Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Alligo Interim Report Q2 2024 webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Alternatively, you may submit your question via the webcast. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Clein Ullenvik, Alligo CEO. Please go ahead. Okay, everybody, welcome to Alligo Q2 Report 2024. As always, presenters today is Irene, our Irene Wisenborn Bellander, our CFO, and myself, Clein. And we many times say that it feels that time flies so quickly that we do not do much more than having these quarterly presentations. But it's starting to feel that we would like time to fly even faster into a time when market is picking up quicker than we can see today. So sometimes you like the time to fly a little bit faster. We made jokes earlier that we could present any of the old quarterly reports because the situation is very much the same. The market is still slow. We are taking actions on whatever we can take actions. We are running cost reduction programs. We've reduced SEK 100 million so far. We are running capital reduction programs. We are maintaining our margins. We are running all different types of sales initiatives. So we could have taken more or less any of the last two, three, four quarterly reports, and the story would have been the same, more or less. We have one big challenge, that is that we have a mix effect, which is quite severe, where industry segment customers are growing and the other larger customers are growing, and our beloved small and medium-sized customers are struggling. So that we are focusing on, and it will come back. It's not there yet. But there is one change compared to the old reports, is that we have now hit the throttle concerning acquisitions. So as you can see, we have made seven acquisitions during the quarter to compare with the six acquisitions for the whole of 2023. So we see good opportunities to do good acquisitions at the reasonable price point for well-run businesses. The agenda for today, you can see, and we are gonna do the same thing as we always do, bringing up some highlights. We're not gonna go through the report in its entirety. There are many companies reporting today and tomorrow, so we will keep the speed up. We always have a theme, and we have logistics, assortment, sustainability, acquisitions, customer strategy, and so forth. Today it will be one theme, which is two slides on purchasing. But Alligo, only one slide, you know it. We have been struggling to get about SEK 10 billion. As I said, the market has not been helping us much. I would have hoped that we, by now, would have been above SEK 10 billion, but not yet. 2,443 employees and 210 stores. Looking at the stores also a little illustrates something. When we said that we were surprised how well we could mitigate a slower market in 2023 by reducing costs. And of course, that it would then be easier if we had 2,443 employees at the same place and continue to reduce, but we are spread out in different central warehouses and in 210 stores, so it's not as easy now when we look at Plan F in cost reductions. We have done B, C, D, E. It's difficult to continue to cut costs, at least employee-related costs in direct proportion. And we don't want to ruin anything. We want to be prepared for the market upturn. So, just as a little comment. And the main brands we have, as you know, is Swedol in Sweden, Tools in Norway and in Finland. We can go into business conditions during the quarter. Continued weak market, especially for the construction sector, especially for the small and medium-sized customers. There's a stable amount in oil and gas in Norway. I think we as a management team do whatever is possible to do, running different sales initiatives. We do acquisitions, we run cost reduction initiatives. We try to fine-tune, as you know, we have talked about that earlier, to find the right price point for different assortments, to continue to be relevant for the small and medium-sized customers. We don't want them to move to other suppliers because of price, so we have actually lowered the price in certain areas and try to compensate by increasing price in other product areas. We constantly reduce our inventories, and we will continue to do that. We have a good delivery capacity. We've had some disturbances in the quarter, starting up the Vestby central warehouse. You know, we've merged the two warehouses we had to one location outside Oslo in Vestby, and there are some extra costs related to that and some delivery disturbances, as many times when you do those type of things. The macroeconomic factors I don't need to mention, I think you know them better than I do. So in brief, not stealing your thunder, Irene, but the revenue some 1.8% up, but organically it's 3.2% down. And the 1.8% up is more or less that extra day we had in this quarter. You remember we had a negative Easter effect in Q1, and with less trading days, and now we have one day back in this quarter. So if you adjust for that, it's flat, it's probably zero in growth. Operating cash flow, a little shy of last year, fully explained by the lower EBITDA. And adjusted EBITDA margin down from 8.4 to 6.8. But we continue to navigate, we think, nicely in the customer segments and then keeping the margins up, because that is something we can affect. And we try to do that, and I think we've done okay so