Good morning and welcome to today's webcast with Salix Group. With us presenting today, we have the CEO, Martin Hansson, and CFO, Carolina Nerman. If you're calling in and would like to ask a question, please press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute yourself when you get the word. You can also submit written requests using the form to the right. With that said, please go ahead with your presentation. Thank you very much. A warm welcome to Salix first quarterly report. We're happy to present this report to you, and I'm doing this presentation together with Salix CFO, as you heard, Carolina Nerman. First of all, some highlights from the second quarter. As of 15th of June, Salix now is a listed company on Nasdaq stock exchange. Just a few weeks back, we had the pleasure to ring the bell, and here we are today. Strong underlying growth. We see top-line growth as well as EBITA growth in all business areas. We have some substantial adjustments for extraordinary costs that stands out as historically high due to the IPO cost, as well as higher advisory fees as we have entered a new country. We have also expanded to a new market in this quarter. As of 1st of April, Laydex is now a company within Salix. It's a market leading company within the building trade where we see potential for organic growth as well as acquisitions. Some financial information from the quarter. The sales turnover in the quarter lands on SEK 1.3 billion. That equals a total growth of 20% and an organic sales growth of 7%. The total growth is driven by the acquisitions of Laydex, and the organic growth of 7% is stronger than the first quarter, where we ended on 3% organic growth, and all of our three business areas are delivering organic growth. We see some stronger development in the Swedish market overall and in particular the DIY segment, as well as in the agriculture and forestry segment. The EBITA in the quarter lands on SEK 121 million. That equals an EBITA growth of 9%. Excluding extraordinary adjustments, Salix delivers an EBITA of SEK 181 million, which is a growth of 51%. This quarter, and actually since the start of the year, is a bit special historically regarding adjustments. The IPO cost and market expansion in Ireland are a bit self-explanatory. I would like to say a few words about Finland. The restructuring cost in Finland relates to a structural change that is in line with our ambition to improve logistics, productivity, and service over time, where we now have consolidated our logistics activity to the Helsinki area and sold a logistic property in Finland with a loss. The logistic restructuring in Finland is now finalized and implemented over the first two quarter, and we are looking forward for the period ahead. The EBITA margin for the quarter lands on 9% and adjusted for extraordinary cost on 14%. We now have nine consecutive quarters with EBITA growth. If we look at the last 12 months, the sales land on SEK 4.3 billion and EBITA lands on SEK 421 million. We have a CAGR of 14% and a positive trend with a result of 20% in this quarter. EBITA margin remains on the 10% level, and if we adjust for the extraordinary adjustments, we land our EBITA margin above 11%. Over to you, Carolina. Thank you, Martin. Moving on to one of our most important KPIs, namely return on working capital. This is an important measure for us as it shows how efficiently we allocate and utilize capital. As you can see from the chart, we have improved our return on working capital, reaching 40% in the second quarter this year. Compared to the same period last year, we improved the ratio by 10 percentage points. The improvement we see here is partly driven by higher margins. Beyond that, it reflects a combination of optimized logistics and sourcing, as well as improved payment terms with both customer and suppliers. Another factor is also that we have successfully acquired companies with strong return on working capital. Another important KPI we closely monitor is net debt to EBITDA. During the second quarter, several important events have affected our net debt position and financing structure. First of all, we have secured SEK 2.4 billion in committed financing, providing a strong funding base. During the period, we also completed the acquisition of Laydex and paid approximately SEK 325 million of the purchase price. The remaining consideration will be paid in the fourth quarter of this year and the second quarter of next year. In addition, during the second quarter, we paid a dividend of SEK 400 million to equalize the debt allocation between Salix and the remaining part of the group. In offsetting these transactions, our net debt decreased by approximately SEK 100 million in the quarter, mainly driven by strong positive cash flow. As a result, our net debt position has been impacted by these transactions, and our debt ratio came in at 2.9 x at the end of the quarter, placing us at the upper end of our target range. Despite this, we remain confident in the strength of our capital structure. We expect strong cash generation in the second half of the year when our business in general generates more cash, as well as we have current momentum in our earnings. Our new credit facility includes a covenant requiring net debt to EBITA to stay below 3.5 x, and this provides comfortable headroom. On this slide, we summarize our financial targets. Starting with sales growth, our ambition is to deliver a CAGR of more than 15%, including acquisitions. This reflects our strategy of combining organic growth with acquisitions. On a 12-month basis, we reached 12% in the second quarter, driven both by organic growth and acquisitions. In terms of profitability, our target is an EBITA margin of at least 12%. As for the LTM in the second quarter, we reached 10%, but if we exclude items affecting comparability, we reach above 11% in the period. Our target for return on working capital is at least 40%, which is also the level we achieved in the second quarter. However, it is important to note that this KPI was negatively impacted by items affecting comparability, as the reported ratio of 40% includes these items. Regarding debt ratio, our target is to maintain net debt to EBITA within a range between 2x and 3 x. As I mentioned earlier, we came in at 2.9 x in the second quarter. To summarize, we continue to see positive momentum in the quarter, especially regarding profitability and return on working capital. Over to you again, Martin. Thank you, Carolina. I will say a few words about our three business areas, and I will start with Consumables Trade & Agriculture. As you can see on this chart, we have a net sales growth of 9%. We have an EBITA growth of 29% and return on working capital of 44%. The DIY segment continues to show positive development and professionals and industry-related segments are a bit more cautious, but we do see some positive signs even here. This business area has a strong position in Sweden, which is positive for the overall sales development. We have new businesses coming our way, and we continue to build a strong market position in the field of fasteners, which is an important category in this business area. We have improved margin from a pricing, but also mixed effect and currency, and we see overall good development in the quarter in the agroforestry segment. I will continue with our second business area, which is Home & Fittings. The net sales growth of 3% we have in this area, an EBITA growth of 21%, and return on working capital of 48%. A continued strong performance in the category of fittings, which is an important area