Welcome to Swedencare's pre-quarter update, where Jenny and Håkan will provide a short presentation followed by a Q&A. Please raise your hand if you have any questions. Over to you, Jenny and Håkan. Thank you so much, Emma. Håkan and Jenny here, welcome to our pre-Q2 update. I'd like to remind you, this is a short update of the business right now. We still have a month to go, financial-wise at least, and a couple of weeks left operationally. Highlights for the quarter. The biggest pet show in the world that's biannual took place in Nuremberg, like always. It's called Interzoo. Very busy show for us, and we had our, let's say, biggest booth ever, showing more brands than we have done before. A very busy show, strong interest, and several new markets will be launched in H2 already due to this show. It's, of course, some smaller, more fast-moving markets, but still markets where we haven't been present as of yet. Some big opportunities have started the negotiations with that. NaturVet by Swedencare launched online in Europe and will be in retail stores by second half. Several retailers on board, among them the largest U.K. player, and we are also in discussions with a couple of other really big European retailers. We focus on the bigger opportunities, but of course have also demand from more local and smaller players, but we'll start focusing on the bigger opportunities. As some of you may remember, we sold NaturVet exclusively with zooplus for two years, and now we have expanded to other online channels with NaturVet by Swedencare with the new brand. We have started now in June with launch on Amazon as well in rest of Europe and on the U.K. shop where we have been present. We had our first capital market day ever up in Stockholm, fully booked, with all of the group managers present, it was more of an in-depth session, seeing the different brands, different entities, how we work, it was very nice to meet retail investors, professional investors, and also all of our analysts covering us were there. A very good day, and we have had great feedback, we will definitely have it another time in one to two years. We had our AGM in May, the main decisions there was we now have an authorization for share buybacks that we may choose to do when we feel it's prudent. We also had, as most of you know, we had some change in the board. We had a new board member representing Symrise, and we also have a new chairman, Thomas Eklund, that has been on our board since 2016, so he knows the business very well. Now he's in the new position as chairman. Following up just about the last reminder of the profitability hit that we had in Q4 and why we're showing this is that we predicted that we would have one of the issues would have an effect on H1 2026, and that is correct. We see, let's say, improvement month-on-month when it comes to the problems we've had on Amazon. We stand by our, let's say, forecast saying that from Q3, we won't have those kind of issues affecting our sales. We're happy with the development. That's been really hard work from the team, and I congratulate them, and looking forward going into Q3 with a clean sheet. The different segments are pretty much, let's say, same story as in Q1, that we have, let's say, two segments doing really strong. Europe and production in North America still at a bit lower pace than we want to be. Looking at the different channels, online is, as I said, improving a lot in North America, so strong quarter for online. We had a bit of a dip in May, and that was not only us, it was overall, let's say, sales on Amazon, at least in our sector and also in the pet retail store, a bit lower demand from consumers, probably due to the geopolitical issues, which has had an effect on gas prices in the U.S. As you all know, gas prices in the U.S. is a sensitive issue. However, we saw already early in June a strong pickup, and after the potential deal was announced, seeing even better results. Happy to say that of the quarter, we will have two strong months and one that was a bit softer. Still lower ROI on NaturVet on Amazon, but improving, as I said, month-by-month, so Q3 should be back to normal. Pet retail and big box, solid, but also there, we felt a bit of a geo impact as above. One new major big box private label contract was signed in Q1, and we already in Q2 is shipping the first delivery, so we're very glad about that. Veterinary side, still a bit soft. Also, from another perspective is that the two largest distributors in the U.S. have announced a merger. Actually, + 60% of the distribution goes through these two players. That merger work has had an effect on us and others shipping into them since there have been some constraints on their inventory levels when they make the discovery phases, et cetera. A bit of turmoil in the market there, but soft to solid, I would say, about the veterinary side. Looking at Europe, really strong market for us. Online, the biggest and most important for us. Increasing month-to-month on all markets. EU8, Amazon, all transitioned for our internal brands. Innovet, our Italian veterinarian brand, was the last brand to transition. It started now in June, so will be exciting to see about that. Pet retail, solid to good demand, and veterinary, solid to good. Main markets, as you know, Italy, U.K., fairly stable markets. Not fantastic growth market-wise, but strong and solid demand. Looking at production manufacturing, as we have communicated, pharma is continuing to grow, and we are ramping up for a lot more manufacturing. All year will be an exciting year and going into 2027, where even higher volumes will be manufactured. We also, as we communicated in Q1, there is still lots of activities when it comes to RFPs, more than ever. There is definitely a shift in the market or more demand for CDMO services when it comes to animal health. EU and U.K. have continued to have very high demand externally. It is more about expanding the team and planning the manufacturing. Have had a bit longer lead times for deliveries, but we have perhaps been a bit too quick to the market. We just need to have a bit longer lead times, but still want to be fast and agile to develop projects. U.S. supplements, I would say solid. A couple of new projects starting. U.S. dermal liquids, still soft. However, now we are going into the warmer season, it normally picks up. Hopefully it will improve. This is a big part of our business. It is also affected by this merger proposal of the two largest distributors. All in all, a very high-activity quarter and looking forward to getting the final results. Over to Jenny. Yes. Some expected financial information based on today and what we are expecting for the rest of the quarter. We are still expecting to have a double-digit organic growth for the quarter. The gross margin is expected to be in the same corridor as we have talked about for the last at least year, that we would like to be in 58%-59%. Same as 2025 and also since last quarter, where we had 59.7%. EBITDA, we are expecting to improve profitability