RVRC Holding AB (publ) ($RVRC)

Welcome to the RevolutionRace Q3 2025-'26 Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to the CEO, Paul Fischbein; and CFO, Jesper Alm. Please go ahead.

Welcome to this conference call where we will address the report for the third quarter of the financial year 2025 and '26. Our financial year starts the 1st of July and ends 30th of June. So Q3 means the period from January 1 to March 31. My name is Paul Fischbein, and I am the CEO of RevolutionRace. And joining me today for this conference call, I have the company's CFO, Jesper Alm. And for those of you who are new to the RevolutionRace story, I will start by giving you a brief introduction. RevolutionRace is an international outdoor brand offering outdoor products, mainly clothing, but also shoes, bag and other outdoor products. Everything started with pants, and that category is still the largest product category. We operate with a D2C business model, meaning that we skip the middlemen and sell our products directly to our customers. And we do this mainly via our own website, but also through marketplaces such as Amazon. And with our D2C business model, which is important to understand, we can secure our competitive offering and at the same time, also maintain industry-leading margins. As a digital player, our brand is very much built together with our community on social media. Today, we have 2.4 million followers and over -- on the social media platforms and over 800,000 reviews on our website. And the company, RevolutionRace was founded in 2013 and launched in 2014, and we have been listed on Nasdaq Stockholm since June 2021. If we continue, this picture illustrates our international presence. We have today customers in around 40 countries with 19 localized webshops. However, we do focus our efforts in 10 countries in Europe and also on top of that, operate 3 physical stores in Sweden. We design all our products in-house and work together with more than 25 suppliers for the production in Asia. Now let's take a look at the performance and sales development for the third quarter. Net sales for the third quarter amounted to SEK 487 million, resulting in growth of 5% in local currencies compared to last year. Despite the continued uncertain market environment, we continue to gain market shares and strengthen our market positions in many markets. During the quarter, net sales, margins and earnings, they were negatively affected by FX as the majority of our sales are generated in currencies other than SEK. That's around 75% to 80% is generated in euro, while we report -- the reporting currency is Swedish krona. And at the same time, gross margin improved, which is partly related to the weaker U.S. dollar versus the Swedish krona. Let's have a look at the net sales development by region, looking at DACH. Sales increased by 7% in local currencies. Austria and Switzerland continued to perform very well and grew more than Germany, and Austria was our third largest market in the quarter. In Germany, which is our largest and most important market, we continue to grow, strengthen our market position, but also note signs of overall weaker consumer confidence. In the Nordics, sales increased by 6% in local currencies, and Sweden, the biggest country in the Nordics -- Nordic region, grew by 12%. And in the mature -- we believe Sweden is a mature market. We see this as a clear sign of strength. And in the Rest of the World region, sales decreased by 4% in local currencies. But bear in mind that sales in U.S. peaked during Q3 last year and have since then been negatively affected by changing market conditions, including tariffs. And if we, in fact, exclude North America, the Rest of the World region would have grown instead by 2% in local currencies. And for the total group, sales would have increased by 6% if we include -- exclude North America. The quarter been eventful. And during the quarter, we completed the relocation of our Nordic warehouse operations to a new automated logistics center just north of Stockholm in Sweden. This new warehouse will make it possible to facilitate and handle higher future volumes, and it also strengthens our customer promise and lays a good foundation for continued future growth. The relocation was carried out without any major disruption to operations, apart from some temporary impact on product availability during a few days. And I would like to take the opportunity here to thank our staff and partners for a very well-executed project. Let me now also move on to product development and our latest launches. We continue to develop and broaden our product range, driven by customer feedback and with the aim of creating more opportunities for continued sales growth. During the quarter, we further developed and expanded the Nordwand series. These are our best-selling pants. The updates include an improved fit, some additional models and a broader range of lengths, and early feedback from customers have been very positive. We also launched our first dedicated cycling collection covering everything from mountain biking to road cycling and our Alpine category, which we launched a few years ago, continued to develop well. Sales remained strong during the recent season, and we see good potential for continued growth in the coming seasons. Let's continue to look a little bit closer at the third quarter. We continue, as I said, to combine growth with high profitability and again, show that we are one of the most profitable players in the outdoor industry. Adjusted EBIT in the quarter amounted to SEK 105 million. This corresponds to an adjusted EBIT margin of 21.4%, and this is in line with our target to maintain 20% EBIT margin. Gross margin for the quarter was 71%. And as we have said earlier, we saw negative currency effects compared to last year from the stronger Swedish krona as most of our revenues are generated in other currencies, while we at the same time report in SEK. But at the same time, a weaker U.S. dollar has had a positive impact on purchasing costs, and we continue to have a positive view on the development of the gross margin in the coming quarters. We continue to have a strong financial position with a net cash position of SEK 351 million and the SEK 600 million credit facility, which was unutilized at the end of the quarter. During the quarter, we received SEK 56 million in cash from the exercise of warrants under our incentive program. And we also continued with our share repurchases program, repurchasing shares for SEK 62 million in the quarter. So -- and we maintain a long-term approach to the share repurchase program. If we continue, we can -- we note that in April, we opened our third store, this time in Haparanda, just on the border between Sweden and Finland. And just after some weeks, we can say that the store is outperforming our expectations, and we will continue to selectively look for more store opportunities also outside of Sweden. But we will come back when we have more news on this topic. And with that, I would like to hand over to the company's CFO, Jesper Alm, who will present and walk through the financial performance. So with that, Jesper, please go ahead.

