Kid ASA (KID) Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everyone, and welcome to this fourth quarter presentation by Kid ASA. With us today, we have CEO, Marianne Fulford; and CFO, Mads Kigen, who will present the results for us. In case you have any questions, please feel free to ask these in writing in the Q&A function, and we will get back to this after the presentation. So with this, I leave the word to you, Marianne. Welcome.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to our presentation of the fourth quarter, the most important quarter in retail. And I must admit that we were a little bit excited and nervous when we entered into the fourth quarter because, as you know, we had some struggle with the logistics during the third quarter. But we are happy to inform that during the fourth quarter, the logistical situation improved every month. And by the year-end, the supply of goods from the warehouse to store were more or less normalized. Though the situation was normalized by the end of the year, there was still a bit of smaller struggle also during Q4. We see strong performance in Kid and weaker performance in Hemtex, and I'll try to explain a little bit about why. Because of still some logistical struggle, we had to do some prioritization out from the warehouse to the stores, where we prioritized high-volume stores, meaning the largest and both in revenues and size. And because most of the high-volume stores are Kid stores, this affected Hemtex more negatively than Kid. And because we had to prioritize the larger stores, we ended up with kind of an unstable flow of goods to many of the other stores during the quarter. And we also see we have a limited availability of nonseasonal products through the quarter in some of the stores. I will also mention that we had an incremental campaign in Hemtex last year, week 47. It was the first time we did that campaign. It was an all-time high campaign. So the comparables are quite high as well. But I would say, safeguarding the peak season by doing this prioritization was a success. We ended up with prioritizing seasonal assortment out from the warehouse, and we see a solid growth in both autumn and Christmas assortment during the quarter. And we also prioritized the 2, 3 most important categories, and we also see a good development in all of them. So what we have prioritized, we see growth within. We have also positive development in focus categories during the quarter. And the focus categories is bathroom and kitchenware mainly. And this is where we have done a lot of product development, and we have new smaller product groups that fits within the assortment bathroom and kitchenware, and we see strong development within those categories. New categories also did well during the quarter, 12% growth. We could have been better under normal circumstances. But taking the logistical situation into consideration, we are quite satisfied with a 3.5% growth for the group despite logistical challenges and limited product development. And we must also remember that we come from high comparables last year with 12% growth in the fourth quarter. I'm sorry, I forgot to switch the slides, but I hope you are still with us on the right slide. To summarize the full year, looking back at 2025, 2025 was a transition year. It was a challenging year, and it was a year of change, and it was absolutely necessary because we are building for future growth, and we needed a new warehouse strongly because I have told you last time that 2024 was the absolutely last year it was possible to get the assortment through our old warehouse setup in Lier. And the new warehouse comes with some short-term negative effects on both costs and revenues in 2025. Our new Nordic warehouse was operational from May. And looking back, we underestimated the complexity and the cost that came with the warehouse relocation. That said, the situation is under control. And as I said, the supply situation has improved from the start in May till the year-end, where the supply of goods are now back to normal. But I would also like to underline that we have not realized all synergies and efficiency gains, and there are still a lot of them to unlock. Though a challenging year, there is a lot of positive underlying growth. Seasonal assortment has been prioritized during the whole 2025. We prioritize spring and summer out from our old warehouse setup in Lier, and it had a solid growth. We did the same with the autumn and Christmas assortment. It had a solid growth. So we are happy with the seasonal sale during the whole 2025, and it also makes us confident that our assortment are still commercial and attractive. We have a 17% growth in new categories during 2025. And I would also again like to mention the focus category, bathroom and kitchenware. Not only in the fourth quarter, but in the full year, those focus categories are doing really well despite a lot of out-of-stock situations, for example, for towels, it's -- still are doing good. I would also like to mention garden and outdoor furniture that had a solid growth summer 2025. We could have had a broader assortment. We could have had larger volumes, but that's an opportunity for this year. So in 2026, we are doing a stronger push for outdoor furniture. I'm looking forward to that. In 2025, we have had a high project activity. The warehouse project has not compromised on our daily operation focus and our focus on store projects. It's the most important thing we do and we will continue into 2026 as well. And as you all know, we decided to postpone the digital launch of the Hemtex brand to Germany and Europe. That was a simple prioritization. We had to have focus on core operation and stabilize the logistical situation in 2025. So yes, I think that was the year summarized, Mads, and then, I will leave it over to you and back soon.

