Good morning, everyone, and very welcome to Essity's earnings call and webcast for quarter three. My name is Sandra Åberg. I'm the new Head of Investor Relations, and joining me here today are our CEO, Magnus Groth, and our CFO, Fredrik Rystedt. They will soon present the highlights of the report, and after that, we are very much looking forward to your questions. Please try to have just one question per call, and any additional questions, please reach out to me after this. With that, I'm excited to get started. Magnus, please, the stage is all yours.
Thanks, Sandra. Good morning. Welcome, everyone, to this press conference about Essity's interim report for the third quarter. Essity and our brands take care of the Health and Hygiene of over 1 billion people in 150 countries, for everybody and for every body. And we do this in three very distinct business areas: Health & Medical , 16% of sales; Consumer Goods, 60% of sales; and Professional Hygiene with 24% of sales, with different customers, different go-to-market, and different business rationale, but also significant synergies that makes all of these businesses value-creating and stronger together. Moving over then to the third quarter, we saw strong, profitable growth with significant improvement in all our business areas, and we continue to deliver on our key priorities for the year.
We are also on path to deliver our financial targets, and our strategic review is developing according to our plan. We announced the strategic review six months ago, so we're still early into this process. So over to the financial summary. Sales growth, 4.6%, well above our target for organic growth of 3%, with organic growth being 3.8%. Adjusted EBITA up 78% to SEK 5.3 billion. It's the second highest, adjusted EBITA that we've had in the group. Margin improved significantly to 12.2% and very, very strong, ROCE improvement with 620 basis points to 14.6%.
Focusing in on the sales growth, the 4.6% consisted of a volume drop of 3.1%; price and mix, very strong, 6.91%, of which mix is 1%; and acquisitions, 0.8%, primarily coming from, Knix, our, leak-proof apparel company in Canada and the U.S., that continues to grow very, very nicely. Looking at the volume, specifically development, it's partly due to lower sales and slightly lower price, but two out of the 3% are relating to, decisions that we have taken, in the group to prepare ourselves to reach our long-term financial targets.
So one-time impacts that will also impact the following few quarters that we have reported in the first and second quarter already, the relating to Professional Hygiene very much, where we have done restructuring to improve the structural margin by over 2%, but also, decisions to step out of unprofitable pro, contracts in, Inco Healthcare and in Baby Care. This is now done. Of course, it will impact the following few quarters, but it puts us in a very good spot to reach our long-term financial targets, and I'll get back to that. Moving over then to the higher adjusted EBITA margin, which improved by 400 basis points to 12.2%.
There's a huge uplift in the gross margin, where we see higher prices, better mix, cost savings, which is something that we're very happy about because it's been difficult to work with cost savings in the past couple of years with the pandemic and the ensuing bottlenecks that we had in the supply chain. But we were also helped for the first time by lower raw materials, lower energy and distribution. Lower volumes and salary inflation had a negative impact. A&P, slightly up in and this is due to marketing investments continuing to fuel the mix improvement and the growth, and SG&A higher due to inflationary impacts. Now looking year over year, but on a quarterly sequential basis, net sales has continued to grow also in the fourth quarter.
The very high numbers that we've seen over the last three quarters preceding are, of course, also related to the necessity to increase prices to manage the cost inflation that we've seen over the last one and a half years. To the right, the result of all the efforts that we've done, not only in price management, but also when it comes to innovation, efficiencies, and other areas, the fourth consecutive quarter of stable and rising Adjusted EBITA and EBITA margin. With that, let's look into the business area. I hand over to you, Fredrik.
Thank you, Magnus. I'll do that with pleasure, and I'll start with Health & Medical . We continue to have a really good quarter for Health & Medical . Strong organic sales growth and a significant margin uplift and, as you can see, if you look at the different details, specifically within medical, we could see that wound care and compression were especially outperforming in terms of organic sales growth. As we have talked about before, the price management is very key within Health & Medical , and we continue to have a strong development. So if you compare with the same quarter of last year, it's +8%, and we also had a sequential uplift in pricing.
Mix as well continues to be really healthy, and that's particularly the case for Inco. We had, supporting that mix, both, of course, within this quarter, but also in coming quarters, we had a lot of launches, both under the Actimove or JOBST brand name for medical, but also for TENA. So we continue with lots of innovation to support our mix and margin development. Now, as you can see here, volumes have been negative. You can see it's roughly about a bit over 3%, and that's all attributable to Inco and to the deliberate decisions to exit unprofitable positions that we have taken. We have reported about this before.
This journey is now over, and of course, we have, through all of these actions, created a much more sustainably profitable platform, of course, that we will benefit from in the future. But needless to say, as Magnus already alluded to, this will have a negative impact as we proceed. All of this is basically within Inco, and if you look at the kind of volume development without these deliberate exits, it's largely flat, slightly negative, but largely you can say flat. So all in all, a very good development in that sense. And I already mentioned it, margin is up by 600 basis points. That's high price, that is mix, that is lower input cost, but also really good cost control within Health & Medical .
