Komplett ASA

OSE:KOMPL

Earnings Call Transcript

[Kristin Hovland, executive]

Good morning from a beautiful fall morning here in Oslo. I want to welcome you to the presentation of Komplett Group's third quarter results. My name is Kristin Hovland, and I'm Head of Communications. We will start today's presentation with Jaan Ivar Semlitsch, our CEO. He will present some highlights for the quarter. Then our CFO, Thomas Røkke, will give you some more details about the financials. And at the end, at the presentation, Jaan Ivar will summarize the quarter and give you some perspectives on the future. Today's presentation will take approximately 20 minutes. And during the presentation, you are welcome to post questions via web. And then we will answer them at the end, together with questions from the audience. So, Jaan Ivar, the floor is yours.

[Jaan Semlitsch, executive]

Thank you, Kristin. Good morning here from Oslo. I'm very happy to announce the results today. We have good progress, and I believe we are on track on many dimensions. First of all, we can demonstrate the top line growth and with good margin expansion and with good cost control. That leads to an uplift of EBIT of NOK 49 million. Second, also very good development for the brand of Komplett in Norway and in total for Komplett services. Very happy with the management team in Sandefjord, and we can demonstrate 19% growth for B2C Komplett in Norway, also good B2B growth. Moreover, improved performance for our Swedish operations, both NetOnNet and Webhallen contributing well. Also, glad to see that. And a healthy stock situation, very good stock control, very good service levels above 85%, close to 90% now going into peak. And solid liquidity and improved covenants and with headroom versus the bank requirements. And finally, the sourcing improvements continue as well and also now with more centralized buying with further potential identified. So that leads us to good progress across key financials. EBIT improvement of NOK 49 million and an improved operating working capital level of NOK 351 million, and then positive cash flow from operating activities improved by NOK 186 million and the covenant ratio of 2.6.Let me just lead you then to some of the key focus areas for the next 6 months before Thomas will take you through some of the more details of the financials. And in this order, we will deliver the peak, very good Black Friday, Black Week plans, but also plans for December and taking Komplett Group to the next level. Also focusing on the right assortment, the right availability and not just top line growth and market share growth, but also big focus on profitability. And we will utilize our same-day delivery setup, which is very, very good. Deliver around operational excellence and profitability. We have a new pricing tool in place, which we will use actively and do price optimization when necessary and useful. Also, we will have a big focus on our existing stores, both in NetOnNet and Webhallen. We have announced the closure of 5 stores in Webhallen and we'll have an opening of 2 stores in NetOnNet. One of them being Trollhattan in Sweden, where we have a white spot, and we are very enthusiastic about that store. We will also expand NetOnNet into Norway, and we will reopen Alnabru already next week, 50% bigger site. And we've also signed a relocation contract in Stavanger. So, a controlled expansion with NetOnNet in Norway as well.Further organizational changes to improve our performance and reduce costs. We are centralizing our sourcing team that will go live 1st of December and then with the whole organization in place 1st of March. I will also be acting MD in NetOnNet from 1st of November in the same way I did that during the spring in Komplett services in Sandefjord. So, I'm really looking forward to that. Three focus areas really: one, securing peak; second, working on the budget for 2024. And then finally, to work on a permanent candidate to be the leader of NetOnNet in 2024, and we have several candidates during that process. And then finally, and we'll come back to that on the Capital Markets Day as well, refining the strategic direction. Continuing our work on B2B, working on the services platform, our SDA MDA assortment, where we have huge potential, also mobile with subscriptions where we have a good platform already on mobile without subscriptions, and of course, leveraging our strong B2B private label position. And the private label position is strong, building up from NetOnNet, and we'll continue that with NetOnNet, but also into our other brands, Komplett and Webhallen. So, with this introduction, I'll leave the word to Thomas to take us through some of the more details of the financials. So, Thomas, the floor is yours.

[Thomas Rokke, executive]

