Q2 was a bit less good than we thought. We knew before that it should be tougher than Q1. We had a positive calendar effect in Q1 due to Easter, and that came out negative in Q2. That we know from the beginning. We also have quite high effects on currencies. In the end, I was hoping for 3%-4% organic growth in local currencies, and we ended up with one point something. It was less good than planned. The market was very tough. I have thought for a long time now that the market will be better, but we still don't see any big signs on that. I think that all this worry and things that are used all the time about duties and tariffs and no one knows really what will happen and so on put, as I said, put a wet blanket on the market.
I think that we will continue to see at least one or two more quarters with the tough market situation. We're pretty sure that we continue to take market shares and we continue to invest. We have the same speed investing in both sales, marketing, automation, warehouses, IT, and so on. We will not pull on the brake because of this. We will continue the same way. One very good thing, hopefully, if you never know that before, of course, but one thing I'm very happy for is the acquisition of Cotton Classic that gave us a very, very strong position in several countries. We have been the market leader in Sweden, Upper Northern Finland, Benelux for quite a long time. Now we are a very, very clear market leader in Switzerland, also Austria after this. We come in as number, I think, number three or four in Germany.
They also have quite a lot of activity in formerly Eastern countries. Czech Republic is a big country for them. We are not there at all. Same with Hungary, Slovenia. It also opened up Eastern Europe a bit for us where we have been. This is also much easier for us than it was to acquire BTC. BTC is a very similar operation. Since they were outside EU, it took us quite a long time before we could start introducing our own brands. The upside both in BTC and Cotton Classic is really to introduce our own brand that has more than double the gross margin than they have on the distributed brands today. Here we could be much, much quicker. We actually introduced, not full collections, but partly of Clique and Harvest and Printer and [Cotton] already now in their September catalog.
We were quite time-pressed in the end of the acquisition because they release their collections twice a year, in September and January. If it wouldn't be ready for the 1st of September, we couldn't have done anything before January. That was quite a lot of work, but I think it's very, very important for the position in the future. Yes? So, better?
Okay. I will not repeat this. Nothing I really changed here. You can say after the quarter is not a very big thing, but after the quarter, we signed also an agreement now on a new warehouse in Ireland. We will also be much more active in Ireland. I think it's also an important step for us because it's not a big market, but it's, again, inside EU still. The market in Ireland is dominated by companies in the U.K., which give them a lot of problems with tariffs and duties and so on. That will start hopefully in October. Nothing I've changed here really. I jump in. Here I have a funny story that or not we should have that on photo, but I forgot that. You know, EFCO did guys on Sunday, no, on Monday, I think it was.
We produced a T-shirt with a big macaron and wrote under a cod or a torsk. A cod is not so funny when you use English, but in torsk. That was very appreciated. It's nice to see. Here you can also see the importance of speed and stock because the sales were starting directly after the game. The day after they have sold, I think it was 2,300 shirts. Pretty nice. This is the same. Second quarter then, as I already said, very, very tough market. I actually think it was developed in general in the wrong way compared with Q1. A quotation of Cotton Classic I talked about. I think it's a very, very important thing for us, especially for future growth in the Eastern Europe as well. We have one thing that we don't know where it will end.
At the Department of Justice in the U.S. have started an investigation where they claim we have done wrong or it's not any criminal investigation. We have different, they count the number of employees in a different way than we did. We have a possibility that we can be forced to pay back some of the, some or all or nothing. We actually don't know of the loans that were forgiven during COVID. The total amount is $5.4 million. We have not taken anything into the P&L because, again, we don't know if it will be zero or if it will be all or if it will be in the middle. We don't know if it takes three months or 12 months or two years. We think it's such an important information. We want to inform about it to be transparent. It's not come as a surprise like this if something happened.
The currency affected us, of course, a lot, especially on the P&L this time. Last report, it was on the balance sheet that had the biggest effects. Now it's on the P&L. Strength increases in Central Europe and, I would say, also Eastern Europe with Cotton Classic. You can say right now we hope to have the permission from the competition authorities in Austria this week.
18th of August.
That's the last day when they need to inform that they want to have debriefs.