Thank you, Marianne. Good morning, everyone. 2025 has been a true transition year, shaped by the operational shift to the new warehouse and a ramp-up period that has been more demanding that we expected. Reported revenues are up 4.2% despite internal logistical constraints in stores, particularly parts of the year. Online performance was strong, supported by improved product availability compared to our physical stores, particularly with effect in Q3 and Q4. It's also important to view the figures, the revenue figures in the light of the NOK 60 million to NOK 80 million estimated lost sales with impact from the warehouse transition. Looking on a longer term, we still maintain and deliver a robust CAGR when we see 7.5% going back to 2022. This demonstrates an underlying strong growth momentum. The gross margin for '25 remains strong in a historical perspective of 61.5%. And the OpEx is heavily impacted by the warehouse transition. I will return to a separate slide with details later in this presentation. Combining the revenues and operating expenses, these factors temporarily reduced net income and earnings per share this year. It's also worth noting, comparing the EPS to last year, the last year's figure was impacted positively by the divestment of the company, Prognosgatan Fastighets AB, which is the owner of the warehouse in Sweden, which this year, the EPS is affected by the warehouse transition effect. Looking into the fourth quarter, reported revenues for the group increased by NOK 48.8 million, representing an increase of 3.5%. This is driven mainly by higher sales in Norway, supported by seasonal assortments. I will come back to some highlights for the segments shortly. This quarter, revenue was negatively impacted by the ramp-up, and we estimate the total effect to be in the range from NOK 30 million to NOK 40 million on group level. As Marianne mentioned, we have prioritized the high-volume stores, impacting the stores in Hemtex relatively more negatively than Kid Interior. Please also bear in mind that we delivered revenue growth on a record high growth base and comparison figures from last year, especially in Hemtex. Given the limited product availability as a consequence of the warehouse, I am pleased to report online revenue development in Kid Interior of 23.5% increase. Consequently, the online share increased to 13.7% on group level. And if we include Click & Collect, the share increased by 1.3 percentage points to 21.1% in the quarter. In terms of categories, we continue observing positive underlying development across our focus categories, as Marianne mentioned. And in this quarter, bathroom curtains and kitchenware stands out as key drivers. In addition, the autumn and Christmas seasonal assortments delivered strong and robust commercial results in the quarter. Kid Interior performed the best of our 2 segments with a total revenue growth of 4.4%. This comes on top of a strong fourth quarter last year and has significantly improved compared to previous quarter's development. The revenue development is driven by number -- increased number of transacting customers in online channel and our physical stores, partly offset by slight negative contribution from basket size due to the product mix and product availability during the quarter. Hemtex delivered a reported revenue growth of 2.1%. But as for the previous quarter, we see a significant currency effect in the reported group figures. And on a constant currency basis, the growth decreased by 2.6% compared to fourth quarter last year. The development in the quarter is positively impacted by number of transacting customers in physical stores, offset by the number of customers online, combined with a negative -- or a reduced average basket size across sales channels. The development in Hemtex should be assessed over the past 3 years since Hemtex delivered strong figures in Q4 '23 of 11.9%. And Q4 last year, in Q4 '24, Hemtex delivered 16.2% growth. Looking on the compound -- the CAGR, we have a 6.4% growth with the revenue figures reported for Hemtex going back to 2023. The reason is that we had, like Marianne mentioned, an exceptional strong campaign last year in Q4 '24, where we had an incremental campaign in week 47. And we also had -- the year before, we had the Hemtex 50 years anniversary. So we had 2 exceptional strong campaigns in the 2 past quarters, in '23 and '24. To summarize, in the light of temporary internal logistical constraints and frictions related to the ramp-up of the warehouse, we are satisfied with the reported revenue development in the fourth quarter, both in Kid Interior and our focus categories, combined with the seasonal assortments delivering strong commercial results. Looking into the gross margin, we delivered a margin of 61.2% for the group, which represents an unchanged margin from previous year. The development was positively impacted by Hemtex and negatively impacted by Kid. The margin overall of 61.2% is strong in a historical perspective. And the development this quarter is mainly a result of an increased campaign activity in Norway, partly offset by lower share of freight in the cost of goods sold compared to previous year as a consequence of the elevated freight rates we observed throughout 2024. To summarize, the group's gross margin of 61.2% and the full year of 61.5% is considered robust and is well in line with our financial objectives. Reported operating expenses increased by 14.1% in the quarter. This may appear high, but it's important to note that the development is impacted by nonrecurring items and strategic investments, mainly related to the new warehouse. Reported employee benefit expenses decreased by almost NOK 18 million, and this is driven by lower bonus accrual in the quarter compared to previous year, combined with line shift from own employees in the Norwegian logistical setup to external workforce used in the ramp-up phase in the new warehouse in Sweden. This results that we have a temporary line shift from employee benefit expenses to other operating expenses this year that will gradually be converted to own employees going forward. The decline is partly offset by increase from last year's