compared to last year when we had 19%, and we are expecting a similar profitability compared to what we had last quarter in Q1, when we had 19.6%. There is no material one-offs that we are expecting. However, there is still a lower return on investments for the big box and the Amazon NaturVet as Håkan spoke about. Also this Interzoo, this big expo. It is a biannual expo, so we did not have the cost in 2025. Net up to EBITDA, we were at 2.8 when we closed Q1. As you know, we normally decrease this. We are expecting to have a similar net up to EBITDA in Q2 due to the fact that we are now including the Summit earn-out, because it is less than 12 months until the expected payout, so we have to include it from this quarter. Also we had a dividend payout in the quarter. With that said, we are done with our update. Back to Emma. Yes, we are open for questions. Your first one comes from Adrian. Please go ahead. Hi, guys. Good afternoon. I hope you can hear me. I just have one question, really. Kind of going back to North America here with the merger of the two largest distributors. Could you explain a bit more regarding this? How structural do you think this will hit your business regarding your veterinary sales, how should we think about the implications for the overall market? It's hard to say. As I said, those two together, + 60% of the market, how they will organize, we don't know as of yet. They haven't really presented that. The biggest one, MWI, is also the biggest customer of ours. Covetrus is a smaller customer for us, but they are a big player. Then we have Patterson, that is the second customer of ours. How that will play out is difficult to say, but there will definitely be some changes in how they Let's say, how they distribute over the market, but how quick that will be. Also, I would like to remind everyone that you never know about these kind of projects. From an antitrust perspective and all of that, I don't know if it will go through. The two players are convinced that it will be accepted. I've read some articles about others saying that it's questionable. I don't know. Let's see what happens. They are definitely preparing for the merger and have put some constraints on their inventory levels going forward during this process. Okay. Can I have just a quick follow-up on that one? Can you give us any ballpark range for the sales exposure that you have to these distributors? It's difficult to say because we manufacture products to brands that sell to them. It's very complex. We have many products ending up in these sales channels. Direct sales for us, on a yearly basis, I would say that it's between $20 million-$30 million. Yeah. That's my best guess, but don't hold me to it. It's one of our top 10 customers for the group. Okay. Yeah. Perfect. Thank you very much. Thank you, Adrian. Your next question comes from Adela. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good afternoon. You mentioned here not that much of a move to gross margins, I believe. Could we dive maybe a bit deeper into this? How are you able to offset any sort of inflationary pressures? Or maybe start with, do you see inflationary pressures, and if so, on which components, or I guess, on what sides of the pie do you see the inflationary pressures? No, we haven't received any big reports on inflation pressure. No. Basically what I wanted to communicate is that we have been in the range of 58%-59% for the last one or two years, and we expect to stay there for this quarter. That's really good news. Maybe also on Amazon, you continued to say that cost levels will remain elevated for quite some time or additional quarters. Is that reasoning still true, or do you see opportunities for more upside, or I guess, for the operating leverage to come through towards H2? No. Yeah. Yeah. I can just answer by saying that that's one of the things that we communicated, that we are expecting pressure on the profitability still in this H1, and we are expecting it to improve more in the H2 of the year. Yeah. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you, Adela. Your next question comes from Johan. Please go ahead. A question on NaturVet's Amazon sales. You previously indicated that the transparency rollout would be largely completed by the end of Q2 with normalization targets for Q3, as you state today. Where are you now in the transition? Are we talking normalization in the beginning of Q3 or end of the quarter? How should we think about the impact? I would say normalization should definitely be in the beginning to mid. There are always things happening, but that's normal with Amazon. These actual challenges we've had, we definitely see an improvement on that with, as you said, the transparency programs. It's always that we will continue to have is third-party sellers or online having different types of prices, but we're used to working with that. I would say that expect it from early to mid Q3, we will definitely be out of the issues that we've had during 2025 and H1 2026. Good. Thank you for the clarification. A question on the U.S. Derma liquid business. Had a softer Q1, you then indicated that Q2 orders were already in hand and that the business should recover in Q2. From the call today, I get the impression that this is still somewhat soft. What has changed there? That's what I tried to explain, that we sell directly ourselves and have lots of sales going into the two biggest distributors merging. Of course, we manufacture a lot for different brands selling into them as well. There's always a possibility to change the orders a bit or push them on a yearly basis. That's what happened, a bit softer. I think what we do see that's good is that we see the move out from the distributors. That has definitely improved for the Derma products, but that's also common for this type of seasonality. I would say that the issue right now is more those two affecting the whole sector a lot when it comes to bringing in products. Since the move out is same or better than last year, we are expecting, the whole industry is expecting a fairly good year. As I said, we had orders and it looked good for Q2, but there were some drawdowns. It's a better quarter than Q1, but it's not as good as we expected. Got it. Thank you. The final one on pharma. You also described pharma's Q1 as a good start, but not the biggest quarter of the year, so to speak. Are you seeing any acceleration here in Q2 in pharma? I would say lots of acceleration when it comes to hard work and preparing and development projects. Not so much more when it comes to manufacturing, but lots of projects preparation. We, of course, invoice that type of business as well. I would say it's a good quarter, and that will continue all year. Got it. Those were all my questions for now. Thank you so much. Thank you, Johan. That concludes our Q&A session. Back to you guys for any closing comments. Thank you for the interest, happy Midsummer to all of you, we look forward to seeing you on the 22nd of July when we have the final results. Thank you.
Loading workspace