that across 150 countries in the world. We have some 70 manufacturing sites and 36,000 employees all around the world. We have annual net sales of SEK 146 billion. We operate in three different business areas. If we start with consumer goods, this is where we provide personal and home hygiene solutions for all stages of life. Our main customers in this business are retailers.
With the portfolio that we have with consumer tissue, with incontinence care, with feminine hygiene, and baby care, we have a very relevant portfolio for this customer segment. Consumer tissue is the biggest category, as you can see, and we have actively reduced our dependency on consumer tissue over the past years. That is because this is the category that has the lowest profit margin and also is the most volatile. Instead, we put more focus on growing feminine hygiene and incontinence care that are more higher-yielding segments in this business area. Looking at health and medical, that is the business area where we have the highest profit margins. Here, we provide holistic health and medical solutions along the continuum of care. Also, in this business area, we're selling incontinence care under the global leading brand TENA. We do so in hospitals, in long-term facilities, and in pharmacies, for example.
The other categories that we operate in in this business area are compression therapy, wound care, and orthopedics. Moving to professional hygiene, that represents 26% of our sales, and this is where we have our global leading brand Tork. Here, we provide hygiene and cleaning solutions for a broad selection of commercial applications. We leverage distributors in our go-to-market model, but we also stay very close to our end customers that we find in restaurants, hotels, in public areas like schools, and also in industry, in health care, et cetera. In professional hygiene, we have recently restructured the business, so we have stepped out of some lower margin areas. By that, we have improved the structural profitability of the business and are now really focused on accelerating growth.
I already mentioned the two global leading brands that we have with TENA and Tork, but we have some other really strong brands across our different business areas. In fact, we are number one in 60% of our branded sales. When it comes to being number one and number two, we are that in as much as 90% of our branded sales. We are certainly in a strong position in order to capture the growth that we have in these categories. The categories are growing, and they are supported by some favorable trends, not the least the growing aging population that we see and also the increased prevalence of chronic conditions like incontinence and lymphedema. Also, with the increase of infectious diseases, we see an increased awareness and importance of hygiene, and also an increased awareness of the link between hygiene and health.
More and more people place greater emphasis on their well-being, which also supports demand in our categories. Not every demographic trend is playing to our favor, though. If we look at the baby category, that is a category that is getting smaller because of the declining birth rates that we see across many markets. In some areas, we are exposed to pressure on public funding and a weaker economic climate. With that said, I would say that we have a quite limited impact from the economic climate because we are working with solutions that are essential, that people need in spite of what is the economic situation. We also benefit from increasing disposable incomes in D&E regions. On that note, we can also see that when it comes to market growth, we have the highest market growth rates in D&E regions.
If we look at the global average, we are at a market growth exposure of 2%- 3%, with 3%- 4% in health and medical, 2%- 3% in consumer goods, and 2%- 3% in professional hygiene. We have the ambition to not only capture this market growth that we see, but also to outperform the market. That is the base for the financial target that we have set on organic growth because we aim to grow above 3% in organic growth and to do that profitably, meaning that we should do that on a 15% profit margin. The question is, of course, how to get there. Our strategy is to focus and prioritize the category and segments and channel and market combinations where we have the highest potential for profitable growth and a clear reason to win.
That means that we will always prioritize higher-yielding segments and attractive geographies. Also, innovation is absolutely key. Innovation is key to really bring differentiation that drives market share gains and also pricing power, but also to improve our cost position and improve sustainability. Something that I put a lot of focus on is to elevate our customer centricity. I believe that is really fundamental for us to succeed. When it comes to our innovations, we base our innovations on consumer and customer insights. We really strive for the superior end-user experience and also the superior customer experience. We continuously evolve our go-to-market to make sure that we are as effective and efficient in the way we serve our customers. It should be easy to do business with Essity. We also want our reliable supply and our best-in-class service to be a competitive advantage.
