Operator
Welcome to Midsona Q3 report 2026 presentation. During the Q&A session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key 5 on their telephone keypad.
Now, I will hand the conference over to the speakers, President and CEO Henrik Hjalmarsson and CFO Niclas Lundin. Please go ahead.
Henrik Hjalmarsson
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the presentation of Midsona's third quarter 2026. My name is Henrik Hjalmarsson, I'm the President and CEO, and with me I have Niclas Lundin, CFO.
We'll spend the coming 20 minutes or so going through an overview of the quarter as well as a deep dive into the financials by Niclas, after which there will be plenty of time for questions. For those of you who are new to us, just a quick introduction to Midsona.
We're a European natural and healthy food group. We are positioned in categories with clearly structurally growing demand, driven by health and sustainability trends.
We combine a strong local brand platform with a scalable group of European brands, and we have a vision to become a leading European player within natural and healthy foods. We've got sales of roughly SEK 3.6 billion the last 12 months with a 4.3% EBIT margin, roughly 700 employees in 7 European countries and 50 own brands.
Starting then with a summary of the third quarter, and I thought we'd use the boxes here on the right-hand side to go through the overview of the quarter. Total sales grew by 1.7% in the quarter, driven then largely by the acquisition of Risenta in Sweden that we completed earlier in the year.
Total organic growth, however, was a negative 3.7%, driven mainly by a sales decline in contract manufacturing, where we're consistently optimizing for improved profitability, but also partially by own consumer brands, which declined by 0.2% organically, then mainly driven by the development in Division North. I'll come back to that.
If we continue right, EBIT margin was stable year-over-year, leading to an EBIT growth of SEK 1 million to 46 million. That was fueled by gross margin expansion by 0.3 percentage points to 29%, which in turn that was driven by better mix, however with a slightly negative net price/cost arbitrage, which I'll also come back to in a little bit.
The EBIT was also negatively impacted by increased investments in marketing and a one-off credit loss in the Nordics. The investments in marketing, however, is clearly in line with our strategy to fuel our brands for continued profitable growth.
Finally then, cash flows continue to improve to 75—oh sorry, SEK 57 million, an improvement by 9 million year-over-year, which then led us to a net debt to adjusted EBITDA of 1, a considerable improvement versus the same time last year. If we look then briefly at the year-to-date numbers, the first 3 quarters of the year, we've seen continued strength in the profitability and growth in our own consumer brands.
Net sales has a 2.1% decline year-to-date organically. However, again, driven mainly by contract manufacturing, partially linked to the fire in Spain that we had during last year, but also continuously optimizing our contract manufacturing business to drive margin.
However, that's been mitigated by growth in our own consumer brands, which have grown by 0.7% organically so far in the year. If we look on the profit side, EBIT has strengthened considerably first 9 months by SEK 25 million to 111 million, which corresponds to an EBIT margin growth of 0.9 percentage points to 4.1%.
That, again, driven by gross margin expansion, which is driven mainly by mix, partially then the growth in own consumer brands and a decline in contract manufacturing, but also through improved overhead efficiency, partially linked to the cost savings program that we launched at the back end of last year, although we also seen in the first 9 months have increased investments in marketing, which then has a slight negative impact on our EBIT short-term, but is very good and in line with our strategy for the longer term. Cash flow also first 9 months, clear improvement versus last year, and, again, leaves us in a very good position in terms of our balance sheet.
Looking then briefly at the development in the different divisions in the third quarter. Starting with the Nordics, where we saw an organic sales growth of -3%.
However, own consumer brands growing positively at 1.9%, and negative organic sales growth, largely driven by declining contract manufacturing. Gross margin slightly down by 0.1 percentage points, temporarily pressured by rising prices for transport and packaging, which is yet to be recovered in prices to customer and consumer.
Then hence, a slightly reduced EBIT margin, partially then linked to the gross margin, but also with increased investments in marketing and the one-off credit loss that we saw in the Nordics, however, partly mitigated by overhead cost savings linked to the cost savings program. Looking then at Division North, where we had a tough quarter in the third quarter with weak sales, an organic change of -10.3%, driven largely by own consumer brands, but also on B2B brands, which have lost some of the transition momentum.
