Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the interim report for the second quarter for Lyko Group. We will have a short presentation, our CEO, Rickard Lyko, and our CFO, Ylva Norlén. After the presentation, we will have a short, you will be able to ask questions. We have a Q&A. I will remind everyone that this call is recorded, and it will be shared on quarter after the presentation and on the Lyko website. So welcome, and I give the stage to Rickard.
Thank you. Yeah, it has been a quarter with continuous growth, and we are also adding one more store. So now we have 31 stores, and we are operating our two warehouses. I'm here in Västerås, where we are building out the new automation, which are on the way, where a lot of the hardware is in place, and we are starting with installation. So we can jump to the next one. We are growing continuously and growing faster than we did in Q1, even though we met quite tough numbers, and we also know that we have some sell-out which added to top line last year, but also we're decreasing the profitability last year. So I think, even though we had the Easter, which helped us this quarter, but we were continuously growing in the Q1.
So I think it's also showing that it's keep on performing. We see that the retail is performing better and online is a little bit tougher, but we're also knowing that that used to change in between months and so on. Can jump into the next. We have a new brand concept that we have launched this quarter, and we are seeing good result of that, but we're also knowing when we are changing a concept like this, we don't get that much of a boost in the same quarter. It used to come a little bit later. But what we have seen so far, it looks really good, and we think this is a concept that we will live with quite some time, and it's also a very international concept that we think should really working well in all the markets.
We open up in Turku, in Finland, the store, and it keep on performing, and we had a good welcome there, and we're also seeing that the stores is... store rollout in those new countries working really well. So I think there are a lot of opportunity going forward for more rollout of those kind of stores. This is the new warehouse where the automation is in the full on installation part. So now we have some moving part as well in the automation, but also a lot of the hardware is on place. We are working really hard on the software-wise and testing that, but also there we are just in where we should be, and we are also developing a big part of that software by ourself.
And, in the quarter, we also see that on the rolling twelve numbers now, we're up in 7% of our own brands, which will be an important puzzle, a part of the puzzle going forward for more profitability, and it's really good to see that that keep on performing, and we know that margins in this assortment is much higher than in the rest of the assortment. We are still looking into Europe. We are also seeing that even that Europe are growing a little bit in the quarter, but we have some tough number meeting in July, but then we know it will be easier growth number for Europe.
We're seeing that we are finding the right customer now, but we are still have a lot to adapt and working together with the suppliers, and that is taking time, but we're seeing we're taking the step in the right direction quarter by quarter now.
Thank you for that, Rickard. You will come back later for some questions, but I give the numbers to Ylva Norlén, our CFO.
Hello, everyone. So as you've all been able to see, the selling in the quarter continued really strongly. SEK 880 million, and a little bit higher growth figure compared to Q1. More details on the quarter, we had an Easter calendar effect in April, a positive one, and we also had a big mid-season sale. We also opened a store in Turku, Finland, in April, and then in May, we reopened our renovated store, flagship store on Karl Johan in Oslo, and we also relocated in Emporia, in Malmö, in June. As usual, we had a big birthday campaign in June, which we met against last year, but we also had quite a big warehouse sale in 2023 that we met.
When it comes to gross margin, we upheld quite nicely against Q1, and when we look at the operational segments, Nordics and Europe performed really well. The big drop is really in the other business segment, and here the change is mainly due to an internal transfer price margin change. When it comes to the other external costs and personnel costs, we can see on the external cost side that we are continuing to see scalability in some of the important parts, especially in freight. We also had marketing costs that are lower compared to 2023, and also almost on the same level as in Q1. But we have this big brand campaign launch.... Personnel-wise, it's in line with our expectations, and we have now fully recruited market teams in seven markets.