We don't see any high risk that we have now, but it also says a little bit about what kind of market shares we start to get in the moment that they even should judge it. Cotton Classic has a fantastic platform, actually, much better than ours and also BTC's. That will also be interesting if we can also take that the other way. As I said, we're now working very, very hard to introduce as much of our own brands as possible, as fast as possible. This is, again, much easier than it was in BTC since we already have stocks in a lot of EU countries that we can use also for Cotton Classic. Otherwise, it's a very similar business to BTC.
Maybe also I should add there that for sure they will take down our operating margin for a while because they come in on 5.5%- 6% in operating margin. It's such a big turnover on, yeah, more than SEK 1 billion, so it will affect operating margins. That isn't any surprise for you, and it will not be for us either. It will take a few years to take them up. Yeah, 1.3% in organic growth. Again, as I said, I'm not happy with it, but the expectation from my own side was more 3%- 4%. It was not very high that quarter due to Easter, but it's still a little bit lower than I thought. The currency we have talked about, Promo Channel was down 2%, retail by 8%. That must be in SEK now. Yeah, so it's not, yeah.
Operating profit amounted to SEK 241 million then, and more operating margin 10.5%. I think that it's still an okay result actually because, again, we continue to invest in and take market shares and spend money. We were also affected a bit about, in May, 1st of May, I think it was, the first company in New Wave Group or New Wave Holland, the Netherlands, that was quite a big entity for us, was the first company that installed high robotics, totally new picking. They had, at the same time, that was the first company out with a new ERP system. That was quite a high risk. It went okay, but it was affected in May, June. July, they were 100% up running everything.
Now we're quite happy to have done it because now it will be easier and easier to implement both high robotics in other warehouses, but also the new ERP system in other companies. I had a very, very tired CEO there, I can say. SEK 2.3 billion decreased then in SEK 4.1%, but again, organic in local 1.3%. Here is not so much to comment. I can say maybe that on the retail side here, especially retail, it's still a very, very tough situation. You have a few clear winners, the last quarters. That's, for example, Ullared, and it's the low price chains. All others are struggling, struggling a lot. When you talk sports and also when you talk home furniture gifts, it's a quite tough situation in the retail side. I would say that corporate is more stable then.
The good thing, I think, on the retail side is that most of the clients have lower, much lower stock positions themselves than they had one or two years ago. When it starts building up, I think we will see quite high effect on it. There's not maybe so much to comment. Gross profit down a bit, and it's not the price decreases and not increased buying prices. A big effect there is the trading took a big part of the total turnover that quarter. As you know, since before, trading is very up and down. The gross margin and the other business are stable. As it is today, we were affected. I don't have any amount, but we were a little bit affected by tariffs in the U.S., some of the U.S. companies. I don't know, a couple of million SEK maybe.
It was not a big effect, but even if we really have worked hard and fast to move production, we are not able to move 100% of it. You have some effects, but not the big ones. You will have some effect in the coming quarters as well, but again, not a huge amount, but it's a couple of million, I guess, each quarter. The only thing you can comment here is that on the operating profit, I must say that corporate are very stable if you compare with the times on retail and gifts and home. Gifts and home is also a majority retail. Had a much tougher quarter than corporate. Cash flow is not so much to say about.
We have planned, and I think, no, I'm sure I said already fourth quarter last year that we will go into a period with less good cash flow depending on that we're building up the stock and we continue the investment in warehouses and IT. It was no surprise that either. If we look on half the year, we had a sales increase by 2.3%. That is in SEK. I don't have that in my head. What was it in local currencies? Do you have a funnel?
Sorry.
The growth in local currencies, January, June, because 2.4 must be in SEK.
Yes, 2.4 is in SEK. Sorry, is it a quarter?
No, no, half a year. The quarter I had.
Sorry. Give me a sec. I just lost it. Please.
Yeah, you can find. Promo then 3.9% and retail 1.4%. You will have a sooner one or two about this in local currencies, but I think 5% something.
4.8% is in local currency.
