Earnings call transcript: Anora Q2 2025 sees sales decline, maintains EBITDA guidance

Anora Group Oyj reported a challenging second quarter for 2025, with a 6.6% decline in net sales to €165.5 million. Despite the drop in sales, the company maintained its full-year EBITDA guidance at €70-75 million. The stock remained stable, with no significant change in price following the earnings report. According to InvestingPro analysis, Anora appears undervalued at current levels, with the stock down 27% over the past year despite showing a 15.32% gain year-to-date.

Key Takeaways

• Net sales decreased by 6.6% to €165.5 million.
• Comparable EBITDA fell by 8.3% to €14 million.
• Gross margin improved to 42.6%.
• The company maintained its full-year EBITDA guidance.
• Strategic program "Fit, Fix and Focus" initiated.

Company Performance

Anora faced a challenging quarter, with a decline in net sales and EBITDA. The company attributed the sales drop to ongoing declines in Nordic monopoly sales, which have been falling for 16 consecutive quarters. However, Anora’s gross margin improved, indicating cost management efforts are bearing fruit. The company is also expanding its presence in the Baltic markets and growing its international and travel retail segments.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: €165.5 million, down 6.6% year-over-year.
• Comparable EBITDA: €14 million, down 8.3% year-over-year.
• Gross Margin: Improved to 42.6%.
• Net Debt: €199 million.
• Liquidity Reserves: €297 million.

Outlook & Guidance

Anora maintained its full-year EBITDA guidance of €70-75 million, signaling confidence in its strategic initiatives. The company is focusing on market share growth and expanding its low-alcohol and non-alcoholic beverage portfolio. Anora plans to reveal a detailed strategy during its Capital Markets Day on November 5th.

Executive Commentary

Kirsty Puntila, CEO of Anora, expressed optimism, stating, "The only way is up," and emphasized the company’s commitment to improving financial performance. Puntila also noted, "We are not doing any crazy promises or crazy jumps," highlighting a cautious approach to international expansion.

Risks and Challenges

• Declining Nordic monopoly sales continue to pressure overall revenue.
• Consumer behavior shifts, with 17% of Europeans reducing alcohol consumption.
• Competition in the Norwegian market presents challenges.
• Channel shifts from monopolies to grocery retail may impact sales.
• Macroeconomic pressures could affect consumer spending.

This quarter’s results reflect the challenges Anora faces in a shifting market landscape, but the company’s strategic initiatives and maintained guidance suggest a focus on long-term growth and stability.

Full transcript - Anora Group Oyj (ANORA) Q2 2025:

Milena Hekstrom, Head of Investor Relations, Anora: Okay. It’s 11:00 Finnish time, so let’s get started. Good morning, and welcome to this presentation of Anora’s Q2 results. My name is Milena Hekstrom. I’m the Head of Investor Relations here at Anora.

And our presenters today are our CEO, Kirsty Puntila and CFO, Stein Eriksen. And after their presentations, we will start the Q and A session. Please also be reminded that you can post questions to the chat throughout the call. And please also note that this call will be recorded and published later today on our website, anora.com. And now, Kirsty, please go ahead.

Kirsty Puntila, CEO, Anora: Thank you, Milena. Hope you all had a lovely, relaxing summer break. For us at Anora, one could describe this quarter two and the summer in general as a direct reflection of this year’s season. The quarter started okay, with the Easter effect helping us a little.

Stein Eriksen, CFO, Anora: Then

Kirsty Puntila, CEO, Anora: it deteriorated with the raindrops falling in May and early June, and then finally started picking up once the sun started shining again. But jogging aside, we are dividing today’s session into two sections. We will first have the regular Q2 business and finance update with Stein. And then I will refer back to what I promised in our last quarterly meeting, which means a reflection of my first five months as CEO and how we plan on moving forward. So the beverage industry no, you go back to the previous, sorry.