Gross margin saw a decline, mainly then driven by a negative mix move, as we had a more negative sales development for own consumer brands than we did for contract manufacturing, and a consequential EBIT margin decline, mainly then related to a lower fixed cost coverage or a negative operational leverage development, as we saw a sales decline in the quarter. Lastly then, Division South, with a more positive development, continuing the year-over-year profit improvements with organic sales increasing by 10.2%, largely driven by licensed brands, but also some of the own brands developing strongly and more profitable contract manufacturing in France.
Own consumer brands, in total, came in flat year-over-year. However, it's fueled by continued strong growth in French grocery trade, while we have some more challenges in the French health food stores business, and a materially improved gross margin driven then by continued efficiency improvements, but also improved sales mix.
Looking instead at it sort of from a portfolio perspective by category, starting with the organic products, where we had a total organic sales development of -2%. However, we did see growth in our own consumer brands, where the marketing and innovation initiatives and the investments we're doing in our brands is paying off for several brands with strong organic growth.
I'll come back to one such example in a little bit. However, also with some challenges, particularly in Division North, but we should also recognize that the unusually hot summer in Continental Europe has impacted the total category negatively with actually total industry-wide negative growth numbers in at least the first half of the quarter, as consumer habits have been impacted by the heat wave.
The brand growth is still not enough to compensate for contract manufacturing development. We're partially impacted then by the fire in Spain, but also the previously alluded to optimization for profit.
Looking at health foods, we saw an organic growth at -7%, which is driven by the optimization of contract manufacturing. On the branded side, we saw a mixed picture with several brands performing well, such as Friggs, I'll come back to that, while some brands face challenges, and we've seen the Risenta brand off to a strong start as a fairly new part to the group and contributing then to structural growth.
Lastly then, on the consumer health side, an organic sales growth of -3% with some key brands lagging behind on growth plans that requires additional focus to drive implementation of the strategy and the growth trajectory. Again, I'll come back to that.
Some brands being negatively impacted on a top-line perspective by a conscious optimization for profit. Just want to make one example of the initiatives we're doing on the consumer health side, gathering our strong consumer health proposition with our strongest brand, Friggs, bringing supplements to the masses.
Launching a new range, and this is just a few examples of mass-market-focused relatable products, very much in line with the popular and growing niches. Focusing on very popular, highly growing products like, for example, creatine, but in a very approachable format, chewable tablets, and under the mainstream and very approachable brand, Friggs.
Launching this into the grocery trade, getting access to the mass market, with a very positive initial receipt, both from customers and from consumers. We are excited by the opportunities that this launch starts to open up, bringing trendy products into a more approachable and mass-market format.
Also thought I'd relate back to the point I made about the strong growth that we see in parts of the organic portfolio, where we're doing a very good job leveraging our strong local positions. The Helios brand in Norway is a good example, where we've over the past 2 years achieved strong growth in combination with increased profitability, thanks to successfully leveraging clean eating interest and trends with agile and innovation and marketing plans and very disciplined omnichannel execution.
Really proving that the logic and structure of the strategy is right, and when successfully implemented, drives strong results. I'm also pleased to see that whilst we're pleased with the profit improvement of SEK 1 million in the quarter, and we're pleased with the strengthened cash flows, underlyingly, we're not happy with the total progress we're making in the quarter, and we think that our ambitions are considerably higher than the growth that we achieved in the quarter.
Structurally, we're still happy to see that we are, in a longer-term perspective, making clear progress towards our targets with a material improvement on both the organic growth of our own consumer brands, our EBIT margin, as well as our leverage over the past couple of years. With that said, a few points on our short-term priorities to continue that trajectory and accelerate it even further.
Most obviously, looking at turning around the development in the Division North after a tough quarter. Accelerating improvement, focusing with a focused revamp of our brand proposition, as well as a cost overlook to continue to optimize the business.
We are working on accelerating the strategy implementation on the consumer health portfolio, and mentioned one example of this just a little while ago, but we see a material improvement to accelerate the growth in this category with a strong starting point that we have. Then lastly, make sure that we maintain the positive momentum on several brands.
Again, I mentioned one of those, Helios, just recently, but we have several strong brands in the organic and health food portfolio where we also have a positive development that we want to continue to accelerate. With that, I'm going to hand over to Niclas, who's going to take us through the details of the financials.
