ITAB Shop Concept AB
STO:ITAB
Earnings Call Analysis
Q4-2023 Analysis
ITAB Shop Concept AB
The company faced a complex retail environment, forcing it to balance investment in innovative solutions with stringent cost controls. Despite the challenges posed by recessions in Europe and inflation, the management successfully improved financial stability through purchasing controls, cost reduction, and footprint optimization.
The introduction of a new ERP system is set to be a turning point, enhancing efficiency and agility for the upcoming years. This system, along with commercial and operational capabilities, is geared towards preparing a scalable company that can grow without proportionally increasing costs.
In a remarkable show of resilience, the company has nearly erased its net debt and has achieved an EBIT of 7% for the year, meeting its financial targets. This substantial improvement comes even as it coped with a 15% loss in sales, underscoring strong internal management and a strategic focus on high-margin products and associated services.
With signs of market recovery, management is shifting towards more aggressive growth ambitions, targeting visibility of these efforts in 2024 and beyond. As a testament to their confidence, the board has proposed to increase the dividend to SEK 0.75 per share, evidencing their optimistic outlook for the future.
The company is actively considering acquisition targets to strengthen its offerings and regional presence, prepared to implement a more diligent and strategic approach to integration and synergy realization. Additionally, it reaffirmed its commitment to organic growth, aiming for an increase in line with its financial target of 4-8% over a business cycle.
The company is placing a strong emphasis on operational efficiency, including its working capital, which showcased a robust cash conversion rate of 180%. This financial prudence and efficiency positions the company well to not only weather current market uncertainties but also capitalize on growth opportunities as they arise.
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Welcome to the ITAB Q4 2023 Presentation. [Operator Instructions]Now I will hand the conference over to the speakers, CEO, Andreas Elgaard; and CFO, Ulrika Bergmo Skold. Please go ahead.
Hello, everybody. This is Andreas Elgaard speaking. So welcome to our year-end report. We are really proud to share a little bit of this, me, together with Ulrika. And as usual, we will start by talking a little bit about who we are. We want to keep on doing that in order for you guys to really get to know us. So I will jump straight into it. So a small introduction to ITAB Shop Concept AB, ITAB Group is -- we like to say that we are what we create together with our customers. So regardless if it is a grocery store, a checkout arena in a grocery store, if it's a do-it-yourself, a clothing store or a high fashion street, a pharmacy, a car exhibition place, and our engagement with the customers really define who we are and the value we add to our customers. And it's really all about teamwork.Today, we are a leader in Europe, and it's important to say that we also have a global reach. So we have activity also in North America, South America, in Asia. And -- but the majority of the core of our business is, of course, European. Our global footprint comes from us following our customers out in the world, and that has kind of made us spread our wings, so to say.The Grocery segment is our biggest. And you can see here, these are updated figures for the full year. So it is a little bit more than half of our turnover. Home Improvement is our second largest segment, and then we followed by Fashion. And then in others, we have segments such as Consumer Electronics, Pharmacy, Hospitality, Service Stations, that type of customers within the Retail segment.So what we do is really we co-create solutions, and we do this together with retailers to help them reach the targeted outcome thereafter. And we are at our best when we have a strategic partnership where we are part of identifying the opportunity or the challenge that needs to be addressed. And together with our customers then develop solutions that helps to reach their outcome.We do all sorts of things from designing concepts to designing services, developing products, installations, aftercare service, et cetera. And of course, we manufacture a large part of what we install, but we also source part of what we sell to our customers. And yes, I talked about the segments that we operate. But in total, you could say that we are around 2,500 people. We cover 24 countries with our own offices, and we have 15 production facilities.So retail is going through quite a large transformation, as we all know, and I will just spend a few minutes talking about that in order for everybody to be on the same page, because it influences us a lot. And what is driving this change is, of course, consumer expectations and consumer expectations are constantly evolving, constantly changing, constantly providing both opportunity and challenge to retailers, regardless if it's online or in the physical stores. And consumers, they expect that their time is being taken care of in the best possible way. And the consumers, they expect very different ways of managing their time. When they want to have a convenient and easy shopping experience, then that is of the essence. So they want time to be well saved, so to say. And when they want to be inspired or they want to engage with the brand or they want to learn something or they really want to indulge in their experience, then they want the time to be an investment worth a while, so to say.And this -- and consumers are more -- they more expect a curated and guided experience than ever before. And these expectations don't always come from our retailers closest competitor or the normal competition, it comes from online retailers or it comes