The beverage industry faced headwinds in the second quarter. Yes, the unusually poor weather in May and June affected sales negatively, but also the ongoing shifts in consumer trends were visible in many of our traditionally strong categories. Based on a recent study by Boston Consulting Group, it’s a European study from nine different markets, So 17% of the Europeans say that they are reducing their alcohol consumption. And 27% say that they are actively seeking low sugar and low calorie drinks and functional drinks are also gaining interaction. In the Nordic markets, the total sales volume declined by 1.8%, with spirits posting modest growth of 0.1%, and wine saw a decline of 2.1%.

The overall picture is still very much the same as in the previous quarter, Q2 being yet another quarter of negative growth in the monopolies, sixteenth to be exact. But at the same time, Anorai is still a resilient player in The Nordics, and we are above the pre COVID levels of 2019. In total, monopolies represent 45% of the total business in quarter two, which shows that we are less and less dependent on the monopolies. Let’s then dive into the key figures and start with the top line on the left side of this slide. There is no hiding away from the fact that top line is what remains our biggest challenge.

Net sales was down by 6.6%, amounting to €165,500,000 primarily due to lower volumes in wine and spirits segments. We are, however, pleased to see our gross margin reaching 42.6% of the net sales, supported by improvements in the spirits and in the industrial segments. This, I think, is a testimonial to many of our internal efforts working on revenue management and operational efficiency. We also maintained strong in cost controlling the costs, resulting in reduced operating expenses. Next online, on the right side of the slide, is the EBITDA and EBITDA elements.

Our Q2 comparable EBITDA ended up at 14,000,000 which is 8.3% down from last year. The comparable EBITDA margin was 8.4% of net sales, and the decline can be mainly blamed on lower net sales. In fact, the comparable EBITDA margin increased in Spirits and Industrial, whereas the Wine segment declined due to lower net sales in the filler business as well as increased marketing spend, and I’ll talk more about that later on. Despite the less than satisfactory result in Q2, when looking ahead for the full year 2025 guidance, we still remain confident in hitting that window of 70,000,000 to €75,000,000 And why do I say that? Let’s look at some of the highlights of Q2 to build further confidence for the rest of the year.

Firstly, I am very pleased to note that our targeted wine campaigns in Sweden are delivering strong results in winning market share. And this is no longer a one month wonder, but a result of continuous and well planned efforts. And the same goes for the ongoing success of 8% wines in the Finnish grocery channel. Overall, our new relevant launches and partner wins, especially in Sweden, are our medicine. And this medicine, we intend to copy also to Finland and Norway, but this is, of course, taking a little bit longer time to finalize in the rest of the markets.

Secondly, we have our dear Koskenkorva, which keeps on giving month after month. We are very quick in reacting to changing consumer trends and also providing markets with lower alcoholic variants and ready to drink options. The success of our recent liqueur launches, let alone the new Cosgencarta Longero long drink range, they are contributing to double digit growth for Coste and Carta. Also, I think I mentioned last time the challenges of our traditional Acovid category in expanding into new occasions. And now it looks like we have a very good start with a product called AMP, the on trade targeted nightlife shop product.

And the third element, because of which my confidence is high, is based on the markets beyond The Nordics. Lithuania has now been operational for a couple of months, and we see positive signals also from global travel retail with our biggest accounts. Then I will move on to give you a bit more flavor to each of our segments. There. In wine, our total net sales declined by 8.9% to €74,900,000 The timing of Easter in April was not enough to compensate for the decline of net sales.

But let me explain a little bit more on the dynamics of a wine segment content. It is basically divided into two elements. One is, with the lack of a better word, so called commercial own and partner brands business, and the other one is the so called filler business, which is the factory capacity that we sell to others. So the bad result in Q2 was, yes, partly caused by weaker wine sales in Norway in particular, but mostly by lower demand and increased price competition of filler services in Denmark. Gross margin in the wines was 28.5% of net sales, gross profit amounting to €21,300,000 Since the last quarter, we have focused on gaining market share, particularly in Sweden, which we are very, very proud about.