Of course, as I already alluded to, the choices we have made there has clearly contributed to that profit. Now, if we look ahead to Q4, as now margins have improved to the levels we are at, at this point of time, we will refocus a bit and focus more on volume as we go forward and less on margin. So that's a bit on Q4. Now turning to Consumer Goods. As you can see, we continue to grow at good levels, less than previous quarters, and this is because of the pricing impact now being a lot less. I'll come back to that in a second. Organic sales growth, really strong for Inco Retail and for Feminine, and especially if you look at these positions, just a couple of examples there.
In LatAm, as, as, as just one example, we continue to grow our feminine position under Nosotras and Saba. Lots of market share gain there, and we reach now over 50%, so a couple of percent market share growth. Just another example, we continue to kind of manifest our leadership position in Brazil, reaching close to now 30% in market share, up by about 3%. So it continues to do really well. Just maybe a final example, the acquisition that we did quite recently, with, with our leak-proof apparel, Knix, the company continues to do super well in terms of, of growth, and it's up by roughly about 15%. Lots of good examples on the Inco Retail and Feminine side.
If you look at the volumes, you can see it's actually negative, and if we take that one level deeper, you can see that Inco, that's not a surprise then, Inco and Feminine keeps on doing really well in terms of growth, whilst we have a decline for Consumer Tissue and for Baby. And starting with Baby, you already know the reasons. We've talked about that before. It's mainly related to the retail brand contract that we left some time ago, and a bit of our exit of diapers in Colombia. So that's basically the main reason, and that will sort itself out over time. Consumer Tissue is clearly has been clearly declining in Europe and Latin America, up in China and through Vinda, but down in Latin America and Europe.
And of course, we can see actually down trading there, both in Europe and really across the categories in all categories in Latin America. So if you look at the margin development, all in all, of course, positive. Price and mix supported the development, but we do have a sequential price decline in Consumer and Tissue, Consumer Tissue and Baby. But all in all, the margin development on the back of, of course, same as for the others, lower input cost, a good price development, good mix, and of course, also here, lots of efficiency. So all in all, a good development for Consumer Goods. Now, looking ahead for Q4, we see that we will have lower prices sequentially, and this is, of course, on the back of lower input cost.
We also see that we will have higher promotional investments in Consumer Tissue to support the volume, and that is particularly so for Europe and to some smaller degree, also in Latin America. In comparison to Q3, input cost will continue to go down. They'll be slightly lower in comparison to Q3. So if I take the final area, Professional Hygiene continues to do fantastically well, as you can see, so both from an organic growth standpoint and also in terms of margin. And as you can see, the strong price and mix more than compensated for the loss of volume.
As expected, the volume was down, as you can see, -5.4%, and this is all of it, a consequence of the restructuring activities that Magnus alluded to and that we have reported in Q1 and Q2. So for Europe and North America, all of the decline here is related to those exits. So underlying, it's roughly about flat.
Of course, we continue to actually benefit from, how shall I put it? The post-COVID hygiene standards with kind of more wiping, with more cleaning, with more hand wash soap and tissue, all of those bringing kind of a better mix and a better margin. And as a consequence of all of this, the operating margin increased with 650 basis points. Obviously, price, mix, input cost, and cost efficiency. So once again, for also this business area, what will the future bring in terms of Q4? Well, obviously, the restructuring activities that we've had will continue to have an impact on volume, and that impact will be slightly larger than what we've had in Q3.
One perhaps peculiarity in the way we have done these restructurings is that we haven't just exited the volumes, but what we have done is raise prices a lot for those volumes, and that has had a very positive margin impact for those particular volumes. As those volumes now have been exited in Q3, and they'll be out in Q4, of course, that will have a bit of margin impact also in Q4. Overall, the performance of Professional Hygiene is really great. Finally, there on the input cost, we expect them to be sequentially stable. That is it, Magnus.
Thanks. Then, let's look at how we're doing on our strategic priorities. And of course, we already touched upon it several times. Price management continues to be a key priority, and again, very successful development here with 5.9% of price in the overall result development. We continue to be number one and number two in over 90% of our branded positions, so we are taking all this price while protecting our market shares. Innovation and brands continue to provide a very strong mix improvement of about 1% in the quarter. Of course, this is something we are almost getting used to. We had positive mix now for almost, I think, for as long as I can remember, and in most categories and business areas.
Of course, this really builds up to our structural margin improvement and growth opportunities for the long- term and the short- term. Cost efficiency, SEK 224 million in the quarter. Again, this will definitely help our margin development in the short- term as well as in the long- term, and our focus on our long-term financial targets. So we see big progress here in raw materials, fiber mix, sourcing negotiations, energy-saving projects, and more to come in this area. Just to give some examples of another strategic priority, which is, of course, to grow as fast as we can in the fastest-growing channels and with the winning customers.
