Anora Group Oyj (ANORA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Okay. Good morning, everyone, and a warm welcome to the presentation of Anora's Q4 results. My name is Milena Haeggstrom. I'm the Head of Investor Relations here at Anora. Our presenters today are CEO Kirsi Puntila and CFO Stein Eriksen. After their presentations, we will start with the Q&A session. And please be reminded that you can post questions throughout the call through the chat. Please also note that this presentation will be recorded and published later today on our website, anora.com. And now, Kirsi, please go ahead.

Thank you, Milena. Okay. Q4 and, therefore, also the year 2025 are now backed and locked. It was an intense year for Anora, both internally and externally. Externally, we have to acknowledge the fact that the world has gone a little bit crazy lately, and consumer behaviors are also changing, not only in our industry, but also in the larger consumer goods landscape. The wine and spirits industry is not immune to those changes either. And we do see many of the big global companies divesting and acquiring. We see many smaller companies disappearing from the market, and we see some new operators coming to market. Also, categories are blurring, and increasingly, more of the players in the industry are expanding their portfolios across different segments. Then, internally, in 2025, Anora had to adjust to a new CEO, and there were also some changes in the leadership team. But more importantly, we organized all our ducks in a row to get ready for a turnaround of Anora. We created, and we launched a new midterm strategy, and we started executing the many initiatives communicated in the Fit & Fix and focus strategy. On that front, if I simplistically summarize our accomplishments and things that we now need to focus even more on, they are on this slide. So if we start with a little bit of a celebration of the accomplishments that we were able to do last year. So first and foremost, our ability to turn around the wine market share in Sweden. And that is a testimonial to our strength in understanding the dynamics of the monopolies and how to respond to consumer needs. So not only did we restate our #2 position in the market, but we also continue to grow every month. Remember, Sweden and the Swedish wine market are 5x bigger than, for example, Finland. Another strength is our ability to innovate. We launched several successful line extensions to our core brands, and this is very much in our midterm strategy as well, expanding our core to growing segments. Some of the good examples of that are, for example, Koskenkorva Liqueur, such as Ginger Brett, and other cream liquors. Then we launched a very successful Yellowina Kerma and Yellowina glogg, which actually was the most sold glogg in the Finnish monopoly in the past season. Then, all the Christmas Aquavats sold 8% more in net sales than the previous year. Then, of course, the impressive improvement in our gross margins, our overall meticulous ability in value management. Then, eventually, we are here to make money, of course, and provide a profitable business to our shareholders, and we have made many improvements internally, whether we talk about OpEx improvements or inventory reductions, to name a few. Then there's still obviously a lot in the pipeline and a lot in progress. As far as our Fit & Fix Focus strategy is concerned, we launched our new organization. And this new structure has now been fully operational as of the 1st of January this year. We also just last weekend went live with a unified ERP system, and we can proudly say that this is now fully operational. Then we can also report that there's good progress in all of the other work streams that we launched and communicated as part of the Fit & Fix and Focus strategy. But the work continues, and we have only started with the turnaround. So the high priority moving forward is, of course, the growth. We also need to start growing our top line. And on top of that, there are markets and categories where we haven't been able to keep the shares, and this is what the 2026 plans are yet up towards. We also need to consistently and continuously renew and analyze not only our portfolios, but also the channels that we work in. We want to be a #1 multichannel operator, which means that we need to strive for better performance in many areas. Finally, something that we're committed to is to keep improving our position as the #1 wine and spirits powerhouse in the Nordics and the Baltics. This means embracing our dual model, which I call a dual model, which is very unique in this area and gives us a competitive advantage. This means that we can serve our customers with the best of the partner brands and partner wines and spirits, and simultaneously keep on growing our own core brands. Let's then continue with a brief market overview in Q4 before going to the Anora figures. In the Nordic markets, total sales volume in Q4 declined by 4.3% overall. Spirits saw a decline of 4.7% and wine declined by 4.3% compared to the same period last year. The decline was most significant in Finland and Denmark, with total volume decreases of 7.1% and 6.6%, respectively. Sweden and Norway showed a more moderate decline of 3.6% in Sweden and 2.1% in Norway. So the overall picture is still very much the same as in the previous quarter. Q4 is yet another consecutive quarter of negative development in the monopolies. So this was now the 18th consecutive negative quarter, to be exact. Okay. So against this backdrop, I think we have good news, and we have bad news. I am super happy to announce that we had the best quarter 4 for Anora since the merger in 2021. It is fair to say that our strong execution and performance improvement actions really started showing tangible results. The challenge was our Q4 net sales. And this decreased by 5.4% to EUR 194.3 million. A part of this decline is related to lower volumes in the filler services in wines and the partner losses, the earlier changes that we've had in the partner portfolio in the spirits. But still, what pleases us is that our Q4 group gross margin rose to 45.1% of net sales. All our segments improved in gross margin, both in the fourth quarter and during the full year. In Q4, Wine reached 31.5% of net sales and Spirits 49.1% of net sales. Then our comparable EBITDA increased by 7.7%, amounting to EUR 31.1 million compared to last year, when it was EUR 28.9 million. We also showcased strong execution in our Fit & Fix and focus initiatives, which, as said, delivered tangible results, which was shown as improved profitability, and with our Q4 comparable EBITDA margin already reaching 16%. So, the full year group comparable EBITDA was in line with the guidance, amounting to EUR 71.1 