wage settlements and salary increases to our great employees in the group, the hours spent in store, meaning the project activity that has been high, combined with larger stores driving hours. In terms of the like-for-like stores, we have tight cost control. We have tight control of the number of worked hours, but it is affected by new stores and the store projects, as mentioned. These are both initiatives that will drive future like-for-like growth in Kid Group. Finally, we had this quarter a significant negative currency effect of NOK 4.4 million compared to last year. In terms of the other operating expenses, they increased by NOK 73.7 million, and the increase is mainly related to the ramp-up of the new common warehouse, combined with significant currency effect, increased marketing activity and other future growth initiatives. Additional cost drivers also include increased floor -- store floor space and last mile distribution, following the strong online revenue development seen in Kid Interior, as mentioned. The warehouse ramp-up in Sweden increased logistical hours, supported by external workforce. The hours in the logistic is linked directly to volumes of goods distributed to our stores and the online revenues. In total for the quarter, reported logistic costs have increased, excluding the line item reclassifications. And the key driver of the increased hours has been slight instability observed in the quarter and inefficiency. This is natural [ experiencing ] in a ramp-up phase and is temporarily increasing hours. The progress was positive this quarter and the inefficiency peaked as we reported last quarter in Q3. That said, we will have an impact in terms of some additional costs and inefficiency before we are fully stabilized in terms of speed and efficiency. This quarter, the logistical hours are also driven by some additional volumes required to replenish stores that experienced too low product availability and service level as reported previous quarter. Finally, we had also a negative impact from the currency effect of this reported number of NOK 3.8 million. In the reported figures, there are some nonrecurring operating expenses, and approximately NOK 13 million were booked as other OpEx and rental costs in the quarter. And I have this slide to give some more flavor. As already mentioned, the new common warehouse in Sweden is an important strategic move for the group. And the transition and ramp-up has been more complex than anticipated and affected the reported figures. As we said last quarter, we pushed an ambitious timeline, which also added risk and temporary inefficiencies. All elements were in place, but fine-tuning across systems, automation solutions and workforce has taken longer time than expected. As communicated Q4 last year, we expect a nonrecurring cost of approximately NOK 30 million in 2025. This was mainly related to double warehouse rent in Norway and Sweden in a period of time, in addition to transferring goods from the site in Norway to the new warehouse. We reported approximately NOK 5 million this quarter, totaling NOK 27 million for the full year '25. In addition, we have inefficiencies from the warehouse, and it's challenging to quantify the effect. But we have estimated booked costs related to inefficiency, mainly the hours and freight or last mile distribution of approximately NOK 8 million in Q4. This brings us to a total cost estimated to NOK 26 million in 2025. Summarized, as part of the transition year '25, we estimate a total cost impact of NOK 53 million related to the operational shift. In addition, this year or '25 included a noncash impairment of NOK 25 million and a currency loss of NOK 8.8 million, which was related to a structural change in the Kid Group's sourcing and currency hedge setup done in Q2 last year. These effects are temporary and linked to the operational changes we are implementing to strengthen our platform for future growth, and the impact is easing quarter-by-quarter, as can be seen in the table on the right side of this slide. Summarized, the development for the fourth quarter, we had revenue development with steady development in Norway. We had a strong gross margin in a historical perspective, and the OpEx base impacted by investments for future growth and scalability, resulting in a fourth quarter EBITDA of NOK 440 million. In terms of cash flow, I would like to highlight the following items, where the cash flow from the operation was affected by net working capital changes, mainly from planned inventory buildup to ensure and secure the goods for the next year and particularly spring and summer assortment coming in. In addition, we had also a timing effect in the trade payable. Cash flow from investments this quarter mainly relates to capitalized expenditures to our store portfolio in Norway and Sweden of approximately NOK 50 million and other IT initiatives and projects. Cash flow from financing is explained by lease payments following IFRS 16, net interest expenses, changes in debt and repayment of revolving credit facility, in addition to the dividend payout in November '25. This resulted in a change of cash of NOK 10 million negative. At the end of the quarter, we had cash and available credit facilities of total NOK 587.6 million. Excluding IFRS 16, net interest-bearing debt was NOK 722.4 million, resulting in a financial gearing ratio of 1.46 at the end of the fourth quarter. The group's financial position remains strong, particularly given the operational challenges and nonrecurring effects experienced during the transition period. The liquidity position reflects the full year result, including the warehouse transition and related one-off items that explained, yet continue to demonstrate solid capacity to support ongoing operations and strategic future initiatives. The Board of Directors will propose for the Annual General Meeting a dividend of NOK 2.5 per share to be paid late May '26. Including the prepayment of NOK 2.5 in November '25, the dividend is NOK 5 per share, representing a payout ratio of 89% of the net income for 2025. That said, I leave the word to Marianne, which will give you an update of our store portfolio.