That was nearly 5.5%. Around 5%. Yeah, here's not so much to say, but I mean, the half a year figures, of course, look better than the second quarter since we had a very strong first quarter. Yeah, gross profit 48.9% compared with 49.3%. As I said before, it's stable. External cost increased a bit, and that's mainly, again, sales and marketing, but also IT is a quite huge investment to change all ERP systems and everything. Of course, optimization also of warehouses and then operated profit on 4.53%. Here you can say, yeah, not so much to say there, right? Balance sheet can come at $6.5 million in equity, which give, yeah, it's a strong balance sheet, you can say. The first quarter was very affected by currency with, was it half a billion?
Yeah.
If I remember correctly, the big difference in equity now compared with the end of the year is actually currency. It's the whole effect, you can say.
Yeah, we also have a dividend.
Yeah. That's good. Yeah, and cash flow is still stable, I would say. Rolling 12 months down, 9.6% in sales and an operating profit on just above SEK 1.2 million, 12.8%. We will, of course, work as hard as we can to get up. I'm not very happy with 12.8%, I must say, even if I know why. I think I have said all of this, and I think also the important thing for us to see, we will not put the brake on cost before as long as we see that we take market shares, even if it continues to be a tough market, one or two or three quarters. Cotton Classic, we've talked a lot about. I think we have a very strong position for the future, actually stronger than a year ago, which will become even stronger with Cotton Classic.
I think we have big opportunities both in retail and in promo. The launch of Team Wearing US is still doing quite well, and it's going, I would say, as planned or even maybe a bit better than planned. I'm also very happy for our balance sheet because most of the competitors today have a much, much tougher situation, which means that they can't invest in the same way as we are doing. We will continue to look at more acquisitions as well. That was basically Q2 and first six months. I open up for questions.
You mentioned that the gross margin was relatively strong, but if you look at Q1, you had an even larger impact from your trading operations, and the gross margin was up 10 basis points. In this quarter, with a lower impact from the trading business, it was down 100 basis points.
The gross margin in the trading business is variating a lot. We take orders down to, I would say, 8-9%. When we have really good gross margin in the trading business, it can be up to 30%. It depends very, very much on that. For example, the biggest order, now it's a few years old, was 400,000 units of the same Polo Piqué to Costco. I'm very happy to close that deal on 8%, 9%, 10%. It's a variation also inside there a lot. In general, I think we end in general on a gross margin of maybe 16%, 17% ,18% in average, but it's still very different in different quarters.
Okay. Thank you for that. You mentioned that BTC had been a bit more tricky than you perhaps thought when it came to bringing in your own assortment. What level of your own assortment do you currently have at BTC? I assume it started from zero.
Up to now, it's more or less only Harvest, Printer, and not full collections. It will be full collections from mid-January next year. I shouldn't say it has been more tricky, but it has taken a longer time since they are outside the EU. I mean, it's no idea for us to import from the warehouse in the Netherlands to launch in the U.K. with double duties and so on. It's more that than.
Where will you be in terms of share of volumes, you think, by June next year for BTC of your own assortment?
In the end of next year, I hope we can have up to 20%. Okay. You can say today the interesting thing is that Printer, that are the biggest brands there, they are brand number 10 today. If you look on all the brands they are selling in sales, they are number four in gross margin in money. It is a huge impact if we can move this.
Where do you need or where would you like to go with the Cotton Classic acquisition in terms of your own assortment?
I would say that that's the same in BTC and Cotton Classic. Hopefully, up to maybe 40% because we should also remember that they distribute also low-priced brands that give some adoptive clients, and we don't have those products, and we don't want to develop those products. We will continue with that. That's the strength for, for example, Cotton Classic in the future is that they have the full range. Now they are much more orientated to low-priced basics.
All right. Thank you. I'll hand it over to.
Emmanuel Jensen, Danske Bank. Staying on Cotton Classic then, in terms of profitability, I think you stated around 5-6% EBIT margin, right? Where do you think the potential is there to raise the profitability over time?
15.
15? And.
They will never be the, neither them nor BTC can come up to 20- 25 because to be up there, which we are with several of our corporate companies. For example, I think Netherlands has been on, can be an average 25 for a couple of years. That we can't reach with the external brand standing for 60% or something. I think we can get them up to 50%.
Perhaps difficult to estimate, but how long do you think that will take?