Another one of our pillars in our strategy is to continuously capture efficiency gains across the value chain. We have a high-performing organization that we build by growing people and also by fostering a winning culture. I think it's worthwhile to say that we see improvements or potentials for performance improvements across our three business areas and also potential for growth across our three business areas. I want to come back to one of the key pillars in our strategy because there is one thing that fuels growth more than anything else, and that is innovations. I think it's a good time to show and remind you of some of the innovations that we have had recently since they give quite a good flavor of who we are. In Q2, we, for example, launched a new product in feminine hygiene that is specifically designed for heavier flows.
Commercially, that is important because we are, with this, introducing an additional tier in the assortment, allowing us to trade up consumers. We also have trading up opportunities in, for example, professional hygiene by getting more professional hygiene customers to use our premium sensor-based dispensers. We know that one of the barriers for doing so is maintenance time. You don't want to use a lot of maintenance time to change battery. Therefore, we have, with our Tork Matic sensor-based dispenser, increased the battery lifetime from one year to six years. It might not sound like a big thing to do, but that is actually reducing this barrier or even removing the barrier for our customers to move to these more premium offers. It is setting a totally new standard in the industry.
One of my favorites that I think we have actually talked to one of you in the audience here about earlier today is the Coreless toilet paper technology. I mean, when you change bathroom roll, not having anything that you, any waste that you have to get rid of, it's totally hassle-free. I really love it. It's great to see that now we're extending this Coreless technology to other parts of our assortment. In this case, our premium products, just one in consumer tissue. We also have this technology in professional hygiene. For those of you who have followed us closely, you might remember that we launched the Tork OptiServe Coreless toilet paper in the end of last year, and that has been very positively received by the market. Being in the U.S., I think it's good to mention that some customer wins stand out more than others.
We are very proud now with this launch that we are present with Tork in the Yankee Stadium. Speaking about prestigious wins, in Q2, we got again recognized for leading in sustainability. Some examples of this here, but to mention one then, the non-profit organization CDP recognized us for the way we work with suppliers to combat climate change. These recognitions for our sustainability performance, together with the high pace of innovations, were some of the highlights of our Q2 report. Another highlight, I would say, was that we delivered positive sales growth and a stable result in spite of the quite challenging market dynamics with weak economic climate and a lot of uncertainty. Especially pleasing, I think, is to see the growth rates that we had in our strategic segments, like feminine hygiene, like incontinence care retail, wound care, lymphedema, Tork PeakServe, Tork Skincare, to mention some of them.
What was less pleasing was that we had a flattish volume growth and increasing cost level, and that sort of sets the agenda for the rest of the year, where we will focus a lot on accelerating volume growth while also pulling the brakes on cost and taking measures to reduce our cost level and increase efficiency gains across the organization. We will act on these short-term challenges while also continuing to execute on the strategy I just showed to accelerate profitable growth towards our financial targets. I think that gives a good overview and maybe intro to any potential questions you might have, Patrick.
Thanks for that, Ulrika. Thanks for coming to your first Boston Conference as CEO.
Thank you.
It's a pleasure to have you here. There's a lot to touch on regarding the Essity equity story, particularly in the last 12 months. I think a good place to start maybe is with you and in your new position leading the organization. What are your initial observations over the last few months?
The strategy that I just shared with you, I believe, will serve us well also in taking Essity to the next level. I really am committed and believe in the strategy that we have, not the least to accelerate growth in the higher margin and most profitable parts of our assortment. I have taken the time to really take a fresh perspective on the company by capturing internal and external perspectives and really challenge and enrich my own thinking. I am working with our executive management team in order to define more precisely what we shall do differently because the one thing that I think I said our strategy will serve us well, but what I do want to change is that I want to accelerate our execution on the strategy and accelerate our progress towards our financial targets.
To mention a few things that I think we can do differently, one is to, as I said previously, elevate our customer centricity even further to make sure that we have the customer at the center and consumer at the center in everything we do. I think we would benefit from having even sharper prioritization because we have so many growth opportunities and there is a risk that we spread ourselves too thin if we're not very sharp in which bets we go after.
Maybe just following up on that, which bets do you think you're going to sharpen your focus on?
