Electrolux Professional AB (publ) (EPROB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome, everyone, to Electrolux Professional Group Investor Day 2025. Happy to see so many of you here at our Stockholm head office. Also welcome to those of you who watch this event online. The mission of Electrolux Professional Group is to make our customers' lives easier, more profitable and truly sustainable. And I hope that you, after having listened to us today, also should see that we should be able to also make your life as shareholders, investors, analysts, a little bit easier and more profitable, exactly like our mission. Over the last years, we have moved step-by-step towards our financial targets. It's been a tough market, many external challenges over the years, as you know. But we also increased the investment to future-proof the success of our company. And today, we will give you some more insights into how we think we will -- or how we will reach our targets. But we have also increased the investments to future-proof the company. And today, we will focus on 2 important areas in our business. It's our Laundry business, but also our Food Europe business. Let's take a look at the agenda before we kick off. You see it here. We have kick off with Alberto Zanata, our CEO. Then we, of course, we have a coffee break. Everyone is looking forward to the coffee break. And of course, we conclude with the lunch. For those of you who are here, it will be served by the Swedish culinary team. So with that, I would like to welcome our first speaker, Alberto Zanata, up on stage. Please, Alberto.

Thank you, Jacob, and morning to everybody. Good morning, and welcome to our home here in Stockholm. And one point about the agenda first. So what I like you to bring home after the half a day that we will spend together is to get familiar with all the things that we have been preaching these days. We said that we are investing, that we are in a peak of our history in terms of R&D cost, in terms of CapEx that we do all these things because we are going to bring to market a product that will help us to increase the profitability, to gain market share in the market to win competition and to increase profitability. Again, I say this 2 times. Because at the end of the day, it's really important that you get the trust on the things we are doing and in particular, the path that we are following to reach the financial target because in some way, everything is about that. And we start exactly and probably my part will be more about the past, what we have been doing, and what we are doing. And I will have the colleagues, Paolo, who is running the Laundry business and Camilla, who is running the Food European business and then obviously, Fabio that will crunch the numbers, putting the things together, and that you probably know being the CFO. But before introducing them that they will talk about how this is becoming a reality nowadays in some way, let me talk a little bit about the things that are behind. And these are the years that we have been going through, years of profitable growth, we can discuss about the speed, but we have also to consider this performance in an environment that since we started our journey walking on our legs has been full of events, changing the routes that we are going to follow. Many times, I'm using the example of a sailing boat. I don't know if you are a sailor, but if you want to go there, many times, you can't go straight. You have to follow the winds. And on these days, all these things have been the winds against us, the things changing, forcing us to go around obstacles. But the important thing is to know where we want to go. And that is at least is our strength. We know what we want to do, what we want to achieve and even more important, how to achieve it. But despite all these things happening, I would like to start from the basic, our market. I think probably I'm boring with this picture because I'm using this one more than once. Nevertheless, the percentages are slightly different, but the percentages are showing that this industry, the so-called hospitality industry in a wider sense that is including the kitchen, the restaurant, the hotels, the bedding, whatever we do out of home, you are today fueling this industry because you are out of home. You have breakfast here, out of home, even if, okay, it was internally produced, but nevertheless, it is a breakfast. But in any case, you will eat them. Some of you will travel. We are traveling. We are in hotels. This is the industry that is at the base of our business. And it is an industry that is evolving. These are general trends. I would say some of them are not applicable only to our industry. If we talk about digitalization, digitalization is digitalization. Everything is digital. We were discussing with Jacob to print the hard copy of the material. Now everything is digital. Most probably if you would have printed, you would have left on the chairs because you don't want to bring paper with you. Everything is digital. But digital is shaping or reshaping also our industry as well as concern about the space, less and less or concern about the availability of power, people, that is the main concern in particular in the hospitality industry or other things that are related to that one, like the electrification of this industry, there is a trend, not only at home, but also in this industry to move to electric appliances. And the important thing is that we embed all these trends, macro trend on what we want to do, on what we are doing from the product and service side. And if I go more specific on the things, the important thing is that the out-of-home spending, you know what it is, is what I said at the beginning, what we are spending every time we are out of home to get a coffee, breakfast, a dinner with friends, traveling for business or for pleasure. This is what we call out-of-home spending. If you watch also your starts out-of-home is out-of-home spending. The out-of-home spending is a growing trend. People are spending more and more out of home. And by the way, if you eat at home, but you buy the already cooked food in a shop or you make it a delivery or whatever is out-of-home also that one. And this is growing, and it's steadily growing. It is steadily growing. Sorry, if I go back, I told you that I will talk a little bit about the past too. But if I go back to the COVID year, one of the most common things I heard on those days that were our first days was that this industry is over. Nobody will travel anymore. They are afraid we are locked at home, really dark clouds on our industry. Reality is that we are stronger than before. The COVID had the opposite effect on people. They push people to even spend more for travel, more for enjoying time out of home. So this is the picture about the market, a market I spent all my life that I love. I think is beautiful is enjoyable because at the end, you are enjoy life when you are parting out of home or also sometimes when you are traveling. But the important thing is that, okay, if this is the market, how do we address how we make sure that we continue or even accelerate the path that I showed with you at the beginning because at the end, this is all about. And that is another important thing. And that is, again, I'm back to the sailing example. Now the important thing is to know where we want to arrive. And these are the things that we said since the beginning. We said that we want to focus on innovative solution. And guys, to have innovative solution, you have to spend in R&D. You have to spend in research and development in innovation. We said that we want to have -- or we want to develop, or we want to mix up. Why? Because we have a portfolio of product with some exception, and we will see this picture where there are company focused on one product, but we -- and it is us, it is our DNA, it is our profession. By the way, all the large corporations that are competing with us, they have a pretty large portfolio. But nevertheless, it is important to focus investments and also marketing efforts on the high-margin product that are driving profitability and growth and differentiation. We want to have customer care not only because it's high-margin business. It's also because it's a way to retain customers. Remember that in the big markets, I'm talking about North America, I'm talking about Europe, Japan, majority of the business is replacement. Replacement means there is a kitchen like the one you saw here, and then I replace a product inside of the kitchen. And if you have a strong customer care, if you have been providing strong service, then the selection or the customer will continue to select that brand. So to have a strong customer care service is fundamental, not only because we are improving margin, but because we secure a recurring business for years and years. And last but not least, and here, it is not just because it's very fashionable and the company cannot avoid to talk about digital, but because really digital is in some way reshaping our industry. Let's have a couple of talk about all these 4 pillars, I call them. Sorry, let me step back one because I was so used to go ahead with the 4 pillars that I forgot the base that we added because that is new in this picture. It was not at the beginning. And we added a picture about the cost structure of this organization. And what I want to make sure you understand is that we didn't add this line or this activity because the line in itself is just a printing box, but the activity has not been added because we have a critical situation that has to be addressed cutting cost, not at all. I showed you earlier. And I show you also that the market is positive friendly. But the reality is that since we started our journey, we always said that one of the things that we should have reviewed was the structure of our processes. You know our history. And our history is a history coming from a group with great processes, safe processes, but much larger company. And those processes were heavy for us because we are competing more than 90% of our competitors are privately owned company, where there is a person taking a decision on the spot. And on these days, again, sorry to be back to the sailing example, if the wind is changing, you have to be faster in adapting your route. You have to be very fast. You have to be agile. And sometimes heavy processes are not helping. So we said it since the beginning that one important thing would have been to make this company faster, more agile, flexible. And due to the things that have been happening in the COVID, the war tariffs, we always had other things to focus on. And now the time is came. We have now the possibility, and that is what we announced in September, a plan to really make use of the investment in digitalization, heavy investment in digitalization because now we have the tool to automatize some processes, to make this company leaner, more flexible and agile. And by the way, we also took the opportunity to say, yes, but this company also needs different competencies. So it is not only a way to reduce cost, but it's also a way to make a competence shift in the area that have to be addressed because more digital it is, different competencies will be needed. Now that we develop the product, more competencies or skills will be needed in pushing sales. So it's a great opportunity. It's not just a line, but it's something that is fundamentally important to support the other 4 boxes. So let's move, as I said earlier, to very quickly go through the 4 boxes in some way. And the first one is innovation. I'm coming from the product. So sorry for that. I love the product. But I also think that in our industry, we sell services, we sell solutions, but everything is around the product. I'm convinced that in some years from now, the element that will make our company different from the other will not be necessarily the product in itself, but whatever is around the product, the software, the digital features, the solution we provide with them, in some way, even the business model. But to do all these things, you need the product. And you need a product that is constantly evolving. That is the reason why we are investing so much. 4.5 is high. If you compare with the data of our competitor, I'm already anticipating possible question, why do you spend more than what the competitor does? Because we bet on innovation, because we have the fortune also to have the possibility to perform while transforming, not being focused only on the short term, but looking at also what is going to happen in some years, perform today, every quarter, every month, every week, but also make sure that you prepare the company for the future challenges, transforming the company. And that is what is about innovation. And we've been investing. We will invest also next year. The peak is not completely over, but it's already when you are now moving from sailing to mountain, when you reach the top, then you start to go down. And it's normally easier to descend than to go up. And we -- and why we -- and now without anticipating anything because I have Paolo and Camilla here to talk, but I'm so excited to start bringing to market the new product that will create an additional gap versus competition. Laundry, we are the leading company for what innovation is concerned. Nevertheless, we don't sleep on that. We want to create another gap because competitors are not waiting, are not there just looking around. They are also working to catch up. So we create another step to make sure that when they, if, get to the same level, there will be another gap in between. And the other beautiful things that I really like you to consider during an underline in your notes when you will get from Paolo and Camilla, with these things, we are not just replacing a product present in a category because we are talking about mature market. Remember, you saw there the growing rate. We are also thinking about products that will give us the possibility to enter or to serve new segments. This could be seen as an acceleration of the sales. And the same apply, by the way, to cooking, very exciting. This is coming even earlier than that. And it's coming bringing, again, following the trend that we have been talking about electrification. We have been talking about productivity, efficiency, gas from electricity from 50% productivity to 95% productivity, wow, double, double. This is touching the pocket of our customers. No question about that. And by the way, here, we are also showing you how we are leveraging acquisition because a year ago, we acquired a company producing induction, a tiny company that probably -- I don't know if you noticed it because it was so small that didn't change our numbers. But it was -- it is instrumental to bring to market product with unique features, product that will make a difference that will give us the possibility to accelerate the growth of the largest category and most profitable category that we have in Europe. So innovation is first. The second point I told you is to focus on the mix up. A mix up means it doesn't mean forget something. It means focus on growing the product, the segment, the countries with higher margin. And here, we have been working in several dimensions. The first one is get rid of the product that are not strategic, that are commodity that are not giving us the possibility to differentiate ourselves versus competition, and they have low margin. Sorry to be brutal, but the semi-professional refrigerators is a category where it's difficult to differentiate. It's like when you go to Elgiganten here, our neighbor, and you look at the product that are displaying, and you are in front of -- sorry for our friends over there, 20 refrigerators, they look the same. What are you looking? By the way, you're not even able to see the brand. What -- how do you choose one or the other? How do you? Price. So we want to win where we can talk to customers, differentiate from competitors. And I know that you like the drip coffee of the filtered one, but there is a clear trend that is showing a shift of taste of people towards other kind of coffee. I don't mean that you have to change your taste, not at all, please. Nevertheless, it's hard to differentiate with a drip coffee machine. But it's not only that one. And there are other ways to improve or to mix up. For instance, the activities that we are making with the program that we announced in September, closing two factories, reducing our footprint, concentrating production, more product in the same factory means better absorption, higher margin. If then you are also moving production from less cost-effective country to more cost-effective country, then you get an additional spin. And we do this because the product we move in reality today, they don't deliver high margin. But potentially, they do it. We know that they are in the trend of growing. They are instrumental to our positioning. And the other mix up is geographical customer segment. Big thing you know our competitor, I'm sure you look at them. I got comments why aren't you professional? Aren't you as profitable as the other American companies. 