Europris ASA
OSE:EPR
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Europris ASA
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Okay. I think we're going to start. Of course, first of all, welcome to the Q4 presentation of Europris. It's a pleasure to welcome you, of course, with these figures. But also, since it's clear have been Christmas, we have a special treat for you today. We will start off with our normal lottery. Trine has asked me to urge you today -- of course, now we have the everyday season. Now it's not Christmas anymore, it's everyday season. So today, we have a plastic bucket of everyday products. It's Europris profile products at unbeatable prices. It's everything from toilet brushes, to the dustpans, and a lot of disposable products. Of course, everything you need for daily life until next season is here. So make sure that you bring them so that Trine doesn't have to take them home. All of them. We also have some snacks for you. Our own private label. Just an example of the kind of private label development we do. We are, of course, very big in snacks. So now we are developing also what I would call the medium level snacks. So it's fresh packaging, 100% sunflower oil, NOK 19.90, and it's all different types of tastes. It's onion, it's jalapeno, it's bacon, it's cheese, whatever you want. And it's served in the product -- disposable product, from bamboo fallouts. So it's a very sort of environmentally-friendly products, so you can have a good conscience when you eat the snacks. We're also going -- since it's Christmas, to have a special lottery today. You've all been seeing that it's been snowing in the last few days. Of course, we planned that. So we're going to have a snow blower, that we're going to give out to one of you. That snow blower you won't find in a Europris store, but you'll find it on the click & collect selection, of course. So the lucky guy can come home and get away all the snow. Urge you to draw the lucky guy or... Okay. It's H68. Who's the lucky one? Okay. We are bribing this journalist also, so that's very good. Okay. It's a battery driven one, so of course, we expect some good press coverage on that one.Okay. So with that, with the advertising, I think we'll go to the juicy stuff. As I said, I think it's a great pleasure to welcome you with these kind of figures. Of course, we have always said that Q4 is the Champion's League of retail, and it's very good to be in Champions' League Finals.I think the credit for that performance is to these guys as the team. Retail is really team -- a team effort, and in this quarter, in particular, it's been a true team effort, not just by the people in the stores, but all the way back through to the people in the warehouse, logistics. And last, but not least, in the replenishment team, that has been instrumental in making this performance. And the good thing was that we not only did we do well, but we actually did best when we have the toughest comparables in the quarter.So from black week along, it was -- I will call it a magic period, actually. It was a -- it's not magic period every quarter, but this period, it was a magic quarter. So we have, once again, cemented our position as the #1 discount variety retailer in Norway, with respect to customers, marketing, stores, logistics and sourcing. And of course, I'm very happy to be able to represent -- present 26th year of continued growth for Europris. Everything that we -- I'm very sure that we'll continue in the years to come. If we look at this fourth quarter, we had an almost 13% increase in group revenues, which is driven by a very solid like-for-like performance, but then also that we are converting, taking over some franchise stores. And the other 7% like-for-like, which is good, of course, it was last -- Q4 last year was all somewhat on the lower side. But as I said, the best part of this quarter was actually where we had really good comparables last year in the Christmas season. So it was a very solid performance. Gross margin was down slightly. It's the same reason that we had in last quarter. We're actually being better at campaign implementation, making sure that your -- that we have all the campaign products you're looking for all through the week. That being said, keep in mind that the majority of the like-for-like sales growth is from non-campaign products. So even though campaign sales has been good, and seeing a little bit of pressure on the gross margin. The majority of the increase in like-for-like is, obviously, not campaign products, but it's non-campaign products.OpEx, a little bit affected by these -- by the positive sales growth. We are, at partial of this quarter, we were operating at 100% capacity. So obviously, it's difficult to have scale advantages at 100% capacity.Net profit up almost 14.5% -- leave it, more than 14.5%, which is also very good. So we're very, very happy with that. We're also very happy, obviously, with the fact that the new warehouse, which is the big thing happening this year, is on plan, with respect to time and cost. And of course, then, we will have a little bit easier operational situation.If you look at the full year, as you faithful people have known, 2018 was sort of a year of up and downs, started slow, but has picked up. We ended up at 2.2% like-for-like sales for the year, which is on the low side compared to historical figures, but the bolder market, and we should always beat the market. That is our target. The market was on the lower side in 2018. So I think that having 2.2% growth in that market condition is okay. Eight net new stores and 8 franchise takeovers. Gross margin for the year was actually up 0.5 percentage point, and it was due to that situation in the first part of the quarter where we deliberately softened the campaign pressure, and focused more on the gross margin growth. So in the first half, that was the main driver behind the gross margin improvement. And adjusted net profit was then up 10% last year.And once again, I think, we could be pretty happy with that, given that it was a tough year. I knew every time you read in the papers, you read about retailers having