WS WeSports Group AB

WS WeSports Group AB

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Q1 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptMay 12, 2026

Operator

Welcome to Wesports Group Q1 call for 2026. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode.

During the questions-and-answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key 5 on their telephone keypad. Now I will hand the conference over to CEO Ted Sporre, please go ahead.

Ted Sporre

Good morning, and welcome to this Q1 release presentation for Wesports Group. We summarize Q1 '26 as another record-breaking quarter, where we take considerable steps towards our financial targets.

We deliver over 50% total net sales growth and almost 15% organic growth. We have significantly improved profitability and strongly improved cash flow, despite Q1 being a quarter where we build inventory to harvest growth in spring and summer season.

We have increased ownership share in several successful group companies and carried out key acquisitions. We meet the rest of the year not only with this high pace, but also with a net cash position and a robust Nordic base that makes us well-positioned for growth independent of macro environments.

Overall, another demonstration of the strength of our model. My name is Ted Sporre, and I'm the Group CEO.

With me today I have our CFO Tim Holmlund Meier Group COO and co-founder Niklas Hammar will also join for the Q&A. Before we dig deeper into the quarter, I will start with introducing Wesports Group, a good reminder for those who know us from before, and a good introduction for others.

Then I will give a summary of our first quarter, after which Tim will give a financial update, before I conclude with my key takeaways. We will finalize with the Q&A, which will be moderated by our operator, please follow the instructions to ask questions via the provided dial-in details.

Wesports Group is the leading Nordic specialist group in sports and leisure equipment. We own leading specialist retailers and product brands with a focus on accelerating their growth and profitability.

We have built leading market positions in the most attractive sport categories, driving a specialist model which is very different from the large sport chains. We operate in a large Nordic consumer market worth over 80 billion Swedish kronor, and on top of that, there is significant more market to capture in B2B and outside the Nordics.

The Wesports stores and brands are leading and well-recognized by customers in their respective sport, showing a few examples here on this page. We reported net sales of 3.4 billion Swedish kronor for the last 12 months with an adjusted EBITA of 206 million.

Including the full-year impact of acquisitions until the end of the period, these numbers would be around 4.15 billion and 265 million EBITA as a reference. We've been growing almost 30% on average the last years, and as a testament to our competitive culture, we have more than 200 championship medals won by employees in the group.

Our financial targets are to reach net sales of 10 billion Swedish kronor by 2031, an adjusted EBITA margin of 7% to 8% in the medium term, with a net debt of 1 to 2x in relation to the last 12 months EBITDA adjusted for leasing. To achieve this, we have a proven model that combines four areas: vertical integration with a growing share of own quality brands; we combine organic growth with a disciplined M&A strategy; and we also run a decentralized model that maintains owner mentality in each company; and while the group level is lean, we are very active in supporting business developments and systematic in keeping track of each company P&L.

As the fourth point, we leverage scale and share best practices across the group, enabling concrete synergies. Then, let's have a look at the quarter.

Overall, we deliver another record quarter in Q1. Right now, we have an incredible pace, delivering both high sales growth and an EBITA that grows even faster.

Net sales amounted to 960 million, which is an increase with 52% versus last year. We also deliver almost 15% organic growth, managing to again beat the market and take share.

Keeping in mind that we grew almost 50% in the comparable quarter of Q1 last year, this is nothing less than a great achievement by the full team. Looking at drivers, the cold winter drove good demand for skiing specialists Tolder Sport, Bromma Skidsport, and Uddéns, who managed to turn this into significant growth through great planning and resource management.

The cold winter, however, implied less demand for bike companies during January and February, but as this shifted in March, we managed to deliver strong growth here, and also, for instance, in running, finishing off the last part of the quarter with a good start to the spring season. This illustrates the strength of our diversification across different sports and companies, regardless of the season.

We continue to grow profit more than sales. Adjusted EBITA, which by the way comes with zero adjustments this quarter, increased significantly to 38 million, corresponding to an adjusted EBITA margin of 4%.

Adjusted gross margin improved to 35.6% versus 34.2% last year. The margin increase here was driven by, for instance, an increased share of own and controlled brands, which are now at 27% of group sales for the last 12 months, and even higher for the quarter itself.

It was also driven by a successful pricing strategy within winter sport equipment, and a continued leverage in our model, where we have strong cost control. Q1 is a quarter where you build inventory to prepare for spring and summer season.

This year, we have also put extra effort here to secure that we capture growth opportunities, no matter the macro environment. Despite this, we have managed to improve our cash flow significantly and improved inventory turnover.

