Welcome to the presentation of Q1. I can start to describe it as a very stable quarter. I'm a bit disappointed that we still don't see any better markets. I say that it's the longest period ever for me, and we have been on the stock exchange for 30 years, when it's weak markets and unstable every time. Fortunately, I can say that I'm not the only one that thought that the market should improve the last three years, but it's still not happening. I think as long as we have all this insecurity about the wars in Ukraine and in Iran now, and also in Gaza before, together with politics that we have in the U.S. right now, or have had for a while, with tariffs and insecurity and this, I don't think it will come a quick turnaround.
I'm happy anyhow that we continue to take market shares, we continue to grow. We have quite good growth in the U.S., actually. I see that U.S., I would describe, is a better market than Europe, which is a surprise in some ways because I was more worried for U.S. than Europe, if I go back. Yeah, 2,800. Just about 2,800 employees, 28 countries now, and we're selling in a few countries more than that where we have agents and distributors. And the same three segments as before. Yeah. This year, all new, I think, Corporate, Sports & Leisure and Gifts & Home Furnishings. If I should comment the markets a little bit, the corporate market is more stable. It's not good, but it's more stable than retail.
I saw some statistic, I think it was last week on clothing in Sweden, and that was actually growing, where the clothing retail was growing with 7%. I thought maybe it will be a turnaround now. Then come the e-commerce out today or yesterday, -90% in Sweden from March. It was the worst month for e-commerce in a long, long time. The Corporate is more stable, the retail is more tough, and a big part of the distribution and clients in Sports & Leisure and Gifts & Home is, of course, retailing clients now. If we look at the quarter, first of all, the currency still have a very, very big impact. The growth in local currencies was 13.2%, which is not really enough to really make good results. You can say we are close to.
We need a 3%-4% higher organic growth to really deliver good and improve net profits and operating margins again. I'm quite sure and confident that sooner or later we will have that growth, because we should remember that we are still in a tough market. Organic growth 2.9%, and here we do everything we can to get that up to 5%-6%. If we succeed with that, it will come down to the last line as well. Gross margin, very, very strong. I would say 50.4%, or 50%, sorry. Part of the explanation is that we have lower volumes on trading. We should also remember that Q1 last year, we did not have Cotton Classics that are around 25%. I think it's a record high gross margin if we consider that and layer into the figures.
Operating profit at SEK 200 million, just a little bit lower than last year. I think it's a stable result. I think on most areas, we are delivering still much, much better than competition. If you compare the bigger retail brands like PUMA and Nike and so on, it's far better figures. The cost continue to be high. Two main reasons. The ERP system, that will change, and that will go on for another year.
For two years.
For another two years. A lot of this is, of course, extra cost because we're operating two systems right now. How many have we implemented in? How many companies are on the new? France, Netherlands, two. Yeah. Hopefully it gets smoother and smoother as more companies come through this. The second thing is, of course, investments we are doing in new markets and also in new warehouses and warehouse automation. The really big one going on now is that we open up in Texas. Hopefully we're in operation 1st of October. That is a pure investment for the future. We are not servicing the U.S. in a good way right now as we do in Europe. With the two warehouses we have, we are based in Seattle and in Kentucky.
The investment in Texas is much, much bigger than a normal warehouse investment because we go for a full operation, same as Seattle, with embroidery and automation from day one and everything. It will cost some money in the beginning, but I'm very, very confident it will be a good investment. I think it's around SEK 200 million we invest there now. Then we cannot forget smaller investments like we open up a warehouse in Ireland in January this year and so on. We are on a pretty high cost level for the moment, which will not be a problem, actually, if we just can get this 3%-4% more growth. Sales +6.6%, again, in Swedish krona then. Local currency is 13.2%. Promo channel increased 10.8%. Retail down 0.9%.
We should also remember that Cotton Classics comes into the Corporate, so that's what makes it such a huge difference between them. The growth is in promo. It's of course acquisition, but also the new launch that you have behind you around Tech Movement. Also Cutter & Buck is doing very good, both in U.S. and Europe, actually. It's not so much to maybe comment this. If we look geographically, in the U.S., it's minus, and that's only currency.
Yes.