from social media or it comes from service experiences. But consumers take these expectations with them and have that as -- when they judge what good looks like also with traditional retailers. And this puts a lot of strain on retail because they need to repurpose, refurbish, refit, reinvent themselves. They need to stay relevant. And in the past, I would say, staying relevant was easier than today. Today, you need to be much more frequent and agile in your change in order to meet up with these consumer expectations. And this has a big implication for us in our industry.We were used to a couple of years back to have large rollout programs that we knew well in advance that they were coming. It was a lot of the same. And today, that has completely changed. Today, there is more work out there than ever before, but it comes with a short lead time, short notice. The series that we are producing or delivering are not very big. So we have been very focused on building a company that is more focused on truly delivering value and outcome to our customers, truly becoming more of a solution provider and a thought leader that helps our customers to tackle these dilemmas and unleash the opportunities that lies within. And also then to become more agile and flexible in how we both work internally in our own operations and how we go to market, but also then how we apply our supplier base on making sure that the total delivery is what is expected.And of course, there are more things that are kind of influencing that. Technology is really becoming democratized. People have the whole world of information in their hand. This is driving everything. But we also have trends that the interest rates and the cost of capital has gone up, salaries are going up. There is a pressure and the cost of living crisis, I think, on many consumers. And we see this also turning into, I would say, I wish for a low price, I wish for really taking care of my money and also some hesitance when it comes to investing in certain types of retail.Of course, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has created a lot of political instability in Europe and has affected the whole, I would say, ecosystem in supply chain and so on. But most of all, I would say, political uncertainty and polarization in politics is driving a lot of the -- it's one macro trend that is influencing decision-making, making many be more short-term thinking in how they build and develop their business. And of course, climate change is and will become increasingly important. And it is something that we and our customers and our suppliers needs to constantly improve on in order to be -- continue to be relevant.It's also important to talk about that not all retail is the same. Discounters are in a very large portion, operating like they used to do a couple of years ago. They are not affected by some of the consumer trends, but mainstream retail is affected by. They continue really, really strong. And the attractiveness of a low price is stronger than ever. So the true kind of discounters are just continuing to be very, very strong. We can see that. It's more of the retailers that are a little bit stuck in the middle that where the innovation pace is picking up, and that they need to do more going forward. But all in all, this creates a very dynamic and exciting retail climate where there is more work out there for us than ever before.And that's why we like to conclude that for us, it's important to rethink retail and to do that together. And it's also the essence, I would say, of our strategy of becoming the leading solution provider. So our strategy, some of you are may be a little bit tired of this that I keep on repeating it, but I think it is important. I would say that we are maybe a little bit more than halfway through our strategic transformation. There has been, I would say, 3 big parts in that strategic transformation. One has been to really build a modern company. But in order to do that and to build those new capabilities, first, we had to stabilize our finances. So, to stabilize finances was the first phase; invest and build new capabilities, the second phase; and then expand our business and market presence and grow is the third phase of the strategy.And most importantly, that -- in that strategy is to be really well positioned to help retailers adapt to the changing retail landscape and to improve their business. And for us meant that we developed what we call our value proposition, that is outcome-based. And that's focused on delivering the desired consumer brand experience that is unique for every retailer and every brand to help them with our solutions to not only create experiences that are good for the brand, but also that leads to increased sales and increased conversion. And if we can do this and at the same time, improve efficiency and the service level, then it starts to become super good. And then many retailers, they are faced with this dilemma that they have to invest more than ever to keep up. So can we also help them to reduce their operational costs? Then we will become very, very attractive. And this is what we are working on, and we can see that our strategy is working. We have -- we are step-by-step strengthening our position when we work like this.Today, I would like to say that if you look on the left side of the screen that we are supporting retailers in 2 ways, and our influence on retailers is growing. Today, it's mainly with our -- of course, our products, our solutions, our services centered around lighting, interiors and retail tech. That is how we help to -- I would say, to build a consumer experience that the retailer wants, but also to help them to operate the store or their whole fleet of stores. So that's the influence that we have today. And that's super important and really something that is vital for each retailer. That will continue also in the future. But we believe