far. So highlights, as I said, seven acquisitions, totaling some SEK 300 million in annual turnover. What is specifically fun is that two of them were welding companies. You know, we have taken a grip of consolidating the welding market in Sweden and in the Nordics, but especially in Sweden. So, those five welding companies total some SEK 250 million in sales, and by that, they are approximately doubling the welding sales that we had in the old Alligo before these acquisitions. The warehouse emerged in Norway, as I talked about, and had some startup costs. We are looking forward to the autumn, where we're going to launch the Smartwear. It's a clothing brand with a little lower price point, a little less features on it compared to our stronger brands that we have. That's 1832, sorry, and Smartwear is the laundry and the sewing concept that will be rolled out. We will also be launching other brands, Prowill, for example, for hand tools at a little bit lower price point to be more relevant for the small and medium-sized customers. So it's not the sales of the product as such that is going to change the world, it's the perception of sort of all the tools being having a product in a certain price range, that will be the big thing. So two slides on purchasing, as we said, and you know how we run this. We are very centralistic. We set the assortment, we select the suppliers we'd like to work with, where they do tendering, and we get, we think, pretty decent conditions. So by doing that, we can ensure that we have the right offering, and we meet whatever the customer's needs could be. And working closely with the suppliers is also a way for us to arrive at a decent stock level going forward. Yeah, and we have a better control over the flow, we get better negotiation powers, and we can take better responsibility throughout the whole sourcing chain. So since started this journey with the merger, we are half as many suppliers, and we are some 65% less articles. So looking at the old sort of all in all tools, all those articles that has been cut dramatically. And we will continue down that line. So responsible sourcing, I think I mentioned it before, but it, it's fun. I was in China some a couple of months ago, and I'm so super impressed by what, with our, what our colleagues have been doing for 10 years, and see the partnership we have with the factories there. So we have together developed... 10 years ago, one of our colleagues went to Tangshan, for example, to one plant. We had didn't produce anything there, and the journey started. We started with a simple product like trousers, and now they are on the more advanced products like winter jackets and overalls. We represent 70% of their turnover, and they are running a very professional business with high sustainability targets, and to see how they contribute to the local community is super impressive. It's interesting to see. I visited, as one example, the 1832 plant in Wuhan, and it's also nice to see where actually our products are being produced. So, super impressive what our colleagues have been doing for a decade in different countries, China, Laos, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and so forth. And we've just started that journey. So Irene, some financials. Yes, thank you. As Clein mentioned, the slowdown in the market demand continued as expected and mainly affected small and mid-sized businesses. Revenue increased by 1.8% in the quarter, and this was mainly due to a positive calendar effect from Easter in Q1, particularly in Norway. Acquisition had a positive impact of 3.1%, but couldn't compensate for negative organic growth of 3.2% related to Sweden and Finland. The negative organic growth has been consistent at around 5% in Sweden since Q3 last year, and about 12% in Finland since Q4 last year. EBITDA reached SEK 166 million, compared to SEK 201 million last year. The result was weaker in all markets, but primarily in Sweden, which has the largest share of SMEs. The EBITDA margin reached 6.8%, and the decreased profitability resulted from weak demand and pressure on margins, driven by negative customer segment and size mix, partly mitigated by cost cutting measures. The cost savings amount to around SEK 100 million annually and are primarily related to personnel expenses. On this slide, you can see how different parameters affect the trading gross margin, and we continue increasing the share of sales related to our standard assortment in each market, and that positively affect margin. However, due to the significant unfavorable customer segment and size mix, there's a contribution margin pressure in Sweden and Norway. However, we uphold our margins on Sweden's relatively more profitable small and mid-size customers. If we look into the customer segment, the most significant drop in sales in Sweden is within the construction customer segment, and in Norway, the oil and gas segment continues to develop well, and both of these effects hurt our margins. On the other hand, we have a favorable customer segment mix in Finland, where the most significant drop in sales related to manufacturing. Sales in Sweden were in line with last year. Organic growth was negative at around -6%, contracted by one additional trading day and acquisitions. The weak organic growth primarily affected the SMEs, while some larger customers, such as those in the