Inco Retail, up 15%; Feminine Care, 9%; Knix, Fredrik already mentioned, but also Compression and our advanced wound care company, Hydrofera, growing very, very nicely and becoming a bigger part of the overall sales. E-commerce also continued to grow and now accounts for 14% of overall sales. There's something about sustainability, where we are the leaders, and we are the leaders because we're not just talking about, we're really taking action. And this is not only to reach our science-based targets that we have set ourselves for 2030 and 2050, but also because it's very good business. Value-creating innovations, it was a good quarter, and there's more coming this year and next. In incontinence products, good innovation focused especially on the healthcare segment that will help us grow there.
Also, in medical solutions, adding to our successful recent launches in JOBST and with Actimove. And in Consumer Tissue, I think those two examples are quite interesting because the Tempo moist toilet tissue is very much focused on a premium offering, while Plenty Everyday is a value-based offering that we are using now to manage the downtrading that we've been seeing in Europe and in Latin America. Committed to net zero, this is a recent investment that we've made, a massive solar park around our plant in Zwammerdam in Holland. It accounts for, on average, 26% of the energy needs of this tissue plant, and of course, also contributes to a very stable and low-cost energy supply to this facility.
Contributes to the overall target that we have to 2030 of reducing our Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 35% compared to 2016. Another example is from Hondainville in France, where we are now collecting and recycling carton board and using this as an alternative fiber, thereby improving our fiber mix and we also in addition having a very strong sustainability profile. I would like to talk a little bit more about the long- term, and you know, these long-term financial targets and capital allocation targets that we have. When it comes to the annual sales growth target of over 5%, looking back all the way to 2015, we can see that on average, we have been growing much higher than that, 6.6%.
So this is something we feel very comfortable with this target, and it is, it is as important for us as the return on capital employed target. And looking at that, as we already mentioned, huge improvement year-over-year, up from 8.4% a year ago to 14.6%, now in the third quarter, which also gives us confidence that our journey to reach over 17% by 2025 is very solid. Capital structure with the very, very strong cash flow that we had in the quarter, SEK 7.5 billion. We have really deleveraged and are in a very, very strong financial position. And dividend policy, stabilizing dividends, which we have been proving year-over-year.
Talking about year-over-year, and I would like to have one slide showing the development, looking back as far as we can see, on the hygiene business, and also a slide looking forward, coming next. I think this is really, really interesting. What it shows is net sales development since 2014, and we don't have the breakdown in the different quarters really before 2017, because that's when we did the split. So that's why those are solid bars. And as you can see here, we've been on a very stable growth trajectory, with exception of the dent in the curve in 2021 and 2020, which is, of course, due to the pandemic. But already last year, when it comes to net sales, we recovered back on the path we were on before the pandemic.
As you can see, after three quarters, so looking into nine months of this year, it's by far the highest net sales that we've seen for the group, back in history. Turning to the adjusted EBITA, our operating profit and margin. Also here, you can see that we have been on a very strong and positive trajectory until 2020. This is the first year of the pandemic, and then the impact from lockdowns and the impact from higher costs in all areas. And again, looking at the nine-month development here, after three quarters in 2023, we are already before ahead with SEK 14.3 billion of the full year results of last year and the year before. And compared to our best ever nine-quarter results in 2020, we are well ahead of that number as well.
So really back on the long-term trajectory where we want to be. We're a young company, so I think this is important to show there that as far back as we can see, we've been on a very solid trajectory, with the exception then of the external shocks that we had for two years. And now we're back again with very good momentum. And that leads me to the roadmap to our adjusted ROCE target above 17%, and it says illustrative, and of course this is exactly what we mean. What's a positive on this picture is that, of course, price management will still be very, very important for us, but it's back to normal.
It's back to you, to the normal discussions that we have with retailers, distributors, the tenders we participate in, in Health & Medical . To achieve the last steps to reach above 17% in 2025, the main bulk of the improvement will come from commercial excellence, which is exactly what we've been working with over the last 8 years, and that has resulted in the development that we just saw on the previous slide. In addition, comes structural efficiencies and some of the ones that we have presented, like in Professional Hygiene , and then a small part from new growth initiatives that doesn't contribute so much in the next two years, but that we believe will contribute substantially if you look further into the future. So we have a plan, and we know what to do.
We will continue with all the important strategic priorities that we know so well of improving efficiency, launching new products, doing structural improvements, and of course, price management going forward. With that, before we move over to Q&A, I'd like to welcome you to the Essity webcast for covering innovation, Innovating for Profitable and Sustainable Growth on November 27 at 3:00 P.M. CET. It's a short event, one and a half hours, focusing on innovation. It will be really exciting, and you will meet many of my colleagues in the MT and other specialists. So very welcome to that webcast. Let's move over to Q&A. Fredrik, you want to join me?