trouble. So having 10% growth in net profit is okay. Also, it was a landmark year, of course, with the 20% purchase acquisition of the Runsven group. So it's also an important long-term thing happening in 2018. Yes. And since we are not planning on starting a bank, and we are doing okay, I'll then go, obviously, also give a little bit more back to our shareholders. So we keep a steady increase in our dividend to our shareholders. If you look at the sales performance, it was high growth throughout the quarter. We had one more sales day in the quarter in October, but as I said, the sales actually picked up throughout the quarter. So we did best when we really had a toughest comparable and that it matters the most, which is basically, black week and onwards. That was the most important. And I think that's showing the seasonal position that we have at Europris. We had good comparables in 2017, but the team stepped up its effort. And we do -- did a very, very good seasonal campaign.It's top sales of retails that has fix in, and everyone has to know what they have to do in that part of the plan. And this quarter, we really, really performed at a high level, especially towards the end of the quarter. That was periodical magical, actually. Also very pleasing for us the operational people is that we have been presenting to you figures, historically, that has not been up to your expectations. We said that we have focused a lot on central control of spacing and volumes, and that is one of the key drivers behind that improvement in performance. And in retail, if you fix something, you don't fix it in the next month or the quarter, it takes some time. But having worked now over the last 1.5 year, on operational improvement, and getting more battery systems, a better control of the spacing in the stores. I'm very happy that we can see the fruits of that in the important fourth quarter, and in important final weeks of that quarter. So really, really good performance by the replenishment team and the systems supporting it. Yes. These figures, obviously, I hope that we can present this forever, but it's fantastic. The green bar far, far above the market. I can almost not see the market. So the market, obviously, on the low side. But obviously, Europris is on the higher side, too. So very, very good in a tough retail market. And I think that cement what he talked about on December 5, the fact that there are 2 segments growing in retail at the moment. Not just in Norway, but in the Nordics, in U.K., in U.S. It's e-commerce, and it's discount variety retail. And in between, it's very tough to answer.This the same as we talked about in December, but just wanted to reiterate it, because it's important. This is the long-term plan. We will have a very clear plan for where we're going in the next few years. We are going to do a lot of work to strengthen our price and cost position. We're going to do a lot of things to improve customer experience, and we're going to do a lot of things to drive customer growth.And that's the 3 areas that we are focusing on in the years to come. This we talked about also then in December, effect over one of our private label -- prime private labels now being -- becoming Nordic. So we are, obviously, translating it to Swedish text, and then, maybe, after a while, also Finnish. So we think that we can develop some Nordic private label, but it's getting scale advantages and also developing and strengthening the brands. And you saw this next over there, but there's a range of products that we're going to launch within the private label, that is very exciting. And this is one of the key elements of our new strategic plan is to use private label as a driver for growth and to distinguish ourselves from the other chains. And I think, with our Nordic kind of footprint, we can actually get scale advantages in that. So that's a very interesting area and a focus area for us. We also -- obviously, we are still engaged with ÖoB. We're still in love. So it's a very positive development in the working relationship with our friends at ÖoB. We also have there, of course, the long-term relationship Tokmanni, and we think that, that kind of partnership between these 3 partners are an important way we can have a competitive advantage in a tough and -- steadily tougher retail environment.$17.1 billion in retail sales to customers. We have an unprecedented scale in sourcing for Nordic kind of products. Distribution is also, obviously, a very important focus area for us in 2019 and '20. It's only a few months until we open the first phase of the new central warehouse. It's the new temple as we call it. It's a fantastic, going to be a state-of-the-art operations. And of course, for our shareholders and ourselves, we also -- also going to have an economic effect. But one thing it's a direct economic effect, but the other thing is just that it's also easier to scale when you have that kind of modern, automated facilities, compared to having an -- operating in 5, 6 different warehouses and trying to do things more manually. So that's also an important milestone for us in 2019 and '20. The other thing is -- which is, I think, obviously, is exciting, and a fun part of the job, is doing this constant category development, and restored once again in this Christmas season. One of the key reasons, in addition to the replenishment systems procedures, was the category development we've done. We've taken some real leadership in some seasonal categories. And you always have to have a portfolio of different category activities, and some play out in 1 quarter, some play out in another quarter. But it's important to have enough time and resources to spend on that kind of category development. This is the fun part of the job, when we always have a long thing. These days, when we are talking now, we are soon going to roll out some new pharmacy products in our stores, you will see it in a couple of weeks. And there's always a continued kind of -- some will have a big effect. Some will have a small effect, but increasing. And I think that's -- it's the sum of those activities that make us -- distinguish ourselves from our