Bilia AB (publ) (BILIA) Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Bilia Q4 report for 2025. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to IR, Carl Fredrik Ewetz. Please go ahead.

Thank you for the introduction, and welcome to Bilia's fourth quarter results presentation with CEO, Per Avander; CFO, Kristina Franzen; and I, Carl Fredrik Ewetz. We also have our Deputy CEO, Stefan Nordstrom, attending today. We are happy to present a strong result with higher order intake for new cars, strong cash flow and even more solid financial position than last quarter. I will come back to our outlook at the end of the presentation. Here's our agenda. Per will start with the current situation in the industry, followed by Q4 numbers. Then Kristina will go through the financial situation, and I will conclude, like I said, with our outlook end of the presentation. So let's start, and I leave the word to Per Avander.

Okay. Thank you, Carl Fredrik. Since quarter 3 in Sweden, we have seen signs of better interest in new cars from private customers. In Norway, we have had good demand from customers in the new car business, driven by good campaigns and new tax regulations effective from 1st of January this year. In Western Europe, the demand remains stable. Most of our brands have strong campaigns, big discounts, attractive private leasing offers, especially in Sweden. The demand for used car is on a slightly lower level in our countries and we see some lower prices for all cars, especially for expensive plug-in hybrids and electrical vehicles. As we mentioned in the last report, the government in Sweden terminated all incentives for EVs approximately 3 years ago and we expected a large number of incoming used electrical vehicles. Up until now, we have handled the situation in a good way. In Bilia, the stock of used car is on a good and balanced level in our countries. There is a good and strong demand in the service business in Norway and Western Europe with good booking times. In Sweden, we see weaker activities with somewhat lower booking times. Part of the explanation is the last years of lower new car sales and export of young used cars. The total car market in Sweden 2025 was almost 20% lower compared to an average market the last 10 years. During this period, there has been a shift in the car population to more older cars. Next, please. Net turnover was in line with last year. We report operating earnings of SEK 450 million with a margin of 4.4% compared to SEK 420 million last year. We report higher operational earnings for both the service business and the car business and higher profitability in Norway and Western Europe related mainly to new cars. Operating profit was SEK 370 million compared to SEK 351 million last year and included SEK 23 million of costs related to our efficiency program that we launched during the quarter. This efficiency program is expected to generate savings of around SEK 150 million. Earnings per share were SEK 2.46 compared to SEK 2.10 last year. On this slide, you can see the quarter 4 profitability from 2019 to 2025 in each country. And in the middle, you can see Norway and a good improvement. On the right-hand side, you can see Western Europe and its steady journey over the last years with a margin of 7.4% in the quarter. On this waterfall chart, you can see the different business areas. We have improved the earnings in the new car business and the service business and drop a little bit in the used car business, but still on a good and profitable level. We are moving over to the important service business, representing 78% of the earnings in the quarter. In all our countries, we see an improvement in profitability and with a better margin of 13.9% compared to 13.6% last year. We had a positive organic growth in the group, driven by Norway and Western Europe. There were same number of working days in Sweden and Belgium and one more in Norway and Luxembourg in the quarter. We report earnings of SEK 395 million, which were SEK 21 million higher than last year and this was the best quarter ever. The order intake on new cars adjusted for acquired and divested operations was 30% higher compared to quarter 4 last year. As I mentioned, we have seen a little bit better activities in all our countries, especially Norway, which was impacted by the change in tax rules. However, also Sweden had a solid increase of order intake by 20% compared to last year. For the car business, we report operational earnings of SEK 104 million compared to SEK 80 million last year. The profitability from cars in Sweden was on a slightly lower level and the higher result relates mainly to Norway. For used car, we report earnings of SEK 41 million compared to SEK 54 million last year. In a historical perspective, it's a good level. As I mentioned in the beginning, the stock of used car is on a good and balanced level in all our countries. The reason for the lower earnings was some more price pressure on used fully electrical cars and some lower demand. We have increased our underlying backlog of new cars with 2,400 units. And today, we have 13,500. Some of our brands have recently launched interesting new EV models, attracting lots of interest from our customers. For many of them, for example, the new BMW iX3 and the Volvo EX60, we see a little bit longer delivery times due to the high demand.

