Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Nobia Q4 Report 2023 webcast and conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Tobias Norrby, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to this call presenting Nobia's fourth quarter results for 2023, and the rights issue announcement from this morning. Presentation today will be conducted by our President and CEO, Mr. Jon Sintorn, and our Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Henrik Skogsfors. And with that, I leave the word over to you, Jon.
Thank you, Tobias, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the call today. I will start with commenting on the quarter before turning over to this morning's announcement on the rights issue. We delivered a positive operating profit in the fourth quarter, adjusted for the items affecting comparability. Given the continued tough market situation, driven by poor macro fundamentals with a significant organic sales decline, as well as currency headwind, negatively impacting the result, we regard this as a good achievement. The organic growth in the quarter came in at -22% for the group. The business-to-business project segment accounted for the majority of the decline. However, net sales are also lower for the consumer sales. Again, the market situation is tough, which is clearly reflected in our top line. There are nonetheless several positive developments to note. Firstly, our cost reduction program continues to deliver.
In the quarter, the positive impact from the program was SEK 90 million. On top of that, we're also maintaining a tight cost control overall, which results in additional savings. Year to date, the program has delivered cost savings of SEK 280 million. At the full effect by mid-2024, the restructuring program will deliver annualized cost reductions of up to SEK 350 million. Furthermore, the cost of our input material is starting to decrease slightly, and our price increases continue to have an effect. As a result, the gross margin for the group increased. In fact, gross margin was higher in all of our three regions, and for the full year, we have a flat gross margin despite the very challenging market and volume situation.
Group operating profit for the quarter was SEK 3 million positive, compared to SEK 25 million last year, adjusted for items affecting comparability. As I said, we have several positives helping us, but when sales decline, 22%, the volume impact is extreme and difficult to completely offset. Our main strategic initiatives, setting up the factory in Jönköping, remains on track. It has been an intense year for the factory, with extensive machinery installations and testings and so on. This year will be intense as well. There are some machinery installations remaining, but 2024 is more about commissioning and testing, and IT, and connecting processes and flows, and so on, to ensure that we have the full capability for kitchen manufacturing, full kitchen order manufacturing and order consolidation for complete orders by the end of the year. To repeat, there is a production happening already.
We are producing kitchen components for assembly in the Tidaholm facility, as well as starting the first flat pack kitchen deliveries. In January, we entered into a sale and leaseback agreement of the factory building. We now become the long-term tenants in the building with a 20+ year extension lease contract. A few words on the U.K. transformation program. We're making good progress. Cost savings and restructuring measures are showing positive effects. With a more attractive product mix, an increased average order value, and a clear gross margin improvement, we will continue to drive further improvements, for example, by adding asset-light distribution models. This is a capital-efficient way to increase our sales distribution reach, which also makes us more agile in the front end and less volume sensitive.
We have recently reached an agreement for a shop-in-shop concept in partnership with Selco, a leading U.K. builders merchant, where we now have received the very first kitchen orders. Also, we are delivering a very good winter sales period with strong consumer order intake during this traditional market-wide campaign. Moving on to the next slide, the kitchen market development. As you know, the market has declined significantly during 2023 due to the macroeconomic development. No major shift in the market compared with the last quarter, and in general, we believe that we will see some market stabilization in 2024, and a start of recovery in 2025, led by the consumer segment. The consumer segment sales initially experienced a sharper decline than the project segment.
Demand from project customers has declined due to fewer housing construction starts and the gradual diminishing of housing projects under completion. So the project segment held up better due to the longer lead time between order and delivery. The decline in order intake has, as the year has passed, started to flatten out. However, the intake is still slightly declining. If we look at the Nordics market, in general, there is the same trend in all our markets, but looking at the Nordics market, the consumer market decline is flattening out, then project market on the back of housing starts, and the lag is the continued decline, and as the housing completions are tapering off. And then looking at the U.K., retail and trade market is declining due to cautious consumer sentiment.
However, starting to see a little bit of the same as in the Nordics, stabilization, but then, project market also in decline, and then also in the Netherlands, softer markets in both countries. The overall trend in all our markets are quite similar. Then, next slide, please. Over to the news from this morning. With a strategically important investment in the Jönköping factory, our investment levels are entirely high. Together with a very weak market, it has resulted in a strained financial position. In order to resolve this situation and enable the completion of the investment, we have taken a number of actions to strengthen the balance sheet. However, I would like to note that the company is managing the underlying business in this market situation. Disregarding the Jönköping factory, our leverage would be well within our financial targets.