million or 4.8% of net sales. We also entered the quarter with strong cash flow, leading to a healthy financial position with net debt being as low as EUR 101.5 million and the leverage being 1.4. So, when looking ahead at our guidance for this year, our comparable EBITDA is expected to be in the range of EUR 74 million to EUR 79 million this year. Our comparable EPS amounted to EUR 0.33 per share in '25, and our Board of Directors proposes a dividend of EUR 0.24 per share to our Annual General Meeting later in April. Very good. If I then summarize some of the many highlights of the Q4. First, we need to talk about the wine market share. We successfully grew our market share again in Q4 in Sweden, and that was thanks to our new launch initiatives. The glove category also continued its strong momentum, with Blossa exceeding the results of the previous year. Our partner wine business also developed positively, thanks to some new agreements, which we were able to get, while our leading partners delivered results above the market average. So, overall, we are very pleased to see that our focused investments and successful new wine launches made us the fastest-growing company in the Swedish wine market in 2025. Then, of course, we can't forget the glogg season when we talk about Q4. Our Blossa brand delivered strong performance in Sweden and Finland. For the Fins in the audience, we also expanded the good old yellowing in the gut category in the Finnish market, and that had a quirky little twist to the whole glo portfolio. Then, if we continue with the spirits highlights, we delivered a record quarter in profitability and in EBITDA. And this is against very heavy headwinds, especially in Finland, where the monopoly has been in decline for quite some time now. Also, who else but the Koskenkorva brand, again, continued the strong performance. Koskenkorva's mother brand continued to excel internationally. And in the Nordic region, it was particularly the liquors and ready to drink so called RTD category that kept growing. I've said it before, but extensions such as Koskenkorva Ginger Bread and the earlier-mentioned Jaloviina Cream contributed particularly well to the spirits' net sales. Then I will go and elaborate a little bit more on the segment's performance. So, the total wine segment net sales declined by 9.2% to EUR 90.9 million. So, as you remember, our wine business can be divided into 2 areas: one being our own so-called commercial owned and partner wine business, and then the rest being the so-called killer business, which basically means that we're selling out factory capacity to others in the industry. The decline in Q4 was driven by reduced volumes in the killer services in Denmark in particular, as well as lower volumes in Finland and Denmark. In Sweden, the recent new wine made the fastest-growing company in the Swedish wine market, which is clear proof of our competitiveness. And as already mentioned, we gained the #2 market position in the monopoly channel and also improved the overall market share in Sweden. We also maintained our total market leadership in Norway, Denmark, and Finland, including the grocery trade. Wine gross margin was 31.5% of net sales, and gross profit amounted to SEK 28.6 million in Q4. And finally, comparable EBITDA decreased to SEK 13 million from SEK 13.6 million last year, or 14.3% of the net sales. Next in line, we have the Spirits segment. So, in Q4, Spirits' net sales declined by 4.5% to EUR 65.8 million, explained by the earlier changes in the partner portfolio and the overall weakness in Finland in particular. Market shares have declined in the monopoly countries, but the decline has slowed down during the Q4 quarter. Koskenkorva net sales grew from the previous year and is now representing over 16% of the total spirits net sales already. Our gross margin remained at a high level with 49.1%, which is very high, and the gross profit amounted to EUR 32.4 million. And then Spirits' comparable EBITDA increased to 15.3% EBITDA margin to 23.2% of net sales, thanks to the increased gross profit and lower operating expenses. So, as said, a record EBITDA result for the Spirits this quarter. Then, finally, let's look at the Industrial segment, which in Q4 totaled EUR 56.5 million in net sales, while the external net sales increased by 3.7% to EUR 37.6 million. This increase was mostly driven by higher volumes in starch and ethanol. The industrial gross margin increased to 54.3% of net sales in Q4, and the gross profit amounted to EUR 30.6 million. The industrial segment's comparable EBITDA increased to EUR 5.1 million, which was 9.1% of the net sales. So one thing that I wanted to mention here as well is the fact that the sale of emission rights was worth EUR 800,000, and that's included in the reported EBITDA and therefore, of course, improved our gross profit. The supply chain running costs were slightly higher than in the previous year due to some timing differences. Let me then finish off with the full-year figures and how that ended up looking. So overall, we are very pleased to hit the EBITDA in the guided bracket because this is what we were set up to accomplish, and this is what we worked really hard for. Yes, the top-line development is tough, and we, of course, can't be satisfied with the minus 4.9% decline. But as for the profitability improvement in general and EBITDA, in particular, we ticked those boxes just fine. On the lower part of the slide, I just wanted to remind you about our total split of segments and markets. In the first picture, you can see the division between our segments. So wine continues to be the largest of our three segments, with a share of 46% of group sales. The spirits segment share is about 1/3, and industrial is just above 20% of group sales. The Nordic countries are our home markets where we want to remain as the market-leading brand house. Alongside that, we continue expanding our footprint internationally, especially with our own spirits. And then the last picture is the split between the partner and own brands in the beverage segments. Our own brands represented a slightly larger share in 2025, but we are very strong in both owned and partner brands as well. In fact, in the wine segment, the share of partners and partner products is higher than Anora's own wines, while in the spirits segment, the ratio is the other way around. Then this one here, we focus on the top part of the slide, you can see the breakdown of our business and its distribution within each segment. So this is more like a reminder for everyone on how our business is distributed. But with this, I now give the word over to Stein, who will dig a little bit deeper into the details of our numbers and especially the balance sheet. So over to you, Stein.