So let's move into the financial position. During the fourth quarter, we reported a strong operating cash flow of SEK 675 million compared to just below SEK 300 million last year. It means that for the full year, we have created an operating cash flow of some SEK 2.1 billion. Cash flow is a key focus area for us and will continue to be so for the future as well. As a result of the strong cash flow during this quarter, but also during the year, our net debt, excluding IFRS 16 at the end of the quarter amounted to some SEK 2.2 billion, which was almost SEK 700 million below our net debt at the end of the last year. Our ratio of net debt in relation to EBITDA, excluding IFRS 16, was then 1.3x compared to 1.7x as at December 2024. Consequently, we are well in line with our financial target to have a ratio below 2.0x. As of October 1, we did repay our bond loan of SEK 500 million, which we refinanced during the first quarter this year by issuing a new bond amounting to SEK 800 million with a maturity term of 5 years. The repayment of the old bond was then made through our available credit line. And at the end of the quarter, as a result of the strong cash flow, we utilized some SEK 60 million of our credit facilities amounting to SEK 2.3 billion in total. In November this year, the Board of Directors took a decision to repurchase own shares to a maximum of 1,250,000 shares at a maximum value of SEK 150 million. So during the fourth quarter, we did make repurchases of shares. In total, 446,000 shares at a value of SEK 57 million has been repurchased. So for the full year 2024, we had earnings per share of SEK 8.22 versus SEK 7.19 last year. The financial target for the group is to distribute at least 50% of the earnings per share to dividends. Our Board of Directors has made a proposal to the Annual General Meeting to increase the dividend from last year's SEK 5.60 to SEK 6 per share, which is an increase by 7%. That also means that the proposed dividend comprised of 73% of the earnings per share for 2025 and the dividend will be made in 4 installments as we did last year. In the report for the fourth quarter, we also announced an update of our financial targets. Our service business that Per talked about previously and the car business is an integrated operations. Their operations are tied to each other. And together, they comprise our business strategy to be a full service supplier during the lifetime of the car. To further enhance strategic management and transparency, we have updated our financial targets for profitability. We have replaced our previous 5% operating margin target for the group with 2 separate financial targets. For the service business, we have a profitability target that is a margin for operational earnings of 14% and this is a target level that we have talked about earlier, both in our annual report, but also in different meetings such as our Capital Market Day. For the car business, we have a new profitability target that is return on capital employed amounting to 8%. The return on capital employed that will be used will exclude IFRS 16 assets. This target is new and has been selected as it combines the focus on margin development with a focus on capital efficiency development. The car business is the segment within our business that ties most capital, typically cars, both new cars, used cars, leased cars and demo cars, while we target to have a return that equals our cost of capital. Information about the margin for operational earnings for the Service division has been presented in our quarterly reports in the past. Information about return on capital employed for the car business, together with the capital employed at the end of the quarter is included on Page 28 in our report for the fourth quarter and will be reported on a quarterly basis going forward as well. Here, you will also find a historical development for the last quarters as well. And combined, these 2 new profitability -- financial profitability targets essentially correspond to our previous target of 5% operating margin for the group.