70% of the business in the United States, 50% of the business with chains. But we like it or not, and by the way, it's not only this industry, selling in the United States is more profitable than selling outside the United States for many reasons. The first one is that it is one market. Camilla will tell you about the structure we have in Europe. Europe is not one market. It's the aggregation of several markets where I have to have a different organization to address customers that in some way are different in terms of desire or other things. We try to make one, but one solution fits all doesn't work so much, in particular, in a trend that was written also earlier, the regionalization. You can call it a nationalization, whatever you want. So there are trends about mixing chains, geography, product, eliminating the undifferentiated one, but growing on the others. And we do this. I would like to spend a couple of words on chains, for instance, because first, if I look at the chain business in the United States, I said it is not as large as our competitor. It is 50% of our sales in the United States. It is on the same level as a percentage. But the thing is that these companies are larger than us, they have 70% with chains. But we are growing 13% that is much more than what the market does. And the other important thing that we always said it is a strength, or I will say it should, but it is a strength. I strongly believe it is, is that most of these chains are growing outside the United States. And now that we are present in the United States, they follow us outside the United States. And by the way, these chains have been also fueling the growth of local chains. And the picture that you see on the bottom showing that Yum. Yum is the largest with all the brands that they have chains. They buy from us in China. We are the supplier of Yum in China. And you know that the Chinese local companies, now they are in the range of thousands of restaurants, they are not talking about hundreds. Some of them are even larger than the American chains. And the growth in that part of the world is exponential. And we are in China. We have a factory in China. We have product produced in China. We are enlarging the production in China. So I would say, yes, we grow, we know -- and we will continue in the United States. We have been going through tough years in the past, it is over. Let's make clear about that because I've got some questions. It is over. We are doing extremely well in the United States. If you read also, some of our competitors have been suffering. We are growing. Also in the first quarter, where you see the zero, Food was growing. Chains was up 8%. It was the general market that is a little bit, let's call it, cold, as you all know, the things happening in the United States. So we are working what has -- or doing what has to be done to mix up, eliminating low-margin product, moving production to improve the margin, expanding in chains in North America. The third pillar is customer care. And as I said, customer care is not just a matter of improving margin. The margin of customer care is by far higher than the average of the company and the target that we have, or we want to achieve. But it's also a matter of better serving the customer, retaining customer preference. We are measuring the Net Promoter Score. And you see it's one of the key indicators. I'm looking at that one, sometimes even more than net sales and EBITA because net sales is what I did. The Net Promoter Score is telling me how many customers I will have in the future. It's very important. And it's very important to know that we have a strength in customer care. Our service organization directly or indirectly managed is a strength of Electrolux Professional in the eyes of many customers. But also in this case, we are going through a shift, a change of transformation. I think this is one of the biggest transformation we are going through. And this is the competence shift that I mentioned beginning that will be instrumental to not only serve the customers because what we are recognized is the block on the left. We have super good technicians, well trained that are fixing the problems on the spot, sooner the better to eliminate the downtime. But the transformation will be when we will not only wait to be called by the customers, but we will be able to encircle the customer with a service. Beginning, I said not only product but solutions, services. The dream is that we will visit the customer without waiting for his call or her call because the product is down, but we will tell the customer, your product is going to be down. And as a consequence, we are here to make sure that you will continue to operate the product because this is a transformational. So this is the one that despite the constant growth, and you see that it's different than the trend of the sales is clearly different than the trend of the sales is much faster. So we are mixing up also, thanks to customer care. But this will be instrumental to have a step change here. In other industry, there are companies where majority of the business is this one. For sure, majority of the profit. So it's not impossible. It can be done. But to be done, I have to continue to work on the fourth pillar that is the digitalization. The digitalization is everything in some way. I know that probably this picture could be used by everybody. You change the brand on the right, and it is good for other industry. But in reality that it works very well for us. And now I don't want to talk about everything, but just mention 2 things that are really changing that is what we call the digital platform is a platform that we make available to service, sales, customers, obviously, us connecting the product, making information available, but in particular, giving us the possibility to process transactions through the platform, eliminating the manual work, leaving the possibility to people to do valuable activities. It is important. And what I look a lot -- very much is the numbers. We are in the process. Half of our business is digitalized means we are dealing with dealers through the platform. We have to convince also them. But the best way to convince is to create value for them. And gradually, we are improving the platform. You saw the number 85%, but look at the last installation that was done in the largest market that we have in Europe. And by the way, it's the second in the world after United States. 94% and probably the 6 is because they did a mistake. 94% of the transactions are going through the digital. This means they are not obliged. This means that it is creating value for them. And we want -- it's not finished. And you know that I cannot -- there is no presentation where we cannot talk about artificial intelligence. Otherwise, we are old fashioned. So we are continuously improving. If you want, you can read it. But look at one number that is I think is the most important. You know what's the challenge of having artificial intelligence while working in the company. Guess, so it's the quality of the data. Because if you have bad data coming in, you will have even worse data coming out. 70% of the data that we are processing are clean. Probably you are saying, you are looking at the 30 as usual, on to the negative side, believe me, 70% is a big number. 70% is a great number, considering the history, considering the acquisition, considering whatever we have been doing. We are ready. And there are some projects that are already in place and that will make even the digital platform more intelligent because at the end, whatever works, including the connectivity of the product, including whatever we are going to serve, will work only if we create value for us, but also for our customers. And that is the way to go with the connectivity, connecting the dots going through the service. Good. These are the 4 pillars. But let's talk about -- because not everything is around this one. I'm sure you have question I already got this morning some questions about TOSEI. I said how we are making use of Adventys. A couple of words about TOSEI. TOSEI, we are facing a challenging market condition, yes. Not entirely expected, but it is a business cycle, in particular in Laundry, more than Food, but also Food, I would say, it happens. And we go down, and we go up. The important thing, and we know this by facts in Japan because in Japan, you know exactly the market share that we are not losing market share. We still have more than 50% market share in Laundry, and more than 50% of market share in the vacuum category, that is a small portion of the Food & Beverage segment. But what is also important, we are really making use of this company because we are making use of the unique technology that was developed in Japan, the combo machine. We got the award as the most innovative product in the United States. This says a lot, by the way, because it's a product that has been in the market for years in Japan. But in the United States, it has been awarded as the most innovative product. And we are bringing this outside Japan. And we've been replacing the product we were buying with the one already done. Last time, a couple of weeks ago, I was there, and I saw the tumble dryer produced in Rayong that will replace the production done in Japan because we are improving margin, because they are more cost efficient. They have better features. We are one company. We closed from two office to one, from two IT systems to one. So we are working to create the base, to have a profitable -- highly profitable business because this is what is expected to be higher than our target. And the other thing that I cannot miss is the sustainability, but okay, we are always pleasing ourselves with the award that we receive, and we claim to be the most sustainable company in the world, okay. But so what? The what is that we are creating value for the customers. If I save 50% of the energy that you use to boil water, I'm sustainable, but I create value for you. If I reduce the operating cost in a laundry because I reduce water and electricity and detergent, I'm sustainable, but I create value for you. And I tell you that more and more customers are looking for these things. More and more, this is becoming a criteria to select products. And then we are well positioned. Today, yes; everywhere, no; today and tomorrow, absolutely, yes. It is an unstoppable trend. But again, it's not because you just be green. It's important. But in some places, still not the main criteria. It's because we create value for the customer and value for a customer in this industry is money in the pocket. And with this, we said we have been talking about how we are going to grow organically this company. But you know that -- and also this one is probably boring you quite a bit. I tell you that we are focused on working to bring home companies that are instrumental to accelerate the growth. We are not looking for any company available in the market. I tell you, there have been a situation where we dropped the possibility to participate because we were not taking the core criteria, profitability accretive to our target, cultural fit ability to make it working and instrumental to reach our -- or to accelerate the growth in our pillars. And here is where we are focusing more. We are focused on technology, the acquisition of Adventys last year. I told you that more we grow in the United States and more we grow with chains, easier will be to increase the profitability. So by definition, we have focused activities in looking for possible acquisition in that part of the world and companies serving that kind of customers. And last but not least, also products that are in the higher part, the product with a higher margin. We are working on this one. The problem is that while I can stand in front of you and tell you that from January 1st, we will start selling the cooking. In end of Q2, beginning of July next year, we will start introducing to market the new laundry product. I can tell you that we are working to take down the cost. We are working to implement the digital platform. Here it's hard to tell you when this is going to happen, hours, days, weeks, months. The only thing is that we are hardly working to look at that one. We are working this means it is not that there are no possibility. But this is hard. It's like a wedding. Both have to say yes, at least in my word. And also a couple of words, but this will be very quick because I believe Fabio will tell more about, is the program that we have been launching to streamline this organization. Don't under evaluate this one. It is important. And this doesn't mean when you will see the bridge to the 15%, it doesn't mean that we are giving up the volume growth, the sales growth, not at all. I think I've been talking about growing the business until now, right? So everything is about growing the business. Nevertheless, we learned if it was necessary, by the way, that there are also external elements that could slow down the business development. And it is safer to intervene also on the cost side, considering that we want to be leaner, more agile, more flexible. Intervene on the cost side in a way that is generating point of EBIT, more than that, more than that. And while sales is not like a wedding, but it's similar to that, I mean somebody say yes and buying my product. Here it's entirely up to us. And the only message I want to deliver to you is that we are progressing very well. I'm very pleased because they were challenging situation. I don't know if you ever had an experience with production facility in France, we are done -- sorry, we are not done. But it is said it is agreed. We have to work on the detail and the guy that is running the project, if you hear me telling details, he will be very scared. But nevertheless, we are -- we have the agreement. It is important this one. And with this said, I believe I'm at the end of this introduction because you should consider this one the introduction of the really core topics that will be the one presented by the colleagues. The industry is still evolving. It is still evolving with different speed in the different market. And now United States is not really the booster. Yes, it is true. How long? Normally, I'm always saying the United States is like a V. So going down sharply coming back very quickly. Europe is more a large U, going down slowly and then coming up slowly. But Europe is doing well. Asia is still doing well. So the industry is moving. And all our activities now, we have been reaching. We have been investing. And as I said, it's at the top of the mountains. I'm not expecting. I tell you, we are not increasing. We will start to take down the cost of R&D. Normalize, we call it. That is more or less another point of EBIT. It will not -- it will be a little bit large V, if you want, but it will not be a U of years. But now we are starting to make use of the product that we have been developing during these years. And that is the beauty because this will help us to grow the business with unique solutions that will win competition in the market. And to secure that we are prepared for whatever comes, we also launched a program that is reducing the operating cost. And this program will also be used to upskill our people, to help in the transformation either digital sales or customer care. So I'm really convinced that we will continue on the path that I showed you at the beginning, and there are the conditions to even accelerate and hopefully, but it's not hopefully, really making sure that we close the bridge between what we are, and what we want to be. Thank you very much. And Jacob, we are yours.