Yes. Thank you, Kirsi, and good morning, everybody. As you all know, Q4 is by far the most important quarter for Anora, both in terms of profitability as well as cash flow. So let's then dig into our performance in the quarter, and I will give some comments on the full year of 2025. But let us first now move into the financial summary for Q4, and starting then with the P&L. In the fourth quarter, comparable EBITDA increased to EUR 31.1 million. And as Kirsi said, the best quarter of Q4 since the merger of Arcus and Altia back in 2021. The EBITDA improvement was driven by improved performance, especially in the Spirits segment. And despite lower net sales, we clearly improved profitability, supported by both stronger gross margin and continued OpEx control. Gross margin continued to strengthen, increasing by 290 basis points year-on-year, reflecting both improved mix and revenue management across the business. Operating expenses were higher than last year, but that was mainly due to personnel-related restructuring costs of EUR 4 million. Also, I want to highlight two things that you should be aware of. First of all, we had a high amount of items affecting comparability in the quarter, and this amounted to EUR 10 million, primarily related to the restructuring actions and portfolio optimization measures. Also, be aware that we recognized an impairment of brands of EUR 10 million, and these impairments are noncash and do not affect comparable EBITDA cash flow or our financial position. If we move over to the balance sheet summary, I'm very pleased to see that interest-bearing debt decreased to NOK 101.5 million and that the leverage improved to 1.4x comparable EBITDA, really reflecting a strong cash generation, especially in Q4. Later on in this presentation, I will talk a little bit more about the inventory reduction, but inventory reduction was strong during the full year and the quarter, and decreased to NOK 112.5 million with positive contribution from all segments, supporting both the cash flow and the balance sheet strength. Kirsi already mentioned it. But so far, after the SAP implementation on the 1st of February, it looks very promising. The implementation and the system went live on the 1st of February. And as I said, progress has been positive. Also, the execution of the Fit & Fix and focus strategy is progressing according to plan with continued focus on profitability, simplification, and cash flow. So let's move over then to look a little bit more at the top line and net sales development. Kirsi already mentioned it, but net sales decreased by 5.4% year-on-year to NOK 194 million. A part of the decline is related to lower volumes in the wine filler business and the earlier changes in the spirits partner portfolio. Also, the Nordic markets continued to be weak, and there have now at least 18 consecutive quarters with negative volume development, and that's almost five years of continuous negative market development in the monopoly channel. In the wine segment, the decline reflects the reduced filler business volumes in Denmark as well as lower volumes in Finland. And in Spirits, most of the decline is explained by the earlier-mentioned partner portfolio changes and continued weakness in the monopoly channel. When it comes to Industrial, the net sales increased in the quarter, driven mainly by higher volumes in starch and ethanol, and then partly offsetting the decline we saw in Wine and Spirits. If we move over to the full year, the net sales decreased by 4.9% to NOK 658 million, and a significant part of the decline in 2025 was related to the lower fill service volumes in wine as well as the partner portfolio changes in spirits. And of course, as Kirsi already mentioned, we are not happy with the top-line performance in 2025, and this will, of course, have full focus to improve in 2026. That being said, if we move to the next slide, one area where we are very happy, that's or pleased, I think it's fair to say, that's with our performance in the gross margin development. Our underlying gross margin continued to strengthen, supported by both revenue management and a more cost-stable environment, as well as some positive mix effects. On the left-hand side, you see that the input cost here, represented with Finnish barley, has started to flatten out and was significantly below the peaks that we saw in '22 and '23. Turning to the right-hand side of the slide, you see that the strong gross margin in the quarter contributed to that also for the full year. The underlying Q4 gross