So this, together with the success of the 8% ABV wines in the Finnish grocery channel, led to market share growth. Wine segment’s comparable EBITDA declined to €1,900,000 which is 2.6% of net sales. And this is, of course, something that we need to address moving forward. As said, the decline was mainly driven by the lower net sales in the pillar services, but also due to increased marketing spend in the first half of the year. We discussed that already last time around, and this will be offset now by the second half of the year, where we won’t spend as much, and hence, the full year impact of the marketing spend will remain stable.

Then over to the Spirits segment. In the Spirits segment, net sales declined by 8.4% to €53,600,000 And this is explained mainly by the recently lost partners. In fact, twothree of the negative this quarter is due to the previously communicated partner losses. Our market shares declined across main countries, with Norway in particular experiencing weak performance. Cost and Gora net sales grew from the previous year, representing almost 18% of the total spirit sales.

So Koskengora is a significant brand for the spirits segment. And despite the slightly lower volumes, our gross margin improved again to 45.2%, which is reflecting the impacts of revenue and mix management. Gross profit amounted to €24,200,000 Then EBITDA, Spirit segment’s comparable EBITDA amounted to €8,600,000 But although the absolute EBITDA decreased slightly, the good news of the quarter is that comparable EBITDA margin increased to 16% of net sales, thanks to lower operating expenses. And then finally, the third segment, which is Industrial. The Industrial segment’s net sales increased, and that was mostly driven by phasing of contract manufacturing volumes, offset by lower volumes of other product categories as well as side product sales prices.

In Q2, the Industrial segment’s total net sales declined to 57.8%, while the external net sales increased by 1.6% to €36,900,000 And this is mostly driven by phasing of contract manufacturing volumes as said. Industrial gross margin increased to 49.6% of net sales, and the gross profit amounted to €28,600,000 Comparable EBITDA increased to €3,900,000 or 6.7% of net sales. So with these key highlights, I will now hand over to Stein for a bit deeper financial analysis and then continue more about the next steps after Stein.

Stein Eriksen, CFO, Anora: Yes. Thank you, Kirsty, and good morning, everybody. Let’s have a look at the financials for Q2. Before starting with going deep dive into the numbers, let’s start with a summary of the highlights in Q2 related then to the financial summary. Sorry.

Some technical issues here.

Kirsty Puntila, CEO, Anora: Looks like we’re starting the q and a earlier Let’s now I think there’s

Stein Eriksen, CFO, Anora: something coming. Thank you. Good. Good. Yes.

So let’s start with the highlights of Q2. So I think it’s fair to say that Q2 was a mixed bouquet. It’s what we can say is that we are pleased with the gross margin development. We are pleased with the OpEx reductions. And we are pleased with the improved performance in the industrial segment.

However, I think it’s also fair where we are not pleased. It’s the development in net sales. And that was the main driver for the EBITDA decline, then ended at SEK 14,000,000 compared to SEK 15,200,000.0 this year. Net sales, as Kirsi said, decreased with 6.6% or €11,600,000 where around twothree of the decline is related to the lost partner business in spirits and lower filler volumes in wine. Looking at the balance sheet, Anura ended with a net debt of EUR 199,000,000, fairly in line with last year and liquidity reserves ending at EUR297 million, somewhat lower than last year, partly explained by lower sales of receivables this year compared to last year.

We are also happy to see that we had an underlying reduction of inventory of EUR 20,000,000, driven by good improvement in industrial as well as reduction of partner inventory in both wine and spirits. Then let’s see some of the most important projects that we are currently working on in the finance and IT. And I’m pretty convinced that these projects will contribute not only to enhance the financial follow-up of Anura, but also improve the underlying operations of the company. Starting with number one, early this year, we successfully migrated Anura Denmark to our common ERP platform. And also, like Kirsty said, we established a new entity in Lithuania.

