Clas Ohlson AB

STO:CLAS B

Earnings Call Transcript

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

Good morning, and welcome to the Clas Ohlson Q3 report. My name is Kristofer Tonstrom, I'm CEO. And I'm here with Pernilla Walfridsson, CFO. And we'll, as always, start with a short business update, go through the financial development, the events after the reporting period, then I'll wrap up before we move into Q&A.So looking at calendar year 2022. Obviously, it's been a year, which I've described before as very much of a perfect storm. And during this time, we have -- the full team from Clas Ohlson has spent a lot of time on focusing on the things that we really can influence. And we'll show today that we are making a lot of progress on areas that we can influence ourselves so that, when macro starts churning, then we're going to be able to also deliver a disproportionate shareholder return.So looking at the quarter, just snapshots. Total sales grew 4%, close to SEK 3 billion, and organic sales 2%. Our operating profit came in at SEK 215 million, and this included our one-time effects for the cost savings that we have done across the third quarter. So everything that we announced back in Q2 has been executed. So we are realizing savings with full effect as of next year of SEK 110 million related to organizational changes and to write-downs of IT systems.We also said that we've been able to effectively managing our inventory. Inventory now in the third quarter is down with SEK 686 million versus the second quarter. And our financial position is solid. So we have a negative net debt/EBITDA of [ 0.1x ]. We have also a new milestone where, over the last year, we've added 1 million new members to Club Clas. So we're now 5 million members, and we'll talk a bit more about that later.And we also reported February today with 2% organic sales growth and 1% total sales growth in February. This all adds up for the third quarter to a earnings per share of SEK 2.50. And last year, we had SEK 4.53.So a couple of highlights from the quarter, starting with the Christmas.So, obviously, we have seen, the overall retail market has been significantly down across Q4 in 2022. And a lot of other companies have reported a weak Christmas. For us, November, December was very solid, and Christmas sales was actually very positive. So this again shows that we are a trusted Christmas destination for our customers across Sweden, Norway and Finland.Looking at our strategic framework, it remains the same, and we are working hard on building a winning team now with slightly fewer colleagues, but a strong winning team to make a difference to our core customers and translating that into sales growth and shareholder returns. We are also spending a lot of focus and always focusing on cost efficiencies, and we'll come back and talk more about the details from the last quarter in the Pernilla's section.Looking at the growth drivers. We have identified for this yea, 4 areas that we're focusing on disproportionately, and the first one is our categories. So everything relates back to our assortment. And we do see positive development on our key areas, and we still see a clear tendency from our customers that it's very much need-based shopping, less nice to have and much more need-based. And we do see that we have very strong performance in everything that has to do with tidy up your home cleaning and necessities for your everyday home needs.We also see continued strong demand for energy saving products and products that are helping you make your food last longer in your fridge, et cetera. When it comes to our availability and convenience, which is obviously the focus on our sales channels, our e-com and our physical stores, we see the traffic to our physical stores is growing in the last quarter. We're not yet to pre-pandemic levels, but we are growing, and we see good footfall across the 3 countries. We also see improved online conversion in the quarter.And looking at our store network, we have closed 7 stores. We have opened 2. So net-net, the comparison is minus 5 stores versus last year. When it comes to core customer focus, the key vehicle for us is Club Clas, and here we have passed the 5 million milestone, adding another 1 million members over the last 12 months. And we do see that the members are active and they are spending more with us than the average customer. So member sales is up 11% versus last year and now corresponds to 67% of total sales [ compared ] to the other memberships.Looking at Finland, which is a identified growth driver over the next 3 years, this plan is progressing. We have done store optimization. We now have 5 stores less than last year, to ensure that we're focusing on the stores with potential for the future. We've also opened 1 new store that is progressing really well, outside of Vaasa in Finland. We also said that the marketing -- the updated brand communication and marketing is received very well from our customers in Finland, and we are therefore