margin reached 46.3% and was also above last year's level of 44.2%. For the full year, you see that the underlying gross margin has improved from 42.9% to 44.4%. And I'm also really happy to see that Anora now starts to be at good historical levels. The key driver for the improvement is revenue management. We made continued progress in price and mix optimization across all segments, ensuring that our pricing fully reflects cost changes and value positioning. So in summary, the combination of stabilized input cost, disciplined pricing, and efficiency measures, as well helped with some positive contribution from mix, has strengthened our profitability base. Then let's move over to the comparable EBITDA that increased by 7.7%, then up to 31.1 million or 16% of net sales, mainly driven, like I said, by improvement in Spirits. Looking at the breakdown per segment, Wine declined due to lower net sales. Spirits' EBITDA margin was clearly up to 33.2% compared to 19% last year, thanks to reduced operating expenses as well as improved gross margin. In the Industrial segment, the supply chain running costs were slightly higher than the previous year due to timing effects. Yes. Also, please notice that OpEx was higher due to restructuring costs of EUR 4 million. Then let's move over to the 2025 comparable EBITDA, which was up with 3.2% from last year. And then we ended at EUR 71.1 million or 10.8% of net sales. Improvements in Spirits and Industrial more than offset the decline in wine, while lower operating expenses supported the group margin development. When it comes to the improvement in Industrial, where we are very happy, I especially want to highlight the strong performance improvement we had in our logistics operations in Norway, namely Vectura. So let's then move over to the balance sheet and cash position. I mean, fourth quarter, as I mentioned, is structurally the most important quarter for annual cash flow generation. Q4 benefits from seasonally strong EBITDA and the release of working capital, particularly inventory, which is then reflected in the strong cash flow contribution during the quarter. The Q4 performance was therefore a key driver behind the reduction in net debt and improvement in leverage for the full year. I always receive a bank update from treasury on day 1 after the end of the period. And when I got the numbers in the beginning of January, it made me smile because we ended Q4 and the year with a stronger financial position compared to last year. Net interest-bearing debt ending decreased from NOK 122 million at the end of Q4 to NOK 101 million at the end of Q4 2025. And as you can see, net cash flow from operating activities amounted to approximately NOK 50 million for the year, reflecting improved profitability and strong working capital management, mainly explained by a good reduction in inventory. Net financial payments amounted to EUR 15 million, taxes paid to EUR 3 million, and CapEx to EUR 13 million, which was on par with last year. Asset disposal had no material impact on cash flow during the year, and dividend payments amounted to EUR 14.9 million, while other items had a limited effect on net debt. So if we then look at the financial position of the group, as stated, the operative cash flow ended at EUR 50 million, which was a clear improvement compared to last year of EUR 17 million compared to last year. Our liquidity reserves remained strong at EUR 353 million. And finally, our net debt ended at NOK 101 million, down from NOK 122 million last year. And leverage, as I already mentioned, is down to 1.4 compared to 1.8 last year. Ending my presentation with a net working capital slide. At the end of December, net working capital stood at minus NOK 80 million, which corresponds to minus 12% of net sales on the last 12 months basis. And especially once again want to highlight the strong improvement we have done in inventory during the last 3 years. From last year to this year, we have reduced inventory from NOK 139 million down to NOK 113 million. But if you look over a 3-year period, we have reduced inventory with EUR 74 million. And if you adjust for the sale of Larson in '22, we have reduced inventory with EUR 53 million, which is a good achievement, and we now start to be a more fit company. The reduction this year is explained or the contributors are all 3 segments with strong reduction in inventory. So really happy with that performance. So with this, I would like to hand it back to you, Kirsi , for some Q4 summary, 2026 outlook and some reflections.