competitors. So really -- really, really happy with that. And of course, in modern retail, even though we only have 0.5% of our sales is in e-commerce. I think, it's very important to understand that for us, the digital area is very, very important. I don't care where the customers buy our products. A lot of our digital activities is concerned about getting people, reaching them in a different arena, but then the sales might come in the physical world. It doesn't really matter, it's up to the customers. We don't distinguish that much between e-commerce and sort of physical commerce. It's just commerce. But we tried to reach the customers in all different areas where we can reach them. And it doesn't really matter where they end up buying the products.And part of the success in the fourth quarter is also, obviously, that we are stepping up our efforts on the -- in the digital area, and that's -- is never negative for the physical world. So that omni-channel experience. Customers don't really distinguish between Europris Digital and Europris Physical, it's Europris. And you saw the snowblower today for Christmas. We also started out having more Christmas trees. I think we took a position on Christmas trees in Norway, artificial Christmas trees. Very, very positive sales development. And of course, here's another area where not all stores can have all these trees. They're very sort of big items. So for example, in the end of March we're opening a store at the Gunerius. That's going to be a 500-square-meter sales area. Obviously, you're not going to have that space for a lot of Christmas trees, but you can buy through click & collect and pick it up in the store or get it home delivery. So we think that, that's a very interesting area for our e-commerce operation, to extend the assortment online, to complement the assortment we have in the physical space. And we still have a robust pipeline of new stores. We opened 2 new stores in there, and closed one in this quarter. Basically, we just moved from Maura to Nannestad, which is quite close. And then, we opened another new store at Rjukan, where we haven't had a store. The people in Rjukan is very happy because they -- previously, they had to drive for 45 minutes to get to the closest Europris store. Now they can buy it in their hometown. So very, very positive. We have 12 stores as a pipeline for 2019. As I said before, we do not have a sort of fixed hard target on number of new stores. It could be -- this year, it could be 7, it could be more, or it could be less. It's really important that it's the right kind of stores -- that they are profitable stores. But if we get to an increasing extent, interesting, either new stores, or relocations, or extension opportunities, obviously, we will say yes if the calculations are right. But it's not a focus to have the maximum number of stores. It's profitable stores. And with that, I think, Espen, you can show us the juicy stuff.
At least we can show the numbers. Gross margin in the quarter was 43.4%, down from 44% in the same quarter last year. And as Pål said, we have increased the focus on implementation of the weekly sales campaigns. It doesn't mean that we have increased the level of discounting because that remains on the same level, but what is done is that we have made sure that all the customers coming into our store throughout the week, they actually get the weekly offers. We have enough products that has lifted sales, and we also believe that, on the long-term, this will also increase the customer satisfaction, and also helps to drive traffic going forward. So it's deliberate, something we've done to increase sales and also to keep the customers more happy, and it's also strengthening our price position with great offers. On the operating expenses, in percent of sales, that was 26.9% compared to 26.5% the year before. The key reason for increasing cost is the increase we have in number of directly operated stores, going from 205 last year to 221 in the fourth quarter this year.We also experienced that the large volumes we had during fourth quarter is putting some pressure on the logistic set-up we have at the moment. As you know we're planning for a new warehouse, because the old one, we see now that we are reaching the limits. So we had to spend some extra costs on third-party handling, because we couldn't handle all the goods ourselves. And we also need to rent some containers. That added cost of about $8 million in the quarter.When you compared the numbers year-over-year, please also remember that operating expenses in 2017 was impacted by almost $20 million, reducing cost due to performance-based remuneration, and also, received marketing support from the suppliers. So the benchmark was also tough when it comes to operating expenses. On the adjusted EBITDA, we ended on $304 million in the quarter, up from $285 million the year before. The EBITDA margin was 16.5%. The adjusted EBITDA, of course, affected by the high sales growth, but also then, held back a little bit by the extra cost we had related to the large volumes during the quarter. When we look at the cash flow this quarter, the cash flow was reduced from last year, due to the share buyback programs we have completed that amounted to $77 million this quarter. For the full year, 2018, the cash flow was impacted by the increase in the inventory. We have increased the inventory in the stores slightly, that is basically due to more campaign products, making sure we have enough products that is lifting the inventory slightly in the stores, and also we have increased the inventory at the central warehouse to have better service rate to the stores.So we're making sure that we don't run out of products. So this is lifting the performance of the stores' health in sales, and also driving customer satisfaction. We have reduced the CapEx from last year. Some few restore projects. And also in 2017, we had the investment in the land area next to the warehouse in Moss. And during 2018, we have also completed 3 share buyback programs, amounting to NOK 121 million in total. But still, at year-end, we have a very solid cash position. Pål?
