Hello, everyone, and welcome to the presentation of the third quarterly report of Alligo. We are just starting up here, some technical issues, just give me a second.

The presenters for today is me, Samuel Alteborg, CEO of Alligo, and of course together with Irene Wisenbom-Bellander, our CFO and Deputy CEO of the company. The agenda for today: we're going to give a bit of a brief of Alligo, of us as a company, then we're going to talk some highlights of the third quarter, we will give an update on some specific developments in all our countries more or less and also in our logistics expansion of the logistics center in Örebro, and then of course deep dive into the financials and a summary and outlook for rest of the year.

That's what we have in front of us. Let's start, and let's start with Alligo as a company.

Probably this is familiar to most of you, but still to remind ourselves, we are a leading player in workwear, personal protection, tools and supplies, and also industrial components across the Nordics. We operate of course then across Norway, Sweden, Finland.

We do a revenue which is just now below 10 billion SEK, and very close to it. We are roughly 2,500 employees, and currently we operate through 237 stores.

This number has changed upwards with three stores since last time we spoke, and it's our acquisitions of welding companies on the east coast in Sweden, Kalmar and Växjö, and even one more store added to that count. This is us.

Then to describe ourselves, we often divide us in one part that we call an integrated Nordic business, and then we also have a non-integrated business that I will come to. This integrated business, that's of course our big concept brands of Swedol and Tools, which I hope you are familiar with.

They are built on a platform which has been developed over time, and it spans across several areas. It starts with a common store network, which is fairly the same or more or less the same across these three countries and independent of brand.

Then we have added a logistic function to that, which is then homogeneous across the countries and serves all those three countries in the same way. We have common IT systems, ERP, and even a BI platform, which creates a very strong transparency across the group in all types of data and how we are performing and how we are developing ourselves, which is very strong.

Then of course we have also built own brands and own capabilities in certain product areas, which we can also then spread across this integrated platform. A very strong base, again has been developed over time, and I think for us now and we will talk more about that, it's a lot about utilizing this strong platform as we move along.

Sales also split across various channels to customers. Of course the stores are strong and important, roughly 45% of our business is channeled through the stores.

The absolute majority is in the fixed stores we have, and then we are complementing ourselves with some industry-specific stores. Those are a pop-up kind of stores that you build in an area or in a certain project temporarily to follow that project over its lifetime, and then you dismantle that store when that project is finalized.

But 45% relates to store, and 33% relates to various digital channels, it can be direct sales or online or web or whatever. Then of course the 22% then that is non-integrated.

Let's come then to that. If we are building on this strong core that we discussed, and then we have complemented ourselves with a set of companies in different technology niches.

We spoke already last time that this is a mix that I really like to build on, because we have this then strong core with a strong product assortment, with a strong customer base, and then we complement ourselves with these niches somewhere in the periphery of the strong core. What I mean then is that from a product perspective, it partly overlaps with the core, but the niches also add uniqueness, expertise, and depth, of course, in those type of products.

Also from a customer perspective, we partly overlap with slightly the same customer base, but again these niche companies comes with a broader customer base and of course new customers that we can then work on in the totality, to say, of all the things we can offer. Really happy with our product media niche, with our welding companies, with our battery capabilities, and then we have a few others as well which are also performing strongly.

Again, I think this is a strong base to complement the integrated business with these niches and to find synergies across, especially on the commercial side. We are doing that more and more, and will gradually of course develop how we work as a whole company, the integrated and non-integrated together.

That's a way to describe who we are. Then just to finish off, we have developed ourselves with these acquisitions over time, and I think in the past 5, 6 years, we have acquired companies to the value of 1.7 billion SEK in terms of revenue.

It of course goes a bit up and down, that's the story when you work with M&A. We have always had a pipeline, we try to develop ourselves, and we want to find good companies of strong quality that really complement ourselves well.

Of course sometimes several of those comes in, and then it can take some time before the next kind of batch comes in, it's a bit of a ketchup kind of effect thing to do. Over time, I think we have developed ourselves nicely then through acquisitions as a complement to the strong core business.

Yes. That's a short reminder of who Alligo is and how we are developing broadly.

Let's come in then to the third quarter, and let's talk some highlights of what has been happening here for the last couple of months. Starting with macroeconomics, obviously a factor we all need to consider, and there is a geopolitical uncertainty, we are aware of that, but the kind of effects of that is still the same as we have said before, which is very limited if we talk about direct impact.

Then of course we live in the same financial climate as everyone else, and that is probably to a certain extent impacted by these geopolitics. There is nothing in addition to that that is, to say, impacting or in any way harming or disturbing for Alligo, and I think we are strong in mitigating and managing effects coming out of this uncertainty that is out there.

Then of course we can also talk about industrial activity. We will come a bit more to the market and what's happening there, but we still see a mixed picture and overall a quite cautious market in our core countries.