Yeah, absolutely.
If you wish to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one. Niklas Ekman from Carnegie, please go ahead.
Thank you. Yes. Firstly, maybe a question on the last thing you touched upon here with the roadmap to ROCE target of 17%. You don't mention lower raw material prices, and I'm just noting that raw material prices have been a negative, basically up until Q2, with an aggregate impact of around SEK 20 billion on your earnings. Given where raw material prices are now, shouldn't they be a clear contributing factor also in the coming quarters? That's my first question.
Fredrik-
Yeah, Niklas, it's-
You're the financial planning expert.
Thank you. Thank you. I'm not sure about that, Magnus, but thanks, Niklas, for great question, because what, what we basically had, if you recall, you've seen a bit of this roadmap before, and then the price-cost gap was a very significant portion. But we also said at that point of time, Niklas, that we would compensate with price all the cost disadvantages that we actually have, and largely, we have actually done exactly that. So the pricing power that we have within the organization has supported that. So we have reached a point now where we, from an absolute perspective, have compensated all that raw material headwind. And this is why we now...
and we talked about it before, as an example, with Consumer Tissue, we see to some degree that on the back of those falling input costs, we will also see a price decline. So this is why this is not a major part of the roadmap anymore. It's more the things we control on our own, so basically commercial excellence, innovation, mix, or structural efficiencies, as Magnus alluded to.
Okay, very clear. And can you just remind us, the ROCE target is 70%, what kind of margin does that translate to? In the past, you've said 13.5-14. Is that still valid?
Yeah, that is still valid. Of course, it depends on the absolute Capital Turnover. And so Capital Turnover is, of course, a and margin are both a consequence of kind of net sales, which moves to some smaller degree with price, obviously. So the absolute mix on Capital Turnover and margin, that will vary over time, but is roughly in that ballpark, Niklas.
Super. Thank you. Also, sorry, but can I just ask about Vinda? Where you are in that divestment process, given that Vinda is near or has been near break even now for five consecutive quarters. What gives you confidence that they are facing an imminent turnaround? And if not, is now really the time to divest Vinda?
Yeah. Yeah, so, of course, Vinda has to speak for themselves. What we do know is that Vinda has been consuming a very expensive pulp stock over the last three quarters, and that gradually, of course, that will have a much lower impact on their margins going forward. So that's what makes me confident. When it comes to M&A in general, and of course, our ambition with the strategic review is to reduce our dependence on Consumer Tissue significantly, we never comment on what's going on. We're now six months into this process. It's not a long time, it's very complex. But of course, we are combining... We want to manage this as quickly as possible, but also creating the highest possible value for shareholders.
I believe that those who could be interested, you know, in a fantastically well-managed company like Vinda, with super strong brands, they look beyond the profitability of the last couple of quarters and have a much longer- term perspective on the value of the company.
Super. Thank you for taking my question.
Our next question comes from Jeremy Fialko from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Hi. Morning, Jeremy Fialko, HSBC. First of all, can you just clarify, in, I don't know, SEK million, what you think the approximate benefit you're getting from some of these contracts where you're kind of looking to exit, but have just basically raised the prices in order to to do that? And then the second, slightly bigger picture question, you've gone through this process of exiting a lot of the contracts. You're now, I guess, happy with the mix of the contracts that you, that you've got. I guess, can you talk about a little bit more about the kind of the attributes of the contracts you've kept versus the ones that you've kind of exited?
I guess maybe the other thing which is a really important link to this is: how can you be confident that the, like, the good quality contracts you've kept don't move into the sort of unprofitable bucket? And so this becomes a sort of endless process of kind of rationalizing your volumes as contracts become less attractive. And so basically, the sort of sustainability of this change to the contract structure. Thanks.
Absolutely. It's a great question. We have been very, very focused over the last number of years with many initiatives to improve the profitability on Consumer Tissue, on Baby, in Inco Retail. Feminine Care are developing really, really well, and maybe less focus when it comes to margin enhancement on Health & Medical and on Professional Hygiene, because they have already been doing well. Of course, with our commitment to our long-term financial targets, we have also taken a review, also in light of our new organization that we put in place at the beginning of the year, of these two businesses, Health & Medical and Professional Hygiene. And realized that when you look at, starting with Professional Hygiene, the different customers and the different assets and the different products that we have, there's a huge difference, and that there is...