So thank you, Jaan Ivar, and good morning, everyone. I'll walk you through some of the more details, although I think Jaan Ivar has given away kind of much of the powder already. So, let's just jump into it rather quickly. Looking into the improvement of NOK 49 million, where does it come from. Looking at the headlines, you can see that we have had a modest revenue growth of 2.4%, which we think in the current market environment is fairly decent. That has not been driven by a material change in market composition or market developments, which remains quite difficult, although some of the variables are going up and down. We have not seen a significant change in the momentum. But we are having continued good progress in [ nonretail ] markets, partly driven by year-on-year effects but also through dedicated efforts in ensuring improved sales and also through better availability of goods compared to last year's.The Swedish market, also important to note, remains quite challenging in the sense that all the underlying demand remains fairly restrained might be the right word, but also overlaid with certain competitive effects from the merger of Power and MediaMarkt in that market. The gross profit is a key driver of the uplift, as you can see. And that is, to a large extent, now how made. It's been driven by our teams focusing on price and pricing strategies, not only using new tools, but also using new focus and new efforts around the right processes. It's also driven by the synergy program, which despite the headwinds, this is not a market that's easy to renegotiate contracts. But despite of that, we are largely on track according to the target we have already communicated. It's also driven by a healthy inventory. We are at the same level as we were last year, but we are actually coming a little bit up to prepare for Black Week and not coming dramatically down as we did last year. That obviously is a better position to be in when it comes to the margins. And just on a note on the part that Jaan Ivar described on the margin, obviously, Q3 and Q4 is more kind of affected by mix and campaign effects than the other quarters. So, one has to take that into account and you look at the inventory.On the cost side, we are also continuing to manage that cost base to maintain our leading position in the industry. We are seeing, obviously, the cost inflation hitting us as it hits everybody else, but we are also compensating that through quite some measures. So, the uplift has been modest in this quarter. Part of the uplift, as you can see here, of 6.1% or NOK 28 million is driven by marketing investment, deliberate investment in brands, but also in driving demand, which comprises quite a large proportion. What is not reflected is that while the cost programs we have already ongoing is delivering according to targets. We are now also putting in place additional measures to prepare for a continued weak Swedish market. Last but not least, I think Jaan Ivar alluded to the fact that we are also being for the group resources in sourcing, category management and the sort and also building adequate group functions across. And that will obviously be reflected here in some of the additional costs. But overall, the combination of it yields a substantial uplift versus last year. B2C, again, seeing a good growth in a very difficult market. I will not repeat that. It is supported by continued brand investment and marketing investments. And also, obviously, through higher availability and avoiding some of the debottlenecks we had last year. Again, this is one of the main segments being affected by the Swedish market. So we do see some continuing uncertainty around the evolution here. But as you can see, across the various geographic segments, we are performing quite well compared to the market. Again, sourcing synergies are naturally here also improving the margins and so are better pricing and better and healthy inventories. And that basically brings a significant uplift for this segment in the quarter of NOK 59 million. And as Jaan Ivar alluded to, we are very happy to say that all the brands contributed to that improvement year-on-year. It is not only associated with one. In the B2B segment, you can see here that we've actually achieved a growth of almost 10%, which compared to some of our competitors is quite good. It is again supported like last year, but even more so through the educational segment and also some of the noncore traditional segments where we operate. That has improved the sales on top of the better availability. This was one of the segments very negatively affected last year. But it also obviously has an impact on the margins. These educational revenues are associated with the lower margin. So if you look at the net effect here, you have a slight decline in the margin, but the underlying development in the core business is still along the lines of the other segments. So we are -- what we are observing is a pure mix effect, which you also can see when you come to the bottom line where it feeds through to generate an additional NOK 4 million, which in the current market, I think, is very decent.The distribution part, a slight decline, and this is a business very strongly affected by a limited set of larger contracts and phasings. So these effects are mainly related to changes in rollouts and deliveries, building of backlogs rather than kind of the underlying dynamics of the business for the time being. This is also obviously where an area where customer changes have a very material impact. And during this period, there has been no change in that composition, so largely comparable to last year. Given the cost inflation and the slightly lower sales, we have a slight decline in this segment compared to last year. Going then into some of the nonoperational items of the P&L. You can see here that depreciation and amortization has gone slightly up. Quite most of that is actually related to automatic IFRS effects as the inflation is being fed into index adjustments. We have also, during the quarter, had to part with certain employees, but also to restructure some of the offices, and that has also caused a certain restructuring charge of NOK 13 million affecting the result. Net financial items is slightly higher in the quarter, reflecting increased interest rates. I think if you look at the balance sheet, you will see that we have a fairly flexible financial setup. That has quite some advantages, but there are also some disadvantages in the sense that very much of our interest rates are variable, i.e., margin based, which means that when the interest rates go up, it hits us rather quickly. And that has actually been coming into this quarter, and it also explains the difference to last year, where we now have higher interest costs despite lower net debt. On top of that, we have now managed to move into one group cash pool that had some costs related to this, that also affects the quarter but gives us a much better position to manage these facilities going forward. Tax expenses of NOK 6 million are mainly related to correction of taxes in previous period on top of an improved underlying result, which basically explains the rest. So the loss for the period of NOK 21 million is then up from NOK 35 million last year. Cash flow and working capital. As you can see here, the net operating cash flow in the period reflects this positive despite our buildup for the Black Week and that is basically driven by us financing quite a lot of the buildup through supply credits. That is also a timing phenomenon so it may not last, but it's a positive contribution going into next quarter. Net cash flow used in investing activities relates mainly naturally in our business to software and IT investments, something like 85% of this relates to that. And also that, again, relates to the upgrade of the IT system in Komplett services or the Komplett brand, which went live now in the first part of October and has been so far done with great success and impressive effort from the local team. Net cash used in financing activities. The numbers there basically reflect rebalancing of our financial facilities overall with some additional naturally cost items. Inventory position is marginally up year-on-year. But as Jaan Ivar stated, with very good control and all the local brands are making sure that we have a healthy inventory and now we also have a healthy position going into the next peak – quarter.So net working capital reduced significantly year-on-year, obviously, through increased payables and also some factoring and Swedish tax deferment in that number, but a good cash flow and liquidity development going into next quarter. Financial position to conclude on that. I think the numbers speak to quite some extent for themselves. But as you can see that the net interest-bearing debt is significantly down versus last year. Our liquidity reserve was already high, but is even higher with NOK 1.1 billion, and we also have an additional reserve of NOK 100 million that were not utilized. So like-for-like, it would be NOK 100 million higher. Leverage ratio continues to come down, and we are now at the level of 2.6 and continue to operate with -- in accordance with all requirements of our financial facilities. So a good quarter. We had good uplift in earnings. We had good cash flow, and we also have a good financial position that will help us now going into the next quarter. And I'm sure that Jaan Ivar will explain something on that. Thank you.