EBIT for the group, we managed to increase the margin compared to last year, 1.9% against 1.7%, and it gives us a 32% increase in monetary terms. When it comes to the Nordics, which almost stands for 94% of our turnover, we continue really strongly, and it's a 22.7% increase in sales. Here we see that Norway and Finland has the highest growth rate, whereas Sweden grows the most. Our omni model here is really delivering strongly, and we see strong growth in all sales channels. EBIT in the Nordics continues to develop really well, and solid contribution from both online and retail sales.
When it comes to Europe, which is a 4% share of our business, we're back on growth in this quarter, 2.3%, and it's Poland and the Netherlands that grow the most. When it comes to EBIT and profit levels in Europe, we managed to keep it on quite a steady level now since almost a year back, and we make a lower EBIT loss in the quarter, -SEK 9 million. We can really see that we have good cost control and stabilizing results. Other business is a 3.5% share of our business, and this consists of Lyko Production and Lyko Professional, and here we have internal elimination, so this is really just the external selling that we have in these two business verticals.
Here we are quite impacted at the moment. We're in a bigger fusion and also restructuring of our organization and also ways of working, so we have a little bit of an impact there on the margin-wise. Then on group functions, here we are almost level to the quarter before. This is, of course, consisting mainly of staff costs from group supporting functions, and in this last quarter, we're now fully launched in a matrix organization, so we are well on the way with the central teams when it comes to supporting the local market teams. So all in all, in summary, impressive momentum continues throughout the first half of 2024, and our long-term focus in the Nordics is really paying off well.
We are opening strategic store locations across the Nordics and see really good effect from these, and we continue to tweak the business model in Europe. The own brands, the share of selling is now 7%, rolling 12, and the EBIT increases really well during the quarter. Also importantly, Vansbro extension is on schedule.
Thank you very much for that presentation, Ylva. We are now moving over to questions, so please raise your hands, and if you have a question, and I will deliver the word. So first, we have a question from Daniel Schmidt from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, guys. Hope you can hear me.
Yes.
Just a question on Europe, Rickard. You mentioned that you're seeing that you're finding your customer in Europe, but you still said you have some more work to do when it comes to suppliers and so on. Can you shed some more light on that? What is sort of the key to getting the European customer to pick up on your business, basically? Could you give us some more details?
It's more about both assortment-wise, to finding the right assortment, the right partner to go with in, in those countries, supplier-wise, but also the finding the right customer in the segment. How we have entered the market in Finland and Norway and Denmark as well, is finding the younger customer, and I think in the beginning we were going broad in the assortment, but now we're setting more focus on that, and that it seemed to, to work but take some time to adjust and, and getting on the right, path there. But I think we're starting to find that.
You talked about sort of, the need of physical presence in these markets, and you talk about the young customer. It's sort of my understanding that actually younger people are more omnichannel in their shopping behavior than older people, especially in your category, which sounds strange, but that was my understanding looking at some data. Do you feel that you need to be physically present in these markets to really get the attention from the younger customer?
From the beginning, I think it's more about showing what we are and differentiate us against other e-commerce players in Europe, but also have a chance to attract the right brands, and for that, we need one store in each market. But in the long run, for sure, we need to be present as an omni player to be able to go against the bigger player in the long run in those markets.
Yeah. Okay. And what do you think is the timeline to have one sort of store present in each market? Is that for 25?
We haven't decided, and it depends on what we are seeing, what we are finding, but it could be an option that we have one store in 2025 somewhere outside of Nordics. But that we will see, and we will see what we are finding as well.
Okay. Then maybe just for Ylva or maybe Rickard and Ylva, sort of inventory came down quite a lot, and the cash flow was really good, actually. If you look at inventory to sales, I think it's down to all-time low, basically, since you became a listed company, and it's 300 basis points lower than sort of the average that you've had since then. Is that just a timing effect of the end of the quarter, just happened to be that way this time around, or are you entering 2020 Q3 with too little in terms of inventory?
We have optimized on the A and B articles, because we don't have the room and the space up in Vansbro as well, and that is also why we are building out automation. So it's something that we have choose to do, but it's also showing that we can go lower both assortment-wise but also stock-wise in total.