Thank you, Mads, and I will try to remember to switch the slides this time. As I mentioned earlier, there has been a high project activity in Kid this year, not only the warehouse, but also within store operation. And as I said, the warehouse project has in no way compromised on our focus on store portfolio development. We continue to develop our store size towards 600 square meters. And as I have explained many times, we need larger stores to grow further. To have space for a full assortment, the stores need to be 600 square meters. And we have a large potential for further growth in both Hemtex and Kid with expanding number of square meters. During the fourth quarter, we had the same high level of project activity as last year. We had 9 store projects across Kid and Hemtex, and 1 store -- new store was opened. And when you look at 2025, we have had 35 store projects compared to 36 last year. Seven new stores were opened during '25. That's the same number as '24. And during '25, Kid completed 17 store projects, 5 extended stores, alongside 3 new openings and 1 closure. In '25, in Hemtex, we completed 12 store projects, 1 extended store and as well opened 4 new stores. And by the quarter-end, we have signed 6 store projects, 2 new stores and 1 extended store in Kid. And we have signed 4 store projects, 1 new store and 1 extended store in Sweden. They are all expected to be opened in the first half of '25. Regarding the extended stores, the last so far extended store in Norway will open at Buskerud Storsenter in the second quarter. And the second extended store will open in Sweden, Goteborg, Kallered. And we are excited to see the development of the extended stores in Sweden. So looking ahead, we will be focusing on optimizing our warehouse. It's obvious. We will focus and realize efficiency gains. Though the supply of goods situation has normalized, there are still a lot of efficiencies to be unlocked. We do not expect product availability to be a problem because of the logistical situation, and we do not expect it to affect revenues in 2026. Of course, we can have out-of-stock situations, but that can be because we have sold too much of seasonal products or anything else, but not due to the logistical situation in 2026. We will work on completing our ongoing modernization of the system portfolio. That's a project that has been going on for more than 2 years now. I told you a little bit about that last quarter. Modernization of the system portfolio is crucial not to fall behind. We all know that the customers' expectation change rapidly within retail. What is actual today is not actual tomorrow, and we need to follow up with a modern system portfolio. And we will finalize this project during 2026. We will have a new point of sale, POS, [indiscernible] to all Hemtex and Kid stores during the first half of '26. And there are yet more to come. I would like to underline that the system architecture needs to be in place to unlock all synergies, and we will not be able to realize all synergies and efficiency gains. For example, first push, as we have been talking about a lot, in the new warehouse, where you can have a product directly from inbound through the warehouse to outbound in just some minutes. That will first be able when we have our system landscape fully in place during 2026, just to set an example on what we mean with not all synergies and efficiency gains before we have the system landscape in place. And we are also working towards securing a long-term solution for the Norwegian warehouse exit. We consider both a full termination or sublease. And we are in some positive dialogues regarding the warehouse in Lier. We will get back with more information when we can say anything more. And as you all know, we decided to postpone the digital launch to Germany and Europe, and that will happen during 2026. We will get back to -- when later. You can expect high store activity also in 2026, not surprisingly, I guess. And we look forward to a new year, a new spring and summer assortment that this time will come to our stores in time. If you visit the Hemtex or Kid stores as we speak, I guess, you will see a lot of the spring and summer assortment there already. And we will have higher focus on outdoor furniture this spring and summer, which we are looking forward to. So that said, I think we could go over to the Q&A. Are you going to read the questions for us? Yes?

