BHG Group AB

STO:BHG

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q1

[Gustaf Ohrn, executive]

Hi, my name is Gustaf Ohrn, and I am the CEO of BHG. I'm here together with Jesper Flemme to present our Q1 Report. We will also be available after the presentation to do our best to answer your questions.Slide 2, please. The financial highlights of the report, another challenging quarter from a market perspective and sales was down approximately 14% organic. Please note, March being the largest month in the quarter and this year with a negative calendar effect from Easter. Earnings came in virtually flat in the quarter, which is the smallest quarter of the year for BHG, with a decrease in top line, we are pleased that we have improved our profitability versus last year's result with a significant SEK 69 million.The improvement in earnings is a result of our focus on gross margin improvements and cost reductions. And we can happily conclude that our hard work is starting to pay off as this was the second consecutive quarter improvements on earnings. Cash flow came in at minus SEK 111 million as a result of a seasonal pattern, where we in the first quarter stock up for the large second quarter. We reiterate the message from Q4 that we for 2024 will prioritize profit over cash flow.Slide 3, please. As we mentioned in our Q4 report, we took forceful actions during 2023 to put us in a stronger position, both structurally and financially entering 2024, these actions continue and includes significant cost reductions. And as we now summarize the last 12 months after the first quarter, we have on a 12-month basis, a SEK 280 million lower cost levels than 1 year ago, whereof SEK 129 million lower in the first quarter of this year.We also took forceful actions on inventory in 2023, and our inventory level in the first quarter is SEK 959 million lower than last year. This also having a positive effect on cost as large inventory is a cost driver both in warehouse space and as a consequence of lower efficiencies in handling. In summary, we are thanks to the actions we have taken in the last 12 months from a financial standpoint, now in a significantly stronger position than we were 1 year ago.Slide 4, please. A few words about the market. The market remains as mentioned, challenging. We see positive indications in both inflation and in the prospect of interest rates coming down. However, demand is still a challenge in our categories as a result of primarily disposable income being down for most consumers and to some extent, maybe surprising still some rebalance impact after the pandemic.We have, in the last quarter, seen some small improvements in the number of transactions in the housing market, most likely as a result of improvement in consumer confidence. However, the increase still comes from low levels and is unchanged low. Also the renovation index displaying the intention to renovate remains on low levels, and unchanged, we see the strongest effect on demand in capital-intensive categories as doors, windows and floors and other categories associated with renovations. We are confident that the market environment will bounce back, but we unchanged, believe and plan for a challenging 2024.Slide 5, please. Our main focus is unchanged to improve on profitability. Doing so, we put our main focus on the 3 main levers of consolidation, growth initiatives and efficiency. I will, in a minute, describe more in detail what we are doing on each of the above, but we are confident that focusing on these 3 levers, we were able to continue to improve our profitability also in a challenging market and in the process, continue to also take steps on customer value and customer satisfaction being in a better position when the market bounces back.Slide 6, please. Our first lever, consolidations. As you know, this has been a major focus for us in the last 18 months, the ambition to simplify our structure and realize synergies. Going into this quarter, we had already reduced the number of entities in the group from 25 to 15, primarily through consolidations. And with a high pace, we are moving towards the goal of consolidating the group into approximately 7 platforms.This journey continues in 2024 on all 3 business units. The biggest project is the ongoing consolidation in home improvement, consolidated several entities in different geographies into what we call the Nordic Do-It-Yourself powerhouse. Creating a platform that enables localized offerings but with consolidated support functions, a journey that is expected to take approximately 18 months to finalize.In Value Home, we have, in this quarter, created a new private label-based platform that we call Hemfint Group, consolidating our 2 entities of Arc and Hemfint and through the acquisition of Trendrum, we have consolidated 3 businesses with a similar business model into one entity with a combined turnover of approximately SEK 800 million. All 3 front ends will remain unchanged and with a slightly different customer proposition, but with consolidated and mutual management and support functions to realize synergies.And on Premium Living. It is exciting to see how the Nordic Nest Group continues to take shape. First, we acquired and added Svenssons as a category specialist in furniture. And now in this quarter, we acquired and launched KitchenTime as a category specialist within cooking and dining. In the coming quarter, we have already decided and communicated that we will also consolidate the business of LampGallerian into the Nordic Nest Group, taking the role of category specialists in [ lighting. ]Slide 7, please. Just a quick example, kitchen time, an example of what you can do when you have your tech platform and your operation is in order. On the 11th of January this year, we acquired KitchenTime, less than 3 months later, it was launched a fully integrated category specialist in 6 different languages on the Nordic Nest platform, adding sales, but with very limited resources and costs into Nordic Nest.Slide 8, please. Efficiency. The third lever -- the second lever in our addition to improve profitability. A number of actions, including focusing on warehouse automation as we're currently doing in Nordic Nest and a few other entities and leveraging our -- and also leveraging our inventory reduction to create efficiencies in fulfillment.Also leveraging AI as a tool to create efficiencies in the areas of customer service, content and marketing, and also leveraging our size as a group to negotiate better deals on group-wide agreements in the fields as last mile deliveries and payment solutions.Slide 9, please. As we all know, turnover is the main driver of profitability. Therefore, the third lever to drive profit is our growth initiatives. We drive geographic expansion in all 3 business units, but in the largest gale and with the biggest potential in Nordic Nest, where now plus 50% of sales comes from markets outside of the Nordics.Category expansion has historically been the prime growth vehicle within the whole improvement business unit through the Bygghemma business, both through acquisitions of category verticals and also through organically expanding into new categories. This journey continues in most businesses, but with a prime focus in the drop ship-based Do-It-Yourself businesses of Sweden and Finland.In Value Home, with its private label driven business and the high gross margins, we are already selling over marketplaces as a tool to drive sales and expand internationally. We see continued opportunities to continue to grow our business in Value Home over marketplaces.Thank you. And with that, I will leave it to Jesper.