Well, thank you, Paul, and good morning, everyone. I will briefly cover the financial performance during the third quarter of the financial year '25-'26. Starting with gross profit, which amounted to SEK 345 million for the quarter compared to SEK 337 million a year ago, and this equals a gross margin of 71% compared to 69.4% last year. The slight increase in gross margin is mainly attributable to currency effects on net sales and goods for resale and product mix. Personnel expenses are slightly higher compared to the same quarter last year, and the number of full-time equivalents was 145 compared to 132 last year. The increase includes 6 full-time equivalents for our retail operations. Personnel expenses as share of net sales were higher than last year. Other external expenses were SEK 204 million compared to last year of SEK 200 million. And as a share of net sales of around 42%, the number was approximately in line with that of last year. Adjusted EBIT for the quarter amounted to SEK 105 million compared to SEK 101 million a year ago. And EBIT for the quarter amounted to SEK 105 million, same as adjusted, but compared to SEK 80 million a year ago. And this translates to an adjusted EBIT margin of 21.4%, and it was 20.8% last year as well as an EBIT margin of 21.4%, the same, obviously, and compared to 16.4% last year. Adjusted EBIT last 12 months amounts to SEK 422 million, and the adjusted EBIT margin LTM is 21%, so above the financial target of 20%. The balance sheet remains stable, no news really. Major changes within current assets with lower inventory and higher amount of cash and cash equivalents. The financial position is strong, and we have a solid cash position of SEK 368 million at quarter end, or a net cash position of SEK 351 million when adjusting for lease liabilities of SEK 17 million. Credit facility, SEK 600 million is available and undrawn. Cash flow from operating activities came in at SEK 18 million, and that should be compared to a negative SEK 110 million for the same period last year. Inventory amounts to SEK 409 million, of which SEK 369 million was goods in warehouse compared to SEK 543 million a year ago. Goods in transit has decreased from SEK 38 million last year to SEK 21 million this -- yes, to SEK 21 million. To mitigate the delivery risk in uncertain environment and to maintain a balanced inventory position, we assess that inventory levels will need to increase somewhat from current levels. Net working capital decreased to SEK 148 million compared to SEK 295 million a year ago, and this is primarily driven by lower inventory levels. We continued our repurchasing of shares in line with the AGM mandate during the quarter, acquiring shares for a total of SEK 62 million, and this brings the repurchase amount to a total of SEK 90 million under the current mandate of SEK 200 million. The current holding of treasury shares amount to 1.6 million shares, and that is equivalent to 1.4% of outstanding shares. And with that, it's over and out for me. Paul?

Thank you, Jesper. So to sum things up, we have shown over the years and in this quarter that we can continue to grow even in challenging market conditions with an industry-leading profitability. We -- a competitive outdoor offering, combining high quality with attractive prices, we are in a strong position. We have also a strong financial position and a loyal customer base, which gives us a solid foundation for continued profitable growth over time. And we note also continued sales growth during the first weeks of April. And that concludes our comments on the result. Before we finish, I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to our performance during the quarter, that includes our employees, customers, partners and shareholders. And with that, we are now happy to answer questions. I ask the operator, do we have any questions?