Good. Thank you for that, Kristina. Then let's go to what we believe the future will bring. We remain very focused on improving both profitability and operational efficiency. Our efficiency program implemented last year is going according to plan, like Per said, and savings of SEK 150 million will be fully achieved as earlier communicated. Profitability, cost discipline and capital allocation will continue to be core priorities across the entire organization. Like you heard, to strengthen our strategic direction and increase transparency for investors, we're updating our previous group-wide profitability target of 5% operating margin by splitting into 2 separate financial targets. This makes it easier to track performance, improves capital allocation decision and provides a clear view of how we create value over time. Moving over to the car business. Demand for used cars is currently weak with price pressure, particularly on expensive electrical vehicles and plug-in hybrids. We believe the coming quarters may be characterized by similar features. Our used car inventories are at a healthy level and the anticipated surge in used vehicles during the fourth quarter did not materialize to the extent we had feared. For new car sales, the start of 2026 is described by slightly softer demand, particularly in Norway, impacted by the change in tax rules effecting from 1st of January, while corporate customers' purchasing activity remains stable. We saw a noticeable upturn in private customer interest during the third and fourth quarter, supported by a strong offering in the market. We believe we will continue to see increased activity from private customers along with car campaigns and launches of new cars and models, especially some important EV launches we believe will support volume and at the same time serve as a new and compelling alternatives to our customers in the near to midterm. Then in our important service business, we expect continued stable demand during the coming quarters. In Q4, the service business, as you've heard earlier, represented 78% of our operating profit. And we see good opportunities to continue developing our service business and through that improve customer satisfaction. Then briefly on consolidation and capital allocation. We have a long and proven track record of growing through M&A, which is an important part of our growth strategy. Currently, we remain flexible, balancing between acquisition, share buybacks, dividend and deleveraging. We are evaluating opportunities daily with an aim to always strengthening shareholder value in the best possible way. Overall, we find valuations stable, sometimes a bit stretched by certain processes -- why certain processes take longer than expected and why some do not materialize. But with a healthy balance sheet and efficient operation, we are ready for continued growth. This finalizes our fourth quarter presentation, and we can now open up for questions.

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

I have a couple of questions. If we start with the efficiency program, I think you mentioned it, but I couldn't hear what you said about the savings in 2025. And how do you think that will play out, the remainder of the savings in 2026?

We didn't give a specific figure for what the size of the savings are in 2025, but there is a certain cost savings in there, right, because the program has started. We do expect that the savings will be fully materialized by the second half of 2026, which is in line with what we said also in the third quarter.

Okay. Cool. I thought you said something. I was -- misunderstood. And different topic, the clearly higher Norwegian registrations in November and December for new cars. How do you think that dynamic will play out when it comes to selling the cars and also delivering the cars if you're looking into 2026?

If you look at the registrations in January, you see a huge drop now. I think the total market in general will look a bit over 1,000 cars. So -- and we see the order intake is, yes, much lower as well. So what we have said this morning that we think that because they changed the tax rules for 2026 to 2027 with the VAT again. So what we can see, it will be a little bit slow demand now in quarter 1. And in the end of quarter 2, it will be better and better in the order intake for new cars.

Okay. But the car that was registered in before year-end, have all those cars been delivered already?

No. So we will deliver some of the cars in quarter 1. So there is...

Even like the end of March?

Relation between registration and delivery of cars because we registered them in the end of quarter 4.

Yes, and in some cases, we have been able to deliver them to hand over the keys to the customers, right? So those have been delivered straight after year-end.

Yes. So it could be misleading to look at the registration data in the early part of '26?

Yes.

Be a little bit careful with that, I think.

But also, the tax changes in Norway will continue. So that's why we think it will be a new push in the end of the year, because once again in for 2027 change the tax regulations, so, yes.

Yes. Got you. Changing over to Sweden, where the service demand was still a little bit slow, but still able to hike margins. Can you talk a little bit about what your -- how you improve the Swedish margins on the service side?

Yes. We have said -- we have seen a lot of years now with the weak total market on new cars, and that effect we hope 2026, we will increase the order intake for new cars again. So if you look at the newer used cars, so it's 25% less if we are talking Bilia's brand in Sweden from 1 year to 4 years old cars. And that is the most loyal customers. So we see a little bit weaker demand for the moment. But what we are doing now is we try to much more focus on the older car park cars like 7, 8, 10 years old to have some attractive --

Offers.

-- offers for the customer.

But you can also say, Andreas, well as Carl Fredrik mentioned, we are working with the companies we have. We try to -- yes, look at the process and how can we improve them and that will continue. So we continue to work hard to improve the businesses we have and that will be the focus as well.

Okay. So there's nothing particular or specific that is helping your profitability in Sweden now?

I think like this, Andreas, you can't find in the workshop, you can't find one thing. It's a lot of different things. We need to work it.