Yeah, that is what we're working through in the executive management team right now. I mean, it's obvious that we know which categories are the most attractive, and there we have talked about those, right? It's incontinence care, it's feminine hygiene, it's also in medical solutions, especially wound care, and the strategic parts of professional hygiene. We have many, many great geographical expansion opportunities as well, increasing our presence in the U.S. and strengthening our positions in the U.S., but also D&E market expansion since you saw that's where we have the highest market growth exposure. As you hear, it's a lot of different opportunities. Within that scope, we have to be even more precise on where we place our bets. More to come on that when we have worked that through.
Okay. Maybe looking at some of the operating fundamentals then, if we look at market share, how is Europe trending in some of your key categories in terms of the retail side of things, whether it's tissue, incontinence, and maybe the diapers category?
I think overall we are gaining or stabilizing market share in more parts of our business than what we're losing, which is always a good thing. That is what we measure on a quarterly basis. Where we have a very<edited_transcript> The market share development, yeah. I think overall we are gaining or stabilizing market share in more parts of our business than what we're losing, which is always a good thing. That is what we measure on a quarterly basis. Where we have a very positive development is in feminine hygiene. We are growing market share in many places, and to mention a few markets, the UK, Australia, Mexico, some examples of where we are gaining position. We have one area where we are not gaining position, quite the contrary, and that is in baby care, where we are a bit challenged in our market position.
Consumer tissue is a bit special because the growth that is happening right now is happening mostly in the low and mid-tiers of the assortment or of the market. That means that we are losing branded shares, but since we are present also in retail brand and private label, we pick it up at that end instead.
Okay, that kind of leads me on to my next question, which is on the JV between Suzano and Kimberly-Clark. I think the initial reaction from that partnership JV a few months back was that this could be a problem for you guys from a pricing perspective. What could be the opportunity here? I mean, you talked about in your presentation there about innovation from the tissue perspective with Lotus, you know, having less waste. Is there a kernel of truth that this could be an opportunity to innovate and maybe outcompete Suzano there?
If we start with the pricing part, I think our view here is that this JV will be a rational competitor. There is no reason for this JV to destroy the market as such. Also, we are a customer to Suzano. That is one element. We don't believe this to have a major impact on that side on us. If you go to the innovation part, our strategy is to continue to improve our offers and to continue to strengthen our performance in supply chain. Those are very, very important parts of our strategy. Innovation is another important part, but I don't really see how our ability to win in the market on innovation changes because of this. It is an opportunity for us with or without this JV, if you see what I mean.
Okay, yeah. I guess then kind of shifting to the incontinence business where, you know, at the CMD, you talked about the massive opportunity you just highlighted there for everyone in the room as well. It seems like there's been a bit more pressure, I think, in the retail side. I guess for some consumers in the kind of more elderly demographic, they could be more financially squeezed. How does Essity compete in this environment where price sensitivity for all consumers, but maybe for the older demographic, could be a bit higher?
First, to your first point there, it is a growth opportunity for us for sure. I just talked here about the demographics and that the growing aging population is really driving demand in this category. It's also underpenetrated. By having the strongest global position with our strong TENA brand, we are in a very good position to capture the growth, but also to shape the market and drive penetration in the market. With that said, of course, it doesn't come for free. Of course, there are things happening in the market as well. What we see right now is, in some cases, there is some pressure on public funding. Our job is to demonstrate to the payers that you actually get a lower total cost for your incontinence care when you have a holistic, high-quality solution than if you buy the lowest cost per piece.
That we have done successfully in some places and is something that we work on continuously. If actually there are movements from the public health system to a self-pay situation, we have the fantastic benefit that we are present across channels. When the consumer or the patient is, instead of getting their products in a hospital or in a home care facility, buying themselves, we are there to pick up the sales. This is something that we're quite unique with, playing in all channels. In self-pay channel, it's true that there is some price sensitivity. I would though say that in incontinence care, it's a quite low impact of that situation, some, but quite low. That is because when you have an incontinence product, you really want to trust your product. You really don't want it to fail.
You tend to go with the brand you trust and the product you know delivers. Our experience is that when we see downtrading in this category, it bounces back very quickly because people want to go back to what they trust. That said, we are working with making sure that we have good quality offers in all the different tiers. That is important for us so that we are relevant also for lower income levels in the incontinence care category.