defense and energy industry, had a positive sales trend. EBITDA ended at SEK 129 million, which is behind Q2 last year, and the weaker result is due to weak volumes and margin pressure following the negative customer segment and size mix, while cost savings somewhat mitigate the effect. When it comes to Norway, sales increased by 12.4%, and there was rebound following the Easter holiday in Q1. Organic growth reached 8%, driven by continued strong market in the oil and gas customer segment. EBITDA decreased from SEK 29 million to SEK 26 million, and the weak results related to margin pressure due to an increased share of sales within oil and gas, with relatively lower profitability, in addition to startup costs in the logistics center in Vestby. When it comes to Finland, sales decreased by 7.4%, including acquisitions, and the clear slowdown in the manufacturing industry in Q4 continued, and organic growth was -12%. When it comes to operating cash flow, it amounted to SEK 270 million in Q4, which is slightly behind Q2 last year, due to lower EBITDA and increased trade receivables. Increased trade receivables is due to higher share of larger industrial customers with longer payment terms, and the inventory levels actually decreased in Q2. The first six months, investing activities are mainly related to M&A activities of SEK 185 million, consisting of six completed acquisitions, and also investment in non-current assets of SEK 61 million. The CapEx to depreciation ratio amounted to multiple of 0.9, which aligns with our long-term target level. Finally, the financing activities are related to increased borrowing and amortization, leasing liabilities and dividend paid. Net debt at the end of the period was SEK 1.7 billion, an increase from last year due to several completed acquisitions, increased dividend payments, and decreased operating cash flow. Ratio of net debt to EBITDA was multiple of 2.0, which is higher than last year, but well within the financial target range. Unutilized credit facilities, including cash, amounted to SEK 1.2 billion. And as you know, our covenants relate to interest coverage and EBITDA ratios, and there's good headroom before reaching those thresholds. So in summary, we have a solid financial position, and we will continue to invest in organic growth and take advantage of good M&A opportunities in the market. Handing it over to you. Thank you. And didn't we conclude yesterday at the board meeting that the debt ratio would have been 1.9 if we adjust for the increased dividend? Exactly. So it's not that we have fiddled away a lot of money. We also increased the dividend, and by that, it made [SEK 0.1] Yes ... also of the debt ratio. Just as a little fun fact. So summary and outlook in this hyperspeed presentation. So it was an acquisition-intense quarter, as we said, and we will continue to do acquisitions. We think we have a very nice platform to dock on. We think there are other areas to step into, could be potential growth, new growth sectors. So we will continue to do acquisitions. And we are focusing on sales assortment management, work wear, especially. We are almost unbeatable when we get our ducks in a row in our work wear offer. We do constantly price adjustments to be relevant, not being perceived as too expensive. So coming back to smarter pricing that we used to have back in the days. Work closer with our suppliers, we have a good history of doing that with competence days and running these different sales campaigns. And we will continue with our logistics structure with having one central warehouse per country. And we have a good delivery capacity. So we are well positioned, we are ready. We will be even more ready when the market returns, we will do that in from a lower cost base. We'll do that with even higher sense of urgency to make success. We made a lot of plans before the vacation period to be able to hit the floor running in the autumn. So even if we don't foresee that the market will turn up crazily in August, September, but we will do whatever is possible for us in the existing market, at least, that you can be sure of. And then our own brands, the ones we have and the new ones we will launch, will contribute nicely. And we are aiming to set the climate targets in line with the SBTi. So, very good. That's all from this presentation. What do you say, Melanie? Should we head to Q&A? Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please type it into the box and click Submit. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A queue. Our first question comes from the line of Emanuel Jansson from Danske Bank. Please go ahead, your line is open. Hi, good morning, Clein and Irene. I hope you can hear me. Absolutely. Perfect. Thank you for good presentation. I just have a few questions here from my side, and I think we can start off with the customer or channel mix and the gross margin. As you mentioned, it's been quite challenging customer mix for you in recent quarters. I think that you are still able to maintain a healthy gross margin, and I wonder if it's possible somehow to maybe quantify the effect in this quarter from this customer or channel mix? I look at Irene, it's probably a little bit difficult. What we manage is we will look at the contribution margin, gross margin per customer segment. And I understand what you are aiming for. It's a very, very good