Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our Q1 investor call. Today we have two important messages.

First and foremost, we are delivering growth in Q1, keeping our guidance, and we are launching a new operating model. Please take notice of the forward-looking the disclaimer for the forward-looking statement.

In the agenda for today, we have three topics. First and foremost, I will walk you through high level our Q1 results and double-click on our new Nordic operating model.

I'll hand it over to Per, who will give a little bit more briefly into the details around behind the numbers. Then we open up for a Q&A session in the end.

I'm a bit more than 100 days in into this role, and what is really clear to me is that we have a very, very strong foundation. We have strong brands, a lot of capable team members, and we have lots of potential across the Nordics.

In terms of Q1, we are delivering 3.4% growth in in in the quarter currency neutral, supported by strong performance in Matas by up by 5% 5.6% currency neutral. Online no, before I get to that, sorry.

Kicks Kicks is down by 0.3%, and obviously we are not satisfied with that performance. We'll double-click a little bit more on that later in the presentation.

We are also delivering strong performance on online, almost up by 10%, and our in-house brands grew all by 9%, which is a great testimony to some of the things we do, the the brands, how it resonates with the consumer, but also about our omnichannel model. Our EBITDA margin for for the period is 12.2%, and there's two reasons for us not hitting our target here.

First and foremost, we see a decline, a dip in our gross margin in the Kicks market. Half of that is driven by an inventory inventory write-down, and then we have adjusted for for prices to become more relevant for the consumer, and then we are investing in sales and traffic on on marketing.

We'll double-click a little bit on that a little bit later. What is really important to me is to say that the strategy remains unchanged, but to accelerate that strategy and move with greater speed and agility, we are launching a new Nordic operating model.

We are going from a banner-led model to a country-led model with strong country managers close to the markets, close to our customers, and at the same time some very strong group functions. I'll double-click on this a little bit later, but this will also impact the and our cost base, and the annual run rate will will have 40 45 to 50 million in savings from '27 to '28.

The guidance for the year, they are maintained. We keep our guidance.

We have paid out dividend, 2 kroner per shares. We also launched today launched a share buyback program of up to 100 million, and we'll also talk more about that a little bit later.

This slide is a this slide is very much giving a detailed view of of the quarter per banner, and you see the differ- differences. You can recognize some of the numbers from the previous slide.

What you also see here is the gross profit in Kicks. Two challenges there: the write-down on inventory and the investment we do in order to become more relevant for our our customers.

What it also tells me is within our family we have a very strong performance within our Matas banner, but it also says something about the potential we have across the market, and that is exactly what we want to do with our new operating model: have some of these best practices travel across our business with greater speed. Our six strategic priorities remain the same, and there are some I just want to give you a couple of highlights for the year.

In-house brands, I said that, growed with 9%, really, really strong, and what is really great to see is that Matas Striber, which all Danes know, is now the top brand for hair in Norway and and Finland. This is a really good example when I talked about the the operating model on how some of these best practices can travel across our our business.

Really good example of that. We are also work working on becoming more relevant for even more customers.

Part of that is also launching new categories and new products at new price points, and the wellness category is a really good example of that, where we have introduced in Q1 everyday care, everything from cotton pads to sleep, relaxation, etc. A lot of new products has been has been launched.

We also introduced Chanel in in in Sweden, we now have Chanel in all our Kicks markets. Our membership club, we have 6 million members, continue to be a really strong asset for us and a really strong growth generation and combine the the omni, our online universe with our physical stores, really strong asset for us.

Our if we look at our synergies, we continue to be on track on our synergies, and our Auto2 automated logistics centers are really strong as well, and we continue to see continuous improvement there, and we are on business case or ahead of business case, depending on which. Really, really good performance.

We are also launching the the new Nordic model, and I'll get back to that really shortly, but this is a really it's part of the strategy, and it's about making us more agile and deliver with greater pace in the different market. Let's move on to the next slide, and what you actually see here is how we set ourselves up.

We want to simplify to grow, and there's two important dimension here. First and foremost, we want to have a more sharp, more coherent customer value proposition, and that comes from a insight on our consumers.