You don't feel that low level is gonna impact sales growth in the coming quarter?
I mean, it's affected the growth, and it has done because it has been low in Q2 as well. But we're still performing on the right article, and we are choosing which one we are not... which one we are running out of stock. We're not running out of stock on the right article, so but for, until we have the new automation, we would need to optimize that continuously.
Okay, and then finally, maybe on the gross margin, which came down a little bit, versus Q1 and especially versus Q2 last year. But it sounded like you are seeing sort of a stabilization in the gross margin. Is that the right interpretation, or how should you- how should we think about the gross margin in the coming quarters?
Want to answer that too, Ylva?
Yeah, I mean, there are many things playing into the gross margin. One, tangible aspect that we tend to underline is the category mix, where the share of haircare is going down for us, which impacts the margin. We have full focus on mitigating the situation through a number of initiatives. And it's something that we're working very intensively on in the buying teams.
Is that a trend that you see in the market in general when it comes to haircare versus the other categories, or is competition, for some reason, tougher in that particular area now compared to previous years?
I think it's more related to Lyko's past, where we're a 100% haircare brand from the beginning and have been adding more and more categories. So it's more about the sales mix rather than maybe losing out to competition.
Thank you. That's all for me.
We give the floor to Benjamin Wahlstedt from ABG Sundal Collier.
Perfect. Thank you. All right, you can see the top of my head at least. So for a couple of quarters now, you've been reporting Finnish growth separately, but you don't today. Could you give us an indication of the Q2 growth in this call, perhaps?
Yes, I mean, we continue to see really strong growth in Finland and in Norway. We didn't detail the growth in this quarter since we opened another store in the middle of the quarter, which, of course, makes the sort of non-comparability factor. But we can get back to you on that if you are curious on Finland.
Yeah, that would be interesting. I was wondering as well if you could elaborate on the category mix you speak about in the CEO statement, more specifically, perhaps the other businesses. Why are they struggling, please? Or in what way are they struggling, perhaps?
Yeah, it's the businesses we have in the other segments, so our own brands, our production units, and also the professional B2B selling. It's parts of our business that are fairly new in terms of acquired to the group, and we're making quite a lot of adaptations in business models, et cetera. And then since the Lyko production part is mainly producing for our internal own brands, we're also in the midst now of setting up a new transfer price model internally. So it's more that we are in a period of change rather than a struggle, I would say. Our 3PL production is working out really well for us, so it's a little bit more this year that we're in now with intense changes in those businesses.
All right. Perfect. You also note increasing property costs. Could you give an indication of the incremental cost from, I guess, Sergels Torg, Turku, on a run-rate basis?
Sorry, you said, property cost?
Yeah, exactly, and, and just an indication of incremental costs from Sergels Torg and, and Turku. How much is rent in perhaps Stockholm's best retail space?
Phew! Yeah, I haven't got it isolated for the two, but we have... Yeah, I don't have those two broken out since we've also taken on more cost in terms of Vansbro and also a couple of other offices that we've opened in the quarter.
Right.... Very well. Final one then maybe: could you give us more information on Europe in general, please? Is it the change in inventory that drove your, your growth in the quarter and, and also the sequential margin improvement, or, or is there something else, that you could add on Europe, please?
Do you want to answer this one, Rickard?
What was driving the growth of the sales, or what is the question?
Yeah, exactly. Or, like, are we seeing the other end of the inventory changes or the inventory rebasing that you did in the previous quarter? Have you found a replacement for the Sol de Janeiro product in Germany? Is there anything else?
Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, okay.
Yeah.
No, yeah, it's a mix that we are, we are finding some collaboration, and we have also started selling some of those products that we are turning down before. Some of it, them are for just for Poland and not for other countries and so on. So it's a mix of that, but we are working continuously with those suppliers, and most of them are willing to work together with us, but it takes some time. But part of those that we were closing down, we have also get up again, so.