Niclas Lundin
Thank you, Henrik. Let me start with a financial summary for the quarter.
Net sales were up by SEK 15 million, including Risenta impact of 40 million. Adjusting for currency impact, totally organic growth came in at -3.7%.
In line with Henrik's earlier comments, total gross margin improved by 0.3 percentage points, mainly from improved sales mix, with a gradual and deliberate shift from sales of lower-profit contract manufacturing to higher-profit own consumer brands. In consequence, EBIT improved by SEK 1 million with an unchanged EBIT margin of 5.0%.
Apart from the increased gross margin, we saw a clear positive impact on EBIT from the cost reduction program initiated in 2025. This was, however, partly offset by increased sales and marketing initiatives, as well as a larger bad debt provision in Norway.
The financial net continued to improve versus last year, this quarter with 9 million to +SEK 2 million, which during this quarter mainly was driven by positive FX effects. We also see the longer-term positive impact from more favorable conditions in the new financing agreement as well as lower indebtedness.
Net result landed on SEK 39 million, taking net IAC of +SEK 1 million into consideration. IAC during the quarter was mainly made up by received insurance compensation related to business interruption insurance in Spain, +SEK 7 million, and costs related to a fraud incident, -SEK 5 million.
This incident has led to a further reinforcement of the internal control environment, and we hope that most of the loss will be covered by the group's insurance. This is, however, not yet reflected in the accounts.
Cash flow from operating activities came in at SEK 57 million, which was an improvement of 9 million versus last year. About 1/3 of the improvement was related to the P&L, and 2/3 were related to changes in working capital.
The quarter ended with a leverage of 1.0 times, a substantial improvement versus last year, where we stood at 1.6. Now moving over to the sales development for the quarter.
As already mentioned, net sales increased by SEK 15 million, equivalent to 1.7%. Structural growth from Risenta contributed SEK 40 million, and FX effects an additional SEK 8 million.
In consequence, the organic sales development was negative with -SEK 33 million, equivalent to -3.7%. It's worth noting that 90% of the organic sales decline is referable to contract manufacturing and business-to-business sales.
That is parts of our business where we have taken a strategic decision to phase out and gradually replace contracts with low profitability. This development for contract manufacturing and business-to-business is also visible in the graph on the right, where we see a double-digit organic decline for both contract manufacturing and business-to-business.
Our contract manufacturing business showed a decline in Division Nordics and Division North, respectively, mainly related to the discontinued low-profit contracts. In Division South, contract manufacturing sales increased, mainly related to new and more profitable contracts in France.
The B2B branded business in Germany is still under transition to focus on profit over volumes. In Q3, we saw a positive effect on margin, however, volumes of new, more profitable contracts were not enough to compensate for the replaced old contracts.
The licensed business declined by 2.2%, mainly referable to certain consumer health brands in the Nordics offering seasonal products. To round off net sales analysis, our own consumer brands came in with a slightly negative organic growth of -0.2% for the quarter.
Besides a few exceptions, in particular related to Division North, we generally see good sales development for our larger, prioritized brands. Most of them within our organic product range, but there is also good progress for our largest brand, Friggs, within the health food category.
In line with what Henrik previously touched upon, on a rolling 12-month basis, organic growth of our own consumer brands portfolio has improved by 3.7 percentage points versus Q3 last year. Let's head over to the quarterly EBIT development compared to last year.
Higher volumes and improved gross margin jointly resulted in SEK 4 million more gross profit. This improvement, including impact of Risenta and FX-adjusted, was mainly driven by a favorable sales mix.
Sales, marketing, and administration expenses increased by SEK 7 million net, also including Risenta impact. We now see the full effect of our cost reduction program for 2025.
This positive impact was, however, largely offset by increased investments in direct sales and marketing activities to facilitate future profitable growth. OPEX in Q3 were also negatively impacted by a bad debt provision of SEK 3 million related to a customer in Norway going into reconstruction.
The majority of other income of SEK 2 million came from sale of equipment, and the FX effect from translation or revaluation was SEK 2 million compared to last year. To conclude, EBIT landed on SEK 46 million, which was an improvement by 1 million with an unchanged EBIT margin of 5.0%.