[Jesper Flemme, executive]

Thank you, Gustav, and Slide 10, please. Net sales decreased 23.3%, reaching SEK 2.0 billion, and organic growth was minus 13.9%. The year began with a continued cautious market as sales in the first quarter was negatively affected by calendar effects as Easter fell in March. Our premium range performed well in international markets during the quarter. However, our performance was weaker in renovation related and capital-intensive categories such as floors, doors, windows, bathrooms and furniture.Turning now to Page 11 and profitability. Adjusted EBIT improved SEK 69 million compared to the corresponding period last year and amounted to minus SEK 0.6 million. The strong improvement was mainly driven by reduced fixed cost base as a result of the forceful actions we took last year and maintaining a good gross margin during the quarter.From a segment perspective, Value Home performed best with an EBIT of SEK 15.4 million, corresponded to an EBIT margin of 3.0%. The biggest improvement was seen in the Home Improvement segment improving EBIT with SEK 35 million compared to last year.Moving on to Slide 12 and the EBIT bridge. The EBIT margin improved by 2.6 percentage points compared to last year, mainly driven by a significant improvement in product margin. In turn, thanks to: firstly, favorable mix effects, less campaign pressure in the market and strategic pricing in the Home Improvement segment. Secondly, our efforts to normalize the margin structure at healthy levels within the Value Homes segment.Both inventory handling and organizational costs are positive in the quarter as we see the effects from the extensive savings and structural measures we took in 2023. Marketing costs were negative, mainly driven by the weak market. All in all, our EBIT margin amounted to 0% in the quarter.Slide 13 and cash flow, please. Cash flow from operating activities amounted to minus SEK 111 million, driven by a negative working capital development as a result of inventory buildup ahead of the outdoor season and supplier payments, a development that is in line with our normal seasonal pattern.The right-hand graph, showing the development in liquidity, walks us through the starting period position of SEK 370 million, deducting the cash flow from operations and the impact of investing activities; and finally, adding the financing activities, which are primarily related to utilization of our revolving credit facility and amortization of leasing liabilities, but also include interest payments, bringing us to the period end SEK 323 million of liquidity at hand.Slide 14, please. During the quarter, we extended our financing agreement with SEB and Danske Bank until May 2026 with an option for a further 1-year extension by agreement. Total facilities will be reduced with SEK 1 billion to SEK 2.3 billion and financing costs will be improved. The Group's net debt amounted to SEK 1.4 billion at the end of the quarter and net debt in relation to LTM-adjusted EBITDA ended at 4.7x. On top of our liquidity at hand, we had unutilized credit facilities at the end of the quarter of SEK 600 million, taking into account the reduction mentioned above entering into force tomorrow. Acquisition-related liabilities amounted to SEK 407 million at the end of the quarter and no further payment is assessed for 2024.With that, I will hand it back over to you, Gustaf, to summarize and conclude.

[Gustaf Ohrn, executive]

Thank you, Jesper. Slide 15, please. And I'll do my best to summarize. The market remains tough on demand. Several macro indicators are developing in the right direction, but we foresee and plan for a challenging 2024. Be mindful that the fundamental drivers of our business, the migration from physical retail to the online channel will continue and the online penetration in our categories is still low.Our key focus remains on improving our profitability, focusing on; one, the consolidation journey to simplify our business and realize synergies continues in all 3 business units; two, focusing hard to execute a number of initiatives to improve our efficiency in everything from fulfillment to using AI in customer service, content and marketing and to negotiating better deals on Group-wide agreements; and three, growth initiatives, including both geographical expansion, marketplace expansion and category expansion. We are pleased to see that the actions we have taken on cost, cash flow and balance sheet is working. And we are both operationally and financially stronger now than 1 year ago and we have improved our quarterly results for the second consecutive quarter.16, please. Then I will just round this off with the last slide before we try to answer your questions. And with this, I would like to invite you all to our first-ever Capital Markets Day on the 14th of May at Nordic Nest in Kalmar.Thank you very much for listening, and happy to do our best to answer your questions. Please go ahead.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Benjamin Wahlstedt from ABGSC.

[Benjamin Wahlstedt, analyst]

Hello, guys. A couple of questions from me. So first of all, you speak of a negative Easter-related calendar effects. Do you care to quantify this further, please?