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Emanuel Jansson from Danske Bank.

A couple of questions from my side. And starting off with the market development and your sales performance. I wonder if you can maybe give us perhaps some view on the trend during the quarter, if you go by month-by-month, if you could shed some light there?

Yes, I can do that, Emanuel. On a high level, well, first of all, you can see that it differs between markets with Sweden standing out with strong performance and even stronger in Austria and Switzerland. Looking at the quarter month-over-month, I would say January and also February, they were pretty strong. March in terms of growth was lower, also based on the fact that comps were a bit higher because March last year was very strong. We had somewhat an opposite scenario with a weaker January, February, but a very strong March. So -- but growth-wise, January, February was stronger than March. And also, we just -- we saw that same pattern in Germany. And obviously, the development in Germany has a big impact on the total group development and performance as it accounts for a little bit more than 50% of total sales. So both in total and in Germany, January, February, stronger. March growth-wise a little bit weaker, but still growing.

And would you say that compared to the end of 2025, which you finished off in a strong manner, would you say that the underlying market is weaker now than your -- than what you saw in your [ Q2 ] report?

Well, Germany, it's hard to say where it is on an overall perspective. Again, Sweden and Austria, our second and third biggest market, continues to show very strong development continuously. So we don't see any weaker signs there really. But in Germany, I think it's -- it is clear that we only saw 5% growth in Germany. I mean we are still growing market share, and we are very confident about that when we look at reports from industry colleagues and also some reports in the market. But yes, it is a lower growth number compared to the second -- our second quarter, that is clear. But we believe that 5% is still okay in such a big market and uncertain market situation.

But would you say that the impact on Germany in March is more driven by the tough comparable rather than a weak -- weaker market, you would say?

I think it's a combination. We do see external reports saying that the market is a bit weaker. And -- But we also know that March last year was very strong, especially in Germany, so -- for us at least. So I think it's somewhat a combination.

Okay. Perfect. And just looking into your Q4 report where you mentioned that you are seeing growth in April so far. Just looking at Q4 last year, we saw negative organic sales growth for Germany during that quarter. Would you say that perhaps the comparable base is slightly easier compared to what we experienced in March, something?

I don't -- we don't know what to answer on that question. I mean we normally -- we are using the same wording that we have used before. We don't want to guide. We want to disclose what we see and what we know. And I think it's up to every reader to interpret whether last year was a bit weaker or not. But in -- compared to last year, we see growth and continued growth in the first weeks of April.

Okay. Great. And looking at Sweden, as you mentioned, 12% organic growth in this market is a solid figure. What do you think is -- what is driving that growth during the quarter?

Yes. I think I mentioned before, I think that looking at the overall picture, I think we have a very strong customer offering. We are growing 12% in a market that we believe is somewhat stronger if you -- Sweden is -- it looks like the underlying market is somewhat stronger than in Germany. So maybe it is that -- we are very well positioned in many markets, including Sweden and Germany. But since the market is weaker in Germany for the moment, that is at least what we can see, I don't think that we are that far off from sort of growing market shares, both in Sweden and in Germany with sort of the same percentage. So I -- it looks like Sweden is marketwise a bit stronger than Germany. I think that could be one explanation. But overall, I think we are positioned very well in the market with our unmatched offering -- unmatched value offering. And I think that will be -- that will pay off also going forward.

Perfect. And I assume also partly driven by quite favorable weather conditions. I know that you don't often talk about weather, or you don't like to talk about weather that much, but I assume that January and February was quite favorable in the Nordics and...

Yes, well -- Sorry, please.

Yes, no, no, continue, it's okay.

The thing is weather-wise, I think weather from a seasonality perspective, for us, I think that it's a little bit more important in the first quarter when summer shifts to fall. Then we often see clear shift of sales when you see a weather shift. I would -- I mean, it was a warm Q2 and somewhat a colder Q3. We have -- we are operating in many markets. Obviously, it was a bit colder in Sweden and in the Nordics. However, if you look at our assortment, it's not a huge winter assortment if you sort of look at the number of winter jackets and down jackets in our assortment. So it could play a role, but -- and I don't want to downplay the role, but I don't think that we are that exposed to weather. And that's why I don't want to talk so much weather in this quarter as we maybe normally do in the Q1 because it's much, much more important when we go from summer to fall sales.