Just following up on that, within tissue, you've done the same thing with the value tier, mid to value tier. Is that something you're considering or could do in incontinence care as well down the line?
We are playing in different segments in INCO. Of course, there is a very different market dynamics. I mean, in consumer tissue, you have more of the downgrading, whereas in INCO, as I said, this is where people really want the premium products and really want the quality. It's much more dramatic for you and your well-being and your self-image if your INCO products fail than if the toilet paper fails, if I put it that way.
Okay, yeah, fair enough. Speaking of another category, you guys are global leaders in the fem care side of things. It's arguably the strongest category from a brand presence perspective that you've had. What is the white space opportunity here? I know you kind of briefly touched on it in the presentation there. Is there a brand name that maybe you could do a bit more with, you know, globally or travel into new markets, or is there any other kind of category extensions potentially?
Yeah, yeah, it is. I mean, it is not necessarily the brand name that travels. We have different brand names across different geographies, and it's not the trademark in itself that matters. It's the brand positioning. We have demonstrated over the years that that brand positioning is very strong. Yes, that certainly travels, that brand positioning. We have white space opportunities that we intend to capture. To take one example, I mean, now in Latin America, we are already the market leaders in Latin America, but even so, there are some white spaces, some markets where we are not present. Brazil is one of them. In Brazil, we have succeeded to build a number one position in incontinence care. Of course, why would we not be able to do that in feminine hygiene as well? Right now, we're conducting a pilot launch in Brazil as one example.
Okay, wow. I guess shifting to health and medical, given your background, you know, you talked about the budgets of healthcare systems are under a bit of pressure. Is this something that we should be concerned about, pricing dynamics of being exposed to health systems? I feel like this is more of a cyclical maybe element at times, or how are you going to be able to combat that? Is it through innovation, your quality offering, continuing to be a leader within the kind of health and medical category, or is it maybe time to diversify in the category, considering your experience there, considering the growth profile of the segment and the margin profile?
A few questions on the kind of the concerns from a structural perspective we see within the kind of the health budget side of things, but then as well, would you diversify in the current category you're in?
If I start with the first part, yes, there are markets that have a pressure on public funding. I mean, we see also what's happening now in the U.S., for example, with changes in Medicare and Medicaid and so on. Of course, that we can see in some markets. We should not forget that even if that is happening, we have some really strong growth fundamentals in these categories. If we take wound care, for example, we expect that to grow by 4% also moving forward. It's actually, I'm not so concerned, and the reason for that is that this is our daily job. This is something that we work with every day to make sure that we are mitigating those changes.
For example, it's important that our offers, both current offers and new offers, innovations are supported by strong clinical evidence, by strong health economic evidence, so that we can be categorized and reimbursed on high margin categories where we get paid for what we bring. That we work with on a daily basis. What's also important is for us to grow in the growing home care segment. Many, many countries are working with trying to get people out of the hospitals to instead be cared for at home. That is something that we are continuing to, that's a sort of a diversification, you could say. Also to expand in self-pay. I think we are perfectly placed to capture the growth opportunity in the consumer healthcare space. I mean, we have the medtech competence and capabilities, and we have the fast-moving consumer goods capabilities and competence.
That gives you a very good, that makes you very well equipped to capture the growth in consumer healthcare. Now, your second question on diversification, I think in the different categories that we play, there are still more opportunities, especially in wound care. If I look at the three categories, orthopedics and compression therapy and wound care, wound care is where we have the highest profit margins and where we have the highest market growth. That is our number one priority. There we play in some segments, but not in all segments. We have opportunities over time to expand that even further.
Do you think there's an M&A, a set playbook to scale to further grow in that segment?
Yes, we have the ambition to grow both organically and inorganically. Yes.
Okay.
I think the Hydrofera acquisition that we did in 2021, then we did both the ABIGO acquisition as well as the Hydrofera acquisition in the wound care space. They have both played out very well and delivered on what we expected them to deliver on, bringing the right scale and strengthening that growth platform for the future. I think also there with the track record we have on that, it's interesting.
