Dustin Group AB

Dustin Group AB

1.64
SEK
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2.45BMarket Cap
Jan 13Next Earn

Q4 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptOctober 14, 2026

Operator

Welcome to the Dustin Q4 presentation for 2025/2026. During the questions and answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key five on their telephone keypad.

Now, I will hand the conference over to the CEO Samuel Skott and CFO Julia Lagerqvist. Please begin your meeting.

Samuel Skott

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Dustin's presentation of our fourth quarter and full year results.

As you heard, I'm joined today by our CFO, Julia Lagerqvist, and together we will take you through the highlights of the quarter before opening up for questions. I'm pleased to report improved profitability in the fourth quarter, where we saw the full effect of the efficiency measures implemented earlier in the year, while we continued to sharpen our commercial focus.

Net sales declined in the quarter with organic growth of -5%. The development mainly reflects orders brought forward earlier in the year in the second and third quarters, particularly within the public sector.

On the other hand, we, for first time in very many quarters, saw a growth in the SMB segment. In total, the organic growth, adjusted for the discontinued consumer business, was -3%.

The gross margin increased to 13.2% compared to 12.7% last year. This higher margin is mainly explained by higher price levels, continued efforts to improve profitability in our customer contract portfolio, and a more disciplined approach to new business.

Adjusted EBITA increased to 110 million compared to 83 million a year ago. The improvement was mainly driven by the stronger gross margin and a lower cost base following the efficiency measures implemented.

The adjusted EBITA margin increased to 2.3% compared with 1.6% last year. Cash flow from operating activities amounted to -204 million SEK compared to -73 million SEK last year.

If we look at leverage measured as net debt to EBITDA, it came in at 2.8 times compared to 4.1 times last year and continued to stay within our target range of two to three times. Also, the board proposes no dividend to be paid for the financial year of 25/26.

If we then go to the next slide, talking about the incident we had early in Q1. As we communicated already early in September, we then identified unauthorized access to certain internal IT systems.

We acted immediately and proactively shut down systems to contain the incident, protect our IT environment, and minimize the impact on our customers. External cybersecurity experts were engaged, and the relevant authorities were notified.

We were able to restore the order flow within a few days, followed by our websites and customer portals for order handling just a day a few days after that. Since the 10th of September, our operations have been fully restored.

The forensic investigation and data analysis are now largely completed. Some remaining work is still ongoing, but a significantly lower level of activity than during then the initial phase of the incident.

The findings from the incident will be taken into account in our ongoing work to even further strengthen our security and resilience. By this, I hand over to Julia to give you some more details on our financials.

Julia Lagerqvist

Thank you, Samuel. If we then move to page four, we will look more closely at the LCP segment, our large corporate and public customers.

The sales in LCP was 3.7 billion SEK in the quarter or -4.5% versus last year. The organic growth was -4.7%, basically, no FX effect this quarter.

The decline was, as Samuel said, mainly driven by lower sales in the public sector, where orders have been brought forward to Q2 and Q3 driven by the memory component shortages and customers wanting to secure volumes and prices. We did not see that same effect in this quarter.

On the opposite, for our corporate customers, we saw more stability. We've also made some choices to prioritize margin over volume, especially when pricing has been so volatile.

This has resulted in lower sales in, for example, Finland. On the opposite, we saw growth in Denmark and Belgium, driven by new rollouts.

We also saw growing demand within our lifecycle services offering. As said before, we can see large volatility in sales between quarters in LCP due to the large order sizes.

On the positive side, gross margin improved versus previous year, which helped offset the volume decline. The margin benefited from a more mature contract portfolio as well as higher market prices.

A slightly more selective approach to new business has also benefited the margin development. This, together with the implemented efficiency measures, helped improve the bottom line versus last year, leading to a segment result of 87 million SEK versus 80 million SEK last year.

The segment margin ended at 2.4% versus 2.1% last year. Then we move to the SMB segment on page five, where sales landed at 1.1 billion SEK or 5.7% below last year.

The organic growth was -6.1%, very little FX effect here as well. Adjusted for the exit of the B2C, however, the organic growth was +3.4%, encouraging to see growth in the B2B leg of our SMB segment again.

We see some signs of stabilization in the market, mainly in the Nordics, where the hardware and software business continued to develop positively and remains a key focus area going forward. The growth is, of course, supported by the increased pricing.

The gross margin continued at the similar solid levels as in Q3, supported by the higher market prices and continued strong price discipline. The ongoing phase-out of the non-standard services, which we discussed last quarter, which then burned profitability, is starting to deliver positive effects for the bottom line.