Fair enough for -- And you're mentioning the product expansion and you're highlighting Alpine collection. I know that for the previous season, you ended up around SEK 100 million in turnover. Is it possible to quantify what you ended up after this season for revenue?

Yes. And bear in mind that the full Alpine season is not only this quarter. It's -- yes, starts in Q2 roughly. But on a high-level basis, I can definitely -- I can disclose that it's plus 50% growth for the last -- the season that we just finished compared to before -- the year before. So that would be at least...

Perfect.

The north of SEK 151 million.

Perfect.

Without going into too much detail.

That sounds promising at least. And looking at...

It's promising. May I also add that we actually launched in the same season the cross-country collection, it's smaller volumes, but it was a successful launch. And this quarter, we launched a cycling collection. It's still small volumes. We do -- we are prudent when we launch new collections, it's sort of a dip our toe strategy, but it's more or less sold out after a couple of weeks. So we see promising starts of also other collections sort of related to the Alpine collection. So that's very promising for the future.

Perfect. And would you attribute the product launches and the update of the Nordwand plant, is that what's primarily driving the sales growth in Sweden? Or is it core or legacy products?

No, that's -- we have launched the updated Nordwand collection in all markets.

Perfect. And the final question, improvement on the gross margin from some tailwinds due to FX, is it fair to assume that this will continue throughout the year?

Well, we -- everything else equal, we see a positive impact going forward from the lower USD that we've filled up the inventory with. Everything else equals, the major impact short term is always how the euro develops versus the SEK. But if that remains stable, yes, we will see -- we should see a positive impact on the gross margin going forward. And then we obviously have product mix and market mix and campaign pressure. But yes, we are hopeful on the gross margin development going forward.

Perfect. And maybe just besides of FX, the situation in the Middle East, have you seen any impact yet on your operations and demand and so on?

We haven't seen any direct impact. But we're obviously close to the matter. We do expect to see delays in inbound. We do -- we wouldn't be surprised if there are fuel surcharges on inbound. So we're close to the matter. Indirect effects are likely, but still limited.

May I just add that, I mean, cost is one component. And as Jesper mentioned, lead time is also something that we are looking close at so that we get deliveries into our warehouses in time for peak season. So that's obviously something that we are working very active with. We haven't seen anything yet, small changes, but something to be close.

And then obviously, one thing that -- relating to that matter that is harder to estimate is the impact on consumer sentiment. And we saw a deteriorating consumer sentiment in Germany during March, and that coincides with developments in the Middle East. It's difficult to say. It's difficult to believe that the situation has had a positive impact on consumer sentiment overall.

The next question comes from Fredrik Ivarsson from [Audio Gap].

This is Fredrik from ABG for Benjamin. I have a few questions as well. First, if I can follow up on the gross margin. Obviously, you talked about FX being the main driver and then you also mentioned mix in terms of categories and markets. But could you maybe give us some kind of indication of how much of the expansion was driven by FX? Was it more than 1/2 or 2/3, or some more quantifications on that would be helpful.

The USD component is likely between 1/3 and 1/2 of the improvement.

1/3 and 1/2Okay. And you said a similar impact in the coming -- at least coming quarter, all else equal?

Isolated to the USD disregarding the other factors that may -- that we don't know yet because that's the U.S. development, et cetera. But yes, it should improve gradually, yes.

Perfect. And then on the AOV that was down a little bit in the quarter, can you talk about the key drivers apart from FX, of course?

And -- you mentioned FX, that is the main driver. But other than that, it's primarily a product mix.

Okay. And could you elaborate on that mix, which sort of categories did sell more with a lower margin?

So the margin is not included in the AOV. It's the basket...

I'm sorry, [indiscernible] -- AOV, I mean.

Yes. So when we set the FX component aside, there are small differences to the same -- the AOV of last year. So I don't have the details on exact product mix development. But the FX, you see the organic growth or the currency sale -- local currency development is the proxy for how that affected AOV as well.

Yes. That's fair. And last question from me. You mentioned some availability effects from the warehouse move. Is that lost sales worth quantifying? Or is it basically insignificant?