question. Is it possible to quantify? Mm-hmm. There's so many parameters. Mm. going in different directions. But, so some of the parameters are going in the right direction, and Mm. Yes, that's the share of the standard assortment. We have a positive effect from that, but in this quarter, the impact from the share, the decreased share of small and medium-sized- Mm. Customers have really affected the gross margin. But it would be interesting to see. Yeah. We bring it with us, Emanuel, to see everything else alike, the quarter before compared with the present quarter, what is the exact mix effect? Everything else- Effect, yeah ... alike. That is actually a good point. We take it with us. Yeah, perfect. I totally understand it's quite hard to quantify. But okay. Then moving onwards to maybe on the same theme with the small medium enterprise, small medium enterprises, and also with the larger customers. But I wonder, can you maybe mention something positive that you have gained from large customers the last couple of quarters? Have you gotten closer to these kind of customers and have more of these customer shows in your own brands than you previously thought- Yeah ... they will be able to be, and, yeah, et cetera. Yeah. If we talk about the larger customers, we have a huge ongoing activity list to, as you said, to convert them from whatever they have, and 1832 will be one tool to do that. So even if you buy our own brands today, to be able to offer them at a little bit lower price point, the 1832, instead of Univern and Gesto, will bring up the margins for us and be beneficial for our customers. That's a lovely mix. And then it's always the assortment management and trying to get the customers to buy, for us, the right assortment, but still meeting their needs. So that is a huge job that our key account team is running constantly and will continue to do as well as with the price general price negotiations, of course. So if you talk about the larger customers, there is a huge ongoing activity list to convert them to other assortment and brands. Mm. And also services, where the smart services that will tie them closer to us, the Smartwear will keep them closer to us and with an increased margin. So we have a good set of tools to achieve that. Do you perhaps think that you have a maybe better relationship with these customers today, before, like, we saw the market down starting to slow down? Because you maybe have been forced to improve your relationship with these kind of customers, and you're maybe further ahead in this plan? Absolutely. Potentially, and, and it's not that long ago that we threw two fairly big companies up in the air. Even if we like to tell you that everything went super smoothly, of course, there were disturbances, and there were smaller and larger customers saying that, "Ah, you, you, you were not the best supplier during that period." Today, we are back on track, and we are a very good partner to our customers. So you are onto something there. We start from a totally different position now, and our offer is very relevant. But some larger customers, they are only focusing on price, and then we need to stick to our game and say, then perhaps they are not the customers for us, then they should have other suppliers. As long as they want to work effectively with their suppliers, I think we have in our assortment the strongest offer in the market at the moment. Perfect, thank you. That's, that's, that's clear. And, maybe, what do you think that we should expect here entering the second half of 2024? I mean, of course, you implemented a lot of cost saving programs as well, but I think also looking at some OpEx spend here, we can see that you have maybe increases somewhat the last two quarters, year-over-year. Do you think it's, it's, is it possible to drive organic sales growth, growth, without having the market with you? I mean, Yeah ... mainly by gaining market shares Yeah ... because you have a lot of new launches and, et cetera. Sorry. No, exactly. No, of course, we will need the help of the market to make this the super success, it will be at the end. But we have a lot to do on our own to be more active out in the market and make sure that all these initiatives that we are launching are getting the planned effect. So a lot of our future success is in our own hands. I shouldn't mention anything, but if you look at the competitive landscape, I'm not super worried that we'll be run over by anybody. We have a very good position in the market, and we will continue to grow on that. But then, as you said, when will it turn up? As I said initially, sometimes we like to fast forward life a bit, and I'd like to fast forward it to when you can see the market turning up. But in the meantime, we will fine-tune whatever possible to be ready when the business turns up again. Yeah, that's fair. And how you think we should look on the sales growth year-over-year comparison figures here? Are they becoming easier, or is the market still extremely tough for you in order to display organic growth here in the near term? Yeah, and it's a super good question, and I wish I could answer easily. Of course, as time goes by, the comps will start to be times when the markets turned down last year. We had a big discussion in the board yesterday, and we tried to get everybody's input from the reports that have been