Thank you, Stein. The CEO is always happy when the CFO is smiling, as you said, that  this made you smile. So thank you. So let me now summarize a few key takeouts of our quarter 4. So, our strong execution and performance improvement actions delivered tangible results. So, I think we are in a good path. Our gross margin rose to 45.1% of net sales, supported by all segments, and our disciplined cost control continued, resulting in improved profitability. Our Q4 comparable EBITDA increased by 7.7% and amounted to EUR 31.1 million, driven mainly by improvements in the spirits segment. The comparable EBITDA margin was 16% of net sales. Anora Q4 net sales amounted to EUR 194.3 million, which was minus 5.4% from last year. A significant part of the decline is related to lower volumes in the filler services in wine and the earlier-mentioned changes in the partner portfolio in spirits. Cash flow is strong, increasing from last year, and the lower net interest-bearing debt resulted in lower leverage. So then, finishing off in the next slide, looking at this ongoing year 2026, we need to be clear that despite a thoroughly planned profitability improvement program, the alcoholic beverage consumption in Anora's key markets is expected to remain partly structurally, but partly cyclically challenged. All the industry data and the consumer trends that we get indicate continued volume pressure through 2026. However, we are tackling that with our focus area of the FFF, where we are focusing on growth. And as to the new 2026 guidance, our comparable EBITDA is expected to be EUR 74 million to EUR 79 million, which is in line with our promises in Capital Markets Day, where we said that we would be growing by 6% to 7% each year. With these words, I think it's good to remind everyone that with all these numbers, we are committed to our midterm actions, which are all in line with our Fit & Fix and focus strategy communicated before. Thank you very much, and over to Milena.