Since you have an organic growth in U.S. by 7% in local currencies. It's really affected by the currency there. Sweden is nice to be back on a very small growth, which I think is a very strong sign in this environment. Benelux doing well. Nordic countries, excluding Sweden, grows as well. Rest of Europe also and other countries is a little bit down and there you have the trading. You can say in local currencies, all regions are growing, excluding the other countries that are mainly the trading business. Gross margin, I'm very happy with. I think it's very few companies and competitors that actually report higher gross margins in this environment. We will try to keep it there.
Of course, it can be or will be in the future also if we have quarters where the trading comes up a lot. It can be down, but I think it's very safe to use all our own brands. External costs up, and there we showed it's SEK 92 million up, and there we also have for us positive currency effect. Actually the cost increase are even higher if you look at local currencies there. Yeah, that's mainly it on operating profits we have talked about. If you look at the different segments then, Sports & Leisure are improving a little bit, Corporate a little bit down, and Gifts & Home Furnishings is small improvement.
We should also remember that for some of the companies, Q1 is an extremely small quarter, not even in the best years, for example, in other parts of the world, it was profitable Q1. I think this picture will change a lot when we are at the end of the year. Cash flow, I would also describe as very stable, and that's good. I feel very happy for the balance sheet that we have today that give us quite a lot of space for continued growth and investment and also lot of security that we feel very safe in this. Now we probably will have a little bit lower cash flow or worse cash flow in maybe in your eyes when textiles improves, because it's not only the investment, we will also build up the stock.
There is no idea to have an empty warehouse, and that's quite a lot of money, so you can be prepared on that. Balance sheet, again, very strong. I would say probably one of the strongest if we compare with competitors in all three segments. We have an equity on over 55%. It's a good feeling. Yeah. It's nice to feel safe because even if the, let's say, the markets don't improve, if we can keep a decent profit level and this balance sheet, we are in extremely strong position and we are, I would say one of few sometimes that could be really patient and continue also long term investment in more tough times. Cotton Classics is, I would say doing very good. The implementation of our brands are doing well.
We launched them first month in September, actually 15 last year it came the first catalog out, but then none of our brands were still in their main catalog. That's all released in January. Now all those +3 new ones are in their main catalog, which comes out actually in mid-January and the road show is from mid-January to mid-February. Actually, if you look at the first quarter, it's more fair to say that they have sold our brands for two and a half months than three months. Was it 4% now?
3.4%.
It's already now 3.4% of their total sales is our brands in March, sorry. Interesting is also to see that the gross margin on our brands is between two and three times higher than the gross margin that I have on the distributed brands as an outcome, actually, not what we think. I'm happy with that, and it's also a new CEO in place that we have a good feeling for. That's basically it. That sounds. I think we open up for questions.
Carl-Johan Blomqvist at DNB Carnegie. Looking at the global environment for the moment, obviously stress in logistics part of the system, but how do you see it affecting your sourcing opportunities and have you been caught up in any of the flow problems that might be out there for the moment?
It's not really any very big effects, but the number of small delays and small problems have, of course, increased. As I said in the earlier report, I'm very happy that we also moved a lot of the production in good time to Africa. If we were as dependent on China today as we were three, four years ago, then it will be huge problems. We will see what's happening with the freight costs is, of course, a bit worrying. Oil prices we talked about in the beginning will probably. Our CBO and the buying manager expect if the oil prices on this level, he expects a 20% decrease in polyester raw material within six months. Again, also we have. I'm not nervous about that because we have always been able to change our pricing and not be so affected.
In one way, it can be positive if the prices start to increase a little bit for the sales also.
Obviously fantastic gross margins in the quarter, particularly looking underlying. It seems like there is a big, say, Craft and Cutter & Buck effect as you mentioned. Could you describe a little what's going on underlying there?
It's on record levels and I'm very happy with it. We have very strong positioning for several of the brands. Like you mentioned, the two most obvious is Cutter & Buck and Craft of course. I feel very confident and also the new collections like Untagged Movement have been received very well in the market. It also opened up new clients for us. For example, if you take, theoretically because we don't have them, but theoretically, we can sell under Untagged Movement as merchandise to every club, whether they are contracted by Adidas, Nike, PUMA, or ourselves, because those don't have the merchandise on stock. Now with the neutral label, it's opened up quite a lot of new markets.
One last as well. Looking at the ERP rollout, give us some idea of what you have learned so far from the countries where you have done it. I understand now you are targeting some of the bigger countries in the next 6-12 months.
I pause letting you, yeah.
It's correct, yes.