[Jaan Semlitsch, executive]

Thank you, Thomas. I have then the privilege to summarize some of the key takeaways and it's already been mentioned, but we have significant progress across all key financial indicators, combined with a more resilient financial position. Clear EBIT improvement of NOK 49 million and the gross margin expansion of 1.7 percentage points, also as a result of good sourcing efforts and a good strong commercial team. Healthy stock situation, as Thomas mentioned, and additional measures are also being taken to be prepared for 2024. And I believe, and I'm very committed to Komplett Group. We are well positioned for 2024 on onwards, for many reasons. The customer satisfaction rates, our same-day delivery setup, our low cost position. I believe we are very well positioned for ‘24 onwards as well. So with those words, we'll open up for Q&A into this next session. And just to show also Alnabru opening next week. I hope some of you will do some good bargains there, very good prices, by the way. And the Capital Markets Day, of course.

[Kristin Hovland, executive]

So ready for the Q&A session. We'll start by saying if there are any questions from the audience. Yes. Okay. So I'll start off with questions from the web. So the first question is what cost savings are expected from the closure of the five Webhallen stores in Sweden? Any high-level guidance on the provisions that you can provide?

[Jaan Semlitsch, executive]

I think it's too premature to give any indication of that and also a bit too detailed for us to be comfortable to give that information for the time being.

[Kristin Hovland, executive]

How much of the synergies have you exploited by the end of Q3.

[Jaan Semlitsch, executive]

By the end of Q3, we are about 2/3 of the way, I would say.

[Kristin Hovland, executive]

How much factoring did you have by the end of Q3?

[Jaan Semlitsch, executive]

NOK 446 million. [indiscernible].

[Kristin Hovland, executive]

Could you break down the gross margin improvement in price, COGS synergies, P&L and mix?

[Jaan Semlitsch, executive]

No, I don't think we would like to do that. But I could add that we are always working on a target margin and that it's a combination of many factors. So doing those factors together, it's very important. And of course, sourcing has been an important part of it, but not just the sourcing part. It's a mix of, I would say, good work among many dimensions.

[Kristin Hovland, executive]

How do you see the competitive landscape? Any signs that the competitive landscape in Sweden is intensified?

[Jaan Semlitsch, executive]

Yes. We know that there is this merger between MediaMarkt and Power. And Power has been rather active over the last couple of weeks. But we stick to our plans, and I think we have good plans for peak. So I would say the industry is very competitive, and we're used to sort of that environment week by week, month by month.

[Kristin Hovland, executive]

How many stores do you expect to have for NetOnNet in Norway? What is the fair assumption in terms of annual sales for these stores?

[Jaan Semlitsch, executive]

Well, first of all, we don't reveal all those plans because of the competition. But as I mentioned, we are reopening now at Alnabru and then Stavanger's first quarter next year. And we'll do it in a controlled way. But of course, we will -- we have good experience from Sweden and the NetOnNet concept. So we believe in this. And it would be natural to look at Trondheim, Bergen, perhaps one more in Oslo, but in a controlled way and also not too many stores. That's important to say.

[Kristin Hovland, executive]

How big was Black Friday for Komplett last year. And do you consider last year's performance a challenging comparable.

[Jaan Semlitsch, executive]

Yes. Well, it was before both of us started, but I believe we have better availability this year, very good stock situation for all our brands really. And then we know it's a demanding market. We had a demanding market last year as well. So -- but we stick to our plans, and I think we have good plans.

