Welcome to WeSports Group Q1 call for 2026 . For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions- and- answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key five on their telephone keypad. Now I will hand the conference over to CEO Ted Sporre. Please go ahead.
Good morning, welcome to this Q1 release presentation for WeSports Group. We summarize Q1 2026 as another record-breaking quarter where we take considerable steps towards our financial targets. We delivered over 50% total net sales growth and almost 15% organic growth. We have significantly improved profitability and strongly improved cash flow, despite Q1 being a quarter where we built inventory to harvest growth in the spring and summer season. We have increased ownership share in several successful group companies and carried out key acquisitions. We meet the rest of the year, not only with this high pace, but also with a net cash position and a robust Nordic base that makes us well-positioned for growth independent of macro environment. Overall, another demonstration of the strength of our model. My name is Ted Sporre, and I'm the Group CEO. With me today, I have our CFO, Tim Holmlund Meier.
Our Group COO and Co-Founder, Niklas Hammar will also join for the Q&A. Before we dig deeper into the quarter, I will start with introducing WeSports Group, a good reminder for those who know us from before and a good introduction for others. I will give a summary of our first quarter, after which Tim will give a financial update before I conclude with my key takeaways. We will finalize with a Q&A, which will be moderated by our operator. Please follow the instructions to ask questions via the provided dial-in details. WeSports Group is the leading Nordic specialist group in sports and leisure equipment. We own leading specialist retailers and product brands with a focus on accelerating their growth and profitability. We have built leading market positions in the most attractive sport categories, driving a specialist model which is very different from the large sport chains.
We operate in a large Nordic consumer market worth over SEK 80 billion, on top of that, there is significant more market to capture in B2B and outside the Nordics. The WeSports stores and brands are leading and well-recognized by customers in their respective sport, showing a few examples here on this page. We reported net sales of SEK 3.4 billion for the last 12 months, with an adjusted EBIT of SEK 206 million. Including the full year impact of acquisitions until the end of the period, these numbers would be around SEK 4.15 billion and SEK 265 million EBITDA as a reference. We've been growing almost 30% on average the last years, as a testament to our competitive culture, we have more than 200 championship medals won by employees in the group.
Our financial targets are to reach net sales of SEK 10 billion by 2031, an adjusted EBITDA margin of 7%-8% in the medium term, with a net debt of 1x-2x in relation to the last 12 months EBITDA, adjusted for leasing. To achieve this, we have a proven model that combines four areas. Vertical integration with a growing share of own quality brands. We combine organic growth with a disciplined M&A strategy. We also run a decentralized model that maintains owner mentality in each company. While the group level is lean, we are very active in supporting business development and systematic in keeping track of each company P&L. As the fourth point, we leverage scale and share best practices across the group, enabling concrete synergies. Let's have a look at the quarter.
Overall, we deliver another record quarter in Q1. Right now, we have an incredible pace, delivering both high sales growth and an EBITDA that grows even faster. Net sales amounted to SEK 960 million, which is an increase with 52% versus last year. We also delivered almost 15% organic growth, managing to again beat the market and take share. Keeping in mind that we grew almost 50% in the comparable quarter of Q1 last year, this is nothing less than a great achievement by the full team. Looking at drivers, the cold winter drove good demand to our skiing specialists, Pölder Sport, Bromma Skidsport, and Rydéns, who managed to turn this into significant growth through great planning and resource management.
The cold winter, however, implied less demand for bike companies during January and February, but as this shifted in March, we managed to deliver strong growth here and also, for instance, in running, finishing off the last part of the quarter with a good start to the spring season. This illustrates the strength of our diversification across different sports and companies, regardless of the season. We continue to grow profit more than sales. Adjusted EBITDA, which by the way comes with zero adjustments this quarter, increased significantly to SEK 38 million, corresponding to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 4%. Adjusted gross margin improved to 35.6% versus 34.2% last year.
The margin increase here was driven by, for instance, an increased share of owned and controlled brands, which are now at 27% of group sales for the last 12 months and even higher for the quarter itself. It was also driven by a successful pricing strategy within winter sport equipment and a continued leverage in our model where we have strong cost control. Q1 is a quarter where you build inventory to prepare for spring and summer season. This year, we have also put extra effort here to secure that we capture growth opportunities no matter the macro environment. Despite this, we have managed to improve our cash flow significantly and improve inventory turnover. Tim will also show this in more detail later, but this means our cash conversion for the last 12 months has improved further.