The board of directors at this morning resolved on a fully guaranteed rights issue of new shares of approximately SEK 1.25 billion, with preferential rights for existing shareholders. We also announced that we have reached an agreement with our lenders regarding an amendment and extension of our revolving credit facilities. The purpose of the rights issue is to adjust the capital structure, finance remaining investments in the Jönköping factory, and strengthen the balance sheet in order to secure long-term financing that allows sufficient operational and financial flexibility. The main owners are fully committed and are supporting the strategy, realizing the full potential in the Nordics with harmonized products and processes, and a highly efficient factory with superior product and production capabilities. The rights issue resolution follows our other actions taken.
We have, during January and February, announced that we have signed and now also closed the sale and leaseback of the Jönköping factory building and the divestment of non-core assets. We have a firm focus on our businesses in the Nordics and the U.K. As a consequence, we have divested Bribus in the Netherlands and ewe in Austria. Both transactions are expected to close before the end of March. Please note that all of these actions are taken after the close of the year, so no impact from the actions are recognized in the financial statements for 2023. We can now continue to execute on the strategy and finalize the important Jönköping factory that will render us superior product and manufacturing capabilities.
By leveraging the full potential of our Nordic operation and drive transformation in our U.K. businesses, we are committed to delivering value to shareholders and customers. I would like to take this opportunity to convey gratitude and really thank the entire organization and stakeholders that have managed the business in the very tough, these very tough times. At the same time, as we have successfully managed big strategic projects and several transactions, a big thank you all. With that, over to you, Henrik, for some further details on the numbers.
Thank you, Jon. Then let's jump into the Nordic region to start with. A very solid improvement of 1.6 percentage points to 33.3% for the gross margin in the quarter. A strong performance considering the large volume decline. We have improvement on back of price realizations. We have reduced costs as well as favorable product mix, where consumer sales holds up better compared to the professional segment. The improvement in gross margin was partially mitigated by adverse currency effects. The organic sales experienced a decline of 25%. As mentioned, price realization was good across the board and continued to support top line. This was counterbalanced by a notable decrease in volume, which affected the sales performance in all countries and in all segments.
The project in the trade sector observed the most significant sales decline, followed by a slightly smaller drop in the retail sector. Reduction of selling and administrative costs benefited the result in the quarter, where the impact from the restructuring and cost program, which was communicated in January last year, resulted in savings of approximately SEK 20 million in the quarter. As outlined in the quarterly report, we accounted for SEK 78 million as items affecting comparability in the quarter. These costs are primarily associated with the move of Jönköping factory to asset held for sales in the fourth quarter, as well as the transition for Tidaholm and headcount reduction in Finland. I am pleased to note that we are successfully managing the situation, delivering a positive EBIT despite a very challenging market situation. Please move to next slide. Thank you.
We notice very good progress in the gross margin, which increased by five percentage points on back of the progress in our U.K. transformation strategy, with higher average order values on back of higher share of sales in the premium segment. As communicated last year, the company is strategically withdrawing from the lower margin portions of the product segment, which is one of the components of the gross margin uplift. Organic sales declined by 21%. The U.K. kitchen market, much like the Nordics, exhibited softness during the quarter, partly then related to the withdrawal from the low margin portion of the project segment. Economic headwinds particularly affected consumer sales in retail, leading to reduced volumes.
The savings resulted from the restructuring and cost program communicated, last year, like, as I mentioned, for the Nordics, it positively impacted the quarter by around SEK 60 million, slightly surpassing our expectations and driving the reduction in selling and admin costs in the quarter. Despite that, sales are declining 21% on an organic basis. U.K. are improving the profit by SEK 47 million compared to last year, with strong support from the gross margin as well as saving activities. Next slide, please. Portfolio business units. Portfolio business units delivered a flat EBIT compared to last year, despite an organic sales decline of 13%. Sales declined primarily on back of volume and mix, offset in parts by realized price increases.
Also, as you mentioned earlier, gross margin is for portfolio business units by 1.7 percentage points on back of price increases, favorable development of input material prices in combination with stringent cost management. The Netherlands, the largest entity in the portfolio business units, they managed to offset the market slowdown with price increases together with an improvement of input material prices. The Austrian market remains challenging, where price increases and favorable development of input material prices was more than offset by a reduction in volume. Going forward, and following the divestment of Bribus and ewe, our Commodore and CIE business will be, from now on, included in U.K., and Superfront will be included in the Nordics in the follow-ups to come. Next slide, please. The financial position.
Cash flow from operating activities declined by SEK 85 million in the quarter year-over-year, on back of reduced working capital liabilities. The lower positive effect from working capital was mainly driven by the termination of a supply chain financing program, being a timing impact between the quarters. The impact in the quarter was approximately negative SEK 200 million, excluding the effect from the supply chain financing program termination, cash flow from operating activities was positive. We expect that first quarter of 2024 will be impacted by approximately the same amount before the program is phased out. The operating cash flow, including investments, amounted to negative SEK 188 million, whereof investments in the quarter, primarily related to the construction of the Jönköping factory, amounted to SEK 508 million.
