Elektroimportøren AS (ELIMP) Q2 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to Elektroimportøren's second quarter presentation. We will begin with a presentation from CEO, Andreas Niss; and CFO, Jorgen Wist, followed by a Q&A session. If you have any questions during the presentation, please feel free to submit them through the Q&A function, and we will address them at the end. With that, I'll hand it over to you, Andreas.

Thank you very much, Trond, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for dialing in. As Trond was saying, I will start with a short summary of the second quarter and give you an update on key strategic areas and operational activities for the quarter. Jorgen will then take you through the details of the financials before we give our outlook for the coming months and finish off with a Q&A session. So for the operational summary, the fact that Easter was in March last year and in April this year gave us difficulties in creating growth in April. Total sales for the month declined with 5% versus last year. However, we managed a double-digit growth in May, and we also grew the business in June, but with somewhat smaller numbers. Both B2B and B2C segments are growing in Q2, and stores represents the growth with online sales on par with last year. We continue to grow -- to increase our gross margin percentage through improvements in category and campaign management, and growth in the physical stores comes from an increase in number of visitors and a slightly higher average basket. In late June, we signed an agreement for store # 31 in Norway, this time in Bergen. So this will be our third store in the larger Bergen area. Sweden continues to deliver strong like-for-like growth, both in revenue and margin, and we now have 4 consecutive quarters with positive EBITDA for our Swedish business. The total revenue for the quarter was NOK 367 million, up NOK 18 million from last year, an increase of 5.2%. Like-for-like sales grew with 1.3%. And in Sweden, like-for-like sales grew with 22.8%. Gross margin is up 2.5 percentage points from 32.4% last year to 34.9% this year. Operating expenses ended at NOK 87 million, up NOK 7 million from last year, driven mainly by 3 more stores compared to last year. OpEx to sales ratio is up 1% to 23.8% from 22.8% last year. We delivered an EBITDA of NOK 40 million, up NOK 10 million from NOK 30 million last year. The net profit for the quarter is 0, which is an increase of NOK 5 million from last year. Looking at the customer flow in our stores in Norway, visitors to our stores are up 4%, impacted negatively in April because of the Easter effect, but for the full quarter, visits are up. The average basket increased with 3%, positively affected by a very large increase in sales of EV chargers. Conversion rate had a small decrease of 0.3%, ending at 54.9% for the quarter. And we're happy to see that we experienced growth in both B2C and B2B with B2C increasing with 3.4% and B2B increasing with 5% for the full quarter. The wholesale markets have shown little or no signs of recovery so far this year with a total market growth of 1% for the first 6 months of 2025. In this market, we have managed to grow with more than 10%, and that gives us continued confidence in the attractiveness of our concept moving forward. For Sweden, we're very happy to see that the positive trend continues with strong growth in both revenue and profit in the second quarter. Revenue increased with 22.8% compared to Q2 in '24. Gross margin increased with 27.9%, up from 18.5% last year, giving us a gross -- sorry, gross margin increased to 27.9%, up from 18.5% last year, which is a growth of 86%. Positive EBITDA of NOK 2 million, up NOK 8 million from minus NOK 6 million last year and the fourth consecutive quarter with positive EBITDA for Elbutik. Further on our development in Sweden, we see that sales have now grown at a healthy pace for -- over the last 12 months with gross margins improving even further. We have implemented cost reductions, and operational cost is now at a satisfactory level and will be still monitored closely going forward. We have a warehouse lease capacity, which is too large, and that is still under review to see if we can lower the rental costs. In our Veddesta store, like-for-like growth year-to-date is more than 30%. The store location is -- and size remains suboptimal, but the efficiency measures that we have delivered gives us a positive contribution from the store first half 2025. So we are now looking at our Swedish setup, and I have assessed that it's an acceptable base for further growth. So we will do a selective search for new store locations, 1 or 2 to begin with in the next 24 months. We look at our key strategic areas. We continue to focus on being a total provider of electrical installation material, delivered through an omnichannel solution by specialist employees, supporting our profitability with the constant product development of our own brands and making sure we are ready to gain from the coming market opportunities that lies in the electrification of our society. Last but not least, we continue to look for new store openings and now happily also in Sweden. Looking at this for the second quarter, we have signed one more store in Norway and are in negotiations for 1 to 3 more stores with possible openings in the next 6 to 12 months. The process to integrate SpotOn is now completed, and it will reduce cost with approximately NOK 2 million in the second half of this year. Our specialist position continues to be proven by growth in both customer segments and our market share increase in B2B and also the fact that 72% of our customers rate us as having employees that are very highly skilled. The Namron share of business increased slightly in Norway to 31.8%. And in Sweden, Namron share of business increased with 2.5% to 9.9% for the quarter. We see growth in all major categories, and EV chargers continues to be the fastest-growing category also in the second quarter. Sales in Sweden increased with 22.8%, and number of visitors are up by 27.8% in our stores. As mentioned, we are now starting to explore the opportunities for store #2 and 3 in Sweden. And in Norway, we see that new stores have a contribution of NOK 2 million in the second quarter. And with that, I hand over to Jorgen, who will take you through some more details of the financials.