The Q1 highlights also show how we continue to execute in line with our strategy. First, those of you who follow us know that a key part of our M&A strategy is that entrepreneurs and founders keep a minority stake to preserve the right ownership mindsets. We allocate capital step by step to businesses with proven growth and profit potential, with the intention to increase the ownership share to over 90% over time. After the end of the quarter, we have increased our ownership share in Bikelease from 60% to 100% and in SkiCom from 51% to 80%. We have also retained a controlling interest in the Norwegian bike retailer Birk Sport, which was previously an associated company.
With our current ownership shares, and this is an important point, this means that we own more than 77% of the last 12 months' adjusted EBITDA, and we have beneficial options to increase in several additional companies. A clear Q1 highlight was also the announcement of our acquisition of Renew Group with the world-renowned floorball brands Unihoc and Zone. The company will continue to be run under existing management with the focus to create an even better customer experience within floorball. After the end of the quarter, we have also finalized a minor acquisition where the racket specialist TennisShopen will be merged with the group racket retailers, creating a strong specialist position on the Nordic tennis and padel markets.
Including the full year effect of acquisitions, the last 12 months, including the quarter, group sales would be around SEK 4.15 billion, with SEK 265 million adjusted EBITDA to compare with the reported last 12 months numbers of SEK 3.4 billion and SEK 206 million. We continue to have an exciting acquisition pipeline with our strong financial position as a good base to drive further growth. We have also continued our focus on efficiency and business development, both in realizing group synergies through joint agreements in transport, payments, and insurance, and with AI as a clear enabler. We acknowledge that given the nature and the pace of development, AI needs to be run both in a decentralized and centralized way to drive real progress.
We have several initiatives throughout the group where we encourage each company and individual, as well as an ongoing strategic review, to scale those initiatives with most impact across the full group. Overall, the pace and steady improvements we have shown in Q1 makes me very confident for the rest of the year. Now, over to you, Tim, who will go through the financial details.
Thank you, Ted. Good morning, everyone. I will start by walking you through our sales performance for the quarter and the 12-month period, followed by profitability, cash flow, and our financial position. Let's start with sales. Net sales in the first quarter reached SEK 960 million, representing a growth of 52% compared to last year. Importantly, organic growth was also strong at 15%, demonstrating continued strength in the business model quarter-over-quarter. Looking at the main drivers this quarter, we can see that the companies active within winter sports had a strong start of the quarter with solid growth of both cross-country and alpine skiing equipment, as well as other winter-related gear. In the latter part of the quarter, both running and cycling benefited from the rapid change in temperature and grew very strong, especially during March.
This means that we continue to gain market shares within the categories we're in with a continued high demand and a strong customer engagement. Another driver was within business to business with continued performance in companies where the proportion of owned and controlled brands are higher, implying a strong contribution both to the growth and the margins. Looking at the 12-month period, net sales increased to SEK 3.4 billion in reported sales. With the impact of the recent acquisitions, we have now a total turnover that exceeds SEK 4.1 billion. Let's walk through the gross margin and cost development. Our adjusted gross margin amounted to 35.6% in the quarter, which is an improvement of 1.1% compared to last year. With this, we have increased our gross margin continuously during the last three quarters.
This improvement was both driven by an increased share of owned and controlled brands and a disciplined price approach, with strong sales in the right category of products during the right period, supporting both sales performance and margin quality. This positive contribution from companies with a high proportion of owned and controlled brands came both from newly acquired entities and others, creating a positive margin mix effect in the quarter. On the cost side, we continue to leverage on scale benefits and cost control. As sales increase, we're achieving operating leverage across the organization. Total OpEx, excluding D&A, decreased by 5 percentage points in relation to sales in the quarter, reflecting improved efficiency and scalability.
In particular, leverage on direct selling costs such as online marketing and fulfillment were the main drivers during this quarter, as personnel costs increased slightly due to a switch of external versus internal inventory personnel at one of the larger warehouses. Brings us to earnings. Adjusted EBITA for the quarter amounted to SEK 38 million compared to SEK 20 million in the same period last year. This corresponds to an adjusted EBITA margin of 4%, a significant improvement of 0.9%. For the 12-month period, adjusted EBIT amounted to SEK 206 million, corresponds to an adjusted EBIT margin of 6% compared to 4.7% for the last 12-month period. If adding the latest acquisitions, we have a rolling 12-month adjusted EBITA of around SEK 265 million. Let me now turn to cash flow and working capital.