The net debt, excluding leasing and pension debt, increased by SEK 425 million in the quarter to SEK 3,464 million. The increase in net debt was expected as we are continuing to build the factory. The increase in net debt, in combination with a decline in the EBITDA, resulted in a leverage of 7.6. We have, in previous investor calls, communicated that we are fully committed to reduce debt and explore various debt reduction options. As announced, January 19, we executed the sale and leaseback transaction of the property in Jönköping. Last Monday, we announced the divestment of our operations in the Netherlands, and yesterday, we released information on the divestment of the Austrian business.
On top of these debt-reducing activities, we communicated a fully guaranteed rights issue in addition to an amendment and extension of the credit facilities this morning, as you heard Jon talked about a little bit earlier. The new agreement is adopted to reflect Nobia's current situation. All these net debt-reducing activities will strengthen the balance sheet and allow for operational and financial flexibility. That was all from me, so over to you again, Jon, please. Okay, so, okay, I was missing it one more time. This is a summary of the rights issue that announced this morning. A fully guaranteed rights issue that is estimated to get gross proceeds of SEK 1.25 billion. We have a guarantee undertakings covering 100% of the issue from the largest shareholders of Nobia.
As Jon mentioned earlier, we will use the proceeds to finance the remaining investments for the Jönköping factory, and also, as I just mentioned, to strengthen the balance sheet and allowing for operational and financial flexibility. The net debt development that you can see to the right on the graph is the 7.6, as we have as per the fourth quarter. The net debt reduction activities that I mentioned on the previous slide will take us down in net debt, and by that, reduce our leverage situation. So the, the fact is that in the short term, the leverage is expected to increase due to the remaining outflows that we will have during 2024, before the factory is completed, as Jon mentioned earlier, by the end of the year.
And then priorities going forward. Obviously, in this market circumstance and where we're at right now, continue to drive sales is important and a focus area, across the organization. And we will continue to drive cost efficiency beyond the cost program that we talked about earlier in this call, and have talked about before as well. And we will realize the full potential of the Nordic region, and that includes completion of the new factory in Jönköping. Significant, important task going forward, of course. And then continue with the U.K. transformation, as we also expressed, the improving our proposition, improving our gross margin, and looking for further asset-light new sales distribution points, et cetera.
And then last on this slide, but not least, we have the rights issue, obviously an important task to do and complete in the best of way, which is a focus for us in the organization. So with that, thank you very much for listening to this presentation, and we move over to the Q&A session.
Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone keypad. We will now go to your first question.... One moment, please. And your first question comes from the line of Rasmus Engberg from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, can you hear me?
Yes.
Very good. What, I was just wondering about the disposals that you announced that after the end of the quarter in the Netherlands and Austria. Well, can you give us an indication what the EBITDA was from those units?
We can give you a flavor of the EBIT, but as we said earlier, it will be reflected in the first quarter of 2024, because the only impact that we had in the fourth quarter, Rasmus, was the move of an asset, the Jönköping asset to asset held for sale. The rest will be reflected together with the pro forma in the first quarter of 2024. But as an indication, approximately on the sales wise, around SEK 1.7 billion of the sales 2023, the full year, are associated with sales from ewe and Bribus.
1.7?
SEK 1.7 billion in sales.
Okay.
Yes, absolutely. And around SEK 150 million in EBIT.
Yep. And EBITDA, is that sort of proportional to the rest of the company, more or less?
Yes. Yes.
Okay. Right. And, the other question is, on the sale and leaseback, have you done your calculation on how much lease debt we should put in the balance sheet, roughly?
Yeah, approximately SEK 1 billion.
1 billion. Okay.
Yeah.
Very good. And then finally, on the... You give an indication in the material where you say that EBITDA should be positively impacted by 3.5 percentage points in 2026, assuming the volume that we had in 2023. How does it look to get there? Is it all in 2026, or is it gradually, or is it even negative initially? Or, you know, what can you say about the ramp-up of the factory?
So I'm not sure I understood your question fully correctly, but in terms of ramp up, we have communicated before that the Tidaholm by the end of the year, the capabilities will be ready. So early 2025, the first quarter, the Tidaholm will be transferred into the Jönköping facility, and then we need to find stability and so on, to make sure that that's all fine. So the second half of 2025, it's the HTH Sweden, Norway, and Finland volumes that are to be transferred into the Jönköping factory. And those are the plans that we have conveyed since before. So that's a gradual ramp up.
And the benefits in terms of savings, are they mostly gonna be then in 2026 and late 2025, maybe?
Yes, that's correct.