We know from consumer insights that our customers are actually more alike than they are different. We can take our customer value proposition and move that closer to each other, we have like a coherent, one customer value proposition across our markets, and that gives us opportunity to take out scale and harvest some of the synergies across our group.

At the same time, we want to have a more simple, market-led model with the focus on every single market. We want to win in every single market.

Those two in combination will set us up so we can harvest synergies and be much more efficient. I just want to mention that we'll get back later in the in the year with a strategy refresh, where we're also going to launch our long-term financial ambition.

Let's get back to the operating model. Just to give you a little bit of context, on the left side of the slide, you see the the model we have today, which is a banner-led model, and we're moving to the right side with a country-led model.

The rationale is that, well, since we joined forces, we have had this model. We have basically had the Kicks operating for the three Kicks market and Matas operating for for the Matas market.

That has been natural and that has been great, but we can also see that there are more potential across our our group. We now we are moving towards the markets, getting closer to our customers in each market, with dedicated focus on local execution, but also dedicated focus on winning in that market, P&L responsibility, both for for our stores, but also for our online business.

At the same time, we're going to have some very strong group functions with shared capabilities and and where we have synergies. There's no need to invent the wheel more than once, and that's the idea behind very strong group functions.

I mentioned the annual run-rate savings around 45 to 50 million. Let me introduce with that, and we are setting ourselves for like a a Nordic operating model.

I've also launched a new Nordic ELT team, and here comes the team. Per and I, we will we will continue to be the executive committee.

I'm glad to have my partner in crime here. As you can also see on the slide, we have three very strong country managers.

We have Stefan, who is today the country manager in in Denmark. He will continue in his role, and he is really a, steady hand on the wheel.

Then we have a new hire, Helena Kaylinder, who is joining our family. Helena has today a position as CEO for Nelly Company, online fashion industry, where she's done a transformation, turnaround of the business, but also been really driving a lot of in-house brands.

She has a long track record also within the industry, where she used to work for MECCA in Australia, she comes in with a fresh view and but also cross-border perspective and industry experience, but also experience from online and our stores. Then we have Eirik, who continue in his role in Norway, but we lift him up to the ELT team.

That is an example of Eirik handling the Norwegian business, being close to the market, and Eirik is also really a steady hand on the driving wheel. I just want to mention that Helena is also going to have the responsibility for for Finland.

Then we have Brian Gøbel on Category and Merchandising. That roles is is changing.

Brian today has the responsibility for our logistics center and has introduced that and make that a huge success. Many of you may not know that he also have a long track record for within category management, huge experience also with in-house brands, and I'm looking forward to have him as part of my team.

David Hume is within our team today, but David is going to have a new role. He's going to be responsible for Digital, Tech, AI, and Transformation.

We are now at a stage with our digital business where it makes sense to merge that with our tech business to get greater speed, but also greater take some of the opportunities we have and scale that across our business. David have a long track record for within digital and tech, but also had previously the role on operation within our organization.

Then there's a new hire with Tanya Gulbrandsen Jensen. Tanya is today acting CEO for for Færch.

She brings more than 20 years of senior leadership roles from transformation, integration, people focus. She done a lot of integration.

She also previously had role in Circle K, being responsible for all people in in Europe, and done a lot of integration and done a lot of culture work, and so I'm looking forward to have Tanya as part of the team. As you can see, that's a vacant position.

Appointment is in in process, but we are also scaling up a new team focusing on marketing and and customer as a strong group function. This team represent as you can see, we put the flags up here.

It's a Nordic organization. We want to win in the Nordics.

That also why it makes sense to have a Nordic ELT team. That makes sense.

It starts with us, the conversation we're going to have is with the different culture background and the different learnings we have from the different markets. As you might also notice, there's two names that is not on the list, and that's because Carsten and and Alice, their role has has changed, and Carsten and Alice has decided to to leave the company.

I want to give them a sincere, a big thank you for their huge contribution to the integration of Kicks and all the wins we have had all over the years, and wish them all the best. I think this team is a good testimony of what we are trying to do, a very diverse team with both the continuity from from the team with Per, Brian, Stefan, Eirik, and David, but also some new hires with some fresh blood into the family, and but also with international background working across borders, both online, stores, different geographies, different culture background.

