Very, very welcome to the presentation of Q3 and to this take. That we hopefully will spend together, all of us. If we start with Q3, I'm quite happy with the quarter, or you can say I'm actually happy with all points, excluding the one-off cost we had in the U.S. Otherwise, the growth is up to 8.3% i f you combine organic with acquired. In local currencies, I should say, because in the whole P&L, the currency affects quite a lot on all lines. We have come closer to the minimum of 10% again that we want to have in growth. Here is really nothing new. The number of employees will increase the coming quarter due to Cotton Classic. If I understood correctly, Anna is in this figure with 112 part of the employees there. That will increase. We are out in 25 countries now.
The segments you know. Yeah, nothing I've changed here. I think I recognize most of you, so I think you're familiar with those three different segments. The only thing, big change is actually under Corporate, where you now have then since 1st of September, Cotton Classic in. The external brands they are selling, we will not take up as a brand here. They have started to sell our, and I will come back to that in the afternoon. On the 1st of September, we consolidated Cotton Classic, which is very, very nice. We have that as a point in the afternoon, so I will not talk so much about that in this presentation. We had one off-cost for the COVID loans in the U.S. that are taken in Q3, and we also announced it before the report, a couple of weeks before. I don't remember the exact date. The currency continued to have negative reflections for us. I think that it will be more stable, but no one knows. Quarter end brief. 8.3% sales increase, including currencies, in local currencies, and including the.
Oh, shit. Yeah, shit.
I thought it was closed, sorry. But in the SEK, it's 4.2% then. Promo channel was very, very strong, I would say, with 7.2%, r etail was much weaker. You can say the spread we have between those two distribution channels, I'm very, very happy with, because if we were only depending today on retail, it would be a very, very tough situation. In general, I was quite disappointed when they released, for example, the Swedish sport index for the third quarter. If I remember correctly, it was first 13 quarters in a row that were negative, and then Q1, Q2 was a little bit up. I hope that that was a real change. Now Q3 came out with a small minus again. I'm very, very happy for the promo channel.
If we see on a certain brand like Craft, if we are only depending today on selling out from shop and did not have teamwear, corporate, it would be a very, very tough situation because the market on consumers is tough all over Europe, actually. It is a little bit hard to understand for me because now people have started, some consumers have started to have more money again, but obviously they do not spend them. I talked with a lot of operators for restaurants, and they have the same tendency, even in Stockholm, where the restaurants actually are quite full. People spend less. They buy more cheaper wines or two glasses of wine instead of one bottle and so on. It is a bit strange. The only segment that is really doing well in retail today is the low-price segment. It is a good combination.
All regions continue to grow in local currencies. Operating profit, if we exclude this one-off in the U.S. on SEK 66 million, it was just above last year's, which I think is very, very strong, actually, because we have a very high pace of investments in automatization and systems and also new markets now. That could have been actually much, much, much worse. I think we should point out an extremely strong gross margin. You can say we do not use discounts and such things to hold up the sales. That is also very, very nice. This comes down in operating profit than of the one-off on SEK 253 million. Sales SEK 2.39 million. I hope we soon can have a first quarter over SEK 3 billion. Sales + 3.6%. Organic we have talked about.
I think if retail b ecomes a little bit better, or the situation in the sports retail, especially where which are the biggest retail channels for us, I think we can have and will have a very, very nice growth, actually. Corporate n et sales, we have talked about. Sports and leisure also. Gifts and home was a little bit down. This is then not in local currencies, I should say, because then it looks quite different. Geographical markets, North America continues to be the biggest one. What's happened there? Yeah, it's back. North America is biggest. Sweden actually had a quite nice growth, which are a little bit surprising because we have very high market shares here now on most things. Benelux number three, and we have just taken Benelux out from the rest of Europe. Nordic regions, quite flat or flat. Rest of Europe is up. Of course, in the rest of Europe, Cotton Classic comes in nowadays then. We will look at that for not next year, but the year after, because now all Cotton Classic sales going into, I think it's, everything going into Austria, Anna?
Yes, the rest of Europe.
Yeah. There we should divide, if we can, when we have had it for a year, the different markets. Gross margin I mentioned, I think it is a very strong margin. It actually surprised me a little bit as well. That also, I think, shows our position on the market because with this weak market, a lot of companies discounting extra and so on, and we can actually continue to grow with a full gross margin. The quarter on 51.1%, I think, is, I am not 100% sure of what I say now, but I think it is the highest ever, actually. That is very, very nice. External cost increase, we have. We will start to decrease the IT costs again from at least 2027, I would say.
The reason that the IT cost increase is that we just right now pay actually for two systems, the old one and the new one. It is not so much we can do about it. Operating profit is SEK 253 million. The contribution from Cotton Classic was SEK 14 million this quarter. Here are the operating segments. It is not so much to comment, I think. Of course, they are affected then very much on sports and leisure on the one-off costs. Also a little bit actually on gifts and home, because it is all related, of course, to the U.S. entities. Cash flow, operating - SEK 249 million. That is planned, so that is nothing that worries us at all. It is both that we increase stocks and the new investments and launch we are doing with teamwear in the U.S.