Tim will also show this in more detail later, but this means our cash conversion for the last 12 months has improved further. The Q1 highlights also show how we continue to execute in line with our strategy.

First, those of you who follow us know that a key part of our M&A strategy is that entrepreneurs and founders keep a minority stake to preserve the right ownership mindsets. We then allocate capital step by step to businesses with proven growth and profit potential, with the intention to increase the ownership share to over 90% over time.

After the end of the quarter, we have increased our ownership share in Bikester from 60% to 100%, and in Skicon from 51% to 80%. We have also retained a controlling interest in Norwegian bike retailer Birk Sport, which was previously an associated company.

With our current ownership shares, and this is an important point, this means that we own more than 77% of the last 12 months adjusted EBITDA, and we have beneficial options to increase in several additional companies. A clear Q1 highlight was also the announcement of our acquisition of a new group with the world-renowned floorball brands Unihoc and Zone.

The company will continue to be run under existing management with the focus to create an even better customer experience within floorball. After the end of the quarter, we have also finalized a minor acquisition where the racket specialist Tennis-Shoppen will be merged with the group racket retailers, creating a strong specialist position on the Nordic tennis and padel market.

Including the full-year effect of acquisitions, the last 12 months including the quarter, group sales would be around 4.15 billion SEK with 265 million SEK adjusted EBITA, to compare with the reported last 12 months numbers of 3.4 billion SEK and 206 million SEK. We continue to have an exciting acquisition pipeline, with our strong financial position as a good base to drive further growth.

We have also continued our focus on efficiency in business developments, both in realizing group synergies through joint agreements in transport, payments, and insurance, and with AI as a clear enabler. We acknowledge that, given the nature and the pace of development, AI needs to be run both in a decentralized and centralized way to drive real progress.

We have several initiatives throughout the group where we encourage each company and individual, as well as an ongoing strategic review to scale those initiatives with most impact across the full group. Overall, the pace and steady improvements we have shown in Q1 makes me very confident for the rest of the year.

Now, over to you, Tim, who will go through the financial details.

Tim Holmlund Meier

Thank you, Ted, and good morning, everyone. I will start by walking you through our sales performance for the quarter and the 12-month period, followed by profitability, cash flow, and our financial position.

Let's start with sales. Net sales in the first quarter reached 960 million, representing a growth of 52% compared to last year.

Importantly, organic growth was also strong at 15%, demonstrating continued strength in the business model quarter over quarter. Looking at the main drivers this quarter, we can see that the companies active within winter sports had a strong start of the quarter, with solid growth of both cross-country and alpine skiing equipment, as well as other winter-related gear.

In the latter part of the quarter, both running and cycling benefited from the rapid change in temperature and grew very strong, especially during March. This means that we continue to gain market shares within the categories we're in, with a continued high demand and a strong customer engagement.

Another driver was within business-to-business, with continued performance in companies where the proportion of own and controlled brands are higher, implying a strong contribution both to the growth and the margins. Looking at the 12-month period, net sales increased to 3.4 billion in reported sales, and with the impact of the recent acquisitions, we have now a total turnover that exceeds 4.1 billions.

Let's walk through the gross margin and cost development. Our adjusted gross margin amounted to 35.6% in the quarter, which is an improvement of 1.1% compared to last year.

With this, we have increased our gross margin continuously during the last three quarters. This improvement was both driven by an increased share of own and controlled brands and a disciplined price approach, with strong sales in the right category of products during the right period, supporting both sales performance and margin quality.

This positive contribution from companies with high proportion of own and controlled brands came both from newly acquired entities and others, creating a positive margin mix effect in the quarter. On the cost side, we continue to leverage on scale benefits and cost control.

As sales increase, we're achieving operating leverage across the organization. Total opex, excluding D&A, decreased by 5 percentage points in relation to sales in the quarter, reflecting improved efficiency and scalability.

In particular, leverage on direct selling costs such as online marketing and fulfillment were the main drivers during this quarter, as personnel costs increased slightly due to a switch of external versus internal inventory personnel at one of the larger warehouses. Which brings us to earnings.

Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter amounted to 38 million, compared to 20 million in the same period last year. This corresponds to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 4%, a significant improvement of 0.9%.

For the 12-month period, adjusted EBITDA amounted to 206 million, which corresponds to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 6%, compared to 4.7% for the last 12-month period. If adding the latest acquisitions, we have a rolling 12-month adjusted EBITDA of around 265 million.

Let me now turn to cash flow and working capital. Cash flow from operating activities improved significantly compared to last year, mainly driven by increased payables offsetting the increased inventory build-up for the spring season.