Okay. So to sum up, I'm going to talk a little bit about the outlook. We believe that we were going to see continued growth in long-term revenue and profits, supported by the fact that we're in Norway, favorable retail market sale and in a segment in Norway, and Nordics, and Europe, and the [ world ], which is very favorable. We are in the middle of transforming Europris from what I would say a pure physical retailer to being an omni-channel retailer. But keep in mind, we don't really care where the sales is coming, but we are very concerned about making sure that we reach our customers or potential customers, in all different areas, physical and digital. We have a healthy pipeline of new stores. But once again, it's not as a hard target. We will open only stores that are profitable, and maybe close any unprofitable stores even though that we have seen a reduced number of unprofitable stores. We have very, very few unprofitable stores, as you can see in the report. They are getting fewer in 2018. And we expect, still, some franchise takeovers. Two franchise takeovers completed on the 1st of January, and then 2, 3 more expected throughout the year. It's more for natural reasons. The stores is going to be refurbished, and the franchisee might not want to -- or have the money to reinvest. So it's not -- nothing dramatic. And this is our long-term focus. We want to be the best discount variety retailer in Europe. That's a tough target. There's a lot of really, really good competitors out there, or players out there. If it's at the European benchmark, we are the #1 discount variety retailer in Norway, but Europe is at a tougher level.We have to do a lot of things with respect to price and cost position to be that. We have to still work on the concept, even though I said that concept and seasonal development was an important part of the success in Q4.We still think that that's a continuous effort, and we have a lot of things we need to do that we also talked about on the Capital Markets day. There's a lot of efforts in doing efficiency in the value chain and cost efficiency, because if you want to have the lowest prices you need to have the lowest cost. And I also still think that -- and we see it more than ever in a quarter like Q4, that culture and execution is really important in retail. So if I have to choose between the right strategy and the right culture, I would rather take the right culture, because it's -- in the end, that's the most important aspects of retail, if you want to succeed. So that's going to be the focus on this. As I said, if we put the benchmark not at the Norwegian level, but at the European level, we are not there yet. So we still have some hard work out for us. So with that, I think, we will open up for some questions.
Microphone is on the way.
Preben Rasch-Olsen, Carnegie. Two quick questions. First, Q1 most likely weak because of Easter, but could you say something about the effect on the reversal in the sugar tax, and the not longer that hard war on personal care products?
I think, of course, obviously, Q1 this year will not have an Easter. So that will have an effect. I urge you to look at the analytic info we have in the appendix to this presentation, to look on the effect of the Easter, and on how to calculate that. When it comes to the sugar tax, we believe that, of course, prices will go down. They are on their way down. And that means that we will lose some revenues. We'll see if the volume picks up. So it's still too early to say the exact effect. On the personal care, it's -- the price was more intense a year ago. It has more stabilized. We've seen that we have growth in volumes. But the total revenue has been flat for basically the second half of the year. So I think, hopefully, we can see some growth, but that depends on getting customer growth, basically.
And quickly on the Runsvengruppen acquisition. You have booked it in the balance sheet, but you haven't had a cash flow outflow -- cash outflow yet, right?
That is correct.
That will happen in the first quarter?
That depends. We have bought some treasury shares. That could be used to settle the acquisition of the 20% ownership. And we believe that the shares we have on-hand right now, should be sufficient to cover the purchase of the 20%.
Petter Nyström, ABG. Two questions. First, can you share some light on your expectation on the gross margin, going into '19? And then, given that we saw some higher share of campaign sales in Q4.
We will, for sure, continue to make sure that our customers get the campaign products. So you should expect that effort will continue. That has been positive for sales, positive for profits, but dilutive on the margin. So -- but we will continue to do that. We believe this is the right thing to do.