released from larger construction companies, from industrial companies, and tried to figure out where the market is heading. And we have a pretty good idea, at least what we planned for. So yes, the market is still slow, but also, yes, at the end of the year, then we could see tougher times already last year. But we need to be super active in the market to make this really good. We have a lot to do on our own. Perfect. Perfect. And, also, just touching slightly on the M&A agenda here, how much more can you add to acquisitions in the near term, maybe for the rest of 2024 here, as you see- Yeah ... regarding pipeline and also, your, your financial capabilities as well? I think we've communicated. We've delivered on what we've said, and we said. Yeah ... last quarter and the quarter before that, we will increase focus on acquisitions. We will be super prudent. We're not gonna buy anything just to add acquisitions, so we are very strict valuation targets. But we have some interesting discussions ongoing. We said before that for us, the sweet spot, I think you have asked before, what is the sweet spot? And even if we made seven acquisitions, and some of them were close to SEK 100 million in turnover, so SEK 100 million-SEK 200 million turnover businesses, that is the real sweet spot. Then the cost for due diligence and other things are more reasonable compared to acquiring a business that has SEK 27 million in turnover. So no, I, it feels good. I think we have some nice acquisitions ahead of us, and we will continue to build this company to be super ready, also from an acquisition point of view, when the market turns up again. ... Perfect. That's very clear, Clein. I think that was all my questions for now, so thank you very much for taking my questions, Clein and Irene, and thank you for a good presentation. Thank you, Mano. Thank you. Enjoy the summer. Thank you. We'll now move on to our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Karl-Johan Bonnevier from DNB Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Yes, good morning, Clein and Irene. A couple of questions to add to the ones already asked. Looking at the Vesper consolidation, could you maybe elaborate a little on how much extra cost you saw that hitting the quarter with? And do you feel that that structure now is in place going into the second half? Did you say debt reconciliation? No, the Vestby consolidation. The- Vestby, sorry. Yeah, no, the Norwegian, the Norwegian new warehouse. We were pointing, we were pointing at each other, Irene and I. That's an, that's an issue for you. No, it's an issue for you. Okay, now, now it's... So the question was how it's running, now? Yeah, no, how much extra cost you saw that consolidation hitting the quarter with, and then if all is in place now? SEK a number of millions. Millions. Single-digit number of SEK millions as... Because you take in more hired persons, they work over time, they work weekends, and costs tend to increase a lot. So, a number of SEK millions, so it's not tens of SEK millions, but- Yeah ... it, it has cost us, absolutely. Yeah, related to temporary employees- Absolutely and rates and so on. Hired persons, blah, blah, blah. So, yeah. You feel that those costs are now behind you, or? Good question. The main part, yes. Now, everything is within those four walls. So the transformation of moving things from the old Rosenholm and... That is done, but then the efficiency is not there yet. So there will be some additional cost, I would imagine- Mm. but it should only be lower than Yeah ... what it is today. And we are making some changes also in the management of the central warehouse. But they need to focus on their processes and get things in order, and everybody is on top of things, as we speak. Back to normal optimization, basically? Yeah. Yeah, I mean- Yeah. Just to pick your brain a little more on the outlook for the second half and this year and into 2025, I guess would be interesting to hear if you see any green shoots out there. I guess Finland and manufacturing was early into the down cycle- Yeah ... for you, and most likely the one that could be quickest out. Are you getting any kind of indication from that? You're good. And exactly. No, from a larger industry customers, as you said, it's fun because there was an exact date that the stop on the November 16th last year. It was a full stop. You could hear the big part of the industry segment in Finland coming to a stop. There we hear signals that they are planning for a higher production output in the autumn. So you are very spot on. And then, I don't know if it's psychologically that you look for all positive news, but it feels like the customers that we talk to, it feels a little bit more optimistic. We can't see anything in the figures, and it will be no dramatic upturn. We've never said it will be, and we still don't believe it. We hope to see it during second half year. But talking to customers, it feels more positive. And if the interest rates continue to go down, who knows? If we talk about Sweden, we could see potentially it's a little positive effect about the RUT and ROT tax deductions and even higher activity out in the market. We need to plan for bad days, but we hope for positive things, and we hear more positive signals in the market now, but we don't see it in the sales yet. Yeah, and I, I guess when you look at