This inventory build-up is normal for the season, where the main drivers have been the companies active within summer activities, such as cycling, running, golf, and water sports. Cash conversion in relation to EBITDA adjusted for leasing has developed positive, with a rolling 12-month adjusted cash conversion of 86.2%, which we consider a high level given our strong growth.

One key driver is our asset-light business model, with just 0.8% maintenance capex in relation to sales for the period, which corresponds to a decrease of 0.1% compared to the last 12 months period. One other clear sign on healthy capital development is the uptick of return on capital employed, which has increased by almost 4% compared to the last 12-month period.

A strong cash generation remains a key part of our business model and provides important financial flexibility going forward, both when it comes to enabling M&A activities, but also to mitigate potential turbulence in the market. Which brings us to the financial position.

At period end, our net debt to EBITDA adjusted for leasing stood at -0.1 times, meaning that we have a net cash position. This, together with the credit facilities, provides a flexibility going forward, also for potentially larger acquisitions.

Again, this places us in a stable financial position. With the combination of improved earnings, organic growth, enhanced cash generation, together with a low leverage, it provides a robust platform for continued growth.

Back to you, Ted.

Ted Sporre

Thank you, Tim. Before we head to the Q&A, I will leave you with my key takeaways from the quarter.

We have delivered more than 50% sales growth, continued market share gain, and an EBITA that is again growing faster than sales. We have strengthened the group with new acquisitions and increased the ownership share in high quality group companies in line with our capital allocation strategy.

As the performance of the quarter signals, the uncertainty of political situation currently does not have any material impact on our business. Our diversification and robust Nordic base makes us well-positioned in light of this, and while we naturally monitor the developments, one should also keep in mind that historically, periods with lower international travel and high fuel prices have rather been driving demand for sports equipment, e-mobility and bikes, as consumers prefer local activities and cost-efficient transport.

In any case, our solid cash flow and net cash position gives us the right base to execute on our targets. In summary, another record-breaking quarter, and we enter the rest of the year with a high pace from Q1, which makes me look forward to the coming period.

Thanks to all co-workers in Wesports, shareholders, customers, and partners. Now, let's open up for questions.

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.

Operator

The next question comes from Victor Hansen from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.

Victor Hansen

Good morning, Ted and Tim. Victor here.

First question, could you provide some details on how the different sport categories performed in Q1? You mentioned that skiing was strong, but this is quite small in Q2 and Q3.

How much does this affect your current organic sales momentum?

Ted Sporre

Thank you, Victor. As you say, skiing was one of the strong categories at the beginning of Q1 and winter sports.

Then we saw towards the end of the quarter that especially cycling and running were also really strong. We finished off the quarter with a good speed in cycling and running, which are among our largest categories.

In general, I would say that we see good growth across the categories as such.

Victor Hansen

Okay. Perfect.

You alluded to it, but any comment on how April went that you want to share?

Ted Sporre

Obviously I cannot go into detail on April, and one should remember that diversification that we have in our group is a key strength, but it also means that different companies are coming more into play depending on which quarter it is. What I can say is that we had very strong pace at the end of Q1, and I'm confident in the model and happy with the progress we're making overall.

Victor Hansen

Okay. Then on the gross margin, that was good.

What percentage is your own and controlled brands now?

Ted Sporre

If you look at the last 12 months, our percentage of own and controlled brands is around 27%. Looking at the quarter in isolation, without mentioning the exact number, we can say it's a little bit higher than that.

We see a continued positive trend here in line with the strategy that we're driving.

Victor Hansen

Perfect. Then you made quite a lot of M&A recently.

Should we expect a bit quieter period now in the rest of—

Niklas Hammar

Niklas here. Not necessarily.

We do have, as we had before, quite a robust and strong pipe of companies that we are having in the different stages in the M&A process. As we've said before, there are a couple of thousand companies in the sport market in the Nordic region, and out of those, we have a little bit over 200 companies that we think are particularly interesting for us, that we have on our short follow list or in different discussions with.

Not necessarily that there is a slower pace ahead, but then again, M&A is not always easy to time. It is a little bit a consequence of the dance we do with the different companies that we have discussions with.

We do have a strong pipe, I would say.

Victor Hansen

Thank you very much. That's all for me.

Operator

The next question comes from Emmanuel Jansson from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.

Emmanuel Jansson

Good morning, Ted, Tim, and Niklas. Thank you for taking my questions.

To continue with your recent M&A agenda, which has been quite active, is it possible for you to break down the organic versus acquired EBITA growth in this quarter, and are you seeing expanding margins in your existing brands after they have been integrated? Just put more color on that development, please.