We also open up now in a new warehouse in Ireland outside Dublin in January. We also launched a new concept in corporate and merchandising called Anthem Movement. The launch actually was this week, first at an exhibition in Germany and Belgium. It should be rolled out in all countries in January. All European countries, I should say. For nine months, sales increased by 2.6% and p romo up 5%. I also wrote in the report that I hope that we have the toughest time behind us on corporate because the growth has been better and better. We today need much more positive clients, and clients are more active today than they were a year ago.
It is very hard to predict because what is good today can be bad tomorrow because of what has happened around in the world, and it is still very unstable. Hopefully it is a trend. Per operating segment, it looks like this. The geographical areas, and now this is in SEK. For example, North America is much, much better in local currencies. That is a little bit surprising for me that t he U.S. is still, I would not describe it as strong, but it is much more stable on the market than I expected with all those things that have been. You wake up one morning and it should be 100% duty on China, next day it is 50%, and the third day they delay it. It is a total mess, actually. I am surprised that the market there is as strong as it is.
Gross margin also, yeah, 0.1 higher than last year if we look at the nine-month period. The rest is more or less the same comment as. It's on the third quarter. Operating segments. Operating profit on different segments. Here you can say, I would be quite happy with all segments except gifts and home furnishing if it was not for this SEK 66 million in the U.S. then. Still a very strong balance sheet after consolidation of Cotton Classic. We still have 52% equity, so we can continue to grow both by more acquisitions if we find the right ones. Also, of course, we want to speed up the organic growth with the new investments, with the new warehouses. Also with a lot of new products we have. I think I can say that we haven't had so much new products launched in many, many years.
I think last time we had so much new was actually when we launched Craft Teamwear. So we have a very good pipeline on products. Yeah, cash flow, it's not so much to comment. Rolling 12 months. We are on SEK 9.7 billion in sales. We would have been over SEK 10 billion if we had the same currency in the past, but I hope still we can go over SEK 10 billion very soon. In the rolling. Gross margin good, costs we have talked about o perating margin 12.1%, which I'm of course not happy with. I think if we can be between 12% and 15% u ntil we are c oming down a little bit in investments, I think it's still very good. I think we then have a very, very strong position to actually start climbing up against our goal that are 20%. Yeah. That's more or less what I had to say. We can open up for questions if you have any.
Thank you, Magnus Råman, SB1 Markets. Yeah, first I'd like to ask about the underlying gross margin being so strong. I think you said it's a record. I think looking back at Q3, it is. If you look at absolute quarters, you have had a better Q4. How would you describe the main drivers here behind this strong gross margin? I mean, you mentioned that you have not been discounting, but can you help us understand the viability of this?
A little bit, it's the product mix and that we grow, for example, in Craft Teamwear, where we have good gross margins. One part this quarter is also that the trading was less, which is what we operate with the lowest margin in the group. I think we have a very, very strong position and we have had the strong service for a long time now. I would say on the market, we have an extremely good reputation. We gain clients. Very few or no one leave us. We do not need to use the prices as an argument as it is now. It is a totally different situation than we had, for example, 12, 13 years ago when we had tacked down the stocks and could not service the client and clients left us.
If you want to keep them, you have to give them extra support and discounts and so on. I feel quite confident that we will continue with a high gross margin. Maybe not on this level because another quarter of the trading can come up, for example, and then it goes down a bit. On the main business, I think we can continue to have a very good gross margin. We should also remember that Cotton Classic operates on around 25%. That takes the gross margin down. Also, not so much in Q3 because it was only one month in the figures. If you include that as well, I think Q3 was very, very good.
Yes. Speaking of which, you mentioned that we will speak more about Cotton Classic later, but one cannot help just to ask one quick question here on the EBIT of September. Is there anything you would like to highlight to make us not too enthusiastic? Because if we analyze this EBIT, we might get very enthusiastic about the prospects here.
I'm enthusiastic. No, it's again, I mean, if you exclude, and I think I said that also after Q2, if you exclude the first six months of the pandemic and the last quarter and the first two quarters of 2008 or 2009, I think this is the absolutely most difficult situation to navigate in. With the different wars, Ukraine, Gaza, now also Sudan. You have Trump. Where we do not know sometimes from week to week what duty we will pay into the U.S., depending on country, of course. I mean, right now I'm feeling quite optimistic and it looks better, but that can be changed on Monday. It's a very tricky situation. I think that a bigger turnaround in the market in general we will not have before we have a more stable situation.
You mentioned the tariff and might hear more about that in a presentation later perhaps, but can you, do you know or can acknowledge if you expensed the cost of the tariff at the point of sale of that good that you brought in that was tariffed or if it is already at the point of purchase?
The problem is now it's going into the purchase, of course. I don't know, I think.
When we will see the gross margin, negative gross margin effect essentially if it is at the point of sale of these goods. I believe in the case of H&M, for example, they have warned later into this year that we will see increasing negative effects due to that fact.