Thank you, Alberto. We will now open up for questions. [Operator Instructions] But we will start with the questions from the room. So please raise your hand, and we will give you a microphone and then you can state your name and where you come from. I think the first one comes from Gustav Hageus.

Gustav Hagéus with SEB. If I might start with what you finished off with the R&D spend coming down. First, is that an absolute number? Does that reflect your sales budget mainly? And secondly, I mean one way to see it is, obviously, that is possible that your margins will come up as R&D comes down, but one could also question if perhaps that money would also be useful to stay in R&D to accelerate and maybe you have good returns in actually keeping the level at current. So how do you balance that between trying to accelerate returns through your own R&D versus coming down to 3.5%. Is that a magical number for you, 3.5%? Or how did you end up with that number?

We wanted to -- first, Fabio will talk more about the numbers. So showing you the numbers of the trend and what is coming there. But we wanted also to show the absolute number because the percentage is obviously related to the development of the top line. I'll give you an example, despite having done things in the 2020 with a drop of 25% of the sales, clearly, you have an increase of the percentages, even if we didn't spend more, we didn't cut, but we didn't spend more. So percentages is related to this one. 3.5% is a sort of magic number because it's what you need to keep going with a very healthy product portfolio. The innovation project that we developed for laundry, in particular but also the cooking, we are talking about -- the laundry, we are talking about basically 80% to 90% of the laundry production. We're talking about everything and it is, I don't mean for scratch because it's everything from scratch, but it's a completely new platform, completely different. The cooking, we are talking about a large portion of our food business in Europe -- food and beverage business in Europe is, by far, the largest portion. So that is the reason why it's a peak because the variety, the wide, how wide is portfolio and the importance of these 2 product categories. This doesn't mean that we will not continue to innovate. We will and we believe that with the number, we will have the resources to do this.

Can I have a follow-up on sort of the innovation cycle then? I assume that the laundry platform is like a decade or 2 decades, probably. But a few of these are, I guess the induction line will be shorter lived maybe perhaps. But where do you see sort of the -- the payback for these innovations, is that like a 3-year, 4-year cycle? Or how long should we assume that you will benefit from this recent peak then in R&D?

Okay. The laundry is a 30-year cycle. Now to tell you that this platform will last for 30 years is a little bit -- a little bit too much. I don't know. For what we know, there is no -- there are no reason not to believe in these things. 30 years ago, when the platform was developed, we had a platform. It was the first modular design product, great that we did these things years ago. But then during the years, and you will see this, we had many new upgrading. Like in the car, many times, you have the version of the New Year, where you work where, electronics, for instance, most of the things are in the electronic evolution. And the cooking, I believe the cooking platform that we are renovating is a 20-year-old platform. So the life of the product in this industry is pretty long. If you ask me, is it going to be so long also in the future? Probably the structure of the product, yes. What will be evolving quicker than in the past is the controlling side, the electronic and the digital features.

I have one more question over there.

Henrik Christiansson From DNB Carnegie. A question on the customer care business. You talked about the Net Promoter Score, and they look at that as much because that's the future of the business. Can you talk a bit about how that has trended? And also on the retention side, if you could give us some stats around what do you retain and whatnot and if we can view that as an installed base or what it is really?

I was in some way expecting the moment I start talking about Net Promoter Score. We are not disclosing this one, but I'm convinced that sooner or later, we will do it. And we don't do it because it is not -- the vast majority, we are not collecting the data as we want to have a truly statistical base. It is good in some countries, but to give you the data in 1, 2, 10 countries, it doesn't mean so much, but we are working on that. We are working to get this information. And it is really important. And the good thing is that also the sales company are not perceiving this one as just, I don't know, a way to control or other things. But it is again creating value. And you know the number we are looking, in particular, in the number of the detractors. The number of the detractors because we follow up, we understand them, we want to understand why you are not promoting the Electrolux Professional. I cannot lie on that. In every family, there is something not working. But we follow up. You know what, at least my experience is, most of the cases, the detractor, they become the best promoter. You can turn them and you turn them, thanks to customer care, thanks to showing that you care about them and you address their problems.

Thank you. Do we have any more questions? Yes, you, one at the back.

Johan Eliason at SB1. Question, M&A is part of your strategy, obviously, and you can't say so much about what will happen going forward. But you have done a number of larger acquisitions over the past few years, like Grindmaster, UB and then TOSEI. And now you're closing down the drip coffee from Grindmaster. UB had a bit of an issue starting up with you in the first year. And to say you seem to have been surprised how the Japanese market developed. Are there any lessons learned from these activities that you have done recently?