The next major milestone is integrating now Arcus Norway into our common Anura SAP solution. And this transformation will significantly strengthen our internal control and follow-up. It will unify our master data across the group and establish standard procedures and processes across the company. It will also allow us to unlock further synergies, particularly in areas such as procurement. The go live for this project is expected to take place in late Q4 this year.

Another important step that we have taken in Q2 is to enhance our Power BI capabilities. And we have established a dedicated Power BI team within Danura that will accelerate the development and then enhance the relevance of the reporting. And this is everything from market data to better and improved follow-up of inventory as well as we will also look in improving our current pricing routines and pricing follow-up. So really seeing progress so far in Q2 and expect more in the upcoming quarters. During the quarter, we also successfully implemented a new cash management system, and this will improve the cost efficiency, flexibility and security of our payments going forward.

And we already touched upon the inventory reduction and the cut off number of SKUs, but another complexity issue in Anura is the number of legal entities. And we are also working to reduce the number of legal entities. And so far this year, we have either closed down or merged five legal entities in Finland and Denmark. And we have another six additional entities that are scheduled to be closed down for the rest of 2025. Then let’s have a little bit deep dive into the net sales development in Q2.

I think Kirsi has already mentioned a lot of the explanations. But if we start with wine, that declined with 8.9, ending at SEK75 million. The decline was, as she mentioned, lower demand and increased price competition of filler services in Denmark as well as weaker sales in especially Norway. Own and partner wine sales declined slightly, but we are very pleased to see that the strategic focus of the wine segment in Sweden, in particular, has resulted in strong market share increase in the quarter. In Spirits, net sales decline was explained mainly by the recently lost partners and industrial net sales mostly due to the phasing on contract manufacturing volumes explained the increase, offset by lower volumes of side products.

And for the first half year, the net sales was down with 5.3% to 306,800,000.0, and once again, primarily due to the lower volumes in the Wine and Spirits segments. Then let’s move over to gross margin. And as I said, we are fairly happy to see a continued improvement in gross margin. And as you can see on the right hand side, the underlying development in gross margin has been constant. It has been a constant trend now for several quarters and years and continues then to trend positively.

And we ended first half year with an underlying gross margin of 43.6% in the 2025. The input cost here, exemplified with the development of Finnish Bali, has flattened out and improvement is mainly due to improved revenue and mix management as well as improved efficiency in our industrial segment. Then let’s move over to comparable EBITDA in Q2 that ended 1,200,000.0 below last year. The decline was solely explained by the decline in net sales versus last year as the gross margin improved as well as the OpEx decreased in the quarter. Looking at the different segments, Industrial had the EBITDA growth due to continued efficiency improvements in supply chain.

And we also had some improvements in the group’s expenses due to different timing of expenses. Spirits was slightly down in EBITDA, where lower sales were compensated with higher gross margin and lower OpEx. And the wine segment was mainly down due to lower net sales. Then let’s move over to the balance sheet and the cash flow. Operative cash flow ended at minus EUR 53,000,000, somewhat lower than last year.

Liquidity reserves at the June ended at EUR $297,000,000 and comprised of the group’s EUR 20,000,000 overdraft as well as an unutilized revolving credit facility of SEK 150,000,000. Net debt ended more or less on par with last year SEK 199,000,000 and the leverage ended at SEK 3 compared to SEK 2.8 last year. If you look a little bit more in detail into the net debt development that ended in Q2, as I said, at SEK 199,000,000 from SEK 122,000,000 at the end of Q4 last year. And no drama here. As you can see, the EBITDA explaining, of course, a positive development of SEK 22,000,000.

But as you also know, we normally have a buildup of working capital in the first part of 2020 of the year, then mainly explained by inventory buildup as well as payment of excise duties. Net financial expenses were SEK 8,400,000.0 compared to SEK 9,600,000.0 last year, then mainly explained that we paid down some of the loan facility, the term loan last year of SEK 50,000,000. And then CapEx ended at SEK 7,000,000. That was also on par with last year, then mainly related to replacement investment and improvements. And dividend ending or that was paid out of SEK 14,900,000.0 by the April 2025.