Mm. Correct. And just a final question while I'm on the line, you have some remaining units in PBU, in portfolio business units, that you are now moving back into the U.K. business. I mean, I assume those are loss making. Is there a plan to sort of exit those or restructure them separately? Or what is your thought on those businesses?
They are being restructured as we conveyed before closing of one factory. So we have less fixed cost for that business, being the Commodore business, and we have gradually, and now even more so, sold the Magnet product from that. So it's a very capable project team that we have in that entity, and we're selling more and more of the Magnet project. So that type of transition or
Yeah.
Transformation is ongoing, as we speak.
Yes, so they are more integrated rather than sort of dressed up to, for exit like that.
Correct.
Very good. Thank you.
It's completely in line with focus on the Magnet business in the U.K., as we have conveyed.
Yep.
Thank you. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone keypad. That is star one and one to ask a question. We will now go to your next question. Your next question comes from the line of Hanna Lindbo from DNB. Please go ahead.
Hi, and good morning, everyone. My first question is, well, I would like some clarification on the SEK 1 billion left of investment in the Jönköping factory. Is this including everything like your CapEx? 'Cause I know the buyer of the factory was supposed to pay for the building.
No, no, that's our... It's our,
It's what you-
... Because we sold the building, not the machinery.
Ah, okay, because I thought it was supposed to be a bit lower than that, but yeah, that's fine. And then also I had a question, like, what happens to... You have a quite large factory in Denmark, and now after these investments, and you're supposed to move production to the Jönköping factory, are you planning on closing this one or selling it?
Your question was whether we plan to close the Danish factory?
The factory in Denmark, yeah.
No, those are not according to our plans.
Okay. But what are you planning on producing there going further?
Well, the Danish market, to start with, HTH has a very strong market position in Denmark, so significant volumes going for the Danish market in their good factory.
Okay.
One should remember that the overall, when it is a bit of a statisticalness, so when the market is very on the peak, so to speak, contrary to today, which is very low, but when it's on the peak, we've had the capacity constraints in our manufacturing footprint. So this is one way of resolving that, so we can follow, so to speak, or take advantage of a better market circumstance, as well.
All right. But you're not planning on, like, moving, 'cause my view was that you were gonna move the HTH production to the Jönköping one, but maybe that's a bit further down the line.
So what we have said is that the Tidaholm volumes, Mölndal, will be transferred to Jönköping, and then volumes out of transport efficiency and so on from Norway, and Sweden, and Finland to different transport in Jönköping. With that, that we believe that we have good, a good setup for for our manufacturing at this point.
All right.
But we also have said that we are catering for in very peak times, we have capacity to grow and a better resilience in the downturn. But that's a decision-
Mm.
-for later. But the Danish factory is to stay, to remain, you know?
Yeah. All right, great. Just last question here, a bit, maybe if we could get some more flavor on these divestments you announced this last week. Was this a move to like trying to avoid a rights issue, or was... Is this something you have thought about longer?
In some time, recognizing that when we saw where the market was going, realizing it would be a softer market, and then that was timed with, in that sense, unfortunate timing with when we had the biggest outflows in terms of the investment in Jönköping.
Mm.
We looked at what actions can we take, and should we take? So we were working in a comprehensive approach, looking at how do we strengthen our financial position? And then a few things, first of all, the sale and leaseback, divestments on non-core assets, getting a credit facility agreement in place, and now also the rights issue. It's a total package in order to secure our long-term financing to complete the strategy that we have embarked on. So that's the main approach in order to safeguard in this softer and more difficult and challenging market circumstance. If we look at the divestments as such, so in terms of timing, yes, there is a connection.
But in terms of strategy, we have and shall have a lot of opportunities going forward with, focusing on the full potential in the Nordic business, on the back of strong market positions, good brands, very strong brands, and now facilitating a good, let's call it, supporting system with harmonized products, harmonized processes, and a very good and capable factory. That's a key priority. And then doing the transformation on the back of a strong, good brand, focusing the business as well around Magnet, and do that business model, an asset-light distribution, much like in the Nordics. Those are the main strategic initiatives and focus that we have for the business. And with that, the Dutch and the Austrian operations, well, it doesn't really fit into that situation or that program as we are right now.
In that sense, strategically also, it makes sense.
Mm.
And by the way, for them to further develop, they also would need capital for capacity and market, business development and those sorts of things. And for us, that here and now, our focus is elsewhere, on the Nordics and the UK. So it's twofold.
Yeah. That's very clear. Thank you very much. That was everything from me.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. There are currently no further questions. I will hand the call back.
Okay, well, then with that, we conclude, and we welcome you all back for the first quarter results that are gonna be published on the fourteenth of May. So thank you very much, everyone, for calling today.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thanks for participating. You may now disconnect.