On the pro margin trajectory, your margin was quite a bit better sequentially. Is this... Are there any one-off effects in Q2 or any sort of one-off related effects in Q2, or are you sort of back on the positive margin trajectory, do you think?
Yeah, I think so. We have stabilized that, and then the Q2 is a quarter with a lot of campaigns as well, so that it's pressing the margin a little bit. But then otherwise, yeah, I would say it has stabilized.
Perfect. Thank you. Those were all my questions for now.
Then we leave the floor to Johan Fred from SEB.
Yeah. Hi, guys. Good morning. Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. The first one is, you have a few more stores now versus last year. Is there any chance that you can break out how much the new stores contributed to sales, or i.e., what was the like-for-like sales growth in the Nordics in the quarter?
Yeah, I mean, we're not reporting on channel growth, so it's nothing that we've shared, so the comp versus non-comp there.
Okay, so... but roughly?
Yeah, I don't have it here in front of me, since it's not what we've decided to report on.
No worries, fair enough.
All right.
My second question is on the, EBIT margin in the Nordic, which increased quite a bit year-over-year. At the same time, group functions increased, as well, as mentioned, or group function costs. Are there any costs from the segment, that have been sort of transferred into group functions?
Not in a major way. When we had the entity restructuring last year, where we created the Jysk operations] as the basis for group functions, there were some changes. And also, we sort of drew a clearer line between what is group and what is segment. No major changes in this quarter.
Okay, got it. Good, thank you. And my final question is on private label sales or own brand sales. You report 7% on a rolling 12-month basis. Can you give us the share in the quarter, please?
It is-
Um-
... it is similar over the year. The one that's standing out is when we are selling the calendar in the Q4. So that is only, and otherwise, it is quite stable, I would say.
Okay. I believe you reported something like 5% last quarter? Yeah.
I think it was, 6 point... Was it 6.5 or 6.7, Tom?
Yeah, something like that.
Okay, but you see an incremental or sequential increase there in private label sales, is that correct?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Yes.
Okay.
Also according to plan.
Great. Those were all my questions. Thank you so much, guys.
Do we have any more questions from the audience? Yeah, we have one. I missed that one.
Sorry, 6.3%. 6.3% own brands in Q1.
Henrik Milton, please go ahead.
Yes, hello. Just wondering, you know, the cost for the debt increase during the quarter. I'm just wondering what the plans is, you know, regarding amortizations, and also if, you know, what is the ratio if the Riksbank starts to decrease the, the short-term rate. Will your cost of debt also go down at the same rate?
Yes. So currently we are amortizing the previous automation in Vansbro 10 years from 2020. The amortizations on the new extension project will start when we go operational from next year. And yes, the interest rates will go down in conjunction with Riksbank's decisions.
... Can you give us any figures, you know, between the split between fixed rates and floating rates?
Nothing that we have prepared now, but we can get back to you.
Okay, thanks.
Do we have any more questions? It doesn't seem like that. Okay, Aurore Tigerschiöld from the Nordea Bank, please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. A lot of my questions have been asked already, answered already, but I do have one. You have a Net Debt to EBITD A of around 4.6. Is this a level that you're comfortable with, or what is the concrete plan to perhaps lower that?
Yes, we are in line with our plans. We know that it's an intense situation due to the investments we're currently taking in Vansbro. But we also see that once we are ready with that project, and as mentioned, everything is on schedule so far, that sort of financial burden will ease. So it's sort of within reach, roughly a year from now.
Okay, perfect. Thank you so much.
Coming back to your question, Benjamin, on property cost, in the quarter, we increased SEK 15.2 million on total property cost, but haven't provided a breakdown on those. But the majority is from Vansbro, lease contracts and then also the new stores.
Perfect. Thank you.
We still have time for some more questions, if there's anyone. If not, we thank you so much for your time this morning, and hope you to see you all in the presentation on the nineteenth of October, when we present our interim report for the third quarter. And wish everyone a happy day and a pleasure summer. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Bye.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.