that the dilemma that retailers have that they need to continue to invest and take out costs and become more efficient, that means that they need to become smarter. They need to work more with data.So our growing influence is to keep on doing what we're doing, but also add on more connected services, help retailers to leverage their data, help retailers to combine data that they can extract from the physical store and combine that with the data they have from other sources on their online channels. And we also see that there is an increasing need for retail services, everything from environmental services to digital services to manage the change or the fulfillment or the rollout process. So there is a huge need for retailers when they change to also increase the services that they acquire from us and others.And just to kind of look at our strategy then. I talked about these 3 phases, and they are simplified in this graph here. So it's all about stabilizing the finances. We have a big tick box there. And I think you will see later when we come to the numbers that we have really turned data around when it comes to the financial stability. And that has not come easy. It's been a lot of hard work there on purchasing, cost control, capital control and of course, restructuring and managing our footprint.We have been diligently building and investing in new capabilities. And during 2024, we will roll out our first new ERP that will become a group-wide ERP. And we have developed and prepared for that for the last 2 years. So that's a big one for us that will influence us in the coming 2, 3, 4 years. And then we -- it will help us also to become even more efficient, even more agile. But it's not just about the ERP and common ways working, it's also that we are building new commercial capabilities and new operational capabilities that will help us to become better and faster internally and become more relevant and strategic when we face our customers.All of this is helping us to prepare and build a more tight, modern ITAB that can scale both organically and through acquired growth. And when we expand and grow, that we don't need to grow also our cost base. That is the whole purpose of the investments that we are doing. And then so -- and we are on a good path to do all these things in our strategy. And of course, the threat that we have is we need to keep focus. We cannot just focus on building for the future. We need to perform here and now. And we need to treat the threat of inflation, the cost of capital and what that does and all the uncertainty in the world around us. If we manage to balance these 2, then we have a really strong future ahead of us. So far, we have been super good with that and I'm super proud of the teams that have been doing it.Looking at just a little bit, if you put some numbers on where we're coming from and where we're going, we can see that we have strengthened our grocery position, which is good. Grocery is very stable. It provides stability to ITAB. We have -- when it comes to retail technology, that has been a constant growth sector. Also during the very difficult years like COVID and also now when we have been facing with recession in Europe, we have continued to grow our absolute numbers here and also the ratio have continued to grow, which is very, very important because that drives a lot of the high-margin products, and it drives also additional services.We have managed to almost eradicate our net debt, which is something we are very proud of. And this means that we have a very, very solid balance sheet, and we are really prepared to use that also when it comes to acquiring new targets. And at the same time, we have improved our profitability. So we today have -- are proud to announce that for the full year, we reach an EBIT of 7%, which is in line with our financial targets over a business cycle. And all of this aims at us becoming the leading solution provider.And then there is also -- it's not just about -- sometimes when I talk, I can hear myself focus on everything that we had to do to clean up and fix and prepare ITAB for the future. But there is a lot of opportunity also out there. And of course, we need to become a more relevant company, but also the opportunity that lies ahead of us is massive, I would say. This comes from that we are working on a market that is really, really big, a market that is really, really dynamic. And our market share is really, really low. We are one of the 3 largest companies in Europe. Our ambition is to be the leading, and none of us 3 largest have a market share that is more than 10%. So it means that there is plenty of room to grow both through acquisitions but also by being better and growing organically.So the consolidation of our market is already ongoing, and I think it will continue and ITAB's ambition is to continue to lead that. So there is plenty of growth for us out there that we need to capture. And we will do that by focusing on our -- on making sure that we penetrate our core and where we have all of our strengths, where we have our capabilities. And we will do that through cross-selling. We'll do that by gaining new customers in the segments where we're already strong and very relevant. And then we'll expand on our core with new offerings. This could be new solutions, new services, new products that are adjacent to what we're doing today. And especially services and technology products will be part of that equation. And then we see that we can also expand beyond to new segments and new markets. But here, we'll be more diligent, and we can see that we have some spots in Eastern or Southern Europe, where we could gain some strength and also that we need to improve our footprint in North America and elsewhere, where there is opportunity, mainly in North America, I would say.So by that, I hand over to Ulrika before I will wrap up this and we open for questions and answers.