Got you. Lastly, on investments or CapEx. I think you have around SEK 400 million in 2025. What's the best proxy for '26?

I think you should have the same level there, right? It would not be significantly different, I confirm. So a little bit of it, but not [indiscernible].

The next question comes from Mats Liss from Kepler Cheuvreux.

A couple of questions from my side as well. Well, the new financial target there or looking at the performance of service, I mean, 14% represents still an upside on a yearly basis. And when do you expect to be able to reach the 14%? Is it sort of a long-term target? Or is it more when these efficiency measures are implemented SEK 150 million? Could you say something there?

Yes. We don't think we will do it in the next quarter, but it's more a long-term target. So in 3 to 5 years, we think we can achieve the target because, as Carl Fredrik mentioned in his presentation here, some of the new acquisition we have made, some of the customer -- companies, they are far away from the target for the moment. So we have a lot to do with some weaker companies we have.

Okay. Then just touching upon different things. The krona has sort of -- the Swedish currency has strengthened somewhat there. And could you say something about the flow of cars there? Is it between countries? I mean, Europe -- I mean, Western Europe, you have an operation there. Do you see sort of flow coming back from there? Or is it sort of a neutral situation?

You're talking about export to import used cars.

Yes. Yes, sort of.

Yes. Understand that. We see a little bit lower interest from other countries. If you look back 2, 3 years ago, we exported a lot of cars from -- newer used cars from Sweden to Germany, Belgium and other countries in Europe. Still, we see some exports, but we don't see so much car coming back for the moment into Sweden now.

Understood. Then Carl Fredrik mentioned the M&A opportunities there. Could you say something about -- I mean, you have acquired a couple of commercial vehicle service units during 2025. Is it within that segment you see more opportunities? Or is it sort of also in the car side that you have...

We say we would like to acquire more when we are talking trucks, Volvo trucks. And if we will do make a acquisition, it will be the countries where we are and often with the brands we have already because if we do that, we can take out a lot of synergies and we have the knowledge about the brands. So maybe in Belgium, maybe in Sweden, maybe in Norway.

The next question comes from Alexander Siljestrom from Pareto.

Congrats on a strong quarter. First question from me is if you could share the share of the deliveries that was completed under the agency model as sales was a bit lower than our expectations on -- in the car segment?

Let's see now what you have in mind. Do you mean that the sale was a little bit lower than you expected? And your question is if that referred to increased agency sale?

Yes, exactly.

Yes. Yes. So I think what we have had, we had a strong increase of the sale in Norway, especially that refer to sales that are conducted under the agency sale. So that is one of the reasons why the sales through the car business is a bit lower than if you compare to the number of cars that has been delivered. So that's true. That's the reason.

Yes. And can you share the percentage that's under the agency model compared to the franchise model in terms of deliveries so we can model it going forward?

Yes. It's actually a little bit of a mixture between different brands, right? So it's not something that I think will be fixed going forward, but it goes a little bit between accessible. So I don't have that percentage and I don't think it's relevant for the future.

But if I guess a little bit here, the wholesale, I guess, now 85% and agency maximum 15% of new cars.

And then it varies a little in countries and country by country.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. That's very helpful. And then on the margin targets here, very good that you clarified between service and the car segment. And just thinking a little bit about service here, 14% margin target. How do you think about this across the different geographies? Is it the same for each market? Or do you expect Sweden to overperform and then Norway and Western Europe to lag a bit and then for the group to get at 14%? Or is it viable for all geographies?

We -- the easiest way for us to achieve the target for the service business is to overperform in Sweden and the condition is best in Sweden. So it's a little bit different between the countries. One example is the body shops in Belgium because we have a lot of negotiations in Belgium with the insurance company and they pay us less if you compare to Sweden is one reason why we can have a little bit lower performance in Belgium and Luxembourg.

But of course, we can still see potential to improve in both Luxembourg and Belgium, Norway. So absolutely.

But often, we have the best margin in Sweden.

So it's a weighted average.

So it's the perspective.

It is a weighted average, right, with a mix of three countries.