In Sweden, obviously we've had growth for some time, but we still see the market being a bit cautious or slow. We also in the third quarter had a little bit of negative, some weaker seasonal demand.

Then on the other side, we also see upsides in various industry niches in some areas of the country. It's a bit scattered, but overall slow.

The same more or less goes for Norway. It's a bit more evident there that oil and gas has been a fantastic market for many years, and we have talked about the projects that has been a strong business for us, which is good.

Of course naturally such projects also faces out over time. We still see a potential, to say, in the market, and that good things are happening, but equally to Sweden, it's still on the slow side from what we want of course and what we aspire for the future.

Then comes Finland, that is continued strong, or maybe even stronger than what we've said before. Recovery manufacturing, defense is strong, but we see it across also towards the smaller construction companies, the electricians, the plumbers, whatever it can be.

Of course happy to see the development in Finland, which is very very strong. In this type of market situation, with the geopolitics, etc., that are uncertain, of course we as managers need to be super proactive and super agile when it comes to actions and how we steer and develop Alligo.

This is a trading company, sales focus will always be top priority, that how it works, and of course we are applying that across all our channels all the time. We are focusing on short perspectives of course, which always need to do to stay super relevant, but also in mid and longer perspective.

How do we further develop our capabilities and structures and steering of sales? We will come back a bit more to that, but this is a core topic for us as a company, and should always be.

Then in parallel, of course continued cost cautiousness, we need to continuously monitor our cost base so that it's relevant and that we adjust, and this can be locally. Some city is doing really well, maybe needs some more headcount for example; other cities which has a slower period, of course we need to be very active to make sure that we have the exact relevant staffing that we need.

That's part of our job, and that we do continuously across all the countries and companies. Growth by acquisitions, as we said, a super interesting way to complement ourselves and build ourselves even stronger and find commercial synergies, and that agenda is continuing as it should.

For this year, we have also been focusing maybe even more on our inventory levels, and making sure that we are very optimal in what we store and when, so that we can tie up some capital. There is a program underway, and it's delivering according to our plan.

Then last but not least, in this again then geopolitical uncertainty with oil prices and other stuff going up and down per the day, we need to be very active also in price adjustments, especially towards those segments that are impacted mostly. We are that, if you would see our pricing system, you can see that all those oil-based products and affected products, I should say, we are doing very active updates on price levels, etc., to follow the market and protect our margins.

That's some flavor on proactive management. Then just to repeat on delivery capacity, the situation is still the same.

It's good and stable in all countries. We see no major disruptions, despite all these effects.

We see our ships with containers coming from Asia having to take longer routes, etc., but we have the margin and the flexibility to maneuver that, and also the partnership with the freight companies so that we get our products on time to our logistic warehouses. Good to see, and again repeating that from a delivery perspective, we see no big hiccups at all, and that's good.

Yes. Then going into the third quarter.

At a first glance, this can look quite good. We have a revenue growth, roughly 5%.

We do organic growth of 1%, which is the fourth quarter in a row now we are growing organically as a company, which is of course positive. We are improving our profit, and we are sustaining our profit margin or even improving it slightly.

Again at first glance, this is quite positive. Then of course when you look underneath, and which we will talk about more, it's a very varying picture across the company or the countries, where Finland is doing really well and developing nicely, beyond our plans basically or faster than our plans.

The softer market in Sweden and Norway is problematic for us, and we're going to be honest and say that we are disappointed with the development we see in Sweden and Norway. Of course with our proactive management, we have already taken measures during the quarter to handle and mitigate this as quick as possible, and to react both in a short and a long perspective.

Yeah. Overall growth quite similar to second quarter, but growing in slightly in I shouldn't say the wrong areas, you always want to grow in all areas, but we're growing in towards segments and countries with less kind of margin, and we have a slower or softer market in the areas where we typically do a bit higher margin.

That's why our profit is not increasing even more, which we of course want. Let's come back to those details with the help of Irene further on.

If we're going to take some highlights for the first quarter, again the strong improvement in Finland, higher volumes. We see it across the customer base.

Again coming back to that a bit more in later, but really positive and thumbs up for all the hard work that has been done in Finland over time, and that is now paying off really well, and that we are of course continuing to do. Then we have the last couple of months pushed ourselves in terms of sales activity in Sweden, Norway primarily then, of course Finland as well.

We are working both short term of course to make sure that we are super relevant and steering ourselves towards the right customer segments, etc. We have also launched a quite broad agenda with a mid-long-term perspective on how we're going to prioritize and focus our activities.

I will come back to this in a deep dive later on to describe what we are doing there. Also important to say, we see a continued positive development in our service offering.

This is of course good to see. We have talked a lot about Recare as a new service we have launched, where we start to see really good customer pickup and really good dialogues.

