Elektroimportøren AS (ELIMP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to the Q2 webcast of Elektroimportøren. Presenting today will be CEO, Andreas Niss; and CFO, Jorgen Wist. [Operator Instructions] Andreas and Jorgen, if you're ready, please go ahead.

Thank you, Monacatrin, and thank you, everyone, for dialing in this morning. I will present the highlights of the second quarter and give you an update on trading. Jorgen will then take you through the financials as we then move into a brief outlook and a Q&A.

Yes.

So for the second quarter, we had a revenue of NOK 349 million, which is up from NOK 326 million last year, so a 7.2% increase in sales. Like-for-like sales are up 4.4%, and we see like-for-like sales in both countries, which we're happy with. Not so happy with the development of the margin, 32.4%, which is down 34.6% from last year. And our operating expenses is at NOK 80 million, which is a reduction of NOK 2 million versus second quarter last year. OpEx sales ratio is at 22.8%, which is a decrease from 25.2% last year. And our reported EBITDA ended at NOK 30 million versus NOK 31 million last year and an adjusted EBITDA of NOK 33 million, which is up NOK 2 million from last year, and Jorgen will come back on the adjustment. So April sales grew with double digits, so a good start of the quarter. We were recovering from slower Easter sales and May then started out very well, but we did not manage to grow sales when the summer whether reach to the Norwegian and Swedish consumers. But in June, again, we recovered sales, and we're back to growing the business. We saw growth in 4 out of our 5 major categories with EV chargers and Smarthome products having the greatest growth. Gross margin is down, as I said, driven by campaigns, growth in EV and Smarthome, which are below average gross margin categories and also some ForEx effect. So even though the gross margin development is somewhat disappointing, the tougher campaigns that we had in June increased the footfall and sales to our stores, making growth possible throughout the quarter. We continue to manage our costs effectively. And with some positive trends with increased customer visits and increased baskets, we are slightly positive for the market conditions going forward. In Sweden, sales grew 13% to NOK 34 million, up from NOK 30 million last year, NOK 8 million of that is sales in Veddesta, our physical store in Stockholm. We opened Veddesta late April last year. So it's not fair to compare it to last year, but last year, we had NOK 2 million of sales in that store. The reported EBITDA in Sweden is minus NOK 6 million versus minus NOK 5 million last year, and the adjusted EBITDA in Sweden is minus NOK 3 million versus NOK 5 million last year. As we have talked about earlier, our Board, together with management, have conducted a preliminary strategic review related to our operations in Sweden -- and possible short-term actions to improve profitability and reduce losses. On short term, our conclusion is that the operational efforts to increase turnover and cost reduction is the best option. We entered the Swedish market by acquiring Elbutik Scandinavia in March 2022. We scaled up the business and opened up our first physical store in what have shown to be the roughest retail market development in more than 25 years. In this market environment, unfortunately, we have not been able to capitalize on our investment as planned. Long-term leases and other commitments has generated a cost base, which makes it difficult to be profitable with our current turnover. We have ameliorated all our options for our presence in Sweden, including an exit. But due to our long-term obligations and most of all, the market opportunities ahead, this is not regarded as the financially best option. An operational turnaround, including revised customer offer to B2B customers, more strategic pricing, marketing activities and decreasing operational costs are now in place. together with somewhat improved market conditions and the new Managing Director, we are now positioned to regain profitability in Sweden going forward. Moving on to Namron. Share of business at Namron for the group was 31.5% versus 31.6% last year. Our margin -- gross margin in Namron 54.5%, which is down 0.4% from last year in Q2. Namron sales in Sweden was a share of business of 7.4% compared to 4.8% last year. So an okay development when it comes to Namron sales. EV Chargers are up 35%. -- expected -- it was expected that we grew given the fact that we had the Easee ban coming in, in March last year. So -- but the market is declining. But from now, we see stock levels for our sake is normalized, and we expect that this product group will develop more or less in line with other products group going forward. When it comes to solar, we had a really challenging solar market hit us during the quarter. As a result, sales are down more than 60% -- and this is what was expected to be a booming market not so long ago -- sorry -- but it has definitely come to a hold. Inventory levels were NOK 34 million at the end of Q2. We have now refocused our sales to target commercial customers -- and we continue to target the consumer customer through our offering through SpotOn. In Q3, we have seen a decline in market prices, and we are working on several initiatives to get stock levels down. Once that is done, we will keep a minimum of solar products in stock and order on demand. The SpotOn sales has actually doubled for the quarter compared to last year. Interestingly enough, the growth is driven by solar. With SpotOn, we do have growth in all channels except for Smarthome products. We still believe that the SpotOn platform is suitable for other craftsman areas and alongside development of our SpotOn offer, we will continue to look for a business partner in other areas. With that, I hand over to Jorgen for the financials.