And then, finally, what about share buybacks in '19?
We have not initiated a new program. We said that we buy back shares in order to be ready to -- either to pay for the acquisition of Runsvengruppen or to delete shares. We have enough shares on-hand, we believe, to cover the acquisition of Runsvengruppen and have not initiated a new program at the moment.
Markus Bjerke, from SEB. Going back to the like-for-like of 7%. You mentioned that it was predominantly non-campaign products that drove it. Can you give us some more color on what kind of categories had performed best? Then also, if there is any differences in terms of geography?
There are no big difference on the geography. I think that the biggest -- as I said it wasn't EBITDA growing good all through the quarter, but even better towards the end, when we had the toughest comparables in 2017, because in 2017, we had a poor quarter, but it was mainly due to the first part of the quarter, not the last part. It's, basically, a big seasonal category. It's the big hero products. We sold a lot of [indiscernible], and those kind of things. It was -- yes, Christmas trees you saw. We mentioned, also, Christmas lighting, which is a big category. They've really taken some steps. So it's really just good category work that has been done by the category team.
Carl Frederick Bjerke, from Arctic. On the Capital Markets Day, you spoke about or mentioned the click & collect, and how that has showed very strong growth in the first couple of months. For those of us watching the website, you have launched several new products this month already. Could you give us sort of a preliminary update on are you selling any Lay-Z-Spa jacuzzis and weapon cabinets?
Of course, I mean, Lay-Z-Spa. You have the Helsinki Lay-Z-Spa, which is very good for when it's very cold. So that's a fantastic product for February. No, but it's a deliberate strategy to increase the kind of product range on click & collect. We are using first part of it now, but actually, it's going on more -- more is going to come in the next few months. And I would say that more than 90% of our online sales is click & collect. That's a majority. It's product that people that has a certain value. It's nothing -- it's not a NOK 20, NOK 25, NOK 30 products people buy online. It's the NOK 200-plus. So that's the biggest one. And we think that it's going to be even more important in the spring-summer season. But that kind of product is more relevant. That being said, of course, as I said, the majority of our sales, obviously, is non-e-commerce. So it's still the physical that dominate. But we also see that the digital activities we do on e-marketing, CRM, and all that stuff, is also positively influencing physical sales.
Ole Westgaard, DNB Markets. When you look at 2018 in total, and you look at your like-for-like growth, how will you split it in terms of volumes and price? And when we look into 2019, how do you think the mix will be between those 2 categories? Secondly, when you look at your basket, has that changed materially from 2017 to 2018?
That was like 4 questions at least. Four questions in 2.
If we start with the volume on the like-for-like in 2018, total year, 2.2%. That was more or less equally shared between traffic and price. Number of items in the basket, relatively flat. So that's the flow through. Next question was...
Your expectations for 2019, with regard to the mix?
As to the mix, we said that we will work really hard to -- in order to get home, and interiors, and kitchen products up. We have some good initiatives on that. We've seen good performance on that category during the fourth quarter. And also, the season's performance will be focused. So we're working very hard on the category mix. We believe that is important also to strengthen the margin. But it's early days. So we can't really see yet. These days, it's focused on the consumables and the everyday products.
And also, a question on the inventory. It's slightly up, then it looks to be at slightly high levels. What level are you comfortable with going forward? And should you -- do you have a lot of seasonal products that are not sold out after Q4?
No. They're on the same level as the year before, so we are very comfortable with the inventory levels we have now. We said before that we expected the inventory to go up, and it did go up, especially in the stores. But we're very satisfied with, because that helps driving sales. On the central warehouse, it's always possible to do some improvements, if you work on the flow of goods, but that takes time. So we are very comfortable with the levels we have today.
There is one question here from [ Thomas Stava ]. I want to know, if issued when closing the deal, this will be converted to Europris shares following agreement on the adjusted 2018 EBITDA for ÖoB. Can you elaborate?
We have updated that in this quarter. So the vendor note, we have reestimated NOK 134 million, is that correct, Trine?
Yes.
Yes. Others based on the preliminary results from ÖoB, and the exchange rate from SEK to NOK, and also the share price at the year-end.
More questions from the web?
No.
No? Okay. Any more questions? Okay. So as I said, please make sure that you bring 1 or 2 baskets of everyday products, otherwise, Trine will have a hard time. And feel free to have some jalapeno or whatever cheese snacks you want. Yes. January is over soon, so you don't have to worry about that.