We have Smart Service as a service we have discussed before, which is growing continuously, and it's a very good way to create attractiveness and long-term relationships with our customers. Then there are plenty of other services we offer as well, and we are focusing more and more on them as a whole to make sure that we are relevant not only from a product perspective, but also how we serve the customer with these products.

On operations, I think the key highlight is in a way profitability improvements. We have of course, as we said, a continuous monitoring of our cost level, and we adjust gradually over the year in relation to what we see.

We have pushed that agenda a bit more in Norway. We did that during summer, just after summer, and we do a cost takeout more in a program form now in the second half of the year, which will give some strong effects as we move along.

We're just in the making of this now. Then of course across the board, continuous cost cautiousness and focus on capital efficiency, that's part of our DNA.

Obviously when we are a bit disappointed with the results we see, that's, to say, even more applied to the whole organization and to ourselves, even if it's part of our DNA and something we always do. Then also on some strategic initiatives, we have said before that we are expanding our logistic capabilities in Örebro.

This is according to plan. We will deep dive also on that, but it's important for us.

Örebro is a very cost-efficient distribution platform for us, and we are utilizing that even more now across the full base of countries. We can do that even further when we have expanded it, and that's positive for us both from a delivery capability, but also from a cost perspective.

Then also we are and we will review ourself from a strategy perspective now in the second half of 2026. This is a very natural thing to do.

There has been of course a long-lasting strategy within Alligo for a number of years where we have done all those good things in combining Tools and Swedol and building this solid platform that we are operating from. Now it's a quite natural time to also ask ourselves a bit more the question: how do we utilize and take benefit out of this strong platform in the next, to say, horizon?

There is plenty of ideas, opportunities, discussions ongoing now in the company. We're doing this in a quite inclusive way, together as a company, to make sure that we stay super relevant to our customers and again utilize the platform that is built.

It's a refinement or an evolution of the strategy we've had, and it's going to be the base for how we continue our growth journey in the coming years. Yes.

Let's then do a few deep dives, and we will go through Tools in Finland and give you the status of the program and the evolution or the development we've had there. We will talk about growth initiatives both in Sweden and Norway, and also give you a status then of Örebro.

And Örebro, the automated storage handling is what you see on the picture here, which is a fascinating operation, super efficient way to provide our customers with their needs. We will give a status update of how we are expanding this.

Starting with Finland. As Finland historically has been a challenging market, and of course there are many reasons for that.

We have launched a program long ago or several months ago, which has been executed really well by the management team and all the people of course working close to Finland and in Finland. We now see good effects across the customer mix.

We have good development towards the industry within the manufacturing segments and the defense area, but we also have good and strong development in the store sales towards small and mid-sized customers. It can be construction companies, plumbers, electricians, whatever.

Fascinating to see that the development is positive across, and despite, I should say, the fact that they have also moved away from two quite big customers within the last 12 months. We are able to recover that and grow in total with 12% in the quarter.

Also then, in addition to all the commercial activities that has been applied, there has been an efficiency program with a cost takeout, and we have pushed of course our price level a bit. In totality, we're landing an adjusted EBITA now of 6%, that's almost twice in percentage what we did last year.

Hat off, really impressed by all the good work that has been done towards Finland, and is progressively or continuously done in Finland by all the people involved. There is more to do.

We will definitely continue this journey and trajectory, and see how far we can stretch and improve our business in Finland. Good so far.

Next up then, we have a lot of ongoing activities both in Sweden and Norway. Of course there is always ongoing activities, things we do to improve ourselves both in the short- and long-perspective, and then with a proactive management that we apply.

We are sharpening ourselves quite quickly here, given that we are disappointed, as we said, with the outcome of the third quarter. If we talk a bit about short-term actions, I think there is a lot of good initiatives now in Sweden and Norway, but let's start with Sweden.

We start to talk about tailored industry-specific offerings, and what do we mean with that? If you look on Alligo, and then Swedol if we now in Sweden, we have a huge opportunity in the broad customer base that we operate towards.

A really broad mix and high number of customers across various segments. That's fantastic, and that's really something we are building on.

What we want to achieve is of course also that we are razor sharp towards all the specific niches. When we speak with a plumber or an electrician or a construction worker, we come with a tailored offering, which is very unique and attractive for that specific type of customer.

We are now, step by step, building a bit more structure around those specific offerings, and we're putting them to the market. We do that both in Sweden and Norway, we should say.

That started some months ago, and I think we see early good signs and good outcome as we launch these offerings one by one basically. A good initiative.

It can give a kick on short term, but it's also going to be a way that we strengthen ourselves in a longer perspective. Then if we come to pricing, always relevant in any company, and in a trading company maybe even more so.

There is a continuous process how we review our pricing and make sure that we are relevant towards all type of customers. Specifically now, of course we have been targeting some key products that we know is super important for our customers, and we have also in partnership with our suppliers made sure that we have a very relevant price point in the right way with the right margin.