[Gustaf Ohrn, executive]

I will do my best. This is Gustaf here. There's basically 2 effects from this year in Q1. The first one is the sort of placement of Easter. It was last year in April and this year in March. And as I think you all know, sort of a discretionary Easter is a negative, for groceries it's a positive. So that's one negative effect that we don't really -- we cannot really quantify or we have not tried to quantify. The other effect is more of a date effect, that this year, the quarter or March ended in the Easter. So it was 3 days of non-invoicing. So there's a order backlog when we closed the quarter of roughly SEK 70 million.

[Benjamin Wahlstedt, analyst]

All right. Perfect. I also wonder about the extended credit facilities. You note that the new agreement includes a gradual return to previous covenants by March 2026. Is there anything else you can share around the statement? Like is there an upper limit to leverage now as well that is gradually lowered or how does that work, please?

[Jesper Flemme, executive]

Benjamin, I will try to answer. I mean, the covenants is leverage and minimum liquidity. Interest coverage ratio will be tested once again in Q1 '26. I will not disclose the actual levels, but with gradual we mean that market is tough right now and the covenant levels reflect that thinking, but it also reflects that we believe that the market will recover. I think that's the best answer I can give you. I will not disclose the actual levels.

[Benjamin Wahlstedt, analyst]

No. I -- of course, I was hoping for you to do so, but I didn't expect it really. Let me just ask also on the inventory. You built some inventory in the quarter. I understand your previous commentary around inventory reduction happening primarily in the summer season. But I also remember you've also communicated that you were sort of over-weighted, so to speak, in outdoor products already. Any flavor on the inventory is much appreciated as well.

[Jesper Flemme, executive]

No, I think just commenting on what we think for the coming 12 or 18 months, we still believe that we can reduce our inventory with some SEK 100 million to SEK 200 million. But the normal seasonal pattern is that we stock-up ahead of Q2, and that's what's happening also this year.

[Gustaf Ohrn, executive]

And I think pertinent note that last year was a very, very special year. We reduced our inventory. We are close to SEK 1 billion during the year. So there was a negative sort of effect on inventory also in the first quarter. That is not our normal pattern. That was because it was way too big going into the year.

[Benjamin Wahlstedt, analyst]

Perfect. And then one final one. You talked about the negative impact on marketing costs or of marketing costs. It would be interesting to hear more about this, especially in light of you identifying market exits among peers. That should all else equal be beneficial also for working costs, right?

[Gustaf Ohrn, executive]

I think I can say in general that we found the market challenging, as we've said. And then, of course, you trial a lot of things. One of the things we tried during the first quarter was to go more aggressive on marketing cost to see if that was the way to acquire traffic. We can see that it paid off in some entities, but we can also honestly say that it did not pay off in other entities. So gradually, we're trying to sort of refine that and go or we get more right.I think we have understood that we need to be more granular in our online marketing spend. In some categories, we have to be significantly higher to note that it can be significantly lower. It's not only based on business model, it's also very much based on category or even down to product how aggressive we need to be. I would not say that -- I would say that if anything, price competition has eased a little bit, not saying that it's not tough because it's always -- price competition is always very tough in a challenging market. But I think one of the things that has changed is that inventory in the market has normalized, and to some extent, in most categories that is giving a little bit less price pressure.

[Operator]

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

[Jesper Flemme, executive]

We have one question from the chat as well. And the question goes, with regards to the soft market performance, what is your action plan to turn around the Value Home segment? And also, if you can elaborate why the segment is underperforming?

[Gustaf Ohrn, executive]

Okay. I'll do my best. First, I should say that, yes, Value Home is a challenging segment right now. It is challenging I think mainly to market conditions in the Nordics, but we also see challenging in some of our major markets in Eastern Europe. And I think that has at least some sort of reflection of the tough situation currently in Eastern Europe. So a challenging market.We should also be mindful, as we have said, that this is where we had the biggest inventory build-up after the pandemic. We took a lot of action last year. And I'm really, really happy what we achieved in times of bringing the inventory down. We also did some structural actions last year. We divested 2 entities, as we think you know. But with those actions that both paid off well, we still have operational challenges in not all of the entities, but some of the entities. That is a super focus right now for us.And some of the things we're currently doing is, one of them, as we mentioned in the report, is that we're consolidating 3 entities into what we call Hemfint Group, and that is basically a private label-based entity. By doing so, we first and foremost believe we can achieve synergies, but we also get access to sort of management -- for wider management, which we think will be beneficial for the other entities as well.The second thing we're doing is that we're doing quite significant management changes in HFM, which is an entity where we have had operational challenges and those management changes continue. As you all know, we have also taken out a lot of cost. We continue to work hard on the cost side. But I think the most important action we would really want to do is focus on customer value. If you are in the Value segment, that is basically what it's all about, delivering a strong assortment at a very strong price. And in some entities, I think we're doing that well, but we should also be humble to the fact that we have entities where we're not doing that well enough. And there, we are spending a lot of effort right now to focus on assortment and pricing to deliver value because that is what it's all about. I hope that answers your question?I hear or see no further questions. So with that, we say thank you very much for listening. If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to call us. Thank you very much.