Three, four years, I guess. You know, it's quite a long process because first we should have the stock, then we should sell in samples to all the clients so they have in their showroom, and then they should start selling. I mean, in the past, sometimes we have underestimated the time a little bit. So far, when we have established countries or made acquisitions, I think we have succeeded in all cases on corporates, 100% score. Quite often, it's one or two years longer time than we thought when we did it. It's the same when we establish from scratch. Hopefully, we have learned something about now. We are a little bit more defensive in how long time it will take, for example, in Ireland. Or more realistic, maybe.
That's very clear. You think that you can use Cotton Classic also to maybe find some synergies via the teamware establishment in Germany, for example?
Yes, but it's a little bit tricky because you can say that the current distribution is mainly in Mid and North Europe, the sport chains like Intersport and Stadium and so on, if you take Swedish examples. In Germany, you have one big player, or you have two big players. You have 11 Teamsport and one more. 11 Teamsport also belongs to Intersport, even if it's not a shop. It's not very, very popular to put in 50, or I think it's 45,000 clients they have, Cotton Classic, if I remember correctly. They will not be extremely happy if 45,000 new clients all over Europe get access to the teamware, but we can do it partly at least. I don't say we could introduce the whole teamware collection through them without negative effects on the chains.
Okay, great. Moving to the U.S. market, it still seems a bit uncertain how everything will develop in the near term. Would you say that this has postponed any of your investments in the U.S. regarding teamware?
No, no, no. I mean, we don't postpone and we don't put the foot on the brakes either. We still have the same planning with establishment, one more warehouse in the U.S., South U.S., probably Texas, as soon as we can and so on. I prefer, I mean, I think it's 27 years we've been public now. I think the development during those 27 years is quite good. It's better to take it easy. If we make a little bit less profit, we should still remember that we are quite profitable. Even if this quarter was down, I prefer to have a few quarters that are tougher and standing very, very strong in the coming 5, 6, 7 years. It doesn't change our plan at all. As I said before, we have signed a new warehouse agreement in Ireland. We will sign in South U.S.
as soon as we find the right facilities and so on. We continue the same speed.
Where are you now in your teamware establishment in the U.S., you would say?
Still step one, I would say. We have gained some very good clients. One quite big is Challenger, for example. We start gaining more and more resellers. Of course, step one is really to gain our clients. Step two is that our client then should convince, in this case, the school. I don't want to say the clubs, but it's more school business in the U.S. than here. Most often they are under contract with some other brands, and the time is up to five years, same as the clubs here. It will take five years because we even have had the chance to offer everybody we want if you're talking to end users. It's the same in Europe, but then it's more sports club. It's like Hammarby, for example, that we, I think our agreement with them now is to 2030, if I remember correct.
No one else can get in at that time. It's opposite with other clubs. We have a long, long list in Europe for the first two, three divisions in each country when their contracts are ending. We will try to do the same with the schools, athletic clubs, and schools in the U.S.
Okay, great. You were mentioning, I think in the CEO wording, that you are seeing some positive market signals. We can also see that you're starting to also increase your inventory levels. Can you maybe give us some more colors on that?
I'm pretty sure it will turn around, but I have no clue when. I thought it should come quickly, and it has done that. I didn't expect that we should thought that the second quarter in general in the market should be tougher than the first. If you see that our clients don't have big stocks today, as soon as the sales start for them, they need to start ordering better again or more again, which was not the situation if you go back for one year or something when a lot of them have too big stocks themselves, especially on retail. The only thing that we know now in Scandinavia is that it's a little bit too much winter garments after this winter on stock in the retail chains. It's a much better situation.
You can say also people start talking more positive, at least even if we don't see it in the figures. On corporate, I think it has stabilized. We were down 2%, I think it was. That I think is quite good in this situation. The only public ones we can see there in Sweden is Allego, that are big clients to us. I think they were down 3.9% or something in the last report, if I remember correctly. On the retail, it's much, much tougher. I don't know the sales exactly, but I looked briefly on the stock rate, the stock value for Adidas, Puma, and Nike. It was not such a good development this year. It has been tough there.
Great. Maybe final question, you mentioning this high robotics. I think previously I mainly have out-of-store solutions. Is there any particular reason?