We also saw continued improved cost base due to our efficiency measures. All in all, this led to an improved segment result, which landed at 47 million SEK versus 34 million last year, and this corresponded to a segment margin of 4.2% versus 2.9 last year, clear improvement.

Moving then to cash flow on slide six. We see that the cash flow for the period was -291 million versus -1.2 billion last year.

Then last year was impacted by the repayment of debt after the rights issue. The cash flow from operating activities before net working capital changes was +168 million, a clear improvement versus last year and driven by the improved operational results.

On the opposite, the effect from net working capital was clearly negative, -374 million. This was driven by two main effects.

First, the normal seasonality that we see in Q4 and also that Q3 was unusually low. I will talk more about net working capital on the next slide.

Cash flow from investing activities was -40 million and mainly related to development of different IT platforms. The cash from financing activities was at normal levels and mainly linked to leasing, while last year was then impacted by the repayment of debt after the rights issue.

Even though the cash flow was negative for this quarter, it was positive for the full year. This, together with the improved results, led to that leverage landed at 2.8, a clear improvement versus last year.

It was higher than Q3 due to the increased net working capital. This was expected and is the normal trend for Dustin, given seasonality in working capital, but still in line with the target range of being between 2x to 3x for the third consecutive quarter.

Coming then to page seven, we look at networking capital. Networking capital landed at 167 million SEK, an improvement versus last year, where we were at high 477 million SEK.

Inventory dropped to just above 1 billion SEK, which was lower than both last year and Q3, and now close to the target level of 1 billion SEK. The main improvement versus last year was then on accounts receivables, driven by continued effort to settle receivables from previous periods, and also the fact that we came from high levels last year, mainly related to LCP and timing of invoicing.

As stated before, Q4 is usually weaker in terms of working capital due to the timing of large rollouts at the end of the quarter, driving higher receivables. We always have some timing effects between individual quarters, but our long-term target for networking capital remains to be around -100 million SEK.

With that, I hand back the word to Samuel.

Samuel Skott

Thank you, Julia. This is a year where we've taken several important steps to build a new and stronger Dustin.

We're now full of focus on B2B customers with the phase-out of the consumer business. We have implemented a new sales organization with clear local accountability, strengthening local market execution and customer engagement.

We continue the transition towards more standardized and scalable service offering with improved profitability through the phase-out of non-standardized services. Our organization-wide efficiency measures have been completed and are now delivering annual savings of approximately 80 million SEK, contributing to structurally lower cost base.

Through these actions and through a lot of hard work by the team, we have been during the year able to deliver organic growth, improved profitability, stronger cash flow, while also significantly strengthening our overall financial position. If we then go into the next slide and talk a little bit about the future.

Looking ahead, the market remains dynamic and, to some extent, uncertain. Continued component shortages are expected to drive further price increases and impact product availability also in 2027.

Higher prices are expected to weigh on workplace demand, while the rapid development of AI is creating new opportunities and drives demand for updated IT infrastructure. Against this backdrop, our priorities are clear.

We will continue to strengthen local market execution, being close to our customers and partners to be able to focus on the opportunities lying ahead. We will drive profitable growth in SMB, leveraging on our strong position in the Nordics, and utilize our full service offering in that segment.

We will complete the phase-out of non-standardized services to improve profitability, maintain a strong pricing discipline, and continue to drive efficiencies across the organization. At the same time, we will continue to work closely with our customers and suppliers to manage component availability and changing pricing dynamics.

Finally, we plan to host the Capital Markets Day on the 25th of January, where we look forward to providing a more detailed update on our strategy and long-term ambitions. With that, we'll open up for Q&A.

Operator

If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad.

The next question comes from Jesper Stugemo from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.

Jesper Stugemo

Yes, good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. A couple from me, and I start on this IT incident.

Given that you didn't comment on any potential sales impact for fiscal Q1 here, I guess that you have seen limited loss from this incident. Or how should we view it?

Julia Lagerqvist

Yes, that's the short version. I would say, we obviously, like Samuel said, we will have impact from the lost sales days in September when we basically were closed.

We don't view this as a material impact for the quarter.

Jesper Stugemo

Okay. You don't have any estimate that you could share with us or anything like that?

Julia Lagerqvist

No, we are still assessing the full effect of it, and we will obviously come back to it when we close the Q1. At this moment, we're not sharing any specific numbers as we're still in the middle of it.

Jesper Stugemo

I understand. That's fair.

On the volume side, then, how do you look at demand for next fiscal year, Q1? You highlighted some volume pressure given higher prices.

It appears that both IDC and some other global vendors are also expecting some double-digit decline in PC volumes for 2027. How much do you think price could compensate for top line versus volume lost?

Do you think it will be challenging to drive growth for the next year?

Samuel Skott

If I'll comment on that. Yes.