Moving over to the last slide before handing the word over to Kirstjen, that’s the net working capital ended at minus SEK 10,300,000.0 or minus 2% of net sales at the June. And as you can see on this slide is that we have had quite a good reduction of working capital compared to previous years, of course, also then, as you know, related to the increased sales or receivable program that we launched in the beginning of Q1 twenty twenty three. Like I said, we are happy to see inventory reduction of EUR 20,000,000 compared to last year. And this was driven by around half of it was driven by industrial, but also good improvements by both wine and spirits. However, I said it before, I say it again, we still have potential to reduce the inventory even more by especially then focusing on our tail products.

So that was the financial review. Then leaving the floor over to you, Gersi.

Kirsty Puntila, CEO, Anora: Thank you, thank you, Stein. I will first now summarize the key takeaways of our quarter two. So market firstly, market share in wines is now showing longer term positive development in The Nordics. That’s the good news. Secondly, net sales was down by 6.6%, amounting to EUR165.5 million.

Thirdly, gross margin shows nice continuous improvement, thanks to our ongoing efforts on it. And fourthly, comparable EBITDA ended at CHF forty million, which is 8.3% down from last year. And as to the full year 2025 guidance, our comparable EBITDA is still valid and as said before, expected to hit the 70,000,000 to €75,000,000 target. Very good. I would then or is there a yes, I will move on.

I’d like to change the gear a little bit and leave the Q2 behind for a second. The only way is up, as they say, and I continue believing in it now after having analyzed the business thoroughly with our team in the past few months. In the Q1, I stated that I will allow myself to pause before speed and analyze the situation and at Anora properly. So after the first full quarter as CEO, the pre work is now done, and I’m quite pleased with the diagnostics. So the key reflections of the first four and five and so months is that we have a strong foundation, and we have a strong portfolio to build on and generate sustainable profitable growth.

However, it is true that our operating environment is tough, and we have not succeeded in turning the company to a success story since the merger a few years ago. Furthermore, our current performance is not good enough. So third reflection is that we do need clear actions to accelerate our performance in short to midterm to improve our cost competitiveness as well as pursue opportunities in our portfolio and core business. And I will get back to those shortly. But finally, it’s not all doom and gloom.

There are opportunities and growth opportunities in our current markets as well as beyond them and beyond the core what we’re doing right now. But before considering those, we need to fix some of the ongoing challenges at our hand. Therefore, we have initiated a strategy process to meet the needs of the changing environment. I will now go through them briefly and have them section by or reflection by reflection. So starting with the strong platform, and maybe not reading this through all the way, but as said, we have a strong foundation: our strong brands, our ability to innovate and our very talented people.

So the portfolio to build on our future growth. We have an established presence across on trade and off trade, so all the channels in our markets. We are a multichannel operator. We have capacity to create innovations and push forward the launches, as we have hopefully witnessed and shown you in the past few months. And we also have some of the most Nordics’ most respected and loved professionals in different disciplines.

So in this context, I would especially want to thank our customers and partners for their trust, but also our employees for their continued dedication. But going to the next reflection, clearly, is not 100% right. Someone once said that in order to know the future, you must understand the past, and that’s what we have been analyzing. So it is clear that some of the internal challenges that we have are listed here. We have overcapacity in our current supply chain footprint.

We need to further improve responding to challenging cost changing cost levels. We are only now getting clean from some of the recent merger complications. And there are important pockets of categories where we are not present currently with our legacy portfolios. And those are the so called low hanging fruits that we can quite immediately fix. Externally then, there is no significant growth in our current markets on Nordic monopoly channels.

Customer consumer behaviors are really changing, and they’re on ever increasing pace of change when introducing new products and packaging formats. So how do we respond to all of these challenges? We respond to them by introducing a programme where we can fix the business together. Before investing heavily in the actual growth, organic or acquisitions, Anora must first fix its current performance. Therefore, we are now engaging in a strategy work in the coming months to define our midterm growth ambition, and work is divided into two phases.