Thank you, Andreas. Total revenue in the second quarter was NOK 367 million, corresponding to an increase of 5.2% compared to last year. The increase was driven by store revenue in Norway and both store and online revenue in Sweden. The like-for-like revenue growth was 1.3% in the quarter. As the Easter was in April this year compared to March last year, we had a negative Easter effect of approximately NOK 15 million in the quarter compared to last year. Adjusted for the Easter effect, the like-for-like growth was approximately 6%. Like-for-like growth year-to-date is 5.1%. The strong performance in the B2B segment has continued in a tough market during second quarter, both in Norway and Sweden. B2B revenue increased by 6.3%, while B2C revenue increased by 3.9%. Online revenue in Norway decreased by 11.7% in the quarter compared to last year. The decrease is mainly explained by Easter effect. Year-to-date, there is a slight increase of 0.3%. Another explanation is that the major part of the B2B revenue online is recognized as store revenue because the products are delivered from the stores. The store in Elbutik contributed with NOK 11 million in revenue for the quarter, corresponding to an increase of 17.4%. Online revenue in Elbutik was NOK 30 million, an increase of 39.7% compared to last year. B2B revenue in Sweden for the quarter was NOK 9 million. The decrease in other revenue is mainly a one-time project in SpotOn with a revenue above NOK 5 million. Gross profit for the quarter was NOK 128 million, up from NOK 113 million last year. This translated into a gross margin of 34.9% compared with 32.4% in the same period last year. Overall, margins were impacted by improved category and campaign management, such as improved purchase prices and price adjustments. In Norway, the gross margin was 35.8% compared to 33.9% last year. The margin in Sweden was 27.9% compared to 18.5% last year. Margin on both B2C and B2B continues to increase in Sweden. Operating expenses in sales channels have increased with NOK 6 million compared to last year. This is mainly a result of 3 new stores in Norway. Other operating expenses increased with NOK 2 million due to general salary increase and KPI adjustments. OpEx to sales ratio at 23.8% compared to 22.8% last year. Adjusted for the Easter effect, the OpEx to sales ratio is in line with last year. As I communicated in the Q1 presentation, the group continues to maintain a rigid cost control, but the comparables will be tougher going forward due to the cost savings during the last year. Reported EBITDA for the quarter was NOK 40 million, up from NOK 30 million last year. As you can see, both countries and all sales channels contribute positively to the increase in EBITDA. The negative effect from other is mainly the one-time project in SpotOn and other nonrecurring items. EBITDA margin in Q2 was 10.8%, up from 8.7% last year. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was NOK 41 million, up from NOK 33 million last year. The improvement is driven by improved gross profit of NOK 50 million. EBITDA, excluding IFRS 16 effects, for the quarter was NOK 14 million, up from NOK 7 million last year. Net change in cash for the period was minus NOK 41 million. Increase in working capital is mainly a result of new store and seasonal movements. Cash flow from investments of NOK 6 million are mainly maintenance CapEx and purchase of the 8% in SpotOn. Elektroimportøren is now holding 100% of the shares in SpotOn again. Cash flow from financing of minus NOK 21 million consists of lease payments. The IFRS 16 interest expenses of NOK 6 million relating to the lease payments are included in interest. As a result of this, we have available cash of NOK 55 million at the end of second quarter. In addition, we have an unused overdraft facility of NOK 120 million. Excluding IFRS 16 effects, net interest-bearing debt was NOK 190 million at the end of the quarter, which corresponds to 2.3x the last 12 months NGAAP EBITDA adjusted for the write-down of solar of NOK 10 million. The loan facilities had a net interest-bearing debt EBITDA covenant of 4 at the end of the quarter. Then, I hand over to Andreas again, which will take you through the events after the period and the outlook.

Thank you, Jorgen. As mentioned, SpotOn is now fully integrated back in Elektroimportøren with some minor restructuring costs that was completed in July. July sales is growing compared to last year in both B2B and B2C despite a very warm summer. It's very seldom that we see 3 weeks in a row with 30 degrees in Norway and Sweden. But despite that, we have a growth of 5.8%. No specific events in Sweden after Q2, but also positive sales -- the positive sales trend in Sweden continues. Looking at the market, we still experience some cautiousness in the private consumption. However, there are macroeconomic indicators that historically have impacted our industry positively. Interest rates are down, and residential exchange is increasing compared to last year, that usually is positive for our sales. That was all we had for the presentation. So we open up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] And we'll start off with the first one here. What was EV charger sales in Q2?

NOK 36 million.

And the next one, how many stores do you aim to have in Sweden in the long term?

We don't have a target for that to discuss here at least for now. What we have said, as we said in the presentation, is that we're now starting to look for store #2 and 3, and we will build from there. But I mean, obviously, if we succeed with those, there is room for a lot of stores in Sweden as well.

And how much of the COGS is related to shipping and freight? How should we think about the impact from freight rates going into H2?

As of now, there is a percentage of the cost of 4%.

Could you give some more insights in what is driving sales in Sweden in terms of mix between new and existing customers?

Well, the largest growth in percentage is by far B2B customers in our stores. We have managed to -- we have succeeded in attracting smaller electrician companies in the local area around the store, which is -- well, more than we thought we could, but that's where the largest growth is coming from, but also in terms of not just percentage, but in terms of revenue, there is an increase in product sales in our online store.

I think that was all the questions as of now. So maybe we will just give it 20 seconds and see if anyone else have any questions.

Yes. Thank you.