Thank you very much, Marianne and Mads, for a good presentation. And I'll just remind everyone that any questions can be submitted in writing in the Q&A function. So we'll start out with the first question, which has come in from Hakon Fuglu. The first question reads, how did the market perform in Q4 '25 in Norway and Sweden? Are you seeing increased competition as we enter 2026?

If we should talk about the market situation, I could use like 10 minutes, and we are not going to do that. But what we saw was that in our market in Norway, there was a quite weak October and November, better in December. But we -- compared to the market, we are happy with the performance in Kid. When it comes to Sweden, we see a stronger competition from the low-price players, and we also see a tougher competition from the Chinese, typically [indiscernible]. So that's something not to overlook. But we could talk a lot about that, but I don't think we have the time.

Thank you. And do you see any overhang of seasonal goods from Q4 '25 into first quarter '26?

No. And that's something we are really happy with, taking the logistical situation into consideration. We have over 90% sold out of our Christmas assortment, for example. So we have no large stock of seasonal assortment in our inventory by the year-end. So, that we are happy with.

Good. How is the progress on the sublease on Lier?

I'm not sure if you can say anything more about that. Mads...

No. And you said that we have positive dialogue with different solutions, and we are confident to secure a good solution for the group.

You saw some headwinds on sourcing due to FX. Do you expect FX tailwinds in 2026? Or FX tailwinds...

Yes. I think there is -- related to the margin picture, we have a currency hedging policy. The currency is one input factor to our reported margin. But the margin is dependent on several input factors. It's freight, it's energy, it's the raw materials, et cetera. But all else equal, you will say that stronger Norwegian kroner compared to the USD for the assortment we buy in USD, you will have a stronger margin. But that is more the theoretical kind of answer, and then it's dependent on a more complex picture.

Thank you. And then, we move on to next Ole Martin Westgaard's question from DNB Carnegie. Can you quantify how much synergies that have been realized from the new warehouse and what is left to be crystallized?

Yes, it's a good question. Thank you for that. We cannot say too much as of today, but we see positive effect from the new warehouse, but we are currently not in a position to quantify the realized gains. And I think we will come back to that going forward. But as we have said, we have had costs related to inefficiency and the ramp-up this quarter. And as we said last quarter, in the third quarter '25, we will go into '26 in Q2 before we see more of the potential to be realized.

Yes. There's another question here on this. There has been a lot of focus on the negative impact of the new warehouse. As operations start to stabilize, do you still expect to realize the benefits and improvements you initially anticipated?

Did you understand the question?

No.

No?

Okay. Maybe we can come back to that later.

Yes. Maybe we can move to next. Yes.

So how does the growth in the new categories compare to your growth in square meters in 2025? What was the revenue from furniture in 2025?

And that's something we do not share, is it?

No. But you can give the kind of overall picture.

Yes. Then, I can give you the overall picture. I would say that we are really satisfied with the outdoor furniture development, as I mentioned. We see that furniture for living room is doing okay. But as we have mentioned earlier, beds are not doing that well. So shortly summarized, but maybe the largest potential in '26 is within the outdoor furniture.

Thank you. And a question from [indiscernible] here. Do you think your need to throttle supply of goods from Hemtex in 2025 has hurt your brand value in Sweden?

That's hard to say, and I hope not. I hope the period was so short that it didn't affect our brand. That was seriously our only real worry through this project because all the others are nonrecurring effects, and hurting the brand would be a bigger issue, but I don't think so.

And here's a question from Ole Martin again. You guide for NOK 20 million in extraordinary rental costs in 2026, while it was NOK 13 million in 2025 according to your table. Why should it increase?

Yes, I can answer on that. The table of NOK 13 million is pure rental costs, while the NOK 20 million, it's an estimate. It also include the more indirect and operating costs of the warehouse in Lier, bringing the total to approximately NOK 20 million. So that's the difference.

Thank you. Just let me have a look. Okay. The last question so far here. You mentioned lost sales and higher OpEx related to the new warehouse. Any impact on the gross margin as well? Specifically, has this affected campaign activity, shipping costs, mix effects or any other gross margin-related items?

What should we answer to that, Mads?

That's a very long question. I'm not sure what...

Regarding campaigns, there are -- I can answer that at least. We haven't done any larger adjustments for campaigns in fourth quarter. We had realization of Christmas items 70% a couple of days earlier this year because we had to realize them for -- 2 days before Christmas. That's just a small change. Otherwise, the campaign activity was more or less the same as last year. That's an answer to something of it.

Yes. And then, you also will have some -- in the margin, you will have an effect that we have had limited product availability of the nonseasonal brands, saying that we haven't changed the campaign activity plan, but we have sold more -- relatively more.

Yes, you can see, we have a mix effect from the out-of-stock situation, yes.

So that's an indirect effect in the reported margin. But answering your question, we have the lost sales as we have reported of NOK 30 million to NOK 40 million. We have the inefficiency costs of the NOK 13 million nonrecurring items and the margin as explained.

Good. Thank you very much. I think all the questions have been answered. And if not, of course, feel free to reach out to [indiscernible] for any further clarifications. And with that, I thank everyone for joining us today, and I wish you all a great day.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.