We have also been focusing price discussions with some bigger customers, and this should be mentioned also for Norway, to make sure that we really really have a good situation and the profit we need to get out from the business. Quite a lot of price discussions ongoing right now, primarily then with bigger customers.

This is important. Then in Sweden, it's very positive to see now the stepwise increase of cross-selling within the existing customer base, of course, but also within the group.

There are plenty of good examples when we have gone hand in hand with our welding companies, together then with Swedol, we are in Sweden. We can see that we can now start to sell welding components and products to industry customers of Swedol, and we start to sell Swedol products to various welding company customers from the past, and we go together approaching these customers with our full offering.

This is still in an early phase, but again very positive signs. We want to make that even more structured, and of course create an offering where we are really relevant through the Swedol store network to all type of small customer needing anything in relation to welding, and where we have a nice transition up to the specialized and expert niche companies in welding when the customers have more complex demands or needs.

That we are establishing now across Sweden. Then as always, there are many campaigns launched in this type of company.

Swedoldagarna, or the Swedol Days, I think is a famous theme for all of us, and we are running them right now. That's always a landmark in how we approach our customers, and it's very appreciated across the country with high energy and engagement across both our sales and customers.

That's happening right now. In Norway, there is also good reasons to accelerate our sales focus even more.

The activities is about the same, I should say, as in Sweden. Here we also have an ongoing then cost adjustment, as we mentioned, and that will imply a quite strong cost takeout, and that's going to help us as we move forward.

Then in addition, we are focusing a bit further on service takeout, and applying all our service concept across the country, and that can be both Smart Service, which is evolving nicely, but also how we work with foot scanners, etc., in stores to strengthen our PPE offering even further. A lot of things happening in Sweden, in Norway, in addition to all the things happening in Finland, of course.

Then in the long-term perspective, there is more that we want to do structurally. We talk about tailored industry offerings, we talk about pricing initiatives.

All of that also goes in to strengthen our sales management and our steering towards prioritized segments in a bigger context. We are working in parallel with the shorter actions, with also establishing a bit stronger steering and management of sales in all aspects for the longer perspective.

That we are working on. We are continuously now developing our omnichannel presence and penetration with customers.

The store concept will always be the heart of our operations, that's how we connect with customer, we build relationships and relevance. Then of course our customers will not only buy from us in stores.

They also have needs and reasons why they sometimes want to buy it online, and we have that capability, we have fast deliveries, and we're just now making sure that we are really, to say, omnipresent across the customer base so that we follow the customer both when they have needs from a store and from any type of digital channel. That's also going to be both a short- and long-term priority.

Then again, as we said, strong service offering, and that we can develop even further, but we are already happy with all the services we have, and we are pushing them across the customer base to create an even stronger relevance with our customers. Plenty happening, both in the short perspective, but also building ourselves even stronger in the long run.

Then to finish off the deep dives: Örebro, it's a fantastic logistic hub that has been developed over time, super efficient and so fascinating to see this automated store concept and how we very efficiently then package the stuff we're going to supply to customers and to stores. We need more capacity in Örebro, and we have communicated an investment that will increase our capability with 6,500 new square meters, which is quite a lot.

We are then also moving towards an additional land so that the whole yard we are utilizing becomes bigger, and we are building part of that as a first step. Design details, everything is now being finalized, and some regulatory approvals, as always when building something.

Then we will start construction early '27, and the new capacity will be in place early '28, which we think fits really well with the development of the company and the needs of simply more capacity. Looking forward to see the finished expansion of Örebro.

Yes. That was the deep dives.

Now I leave it over to you, Irene. Please take us through the financial a bit more in detail.

Thank you. As Samuel mentioned, we delivered another quarter with organic growth and improved profitability.

This was the fourth consecutive quarter of organic growth, and the fifth quarter of improved results. However, sales development in Sweden and Norway was, as Samuel mentioned, disappointing.

Revenue increased by 4.9% in the quarter, supported by 1.1% organic growth, 1.5% acquisition-related growth, and positive currency effects. Finland continued its positive organic growth trend, while Sweden and Norway developed weaker.

Fewer project orders in the oil and gas segment explain the lower sales in Norway. The Swedish market remains slow, and sales were weaker in several customer segments, except the defense industry.

EBITA reached 168 million, up 10 million or 6% versus last year. The increase was driven by improved results in Finland, supported by higher volumes and cost reductions.

Gross margin was 41.1% versus 41.4% last year, driven by less favorable country and customer mix. Moving on to some highlights of each market's development in Q3.

Total revenues in Sweden were in line with your last year. Acquisition-driven growth and somewhat higher internal sales offset negative organic growth in both the integrated and non-integrated business.

The sales development in Sweden was disappointing, with declines across several customer segments. In September, we also completed another e-commerce platform upgrade that disrupted customer traffic.