Yes. Good day, everybody. I'm going to present a little bit more around the financials and the figures where we are very happy to see a strong finish of 2023. So looking at the full year development, our EBIT margin increases to 7% in 2023, despite the challenging market sentiment and decreased sales. This level of EBIT margin in a historic perspective hasn't been reached since 2017.Our reported EBIT increases with SEK 30 million compared to SEK 22 million, where increased gross margins and cost saving actions this year partly mitigated the effect of lower sales. And our adjusted profit is well in line with last year despite the turnover drop of more than SEK 700 million. Our operating cash flow is very strong in 2023 with over SEK 800 million and with a cash conversion of 180%, which is well above our target of 80%. And net debt is, as Andreas mentioned, close to 0, which means that we have a very strong financial position in a somewhat still uncertain business environment.We still experience a strong growth in retail tech loss prevention solutions and continue to gain momentum from our strong position in this area. Growth sectors, such as pharmacies and distributors in the markets outside Europe is also driving the increase in this segment other. Most other customer segments are in decline due to the fact that customers have been hesitant towards capital spend and the biggest decline here is within traditional interior solutions and checkouts.Currency adjusted, our net sales decreased with 15% for the full year '23, but the pace of the decline is slowing down during the fourth quarter to 8%. And we have, during the autumn seen some indications of customers being more willing to invest in new and previously postponed projects. And we have, as communicated, received some bigger orders for self-checkouts and also traditional interior solutions. But some uncertainty still remains, given the economic climate and uncertainties in the world.Gross margin continued to improve also in the fourth quarter, mainly driven by the loss prevention solutions and the favorable market conditions we experienced in this area as well as strengthened margins in general over our product portfolio, and this has partly mitigated the effect of the sales -- lower sales. EBIT of SEK 142 million in the fourth quarter is SEK 50 million higher than last year and corresponding to an EBIT margin of 8.9%, which is well in line with our financial upper end of our financial targets and a very strong performance also in a historical context.Implemented cost savings during 2023 alongside beneficial product mix and price adjustments have had a positive impact for our results in '23 while lower sales and also lower capacity utilization in our production facilities had a negative impact. We will remain focused on our operational efficiency and also driving our sales development with determination going forward to seek new potential opportunities to grow.