There was a part at the bottom that, where we didn't see, for the long- term, an opportunity to actually improve. You know, we, we've had a concept called cure and kill, where we looked very much at how we can either cure or kill underperforming parts of the business, and we realized that approximately 4% or 5% of Professional Hygiene was creating cash flow, but it wasn't contributing to a long-term return on capital employed journey, and that's why we take it out. And that's kind of done now, and the remaining part is very healthy with very good margins. When it comes to Health & Medical , and especially then in Inco healthcare, we negotiate thousands of contracts every year, for typically a three-year duration. And of course, most of these contracts we keep or we win.
And there is also, in this area, a big span of how these contracts, you know, work. Some are very, very price-oriented, so cost per piece, basically. Others, we talk about cost in use, we talk about training, adding all the expertise that Essity can provide, the quality, the service levels that we provide, in our products, in our service. And those are the ones, the contracts that we are developing. But also here, we could see that there was some contracts where our estimate, especially with the cost increases, the inflation we've seen over the last year, that would never contribute to a longer-term ROCE journey. So they weren't contributing. That's not where we want to be. So, that's why I say it's not going to be an ever-ongoing journey.
This is a kind of a one-time cleanup that puts us in really, really good shape to achieve our long-term ROCE target.
And maybe just Jeremy, to add, you were asking for how can you see the benefit of it? And obviously, you see it in the profit margin enhancement, but it's also obvious from the mix. If you take to Professional Hygiene, just using that as an example, mix, the mix component is 2.6%. So of course, that's not a normal mix. Obviously, that's a consequence of some action. And of course, this is just one piece of the evidence. We also have very good mix in Health & Medical, and particularly so, as I mentioned, in Inco, and this is another sign of the fact that this is working.
And just on that, as the exceptional, it's like not exceptional, but the profits from some of these contracts, which you're gonna be getting out of, where you raised the price, just a ballpark, low, like low hundreds of millions of SEK or not even that?
Sorry... Could you repeat the question?
You mentioned that there was some profit from the contracts where you're exiting basically by putting the prices up very high. And just what the
Yeah, no, so, yeah, we have actually quantified the impact, and Magnus actually mentioned it before, that roughly in terms of Professional Hygiene, it's roughly about 2% margin enhancement. So, this is the actual benefit in Professional Hygiene. It's a bit less in Health & Medical than that, but still very profitable. And it's not... Just to clarify one thing, Jeremy, as you said, we're not about to leave. We have left already. It's actually done. So as Magnus said, this is an exercise that we have executed on, and so it's of course the impact will now be fully visible in Q4, but it's also very visible in Q3. So we don't expect to do more contracts.
We expect to just kind of have the consequences of what has already been executed now in the coming quarters, as we said. Okay, so for those of you that can hear us, the phone line has gone temporarily, so we're looking to fix it as quickly as possible, if anyone can hear us right now.
Yeah, this is the Essity call. Because the line dropped. We have line as fast as possible to search. This is the speaker line. Yes, exactly.
Mm-hmm.
Okay, I'm connecting into the hybrid right now, so you're going into the sound board, okay?
Hello. Hope that you just had that question on the EBITA benefit in professional.
Yeah, I'm not sure if my answer was heard.
Can you repeat it, please? I certainly didn't hear anything.
Is that Jeremy, or was it-
Yes, it is. It's Jeremy.
Yeah. Okay.
Sorry about the interruption.
Jeremy, I thought my answer was so good. I'm not sure I can repeat it again, but I'll try.
Mm.
So, as I think I mentioned there, that proof of, in terms of the evidence, then we obviously have had a very good mix in both Professional and in Health & Medical . And just to use Professional Hygiene as an example, we had an uplift of roughly about 2.6%, so really, really very, very strong. And obviously, you can see for yourself in terms of margin that this has brought a lot of benefits. So there are lots of evidence that this is actually working. And I did clarify. I'm not sure if that was heard, but as Magnus already alluded to in his comments there, that this is a one-time exercise. These are not contracts that we are about to leave.
These are contracts that we have left, and the full impact will be in Q4. So some of the contracts, of course, obviously, have been left during Q3, but we have kind of completed this exercise now, and and we'll live with the consequences from a volume perspective in a few quarters, but that's, it's not additional coming, as we go forward.
Sorry, sorry, apologies for this. I, I got all that, but the only part I didn't get-
Okay
was this one about the, was this bit about the, EBITA benefit in Professional from some of these contracts where you've jacked the prices up very high as your way of exiting the, as a way of exiting the contract. You mentioned that in the prepared, comments. So just an indication of what the quantum of that benefit might be?
Oh, right. I got it.
a couple of hundred.
Got it. Yeah, we haven't actually quantified that exactly, but as you can see, a part of that very significant uplift of 650 basis point is clearly that. So you can say largely we have achieved, you can say the benefits of these restructurings a bit early. It may not be the full kind of benefit, but we have achieved a substantial benefit.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will now move to our next question from Linus Larsson from SEB. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much, and good morning to everyone. On volumes, I think I heard you say that in Health & Medical , you're putting increased emphasis on volume at the possible expense of margins. I wonder if you could maybe expand a bit on that discussion, including also the other two divisions, and how you see volume development for the group as a whole going forward? We've had, I think, four quarters by now with negative year-on-year volume growth. When should we expect volume growth to turn positive for the group? Thank you.