We estimate the negative impact on sales, and primarily on our own brands, in the range of 8 to 10 million. EBITA was slightly lower than last year due to lower volumes and lower gross margin driven by customer mix.

Following the weaker profitability, we will continue to adjust the cost base while maintaining a super strong focus on sales. Revenue in Norway increased, supported by currency effects, acquisition-related growth, and higher internal sales to Sweden, but negative organic growth partially offset this.

The decline in organic growth was mainly due to fewer project orders in the oil and gas segment, which began to slow in the second half of 2025, while sales in the construction segment improved in Q3. EBITA was slightly lower than last year due to lower volumes and a slight gross margin decline driven by unfavorable customer mix.

As Samuel mentioned, we established a project during the quarter to improve the unsatisfactory profitability in Norway. Activities include initiatives to drive growth, improve gross margin, and adjust the cost base by 35 million SEK.

We expect the cost-saving initiatives to have fully impact from year-end. In Finland, sales continued to recover in several customer segments, primarily manufacturing and defense.

We're seeing a positive trend in attracting SME customers, although from a low base. This development more than offset the impact of the two larger customer relationships that have now been phased out.

As Samuel mentioned, the efficiency program in Finland is progressing according to plan and has strengthened operational execution across the business. EBITA improved during the quarter, driven by higher volumes and ongoing cost-saving realization.

When it comes to cash flow, the third quarter is seasonally the weakest quarter from a cash flow perspective. Operating cash flow was lower than last year despite an EBITDA improvement, but remains significantly higher year-to-date.

Q3 last year benefited from a positive tax timing effect, and this quarter we had negative working capital movements. Inventory typically builds up ahead of the Q4 season, and the increase was slightly higher this year.

The increase in receivables reflects business growth and a higher share of customers with longer payment terms. The decrease in liabilities mainly reflects lower purchasing volumes and timing effects of the supplier payments.

Average net working capital as percentage of sales reached 27.7%, which is 1 percentage point lower compared to year-end. We still have work to do when it comes to capital efficiency, and we aim to reduce average working capital as percentage of sales to 24%, the level achieved in 2022.

Investing activities during the quarter relate to organic investments and final purchase price settlements for the recent welding acquisitions. The capex-to-depreciation ratio was 0.8 on a rolling 12-month basis.

Finally, financing activities reflect amortization of the revolving credit facility and leasing liabilities, but also cash outflows to former product media shareholders selling their remaining shares. Net debt at period end was 1.6 billion SEK, down from Q3 last year and year-end, driven by strong operating cash flow.

Leverage improved from year-end, supported by higher EBITDA and lower net debt, but was slightly higher than Q2, which is typical since Q3 is the weakest cash flow quarter. The net debt to EBITDA ratio was 2.2 at quarter end, down from 2.5 at year-end, which is well below our financial target.

Our covenants relate to interest coverage and equity-to-asset ratios. We met all covenants at period end with good headroom before reaching the thresholds.

As mentioned earlier, we refinanced the business during the year, and currently we have 1.9 billion SEK in available cash and unutilized credit facilities. Combined with healthy operating cash flow, this provides us with a strong financial position and the capacity to continue investing in organic growth and capitalize on attractive acquisition opportunities.

I'll hand it over to you, Samuel, for summary and outlook.

Thank you. Then to summarize the third quarter: again, at first glance, continued organic growth and roughly 5% growth in the quarter, and of course that's good.

Finland recovering really well and developing more or less quicker than expected in the improvement program, which is also very positive. Then as we've said, challenging and disappointing even in Sweden and Norway, and a long list of actions that we started to take already around summer, and of course some of them also being part of a natural evolution that we continuously do as proactive managers.

That's where we stand. Happy with the platform, all the opportunities we have moving ahead, and it's going to be a lot up to us now to develop also the way we operate and work so that we get the full benefits out.

If we take the outlook for the rest of the year and also looking a little bit into 2027, it is a partly slow market environment still, and there are some effects in that. Of course we want to deliver growth across despite market in a way, but looking forward also to a more positive market development in Sweden and Norway.

Long list of items, actions, things we are underway to do to strengthen ourselves the way it should be, and we see good trajectory or progress in the things we are launching gradually now across Sweden and Norway. Then to repeat then, a strategy refinement towards 2030, really building from our core strengths, building from our customer needs and customer dialogues, and twisting and turning on ourselves how we can evolve the way we work into something even stronger and take benefit of all the opportunities we have.

This strategy refinement process will continue throughout the year, and then of course we will implement and work actively with that when we move into 2027. I think that's it.

That's our presentation for today, and of course now available for any questions.

Good day, Samuel and Irene. Hope you can hear me.

A couple of questions from my end. Relating to the development in the Swedish market for you, and given the more positive Swedish manufacturing and also looking at building material index here in Sweden, which is growing I think it's around 7% year-over-year in Q3, can you help us understand the gap to your negative organic growth that you displayed in Q3?