Is that something that you can leverage also in the home care side of things as well?
Yes, with the right acquisitions, yes.
Okay. The next segment maybe to touch on is professional hygiene, which I know has been quite topical for the last two quarters. It's been a drag a bit because of the HoReCa channel in North America. If you can maybe just, I guess, outline for the audience here what you're seeing in the HoReCa channel currently in North America, and you also highlighted Q2 a little pressure, I think, in Europe, I think in the Spanish market. How are we looking now? Has there been any improvement or regression since?
To reiterate a bit what we talked about there, it is consumers, especially in the U.S., are just not out and about as much as they used to be. Don't go to the restaurants, not stay at hotels, and also we see that the office vacancy rate is higher and so on. There are some market dynamics here that are impacting the demand in professional hygiene. We see some of that in South Europe as well, but there are also other market dynamics. For example, we see a lower demand in Germany in the automotive industry, where we also have customers because of the U.S tariffs. There are some dynamics impacting our demand. At this point in time, I don't have any signals either way, actually, going either way.
Our job is to both be fully prepared for when the trend is turning so that we are perfectly positioned to capture the growth that comes then, but also to adapt to the current situation by making sure that our offers in the mid-tier segment are as attractive as possible and making sure that we have the right pricing tactics, staying very disciplined on pricing, but also making some selected choices there in pricing to capture volumes and also to work together with our distributors in joint business planning and really have a strong sales activation.
Okay, speaking of pricing then, as always the case with Essity, you get asked on your COGS basket. You know, and I guess you have a decent setup into the second half or more favorable setup, should I say, especially because you have a lot of savings to come. Is that a fair way to categorize it? You know, a bit of softer raw material headwind, savings to help soften and kind of help from a gross margin perspective?
We have just a reminder there. We actually had the strongest gross margin we've had in a long period of time in Q2. That was really strong. To your question there, I mean, we comment on Q3. What we say is that we believe that we will have a slightly lower COGS in Q3 compared to Q2.
Is that largely due to pulp from the tissue input side of things?
I think that is the combination of all the different factors.
Okay. Just conscious we have a few minutes left, and I kind of want to get to some of the high-level themes. One of the things was just on, you know, the CMD that you guys did in December, which I met you at, and it was a great presentation. You obviously became CEO six months after that. Are the targets and aspirations that you outlined then still hold true? I know you said you're still working internally, looking at certain things that you're discussing on what the future of Essity could look like. How should we marry up, you know, you becoming CEO six months after the CMD? Should we say that, okay, the vision remains true?
Yeah, it does. I'm fully committed and believe in our financial targets that we set then. The 3% organic growth or above 3% organic growth on the 15% profit margin. I think the combination of those two are both ambitious yet achievable, which I think is the type of target that you want to have. Also, the vision that we have of becoming the undisputed global leader in hygiene and health, I stand fully behind.
Okay. I guess going back again to, you know, the kind of CMD, the buyback and cash returns, do you think the buyback number, which is SEK 3 billion, is that something that could change? Is that something that's also going to be reviewed internally? Is it reviewed ongoing?
The share buyback program, the level of that is set every year. It can change in future programs. With that said, I think what we believe is most important is that it's recurring, that we have continuity and that this is recurring year after year. We have, of course, in our capital allocation, the policy of our dividend, which is to have a stable and rising dividend, which we have delivered on every year. Now we have this share buyback program as an additional tool. With the strong balance sheet that we have, we can do both of those things and still prioritize the organic growth investments, also reduce our debt even further, and not the least to have room for pursuing any value-creating M&As that we might find.
Okay. I'll just wrap it up with one more question. When we're sitting in this seat again in 12 months' time, in 2026, what is the single greatest outcome you hope to achieve with Essity over the next 12 months?
I hope that I have demonstrated to everyone that we are both a very stable share and also a very attractive growth opportunity and exciting growth opportunity, and that we have moved and delivered profitable growth according to a good trajectory with stability towards our financial targets.
Okay, great. That's all the time we have today. Thank you, Ulrika.
Thank you.
Thank you for those who listened in today. There will be a breakout session in the next room as well.