If you look at what the market consensus is, and if we look at the research houses and also the vendors, the expectation is that there will be a pressure on demand on PCs next year, but on the other hand, prices will continue to go up. The exact balance of that outcome, I think, is too early to tell.

Yes, we also expect some weigh on demand on the PC side. On the other hand, we are seeing a kind of recovery in the SMB segment.

One quarter of underlying growth is too early to say everything is great and will continue to grow, but at least it's an encouraging sign. Then, yes, we see weigh on demand on PC, but on the other hand, AI is driving increasing demand when it comes to the infrastructure part all across the hardware, software, and services.

I think it's several different things happening at the same time, which is both kind of a bit of a headwind in terms of PC demand, but also opportunities in SMB and infrastructure driven by AI.

Jesper Stugemo

Thank you. On LCP, given the somewhat lower sales from the public sector, could you just remind us how big enterprise is as a percentage of LCP?

Julia Lagerqvist

I would say it's around 1/3.

Jesper Stugemo

1/3.

Julia Lagerqvist

Of the total LCP business, yeah.

Jesper Stugemo

Yeah. Thank you.

I jump back in queue.

Operator

The next question comes from Daniel Thorsson from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.

Daniel Thorsson

Yes, thank you very much. First question on LCP.

What is the pipeline and rollout schedule for the coming quarters here? Any comments on maturity degree for the contracts as well?

Samuel Skott

In general, we don't guide about the pipeline and the future, no comment on that. Of course, we can see, as we talked about, that some contracts is a bit more mature compared to a year ago, for instance, in Belgium, and that's why we see improvements there.

Naturally, this is an area where there will be seasonality effects and swings between the quarters. I think also commenting in general, coming back to the previous question, on what do we expect, we do expect some pressure on demand on PCs.

As we saw in Q4, and something we will continue to prioritize is not only the volume, but the value side of things, where price increases are expected to continue, and where we will continue and focus driving margins through disciplined pricing and through being very very clear on what type of deals we take and don't take in terms of pricing and risk. It's not only about top line.

Daniel Thorsson

I see. Fair enough.

Linked to that, are there any larger tender frameworks or potential agreements out in the market in the coming quarters that are good to look at or that you are trying to shape anything?

Samuel Skott

There are continuously fairly large tenders out in the market, I don't see a huge difference in that compared to any other quarter or situation.

Daniel Thorsson

Perfect. Then on the gross margin here, the higher gross margin, is that potentially a result of lower proportion of PC sales in the quarter due to lower volumes or including the other explanations you already mentioned here?

Julia Lagerqvist

I would say it's mainly the other explanations. We don't see that big of a mix effect here, it's in terms of the product base.

It's again coming back to having a more mature contract portfolio on the public side, not taking some of the deals with really, really low margins. Then on the SMB side, it's pretty related to the pricing, as we talked.

Daniel Thorsson

Yeah. I see, I see.

Then a third one, I guess that's some of your inventory that was delivered or sold in this quarter was perhaps purchased earlier at potentially lower prices. What's kind of the current status of your inventory today?

Will that have a negative impact on gross margin in the coming few quarters?

Julia Lagerqvist

No, we don't guide for the future on this one. No, I don't expect any negative impact on the margin.

If I look into Q1, I would say it's still it would still rather be a positive impact.

Daniel Thorsson

I see. Just a final one on central costs, then.

You just write that there is a positive one-time effect in the quarter here. Any magnitude or is it just a few million SEK?

Julia Lagerqvist

It's just a few million SEK. It's more to indicate that this is not sort of the going level I would have put in my model going forward, but we've had some positive corrections partly related to bonus accruals at the end of the year, basically.

Daniel Thorsson

Perfect. Thank you very much.

Julia Lagerqvist

You're welcome.

Operator

The next question comes from Thomas Nilsson from Nordea. Please go ahead.

Thomas Nilsson

Thank you for taking my question. When it comes to Benelux, where would you say Benelux still lags the Nordic operationally?

What milestones should we watch over the next 12 months to see if the new regional organizations is leading to improvements here?

Samuel Skott

I wouldn't say it lacks anything operationally in that sense. The starting point in the business models are different.

If we look at the Nordics, we have a much higher weight on SMB because that's where we came from, whereas in Benelux, it's more a large enterprise and public entity. It's kind of different business dynamics and different starting points.

If we take Belgium, we can already see that we are growing and we are growing with better margins because of the contract maturity, and that's something we expect to continue. In the Netherlands, we're still, it is still a challenging market, highly competitive, high price pressure.

There, as we talked about, we fairly recently launched a new, locally-focused organization. We also now have a strong local leader in place.