building a stronger brand and driving higher awareness of Clas Ohlson in Finland.Also, Club Clas has been very underdeveloped in Finland, but now we do see disproportionate sales growth with our members. So membership sales is growing 43% in the quarter. And obviously, the ambition is to continue build out so that we have a more robust Club Clas base to grow from Vaasa in Finland.Double clicking quickly on a few things. First, assortment. We are talking about our 5 consumer missions, which very much are the key categories that drives customers to Clas Ohlson. Here, we see continued strong progress on tidy up your home, with significant growth in kitchen storage and household cleaning. And we are doing more and more across that overall category, but we're also really applying a lot of those learnings as we look across the 4 other consumer missions.A very relevant focus area for us moving into the spring is everything that has to do with lighting, solar cell lighting, et cetera, where we have a very strong position, and we have seen growth across also light up your home over the last quarter. The customers are very satisfied with the product quality that we deliver. We are again above in terms of our product reviews versus target.One of the key strengths of Clas Ohlson is our ability to deliver strong customer service. And we do see that NPS, which is the #1 measure for us to measure this, continues to be at very high levels versus the retail average. So 56.6, a slight increase from Q2, which again shows that our colleagues interacting with our customers, in our physical stores with customer care, but also our NPS on e-com has grown significantly over the last year.We also have some examples on the slides -- on the slide here with our customer care team in Sweden winning the Brilliant Service Award for the fourth year in a row, and this is measured on real NPS levels from 2 million customers. So it's again a credit to the hard work done by the Clas Ohlson team to drive outstanding customer service.And on Club Clas, the key thing to remember here is obviously that, we do view this as a growth engine for the future, but it is very much to also build out loyalty and clear longer-term relationships with our customers. It's also a way for us to learn what our customers are looking for so we can develop a stronger assortment and a stronger offer. And it's also a way for us over time to improve our marketing ROI because we can talk to our own members. Especially as third-party cookies, et cetera, will disappear from the broad-based digital channels, this is going to be a very efficient way for us to communicate also in the future.So it's encouraging to see the growth of members and also the fact that these are not passive members that have signed up once. 90% are very active customers, and the most loyal ones visit us extremely frequently.Looking ahead, we are in a market where the consumers are very cautious. Consumer confidence is at record low levels, even though it stabilized a little bit now across Q3, but we see this across the markets. So our price position is extremely important moving forward. Apart from having a relevant assortment, we need to sell the relevant assortment at the right relevant price points. And the encouraging fact here is that our price position versus our other low-priced competitors, we do have a stronger base position, and we're working deliberately with our pricing strategies to maintain and strengthen this even further.Finally, on our work on sustainability. No matter market conditions, we are making progress and working hard on our sustainability agenda. Looking at it, it has 2 different areas here, which is the product side, where we see continued growth of the spare parts assortment, which is encouraging. We do see a trend that customers want to repair things they've already bought to keep them for longer. That's an economic benefit for the customer, but it's also a sustainability and environmental positive impact instead of constantly buying new.We also have our product assessment model where, everything that we're developing ourselves, we're taking through this assessment model to ensure that what we're selling is as sustainable as possible, and now 50% of sales on our own products has gone through this assessment model. When it comes to our work with suppliers, we maintain a very high level of discipline when it comes to environmental audits and audits related back to our [ code of ] conduct. And we're now at 99% free from critical findings and we have audited 85% of sold volume from an environmental point of view.We have our ambitious target to become fully climate neutral across Scope 1, 2, 3 by 2045, but we've also decided to add the target now already for 2026 to be fully climate neutral across Scope 1 and 2, the areas that we can influence, and we do have a very clear path to achieving that by 2026. So that concludes the short highlight from the third quarter, and I'll hand over to Pernilla for the financial updates.