So just to kind of wrap up a little bit and of course, repeat what Ulrika have already said, but I think it's good to kind of sum up with some main takeaways from the year-end reports. We are super proud with the high profitability and strong cash flow in the fourth quarter. And we know that the market has been challenging. And when you look at the full year, we are more than proud that we managed to have early on cost control, and we managed to keep margins high. And we deliver an operating profit in absolute numbers that are -- is the highest since 2017. So -- and at that time, there were no recessions in Europe on the contrary. So we are really, really proud of what we have done. And it's part of our transformation journey to improve the company, and we believe that we still have room for further improvements.In total, of course, we had to face the fact that we lost 15% of sales. And this is -- you all know that, that puts a huge strain on a company. And therefore, I'm very proud in how our organizations and teams have managed to deal with that. We could -- we see in the fourth quarter, we see some signs of recovery. We also saw that on the absolute numbers in sales in the fourth quarter that the decline is kind of slowing down. And we believe that there is some good opportunity that things will be more stable looking forward to this year. Our -- there is a strong demand continued for our loss prevention solutions, and we see also a pickup of more, I would say, interior solutions and traditional ITAB solutions.I talked about the margin already. The product mix was really good for us and the increased efficiency from the cost cutting and cost control has really helped us. And our focus on capital has really been positive. So we are all set for looking into '24 and '25 and beyond. And we believe that it's a good opportunity now to -- for ITAB to become a little bit more aggressive when it comes to growth ambitions. And hopefully, in '25, that will be really visible and already perhaps if the market allows in '24.Just to wrap up, our Board has proposed to the Annual General Meeting a dividend to be paid, that is SEK 0.75 per share compared to SEK 0.50 last year. So -- and then just to wrap up that the trends that we have in the market, even though it's the cost of living crisis or coming from inflation and cost of capital and maybe slowdown in economy, we see that we have the solutions to help retailers to tackle this, and we can also see that those solutions are really attractive. So we are well positioned. We also believe that we can help retailers to lower their operational costs further through other solutions we have and through efficient lighting, et cetera. So all in all, we look very positively on the future from ITAB side, despite a very dynamic and challenging environment.And by that, we open up for questions and answers.
[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Karl-Johan Bonnevier from DNB.
Yes. Andreas and Ulrika, congratulations to a very solid finish to the year and then good execution in 2023. And I want to pick you a little on the different growth variables here that affected you in 2023. And if you could -- I saw you alluded to that you still have a 20% participation from, say, retail technology in your mix. But maybe you could allude a little bit more what happened in lightning and what's happened in interiors because -- and then maybe indicate how that looked in Q4 because it sounds on your commentary that maybe technology was the biggest share of what was driving things in Q4 than it might have been there for the full year?
Yes. I think that you -- I mean in your question, you have the answer. I think that retail technology was a big part of driving Q4. And we communicated that earlier that we have -- we have won some large rollouts of smart solutions that helps to reduce shrinkage to several grocery retailers, and there was a big push because this is important for them. It erodes their margins. So there has been a big push to get this out and especially the end of the year that happened.To comment on lighting, I mean, if I comment on the full year, I think we had a stronger lighting year in 2022, where we had some very, very large rollouts to one large -- to several large customers, but particularly one in North America, that is a global fashion brand where we exchanged all there. I would say first generation LED to the latest, most efficient LED retail lighting that exists in the world. So that was a big one. And we haven't had the same volume this year. So that has been a little bit of a decline.And I would say that interiors have probably suffered the most or have suffered the most in 2023. And that is because sometimes the return on investment calculation is not so easy to prove when it comes to rebuilding your physical space versus when it comes to maybe installing a piece of technology or exchanging your lighting, et cetera. But we also see now that it was a lot of new decision-making and the cost of capital makes some customers' hesitance, but we see signs now that the realization that this is now the reality has kind of sunk in. So we believe that it will be more positive going into this year '24 versus last year.
So when you look at -- I heard you said that you were -- saw yourself being halfway through the transformation program of the one ITAB has set up. And when you see yourself coming out at the other end of that, what would that mean for the product mix of the company, you believe so?
I mean, it will mean more technical products. It will mean a higher ratio of services. I think services is the part of our offer that will grow the most. That doesn't mean that interiors will decline or lighting will decline. It means that we are -- they'd probably will increase or they will increase, but technology and services will increase more. So their share will be bigger than what it is today.And it's important to be careful there because some services have very low margin, whereas other services are high margin, a lot of value add. So we are focusing on those that are adding more value. But we also believe that there will be more of the more, you could say, the simpler services like installation and maintenance and those things. But we're going for those that add more value to the customer.