We are a Nordic company, and we're going to have a Nordic team. With that, I think I'm going to hand it over to you, Per.

Thank you, Mette. I will take you through the results of Q1 for this year.

Before I do that, I just want to, I know we're going to get a lot of questions in terms of what does it mean launching the new operating model. Let me just share some numbers.

First, we previously communicated that we have synergies for this year of 50 million, and we're looking at 50 million-plus coming in this year. It's, from a timing perspective, more towards the second half of the year, so that's going to come in as we progress this year.

In terms of the new operating model, we're looking at special items in the range of 70 to 105 million, basically reflecting the implementation and the severance pay, saying goodbye to colleagues. We also expect that would generate roughly around 50 million of savings in this year, and then the run rate that Mette already talked about, the 45 to 50 million coming in next year.

Just to re-emphasize, again, we will host a strategy refresh and present the new long-term financial ambitions later in this year, and we'll be back in terms of timing and agenda and so forth. This was just before going into the numbers, you have a clear view on the impact of launching the new operating model.

Turning to Q1, as already mentioned, growing 3.4% currency neutral, with a strong growth in Matas, and also others growing above 10%. Others is, as our Firtal business and Web Sundhed, which is two online businesses, strong growth from their end as well, and then Kicks slightly below last year.

Okay. We had a little bit of technical glitch, but we're back, I hope.

From a channel perspective, again, as already said, stores pretty much in line with last year, the growth coming from our online business, and then wholesale in this quarter has a positive, and that is a little bit with timing, but still a strong business as we move forward also in our whole wholesale business. Then I think one of the big questions for this quarter has really been around our gross margin, let me just try and take you through that.

Matas slightly below last year. It's predominantly linked to the mix we have between online and stores, but not a big change in terms of our gross margin.

When we look at Kicks, this is where we have the big deviations, and this is also where we see the shortfall. Half of the shortfall is coming from the write-down, actually slightly more than half of the reduction in our margin is coming from the inventory write-down, which is a little bit of a technical exercise.

Every time we have products with sales for more than two years, we do a provision for that, and this is what hitting us in this quarter. Last year it was divided throughout the quarters.

This year it's predominantly in this quarter, and it's not something we expect to see in the following quarters. That, of course, when we look at the overall business, that is of course impacting the overall gross margin for this quarter.

Gross profit in our other business, which is Firtal and Web Sundhed, is slightly down, and there we're basically investing in growth, especially in Web Sundhed, which is getting a very strong momentum at the moment, at a slightly lower margin due to the product mix, but still a very healthy business growing in the right direction. That then ends up with the total numbers as we already talked about and a gross profit which is in line with last year.

Moving into the cost, and I think we have some good news here, especially around our staff cost. As you can see, as a percentage of the revenues, we almost down half a point, and that is a reflection of the continuation of the strong performance of our logistics centers, where we basically continuously see improvements both in the Matas logistics center, but also in our Kicks logistics center out south [unclear].

From that perspective, as Mette already alluded to, we're delivering according to the plan and in some instances actually beyond our expectations, we're very confident with that. Then also, of course, another big thing is our salary percentage in stores, and of course we're working very diligently with that as we progress throughout the year.

Overall, from a cost perspective on people, we're very pleased with development in this quarter while it's also we're investing actually in capabilities in AI and now launching the Nordic operating model. In terms of other external costs, this is where we see the increase, and that is linked to two things.

Of course, our online business drives cost, as in terms of shipping, of faster deliveries, but when we grow the online business 10%, it will impact our other external costs, as you're used to from all other quarters. The big difference compared at least compared to last year is our investments in marketing, our investment in our consumers, and that is increased in this quarter.

Some of it is also linked into the fact that we have very high growth in Matas on our online business, and the search of getting that high growth, of course, also impact our investments. Overall, this is investment in our consumers and also in driving the growth as also in this quarter, but also as we move forward.

Then I just want to say there's a little bit of timing. When you have these quarters, as you remember, last year we had the big fragrance campaign in Kicks.

This year we actually did that in March, as you recall from our Q4 reporting, and when you do those changes, you also see some of the changes in our investments. That's also reflected in this quarter.