Can you help me on that?
High robotics is a newer automation.
High robotics is a newer automation system. In existing warehouses, it could be easier and more cost-effective to have high robotics. We're also looking into having completely new warehouses. We want to try both and compare and see which is the best in the long run.
I think also that high robotics is a higher grade of automation when we flow the goods in and out.
Yeah, it's also more flexible. If you increase the warehouse and build it up so you have a larger area, it's easier with high robotics to put in more robots than extending an existing out-of-store.
Any more questions from inside?
Okay, then we move on to the question that has been sent to us. It's a fair amount. The first one is, turbulence on tariff, has it cost any efficiencies for you to date, change the overall sourcing landscape? Is that tougher or easier to get volumes from where you want them?
No, I wouldn't say that. Of course, it takes time to move so much production from some countries to other countries, but it has not been a huge problem for us. If it had cost something, it had done cost a little bit on the lead times that we have a little bit longer lead times now, right now than we had before in the production because it's not easy for factories located in other countries either to suddenly have a lot of order that they didn't know about one year ago or two years ago.
Could you talk a little bit about the trend for Craft and Craft Shoes?
Yeah, it's continued to increase. We knew that it will be a long race, but we continue to increase all the time. Now we also launch, I think it's if it's 10 months, we also launch indoor where we think we also will have an easier actually to get in since we have a lot of teams and clubs in indoor in another way than you can create on running. For example, we have several teams in both basketball and handball in not only the Swedish League, in the Bundesliga, in Germany, and so on. We just signed the basketball national team in Austria. We have a Swedish handball team and so on. We think that that will be much quicker. We continue.
Thank you. Is the Cotton Classic acquisition now closed? If so, when will you consider it consolidated into New Wave Group AB?
It's closed in the way that we have made all agreements in that perspective. It's, as we said before, it's 18th of August where it's the last day that the competition authorities in Austria can protest. If they don't, which we expect they don't, we will take it in from 1st of September.
Thank you. Could I please ask for a bit more detail on why sport and leisure growth was weaker in its corresponding margin? How is it affected by Easter? I thought that was more of a corporate effect.
Yeah, definitely. Eastern is more on corporate, but retail has been very, very weak. You can say now it's, I think in July is the first time where the sports index actually was a little bit up. Before that, I think it was down for 13 quarters in a row. The environment on retail has been much worse than on corporate.
Thank you. Do you see any call for actions to improve the result from the gift section?
I beg your pardon?
Do you see any call for actions to improve the results for the gift section?
Yeah, we try to take action there every day. Not any big changes, but yeah.
New Wave Group AB has increased the staff under the period. Will there be any change in the number of employees in Sweden this year?
Any change in?
Number of employees in Sweden this year?
Not much.
Not much.
It's the increase in the number of people. For example, some place a big port shakes and that we don't need more Shakespearean in Sweden or in Scandinavia, we don't need more. It's very focused on the U.S. and Germany. It will be on Ireland and so on. You can say that during this quarter, we also have an effect on warehouses where we have to take in more people when we're temporary, when we make the automatizations. We have to deliver to the clients in a decent way, even if we have, and then you should fill up all the systems and so on. Actually, every automatization we do, you've got a shorter negative effect on the number of employees before you reach efficiency. Instead, you go the other direction and have less and less.
Moving on to the last one here. You mentioned targeted one-time campaigns impacting marketing spending in the quarter. Does this type of investment pay off in the current market? Did you see the impact you were after? Will there be the same approach in the coming quarters?
It's not any big things planned the coming quarters right now. It's mainly two bigger events. It was New York Marathon where we did a lot about Craft Shoes, and it was Stockholm Marathon. They will not come back. If they pay off or not, we know three, four years later. We don't run the marketing and the campaigns to increase the sales those days. It's brand building, more we can say. I think it does because if we, I mean, we have continued growth most years for a very long time. It's not that we're, I mean, building brand is not working the way as another retail company that can make an ad and give a discount and they sell day one. This is more long-term marketing.
Thank you.
[Foreign Language]
That was all the questions we had. Thank you so much for the presentation.
Thank you all. Thanks.