Yes. Now we are doing the implementation in the U.S., with Cutter & Buck which will be made step by step. We don't implement it in one time. We start with implementing one of the warehouses, then the second warehouses, then we also change the financial part. It's an important step also, doing the development of the template that we use. After that implementation, it will be smoother and more cost-effective, when we continue the rollout.
If I remember correctly, when we changed the ERP system in Cutter & Buck, was it 20 other systems that was affected? It's not, yeah, you put in one thing and now you're ready. Yeah.
When you speak of weak market, what exactly is weak and what is driving this? Grateful for more color on this and how it affect New Wave's business.
The retailing market, as I said before, especially weak compared with the Corporate that's almost stable. You have a quite, I would say, weak market and negative, best case, neutral consumers in most of the European countries. I think the reason for that is again, the instability that creates in a political way today and also all the wars that have or are going on. The consumers are definitely holding back their spending. That, I would say, it's valid for, I would say more or less all European countries, maybe Switzerland is an exception. They live their own life, but otherwise it doesn't matter if you look at U.K. or Germany or also Nordic countries.
Thank you. What was the gross margin for Cotton Classics in Q1?
Ooh, I don't think I have that figure even. They were in the plus on 25%, I think, 24%.
25%.
Yeah.
You said that the rollout on the new ERP system will continue another two years. Will the quarterly costs related to the implementation go up or down in the coming quarter? What was the impact on Q1 EBIT?
I pose that to one of you.
Mm-hmm.
We don't give details about how much the cost was in Q1. The cost will decrease in the future when we continue the implementations and rollout of the system.
Thank you. Do you see any potential to improve efficiency in Cotton Classics warehouse operations?
Definitely, but this will take some time, and I think the best thing to do is to actually, which we are looking into, establish a totally new warehouse, because going without automation in the current one would be maybe not a nightmare, but very difficult at least. What we're seeing up front is a new Cotton Classics warehouse, probably in the north of Germany, and then continue with old warehouse for distribution in the East and Austria and those countries.
Thank you. You maybe already answered this, but in Q4 you gave the underlying margin I asked for Cotton Classics. Would you care to do that here also in Q1?
Underlying margin.
The same question, but we don't give specific margins for specific companies, but undiluted from the acquisition of Cotton Classics, it was 52.5%.
Thank you so much. Could I please ask what drives the weak Sports & Leisure margins?
What drives the?
What drives the weak Sports & Leisure margins?
Very good question. No, but I think a lot of investments we are doing there is hitting that area because the Cutter & Buck where we do the new investments in Texas is belonging to that segment. Craft establishment in U.S. that are quite loss-making in the beginning is that segment as well. It's much more investments and costs going on there than it is in Corporate. It's also interesting because Cutter & Buck is a part of Sports & Leisure because that was classified that way when we acquired it. Today the majority of the sales in Cotton Classics are Corporate. It's not 100% fair, but most of the investment is in Craft and Cutter & Buck.
Also regarding Cutter & Buck in Sports & Leisure, it's the big currency headwind. It was -13% from currency really, so that of course affects Sports & Leisure most.
We should remember that Cutter & Buck is one of the most profitable companies we have, both in operating margin and in growth and so on, that perform very well. When you get a hit there, such a big one, the currency, it's also hitting that segment.
Thank you. How do you view the possibility of obtaining a refund on tariffs in the United States?
Good question. We discussed that yesterday, actually, and I think we will try. I read now that some of the bigger corporations are avoiding it because they're scared of Trump. I don't think we are so big, so we will be in focus. I think we should dare to try. Then we should also remember it's not extremely much money. If it would be that we have worse results last year, so to say. We will try to recover what we can. It's not much. Of course it's depending on, again, that a lot of the goods we have taken into the U.S. the last one or two or three years has been from Africa, not the countries that have been hit worse by the tariffs.
Thank you. How do you view the decline in Gifts & Home Furnishings linked to the fact that the overall retail share has decreased for several years?
Yeah, it's the toughest job we have is to turn around that segment. It's still very, very tough. We try to continue to decrease costs. We try to have higher efficiency in the production. We try to find new distribution channels. It's a headache. That's the only part anywhere where I'm happy if it's a small part.
Thank you. I think that was it.
Yeah. Maybe we can add also to this question about Gifts & Home, that if you look at all big acquisitions we have done the last years, has been in other areas because we are not happy at all ourselves with Gifts & Home Furnishings.
Okay? Thank you very much.