It depends on how we define insignificant. But during the move, which was executed very well, there were a couple of days with some of the products literally on the road, being moved. So obviously, they were not available for sales. If we want to quantify it, I would estimate a couple of million maybe, but single digit, so not more than that in lost sales. So we are not going to use it as some sort of excuse or something. But on the margin, it has some sort of impact.

The next question comes from Andreas Lundberg from SEB.

On the last question, if I ask about the inventory instead, you have a relatively low inventory now. Is that having an impact on top line? And how do you think about the inventory right now?

Andreas, so I think Jesper mentioned that in his script that, yes, it's a low -- I would even say low peak of inventory. We do estimate and plan for increasing the inventory over the upcoming months and quarters, especially now entering -- after the summer entering peak season, one can expect definitely inventory to go up. So whether it has -- so many of the sort of important products that were meant to be sold out, such as winter jackets, Alpine, have been sold out, which is a very positive problem. Was that a -- did that create availability sort of issue? No, not really. But obviously, we had higher inventory last year, so made it possible to -- maybe it had a somewhat positive impact on sales as well. But we are fairly satisfied with the size of the inventory now going out of the peak season, and also the composition of the inventory, it's very fresh and a lot of -- mainly composed of high runners and the running assortment as we define it and -- or call it. So it's a bit lower. We expect to gradually increase from here, also obviously helping availability somewhat.

But was it a deliberate decision by you to have this kind of level on the inventory?

Sorry?

That was your decision to have such low inventory, so to say?

Well, yes, you can argue that we have now a very fresh inventory going into the -- in delivery season of new product. So we are pretty satisfied with the inventory composition for the moment. But it will definitely grow from here.

Cool. And then one thing on the -- actually the strategy. Now the markets have been tough for quite some time. You will still prioritize profitability, right? Or how is your thinking about spending money on marketing versus keeping a high profitability and so forth?

Yes. We have 2 targets basically and I think it's always a question of balancing them. It's a growth target of 20% annually. We haven't been there for some time. But at the same time, we have a target of maintaining an EBIT margin of 20%. And looking at the last 12 months, we are at 21%. So we're definitely delivering on that target. One can always argue why don't we invest more in marketing, for example, and sort of decrease the margin in order to increase market shares faster. I think we're in it for the long-term. It's not the question of maximizing sales in 1 month or in 1 quarter. I think it's important to stay disciplined. We want to make sure that all the orders are profitable. And I think finding the balance is the trick here.

Right. I mean it can make sense to -- I mean, as you have now 5%, 10% growth, keeping high profits and then doing buybacks. And speaking of buybacks, you have some SEK 100 million plus remaining on the current mandate, Jesper, how is that, the figure?

That is correct. We were given a mandate by the AGM and then by the Board of SEK 200 million in November. We have executed SEK 90 million of those SEK 200 million. So SEK 110 million to go up until the AGM planned for November in this year. So, yes, on track.

That SEK 50 million per quarter, is that a reasonable run rate, you say or...?

Yes, well...

[indiscernible]

If you split the SEK 200 million mandates on 4 quarters, you end up with that rough number, obviously, yes. So it's hard to argue.

I haven't changed your thinking about running at a shorter net cash, but much smaller net cash position than you currently sit on.

Well, we're aware of the situation with the problem of an increasing cash position. But we remain with the previous statement that we want to be in a net cash position, but not necessarily as big as it is now, and we will continue -- our view is obviously to continue distributing this to shareholders via dividends and buybacks.

And I can also add, I mean, since the IPO 5 years ago, we have been able to increase dividend annually, and we hope to continue to do that. And on top of that also, but in the range of 40% to 60%, which is the dividend policy. And on top of that, we have a long-term view on the buyback program. So again, I -- we believe that that's a very balanced approach to what we operationally should deliver, but also in the perspective of distribution to shareholders. So we find this whole package as a very balanced approach to how to generate value over time.

There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions and closing comments.

And thank you, operator, and we also note that we have no further questions online. So with that, I would like to thank you all for joining us today and for your interest in our journey. And may I also remind you that the report for the fourth quarter and the full year -- full financial year will be announced on August 11. So with that, thank you, and goodbye.