Thank you, Kirsi and Stein. And let's move over to the Q&A session. Please remember that you can post questions through the chat, but let's take the live questions first. And the first question is coming from Maria Wikstrom at SEB.

So, I'd like to start with the guidance. And I mean, the shares are currently down 7%. So, if I needed to pinpoint like one point that probably was a bit more disappointing, one, I mean, would have been the guidance. I mean, given that you announced the gross savings of EUR 7 million, mainly driven by employee reductions. And yet you are guiding the EBIT guidance range of EUR 74 million to EUR 79 million, where if you take the midpoint and compare it to last year's EBIT, there is less than the EUR 7 million improvement. So, if you could a little bit walk us through that, I mean, what do you see in the underlying business? And what do you see as a net savings impact for 2026?

If I start, Stein, and then you can continue. But yes, I think we think that it's very much in line with what we have communicated, that it's in the range of 6% to 7% of EBITDA growth, and we want to be obviously rather than overdelivering than underdelivering. The biggest chunk, of course, was the big organizational change. There are other elements, like the sourcing, that we are working towards. But one has to remember the last point that I made, that the market is still challenged. Despite our very, I think, structured and well thought through initiatives, we'd rather be on the conservative side this time. Anything else, Stein, that you want to add on that?

No, I think you summarized it quite well, Kirsi. And like you say, it's especially the markets that still look fairly depressive, to be honest. I mean, the markets, if you just look at the monopoly markets, were down with 4.5% in volume. So it's like said, we want to be a little bit conservative.

And then I wanted to touch upon the Finnish market, and namely, the wine sales in the grocery retail. I mean, do you think we basically have reached the level that we are going to see in the future? And then, if you could give a little bit of color on what the profitability impact of this channel shift. So, I mean, are you getting a better margin out of the wines sold in the grocery? Or does it really matter which channel you choose to sell your wines for profitability?

Yes, thanks, Maria. Another good question. I don't know how many details I have here in my hand apart from the fact that I think the grocery channel has actually been very profitable for us in the wines. So obviously, it depends on the segments and all that. But as we communicated already in the Capital Markets Day, that is, we want to have an increased exposure in adjacent channels and categories, especially the Finnish grocery. So, we are strongly building on that, not only with the wines, but also with the RTD. We're just about to launch this functional RTD brand called Fast Forward. So, we are expanding into other categories than just the traditional 8% wines, but we are also becoming stronger and stronger in the RTD category. So, as I said, the Fast Forward is the big bet for us this spring as a new functional, functional ready-to-drink servant for younger consumers.

Can you enlighten a little bit more about the function besides, I mean, drinking too many of those, getting drugged?

That Fast Forward includes coffee as well. And that's the sort of functionality of it so that it's giving you more energy. It's part of the energy/functional drinks that are growing quite a lot in the grocery channel at the moment.

Then finally, I wanted to touch upon Sweden and if you could a bit describe the competitive situation in the Swedish market at the moment. How do you see it and how you expect it to develop into 2026?

I think we've communicated before that in the Capital Markets Day, I think I showed a slide where there was the total wines and spirits landscape, or the market in the Nordics is worth EUR 14 billion. The wine market in Sweden is 5x bigger than in Finland. And we have now demonstrated that we are able to launch variants in white spots where we have not been present before. So by the speed at which we've been now able to become and regain the #2 position and become the fastest-growing market in Sweden, we expect to see that positive development in Sweden. The challenge for us, of course, is that we now need to maybe copy paste is too much of -- I mean, the team will probably not like that wording, but we need to have the same model also in Finland and Norway because we do see a lot of opportunities in the areas where we are not yet present, either with our own brands or then with new variants in wine. So that's something that the team is working on. And if you were to see our plans for this year, I'm quite confident that this positive development will continue not only in Sweden, but also hopefully in Finland and Norway, respectively.

If I can just make a quick comment as well, Kirsi. The Swedish wine market is extremely important, but it's not only on portfolio where we're growing. We are also growing with some of the big partners. So, around half of the market share increase that we see in Sweden is related to our own brands, and the rest is related to improved partner brands.

Yes. And I think it's good to mention here in this instance that we talk a lot about lost partners in spirits, which are a couple of big ones that we lost already quite some time ago. But if you look at the partner wins in the wine in particular, I mean, we've been net positive. We've gained a lot of new partners in the past 12 months. And having just come back from the Wine Fair in Paris very late last night, I can only see a positive future for the wines and partner wines also in the future at Anora.

And the next question is coming from Caj Toppari.

This is Caj Toppari from Nordea. Regarding the revised outlook for 2026, could you shed any light on how you plan to reach this target? Should we expect this year, you mentioned that the market is still not showing on the volume side, any positive or very positive signals? But should we expect this improvement to come primarily from sales growth or from continued profitability enhancements? Or how do you view this?