Then just summarizing an EBITDA for this quarter at the 12.2%, as Mette already alluded to, of course driven by two factors, and that is the declining gross profit, predominantly through the inventory write-down, but also to, the changes in product mix, channels mix, and some of the initiatives we've made in the market to become more relevant, and then investment in marketing, again investment in growth as we move forward. Then just moving into a few things on our balance sheet.

Inventories, as you'll see, inventories is increasing a little bit as a percentage of sales. We're moving in the right direction, and when I come back in the next slide, in terms of our working capital, we're also improving that compared to where we closed last year.

This is of course a focus as we move forward, and as we always do in second quarter, and this is just to, be upfront with that, we always have the higher inventories end of second quarter. We'll also have this year as we get ready for the very important quarter, third quarter, but just to mention that.

If you look at the numbers, slightly lower numbers here compared to the sales, and that is what our focus is around. Moving into our working capital, and this is always a difficult comparison to the year before because it always impacts based upon what's your opening balance, what's your closing balance.

What I've shared here is basically what are the movements that we have in this quarter compared to where we closed the last financial year. We're getting 220 million from our operations.

As you saw, that was down compared to last year, slightly less than last year. Our working capital in this quarter is improving, and we, as I said earlier also in Q4, that we have a focus on our working capital.

We'll continue to focus on that. Then we have investment as planned around the 100 million.

With this adjusting for the special items, we have a free cash flow in this quarter of roughly 150 million. Compared to last year, that's different because we had very high movements, especially on working capital due to the closing of the previous financial year.

In terms of the guidance, in terms of CapEx, we still expect that to be around the 4.5%, and as you recall, that's due to the incremental investments we're doing in our electronic shelf labeling, which will be hitting the markets fairly soon. This also impacts our gearing.

When we close this quarter, we're reporting 3.4. The plan is still to reduce our gearing level throughout the year, and as mentioned earlier, we've launched the share buyback today of 100 million.

That has an impact of 0.1 for the gearing, it's not a huge impact on the gearing. Our focus is still to end the year with within the gearing range between 2 to 3.

Let me just close off before we go into Q&A, and that's the financial guidance. We're keeping the guidance for the year, revenue growth around 2% to 6%, EBITDA margin 14% to 14.5%, and then our CapEx investments.

In terms of the EBITDA margin, just want to point out that, you're looking at a 12.2% for the first quarter, but as I mentioned earlier, a lot of the incoming synergies as we talked about last year and some of the comps that we're meeting is beneficial for the performance in the year to go, and that's also why we feel very confident that we will hit our EBITDA margin for the year. With that, I think we'll hand over for Q&A.

Thank you for taking my questions. I have a few.

I'll take them one by one. First coming back to the special items and the cost savings, for me, 70 to 105 million in special items seems like a quite significant number.

I know that you explained by fewer layers and clearer roles, but can you be more specific on the moving parts here? Then on the cost savings, the 60 to 65 million in total cost savings for the next year and the years to come, is that a net or gross number?

That'll be my first question, thank you.

The special items 70 to a 105 million, Mads. I think the reason why we have a wide range is this is to do with people also, and we're going through that process that we're launching today.

This is predominantly to severance pays as we progress throughout the moving into the new operating model. In terms of the savings when you look at that for next year, the 45 to 50 million, that is also predominantly savings in salary cost.

Of course, there's a little bit of additional costs when you reduce your head count. Not everybody needs a PC, and less little bit of everything basically, but predominantly we're talking about salary savings as we progress into next year.

This is of course from a you can say a headquarter perspective or, the central people supporting the full organization, but also includes the different banner organizations and so forth.

It was more whether you see this a net or a gross number, when you gave the synergies, you were pretty direct that it was a gross number, you might invest some again in the business. Should we expect the same from the savings here?

No,

yeah, I think what you should look at, Mads, is that the savings we have from doing the new operating model will be around the 45 to 50 million. Then, of course, running the business, we'll have to make a lot of commercial choices.

We'll have to drive the business as needed. It's very difficult right now to predict where we are in '27-'28, where the market is, where the consumers are and their view.

We don't know exactly how we are from a competition perspective, and we'll make all the commercial decisions needed to drive our business forward. Net, you can say, from doing the new operating model, we'll get savings around the 45 to 50.