Yes. But Grindmaster, we knew it. We knew about that. But remember that Grindmaster, it was the drip coffee, but majority of the business was the cold beverage, okay? Cold beverage became one of the core product lines with one of the highest margins that we have. One of the tools to enter chains, one of the best tools to enter chains in the U.S. CRATHCO, that is the brand used on their cold beverage product is by far the market leader for beverage solution. And beverage -- within the food and beverage nowadays so and so, not because of the United States, that is one of the fastest-growing categories because the payback is very short. If you buy the product and we have some of them here, I can show them to you, when they are installed in the chains, we know that they pay back in months -- in months. You sell water with some sugar, months. TOSEI -- now before TOSEI, you said Unified Brands. Unified Brands, we had a problem. And the lesson learned is that we were so focused on the fact that UB was much larger than Electrolux Professional, if you want to call it, the 2 teams of the 2 communities. And it was a reverse takeover, if you want to say so. And the focus was internal driven. Let's make sure that we merged the office, we closed the office. We had one IT system, one process, one, one, one, one, and we neglected the customer outside. The customer outside that were questioning, what is going to happen? Are you going to kill the brand, the Electrolux Professional brand, in this case? What are you going to do? Are you merging? Remember that in the same year, there was also -- our major competitor, Ali/Welbilt doing the same things, and it was pretty noisy what they were doing in terms of merger, firing reps. So the lesson learned is that when we run an acquisition, we have to make sure that the customer is not perceiving anything negatively from what we are doing internally. We have to work on our synergy development cost, but we have to make sure that the customer is not seeing anything of that. And that is what exactly we are doing with TOSEI. Because TOSEI came after that one. And we have been -- it was very similar in the meaning that the acquired business was much larger than the original business of Electrolux Professional. But first, we had to make sure that we had the right leaders in place to run the things. And secondly, the focus was only on the customer side. We eventually delayed merger or other things. It came after roughly 2 years to make sure that we set the customers. Then, as I said, the market is what it is, but we focus on the market. And the reality is that, yes, some problem, that is unavoidable, but it is the big lesson learned about these things.

Thank you. Unfortunately, we need to end the Q&A session there. Thank you, Alberto.

Thanks to you.

So the next presentation will be about one of our largest businesses, Food Europe. So I -- we will be especially focused on cooking. I welcome Camilla Monefeldt-Kirstein on stage. Camilla is the President of Food Europe. She's been with the company since 3 years back. So the word is yours, please Camilla.

Thank you, Jacob. I'm very happy to be here today. I think it's the first time we present the food business in Europe. And I'm honored -- this is a very exciting part of the business and I'm honored to represent the team and the business. I'm going to talk about 3 things. First, to give a brief introduction to our business and the markets we operate in. Then I'm going to share our ambition and our strategic priorities and also explain why we believe we are uniquely positioned to capture future profitable growth as the undisputed innovation leader in horizontal cooking. So let's start by looking at the market. The global food and beverage equipment market is large. Last year, it was estimated to be worth USD 32 billion, and Europe represents 1/3 roughly of this market. And even though in the recent years, growth in Europe has been slightly lower than in Americas and in Far East, Europe still represents a large and significant market. A few words on the food business in Europe and our setup. BA Food Europe is part of the food and beverage segment of the group, and we represent roughly 1/3 of the group revenues. Europe, you mentioned it, Alberto. Europe is our largest market. It's also the second largest market of the group, but we have significant sales across Europe and other key markets are Spain, Switzerland, France and also the Nordics. For example, cooking, dish washing and ovens are our 3 largest categories, and we serve customers in both the public and the private sector. So hospitals -- sorry, hotels, restaurants and public institutions are our main category or customer segments. In Europe, Electrolux Professional has a distinct position as the single multi-category brand, facing both specialists and multibrand players. We have a broad portfolio. Our portfolio covers all 3 categories, wet dish washing, cold refrigeration and hot cooking. And if we look at competition, they typically -- I mean, specialist by nature, but also multibrands, they serve these categories by several separate brands. So the fact that we have the full solution under one same brand distinguishes us from the rest. And Electrolux Professional is the largest brand. No, we're not the second largest, I wish, second-largest brand in Europe, in food in Europe with a very high brand recognition. We are launching a new vision for horizontal cooking, setting the stage for innovation in the years to come. So before going into our strategic priorities, let's have a look at what we want to achieve. [Presentation]

Like it? Horizontal cooking is our core. That's where we are strong, that's where we have a leadership position. And we not only want to defend that position, but we want to strengthen it and drive the development of our industry, reshaping life in the kitchen. But we don't want to lose our multi-category edge, but we want to decomplexify the business. Alberto was talking about it, and streamlining our portfolio, focusing on high-margin products. So this ambition is anchored on 2 strategic priorities. The first being to accelerate growth of high-margin products in key markets, and the second is about reigniting our innovation journey. Future proofing the cooking offering. So we -- what have we done, what are we doing to accelerate growth of high-margin products in markets. The 2 first areas, how we drive or optimize our go-to-market effectiveness and drive commercial excellence, is all about making it easy to buy and easy to sell, getting closer to the end customer and creating a pull for our brand. So here, we have activities we're working on refining or redefining our dealer network, working with the right partners, consultants, enabling us to enter the right segments. It's about shifting or strengthening and empowering our sales organization, shifting from a farmer to a hunter mindset, a lot of things. And it's all -- but it's all aimed to actually make it easy to buy, easy to sell. And the feedback or this process and the findings from this process feeds back to how can we better serve our customers. So the last area is about simplify and serve better. And here, we're talking about actually streamlining our business, both the business or the commercial offering as well as operations. And we are doing, just to give some examples. You were talking about whether exiting certain categories. We are rationalizing our assortment, focusing on star products, which is in actual fact another word for high-margin products with clear USPs. We are also redefining our logistics setup to get faster deliveries, and we are optimizing our production footprint, moving production, Thermaline production to optimize our margins. And some words on the relocation of Thermaline. Thermaline is trusted and well appreciated product line in the premium segment. And a few months ago, we announced that we wanted to evaluate to move the production from Switzerland to Italy. The decision have been made, and we are in process of moving production to Vallenoncello, where more than 90% of our production of the horizontal range is already produced. So this move will enable us to recover profitability, but also unlock synergies in -- or across the horizontal cooking range production. And on top of that, it will free up resources for us to reinvest in growth markets and in innovation. So I'll talk about how we -- our innovation, our recognition of the innovation journey. But before doing that, I would like to explain why we choose to focus on horizontal cooking. So horizontal cooking, it's not only our core, but it's also the heart of any kitchen. The market or this segment is large, and it has showed a solid growth trend. You see to the left that the growth rate is higher than the market in general. And within this segment, induction technology is the fastest-growing technology, growing twice the speed as gas. And we are -- we have -- we are the largest player in horizontal cooking in Europe, both across modular and customer made-to-measure. And we have a very strong position. Horizontal cooking is also the biggest revenue contributor and has with very high margin. So that's the reason why. So our strategy is simple. We're matching our core strengths with the biggest market trends. We see a rapid shift from gas to electric and induction equipment, mentioned twice the speed. And we see customers are increasingly -- I need water. Is this safe? You never know. Now we will see, customers are increasingly prioritizing sustainability and efficiency and also adopting digital solutions. So a few words on -- to elaborate on sustainability. You mentioned it and probably you will talk more about it for the larger sake. In food, sustainability is still not a very important decision-making factor. However, we see that there is a trend going on. There's a shift going on. In the other European countries, it's increasingly being a factor in tender business, and it's just a matter of time before that behavior also reaches the southern parts of Europe. And when it does, we are ready, we are in now. And also, you mentioned it Alberto that from the customer's point of view, they might not talk about sustainability, but they do talk about energy savings, and they do talk about cost effectiveness. And just as an example, induction, the annual energy consumption of an induction hub, if you compare to the annual energy consumption of an electric hub, is 30% less and 40% less than the gas. We have already secured induction -- advanced induction technology expertise via -- through the acquisition of Adventys last year. We -- now not only we own the technology, we are not depending on external or other suppliers. And we have also refocused our resources already towards cooking. And then I talked about both horizontal cooking and ovens because if you look at these 2 together, they complete the professional kitchen. Ovens is also a segment where which is growing. The development is driven by new technologies, demands for energy-efficient solutions, connectivity and also ease of use appliances. So by looking at them together, we can innovate and develop integrated solutions that better fits or meets the needs of our customers. Last year, we also launched an internal transformation program to accelerate innovation and speed up time to market. And I am super, super, super excited and happy to say that, that is paying off. Because already now, 1 year later, we have new products to launch or to bring to market. We're launching the e-XP line, LiberoLight and Thermaline free-zone induction. Next year, we are bringing -- we are launching the compact multifunctional cooker. This is a new segment to us, but it is an unsaturated segment in the market, dominated by one player. And we are bringing something, which is unique, both in terms of the product itself, is compact, it satisfies the needs of the customer's limited space, utilizing every inch of the kitchen. And important factor, this product can be integrated into our other horizontal cooking lines. So it can be used as a standalone, but also as an integrated part of horizontal cooking, which is unique in the market. We are also working on what is to come, the next generation modular cooking, but the new features. I cannot talk about -- too much about what -- long-term plans, but what I can do is that I can give you some more flavor of the next year's innovation pipeline and how these launches will help us target margin growth in key segments. At the bottom of this slide, you see our segment coverage, current and then where we aim to end up after these launches. And with the LiberoLight, LiberoPro is our plug-in range, compact and flexible plug-in range. And with the LiberoLight, we are launching super-efficient holding and cooking solutions, powered by induction, to broaden our reach in the light-duty segment of hotels, bars and restaurants. With e-XP and Thermaline free-zone induction, we are turbocharging our induction offering, really penetrating the medium and for the mass and premium segment of restaurants and hotels. The multifunctional cooker, I already talked about, new segment, unsaturated unique solution, big opportunities. So to summarize, key takeaways. We are operating in a large and resilient market with a distinct position as the single multi-category brand. And we have a leadership -- leadership position, both in core markets and in key categories. We have already improved and we are working on to further strengthen our go-to-market and our commercial excellence, making it easy to buy and easy to sell and creating pull for the brand. And lastly, we are strengthening our foundation. We have and we are strengthening our foundation, streamlining operations, and stepping up the game, revamping our ambition in innovation. And we have already proven that we are able -- capable of -- to grow profitably. And I hope you see why we are uniquely positioned to secure future profitable growth. And also, I hope you see that we've already taken significant steps on this journey towards reshaping life in the kitchen and really cementing our position as the leading undisputed innovation leader in horizontal cooking. So as the launch of the new e-XP line is a significant -- marks a significant step on this journey, let's end or close with a sneak peek of what is to come. We now not just offer induction, we own it.