On the right-hand side table, we illustrate the quarterly and the rolling 12 EBIT development during the last 2 years. It's encouraging to see the gradual improvement with rolling 12 EBIT increasing to SEK 158 million this quarter-end, which is 36 million higher than by the end of September last year.
Consequently, rolling 12 EBIT margin has improved from 3.3% to 4.3%. Let's continue to the quarterly cash flow.
In Q3, we saw a continued buildup of inventory, partly seasonal, however, on a substantially lower level than in Q2 and much in line with Q3 last year. Receivables increased during the quarter, in part due to higher sales volumes and following the same seasonal pattern as in 2025.
This negative working capital impact was partly offset by an increase in payables, in part related to renegotiated and improved supplier credit terms. To summarize, the operating cash flow landed at SEK 57 million, an improvement by 9 million versus last year.
As previously mentioned, about 1/3 of the improvement was related to the P&L, and 2/3 were related to changes in working capital. The right-hand side illustrates the cash flow trend, displaying an increase of rolling 12 operating cash flow by SEK 68 million compared to Q3 '25, up to SEK 254 million.
We're approaching the end of the financial review, summarizing our cash and debt situation. The quarter ended with SEK 789 million in available cash, an increase of 44 million versus last quarter and +SEK 133 million versus Q3 last year.
Available cash now represents 22% of the last 12 months sales, which is a very healthy level. Finally, let's look at the net debt situation.
In Q3, IFRS 16-related debt was increased by some SEK 30 million related to new rental contracts, taking IFRS 16-related net debt to SEK 132 million. Despite this increase, total net debt decreased by SEK 16 million to 301 million during the quarter.
This means a continued historically low net debt in relation to adjusted EBITDA, including Risenta pro forma effect, of 1.0 times and equivalent to 0.7 times excluding IFRS 16 effects. The current leverage is well within our financial target, establishing our strong financial position going forward.
That rounds off the financial review, and back to you, Henrik.
Henrik Hjalmarsson
Yes. Thank you very much.
With that, we will open up for questions. Over to you, operator.
Operator
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 6 on your telephone keypad.
The next question comes from Alice Beer from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.
Alice Beer
Hi, Henrik and Niclas. Thank you for the presentation.
Can you hear me?
Henrik Hjalmarsson
Yes.
Niclas Lundin
Yes. Hi, Alice.
Alice Beer
Great. Starting off, you've said that packaging and transport costs are rising, and that raw materials could follow this autumn.
How much of the price increases you need have been accepted by retailers, and how long a lag should we expect before prices catching up?
Henrik Hjalmarsson
Hi, Alice. Good question.
That varies a bit by geography, in all fairness, and most of those negotiations or discussions are actually ongoing right now. If we look at the situation as it stands now, we remain, let's say, fairly optimistic to get coverage for what we see so far.
However, we should recognize that given the unusually hot summer and given the geopolitical situation, there is a risk that we will see more inflation coming through as the full impact on harvests after sort of this now we're in the harvest period still is seen. Far, we're quite optimistic in getting through what we see to protect the margins, but partially that remains to be seen as we see the impacts on the rest of the harvests.
Alice Beer
Okay. Great.
Thank you for the clarity. Moving on then to contract manufacturing in the Nordics, how much of this low-margin volume has led to exits, and how much of the fixed costs in the product facilities can you adjust, and when?
Henrik Hjalmarsson
Yeah. I think there is less and less to do.
That has been sort of a conscious strategy over the past year or so to both do the thorough analysis and also the optimization of the portfolio. There might be some small parts still to optimize, but less so than what we've seen here in the past couple of quarters.
We have done some good fixed cost optimization. In all fairness, we have also have to recognize that even from a fixed cost coverage perspective, some of the contracts we've exited were questionable in terms of their marginal contribution.
What I'll add is there is an important piece of the puzzle here. This relates particularly to one manufacturing site in the Nordics, and that is also the manufacturing site where we are moving in the Risenta production.
The Risenta production insourcing is part of the solution and the optimization of this puzzle. Basically, very simply put, we're exiting low-margin contract manufacturing business to give room for production of own consumer brand in the shape of Risenta.
Alice Beer
Great. Thank you.
You've talked about more transformative alternatives for Spain. Is a divestment being actively marketed, and what's the book value and run-rate loss attached to the Spanish operation?