Niklas Hammar

The sound was rather low. I think you asked if we could break down the organic versus total growth in Q1?

Ted Sporre

I can start with that one. Looking at the broad picture, we can see that M&A contributed slightly more during the first quarter with around two-thirds of the growth, and the remaining part was organically.

Then

Niklas Hammar

I think your second question was on what kind of synergies we could realize after the acquisitions, and so please correct me if I understood the question wrong here, Emmanuel. But—

Emmanuel Jansson

No, that's right.

Niklas Hammar

Yeah. The synergies we can realize are of course a bit different for what type of companies that we do acquire, but typically we have three layers of synergies, where the first is the initial direct synergies that we can see a couple of percentage points effect from companies joining our group contracts on payments, on transport, and then in the second stage, on marketing services, on IT infrastructure, and those kind of group contracts where we have volume-driven better deals on the group.

The second layer is where we can do cross-selling within the group, so, for instance, that we can sell fitness equipment or running equipment to a cycling community or vice versa. The third synergies where we have a quite specific governance model, basically how we drive organic growth and improvements quarter by quarter in the companies that we operate, and that kind of synergy basically being managed the Wesport way is something we see effect both on growth and profitability over time, but also cash flow over time, and that takes typically a little bit longer time.

We normally see effects within a quarter or two quarters when we have integrated a company into the group, and then the full synergies is perhaps a couple of years after integration. Is that an answer to your question, Emmanuel?

Emmanuel Jansson

Yes, thank you very much, that's very very useful. If I understand it correctly then, two-thirds of the EBITA growth came from M&A, right?

Tim Holmlund Meier

That's correct. Roughly speaking.

Emmanuel Jansson

Perfect. Perfect, thank you very much.

Just curious, you're also mentioning the reallocation, or just that you are also taking over of your warehouse management in-house. How has that affected your scalability or earnings in this quarter, and what should we expect going forward from this activity?

Ted Sporre

I can go first. I think, in general, that's one of the things that we're always improving.

The scalability that we have, both in how we drive the operations when it comes to warehousing, transport as you were into, Niklas, and so on. In this particular quarter, it affects it a little bit in terms of personnel costs, where we overall lower our costs, but we just have a different categorization of them as such.

That is the important thing I think to take away here. If you look at it also historically, we have many, many quarters in a row showed that we are able to enable these scale effects gradually and even more, so that's also what we expect and plan for going forward.

Emmanuel Jansson

Perfect. Which warehouse is this or which sport categories is this warehouse exposed

Niklas Hammar

to? On the warehouse side, there's two sides to it.

One is the fiscal warehouses where we do the fulfillment of the products, and the second part is warehouse management in terms of inventory management, and those two are treated a little bit differently. In terms of warehouses, we do consolidate the fiscal warehouses within the sports, we try to consolidate all bikes from one warehouse, all skis from one warehouse, etc.

In this quarter, it was actually an initiative that took place in the second half of last year where we consolidated cross-country skiing warehouse to one location, that has of course had a good effect now during this winter. We don't consolidate all warehouses between all the sports, but it is something we do within one sport where we have a good efficiency win.

Then on the inventory management, that's something that is not entirely managed from the group, but is a expertise area where we do a lot of influence and support and improvements basically throughout the entire group. It's not something that is particularly changed during this quarter, but it's a fundamental principle or core of how we operate the group.

Emmanuel Jansson

Perfect. Thank you, that's very clear.

Maybe my last question, I think also you mentioned it, Ted, about the potential staycation trends given the geopolitical uncertainties we have around the world. Have you seen any early signs of increased bookings or anything that could potentially give us some expectation that we are likely to see an increased staycation trend during this year?

Ted Sporre

I think it's a good question. I think what we see in general is that we have had very strong pace also here at the end of Q1, hard to say whether that is driven by that or other factors.

In general, just by pure logic, it's quite clear that if it would be a scenario where there would be a lot of staycation and less travel, it's natural that you both continue to spend money on your health and also can increase your investment in sports equipment and so on when you spend more time at home. The same for bicycles, e-bikes, cargo bikes, and so on.

If you see that you have a fuel price that is rather high, people tend to seek other alternatives and are more encouraged to also explore that type of other products that we are selling. Speaking from historical evidence, also from COVID and so on, we can see that that has had a positive impact.

Emmanuel Jansson

Interesting. I assume that seeing high growth in cycling, running, and potential fitness as well gives you a positive effect for the gross margin, right?

Ted Sporre

Yes, I would say so. Regarding the gross margin, again, if we look forward, a key thing is to continue to gradually increase the share of own and controlled brands, and that's something we're doing successfully.