the construction confidence indicators, they seem to be turning slightly less negative, at least at this stage. Yeah. And then I guess forecast going into 2025 looks very supportive. So, so maybe- Yeah ... that's a question more for 20 25, you think, or? Exactly. No, I. Exactly. We'd like to see, we hope... We've said that the whole time, and I think most other companies in our type of sector say the same thing, that it needs to happen sometime during the second half. Nobody really knows, but we've said that our, especially the small and medium-sized customers, as you know, we've said so many times, they are very quick to respond to downturns. Normally, they are reasonably quick to respond to upturns as well, because they don't start up a new super project. They start feeling that their order books is full, filling up, and then they are more or less back in business again. So normally, they should be quicker to turn up. We don't have to wait for a new NCC, Skanska, JM, project to be launched. They are normally quicker to respond to an upturn. I guess, is it, is it a fair summary of what you see out there for the moment, that it, it is a rather sta- Yeah, you were disconnected there, K-J, but- I'm sorry, I have somebody calling in on the line there, but taking again. If you look at the summing up the demand situation that out there for the moment, is it more of a stable demand on a low level, or do you see feel p-spots that are weakening for you? No, it's stable. Absolutely stable. And we will day by day, hour- by- hour, we follow sales and all the lines being picked, so we are super sensitive to anything. Then June was difficult. We had a feeling that many, as we can have the feeling sometimes, let's have vacation now, let's hit the floor running in August. There was some signals for that from the customer base. So yeah, stable, absolutely, but we will be happy to signal when we see the market coming back. Sounds good. And on the position you've now taken in the welding market, can you give us some sort of KPI of what kind of size you see that market has? And what kind of, say, even particular market share you have in that segment with these kind of positions you're taking? Exactly. We are inviting all the companies that we have acquired as soon as possible after vacation, and by then, we should have a better... It's a number of billion SEK. It's not tens of billions SEK in market value, but in welding as such, we are already at the fairly big chunk, what we had and what we have acquired, and what we will acquire. So we will be the leading player in the welding sector. What is especially fun is to see what we can do with it, because we don't buy them only to continue to say, "Welding." 'Cause the fun thing happens when you can sell to the welding customers all of our other assortments, from workplace equipment to this special PPE and workwear you need for welding. There are grinding and drilling, and so, so a welding customer fits very well into their need fits very well into the, the product offer we have. So I'd like to make that as a super case to show what can happen when you first consolidate the market, which is, which is a positive effect. But then I think the, the real fun starts when we can prove what we can do with it. Mm. And also looking at the supplier side, because they are today buying... When we can coordinate their purchasing, and we can bring on our way of running, supply and purchasing, we will come back to that, but it will be super interesting. And it's also fun to see how resilient they have been in a tough market. Mm. So I don't know if it's luck or if we have been good in some analysis somewhere, but the welding companies seem to keep up well in this tougher environment. Mm. So we'll come back and present it step by step when we do things with these wonderful companies. Excellent. I'll remember to ask the question again at the Q3 stake then. You're welcome. Irene, just a housekeeping question as well. Looking at the impact of IFRS 16 on the financial cash flow, how much was that in the quarter and in the half year? Yeah. It was SEK 108 in the quarter, and SEK 118 for the first six months. Sorry, for the first six months, 100 and? 89. 89. Thank you very much, and all the best out there. Thank you. Take care. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. There are no further audio questions at this time, so I'll hand the call back to Clein for any other questions. We have checked the mail questions, and there are nothing which we haven't already answered, so thank you for all the questions. Some closing remarks, as you know, we think we are taking the actions necessary in a tough market environment. We have good self-confidence. We've done it before, we will do it again, but we need a little bit of help from the market going forward. Our model is clear, our direction is super clear, and we've said we are ready to do more acquisitions, as we did in the quarter, and we will continue to do. And as we normally also say, we are one quarter closer to a market upturn. Every quarter we put behind us, we at least, even if it's starting to feel a little bit boring, we're getting one step closer to a market upturn. So the journey continues. I hope you all will enjoy the summer when that comes, and thank you very much for listening in. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.