And I see your statement about continued signs of recovery in the underlying market and a more stable kind of environment clients coming back and discussing new opportunities with you. Are we back in a year looking into 2024 when you think you will say, meet your also top line growth target of 4% to 8%? Or is that too early to be hoped for?
I mean, we are a bit careful when it comes to forecasting what we have ahead of us. But we know what our targets are and our ambition is to meet our targets. That's clear.
Very straightforward. And maybe Ulrika, on looking at the working capital normalization you executed in 2023, very, very impressive. But same thing here, when you go into 2024, where we might see some organic growth coming back, does this now become more of a question of optimizing the working capital towards growth? Or are there still, say, some more resets to be able to be achieved here to have a positive factor coming out of working capital?
Yes. I think that if we -- if we will see a growth in '24, of course, that will also increase the working capital a bit. But I still see that we have potential in some areas to be more efficient. We are more balanced in our inventories. But when we have more modern systems or help to optimize inventory levels throughout the group, we will still have possibilities to finance that growth, I think.
Excellent. And when you look at your now super strong balance sheet, I can't remember ever having seen you having this kind of strength in financials -- from the financial side, so to say, in the company. How do you see the capital allocation priorities for 2024? I heard your comment, Andreas, about being 1 of the 3 players in Europe wanted to become the clear #1. It's just a year where we should expect you maybe to start being -- looking more at acquisition opportunities? Or are we still talking more of organic growth also for 2024?
I think both. We are being very -- I mean, those that have been following ITAB over the years knows that ITAB have a strong history of growing through acquisitions. However, I mean, the cost of capital is different now than what it was between, I would say, 2008 and 2017, 2018, it is very different. And we have a strategy that is maybe today is not just about growing top line. It is a strategy about building a more -- a company that is growing the top line, but that also grows from a scalable base. So we will be quite diligent. I mean we are not -- so I know that I'm being a bit fluffy here because I cannot promise you what will happen. That's the nature of these types of deals. But we are actively looking at targets that we think would strengthen us from either offer position that we'll bring some products or services that we can scale across the group or we cover a region where we are not so strong, mainly in Europe or we maybe cover a segment that we need to improve on.So we are actively looking at different opportunities. And we are -- as soon as the stars are aligned, the price is right, then we will also announce what we are doing. So I know it's a bit fluffy because we don't -- it's a very uncertain outlook when it comes to these things, but we are actively working with this. And you can see on our balance sheet, of course, that we have the strength to be quite confident when it comes to driving acquired growth.
Yes. I guess in the industry, you must have one of the best financial situations that is out there. So I guess that you're really talking favor of you when it comes to looking at essential targets.
Yes, that's clear. That's clear. So -- but we also want to learn from the past. And so when we acquire something now, we want to acquire something where we have a clear idea on how to integrate and drive synergies. So it's not something that we discover after we've purchased the company. So we really want to be more diligent, right.
No, then I guess you are still continue to buying back yourself looking at the buyback program. And I guess if that doesn't meet its total kind of budget, so to say, by the AGM, should we expect this to continue to roll on after the AGM given that you then -- I guess you will still get, let's say, the kind of mandate to do a 10% buyback?
I think that the ambition that our Board has is that -- is to ask for that mandate from the AGM, and if that mandate is granted, I'm sure we will continue to behave in the same fashion that is long term, so people know what to expect from us. So I think that answers the question that we think it's a good idea to work on -- to continue to work on that end.
The next question comes from Kepler Cheuvreux.
It's Erik Sandstedt with Kepler Cheuvreux. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yes. Perfect. Yes. Sorry, I had some technical issues here in the beginning. Well done in the quarter. Also for me, just a few questions, perhaps overlapping with the other ones. But I just want to start off with the gross margin, which is obviously very strong again in the quarter, particularly in light of the lower sales year-on-year. Have you sort of ever said anything about what kind of gross margins you have in your retail tech business or your loss prevention business, for example, just to get an understanding because it's pretty impressive that the gross margin is up this much despite the negative organic growth. So anything on that could be very helpful.