Thank you, Camilla. We will now open up for a very short Q&A session. So if you have any questions as before, please raise your hand or post them online. We have the first question, 2 questions over there.

I can take the first. Per Johansson. Camilla, could you talk a bit about the replacement cycle because I remember before the spinoff from the old company, there was something going on with the replacement, then we had COVID and so on. So now you have a lot of new products. So are you coming into a positive replacement cycle with your clients, restaurants, hotels and so on? That's my first question. And my second question is, is the European market actually better than media anecdotes because everybody -- we read everywhere that Europe is not doing very well. But are Europe doing better for you than the anecdotes we read about?

I'll start with the last question. As Alberto said, Europe is very heterogenic. It's not one market. So we have different situations across Europe. We have -- but anyway, we have growth opportunities despite that market is, in some cases, challenging. We believe we can still grow. We have something unique to the market. And then you've talked about the cycle, the replacement cycle. We are constantly -- as we're growing, we're constantly adding -- we are entering new segments, new customers, new markets. So it's kind of -- it is not easy to explain with what or answer you with say, yes or no, because I think it's -- we're constantly filling up with new customers and hence, entering new cycles. But what we see is that our business, we are serving both project business and unit replacement business. And we are focusing a lot on the unit replacement business to boost that and be less dependent on projects, but we are still -- we still want to play and win in the public business. So answer to your question.

Henrik from DNB Carnegie. A question on the launch and what we can learn from history. When you listed the company, talked a lot about the SkyLine Cook and Chill. My impression on these launches is that they will address new markets as well. So there's sort of a -- as you mentioned, there's sort of a turbo boost. So it's not only getting a new product out, which in itself could drive sales and mix, but also addressing new markets. Is that rightly understood? Or what are the differences between them?

The launches that we do already now are kind of strengthening our offering in the markets we're in today were segments. The multi-functional cooker is definitely opening up a new segment for us. And lessons learned, yes, there are lessons learned even though it was before my time, but in this case, these kind of products that we plan to launch next year requires a different approach, the more the hunting approach. So that's why we're also working now on the commercial excellence is preparing for kind of farmers to hunters. And then also when we plan the launch for next year, we already now started to talk long time ago to prepare the go-to-market part of it. So to your question, yes, lessons learned, maybe and we are focused on that securing it in the future. I actually forgot to say that because I didn't talk so much about the launches, even though the film showed all the new features and functions, I'm sure it's for the -- it's hard to catch, but we can have a look at the kind of the advanced -- there is a prototype of the induction hub, the Adventys free-zone induction, which is kind of the key out in the showrooms, we can -- for the interested among you, we can have a talk about it during the break.

This is Gustav Hagéus with SEB. On the -- it's a hardware multifunctional cooking system. I assume -- so the main competitor would be Rational's iVario. And if I recall correctly, they're generating some EUR 140 million, growing double digits. What would you consider to be a success for this product line? And at what time frame do you think it's fair to start evaluating it?

I will start by saying that even Rational -- if we look at Rational's numbers, they are still only taking a small proportion of the big market. So there's huge growth opportunities also for us. I will not give you a number on kind of what we have as a target. We have internal targets, but there are huge opportunities by launching this product.

Sure. And so the connectivity with the rest of your products is obviously a key feature then versus your competitors?

In the multifunctional cooker, yes.

Sure. But are there other features that you think is worth highlighting compared to your competitor that would allow you to take? Is it a cheaper product? Or is there more?

We have ambitious plans to enter the market with a unique and competitive product, also when it comes to price. But the uniqueness is, I would say, what I would highlight is that this is a product we can integrate it into the cooking blocks. It can be an integrated part of the horizontal cooking lines that we have, both e-XP and Thermaline. And most of you know we have a high installed base so we have already a foot in into that market.

And if I -- I'm going to try another way in here, but if I look at the iVario development, they obviously have launched a product in a less mature market than you're launching. So one would assume that more kitchens are aware of this type of -- is it fair to assume that a successful launch would indicate that a more rapid growth than Rational had at the time of launch?

Yes, we could hope for that. They have opened the market for us. But it is more bullish.

I think that was it. And then I think it's time for a coffee break. So we will back again 10:50, that's 25 minutes from now. Thank you and see you in 10:50 again. [Break]

So welcome back to Electrolux Professional Investor Day. Next presentation will be about one of our most profitable parts of our business, our Laundry business. To talk to us about this, I invite Paolo Schira on stage. Paolo has been with the company since 2006 running the Laundry business. But you have also -- you were running food business before. Please, the stage is yours, Paolo.