Yeah, and I can't give you an overall answer to that, but what we're seeing is that market conditions are normalizing, and that we are now looking at balancing price and volumes also, depending on, of course, the competitive pressure, and on what happens now with raw materials, that in some cases are actually stabilizing or even starting to move slightly up, which we think is a good thing. We always say that we would like raw materials and energy and other cost components to be stable over time.
But clearly, we see that we will have a higher focus on volume going forward, and believe that we can manage this partly through the efforts that we already did now in actually not gaining volumes in the lower margin end of our assortment, but focusing very much on the high end, and that's where we want to grow going forward. So in that way, and together with innovation, manage this, and of course, also with the cost efficiencies, because every cost efficiency, every saving we achieve makes us more competitive.
We can achieve the same margin with a lower price. So it's very, very important for us, and we can be more competitive and gain market share. So it's that overall volume, so... or that overall equation that we are now back to working with, and I can't say more than that, but of course, it's different than the last two years when our only message was price, price, price, and price. We're beyond that now. Now, it's finding this mix, and I mean, that's our core business. That's what we've been doing for forever, so that's something we know how to do very, very well.
Maybe, Linus, I can just clarify one thing you specifically said there. You said you will prioritize volume at the expense of margins in Health & Medical . I didn't actually say that.
No.
This was your statement. What I actually said was, as we now have reached much more attractive margins, we will refocus and focus more on growth. That was the wording-
Mm.
I used, and so it's not-
Right
at the expense of.
No.
Just to be clear.
Right.
We have-
Thanks for that, for the clarification.
Yeah, no problem.
Absolutely. I think that was really, really good that you said that, Fredrik. Of course, I want to underline. I mean, it's not, you know, one day we go in one direction, the other day we go in the other direction. It's really about now managing both our long-term financial targets, so both the return on capital employed target and the growth target, and that's our ambition, and we feel very confident that we can do this going forward. We have a very, very good foundation for that now.
That, that's great.
Mm.
But, is it rightly understood then that this somewhat more active strategy or tactics on volume, it's applicable on all three business areas? And relating to that also, how do you see A&P developing or A&P to sales?
Mm. Yeah, this is applicable to all three business areas, and we are investing in A&P. I don't see any substantial changes, but it's definitely not going to be lower in relation to sales. Rather, maybe slightly the opposite, because we have so much good innovation coming and so much to talk about, that we will spend more on this because it's very value-creating. It really helps us with this profitable growth that we're achieving.
Great. Thanks a lot.
We will now take our next question from Oskar Lindström, from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. This is Oskar Lindström. Three questions from my side, more sort of focusing on the Q4 outlook, if you will. The first one is, I mean, for Q4, should we expect continued price costs, sort of margin expansion, you know, net of any cost declines and price erosion? But are you still seeing forward momentum in or expanding margins driven by improving price-cost margin? That's my first question. I can go on with the second one, is related a little bit to what Linus brought up here about the boosting volume. It's not at the expense of margin, but at least at the expense of margin expansion. Is that something that will hit already in Q4, or is it more something that you're foreseeing for the full year 2024?
My third question is on Consumer Tissue. Can we expect profit per unit or you know where are we in the cycle for Consumer Tissue? Thank you.
Okay. Of course, this is getting very, very close to a forecast for the fourth quarter, which we don't provide, Oskar, if you add all this together. So it's, it's, it's really, really difficult to talk about specifically margin and volumes and so on. Maybe specifically on volumes, I think, Fredrik made it clear that in Professional Hygiene , in Inco Healthcare, we've taken measures. It will take a few quarters for these volumes that we have taken out to roll over. And the positive impact on volume from our renewed focus on this, and of course, we are gaining volumes, and I showed many good examples of that in Inco Care, Retail, in Feminine Care, in some of our acquisitions. So, it's, I mean, we have areas where we're growing volume very well also.
You have to assume that we will have an underlying volume focus, but that the impact of these exits will have an impact also in the fourth quarter. And then, when it comes to Consumer Tissue, I almost can't remember the question. You, Fredrik?
I think it was price per unit or profit per unit.
Mm-hmm
I think was specifically what you asked, Oskar.
I think the only maybe reflection I can provide is that we have excellent margins in Consumer Tissue outside of Vinda currently throughout the company. We will, of course, do everything we can to manage those margins as well as we can, also taking into account to manage volumes. Vinda, we spoke about earlier already, coming from a situation now of very low margins.