Cash flow from operating activities improved significantly compared to last year, mainly driven by increased payables offsetting the increased inventory buildup for the spring season. This inventory buildup is normal for the season, where the main drivers have been the companies active within summer activities such as cycling, running, golf, and water sports. Cash conversion in relation to EBITDA, adjusted for leasing, has developed positive, with a rolling 12-month adjusted cash conversion of 86.2%, which we consider a high level given our strong growth. One key driver is our asset-light business model, with just 0.8% maintenance CapEx in relation to sales for the period, which corresponds to a decrease of 0.1% compared to the last 12 months period.
One other clear sign on healthy capital development is the uptick of return on capital employed, which has increased by almost 4% compared to the last 12-month period. A strong cash generation remains a key part of our business model and provides important financial flexibility going forward, both when it comes to enabling M&A activities, but also to mitigate potential turbulence in the market. Which brings us to the financial position. At period end, our net debt to EBITDA, adjusted for leasing, stood at - 0.1x , meaning that we have a net cash position. This, together with the credit facilities, provides a flexibility going forward, also for potentially larger acquisitions. Again, this places us in a stable financial position with a combination of improved earnings, organic growth, enhanced cash generation, together with a low leverage, it provides a robust platform for continued growth.
Back to you, Ted.
Thank you, Tim. Before we head to the Q&A, I will leave you with my key takeaways from the quarter. We have delivered more than 50% sales growth, continued market share gain, and an EBITDA that is again growing faster than sales. We have strengthened the group with new acquisitions and increased the ownership share in high-quality group companies in line with our capital allocation strategy. As the performance of the quarter signals, the uncertainty of political situation currently does not have any material impact on our business. Our diversification and robust Nordic base makes us well-positioned in light of this, and while we naturally monitor the developments, one should also keep in mind that historically, periods with lower international travel and high fuel prices have rather been driving demand for sports equipment, e-mobility, and bikes, as consumers prefer local activities and cost-efficient transport.
In any case, our solid cash flow and net cash position gives us the right base to execute on our targets.
In summary, another record-breaking quarter, we enter the rest of the year with a high pace from Q1, which makes me look forward to the coming period. Thanks to all coworkers in WeSports, shareholders, customers, and partners. Let's open up for questions.
The next question comes from Victor Hansen from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Ted and team, Victor here. First question, could you provide some details on how the different sport categories performed in Q1? You mentioned that skiing was strong, but this is quite small in Q2 and Q3. How much does this affect your current organic sales momentum?
Thank you, Victor. As you say, skiing was one of the strong categories at the beginning of Q1 and winter sports. We saw towards the end of the quarter that especially cycling and running were also really strong. We finished off the quarter with a good speed in cycling and running, which are among our largest categories. In general, I would say that we see good growth across the categories as such.
Okay, perfect. You alluded to it, but any comment on how April went that you want to share?
I mean, obviously, I cannot go into detail on April, and one should remember that diversification that we have in our group is a key strength, but it also means that different companies are coming more into play depending on which quarter it is. What I can say is that we had very strong pace at the end of Q1, and I'm confident in the model and happy with the progress we're making overall.
Okay. On the gross margin, that was good. What percentage is your owned and controlled brands now?
If you look at the last 12 months, our percentage of owned and controlled brands is around 27%. Looking at the quarter in isolation without mentioning the exact number, we can say it's a little bit higher than that. We see a continued positive trend here in line with the strategy that we're driving.
Perfect. You made quite a lot of M&A recently. Should we expect a bit quieter period now to integrate that?
Niklas here. Not necessarily. We do have, as we had before, we do have a quite a robust and strong pipe of companies that we are having the different stages in the M&A process. As we've said before, there are a couple of thousand companies within our, in, you know, in the sport market in the Nordic region. Out of those, we have a little bit over 200 companies that we think are particularly interesting for us that we have on our short follow list or in different discussions with. Not necessarily that there is a slower pace ahead. M&A is not always easy to time.
It is a little bit of consequence of the dance we do with the different companies that we have discussions with. We do have a strong pipe, I would say.