Thank you. Good morning, everybody. I'm super excited to be here because there is really a lot going on in laundry, I'm very keen to give you -- convey a little bit of my passion on what's going on. In today's session, we will cover 3 topics. The first one is about to give you an update on the market, the global laundry professional market. You probably are aware that a month ago exactly one, our biggest competitor got listed. And I think it's good to confront and see how we position ourself and what we can achieve in this marketplace, point number one. Point number 2 is about a very exciting initiative we have been working on for a while. It's a project -- a product initiative, not yet to the market, but I'm keen to give you a sneak preview of what's coming for next year. Third topic is very, very, very fresh. I think some of you asked earlier about M&A moving forward. And soon, you will receive a press release because as of 10:27, very little time ago, we announced the investment in a startup in Sweden. So I will give you some color because it is a small business, but it is super exciting for the future. So I'm going to give you some colors on nuances on what's going to happen. You are the first one to hear about it. So feel privileged. So let me move on the first slide. Here is the picture we have from the professional laundry market. As we presented in the previous occasion, we believe the market is roughly split in thirds, 1/3 North America, 1/3 Europe, 1/3 all the rest, with a big bulk in Asia. In terms of evolution of the market, we -- on a historical level, we can see the market growing roughly 2%, 3% every year. It changes by year and changes by geography. The last couple of years, objectively North America has been growing a little bit more. But in the growing trend, we believe Asia probably will grow faster because of the trends of urbanization, middle class and so forth. So that's a little bit the perspective we have. In terms of market share and cluster of segments in the market, we believe we have been growing faster than the market for quite a few years, and I will give you evidence of it in Slide 2. We believe we are good #2. There is an American company that is bigger. I just want to put the target on an attention point here in the number I presented in percentages, there are only comparable numbers to ours. So we act only in the -- out-of-home business, as Alberto was mentioning, we don't work on the consumer business. Whereas some of our competitors, the American and the German one are reporting also turnover in the consumer business. This is not what we do. So that's first attention point. In terms of how do we see the market in terms of clusters, there is the huge machines, the heavy duty as Electrolux Professional laundry. We used to be there 20-plus years ago. We are not any longer there in that part of the market. Our core, our bread and butter is a truly professional part of the business and that there is an attractive additional part of the market is what we call semi-commercial. So still out-of-home customers, but with a product often is derived from consumer. Historically, we were not acting in this domain, but we are growing faster. It's an attractive part of the market. So let's have a look at our 2024 numbers or perspective in terms of the business. So what you see here are 2 perspectives on Electrolux Professional Laundry business. One is about the product perspective. The other one is the geographical perspective. On the product perspective, you see we have the traditional laundry, professional laundry category is washer and dryers and additional products. What I want to highlight for your attention is the 20% of customer care to know what we do in laundry. Why I want to highlight it? We believe it's a strong asset we have. Consider we believe the average of the market is around 10% -- 10%, 11%. So we are significantly better than the average of the market. We are working to accelerate even faster. And why we are so keen is because it is giving further resilience to our business. And is, by the way, typically, in customer care across industries, there are higher margins, and it is the same for us. So by growing this part of the market, this element, we are able to grow profitably our business. The geographic split, still, we are a company with a strong footprint in Europe, with a long history in Europe. But if you were to look at the picture 10 years ago, you would have seen that Europe would have represented 80% of our business. So we are rapidly expanding outside of Europe and the growth rate we had in U.S. and Asia has been very significant. So we are becoming even more resilient from the geographical standpoint. I told you earlier, I'm convinced we've been growing faster than the market. And to give you evidence of it, here, you have 2 pictures. One on net sales and the other one on profitability or profit evolution over time. I took as a reference 2019. We were still part of another company at that time, but it was before the pandemic. And then 2024 and the rolling quarter 3 this year. What you can see here is that in terms of compounded annual growth rate, we did very well. This number contains both organic and inorganic. But even if we were to exclude the inorganic part, the acquisition of TOSEI, we would see more than the market growth over the years. That's the first point. The other point I'm very proud and what the team has been achieving is about the resilience. You see during the pandemic years 2020 and 2021, we only reduced by 10% the turnover and the profitability kept pretty positive. So overall, the message I want to give you in this picture is we have now these number of years of track record on delivering growth and delivering profit expansion. And this is our trajectory also with the new investment in what to do. We want to continue. Now you heard at the beginning with the introduction of Alberto that one of the customer groups we prioritize as a company is the chains. Chains historically is the food chains, commercial restaurant chains. But in reality, also in laundry there is a trend, a trend that has been appearing probably in the last 5-ish years of multi-outlet customers. So we call them also enterprise customers. So customers that are opening more than one location. Here, we talk about customers with hundreds of locations. And I have to admit that this has been a major growth for us in several geographies among which North America and Europe. So behind the numbers you saw earlier, there is clearly a strong contribution from this chain customer of laundry. Here, a picture from U.S. and Europe from some of our customers. Why this customer typically appreciate our value proposition compared to other suppliers? We believe we have a lot of assets that are palatable for these customer groups. One is about customer care. These customers are often multi-location, multinational and we can support them everywhere. They really look at the business as a return on investment proposition. So the digital offering we have is considered very palatable and then also in terms of running costs. So we can prove all the times that we can have a better return on investment than all the other competitors in the marketplace. So we have a strong value proposition. So let's move closing with the first part of the presentation on the market and where we are in our trajectory. I'm very keen to give you some color on the new product platform we are launching from next year, what we have been working on already for a while. What you have here in the picture is a little bit the last 20 years history of Electrolux Professional Laundry platforms in the marketplace. It will be -- we have more than 120 years in this market. And I have to say we are proud to say that most of the innovation, you even see the consumer industry comes from our company, even a small thing you mentioned today, in your home, you probably have a washing machine that is spinning clockwise and counterclockwise. We were the first company in the planet to introduce it in the '60s in the professional domain, then port it down to the consumer. So we shaped the industry, both for professional and the consumer part of the business. So what is this new product about? A sneak preview, so I'll not give you too many details. It'd be too early. But the key point of this new product is a completely new platform with a strong standardization, so fewer components. A big asset of this platform will be that will help us to reduce the production cost, so the cost of the products and will help us to combine the different modules to offer different value proposition, different solutions. So in practical terms, we are going to be able still expanding the margins to serve new customer groups. As information, as of today, we believe we are the clear leader in the premium part of the market. So when there is something that is high level, high return investment, probably a bit more expensive, we are the leader, undisputed. Probably we're not the leader in, what I would call it, the value part of the market. And with this new platform, we believe we can really aggressively grow in this very sizable part of the market, still expanding the margin. That's for me the critical element. And as everybody would expect from us being the leader in innovation and sustainability, the products will be just amazing. The best productivity, the best sustainability, the greatest return on investment you can imagine. So we're very, very excited, as you can feel from my voice. We will start end of quarter 2, beginning of July next year. And the other program is to continue throughout 2027. So we don't launch everything in the same moment. It will be also unwise from a management point of view, but we start in the second half of next year. So why we decided to invest now into this major project? There are different drivers. For sure, despite the laundry industry is a rather consolidated industry with a few big players, we see pressure from competition. So we want to still lead the way. Alberto and Camilla mentioned, sustainability for us is not only the good thing on the planet, but it's also for profit. So people turn the profit, we always say about sustainability. And this product will help us to drive further the bar for everybody to follow. And of course, we believe we can accelerate our growth. Laundry has been doing decently well for the last few years. We believe we can accelerate, thanks to this product because of these new markets, new segments we can target. So very, very cool and exciting. So to summarize what is going to happen, one completely new platform. This new platform will impact mostly 2 of our 4 factories. So it will impact Sweden, [indiscernible], not far from here in Stockholm and in Thailand. And again, for us, it's really a way to future-proof our business, our profitability, our development over time. Now naturally, with every new product we do, we strongly focus on digital and connectivity. So the new products will be natively connected. And as of today, we already do decently well on connecting appliances. We have around the globe, roughly 40,000-plus machines connected. And we want to more or less cover all our installed base, the future, but also the old one we connected. Why we want to do so? Well, the reason is very simple. Especially in the B2B environment, especially in laundry, if you have machines connected, you can reinforce your value proposition around customer care, around new business model, digital offering to the customer and so forth. So for us, it is just the right thing to do to continue encompassing in the customer in this perspective. Then to close with the last flag on the new products. Already as of today, we are the best-in-class in terms of performances. So a machine from Professional on average is using 20% to 30% less energy than competitors, less water, less chemicals and so forth, and it is proven by many, many customers. With the new platform, we are going to stretch the limit even further. So we bring really the sustainability level to, again, [ e side ] of our closest competitors. And this for me is the perfect hook to introduce to the fresh news I was telling you that is about our investment in a start-up. So we are investing in a minority stake of a company that is called Mimbly. Mimbly is a Swedish start-up. And the reason why we did it is because for us, it makes a lot of sense, a lot of strategic fit to work in the areas where the company has been working for quite a few years. They are on the third iteration of their product. So what do they do? What is their business they do? They have 2 major value proposition. So they develop a box. You see a picture close to our machine in this new chart. There are 2 elements of their value proposition. One is water recycling. So they have a water reservoir and they reuse, filter and clean the water coming from the washing machine. So instead of what you do in a typical washing machine that you drain in the sewage, the water after a cycle, what they do is they collect the water, they filter it, they assess the quality of the water and then with a very intelligent way, they bring back the water in the washing machine. And they do it without human intervention. So you don't need to go be a scientist or whatever because the machine is doing everything by yourself. So you know automatically that you get the best amount of recycled water that you could imagine. The performances are impressive. They can go up to 80% of water recycling in a usage of machine -- washing machine are using a lot of water. So you heard from me before, our machine already best-in-class with 20%, 30% less water than competitors. With the new platform, we will be even better. Adding this device, I mean, we are going to be virtually using very, very little water, which is fantastic because water is expensive because it's good for the environment, because you don't need to heat up the water and so forth. And that's the first, I would call it, the short-term opportunity with this company. The other one that I judge even more exciting is that they are pioneering advanced technology to manage microplastics. Probably some of you are familiar, probably some less, but it's a big issue in the planet that is microplastics and the washing machine are making them visible. There will be regulations between 2028 and 2030 across Europe, California, Canada and other countries that are limiting severely the amount of microplastic a washing machine can discharge. So it will become mandatory by law. Dates are not certain, but this is the trend, the feeling we have. By partnering and collaborating with this company, integrating their solution in our machines will help us to lead the way. So we believe that short term, big advantage on the water. But midterm, we have a major advantage or several years of advantage to any competitors in this kind of microplastic filtration. So small acquisition, still I'm very excited. So that's the point. Just to conclude out of this short presentation, I just want to convey a little bit or repeat the messages I said. So first, the laundry industry, maybe it's not a huge industry, but it's rather consolidated. It still is growing across different cycles, different turbulences. We've been doing well. And I believe we are really positioned very well to capture further profitable growth. You understood that for us, everything is about sustainability that is, yes, the planet, the people, but also the profit because our customers are business-to-business customers. So these are customers that care for their bottom line, their wallet, et cetera. And then I told you about the last 2 things. So one, the new platform, very exciting, huge initiative. Many people have been working hard for long that will help us to enter the new segments. Again, the benefits will start coming from second half of next year. So there is still a little bit of time. And then this acquisition -- sorry, this investment in this start-up company that is exciting. It's small in magnitude, but in terms of potential and future fit is very attractive. So that's my summary.

Thank you, Paolo. We have a few minutes for questions to Paolo. [Operator Instructions].

My question is more on the organization. Earlier today, we heard that you're moving production to Switzerland and you're trying to refocus your staff to be more aligned with the current environment. But I'm thinking about Ljungby as a strategic fit in where this laundry market seemingly is heading towards more digitization, more front end, more chains moving in. Is that the -- is that where you want to invest personnel going forward? Or would it make sense over time to perhaps move some of that personnel to, say, more dense areas where it may be easier to find digital competence and so forth?

So very valid question. So probably start in an adjacent point, Gustav, that is for us, Ljungby is a major manufacturing site, being Sweden, not the lowest cost country for us to remain competitive as we are, we've been keep investing in automation. So the reason why we can be very competitive out of Sweden is, I believe, it's probably the most advanced factory in the industry, what we have in Ljungby. So the manufacturing part, I believe we are really in a good place there, and we can afford also having a big business in Europe, so close to the final market. What we highlighted is in terms of future competencies, unfolding a pathway where the future is going more to electronic software and digital, do we want to invest in Ljungby? And the answer is probably not. So we initiated already last year a major shift and focus of resources in lower-cost countries. We have an innovation hub and R&D hub in India. And we are using these resources because, first, it's easier to pull the right talent, and then it is easier also to deploy faster the solution. And this is one element. The other element is probably in the past, we've been very conservative in our approach to develop everything in-house. And I think the world today is moving much faster in many directions. So defining strategic alliances, take also this acquisition with this start-up. I think it's towards this direction for us to be more agile that we need to own the core competencies, own the last mile with the customer, but then we can use flexibly different partners to develop stuff. So I believe the future looks pretty positive in this approach because we are not any longer looking only on a small domain in a small city in Sweden.