Do you think it's mainly customer exposure or timing or other areas where you are losing market shares at the moment?

As you say, we also see a bit of a scattered view where there are definitely improvements in the market on parts of manufacturing industry, a little bit depending on your exposure, and also in parts of the building material sector. We definitely do not believe that we are losing market share, but maybe the uptake of our products and the niches we operate in, specifically then towards construction industry, maybe comes a little bit later in the cycle.

Obviously it's positive to see now that our construction companies in Sweden are talking about positive numbers and improvements, but we think it's early stage in what they do and will build as we move along. Of course we will follow them along the way.

No, we don't see that we're losing market share, but definitely we expect to be part of the growth cycle if it continues of course across the market.

All right, thank you for that. Also looking at your sales initiatives, Samuel, you have not been in the company for that long, but the company itself have highlighted increased sales activity for some time, and yet the organic sales growth in Sweden remains weak.

What do you think has held back the impact of earlier initiatives, and why should we think now that the new actions will be working to a greater extent than before, better extent than before?

Yeah. Good question, Emanuel.

Just to start question if they have paid off well or not, it has been a very challenging market for Alligo over time, I think there's plenty of good things that has been done to, to say, remain relevant and active on the market that has been there. Of course you can always add a twist and flavor, and again there is a both positive and to a certain extent kind of challenging, we have a very very broad opportunity base across so many types of customer, many customers, and also serving them with many various products.

What we will develop a bit more then is our approach on how we are addressing them with that big sales organization and store network so that we are even stronger in relevance towards each and every type of segment. That is a bit of a new approach to us, and we will also add a layer of steering on that, which is a bit more robust than what it has been in the past.

I would say adding some yeah flavors in terms of steering and approach that is a bit different from the past, and we strongly believe that this will help us to get even more efficiency out of our sales organization.

All right, thank you for that. Have you seen any early indication of positive development from these actions or activities already now in the fourth quarter?

Yes. If I would comment on the third quarter, and definitely as we have applied a bit different pricing structures on some areas, we talked about those initiatives, but also then a few concepts relating to customer offering, the uptake has been positively received both in our own sales organization as the start, which is important, but then towards the customer base.

We definitely see early positive uptake on those items, but I would say we are early in a mid-long journey, to say. Let's continue to progress on those things and adapt of course if we see anything else, but currently yes, positive.

Right, that's good to hear. When we're talking about pricing, you mentioned growth in lower-margin segments and ongoing price discussions with larger customers.

Is it possible to quantify or how much of the margin pressure in this quarter is due to mix versus pricing with existing contracts, you would say?

I'm looking a bit at Irene here. I will not be able to quantify that specifically, that's a big question and of course important one.

Definitely if you look on the totality, we all know that the store concept in Sweden is by far the most kind of profitable concept that we have. Then we also talk a lot about own brands, and those two together is what's driving profit.

Unfortunately in the quarter then, clothes sales was a bit slightly weaker than normal, and we think that relates to the weather, and also we have some IT incidents affecting clothing sales most. That's probably the impact.

Then yes, we are addressing the bigger customers where typically volume flows are bigger, but margins is slightly lower, with active price discussions then to make sure that we stay relevant.

Right, thank you for that. Maybe a question for Irene here, but depreciation, amortization, and impairment charges fell around 20 million year-over-year.

What explains the decline, and what run rate should we assume going forward here?

It's a little bit down, but I think the level that we have on a rolling 12-month basis is the run rate going forward.

All right, thank you. Maybe a last question on my side from Finland, very positive development there, and you describe the broad recovery in Finland.

Alongside benefits from pricing and efficiency measures, is the current margin a sustainable base to build from, you think, or how should we view that 6% EBITA margin?

Ja, if we look mid term ahead, and even half long term almost, we think this is a sustainable margin level in Finland. There is a strong uptake with quite a broad customer base.

As long of course as the market develops in a nice way, and it all goes well, this should be a sustainable level. That's not to say we need to work more, of course there is always more opportunities to capture and to grow, but we're quite comfortable with the level we are at now.

Perfect. I think that was all my questions for now, thank you very much, Samuel and Irene.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Emanuel.

Yes, guess I'll probably say still good morning, but getting close to good midday, Samuel and Irene. Lots of good colors already.

Maybe a little more on Norway and the initiatives you are now driving there. If I remember correctly, the oil and gas project-related headwinds that you now have seen for a couple of quarters was really starting in Q4 last year.

Is that a right interpretation that we are getting into maybe also slightly easier comparisons coming into Q4?

That's correct.

When you look at the initiatives, you alluded to Irene that you hopefully full impact of it from year-end, but have you already started to see a ramp-up of it?

It has started slightly to to ramp up, but we expect the full impact from from year from year-end.