Sometimes, sometimes not. It depends on if the goods are already sold. When it's shipped, which is a minor part. Otherwise, we also adjust the selling prices. I mean, if they increase tariffs from 20%- 100%, we can't absorb that. As it is now, I would say we had a few millions, I think, in extra costs in Q2. Q3, I actually don't know the figure. I don't know if you have any figure on that, Anna. I said I think the result was directly affected with some millions due to tariffs in Q2. I don't know about Q3 if we had anything there.
The result is affected in many ways. It's a bit tricky to navigate because it's both in cost and also increases in price. For example, I know that since May, going forward, Karin Bäck , for example, has had $3 million additional tariffs.
Okay .
That is not in the P&L because it's a net effect in the P&L so far.
Okay. You can at least say I can add that I'm extremely happy that we start moving a lot of production already last period to mainly Africa then. Because if we should be stuck totally in China now, it would be a huge problem.
Any other questions? In that case, we have some questions that have been sent to us. Cotton Classic contributing with 14% profit margin in Q3. Still see 5%.
Sorry, 14 million if I remember correct, not 14%.
All right, SEK 14 million. Then in Q3 s till see 5% as a good lever for a 12-month period. There is no question mark there, so I do not really know.
Oh yeah, you can say that. September, they had a very good month. Of course, we hope that continues, but I think that still that it will take some years, even if we have been much, much faster with those than with BTC, it is before we get them up. So if they can do like 5%, 6%, 7%, I think it's good. We should also remember that they are a typical company that look as New Wave did in the past when we only have corporate. September, October, November is very strong months. If we were consolidated them 1st of January, they will have contributed with a big loss because generally they have all the marketing cost and those sales. It is also a question of timing and that we should change their operating margin very, very fast, that I don't believe in. Maybe we can climb 2%-3% a year with a start from half a year or something because I don't want to answer more now because then it's not interesting enough to know.
Maybe you already answered this, but how did FX and tariffs impact gross income and EBIT in the quarter?
I don't know exactly, but you maybe can repeat, Anna.
I didn't hear the question.
Yes.
Maybe you should move so you're here.
How did FX and tariff impact gross income and EBIT in the quarter?
We don't have the figure. We release how the revenue is affected.
Another one here as well. You have improved the result for gifts and home furnishings. What have you done there in connection with the business in Kosta? What do you need to do to improve more?
It's a long list, I can say. No, but I think t here is maybe the area that we are most affected e xcluding retailing maybe in Grafton. Because there we're really depending on the consumers. There we can also, I didn't refer to Kosta before when I talk about restaurants, but for example, in August, we were in record in visitors, but we didn't have record sales. People spend less and so on. We need a general turnaround a little bit. Of course, we have a lot of things we are doing in the companies, everything from product development to, of course, try to improve the operations. That has also been a very tough market. It was very much up during the pandemic when everybody was working from home. They spend a lot of money on these categories. That we pay back after.
It is a tough job and you can also say that w e as management have two options t ry to put our time into the companies that are doing already good and improve them to be even better, or spend a lot of time trying to improve quite little down there. I must say we have worked more with improving the already good business. Also, of course, the integration of Cotton Classic can take quite a lot of time for finance, but also for me regarding products and marketing and so on.
Thank you. Any more questions in here? Yep.
Thank you, Andreas Lundberg with SEB. You talk a lot about inventory, but receivables were up quite a bit. Could you talk about the general dynamics of your receivables and whether that was an effect of strong September sales? Thank you.
I think it's two effects there. One is that September was strong. The second one, help me if I'm wrong, Anna, was that we took in Cotton Classic. So when they get consolidated, we get 100% of their receivables into our balance sheet, of course. I think it's those two things. I don't know how much the contribution, yeah, you want to fill in, Anna?
You're completely correct.
I think the average time we get paid on have not increased a lot, s o.
No, but the strong sale at the end of September is, of course, affecting.
Cool. Maybe a general question on competitive behavior. You experienced big difficulties during the financial crisis, basically, or a re you seeing similar behavior among today's competitors that cannot afford or have the guts to keep inventory or?
Not as it was 2009, but you see in some cases that they have less good service track. So, it's a little bit in that direction, but not at all as it was 2009. I mean, then everybody, or a lot, was panicking at the same time. I think our Chairman, Olaf, described it quite good because he said it's not a crisis anywhere, but it's like a wet blanket over everything. It's not as bad as it was then, but we see some tendencies.
What do you think it relates to? Uncertainty, financial situations, or knowledge, or what have you?
I think it's uncertain. Definitely. It's not my opinion. I can be wrong, of course, but it's not the financial situation. I mean, if you look at, we have a lot of, I think you know this better than me, but I guess, for example, that people are still saving much more money than in the past. I'm just guessing because it's not that they don't have money. You can say that some segments are still doing quite well, and l ow prices, we said before, is fantastic. That for me means that people spend, maybe not, yeah, they are more careful on what they spend on also. I think it's uncertain. I think now it will be very interesting to see what happens in the U.S. after the elections that were in New York and some other places. We need a more stable world.
Cool. Thanks.
Okay. I say thank you very much for listening. I should leave to Stephan. And Craft, thank you.