Makes sense, thank you. Then let me put the two questions together here.

Two quarters with negative like-for-like growth in Matas. What are you thinking about here?

Then on prices, again a quarter with negative impact on gross margin in Kicks due to prices. How much is needed for the future?

When are we in a place where are you completed with price adjustments for Kicks?

A couple of comments here, Mads, and thank you for your questions. On the development in our growth here and how we've seen that over a couple of quarters, what I think is really important here to The starting point is the position we have and the assortment range or the mix we have.

75% is still high-end beauty. We have a environment which is very uncertain, and that of course impact the consumer and the consumer behavior.

That is, and fierce competition, etc., which is not making it easier. It is definitely some headwinds here.

Having said that, that is why we are also working on becoming more for more people, becoming more relevant in even more occasions, and that's why we're broadening out our categories, broadening out our assortment, broadening out having much more price points. That's the introduction of wellness, suncare, etc.

Now we are introducing the new Nordic operating model, and that is an accelerating for our strategy to become even more be even more relevant for even more customers. That is why we're doing that, we have more speed, more agility.

I'm not going to give you any promise on when we are there because what my focus is what we can control, and that will always be my focus. Then obviously there's a world around us nobody can predict.

I'm sure you can follow me on that. I'm not going to give you any promise on that, but I can say I would love to have the improvement today than to tomorrow.

That is our going in, and that's also why we're doing this change.

My question was more you have 200 plus 60 stores in Matas Denmark, right? You have two quarters with negative like-for-like growth, new pretty strong online growth, net-net on a group and Matas pretty strong.

This my question is more: how do you think about the future for the stores in Denmark? Two quarters with negative like-for-like growth.

Should

we expect closures, or

yeah? No.

Thank you for the question. I thought you were talking about Kicks.

The sound is breaking up a little bit here. Let me talk about the Matas here.

I think it's important when you look at our numbers, you need to look at it from a holistic perspective. We are an omnichannel business.

You can see we are growing with great speed on our e-commerce side. What we know is a lot of our customers are going to our stores, browsing, getting advice, etc.

They're going back, and then they're ordering online, might pick it up in the stores. 50% of our customers pick it up in the stores.

That's why you cannot look isolated on our stores or isolated on our online business. You need to look at it from an omni perspective.

We are very satisfied with our footprint, we are not closing and I won't close any stores. Of course, we do adjustments.

We just recently opened a new stores in Nordhavn. It is you need to look at it from a holistic perspective.

Also,

Mads, just on our stores, as always, and I think we've talked about this a couple of times, we do not lose money in any of our stores. All our stores are profitable, and as long as they're profitable, we'll continue to have the stores.

Having a store in a certain area will also positively impact our e-com business. We have data confirming that.

I think, as Mette said, we're looking at it from a holistic perspective. Having stores that will start turning into a negative, of course, we'll do the proper actions on that, which is not the case today.

That's part of ongoing business. Mads, just a data point.

So 50% of our customers go to our stores, pick up the products, but 25% of the customers who pick it up also buy something else. That is actually a super good proof point of the very efficient omni model we have and where the two different areas support each other and where we actually gain more sales.

Thank you for your question.

All right, perfect. Thank you.

I will jump back to the queue. Thanks.

Hello, hi again. I hope you guys could hear me.

Hi, Per. Hi, Mette.

Hi, Amina.

I would like to firstly focus on the momentum in Sweden actually. If you take the Kicks cc growth or decline of 0.3% cc year-by-year and looking at the Q1 last year where we had high comparables because of Skin City, because of the perfume campaign that was also scheduled in Q1 that didn't take place in that Q1, if we adjust to these changes, what is the adjusted cc growth in Kicks approximately?

I think, Amina, if we look at the first six months of calendar year is another way to look at it, and you might want to look at those two quarters combined, you will see a growth in Kicks of around 5%. Then there's a little bit of currency in that, of course, and you need to adjust for that.

Overall, we see a growth in the combined first six months of this year, and that then removes the timing of the fragrance campaign as you were referring to.