Okay, thank you very much. That's all from me.
The next question comes from Emmanuel Jansson from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Ted, Tim, and Niklas. Thank you for taking my question. We continue with your recent M&A agenda, which has been quite active. Is it possible for you to break down the organic versus acquired EBITDA growth in this quarter? Are you seeing expanding margins in your existing brands after they have been integrated? Just a bit more color on that development, please.
The sound was rather low. I think you asked if we could break down the organic versus total growth in Q1.
Yeah, I can start with that one.
Looking at the broad picture, we can see that M&A contributed slightly more during the first quarter with around 2/3 of the growth, and the remaining part was organically.
I think your second question was on, what kind of synergies we could realize, after the acquisitions. Please correct me if I understood the question wrong here, Emmanuel.
No, that was correct.
Yeah. The synergies we can realize are, of course, a little bit different for what type of companies that we do acquire. Typically, we have three layers of synergies, where the first is the initial direct synergies that we can see a couple of percentage points effect from, you know, companies joining our group contracts on payments, on transport, and then in the second stage on marketing services, on IT infrastructure, and those kind of group contracts where we have volume-driven better deals on the group. The second layer is where we can do cross-selling within the group. You know, for instance, if you would, you know, that we can sell fitness equipment or running equipment to a cycling community or vice versa.
The third synergy is where we have a quite specific governance model, you know, basically how we drive organic growth and improvements quarter by quarter in the companies that we operate. That kind of synergy basically being managed the WeSports way is something we see effect both on growth and profitability over time, but also cash flow over time, and that takes typically a little bit longer time. We, we normally see a effect within a quarter or two quarters when we have integrated a company into the group. The full synergies is perhaps a couple of years after integration.
Perfect
Is that an answer that to your question, Emmanuel?
Yes. Thank you very much. That's very, very useful. If I understand it correctly, then 2/3 of the EBITA growth came from M&A, right?
Yeah, that's correct. Roughly speaking.
Perfect. Yeah. Perfect. Thank you very much. Just curious, you are also mentioning the reallocation or that you are also taking over your warehouse management in-house. How has that affected your scalability or earnings in this quarter? What should we expect going forward from this activity?
I'll s-
I can go first. I think in general, that's one of the things that we're always improving, the scalability that we have both in how we drive the operations when it comes to warehousing, transport, as you were, into Niklas, and so on. In this particular quarter, it affects it a little bit in terms of personnel costs, where we overall lower our costs, but we just have a different categorization of them as such. That is the important thing I think to take away here. If you look at it also historically, we have many quarters in a row show that we are able to enable these scale effects gradually and even more so. That's also what we expect and plan for going forward.
Perfect. Which warehouse is this? Which sport category is this warehouse, exposed?
Within, on the warehouse side, there's two sides to it. One is the physical warehouses where we do the fulfillment of the product, and the second part is warehouse management in terms of inventory management. Those two are treated a little bit differently. In terms of warehouses, we do consolidate the physical warehouses within the sports. We try to consolidate all bikes from one warehouse, all skis from one warehouse, et cetera. In this quarter, we have, it was actually an initiative that took place in the second half of last year, where we consolidated a cross-country skiing warehouse to one location. That has, of course, had a good effect now during this winter.
We don't consolidate all warehouses between all the sports, but it is something we do within one sport where we have a good efficient efficiency win. Then on the inventory management, that's something that is not entirely managed from the group, but it's an expertise area where we do a lot of influence, and support, and improvements basically throughout the entire group. It's not something that is particularly changed during this quarter, but it's a fundamental principle or core of how we operate the group.
Perfect. Thank you. That's very clear. Maybe my last question, I think also you mentioned it, Ted, about the potential staycation trends, given the geopolitical uncertainties we have around the world. Have you seen any early signs of increased bookings or anything that could potentially give us some expectation that we are likely to see an increased staycation trend during this year?
I think it's a good question. I think what we see in general is that we have had very strong pace also here at the end of Q1. Hard to say whether that is driven by that or other factors. In general, just by pure logic, it's quite clear that as people, if it would be a scenario where there would be a lot of staycation and less travel, it's natural that you both continue to spend money on your health, and also can increase your investment in sports equipment and so on when you spend more time at home. The same for bicycles, e-bikes, cargo bikes, and so on.