If I can ask one more question. It's with this apparent change, especially in U.S. then from mom-and-pop shops to enterprises rolling out, it appears as if financing will become a greater need for your customers or a key selling point. Then on the other hand, maybe opening up for more asset-light recurring revenues from the digitization. But where do you see -- do you expect to be able to have to offer more financing or become more of a bank to your customers or your dealers to really take part of this transition?

So a very good question. So financing is an instrumental element of the value proposition for a specific segment, that is the laundromat. So if you take U.S., if you take Asia, some countries in Europe, typically, customers don't buy a laundromat shop, but they go -- they have investor time, small or big, and they look for getting finance business and then they calculate the cash on cash and all the financial returns. So the way we have been doing it so far and have been so far has been rather successful is we work well with external parties to provide -- to remain asset lean, if you wish, but then to have companies integrated seamlessly with ourselves to provide the financing component of the value proposition. In U.S., it's done by our major distributor and a couple of banks. We have another major part of our model that is on rental in Germany, where we do it with a specific bank that is integrated with our operations. So, so far, I'm not saying that down the line in 10 years, we should not review our policy. But right now, I think with this seamless integration with third party, we are able to accomplish the finance value proposition without burdening our balance sheet with too much assets, and we are happy about being the balance sheet that is giving us strength for doing many things. I don't know if I've been clear in my...

Sure. Any other questions from the room? No one online either. Thank you, Paolo, for your presentation. So next on stage is Fabio Zarpellon, CFO, that will walk us through the numbers. Please, Fabio.

So good morning to everybody. Very happy to be here with you today. During my session today, I'm going to cover 3 topics. First, I will give you an update where we are in our journey to deliver the financial targets. I'm going to give you some light and trends for 2026 tomorrow. And then I will give you an update about our bridge to reach an important goal that is the 15% EBITDA margin. So let me start with our financial goals. Financial goals are confirmed. It's about profitably growing this business with a business model that is asset-light leveraging and keeping a balance sheet with a low leverage and overall, with a combination of profitable growth and asset-light business model, being able to deliver consistent dividend to our shareholders. Where are we in this journey? We got listed in 2020, the year of COVID, if you remember. Our sales dropped over 20%. This company in 2020 was still able to deliver solid EBITDA and cash flow. And since the COVID time, you see our development. We continue both organically catching up what we lost in 2020 and then with acquisition, being able to continue the journey to profitable grow this business. And on a rolling 12-month base, we see that we are already at 12% EBITDA margin. And this, I would say, is a considerable achievement considering in particular the headwinds we have faced this year, both about currency and tariffs that I'm going to touch in a while. The journey was delivered in Food & Beverage and Laundry. Here our performance in Food & Beverage. First, 2020, Food & Beverage was a business we suffered the most. We declined sales close to 30%. But you see that in the following years, we have been able to swiftly catch up in terms of sales and turn in profitability. And now we are running above 10% EBITDA margin. Here in the picture, we see somehow a slowdown in terms of profitability, slightly slowdown. And this is mainly related to the fact that we are investing more than the year before in bringing new innovation in the market. Camilla few minutes ago explained to us the big undertaking that we are taking to bring new cooking solution, high-profit cooking solution into the market. This combined, I would say, to a mix down we are facing in the food and beverage category is somehow keeping the development of the expansion of the margin some cold. This category is cold. You remember earlier, we were mentioning about Grindmaster acquisition. With Grindmaster, we bring on board a very, very profitable cold category and somehow this year performance related to the development of the U.S. market in beverage is somehow slowing down. Paolo and I don't believe I need to repeat more about the journey of laundry. It is impressive. Here, we talk about the business above 17%, being able this year to compensate and mitigate the impact from tariff, currency and still expanding the margin. Behind this, whilst in Food and Beverage, I was talking about and mixing down due to the decrease of sales of cold beverage. Here in Laundry, we are enjoying a significant mixing up because within the product category, the high spin, high profitable machine are growing faster than the rest of the range. I was mentioning about tariffs. Well, tariffs have been a big headache for us this year. We have been able to mitigate the most of the impact, but I have to say it has not been an easy journey for us. Tariffs are covering roughly 12%, 13% of our business in the United States. So overall, the business in United States is 25% of the group turnover, less than half is subject to tariffs. We are serving the market via 2 channels, for laundry via an importer in food and beverage with our sales company in United States. To give you an order of magnitude, either paid directly by our sales company or by our importer on a yearly basis, the impact of the tariffs based on current condition is in the area of SEK 130 million per year, more than SEK 10 million per month. So big, big impact. But as we have announced in the -- also in the earlier call, thanks to activities that we have performed to reduce our sourcing purchasing cost, thanks to price increase that we have been putting in place in the market, we have been able this year to, I would say, compensate majority of it. Did we compensate it all? No, because in quarter 3, we have mentioned that we have still a gap between the tariffs that the chain and what we recovered in pricing in the area of SEK 10 million and so far is SEK 25 million. But with the price increase that we have announced already in the U.S. market for 2026, the additional cost of tariffs will be fully compensated. The second important piece that affected our profitability is currency. We are a company listed in the NASDAQ Stockholm market. We are a Swedish company. We report in SEK, and SEK strengthen against the other currency. To give an order of magnitude, we are really a global company. 95% of our sales are outside Sweden. So we report in U.S. dollar, euro, GB pound and so on. SEK strengthening has reduced our top line by roughly 3% and the bottom line equivalent. So when I look into the currency translation effect, it does impact top and bottom line value, but not the margin. Currency transaction effect has really affected our performance. On a year-to-date basis, it represents roughly SEK 60 million or roughly 0.6% on total sales. An example of currency transaction is I go back to our U.S. business. We are invoicing in U.S. dollar out of Sweden. Last year, $100 was SEK 110,000. This year is 10% less. So this is, I would say, the major impact. Two important piece. And here you see in the chart on your right, if I look at the 2 years in comparable term, same currency and neutralizing the currency transaction effect, you see that we have a business that is already at 12.5% margin. And here is a good news because with the price increase that we are putting in place in the U.S. market and in the other market, we are counting to fully compensate also the currency effect in 2026. This morning, I believe you heard a lot about product innovation. Product innovation is a big undertaking from an R&D perspective, but also is an undertaking from a capital perspective. Historically, this group has been managing the CapEx in area of below 2% of sales. We had a peak back in 2020, '21 because we did the investment in the factory in Thailand. And you see we are trending towards the 3%. This value will remain also during 2026, but it's not expected to materially affect our cash flow capabilities. And from 2018 onwards, I expect it will return to what is a normal historical level. A few words about our balance sheet and the way we manage it. As I mentioned, this is an asset-light business model in which we are operating it. And not only is an asset-light, but you see we continue to improve it. Also in this, I would like just to bring to your attention, we talk about digitalization on the product. We talk about digitalization in relation with the customer in terms of product connectivity. Digitalization is also in our processes. And here, I would like to bring to your attention an area that we have been digitalized during last year and this year that is the area of credit collection where we have been standardized, automatized the process, introducing a tool where all the transaction manual activity that were done before by manual transaction of the people to a digitalized relation. And this has brought productivity improvement and faster collection process. This is a picture of our cash flow over the years. I would say that is a remarkable picture showing the capabilities of this group to generate profit and transform the profit into cash. Also in 2020, the year of really the COVID cash flow generation has been even stronger than the EBITDA generation. And strong cash flow means ability to repay debt. If I take the last couple of years, we have been investing a couple of billion SEK, mainly the acquisition of TOSEI, but also for Adventys. And you see the speed that we had in reducing the debt. So a company with a solid balance sheet ratio, net debt on EBITDA around 1.2x and a swift repayment of the debt. So I would say that when I look also into the future, the commitment to repay the debt, I would say we have a pretty sound debt maturity profile that we can manage relatively easily. And when it comes to opportunity to grow organically and via acquisition, we have already established good tools to make it happen. We have just renewed the revolving credit facility for EUR 240 million, and we have tools to access the capital market for over SEK 5 billion. So we are well equipped to fund the organic and inorganic growth of this group. Last but not least, you see that since the listing, we have been respected fully our policy and ambition for what concerns dividend distribution that have been not only consistent with the policy, but also growing year-over-year. So now I have talked a lot about the past. It's time I start talking about the future. And the future start from next year. So how do I look into 2026. First, inflationary items are expected somehow to stay. Expectation is that they stay at a lower, let me say, weight compared to the historical part, both for what concerns salary and other service costs. We should see a positive contribution from direct material. I should, but I could say we will see because we have been somehow already lock in, I would say, half of the purchasing that we are going to do next year. And thanks to the restructuring program that we announced, we will see before inflationary item and salary increase, a reduction of our operating cost, both in terms of absolute term and in terms of percentage of sales. And within the operational cost, let me spend a few words about our R&D cost. First, starting mainly last year, we have been increasing our R&D cost of sales. Last year is a year when we started the major investment in Laundry. And we have a level of R&D cost on sales in the area of SEK 550 million. This year, we are increasing that amount. We are increasing that investment. We are -- we will end up the year in the area of SEK 580 million, roughly 4.6%, 4.7% in terms of weight on net sales. The expectation is that towards the end of next year, majority of our effort to bring both the laundry and the cooking new product to market will somehow end up in terms of peak and expect that we will enter more normalized level with an R&D cost value below SEK 500 million in an area roughly 1 percentage point below to where we are this year that represent a peak in terms of effort from our organization. The second part that I wanted to give you an update is about the restructuring program that we have launched. It is a large undertaking from our organization. It is a program that is going to affect roughly 350 people in our group. The net in terms of decrease of people will be lower because we are going to add people where we are going to move the production on the existing side, and we will add new resources, as Alberto was mentioning, in particular on the front-end resources. The total effort of this plan is over SEK 200 million that we have booked as item affecting comparability in September. 7% of this effort is in food and beverage, 30% is in laundry. Happy to confirm that execution is moving according to plan. We have already signed agreement with several people to leave the organization. And the 2 large, let me say, structural change in terms of footprint and production setup that is about the production in Switzerland and the production in France for what concern the high productivity cooking and for coffee have been finalized, meaning we have had the agreement with the workers representative, the local government authorities. So now we can move into the execution phase. So larger contribution and program moving according to plan. And this is important because you see from the slides, the program will start to deliver material cost savings already in 2026 and more will come in 2027. So now I believe it's time to give you an update where we are and how we are going to deliver the 15%. What is different compared to the past? First, our starting point is stronger. We are now running a business at 12% EBITDA margin. And what is different to the past is that you see from the chart that more than half of the gap that now is 3 points will come from cost reduction initiative, the restructuring program that I mentioned and a normalized level of R&D spending on sales. So we are somehow derisking, if I can call it in that way, the gap to 15%. And this is one part. The other important part is that volumes will be still important, but I believe you have heard this morning that we are bringing to the market really distinctive innovation in food and in laundry in high-margin product categories. And last but not least, when it comes to pricing, we expect to be able to fully compensate with price as we have done and we have been proving the last years tariffs, currency and inflationary item. So let me say, more solid, more structure and more ready to execute plan. Then lastly my conclusion. When I was looking to the slides, let me say I was personally impressed about our journey. If I think about 2019, I was here in Sweden, start working to prepare this group or this -- at that time it was a division of Electrolux to become an independent group. During that period, we create the structure to be listed. We did not have communication, legal, group accounting. We did not have our own legal entities in the country. So we have been investing a lot to make this working as an independent group, meaning also cost we have to face to be independent means more cost than before. We entered into 2020, COVID came, plus -- minus 20% in sales. But you see that despite all this we have been having an impressive development. More than 30% more in sales, more than 30% more in profit, generating cash flow, a balance sheet that is, I would say, super, super solid. So I would say, in my perspective, a remarkable development. And when I look into 2026, I look at the near future because 2026 is near future is tomorrow for me with positive eyes and confidence. And because it's coming from 2 important pillars. We are going to get the benefit of a large cost reduction program, and we are bringing to the market high-margin distinct product categories. So very confident looking into tomorrow. Thank you very much for your attention.