Yes, I can start again, and I think you can continue, Stein. I think if you have gone through our Fit & Fix, and Focus strategy, and how that is constituted, that is very much, I mean, there are several work streams, they are like 200 different actions going on under 11 work streams that we are working on. So it's a very structured program that we are executing as we speak. The Fit was indeed the organization. And then also a significant part of that is the sourcing synergies, harmonizing our ways of working, the processes, and the like. Then, very much of that under the Fix is still about value and revenue management. We are looking into our pricing. I mean, we have not only the new ERP, but also the world-class Power BI system, where we get a lot of pricing data, and that pricing, and we have created our own pricing tool, which helps us to optimize the pricing of each and every SKU in the categories where we are present. But there are also mixed opportunities and many more in the Fit and Fix. But then also the Focus, again, as I alluded when Maria asked, so I could even show the slide perhaps if you go to Slide 26, Henrik. So just as a reminder, because I think that might be good for you to know. Of course, we have very thorough plans in each of the segments. But if you can take Slide 26, Henrik, now we see the outlook. It's a hidden slide, actually, in the shared presentation. So when we talked about the growth priorities for 2026 and onwards. So we believe that there's still a huge opportunity in growing in our core, where I think it might be coming soon. I think it's just good to show that from the Capital Markets Day presentation, and I put it here as well. So as mentioned, our core brands, and core owned brands, and core partner brands, there are still opportunities there. Then there is an increased exposure in expanding the categories to liquors and RTDs, and the wines where we are not strong at the moment. And then, of course, the international growth. I think Koskenkorva is growing every month in our expansion markets. So this is, in all simplicity, where all that is coming from. The plans for top-line growth are here, and then the continuous Fit and Fix work that we are doing. I don't know, Stein, anything else you want to add?

No, I think you were pretty spot on, Kirsi. So you already mentioned it. Fit is all about cost reductions, and that's what we're currently working on with the downsizing, for example, that Kirsi mentioned. And Fix is all about improving our operational performance. So we don't really rely on any help from the market in 2026.

The market share decline in spirits continued, to my understanding. Is this still mainly a result of earlier partner losses? And do you have any plans, specific plans for this?

No, you're right. It's mostly that. And what makes me hopeful for the future is that when you actually look at our ongoing business, our strongest brands and the things that are in our control, there's a very healthy development. But we are still burdened by the lost partners for a while, for sure. So that split is obviously tracking us. The past is in our backpack, and we can't help that. But when you actually look at the healthy part of the business, which is our own brands and that development, we see a much more positive picture. Having said that, I mean, there are elements, of course, there are segments where we are losing the market share, and that's something that we definitely need to still work on.

Then the last one, a quick one regarding the write-down you made in the wine segment, did it also involve discontinuing certain partners? And was the decision driven by a certain undesired or unprofitable product or something completely else?

Yes. If I understand you correctly, we are talking about -- No, when it comes to the write-down in wine, I think it then means the obsolete provisions, and that was mainly due to the fact that we have reviewed the partner portfolio. So and also discontinued some unprofitable partners.

And let's move on to questions from Rauli Juva at Inderes.

Yes. You touched basically on this already with the earlier questions. Just to be clear, the filler business losses in wine and the partner losses in spirits waged throughout '25. So are you expecting those or one of those still to continue hitting 2026 figures? And how is the outlook otherwise with the spirits partner business in wine? You mentioned you have been net positive kind of last year, but how about the spirits side?

Various part of it that you mean.

Yes, that was the kind of second part of the question. Are the earlier losses still hitting also this year?

They are hitting to now, I can't remember exactly when, which month are we starting to when it's no longer hitting us. I don't know if you remember the time exactly. But and obviously, this is the nature of the business that you can't 100% promise that, okay, we're going to get this or we're not going to lose something because especially when the economy is what it is, I mean, it's a nature of the business that, okay, partners or the partners, the brand owners start to look around. We do the same. If the Koskenkorva sales are not performing in Slovakia, we also start to look at the distributors, whether they are doing a good job. But so I can't say that there wouldn't be anything happening, but I would rather say that there is a nice short list of opportunities also in the spirits, which I really, really hope that will materialize by the end of the year 2026.

If you allow me, I can comment very shortly on the partner losses. It will hit us with around 1% for the full year on top line, and most of it will then come in the first half of 2026.