No. We have not shared that with the market. We have not been that precise. But because we are a bit careful to end up in a segment reporting because our business is really not that segment. You cannot kind of carve out the segments like that. Usually, there is a mix of products that goes into each deal we make. But sometimes the tech part is more dominant, sometimes the interior part is more dominant, but usually there is a mix, almost always and also in services then. But of course, I mean, our communication is quite clear that we are strengthening our retail tech sales, and we are delivering more and more loss prevention solutions and our margin is high. So it means that this is an area where we have a strength here, and we also have a uniqueness when it comes to the loss prevention side, where we don't have, so -- we have a unique position where our competitors are not having the same offer as we have. So that is something that we try to make the most of. And we are protected with some patents and so on, but it's always ways to work around that. But so far, we -- this is helping us tremendously.
Yes. Perfect. Also, turning to the top line here now, given the new contracts that you have signed and announced over the past few weeks, I know you touched a little bit upon it, but is it fair to assume that you expect to return to sales growth organically already in 2024?
It's clearly our ambition to do that because it's part of our financial target. So we are not happy with -- I mean, our targets is to grow -- to have growth, 4% to 8% over a business cycle. And of course, this -- we are now in the recession part of our business cycle. So -- but we want to grow, and that's clear. And that's our ambition, it's our target as well. So that's -- yes, that's what I can say.And then the deals that we announced, maybe it can be worthwhile to mention that because I think one is a new account that we have won in the fashion segment. So it's a new relationship that has been developed, and one is an old relationship where it's a new solution that we have developed together with the customer. And then we communicate -- I mean, all our business is one project deals or on initiatives like this. It's -- there is some recurring business, but the majority is really that each deal needs to be won. And we communicate when we are, I mean, SEK 80 million or above, then we think it's a scale that we communicate. But we take these types of deals all the time. So we also use smaller deals in order to assess how the market lies. And we communicate in the report that we see signs of stabilization in the fourth quarter.
[indiscernible]
Yes. So we are going for our targets, but it's clear to grow.
Yes. Also a few financial questions about the quarter here. Selling expenses were relatively low, at least as far as I view it. Is that because sales were lower? Or is it because you -- is it part of your cost-cutting program? Or how should we think about that also going forward?
I think it's more a seasonal variation that you see with vacations in December and so on. And so there is no dramatic thing that has happened, that is behind.
No. We have done some cost savings, as I mentioned during the year. And of course, some of that effect is included. But part of it is that we have a seasonal effect as well as Andreas says.
Yes. And similarly, financial expenses and taxes were quite low in the quarter as well, at least compared to previous quarters. Anything in particular there worth mentioning?
Yes. When it comes to the taxes, I think there were maybe possibilities to use some unvalued tax deficits and also increased possibilities of tax deductions in China, for example, is one is something that affects that. And when it comes to the financial costs, of course, we have barely no debt. So that is helping and also some other effects when it comes to bonds in Argentina, but we also have a negative effect as we wrote-in in the report of the devaluation. So it's both swings and carousels.
Yes. Also, finally, just coming back to the question about working capital to see that I got it correctly. Is it fair to assume that even if you grow the top line this year, there may be sort of a positive working capital release? Or should we expect you to have a sort of a negative contribution from net working capital into 2024? Just wanted to clarify that.
Yes. It's, of course, depending also where the top line come from because it's different in different regions with payment terms and agreements with customers and so on. But we clearly have an ambition to continue our work to be more efficient in the working capital. And we have some potential still to work at when it comes to stock. But of course, it depends on where the top line growth comes from if we need to increase working capital in some areas.
Yes. And I mean, let's hope that we see healthy growth in the future. But of course, a growing company will acquire -- will need more capital. So, yes.
[Operator Instructions] There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions and closing comments.