That's pretty much in line with what I expected to happen in Sweden, and it's very good to clarify the distribution of the momentum in Sweden. I know you comment on continued strong competition in Sweden, and this is also expected given the intensity of the online peers and the discounts in Sweden.

Do you see more rational behavior from your peers in Sweden despite the continued strong competition? You've been able to grow 5% as you say in the first six months.

If you look at the momentum, last Q2 you reported -1.4, Q3 it went to -4%, in Q4 came the perfume campaign, and now you're reporting -0.3. There's a clear improvement in the momentum.

Can you comment a little bit on the competition dynamics? Is it becoming more rational?

I think, Amina, it's maybe a little too early to say that as we saw some of our competitors was out reporting for their quarters. They were themselves referencing the fact that they were looking at a better pricing going forward and being a little bit more disciplined in terms of what they were doing.

Of course, as we progress into the next couple of quarters, we will see that in bigger context. Also when we hit the very important quarter of third quarter and see if we get behaviors which is more disciplined compared to what we saw last year.

Where we are right now, there is some very early signs, but let me put it this way: it's too early to basically conclude on that.

It,

if it continues into the next couple of quarters, I think we would be in a better shape.

It's promising.

Yeah.

Good to hear. If I then jump to Denmark and I see the development on the gross margin, I would actually like to talk a little bit about the competition, because recently the focus has been on Sweden for the right reason.

It is the challenging market, and Denmark has more or less, if I may say, has been the cash cow for the group. Right now, I see, I know this is going to come in next quarter, but there was a pop-up for Rhode, a supplier of beauty that is owned by Hailey Bieber, and there was a queue of 16 hours as far as I could see on social media, people queuing up to buy things they can basically buy online.

There has been another brand that is a Swedish brand called Caia opening a sister store in Denmark. Is the competition dynamic changing in Denmark, or how do you look at this changes in the market?

I think, Amina, these are I think it's of course things that's happening in the market which we're following very closely. The impact of these, in the context of the full market is maybe not so big as, as the headlines it's getting.

Having said that, it is of course something that we're following very closely and are well aware of, and we take into account in terms of how we go to market and how we do our plans. You can say, is that changing?

I think it's entrants coming in, and we see that occasionally, and we see that actually, almost every year. It is new players.

On the full side of the cup, right, or what we can say on the positive side, if people line up for 16 hours for a beauty brand, it just shows how strong the market, the demand for beauty products is in the market, and if you say competition is intensifying, there could be an upside for that in the future. Fair.

If I then shift from Sweden and Denmark and to Norway, being more country-focused as your new strategy I hope in the future or it sounds like it's going to be, if you talk a little bit about Norway, your peers has been commenting, your Swedish peers has been commenting on significant potential in Norway, and I know you've been focused in Norway for a while. Can you maybe tell us a little bit about Kicks' performance in Norway?

In general, and

thank you for your question, Amina. In general, we believe we have a huge belief in the Norwegian market.

The situation is very different from Sweden and Denmark. We have a different role.

It's expanding. It's about opening new stores.

We opened new stores in this quarter. We are not seeing full effect of that because they've been under construction and all that, but we expect to see an upside on the Norwegian market and also in our numbers that we follow that.

Obviously, with great growth, there's also we see increased competition from different areas. In Kicks in Sweden, we are also working on being more relevant for even more customers, and we have done some work here to expand our product range, but also how we display that in our stores and but also new kind of products, etc.

More to come on that one in Norway.

Okay. If I focus a little bit more on Stribene, or the stripes products, where you say you've been the number one brand as I understand it in Finland and Norway, how's the performance in Sweden?

I think we have had the Norwegian and the Finnish consumer has accepted the Stribene the best to begin with, but I think it is a matter of timing. We are doing some resetting in our Swedish store for this Stribene, allocating more space, etc.

We have huge belief that this is one of these best practices that can travel across. I'm a big believer in in-house brands.

I think we have a golden jewel here. I think we can do more, and we should do more.

This is a really good example of that, and I believe Stribene will also be a great success in Sweden. We are having good numbers, and we are growing, but it's not number one hair brand in in Norway and Finland yet, but that's the ambition for sure.

I think this is a really good example of some of the things that is traveling across the business. Stribene, Nilens Jord, but also BeautyAct from Sweden taking to Denmark.