[Pernilla Walfridsson, executive]

Thank you, Kristofer, and good morning to you all. Let us take a deep dive into the Q3 financials.As we all have seen, it has been a tough Christmas for many retailers. And in this environment, I think it is positive that we can report a total sales of SEK 2.9 billion, an increase of 4% and an organic increase of 2%. Also worth highlighting is that this increase was made with 5 stores less compared to the same period last year. Online increased 4% in the quarter, up 11% for the first 9 months. Online now stands for 12% of the total sales.And now looking at the sales development on our 3 markets. In Sweden, we reported a total sales increase of 3%, and that represents an organic sales increase of 3%. In Norway, we reported a total sales increase of 7%, and that represents an organic sales increase of 3%. And finally, in Finland, we reported a total sales increase of 7% and a flat organic sales development.Macro continued to put the pressure on the margin, but we have been able to mitigate some of the macro impact by price increases and product mix. But as you already know, the impact from the U.S. dollar, transportation and sourcing cost is by far greater. All-in-all our gross margin decreased to 38.2%.Looking at the earnings for the third quarter. Operating profit was SEK 215 million compared to SEK 378 million the same quarter last year, and this figure should be seen in the light of a one-off cost of SEK 190 million that we announced in Q2, and that has now been effectuated. Operating profit, excluding this one-off effect, amounted to SEK 334 million. If we look at the 9 months -- the result for the 9-month period, operating profit landed at SEK 312 million.And just to remind you about that we had a one-off cost connected to the closing of the U.K. operation of SEK 35 million in Q1 this year and we also had a further one-off repayment of SEK 25 million last year. So excluding one-off items, operating profit landed at SEK 466 million compared to SEK 704 million. We have continued with our measures to make us also even more efficient and try to mitigate cost inflation. And the measures that we presented in Q2 has progressed according to plan, including the reduction of 85 white collar employees and the disposal of IT systems. We will see approximately SEK 110 million full effect of these savings from next financial year.As Kristofer mentioned, the inventory value has reduced significantly between Q2 and Q3. And this is the result of active inventory management and increased sales. Compared to Q3 last year, the inventory level is up, and this is mainly a consequence of higher purchasing prices and increased sales.Turning to the cash flow for the first 9 months and just a few comments on that. The cash flow from operating activities is affected by the lower operating profit compared to last year. We have a positive effect on working capital in the quarter as a consequence of the active inventory management and increased sales. And also, just to remind you, if you look at cash flow from financing activities, we have made a dividend of SEK 824 million this year, the first part in September and the final part in January.And we have our approved credit facility -- we have an appropriate credit facility of SEK 800 million, and we are only using SEK 12 million out of those. Net debt/EBITDA excluding IFRS 16 amounts to minus 0.1x. And this means then that our financial position are well in line with our financial targets.Turning to some macro trends that affect Clas Ohlson now and going forward. And just let me remind you that these figures refer to spot prices, and we have a time lag effect between product order and product sold. If we start with the freight prices, we see a sharp decline, and that is positive going forward. Another positive is that the previous bottleneck in supply chain are now gone, and lead times for our sourcing work is more or less back to normal.We are still at the high exchange rate U.S. dollar and SEK, and this will affect us also going forward as long as this remains. We also see that the NOK is weak, and that will also affect us and our result.Moving on to events after the reporting period, and just a few words about the February sales development. As Kristofer mentioned earlier, we have a sales increase of 1%, and that means SEK 545 million -- SEK 541 million and organic sales was up 2%. In Sweden, organic sales was up 3%. In Norway, organic sales was up 3%, and Finland organic sales was down 1%. Online was down 5%, and we have 5 stores less compared to the same period last year.Thank you. And now back to Kristofer.

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

Thank you, Pernilla. So just wrapping up before moving into Q&A. So obviously, there's a lot of things happening. We are driving a rapid transformation of the company to build a stronger position for the future and we are also maintaining and continuously building a stronger customer position.So obviously, we have shown that we've been able to deliver sales growth in a challenging market, not yet to the target levels of 5% organic, but at least we have delivered better than the market. We do see an increased uncertainty moving forward. So of course, we are very humble about the next few months when it comes to the households spending power and the impact on their household economy, and that's why we are focusing so much on our loyal customers, the growing customer base and also on our price position.But at the end of the day, the key thing is going to be the relevance in our assortments. We do come to Clas Ohlson to find the solutions for your everyday home fixing, and we need to be rapid in terms of constantly changing to the adapting needs, and we've seen a lot of that over the last year.Last but not least, this has also been a year where we have simplified a lot of things within the company and doing everything to take out cost. As you remember, as closed down in the U.K., we have taken out Amazon business. We have closed 7 stores. We have relocated and closed down a large part of the office space. And in the recent quarter, we have also made the changes to the organization where we have reduced the FTE white collar count with 85 people.And last but not least, also the write-offs of some of our IT architecture. So there's a rapid transformation ongoing. But given the macroeconomic pressure and the expected continued pressure, especially from the U.S. dollar and now also the Norwegian krone, we will maintain a very high tempo when it comes to continuously transforming ourselves also moving forward.So with that, let's move into Q&A. So Niklas, do you have any questions?

[Niklas Carlsson, executive]

Good morning. As always, we'll start the Q&A session by opening up the 4 questions from the telephone conference.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Andreas Lundberg from SEB.