Henrik Hjalmarsson
No. A marketing of the business is not actively pursued.
When we talk about more longer-term transformative alternatives, I think, here and now, we're very committed to drive the business into profitable growth and positive cash flows. Longer-term, actually, the fullest, broad spectra of alternatives are available in terms of upping the investment levels further to accelerate the growth.
The vast majority of what we manufacture and market in Spain is tofu and tempeh, and that is a category, on a European basis, that's growing very rapidly. There could also be all the way to parts divestment alternatives.
There's nothing actively marketed at this point. I think the second question, we can't really answer off the top of our head, we'll have to come back separately on that.
Alice Beer
Okay. Fair.
Moving on to the brand portfolio review, how many of the tail brands are candidates? What share of sales do they represent, and is there any impairment risks that sits on the brand intangibles?
Henrik Hjalmarsson
I think that it's a bit too early to give a quantified response to your question. We are in a very structural, sort of shareholder value generation or capital allocation optimization perspective, reviewing the full breadth of the business.
There are some potential tail brands that might be, how should I say, easier to execute from that perspective, but they will not have material impact, at least in the short-term. They will have longer-term positive impact on our profitability, otherwise we wouldn't take action, but they won't have material short-term impact, neither on the balance sheet nor on the income statement, I would say.
That perspective might change as we deepen the analysis, and then we'll have to come back to that during the next quarter.
Alice Beer
Great. Then marketing spend is flagged as a margin drag again.
What's the sequential increase, and when do you expect the volume payback?
Henrik Hjalmarsson
The sequential increase here in percent is, I would say, material if you look at the percent of marketing spend. In percent in terms of margin impact is not that material.
We're talking about actually, well, less than 0.1 percentage points in total in the quarter, it is impacting margin, but not that material in the quarter. We do expect to establish a new level.
It has gradually increased a bit, and we expect it to continue to gradually increase a little bit more before we believe that we reach a level where it's sort of sustainably driving profitable growth for our brands. It's not like we're expecting a doubling from the current level or anything like that.
We expect another marginal increase and could be of the order of saying upwards of another 0.1 percentage points or so, or maybe even a bit more than that, yeah. A bit more than that.
Probably another 1/2 percent maybe or something like that we'd expect to see.
Alice Beer
Okay. Just a final question for me.
Q4 is seasonally the largest quarter, but Christmas volumes are being rationalized. What's the expected revenue impact of that in Q4 2026 versus Q4 2025?
Henrik Hjalmarsson
Specifically the Christmas volumes, we don't expect material impact versus we saw last year. We did see an impact last year, we're not expecting to see that material further impact this year.
Then obviously, I think in terms of the turning around that question, and if you look at the trajectory, specifically then on sort of the own brand development, we expect to maintain and accelerate the momentum on the brands that have a good position. The key answer to your question in terms of assessing the outcome will be how quickly we can stabilize and then turn around the development, particularly for Division North, then on the sales side.
We don't expect a material year-over-year impact on the Christmas volume side versus last year.
Alice Beer
Okay. I understand that this might just to follow up be hard to answer, but how quickly can you do that?
What's the sort of base case? Are we talking, is it possible to see that effect in a quarter, or should we think more like a year?
Henrik Hjalmarsson
I think we can see if you start from the bottom, we can see quite quick. This was new news, obviously, that we did lose some listings in one mainstream retail operator that was quite important to us in the business here in the third quarter.
We, if we start from the bottom, we can quite quickly start to adapt the cost base and take action to stabilize and improve the profit development. Then we can also do what I would call tactical commercial initiatives on both the own brand side, but also on the contract manufacturing side.
That will stabilize the development. To get a full, strong momentum swing is something that will take quarters rather than months.
Alice Beer
Okay. Great.
Thank you. That was all for me.
To confirm,
Henrik Hjalmarsson
there is a lot to be done sort of from the bottom up of the P&L, if you will, to compensate and mitigate for the development, even before the full impact of that will kick in.
Alice Beer
Great. Perfect.
Henrik Hjalmarsson
Thank you.
Operator
There are no more questions at this time. I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Henrik Hjalmarsson
Okay. Thank you very much everybody for listening in.
We thereby, we close this conference. Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Niclas Lundin
Bye-bye.
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