It's been a gradual effort, you could say, for some time that we have pushed further in Q3. There are gradual effects, but it, yeah, also takes some time to get the cost base in new shape.

Yeah.

Continuing on the earlier question on your market share in Sweden, how would you interpret the different developments in Norway and Finland in the same context on your relative position in the market?

You mean the question if we losing market share or where we are basically on market share?

Exactly. Yeah.

Finland, I would say obviously we are taking market shares. That just has to be the case.

I think there is an underlying growth in the market, but growing with 12% is of course beyond market, so that's super positive. We're well positioned there with some core players, which is great.

Norway is more difficult for us to interpret right now, various signs of how the market is developing, what's happening. If we look across the base, okay, the base, oil and gas is very easy to understand, and we see the project facing out.

It's a natural kind of happening when you've had those projects. Then if you look across the base and across the geography, the development is quite the same across.

It goes independent of what customer segments you're in or a little bit where you are in the country. For us, that's of course another interpretation of that it's a market-related issue, which is also what we believe.

A bit of a mixed picture, I think we need to come back on that when we see how the development progresses.

That's fair. Irene, just on the gross margin development, understand there's always a lot of things moving in your mixes in the company.

When you start to look now at the big swings we have in the currency, I guess this year you should still see quite a substantial positive impact on purchasing, whereas it might turn more, say, normalized or negative going into next year. How do you see that playing out?

That's true. We still have a positive impact from US dollars, and we expect to have that also in Q4.

That positive impact was offset by this negative customer mix effects in each country. On top of that, the negative country mix since the sales are weaker in Sweden and we grow in Finland, where the gross margins are significantly lower compared to the Swedish business.

If I interpret that right, you're still seeing in some verticals or most verticals and a positive impact on the currency coming through, but then, say, the big swings in the mix is then diluting that on group level, so?

Exactly.

Excellent. On that, I've seen that you normally have your Swedol Days during October, and I guess we're at least halfway through those events.

What kind of client feedback do you get, and what kind of store traffic do you get out of those events in, say, a little longer comparison?

Swedol Days is always a fantastic event for us and our customers. Some started late September, as you say, and then evolving through October.

What we can say I guess is that high customer traffic, definitely relevant and appreciated, and that goes across. This is an event where people want to go to, so that is definitely on a good level.

Then it's interesting to see, we don't normally maybe talk so much about weather, but if you look on the early Swedol Days which took place in September, in Q3, obviously people were more looking into shorts and t-shirts than looking into winter clothes. Then you can understand that naturally as the weather goes more in a normal way, which is quite cold, that impacts also the assortment and the volumes of things that we can sell in general, but also on Swedol Days as we move into October.

We see that has developed nicely in the way we want, even if of course that's more things we're going to talk even more about when we present our fourth quarter.

Looking forward to that. Now I know you mentioned, Samuel, that you now have a couple of product lines where you might have a little more of a cyclical exposure like the welding equipment.

What kind of demand development do you see in the things that should be a leading indicator maybe in your product ranges?

It's interesting with welding. You could slice that in two different areas more or less.

You have direct material in welding that goes into manufacturing processes, of course, wherever welding is applied. There you can measure, you can see then industry-level activity quite nicely, how much direct material are they buying.

Then of course we have all the type of equipment and the machines, etc., and the accessories, which is more of it, yeah, that you buy at need, to say. It doesn't directly link so much with industrial activity.

On the direct material side for Q3, we see a quite flattish development. We're trying really to understand this well.

We don't say that we're losing market share, definitely not. Of course we also see signs and hear that manufacturing and some industrial activities are now increasing, but on the welding side and orders of direct material, that is quite flat to last year, which is an indicator as well on the market as a whole.

Interesting. Maybe racing the view a little, you talked about this strategic refinement towards 2030.

Maybe a little more color on that and how you see it tying in to what you feel that you need to do to maybe tie it in with the financial targets and getting to those levels.

The base of that strategic review is of course to achieve our financial targets and do that more or less if you say independently of the market or on this market. Owning our own way forward, our story, and our way to develop so that we deliver what we have set to ourselves that we're going to do.

Then if the market comes on top, that's fantastic, but the whole idea here is that we're going to create plans and activities and a way to achieve those as is, to say, from a market perspective. That's one entry into it.

Second entry is of course a lot of customer dialogue, feedback, etc., knowing exactly of our position and relevance and how we can strengthen that even further. Then thirdly of course building on our strengths and this platform that we like to talk about where we have now so much commonality across the group that we can really learn from ourselves, to say, and we can utilize and get good strong scale effects out from that platform.

Those are entry values, and then the question to ourselves is that how do we now, to say, build ourselves for the future in all aspects so that we are super relevant with our customer? To give some flavors to it, maybe the omnichannel experience.

The store concept will always be very dominant in a way that that's how we interact, meet, and build relationships with our customers, but it's important of course that we also follow them across the channels as the channel kind of mix develops. That's going to be a flavor.