I, I, I-
All right,
I can just maybe repeat something you've already said, Magnus, here, because I think it's important to note one thing. Magnus alluded to on the Road to 17 roadmap, price-cost gap was not part of that equation because we have achieved. And of course, you can interpret that we don't expect specifically input cost to be more beneficial than price. That's basically the overall context.
Mm-hmm.
And of course, Consumer Tissue , as we alluded to specifically with variations that we have in individual quarters, we also talked about the fact that, on the back of falling cost, we will see lower sequential pricing, and we do expect also higher price promotion to support volumes. But of course, obviously, the long-term journey, and that was a question earlier, what margin does it take for you to reach your target? Of course, that's a lot higher than what it is. So over the longer perspective, there is no doubt that we strive for that. Margin will continue to increase. In the short- term, we are refocusing more on volume.
So just to kind of, yeah, reiterate what's already been stated here, Oskar, but it gives a bit of lead, of course, for the next few quarters, maybe.
All right. Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question from Patrick Folan from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, thanks. Just on the group margin point, it sounds like the 12.2% in Q3 were kind of at a normalized level. We talked about health medical, which is, you know, focusing on volume, and Fredrik just talked about there, kind of that's gonna be the focus, not taking away from margin. So how should we just think about EBIT A margin kind of in the short- term? You have input cost improving, obviously, as we saw in Q3, but, you know, pulp has edged up a bit, SG&A is up, A&P is up. So just kind of trying to square that away as we look over the next couple of quarters, I suppose it'd be good to kind of understand the moving parts there.
Just secondly, Magnus, I know we talked a couple of months ago, we talked about the hygiene category in Europe, particularly Consumer Tissue , and you said it's one of the softest markets you've seen in a couple of years. Just want to get your thinking on how you've seen Q3 play out. Is there any improving trends in the market? Thanks.
Yeah. So thanks, Patrick. Starting with the last question, yes, the first half was very soft, and it has improved considerably now in the second half of the year, and we are more or less back to kind of zero underlying growth in Consumer Tissue in Europe from a very negative development in the first half. So of course, that will help going forward. And then, to your first question, I'll soon hand over to Fredrik, but of course, we are at 12.2 currently, which is fantastic. We're very happy about the quarter, and we need to get somewhere north of 13.5. So that's the gap we're talking about. And again, it will be a mix of in some areas, we will even increase prices in some markets, in...
We will have cost savings, we will have mix improvements, and we will manage day-to-day the price-cost gap. And in order to achieve the over 13.5%, we will need to improve the margins further in all three business areas. I guess that's, that's kind of the high level without specifically talking about the fourth quarter.
Thanks.
Fredrik, yes, we don't provide forecast for the fourth quarter.
No, we really don't, Patrick. Of course, I guess what you're after here is a forecast on margin for Q4. And you alluded specifically to cost relating to SG&A or whatever. And so of course, we've seen, as rightly to your point, that we've seen an increase in SG&A spend. We anticipate higher A&P in Q4 profitably. So of course, needless to say, but of course, these are mainly, you can say, a consequence of salary inflation. So just as input cost, we compensate salary inflation-
Mm
with price. So we manage the price-cost gap, and the long-term journey is clear. Short- term, of course, we focus a bit more on volume and over... Just to reiterate also what has been said, we got two goals, right? One is the 17%, and the other one is the organic sales growth of 3% plus another couple of percent in acquisition growth. We focus on both. So this is just kind of balancing, and that will impact in the short- term quarters, but over the long- term, it is obviously the direction is very clear.
Thank you.
We will now move to our next question from Charles Eden from UBS. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Just one left for me, really. I just wanted to touch on, on the gross margin. Obviously, a very strong performance in the quarter, up sort of 630 basis points year-over-year. And now just a smidgen under 30% gross margin. Obviously, in the past, you've been north of 30% gross margins. You've got the cost savings coming through. You've obviously got, at least while it's part of the portfolio, an improvement in the Vinda gross margin to come still, despite obviously returning to 27%, in Q3. Is there any reason structurally why the gross margin can't return back into that early 30s?
I guess because if I think about the some of these profitability focus areas you just touched on, I would have thought the underlying profitability margin at the gross margin level would be higher than it has been historically. Could you maybe talk a little bit about it? Thank you.
Yeah, but, absolutely. Thanks for just asking one question, Charles. Gross margin is our top priority and focus, of course, that's how you build strong brands. And we're really happy about the improvement, 630 basis points, year-over-year. And it's definitely... This is where we're gonna see our journey to 17% return on capital employed, coming from gross margin improvements from all the different areas that we mentioned. Fredrik, I don't know what if you want to add.
No, no. I really, Charles, it's exactly as Magnus has said there. Just one maybe technical thing that's worth having in mind, right? So, obviously, price levels are a lot higher than they were in 2019. I mean-
Mm.