[Kristin Hovland, executive]

Good. You increased marketing efforts quite a lot this quarter. How has customer feedback been?

[Jaan Semlitsch, executive]

It's been -- to be honest, it's been great. It's been very good, also especially for the Komplett brand. And our marketing campaign is working well. It's improving our top of mind and we use the customer ratings, the customer feedback as part of the campaign. So it's been successful. And I think 19% growth for the B2C brand in Norway, it's quite impressive with a sort of market overall declining. And now we also launched our NetOnNet concept in Sweden, and we are following that carefully as well into peak and 2024. So yes.

[Kristin Hovland, executive]

Looking into the importance of Q4, how do you see the market in Q4 versus last year in terms of expected consumer demand, product availability, campaign activity amongst your competitors, et cetera?

[Jaan Semlitsch, executive]

Should we give some more flavor to that, Thomas?

[Thomas Rokke, executive]

Yes. I think all the competitors are aware of this is going to be a very difficult Q4 in terms of consumer sentiment. But that said, consumer sentiment was already fairly difficult last year. So I think we don't see any material change in that. We see from perspective that we are better equipped in terms of campaigns and also better equipped in terms of availability of inventories. So I think we are expecting to be on par at least with last year when it comes to actually the results from our activities.

[Kristin Hovland, executive]

Are you comfortable with the Q4 covenant ratio of 3?

[Thomas Rokke, executive]

I don't think we normally actually would comment on future developments. But for the time being, we feel that we can continue to operate within the requirements of all our facilities also for Q4.

[Kristin Hovland, executive]

Back to you, Webhallen. What is the long-term plan for Webhallen on the back of 5 closures.

[Jaan Semlitsch, executive]

Yes. So Webhallen has a very strong brand position in Sweden, especially in the Stockholm area, large gaming community, one of the strongest brands. So to us, this is an adjustment of the store portfolio, where we see that the five we are closing down, they're not in the same league as the 12 others. So it's an optimization adjustment of our store portfolio, making sure that we are even stronger online and using those stores as a part of the online journey. So I think that's an adjustment in the same way as we do the adjustments for NetOnNet, opening up 2 stores with a NetOnNet concept. So I think that's a backdrop to that question.

[Thomas Rokke, executive]

And I think also to -- relating to that also regarding the question of restructuring charges, this is only one component of the evolution of the strategy. There will be other elements as we have indicated in previous quarters that will bring the necessarily charges when we do change the [ direct ] strategy. This is a refocusing of the home. There will be other elements of that strategy when it comes out. And therefore, there will be some noncash and some cash restructuring charges also in Q4, but the magnitude of that is to communicate.

[Kristin Hovland, executive]

So how do you see the liquidity situation for 2024, given the maturity of the deferred tax in Sweden that is due in September? Any potential to delay that further?

[Jaan Semlitsch, executive]

There is a potential to delay that further, but we have not decided on doing that. We do feel actually comfortable around liquidity situation for the company.

[Kristin Hovland, executive]

What is the main reason Komplett score is so high on customer satisfaction?

[Jaan Semlitsch, executive]

That's a good question, great question. How much time do we have? Yes, yes. No, I think we do -- the DNA of Komplett, I would say, across all our brands. It's very strong around logistics and customer delivery. So you get the order on time at the sort of promise. So very often, we over deliver on our promises, I believe. And now with the strong availability, we also have the right assortment. So it's a matter of being more top of mind, and I think this campaign has sort of contributed to that because, yes, you've seen some of the customer surveys where we are a top 10 in Norway among all industries. So we will just leverage that, utilize that, continue the journey on that customer path because at the end of the day, if you don't have happy customers, you're sort of out of business, and we are, by far, the leading Olso company within our industry on the customer ratings. So just utilizing that momentum is it's great.

[Kristin Hovland, executive]

Good. Last question. Has the five Webhallen stores been loss-making? And can you provide any historical figures and what is triggering this decision now?

[Jaan Semlitsch, executive]

Well, we could say that they are -- by doing this, we will increase the profits. So I guess we are not commenting on each individual stores in that sense.

[Thomas Rokke, executive]

And the timing is obviously a combination of a strategic realignment, i.e., changing the kind of the concept slightly but also the difficult market environment in Sweden. So those 2 coming together justifies to taking that action now.

[Kristin Hovland, executive]

Very good. That was the last question from the web. Any other questions from the audience? No. Okay. That concludes the Q&A session. Thank you, Jaan Ivar, and Thomas. We hope you will join us when we present our fourth quarter results on the 8th of February and also the Capital Markets Day on the 29th of February. Thank you all for joining us today, and we wish you a great day.