[Andreas Lundberg, analyst]

To start with cost savings. You talked about some SEK 110 million. Can you split that between reduced depreciations versus staffing costs?

[Pernilla Walfridsson, executive]

We have approximately SEK 100 million in disposal of IT systems and then SEK 20 million is connected to staff costs.

[Andreas Lundberg, analyst]

Actually, I mean the savings...

[Pernilla Walfridsson, executive]

[ I had ] a savings.

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

Yes. Exactly. The write-off is approximately -- So the increased depreciation is around SEK 100 million and then the other [ turn ] is the staff cost.

[Andreas Lundberg, analyst]

You're reducing your asset base by SEK 100 million, is that correct? Right?

[Pernilla Walfridsson, executive]

No. The depreciation part is the minor part and is the high -- is a bigger part of this total.

[Andreas Lundberg, analyst]

Given that you are facing the higher rental costs and come under inflationary pressure, perhaps, what net effect do you expect to see here in the coming 12 months of the savings program?

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

So obviously -- as we also communicated in Q2, obviously, we are expecting -- we have seen the rent inflation, and obviously, we are expecting higher inflation than normal also when it comes to salary relation -- related now in the next year. So the cost measures was to mitigate and offset a lot of that. But we haven't communicated the net effect. So the net effect for the savings, of course, part of that will be taken out by the other inflation.

[Andreas Lundberg, analyst]

You talk about lower cost of freight and perhaps also goods. Have you combined it with the dollar? Especially the dollar, what do you see here in the near term compared to what we have seen in the recent quarters?

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

So the -- obviously, transportation costs are coming down and then some raw materials are coming down, but given that the currency is still negative in terms of the Swedish U.S. dollar relationship, we will not get the full effect of any price decreases. So there's going to be transportation going down dollar going up, and it's going to actually have not a fully one-to-one relationship, but it will create continue -- we're planning for continued overall pressure based on the dollar, which will have a significant impact.

[Andreas Lundberg, analyst]

And given the situation we are now in a cautious consumers, you talk a lot about your sales drivers with offer. Anything specific here in the coming months that you will put even more effort into, to drive sales?

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

I mean, one thing is continuously working on anything that helps customers save the money in their households, i.e., stocking up with more energy-saving products, et cetera, that continues being a focus area. The second one is we are progressing also more and more in terms of consumables. So everyday consumable items. So if you would walk into Norwegian store, as an example, you'll see dishwashing cleaning products, et cetera, more kind of chemical cleaning products that are more impulse purchases. We do see a need and the demand for those type of products, and we see an opportunity to have things where you can actually fill up the basket while you are in the store, maybe less traffic driving.And then last but not least, we believe that the solar cell and solar lighting is going to be extremely important for us during the spring. It is a big category for us, and we're leading that category development. But of course, given energy price is expected to stay at high levels, we want to really leverage that part of the assortment. So some new things, and then obviously continuously working across the outspoken strategies on our categories.

[Andreas Lundberg, analyst]

Last thing for me. The inventory came down now. What's the status? I mean, do you have -- what assortment do you have now for the coming months?

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

So all-in-all, as I said, the inventory is now down SEK 606 million versus last quarter, which was according to plan. So it shows that what we had in our inventory started in Q3 was a relevant assortment. Also, as Pernilla shared on the gross margin, we have not driven down the inventory by doing significantly more campaigning than before. So I think it is proven that -- we have proven that we can have a relevant mix. I actually feel pretty good about the inventory that we see that right now. It's slightly up versus last year.As also Pernilla explained, driven a lot by the cost of the goods. But if I look at the assortment mix, it is relevant now for the spring that we're moving into. And obviously, we measure availability levels ongoing basis. And I do feel fairly comfortable with the stock levels that we have now moving into spring.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Carl Deijenberg from Carnegie.

[Carl Deijenberg, analyst]

So 2 questions from my side. Maybe the first one here on the sales development in Q3. I know it's obviously hard to quantify given the wide assortment, but could you give any indication of sort of the price mix effect here in the quarter on the 2% organic growth? How much is roughly price of that? We're talking 4% or 6%, or any indication of that just understanding the volume development would be very helpful.