Thank you, Fabio. We have a few minutes for questions. [Operator Instructions]. So please, Henrik?

Yes. So one question there on the bridge. What sort of market growth assumptions do you have in that number in terms of organic growth? And what -- yes, what part is helped by the new product launches?

I would say the market assumption somehow is in line with what was presented at the beginning by our colleagues. Short term, we expect somehow to be softer and the majority of the growth has to come from the new product that we are bringing to the market. And this is somehow the rationale why we have been working more on the cost side. I mean we are living in an environment. Let's look at our history in the last 5 years. It is more or less impossible to predict the market. 2022 was COVID. 2022 -- '21 and '22, we have the disruption of the supply chain, difficult. But what we can do in the existing market is create the condition to deliver I would say, not regardless, also in difficult market conditions, cost and new product, new distinct high-margin product categories.

Then the second question on the shorter term for next year, very excited to see the product launches and the result of that. But from a margin point of view, obviously, new products, higher profitability, better growth, we heard. But will it be another sort of marketing push, which will add to costs? And then also, of course, you have to depreciate the assets and amortize the R&D...

Two things. Together with the product investment, we are also investing in front resources to bring the product to the market. Alberto mentioned that also to present to explain the new feature, we will need different capabilities. So there will be also a shuffle not only in terms of quantity, but profile of the sales organization. So yes, we are investing also in front-end resources. Second, and it is included into this number. Next year, we are going to have additional depreciation, but they are already embedded here.

So just to clarify, will it be net positive with these new product launches?

Absolutely, yes. Otherwise, we would really make a wrong decision.

Gustav over here.

This is Gustav Hageus with SEB, again. On the balance sheet, 1.2x net debt EBITDA Q4, as you said on the conference call, typically a strong quarter. You have a target on the upside, but not on the downside. Is there anywhere where you consider yourself overcapitalized and would consider to return some of that through buybacks or extra dividends?

Okay. First, we have a strong balance sheet. We are generating cash flow. The mandate we got from the Board and the shareholders is to grow this business. And we really count that with the cash generating, we will be able to find opportunity to further expand this business. At the moment, there is no in agenda extra dividend or other form of distributing, but our focus and our goal is to continue to invest in this business.

And on the M&A targets, the scope that you have at the moment for the leads you have, how big are they? Is there -- is there a scenario where you would go -- have to go to a leverage above 2.5 to acquire some of these potential assets?

Let me say, first, we don't disclose our pipeline, of course, but I would say that we are well equipped and I was mentioned earlier about our funding capacity to finance even more than the threshold is same. And we have also by policy with, of course, Board approval that we can temporarily go beyond the 2.5x provided that we have a clear path to the leverage below that level. But also in terms of funding capacity, you see earlier, I was mentioning close to SEK 6 billion funding capacity in terms of that capital market. So I would say we are equipped to deliver on it. We need, as Alberto was mentioning earlier, to get married with more and large opportunities to get there.

Any other questions from the room? None? Then I think I would say thank you to Fabio, and I will welcome Alberto back on stage to summarize today.

Thank you, Jacob. Okay. Thanks to all of you for having been here for listen. Hopefully, I got the target or the ambition that I had at the beginning when I said I would love to have you leaving this room with a clear picture of what we are doing, how we are performing and in particular, how we are transforming this company to bring it to the level and the situation where I believe with the server. So we have been talking about this. I think ending up with the numbers we showed you that first, yes, we have been investing. But now the investments are getting to a stage where we can start bringing to market the new product. And whatever we bring to market, thanks for the question, whoever asked if the net will be positive. We or -- next year in the year to come. We don't even start a project if with the new product, we are not improving the margin. It is the basic. And the other thing that I think is important, and I'm sure we deliver also to you is that it's not just a matter of replacing. This is an industry. If you look at the kitchen, there is everything inside of a kitchen, right? There are some -- nevertheless, there are some, we call it, unsaturated spots. One very famous is the Combi Oven. And we know that Combi Oven is faster growing and why it's not in Europe, but in U.S., in Asia. But now we are bringing to market other products that are present. So this means I can sell this product not only to replace an old one, not only in a new project that is opening up, but I can also sell this product in existing installation or I can address customers that today are not buying those products. So it is opening up, is enlarging the scope and the target of our market. I think it's important to this. And the other comment I want to make is, let's be clear also about the program that we launched in September. This doesn't mean that the focus is not on growing business. Our focus, as Fabio said, is to grow business organically first, accelerating it with acquisitions. But considering the environment, considering everything, but also considering that there is a clear shift in competencies that are required in service and in sales, in administration and back office, we need to upgrade our teams. It is important. If you look at the net, in September, when we published, we also disclosed the number of people affected by this program. And when we talk about people, we talk about people. But you see that the net is less than the total number of people affected. Why? Because there is a competent shift that is going on inside of this organization. And with all these things together, I think we are really building a much more solid, not because it was not before, please don't get me wrong. But I think we are solidifying the activities that are giving us the possibility to continue the profitable growth in some way accelerating this profitable growth. And this is the reason why I still believe that this is the company where I spent all my professional life. I don't tell you the years, it's better not to talk about that. But it's a company that I love. It's a company that is in a beautiful industry. It's a company that is strong, that has been changing, and I can say so because of the years that I spent in this company, change completely the profile. Being global and being global, having factoring facility in China, in Japan, in Thailand, in Europe, in the U.S., believe it or not, is important because if you remember the trends, we have been talking about globalization of our customer, but nationalization or regionalization of many rules imposing barriers. It is a company that has all the requisites to deliver against the target that we have. And the main thing that is not on the paper here, but I really think that we deliver to you is that there are the human resources and enthusiasm. I think you had the possibility to see Camilla on stage, Paolo on stage, Fabio, who is even passionate about numbers. So you saw these things. And that is trust me, is what you will get talking to whoever is inside of this organization. And I think this is the base, and it is the strong driver that will bring us to reach the target that we have in our profitable growth path. So thank you very much really for being here the all day. I believe if there are other questions that you want to ask -- we are here. Otherwise, we can get them outside, right?

Yes. Thank you, Alberto. That concludes the program here on stage today. Thank you to all of you who are here, and also thank you to our presenters. And thank you also to those of you who have viewed us online. A recorded version of this day will be uploaded on our website later today. Thank you.