And let's move on to Maria Wikstrom, a follow-on question. Please go ahead.

Yes, I had 2 follow-ups still. So one is, given that the Swedish crown has gotten quite a bit stronger in recent months. So the question is, I think the new pricing window in Sweden is opening in March. So is the monopoly channel now asking for you to basically reverse the FX gains that you have had so far?

Yes, I can comment briefly on that one, Maria. So the answer is no. And as you probably also remember, we have a hedging policy where we are hedging the local currencies between the price windows. So we don't see that positive effect yet on our gross margin because we have hedged on historic currency rates. And we never negotiate price increases with the monopoly channel, just so I hope that answered that question.

And then I had one more. I think I had written in my model in Q1 '25 that you were in the wine business, specifically that you had higher marketing costs. So was that the first time, Kirsi, that you participated in Paris Wine Fair, or you had a show, so then we should probably think that in now in Q1 '26, I mean, the marketing budget is more or less the same level that it was in Q1 '25.

Yes. And I think the total, which we said all year in '25 was that it was more a front-loading front investments to support the new launches that we successfully did in Sweden. So the full year marketing cost that ended up being as planned last year. But this, by the way, so even though this was the first time for me, it wasn't the first time for the team. So we tend to go to the big wine fairs a couple of times a year.

And let's move on to Matti Kaurola from OP.

I have actually one follow-up question regarding this consumer demand, which has been slightly picking up over the recent months in Finland, especially. How do you see that impacting into your business? So, have you seen any signs of that demand picking up? And if that is taking place during this year, how are you expecting that to benefit you?

Yes, I'm not a Prime Minister. So I'm very, very careful about saying anything about that. I thought we've been expecting that, picking up the consumer behavior already for quite a few months. But you're absolutely right. I think it was just this morning when there was some news that, okay, it does look slightly more positive. As said, we at Anora would like to be a bit conservative with our promises. But and I obviously can't speak on behalf of my colleagues at ALCO, the monopoly, but there are some signs of positivity definitely now, whether it is the and now I'm talking Finland because Sweden and Norway, I think it's picking up already more than Finland. I mean, Finland is tracking behind in many industries, in many categories. But I choose to be positive. And therefore, I hope that there will be more signals for a turnaround, also from the external factor, because we sure are fighting here internally against all the headwinds. So a little bit of a push from the market wouldn't hurt us for sure.

So, could we assume a little bit that the demand is supporting maybe the most expensive side of the products, and then the volumes are unchanged, or that's not where we could see the impact, but rather that the more premium products are getting more demand, right?

Yes. I mean, premiumization has been one of the trends that we have followed already for quite some time. And I think that is surely the case. This was also the talk of the town in Paris in the past couple of days, where many of the wine companies felt exactly that. But I think there's an opportunity in the premium sector as well as the non-ALGS. So I think both of them are the trends that, at least in the wine industry, we see happening. And we are, of course, reflecting them in our innovation work.

Then maybe one follow-up regarding this wine business, especially. So you mentioned during the CMD that you are going to trim down the portfolio there because you have multiple SKUs that are unprofitable. Will that be visible in your sales development this year, like if you are trimming down the portfolio of the wines, and maybe you losing some volumes from the wines just because they are not profitable? Of course, that does not impact the EBITDA, but then that will be visible on the sales.

Yes, I can comment briefly. Yes, we will see some effects on top line, but I wouldn't claim it significant top line effect. And like you say, no EBITDA effect.

You look at the net working capital already, I mean, we're very, very proud of the hard work that the teams have done in reducing the inventory. So I think that work continues and there are still opportunities to improve there.

Thank you. And it seems that we don't have any more questions here visible at least. So please raise your hand to Mikkel. Mikkel, if you have any further questions. We don't seem to have any questions in the chat either. We can post some questions there as well. Currently, it looks like we don't have any more questions. So thank you to the speakers and to everyone online for joining us today and for all the good questions. And here's our next scheduled event. So we will publish the annual report and the financial statements in week 12 in mid-March. The Annual General Meeting will be held on the 14th of April, and the Q1 report will be published on the 6th of May. So, hope you tune in next time. Thank you.