It's not only about taking what is really strong concept-wise, product-wise and broaden that out to Norway, Sweden, and Finland, but it's also the other way around. That was, I just want to say a few comments on that.

I think that's the whole idea about the Nordic operating model, that we'll get closer to each other, closer to the market, also closer to these best practices so they can travel across the markets.

Makes perfect sense. I guess my last question for now is about the men's campaign that was launched during the quarter.

As far as I understand, it's targeting men between 18 to 35 years old. How much on average did that campaign contribute to the revenues?

Maybe in Matas banner since it was launched in Denmark.

I don't have the number top of mind, Amina, but maybe we'll see each other tomorrow and then I'll bring the numbers. I don't have the numbers top of my mind, but it is an example of what we want to become more, be more relevant for even more people.

A lot of our customers are female. We believe there's a lot of potential here also within men, so that is a good example of how we address that.

It's a campaign that got good traction, so much I know, but I can't recall the numbers. Good example of that, and we're going to do more of that.

Thank you so much, and I look forward to the numbers tomorrow, and I'm very excited for to hear more about the short-term or medium-term ambitions later on in the year. Thank you for answering my questions.

Thanks a lot, Amina, for your questions.

Hi, Mette and Per. Thank you for taking my questions.

I'll start on the margin. If you look at the adjusted EBITDA margin is down more than 200 basis points year on year, and a guide for full-year margin is actually slightly increase year on year.

I understand that in the quarter margins are weighed down by inventory write-downs and that comparisons are set to ease in H2. However, even if I try to adjust for those items and look on an underlying basis, it looks like to me that you still expect a more favorable trade-off between growth and profitability in the quarters to come.

Maybe you could help me understand why you bake in those assumptions currently and have you seen improving momentum towards the end of the quarter, or is it initiatives in Kicks bearing fruit, or what's it basically that makes you gives you the comfort to maintain guidance at this point?

Thank you, Sebastian. I think a couple of points on that.

We feel comfortable with the guidance for the year. That one of the key elements is of course that, when we look at the last year's performing from the coming three quarters compared to what we're looking into in terms of the plans, we're meeting some less aggressive comps, you can put it that way, and that is of course baked into our plans for this year and also the full-year guidance.

When we then look at some of the initiatives we've had, and I think we've talked a lot about that, and also what is already linked or baked into our numbers this year is a lot of the synergies. We said 50 million, and as you saw, I also alluded to it, it's probably more than 50 million, or it will be more than 50 million, but it's in the second half or in the last three quarters that really will start coming through.

When you take that into account, combined with the plans that we have and the focus we have in the business and the new operating model, we feel comfortable that will be able to deliver the guidance for the year between 14% and 14.5%.

Just to be clear, you don't assume improving end market dynamics from Q1 to meet guidance?

No.

That's very clear. Then moving on to the other income line, which is inflated by elevated marketing spend here in the quarter, similar to what we saw back last quarter in Q4.

How long should we expect these elevated marketing efforts to persist? Maybe you could shed some more light on what sort of marketing campaigns you are pursuing currently and where particularly you are focusing your marketing kroner.

I think if you look look at the numbers and if you look also on on our two banners, the the incremental investment in this quarter is is roughly roughly 50-50, Sebastian. Part of that is when when you look at the the Danish business with a with a e-com business growing, 17%, and and and some of the search and the paid search, of course, that will impact our marketing.

That that or that that is reported as marketing cost, you can say, and that is impacting this quarter, growing 17%, we were very pleased with that. When we look at at Sweden, yeah, we have been investing more.

It's it's getting to to to get in in contact with the consumers. We also launching wellness and we're launching new categories, and that requires some investments as as hitting this quarter.

These investments is is broadly in line with our expectations for this year. I think the the challenging thing really for for us in this quarter has been the the write-down, which has come very early in this year, and those roughly 20 million is is, to a large extent timing, so less concerned on that.

Then, of course, marketing from our perspective is always is something that we we decide on. It's commercial decisions as we move forward.

We'll continue to to optimize the way we do our spend also in the year to go.

It's investment in our position, investment in our sales, and traffic, and we'll continue on that road.

Yeah.