We will work with that setup now to make sure that we improve day by day. Some improvements, especially on the net working capital and cash flow, has already been made, as we've been able to see during the year.

I think from an operations standpoint, we're fairly stable. Now it's much more about the go-to-market, the trust with the customers, getting that momentum going for the future.

Thomas Nilsson

Thank you. A final question from me.

The SMB recovery, is the SMB recovery driven more by active customer, more active customers, higher spending for customer, or price increases? Are you seeing any previously inactive customers return?

Samuel Skott

I would say we see all of the things you mentioned. Of course, given the price increases we've seen, that is the main driver, but we also see volume increase in SMB, it's not only price increase.

Thomas Nilsson

Okay. Thank you very much.

Samuel Skott

Thank you.

Operator

As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Martin Wahlström from SB1 Markets.

Please go ahead.

Martin Wahlström

Yes. Good morning.

Thank you for taking my question. Just to follow up on the cyber security incident, you had a few days of lost sales there.

Will there be any impact on inventory build-up or something in the next quarter related to this?

Julia Lagerqvist

No, we have not seen that. If I should add anything on the sort of cost implications, we obviously had some one-off costs when we were handling the incidents in terms of external support, etc.

That we will be taking as items affecting comparability. No impact on inventory that I can speak of.

Martin Wahlström

Yep. All right.

Got it. Then I also noted that software sales were up quite a bit here in the quarter against last year and also if we compare to earlier quarters this year.

What's driving this? Kind of does this have any margin implications?

Samuel Skott

I would say it's mainly seasonality effect, nothing larger than that.

Martin Wahlström

Yep. Yep.

Then also a follow up on the pull forward dynamic of demand. It's more of a headwind than a tailwind now, perhaps.

Could you just remind us in what regions this has been especially prominent? I guess it's in Benelux given the LCP focus there?

Samuel Skott

I think if I talk a little bit in general on the different product mix, maybe Julia can comment on what we saw in the different countries in the quarter. I think, in general, what we're seeing is that the market dynamics right now is weighing on the demand, especially in large enterprise and public in the workplace segment.

The computers and everything associated with that. On the other hand, there is an increased demand when it comes to AI infrastructure and supporting the AI journey.

This is what we expect. Then, of course, we come from a position where we have an overweight today in workplace, and we have an overweight in public and enterprise.

Yes, of course, that will be a little bit of a headwind. I think let's be honest about that.

Still, with that, there is also opportunities. We see continued price increases, and that is an opportunity.

We see the recovery opportunities in SMB, and we see the increased demand in infrastructure. I think that's what we see, and that's what to expect, and that's forming our priorities overall.

Then maybe if you want to comment on the geographies, Julia.

Julia Lagerqvist

I think look at the sales development in the Q4. It's also just a lot linked to the different market impact that we talked about, the volumes that were brought forward to previous quarters, the fact that we maybe didn't take all the deals that were on the table.

Maybe not that different market dynamics, more sort of different business management, if I would say so, in the different markets. I guess, we can say, in general terms as I said, Nordics is a bit more stable than maybe the Netherlands.

We still have very positive momentum in Belgium, which we had in the last quarters. That's also good to take with us.

Martin Wahlström

Great. Then one final question from me on the facing out of the non-standardized offering.

It is stated as a positive driver for margins and kind of if you can give any comments on the progress of this and perhaps quantify the impact you expect here going forward?

Julia Lagerqvist

It's a lot about sizing down, right, the organization. That we have implemented now.

Then going forward, it would be a ongoing decline, you would say, in this business. We haven't really guided on the size of the savings.

I wouldn't say it's not large amounts, right, for us in that sense. It's in the single-digit, I would say, impact per quarter.

Martin Wahlström

Okay.

Samuel Skott

Still progressing according to plan, and I think also we talk a lot about top line and market development, which is, of course, extremely important. I think also important to note is our focus also on the gross margin, the pricing discipline, utilizing the price increases, and making sure we do the right deals.

That's also a focus area. Then, of course, another focus area is even further down in the P&L, where we have the efficiency measures, and efficiency will continue to be a priority going forward.

Our ambition is, and what we've been able, I think, to demonstrate also in the last quarter is that, yes, the market is dynamic. It's a bit uncertain in some areas.

There are headwinds. There are opportunities.

With the focus we have, with the priorities we have, it's not only about that. It's also to be able, despite these swings, to make sure that we have a sound underlying financial situation, and that's definitely something we're looking to continue.

Martin Wahlström

Super. Thank you.

That was all the questions for me.

Operator

There are no more phone questions at this time. I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

Samuel Skott

Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for listening in.

Thank you for the question. This concludes the fourth quarter presentation and Q&A.

Wishing everyone a great day. Bye.