Garo Aktiebolag (publ) (GARO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome, everyone, to the GARO Interim Report Second Quarter 2026. My name is Becky, and I will be your operator today. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand over to your host, Tobias Byfeldt, CEO, to begin. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to this webcast, where we will review the performance of GARO Group and with a particular focus on the second quarter of 2026. My name is Tobias Byfeldt, and I'm the new CEO of GARO Group. I assumed this role on June 15. And with that said, I would like to extend my gratitude to Joe Ree, who served as an interim CEO during the first half of the year. Thank you, Joe. And joining me today is Helena Claesson, our CFO, who will take you through our financial performance in more detail later in this presentation. Next slide, please. Let me first take a moment to share a little bit more about my background and what I bring to GARO. Throughout my career, I have been fortunate to work with the Swedish technology and innovation companies that have successfully expanded on a global scale. At Kollmorgen Automation, I have leadership roles spanning sales management, general management and full P&L responsibility. During this time, I gained valuable experience in driving growth, leading international teams and building business where software, hardware and innovation come together to create customer value. I was also strongly influenced by the Danaher Business System with its focus on clear strategy, disciplined execution, continuous improvement and the importance of aligned and engaged teams. Most recently, at PIAB Group, I gained further experience in industrial operations and long-term value creation through close collaboration with both management and the Board. And as I step into my role at GARO, my leadership priorities are clear. I will put our customers at the center of everything we do, ensure that we have a common understanding of what we want to achieve and lead with clarity, discipline and a lot of positive energy, hopefully. So why GARO? What attracted me to the company is the combination of a strong Swedish brand, a solid market position and exposure to powerful long-term trends such as electrification and the energy transition. GARO has a strong foundation to build upon, and I believe there are exciting opportunities ahead. And together with our talented employees, I really look forward to building a winning team and delivering on GARO's full potential. Next slide, please. Before we move into the details, I would just like to highlight the key messages from today's presentation. First, we remain confident in the long-term potential of GARO Electrification, and we expect our strategic initiatives to begin delivering results from this autumn and onwards. Secondly, GARO E-mobility continues to underperform and is negatively impacting group earnings. We are, therefore, intensifying our efforts to improve efficiency and restore profitability. Third, our structural initiatives are progressing according to plan. And fourth, we returned to top line growth with net sales increasing by 2% compared with the same period last year. And we will come back to each of these topics later in this presentation. Next slide. Turning into GARO Electrification. I'm pleased to see continued progress in our core business, which accounts for around 80% of group sales. Sales grew by 5% during the quarter, demonstrating the resilience of the business and the strength of our offering. At the same time, we remain focused on improving both gross and operating margins through the strategic initiatives we launched earlier this year. Looking across our markets, performance was mixed. Sweden remained challenging, but we saw strong growth internationally, particularly in Ireland and the U.K. This confirms that our international expansion efforts are creating opportunities for future growth. We are also making good progress on the relocation of production from Poland to Sweden. By consolidating production, we will gain greater efficiency, flexibility and scale, further strengthening our ability to compete. Innovation continues to be an important driver for GARO. During the quarter, we launched our new cable cabinet for low-voltage distribution up to 400 amps and the market response has been very encouraging with the first order already delivered. Finally, in June, we won a major urban development project in Gothenburg. This order highlights our ability to deliver customized, high-quality solutions for complex customer requirements and demonstrates the strength of our offering. Overall, I am encouraged by the progress in GARO Electrification and confident in the opportunities ahead. Next slide, please. Looking at GARO E-mobility, we continue to invest in strengthening our customer offering during the quarter. We launched 2 new apps and a brand-new web interface, further enhancing the user experience and expanding the functionality and accessibility of our solutions. This is an important step in supporting our customers and building a stronger digital ecosystem around our products. We have also completed the GARO Germany process. Our German operations have now been successfully integrated into the export function established in Sweden. This creates a more efficient and streamlined organization. On the commercial side, the price adjustments implemented earlier this year, combined with focused sales efforts have had a positive effect. While this is encouraging, we know that there is still much more work to do. The underlying E-mobility market remains attractive, supported by the long-term trends of electrification and the energy transition. However, our performance is not where we want it to be. We are, therefore, taking a clear-eyed view of the business and reviewing our strategic direction. Next slide, please. During the quarter, we continued to execute several important initiatives to simplify and strengthen GARO. First, we completed the integration of GARO Elflex and GARO Montage into GARO AB. This creates a simpler and more cohesive organization and makes us an even stronger and easier business partner for our customers. We are also progressing with the relocation of production from Poland to Gnosjö and Hillerstorp. This is an important step that will help us consolidate operations, improve efficiency, increase flexibility and leverage economies of scale. In Sweden, we have implemented organizational changes to enhance efficiency and further strengthen our customer focus. These changes are designed to support faster decision-making and improved execution. Finally, we continue our extensive review of the product portfolio. By reducing complexity and the number of product variants, we can simplify our offering, improve margins and free up working capital. With the relocation from Poland to Sweden, we have now completed the first phase of this important work. Overall, these initiatives are creating a stronger foundation for improved profitability and sustainable growth going forward. Now over to you, Helena, and next slide.