and where we are market leaders in the Nordics. We do have an impact with the logistic project in Finland, where the operational improvements will pave the way for continued margin development in this area. Despite the extraordinary cost in Finland, the business area delivers an EBITA margin of 13% and the growth of 21% in this quarter. Our third and last business area is Construction & Packaging Solutions. Where we have a net sales growth of 56% and excluding our acquisitions of Laydex, a growth of 6%. EBITA growth of 54% and return on working capital of 50%. This business area is more exposed towards the industry-related segment, which is a bit later in the economic cycle. We do see some positive signs in the industry segment, mainly in the Swedish market. Integration of Laydex is ongoing and continues according to plan. I will say a few more words about that in a little while. We are happy to see a solid growth in this business area, both with and without the acquisition of Laydex. To say a few words about Laydex, we acquired Laydex the 1st of April this year, so quite new into the family of Salix. Laydex comes into Salix with many years of solid performance and adds to our overall performance. Laydex is market leaders in their segment in Ireland, and they do business both in Ireland and in Northern Ireland. It's a really exciting opportunity for us with a new platform for growth. We have similarities from a product and customer perspective, and a market with acquisition opportunities. We're hopeful to further build on their development and success. With Ireland now, we have five main markets within Salix, where 60% of sales currently are in Sweden, approximately 10% in Denmark, 10% in Norway, Ireland, and some 7% in Finland. Five main markets with good foundation for future growth. Growth through acquisitions is an integral part of Salix Group's strategy. We have done six acquisitions since 2023, and they are equally distributed between the three business areas, as you can see on this chart. We have a delegated way of working with M&A and have the ambition to build a broad acquisition agenda in our relevant fields. I believe that this slide is proving that we are selective as well as keeping a solid pace. I'm both proud and happy to see the list of acquisitions that we have managed over the last few years. A successful way of working with real additional value to the Salix performance. With that said, I would like to summarize this quarter. We leave a quarter behind us with strong financial development in the quarter with extraordinarily high one-off cost, as mentioned. We have achieved our financial target of return on trade working capital. We have a positive momentum in the DIY sector and agroforestry segment. In parallel, we see positive signs in all other segments. We have expanded to a new market through the acquisitions of Laydex in Ireland, and we are well-positioned for continued and profitable growth going forward. Before we open up for questions, I would like to take the opportunity to say a big thank you to all the great and hardworking Salix colleagues out in our businesses, as well as for the support for all the colleagues to making Salix now a listed company. Over to you, Martin. Thank you very much for that presentation. Let's open up the Q&A. If you're calling in and would like to ask a question, please press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute yourself when you get the word. You can also submit written questions using the form to the right. We'll start off with a written question here. Salix Group delivered a quarter of strong growth, supported by both acquisitions and organic development. What would you highlight as the main drivers behind the performance during the quarter? We have quite a broad development, as mentioned in the presentation, in all our business areas. They all deliver growth. We have year to date an organic growth of 5% within Salix, and in this quarter, as you heard, 7%. Sales has developed in a positive way over the first half year, and even so compared to last year, where we landed on a 4% organic growth. We have had a good start this year. I think we are a little bit helped by the market, as said. The DIY sector has, for a number of quarters now, shown some progress, and we also start to see that in the other segments where we are currently trading. The total growth is, of course, impacted also by the new acquisition in Ireland. Total growth of 20% and an organic growth of 7% we are very happy with. It's partly market-driven, but it's also driven by our own ability to, I believe, take market share in the last quarter. We are in quite good pace right now. I'm very happy about the development this quarter. Thank you for that answer. How is the integration of Laydex going, and what is your experience of the company so far? A new country, all exciting. We are positive about Ireland as such. We have, as in Sweden and the Nordics, quite a positive outlook in terms of the market data that we have received. Laydex is performing well and according to plan. It's a solid foundation. They have many years of successful development behind them and continue to deliver a solid result also since we have acquired Laydex. Very positive start for the company. We are now, of course, integrated them into our financial systems and get to know each other in a good way, according to plan. Very good start so far. Will you be making more acquisitions outside of the Nordics? As said in the presentation, we have five platforms now to grow from, where we have a new platform in Ireland. We, of course, start to map also that country and learn that more in depth. It's not excluded. We are curious to go outside these five main markets. We have, as we stand right now, a very good foundation for further development. We don't exclude anything, but as we have right now, we have five good market, five main markets to grow from. I think that's our starting point. We don't exclude other markets in that strategy. Thank you for that answer. We'll take one final question here. How has the building market developed so far this year? This is a little bit difficult for us to measure in a precise way as we are operating in five main markets. If we look at the Swedish market, we have an index that we follow that's called Building Material Index. So far this year, they are close to 5% in development, so quite a positive development. When we did the preparation for the IPO, we did quite an extensive market research showing that the underlying expected growth in the markets where we are trading are around 5%. 5% going forward in terms of expectations in the market. We haven't changed our position towards that, and we also see an underlying growth in Sweden, in particular, these first two quarters, which are good for us as we are a little bit higher exposed to the Swedish market. Around 5% going forward is the market data that we have collected, and that is also what we are believing we have ahead of us. Thank you for that answer. That concludes today's presentation. Thank you both Martin and Carolina for presenting today. I'll hand over the word to you, Martin, for some concluding remarks. No, thank you. It is a special feeling to deliver the first quarterly results together with the colleagues, and we are, of course, presenting on behalf of fantastic colleagues out there in the Salix business. For the ones of you that are listening in, thank you for good questions, and I wish you a wonderful summer, see you at the next quarterly report.
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