If you see that you have a fuel price that is rather high, people tend to seek other alternatives and are more encouraged to also explore that type of, a lot of products that we are selling. Speaking from historical evidence, also from COVID and so on, we can see that that has had a positive impact.
Interesting. I assume that seeing high growth in cycling, running, and potential fitness as well is, that gives you a positive effect for the growth model, right?
Yes. Yes, I would say so. Regarding the growth model, and again, if we look forward, the key thing is to continue to gradually increase the share of owned and controlled brands, and that's something we're doing successfully.
Perfect. Well, thank you very much. I think that was all my questions for now. Thank you very much, Ted, Tim, and Niklas. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Benjamin Wahlstedt from ABGSC. Please go ahead.
Good morning. A couple of questions from me as well. You write in the report that 77% of EBITDA is attributable to parent shareholders, and I was wondering, the two questions. What is the reason for using EBITDA as opposed to EBITA, your main profitability metric here, please? Second, what is the share of EBITA attributable to shareholders? If you can share that would be helpful as well.
Could you please repeat the first question, Benjamin, the amount of?
Yeah. In the I believe it is in the CEO statement, you write that 77% of the adjusted EBITDA, LTM, is attributable to the parent company's shareholders. The first question was why are you using EBITDA and not EBITA here, please?
Well, that's a good question. The reason for doing that is because we would like to see how the cost allocates from the companies to the shareholders. Looking at the overall picture, it's roughly the same measure when we look at EBITDA and EBITA. It goes down just a branch, but not main differences.
EBITA is how we look at cash flow.
Exactly.
That's why.
Perfect. Your net profit remains attributable to minorities to quite a large extent in this quarter as well. I was wondering if you could share anything on what sort of companies are driving this observation, please.
I mean, it's also always a combination of which companies that is performing during each quarter and also how the ownership changes over time. Looking at how it stands today, we have increased our ownership quite heavily during the last months here. Now we have an ownership that is gradually moving towards 80%, and we are aiming to gradually move up to 90% on a group basis, which is in line with our strategy.
Thank you. The 77%, you allude to in the CEO statement, that's in LTM terms, obviously.
Exactly.
If it is, all else equal, so to speak, what is the next 12 months share of profits attributable to parent?
I think that's a good question. The only thing we can say there is that we gradually follow the strategy, as we also announced here this Friday in increasing in companies where we see that they are actually growing, and they're growing profitably. Our long-term goal there is to be over 90%, and so that's what we're aiming for as a steady state in the longer run.
Perfect. I have a bit of a bookkeeping question. I was wondering if you could give us a bit more color on the growth bridge here, please. You report organic growth. I believe you also specify that it's FX adjusted, of 14.7%. Your FX impact should be - 1 percentage point or so, the rest is M&A. It seems me and my competition, so to speak, sort of missed the M&A contribution or underestimated it at least. If you could, what is the contribution per added company? If you want to highlight the main building blocks towards the very significant M&A growth, that would be helpful, please.
I can start. Like we answered the question from your colleague there is that if you look at the growth during Q1, we can see that we have a roughly 2/3 is driven by M&A contributions, which were not a part of the group last year in the corresponding period, and 1/3 is driven by an organic growth. When we look at our organic growth, we look at the change in sales per units with a full calendar of consolidated comparable data. It's also a different pace when we looking at the organic definition.
That's why it can be a bit different in when you compare it to the full growth.
I think it's important to take away here also that just because companies are part of the M&A growth doesn't mean that we haven't been working with them for quite some time in the group, also working on business development, making sure that they are also growing. If we pick the right companies and we do good business development, then also the M&A share will be more heavy, so to speak.
Sure. I can maybe clarify my question. My question is, what was the Thevea Brands Group's sales in Q1? What was Sportsmaster sales in Q1, if you are willing to share?
We never reported on an individual company basis as such, but it's no secret that we've seen good progress from both of those companies as such.
All right. I believe that might be all I have for now. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Thanks for those questions. As I said before, we summarize another record quarter, and we come with high pace from the end of Q1 towards the rest of the year, which makes me very confident. Also, I think one key thing to highlight is that with the run rate that we're having, if you look at the full year effect of all the acquisitions that we made, and you include them for that full period, the net sales would actually be over SEK 4.15 billion with SEK 265 million adjusted EBITDA. That's also important to take in mind when we look at the year going forward.
Thanks a lot.