Okay. That's very helpful. And then in terms of Norway, what are you expecting there? Is it sort of 12%, something like that?

We are not sort of disclosing the targets for the different countries, but only the average. Yes.

Okay. And then maybe continuing with Norway. And you mentioned that you still have solid tax incentives in Norway for purchasing a new car in full year '26. And of course, it's going to be a bit lighter here in H1 maybe and then stronger in H2. But if we look at the full year, do you expect registrations to -- could they be flattish or even growing a bit here in 2026? What's your view?

We had a record year 2025. We closed 180,000 new cars. The forecast for this year is a little bit lower, around 160,000, 165,000 new cars, because it was a discussion from the government in Norway in quarter 3 about they will take off all incentives. If they have done that 2027, it has been a record year, but now they do it in 2 years. So no incentives after when you come into 2028. So a little bit less total market this year compared to the record year last year.

But still a very good market.

Yes.

Yes. Okay. So a little bit lower, but still on very high levels from a historical perspective. That's helpful. And then maybe just finally on the savings program, if you could talk about sort of the share that goes to service and the share that goes to cars or it's mainly related to HQ? And then also, when will you reach the run rate savings? Is it in Q4 or Q3? And how should we think about phasing here?

To start at the last question then I think Q4, it will be sort of included, right? And I think the majority would also be there in the third quarter, right? But fully into the fourth quarter. When it comes to the Service division and the car business, I think it will be fairly even, right? Perhaps a bit more into the service business, but fairly even, I would say, is a good sort of approximation to use.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Stefan Stjernholm from Handelsbanken.

Stefan here. Most of my questions have been asked already, but I have one on the service business. I mean, winter arrived quite late this season and Q4 was mild. I expect that had a negative impact on your service business. Is that right?

Yes. You can say if you talk about body shop, when you have a mild winter, then it's a little bit tougher. And it's out of that perspective, better when it's a hard winter. And also you see when you talk about older cars, when it's really, really cold outside, you get more also into the workshop compared to a mild winter. So in that perspective, that's right.

So consequently, Q1 is better in that perspective?

When it's cold, it's an advantage.

The best is mild for a while and then cold and then mild again. That's the best talking about the winter.

Too long now then.

The next question comes from Mats Liss from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Yes. Just a follow-up there on service 14% target again. I mean, it's -- Per, you mentioned that it was a more long-term target. But I just get a feel here for the electrification trend. I mean, we have a lot of hybrid now and I mean, the changeover maybe have been a bit delayed to BEVs. But BEVs normally have a lower service content. And have you sort of included that in your sort of new target, how to manage that?

Yes. Yes, we have included that because when you talk service, it's a huge difference between combustion engines and fully electric. But you have a lot of other jobs. What we have seen in Norway that the brakes, you have to repair them often. Windshields is thinner and bigger. So we have other jobs and body and paint jobs. So we have included the BEV situation we will have in future. And every year, we try to find new additional sales when we have the customer into our workshop. So we take care of everything around the car. One now is air condition cleaner is a quite new area there we are now.

But also, Mats, when you take the full, how do you say, car park in Sweden, when you talk about full electrical vehicles, it's about 5%-6%. If you take the car park, it's very easy to talk about the registrations of new cars when it's 35%. But we are working with the car park. And as Per mentioned, we try to work with the older segment of cars and then to increase there. And there you have no electrification. So I think in the workshop, we also need to focus on the car park and the number of electric cars there. So -- and that's much, much lower to the new registrations.

Great. Great answer. Yes. And another topic. I mean, you have the 3-year electric or semi-electric cars returning now from the 3-year leases. And what's the normal way of handling those? Do you resale them to well, full price or discounted price? Or do you send them out on a new lease? Or how do you handle that?

But it's only one price on the used car. We value them 10 times per year, the cars we have in our stock. And then we sell them to market price. And I think the majority is on a normal sale.

To the end customer.

Yes, to the end customer. It's not a big thing to lease them out again. And I would say that is also due to the new car offers. So that I say it's more normal sales to private consumers. That's the majority.

There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

Thank you very much for listening, and good luck. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.