Thank you, Andreas. I will take you through the financials for the second quarter, and we start with the revenues. Total revenues in the second quarter were NOK 349 million, corresponding to an increase of 7.2% compared to last year. The increase was driven by positive Easter effect in April with a double-digit growth and an aggressive market campaign in June. Stores in Norway had an increase of 3% in the quarter. The main driver of the growth was the EV charger product category due to a sales ban in March last year. We also had a good growth in the Smarthome category, which was one of the focus categories in the campaign in June. Online revenue in Norway increased by 16% in the second quarter compared to last year. revenue from SpotOn of NOK 14 million in the quarter compared to NOK 7 million last year. The main driver of this growth was a solar project of NOK 5 million. The store in Sweden contributed with NOK 8 million in revenues for the quarter, while the online revenues in Sweden were NOK 26 million. B2B revenues in Sweden are included with NOK 7 million in these figures. Other revenues are mainly solar projects invoiced from our project department and not sold through our stores or online. This relates mainly to the solar projects sold through SpotOn. Gross profit for the quarter was NOK 113 million, same as last year. Gross margin of 32.4% compared with 34.6% last year. Overall, margins were impacted by a shift towards B2B with lower-margin solar products, exchange rate effects and aggressive campaign in June. In Norway, the gross margin was 33.9% compared to 35.9% last year. Adjusted for the solar products and exchange rate effects on our products, the gross margin in Norway would have been 35.5%. Elbutik has significantly lower margin at 18.5% compared to 21.8% last year. This is explained by increase in B2B share of business from 5% to 20%. Margin on B2C is slightly increasing in Sweden. Operating expenses of NOK 80 million in the quarter compared to NOK 82 million last year. OpEx to sales ratio was reduced to 22.8% in the quarter compared to 25.2% last year. Operating expenses are reduced even with the general salary increase, inflation adjustments of cost and Easter effects. It was approximately NOK 3 million. We will continue to maintain a rigid cost control. EBITDA for the quarter was NOK 30 million, down from NOK 31 million last year. However, adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was NOK 33 million, up from NOK 31 million last year. Adjustment of NOK 3 million related to cost of terminating one of the rental contracts in Sweden. Net change in cash flow for the period was NOK 27 million. Cash flow from operations was NOK 33 million, affected by positive EBITDA and reduction in inventory during the quarter. Cash flow from investments of NOK 3 million is mainly maintenance CapEx and development of SpotOn software. Cash flow from financing of minus NOK 3 million consist of proceeds from issue of share from the subsequent offering, lease payments and interest paid. As a result of this, we have available cash of NOK 85 million at the end of second quarter. In addition, we have an unused overdraft of NOK 120 million. Excluding IFRS 16, FX, net interest-bearing debt was NOK 165 million at the end of the quarter compared to NOK 327 million last year. Then I hand over to Andreas again, which will take you through the events after the period and the outlook.

Thank you, Jorgen. It's with great pleasure that we can announce that we have signed a contract for a new store in Oslo. It's been since summer 2022 since we opened a new store in Norway. So we're very happy to have signed this lease contract, and we aim to open it in November this year. We are committed to improving the gross margin. We are not happy with the development of the gross margin. And we have conducted a price increase in Norway 1st of July. However, the weakened NOK in U.S. dollar will probably continue to put pressure on our margins. Norwegian market shows some modest signals of improved consumer confidence, but still, there is great uncertainty about the market development going forward. And we believe that the second half of '24 will continue to be quite challenging. In Sweden, we see some early indications of better market conditions after the decrease of the policy rate in May. And now we had an additional policy rate decrease Tuesday this week. So -- and in addition to that, Veddesta performance is increasing month by month as knowledge about the store increases. And yes, thank you for that, everyone. So we'll move into questions and answers.

First question is what do you expect from EV chargers sales in the second half? Well, given the fact that we did have an okay supply of EV chargers in second half -- well, from -- from August and out last year. To be honest, I think we can expect somewhere around 5% to 10% growth. So maybe a bit larger growth than the average growth, but it will probably be around 10%, I would guess.

And it's fair to say that, as we have said earlier regarding the sales alone, the market is down and from the top in 2021 or 2022, it's down by around 30% as far as we can see now.

Expected -- what are your expectations for the new store in Oslo? Is this a big store? Well, it's an average size store, I would say, in terms of square meters, just whether it's like 1,200 square meters, which is more or less average in terms of store size. When it comes to turnover or yearly sales, the expectations are, well -- when the store is well up and running, then it will be an above-average store, definitely. And an average store in 2023 was NOK 48 million in yearly turnover. So is this a big store? I would say, yes, we -- that's the aim that it would be a big store.

Mark of your solar inventory, have you backlog for -- at end of the second quarter, we had a backlog of NOK 4 million, and we had an inventory of NOK 34 million. But as Andreas said, we are now working on to get -- to sell most of the inventory as soon as possible in order to go to the new way of selling solar on demand instead of keeping it in Elbutik.

What's the magnitude of the Namron price increases? Yes. But we have not only increased the prices on Namron. We have increased our prices in Norway on the full assortment. And in Sweden, we have done more of a tactical price adjustment. But in Norway, all prices, all brands are increased. And the general -- we also get an increase, we should say, in purchasing prices from most of our suppliers. It's how this business works on 1st of July and 1st of January, there are price increases. But we have -- this time, we have been more aggressive in terms of adding more than we get so that we should in practice, increase our gross margins should everything else be the same.

And at the same time, we are also, of course, working against the supplier on to decrease the purchase price.

Are there any more questions? No? Then Monacatrin, maybe we should give you just a few more seconds to see if there are any more questions, but otherwise, it looks like everything is crystal clear.

Yes, we can wait a minute longer if you would like.

I think we call it a day, Monacatrin. And say thank you to everyone for dialing in.

Thank you, everyone.