Prices have gone up a lot. And so it's, it's a, if you kinda compensate in terms of absolute profit, but with a much higher net sales, then obviously, gross profit margins comes down mathematically-
Mm
but with the same profit. So just bear that in mind. But, other than that, I don't have anything to add, Magnus.
Super. Thank you much.
Sure.
Our next question comes from Simen Aas, from DNB Markets. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning, guys. So I have a question on, mainly related to energy costs. So can you quantify what was the energy cost in Q3, and how should we think about this going into Q4? And maybe on the same topic, I'm not sure if you said it, so if I missed it, I'm sorry, but did you say anything about the sequential improvement in SG&A going into Q4? And how should we think about that from Q3? Thank you.
Maybe, Fredrik, you should go through raw materials and energy and SG&A.
Yeah. Yeah, well, I don-
Total for the group.
Yeah, we've actually... I've already done that in terms of the absolute total there. So, maybe That's a good, that's a great point, Magnus. Let's just repeat that. So if you take Health & Medical , and I'm not talking now energy and distribution, I can do that, but it's kind of maybe more fruitful to talk about the total. So, so basically, if you, if you look at, input cost in general, so distribution, energy, and input, and, and raw material, for Health & Medical , you will see slightly lower. The same for Consumer Goods, and, and when you count Professional Hygiene , we expect sequentially to be stable. If you look at it year on year, then, they will be lower for all three of these business areas. So that's pretty much the overall context.
Now, your question was specifically on energy, and the question there on Q4. Let me just comment a bit on Q3, super quickly. So obviously, as you have seen in comparison to last year, the spot prices were super much lower. However, having said that, we were hedged to a fairly significant degree with much, much higher prices than the actual spot values, and of course, that had a negative impact. So we benefit in Q3 a lot from the lower spot to the degree we were un hedged, but of course, we also had a bit of higher cost on the back of those hedge contracts. Now, if you look at the future, Q4 specifically, then of course, included in the total benefit, then we expect energy cost to be largely stable.
So still in comparison, sequentially, slightly better in terms of the hedge prices, hedge levels, and then spot prices perhaps being slightly lower. So overall, about stable for energy costs. So I... Hopefully, that-
And SG&A.
Yeah, SG&A, really tough to give a good comparison. It's likely to be somewhat higher than what we've seen here in Q3 for various reasons, but it shouldn't be really material.
Okay. That, that's very helpful. So thank you, thank you for that.
Yeah.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one. Our next question comes from Victoria Nice from Société Générale. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Good morning, everyone. So my question is on pricing. I wondered if you could give us an indication on the quantum of the sequential price decline that you mentioned in Consumer Tissue . And could we assume that the pace of this decline accelerates moving forward, given the move in raw materials? And still related to that, and sorry if you said this already, but how does absolute price level look sequentially? Is higher pricing in other parts of the business offsetting that lower, Consumer Tissue pricing, please? Thank you.
I think that's very specific and really difficult to respond. I think that's something that again, this is managed now. I mean, this was easy to answer in the last couple of years when it was pricing, pricing, pricing. Now, when we're kind of back to normal and managing the price- cost gap in all the different ways we've spoken about, of course, this is not as clear anymore. But I think you're basically on to the right parameters here. And Fredrik spoke about kind of a little bit of some over-profitability in the third quarter in Professional Hygiene , and also that increasing promotions coming in Consumer Tissue in the fourth quarter.
But we will also work in other areas to increase prices and to manage, more importantly, again, the price- cost gap and the margin. I mean, that's what we're looking at, not specifically anymore, just pricing, but the price- cost gap. And again, that's something that we know very well how to manage, and I think we've proven that again and again over the last number of years.
I can repeat to Victoria one thing that I've actually already said there, just to maybe clarify a bit. So I, I mentioned that for Consumer Goods, we had a sequential price decline. That was 1.3%. If you look at the individual categories, we never give-
Mm
of course, the individual components, but I'll do give you some leads. So Inco and Feminine were both positive-
Mm
- and Baby, and I already alluded to it, Baby and Consumer Tissue were sequentially negative. All of that translating into an average of 1.3%. But the individual exact components, of course, we cannot give for commercial reasons, obviously.
Thank you. As there are no further questions, I'd like to hand the call back over to our speakers for any additional closing remarks.
Okay. Well, we are really, really happy about the development. Of course, it was a super strong quarter in terms of top line and in terms of profit improvement, and not least cash flow, which was incredibly strong. This was the first consecutive quarter where we improve more or less on all metrics. We are moving now into a situation where we are see a normalized market condition, and we pull all the levers that we are so experienced at working with. So pricing, costs, efficiencies, innovation, all the strategic priorities that we have in the short and the long- term.
With the structural initiatives that have been now covered during this presentation, we feel in a very, very good place to reach our long-term financial targets, 17% return on capital employed, and combining that with 5% growth. So thanks for calling in, and talk to you next time.