We talked about sales steering, we talked about this really broad customer base and all the opportunities it comes with, we want to tailor ourselves a bit more so that we are super relevant in addressing the right segments and all the segments, of course, efficiently. Then we can talk about services and many other things.

It's early in the making, but we are reviewing ourselves from these aspects and setting the plan for how to evolve in the coming years.

Excellent. Thank you very much, and all the best out there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, Samuel and Irene. I was thrown out of the call a couple of times, you'll have to excuse me if I'm repeating some of the questions here, but I'll try to keep it short.

No worries.

Starting off with Sweden then, we saw the Swedish building material index pointing to a clear pickup in Q2, yet we saw a negative organic development of course in the segment here in Q3. How much of that would you ascribe to weather and timing, and how much would it be that your end markets perhaps are lagging somewhat the recovery here?

Of course it's great, the basic is great that construction activities are increasing in Sweden overall. That's a very positive thing for all of us and also for Alligo as a whole.

Then of course one can discuss the kind of cyclicality and when those activities now start to accelerate a little bit, kind of what's the timing effect on a company like us, and make sure of course that we also then take benefit from that positive development. We will make sure that we definitely do that.

We don't really see it yet in the numbers in Sweden, but we are also very confident that we are not losing market share. Then of course we unfortunately then in a way had that minor IT incident, which caused us a little bit and a little bit of seasonality effects, of course, that dampening a bit also the outcome in September of maybe, yeah, that growth that is presumably there in the market, at least then on the materials market.

All right. That's helpful.

Can you say something regarding how October has started now? Do you think we will see a return to organic growth already now in Q4?

As we said before, we've had a few quarters of organic growth in the company, and of course that's both for our plan and ambition and target that that trend is going to develop and continue. We had a little bit a glitch here in Q3.

Too early of course to say anything about Q4, but definitely in the long perspective, we are here to grow, and we will do everything we can to stay and increase our relevance and make sure that we are a growing company. Right,

yeah. You also mentioned in the report that the cost base in Sweden should be adapted further.

Can you give some examples of any particular measures here, and perhaps quantify it a bit as well?

Of course, continuously, as you said, we always need to review ourselves from a cost perspective, especially when you have this type of decentralized or local store network. Even if the totality maybe only goes a few percentage up or down or whatever, but on a local market, you can go quite heavily up or down.

This is a natural process that we do all the time, and we look on the staffing levels basically and how it evolves. Of course we will make, to say, extra reviews of that to really make sure that we have the right and relevant staffing across, and that also goes for well the whole company and group functions.

A bit too early to say the exact effect. Again we have been growing for some quarters in Sweden, and we also did a quite big cost takeout in Sweden about a year ago.

We are on a quite slim level, it's not going to be a massive effect even if we now for one quarter had a bit negative development. Again, we are reviewing it and will make sure that we are correctly staffed, slim and correctly staffed all across.

All right, yeah, understood. Perhaps a final one for me then on the Örebro expansion: could you perhaps quantify the capex figure here for '27?

I assume mostly in '27, but also '28 then?

The expansion in Örebro will naturally affect capex in 2027, but part of the investment will be covered within normal capex level, but of course it will be slightly above the current 12-month running level, to say.

All right, great. That's it for me.

Thanks. Thank you for taking my questions.

Thank you, Albin. Thank you.

Let's see. We're just now reviewing webcast questions.

Oh, I get a question here relating to Norway and the correlation between the activity in Alligo's oil and gas business if there is a correlation with the oil price as such, and what are the drivers in that specific market. A good question.

It's always when we hear about oil and gas now in the world, we think that that just have to be a great business, and I guess in many aspects it is. Oil and gas business should be split in what's operational, the manufacturing plant in itself and how much on what level they operate, which I of course assume and which we all know is on a very high level.

Then the other part of it, it's investment-based, so that you're building out capabilities and capacity, and that goes more in projects, and it can be very kind of intense in those projects, and then of course when they are completed, it goes down. I would say I guess the oil price, now I'm almost speculating a bit, but the oil price of course is driving high activity level in the Norwegian oil and gas sector if you look on production, definitely, and there we see a stable and high level.

It has been that for many years now. Then the project business that was driven by subsidies put out by the Norwegian government some three years ago, four years ago, whatever it was, and a lot of projects has been built based on those subsidies, and many of those projects are now completed.

There are discussions in Norway to, to say, continue with that program and offer even more subsidies to continue build-out of their capabilities, but for now it's a quite low activity actually in building more oil and gas capacity in Norway. I think that that's how we can answer that question.

Then I don't think we have more questions for now. No?

Okay. Then I believe that's it.

Then we thank you all for participating and listening in and asking questions, and look forward to see you again in a few months' time when we present our Q4 and full-year report. Until then, have a great great day and afternoon.