Emmanuel Jansson

Perfect. Thank you very much.

I think that was all my questions for now, thank you very much, Ted, Tim, and Niklas. Thank you.

Ted Sporre

Thank you. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad.

Operator

The next question comes from Benjamin Wahlstedt from ABGSC. Please go ahead.

Benjamin Wahlstedt

Good morning. A couple of questions from me as well.

You write in the report that 77% of EBITDA is attributable to parent shareholders, and I was wondering two questions. What is the reason for using EBITDA as opposed to EBITA, your main profitability metric here, please?

Second, what is the share of EBITA attributable to shareholders, if you can share that, that would be helpful as well.

Tim Holmlund Meier

Could you please repeat the first question, Benjamin, the amount of—

Benjamin Wahlstedt

I believe it is in the CEO statement, you write that 77% of the adjusted EBITDA LTM is attributable to the parent company's shareholders. The first question was why are you using EBITDA and not EBITA here, please?

Tim Holmlund Meier

That's a good question. The reason for doing that is because we would like to see how the cost allocates from the companies to the shareholders.

Looking at the overall picture, it's roughly the same measure when you look at EBITDA and EBITA. It goes down by just a branch, but no main differences.

Ted Sporre

EBITDA is how we look at cash flow.

Tim Holmlund Meier

Exactly.

Ted Sporre

That's why.

Benjamin Wahlstedt

Perfect. Your net profit remains attributable to minorities to quite large extent in this quarter as well.

I was wondering if you could share anything on what sort of companies are driving this observation, please.

Tim Holmlund Meier

It's also always a combination of which companies that is performing during each quarter, and also how the ownership changes over time. Looking at how it stands today, we have increased our ownership quite heavily during the last months here, and now we have a ownership that is gradually moving towards 80%, and we are aiming to gradually move up to 90% on the group basis, which is in line with our strategy.

Benjamin Wahlstedt

Thank you. The 77% you allude to in the CEO statement, that's in LTM terms, obviously.

All else equal, to speak, what is the next 12 months' share of profits attributable to parent?

Ted Sporre

I think that's a good question. The only thing we can say there is that we gradually follow the strategy, as we also announced earlier this Friday, in increasing in companies where we see that they are actually growing and they're growing profitably.

Our long-term goal there is to be over 90%, and so that's what we're aiming for as a steady state in the maybe longer run.

Benjamin Wahlstedt

Perfect. Then I have a bit of a bookkeeping question.

I was wondering if you could give us a bit more color on the growth bridge here, please. Your reported organic growth, I believe you also specify that it's FX adjusted of 14.7%.

Your FX impact should be -1 percentage point or so, and then the rest is M&A, and it seems me and my competition, to speak, sort of missed the M&A contribution or underestimated it, at least. If you could, what is the contribution per added company, or if you want to highlight the main building blocks towards the very significant M&A growth, that would be helpful, please.

Tim Holmlund Meier

I can start, and like I answered the question from your colleague there is that if you look at the growth during Q1, we can see that we have roughly two-thirds is driven by M&A contributions, which were not a part of the group last year in the corresponding period, and one-third is driven by an organic growth. When we look at our organic growth, we look at the change in sales for units with a full calendar of consolidated comparable data.

It's also a different base when we looking at the organic definition, so that's why it can be a bit different when you compare it to the full growth.

Ted Sporre

I think it's important to take away here also that just because companies are part of the M&A growth doesn't mean that we haven't been working with them for quite some time in the group, also working on business development, making sure that they are also growing. If we pick the right companies and we do good business development, then also the M&A share would be more heavy, to speak.

Benjamin Wahlstedt

Sure. I can maybe clarify my question.

My question is: What was Tria Brands Group's sales in Q1? What was Nordic Sportsmaster's sales in Q1, if you are willing to share?

Ted Sporre

We never reported on an individual company basis as such, but it's no secret that we've seen good progress from both of those companies as such.

Benjamin Wahlstedt

All right. I believe that might be all I have for now.

Thank you very much.

Tim Holmlund Meier

Thank you.

Operator

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

Ted Sporre

Thanks for those questions. As I said before, we summarize another record quarter, and we come with high pace from the end of Q1 towards the rest of the year, which makes me very confident.

Also, I think one key thing to highlight is that with the run rate that we're having, if you look at the full-year effect of all the acquisitions that we've made and you include them for that full period, net sales would actually be over 4.15 billion with 265 million SEK in adjusted EBITA. That's also important to take in mind when we look at the year going forward.

Then,

Tim Holmlund Meier

thanks a lot.