Thank you, Tobias. And as usual, I would like to start by looking at the financial summary for the second quarter. Net sales amounted to SEK 272 million, an increase of 2% compared with the same quarter last year, where GARO Electrification increased the sales by 5%, while GARO Mobility showed 7% less in sales. In other words, the sales within GARO Electrification are stable, while our performance within GARO Mobility does not meet our expectations. The gross margin has dropped a little bit compared to the same quarter last year and is explained by product mix, targeted campaigns and the currency effect in both business areas. As part of our strategic work, we are adjusting our supply structure to strengthen gross profit going forward. In the quarter, GARO has recognized costs of one-off costs of SEK 6.4 million for departing personnel exempted from work as well as impairment of inventories connected to the change of business system. The adjusted EBIT for the quarter amounted to SEK 17 million negative. We have seen higher sales and development costs compared to the same quarter in 2025. In addition, the quarter was charged with about SEK 1 million relating to the implementation of our new business system, which was successfully launched now in May on 1. After 2 years of implementation cost of SEK 6 million to SEK 7 million per year, the ERP project has now transitioned to maintenance phase, meaning these costs will decrease to a significantly lower level going forward. Despite the weaker operating results, the group showed stable cash flow for the quarter, preliminarily due to the positive changes in working capital. Next slide, please. And now we move over and we look into the 2 business areas separately, starting with GARO Electrification. Net sales amounted to SEK 216 million in the quarter, SEK 10 million more compared with the year earlier quarter. Sales in Sweden were SEK 4 million lower than in previous year, a decline partly explained by the implementation of our new business system in early May. Sales outside of Sweden showed growth of 15%, preliminarily driven by the increased sales in Ireland and in the United Kingdom. In the quarter, GARO has recognized one-off costs of SEK 3.5 million for departing personnel exempted from work. Adjusted operating profit amounted to SEK 10 million compared with SEK 15 million in the same quarter last year. The lower profitability for the quarter is explained by product mix affecting gross profit and the higher sales and marketing costs. And as I said before, also the quarter was impacted by costs of SEK 1 million relating to the implementation of our new business system. Costs fully taken in this business area. And as Tobias said earlier, in this quarter, we have launched a new series of cable cabinets for the low-voltage distribution, complying with EBR standards. The ongoing strategic changes together with our ERP project transitioned into a maintenance phase. I would say this creates conditions for an improved profitability ahead. Next slide, please. And now we move over to GARO E-mobility, the business area. Net sales amounted to SEK 56 million for the quarter, and as I said, giving us a negative growth of 7% when comparing with last year. However, sales outside Sweden increased by SEK 3 million, while sales within Sweden decreased by SEK 7 million due to weaker performance in the wholesaler business. In the quarter, GARO recognized costs of SEK 3 million for departing personnel exempted from work as well as impairments of inventories connected to the change of business system. The adjusted operating profit for the quarter amounted to negative SEK 27 million and is, to a large extent, explained by low sales and gross profit. Since end of last year, we have started targeted campaigns for certain products. Although sales of GARO Entity increases sequentially by 14% during the quarter. This is driven by this ongoing price promotion and increased confidence in the product, the figures remain well below our expectation. Strategic work to achieve a sustainable business model is proceeding intensively. GARO sales office in Germany, as Tobias said, has been closed during the quarter. Customer relations have been transferred and will be managed through already established channels going forward. Additionally, we are continuing to reduce the number of product variants to simplify GARO's customer offering, free up working capital and improve margins. Next slide, please. And now we move over and look a little bit into our cash flow and balance sheet. Cash flow from operating activities after changes in working capital amounted to SEK 13 million in the quarter. Tied up capital from inventories, excluding write-downs, has increased by SEK 3 million when comparing to the previous quarter. We have a deposit with a supplier for materials ordered but not yet called off. This deposit being in Europe has remained unchanged and amounted to equal of SEK 42 million by the end of the quarter. As part of our strategic development work, GARO is adjusting its supplier structure. The transition to new suppliers is expected to result in a limited need of advanced payments in 2026. In the quarter, we have acquired the remaining 20% for the subsidiary EV Charge Partner Sweden AB for the amount of SEK 1.5 million. The acquisition took place in accordance with agreement from 2022. EV Charge Partner offers service and support for the charging infrastructure and contributes to GARO's overall E-mobility offering. Our net debt position amounted to SEK 258 million compared with SEK 280 million in the year earlier quarter. We had an equity asset ratio of 48.7% and available liquidity, including overdraft facilities of SEK 50 million. And now I will hand over to Tobias for some last words and outlook. Next slide, please.

Thank you, Helena. And as we conclude, let me share a few final thoughts. In GARO Electrification, our core business and the foundation of GARO, I am pleased with the progress we made during the quarter. Despite challenging conditions in parts of the market, the business demonstrated resilience and delivered growth, while we continue to execute our initiatives that will strengthen our profitability and ability to compete over time. We remain confident in the long-term outlook for Electrification. The ongoing energy transition continues to drive demand for our solutions, and we expect the Swedish residential construction market to gradually recover during 2026. We are already seeing stable demand for our Electrification products and strong growth in several of our international markets. The market opportunity in E-mobility is clearly there, driven by strong growth across both Sweden and Europe. However, GARO is not currently capturing that opportunity to the extent we should. We are, therefore, evaluating the strategic direction of this business and we will take the necessary decisions and inform the market as we go. I am confident that by staying close to our customers and continuing to strengthen our operations, we can build a stronger and more profitable GARO. Thank you for your attention and your continued interest in GARO. We will now be happy to take your questions. So operator, please open the line for questions.