Maybe I can ask differently then. Are you finished positioning yourselves currently?

No, I think basically we want to become We see potential. We have if you just from a club membership, we have nine to a Danish club member visit our stores 9 to 10 times a year.

In Kicks, it's three times a year. That says something about the potential across our business, and that's why and then I'm not even talking about the Swedish market is a much bigger market than the Danish market.

On that note, we want to become more relevant for much more customers, and that of course requires that we communicate about it, but it needs to be some efficient campaigns and some efficient communication we are doing, and to talk about all the broadening our assortment and categories. We on a journey there, and we're not done yet.

Okay. No, that's very clear, thank you, Mette.

Just one of my last questions here to wrap up, on the new operating model, and congrats with the new model and team. As same as Amina, I look forward to the update later in the year.

Just to clarify here, would you set to put up new targets? Is it fair to assume that the existing medium-term targets effectively are on hold for now?

The targets for this year and our expectation for this year remains. We will launch a strategy update later this year and with that also a new financial ambitions or a business strategy update.

We will revert later in this year with some new insights on that. It's a little bit too premature to talk about that today.

Today it's about the operating model and the Q1, but I'm looking forward to have this conversation with you, but at a later time.

Okay. No, that's fair.

That was it from me. Thank you for taking my questions.

Thanks a lot.

Hi, thank you for taking my questions. I have three and I'll do one at a time.

Firstly, just want to follow up on the pricing initiatives in Sweden. You have given some answer.

Is it fair to understand that your pricing strategy for the rest of the year, especially in Q3, would pretty much depend on the market and the competitors' pricing behaviors?

I think if you're asking that our pricing and our pricing behavior will depend on what happens in the market, the answer to that is yes. Of course, we will follow very closely what happens in the market.

As we talked about a little bit earlier, it depends on the discipline of our competitors and how they react in the market. Of course, we need to make sure that we're relevant to the consumers and have the right offers and the right products available.

That is also part of the plan that, as we talked about in Q4 and the acceleration that we have initiated and now also with the new operating model, with the focus on making sure that we, especially in the Kicks market, will have a wider assortment, different pricing tiers, different products, more categories, and that of course will help us as we move in to the next quarters in the year. From a competition perspective and pricing, that's commercial decisions we make every single day.

It doesn't mean that we always just take prices down. There's also a lot of opportunities taking prices up, and of course we also utilize those as we look at the different products, the different markets, and how pricing moves across our countries.

That was clear, thanks. Then second question on the inventory write-down in Kicks.

You have also talked a bit about it. Is it a one-off, or we should expect also in Q2?

I understand it's more in the first half one-offs.

One-off we have in Q1, and we don't expect that anything in Q2 or later in the year.

Thank you. Last question here on the gearing.

You talked about you aim to reduce to the range 2-3 times net debt EBITDA, but please correct me if I'm wrong, if while looking at your cash flow, you have to achieve a quite significant improvement to reduce to target. What are the drivers, and to be honest, I'm a bit surprised that you still initiate a 100 million share buyback given the current balance sheet.

I think

That's just my comment.

Thanks for your question. I think the share buyback is following what we launched last year, and then we are continuing this year.

It has a 0.1 impact on the gearing, it's not a huge impact. When we then look at the year to go and the performance, the guidance, financial guidance we have which we're keeping, delivering that combined with the improvement that we have planned for this year in terms of our working capital, we feel comfortable with the gearing end of the year.

That's some of the elements. Business performance at one hand and then slight improvements on our working capital at the other end, which is combining making sure that we will decrease the gearing as we progress this year.

Is it fair to understand that you are aiming the high end, 3 times net debt EBITDA by the end of this year?

I think, if we do the math and you look at the numbers, I think I would be promising way too much if I would say that we would be anywhere else.

We Clear. Thank you, I'll jump back to the queue.

Thank you a lot. I don't think we are having time for more questions today, but thanks a lot for joining the call.

Just as a closing remark, we are standing on a really strong platform. We have a lot of good things going on.

We also see there's a potential across the group. That's why the strategy remains the same, but we are accelerating the strategy by launching a new Nordic organization.

With that, I wish you all a pleasant day, and thank you for joining, and thank you for all your questions.