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

Yes. So the price -- overall, the price mix has helped gross margin than in terms of the total sales. As you know, we haven't reported -- we are not reporting volumes given the mix that we do have. I think we'll see -- we do see a small volume decline, but not significant. But given that we're not reporting volume in that sense, I don't want to mislead any way, but some of that growth is obviously driven by price mix as well.And then maybe just to add one thing on the sales development in the quarter, and especially during Christmas, we saw some categories that grew significantly as we saw. But obviously, we have other categories that have sold much, much less than usual, especially things that are consuming energy, et cetera. So there is also a better development on some areas, which is driving a positive mix effect as well and then others are down.

[Carl Deijenberg, analyst]

And my second question was, I think it was asked a bit before, but on the sort of inventory development here, there's been a discussion for quite some time that inventory levels generally in the market has been fairly high, resulting in a fairly high mark accounts, and looking at your figures here for Q3, we see a fairly significant reduction. So you -- your impression in the overall market, is that, that markdowns will come down going forward? And are we looking at more balanced levels generally speaking, or do you have any feeling of that?

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

I think it depends very much on categories, but at least, we are monitoring this closely. There's always a risk that prices will come down and that campaigning will go up depending on the different competitors inventory values. Obviously, we saw that in the first quarter. That was one of the big drivers of our price decline in the first quarter. So we're monitoring that. There is such a risk. At the same time, at least for our own sake, we were able to do sell more on full price during Christmas. And -- but of course, we did also see, as always, fairly generous discounts in the post-Christmas period where we don't really participate in the same way. But we're monitoring, there is always a risk, but I don't really know more than that, but we're following it on a daily basis.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Nicklas Skogman from Handelsbanken.

[Nicklas Skogman, analyst]

I'd like to drill a bit deeper on the gross margin development in the quarter. So a pretty substantial sequential improvement compared to Q2. What -- it sounds like maybe perhaps less sales on campaigns was a major driver in the quarter. Is that correct?

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

Yes. I think there are 2 things to remember. First, when you look at the gross margin decline that we saw in Q2, obviously, we also had a fairly high base at that point. So the 540 basis points was on a very high base back in Q2 last year, a bit more than 41% gross margin that we had last year, which were much in line with the year before. So it was less of a -- the base was lower in the third quarter, which basically means that the decline is very much related to the macro effects, which were similar then to in Q2. The bigger difference versus Q1 and Q2 is, as I said, that -- in Pernilla's bridge, you saw a green arrow showing some positive effect on the product mix. So we have been able to get some help on that. And if we wouldn't have had that, that would have been even more of a negative on the gross margin. So we need to remember the base. But then as said, a slight improvement in terms of the things that we can influence in terms of mix and product pricing campaigning.

[Nicklas Skogman, analyst]

A little surprising that mix had a positive effect given that one would expect more sort of consumables being sold in this environment. So what was driving the positive mix in Q3?

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

So the -- obviously, during November and Black Week, there were fairly high levels of discounting across the market. But then looking at December and January, we have done overall less discounting on average, i.e. sold more at Black prices. So that's one of the key drivers. And then -- so that's really the key driver. Then of course, there are differences within the categories in terms of the product mix, and we do see a tendency of consumers buying in some categories cheaper things, while in others they are still spending. But it's basically mostly on the campaigning side in December and Jan.

[Nicklas Skogman, analyst]

And then looking ahead now to the spring, your inventories come down significantly and it seems to be in pretty good shape. How does it look for the rest of the market?

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

I wish I knew. But at least from the communication we have seen across the market is that obviously, a lot of retailers have had high inventories. Now we are a bit earlier in terms of reporting these latest numbers. So we do not know yet. But as said earlier, we are at least planning for and monitoring and following if there are any risks in terms of more discounting, because we know that a lot of retailers had high inventories going into Christmas.And also, looking at now the overall retail numbers reported for the Swedish market in Q4, the overall retail market was significantly down, same with the January numbers. So not everybody has had the same good Christmas sales as we had. So of course, there is such a risk. But we don't know, and we don't have visibility, obviously, of our competitors' inventory situation. But there is certainly such a risk.

[Niklas Carlsson, executive]

Was the last question from the telephone conference, and we have no further questions from the webcast audience either. So by that, I'll hand back to you, Kristofer.

[Kristofer Tonström, executive]

Okay. Thank you very much for calling in. And we are now, of course, in the middle of soon, hopefully kicking off spring. So we will see each other again early June when we report the Q4 numbers. And until then, thank you very much, and have a good rest of today.