It’s first and foremost, it’s fixed and fixed, and then it is the focus area. So the fit and fix phase is delivering short and midterm performance improvement over the next sort of couple of years, and then while the focus is driving growth initiatives from 2026 onwards. And perhaps then diving deeper into the fixed area. So elaborating the sort of hit and fix phase, we are investigating numerous areas and actions to strengthen our performance. And these actions include looking at cost competitiveness and operational efficiencies, portfolio optimization, Stein mentioned inventory and revenue management, which is already showing very good traction, but we need to accelerate those work streams looking at the product portfolios and launch execution and then, of course, the balance sheet efficiency, just to name a few areas that we want to look into.

So to sum up, it will be hard work ahead us reaching our goals, which is why we’re not only accelerating actions to improve our financial performance here and now, but we are also beginning to update our strategy to guide us through 2028. So we’re talking rather a midterm strategy than a very long term strategy in this respect. So I look forward to sharing more about these initiatives at our upcoming Capital Markets Day in Helsinki, which will take place on the November 5 in 2025. And with this context, I will finish by welcoming you all warmly to that event in November. Right.

I guess it’s now time to go back to Milena. So I’m looking right and left because Stein is on my right side and Milena is on my left side, and we can open the Q and A.

Milena Hekstrom, Head of Investor Relations, Anora: Yes. Thank you, Kirstjenstein. And we already have the first question here. It’s coming from Maria Wickstrom. So please go ahead.

Maria Wickstrom, Analyst: Yes. I mean, thank you for the presentation as well as well some thoughts, I mean, for the, like, future strategy. I wanted to to get a bit more color on on the partner losses in the spirit segment? And, I mean, you said, I mean, this has been discussed in in the past, but if you could just remind me a bit on the reasons and on the number of maybe the magnitude of the of the partner losses in in the spirit segment.

Kirsty Puntila, CEO, Anora: Yeah. Thanks, Maria. There’s a little bit something in the voice I don’t hear, Maria, super well, but I think I got most of it. So you talked about the or asked about the partner business, especially in spirits. And I think, of course, it’s unfortunate, but as I said here internally as well that I’ve also been on the other side of the table where you where you when the the economy is in downturn, very often brand owners start then looking at the solutions of how can we improve the situation.

And then, obviously, the quick fix is to look at your current distributor and see what can be done there. So there’s many of the changes of the losses, partner losses in the spirits. Is more of a natural phenomenon of natural change. We’ve experienced a long period where Altea and Arpus back in the day and Anora now have had very long standing partner relationships. So some of them is more of a natural moment when the going gets tough that you tend to change the distributor, and then very often you also come back to the old distributor.

And this has also happened to us already now in some some cases. But, yes, of course, very, very unfortunate. So we have had sort of some significant partner losses. So that, of course, affects the overall net sales and even the share development. Still, we also have a short list of very strong candidates to replace those partners.

But as in partner business, you lose the partner very quickly, but gaining it takes a little bit more time. So I can’t unfortunately reveal or talk more about the future partners, but that that is correct. We have lost some of the partners with spirits.

Maria Wickstrom, Analyst: And can you be more specific? I mean, when when these losses started to have an effect, so that will help to to build up the the forecast, I mean, going forward.

Kirsty Puntila, CEO, Anora: These losses that we talked about have happened has have happened already, so the we’re seeing the effects now. There are no new partner losses that has happened in the past few weeks or months, but these are the losses that we discussed, I think, already last time. So there’s no no further no further losses, at least in sight, hopefully not happening.

Maria Wickstrom, Analyst: And when we think about the future, I mean, the the partner sales are still in your comparable figures until q one twenty six, or how should we look at look at that?

Kirsty Puntila, CEO, Anora: Yeah. Do you wanna sign, or do you want me to

Stein Eriksen, CFO, Anora: Yeah. So so, Mariata, you you can calculate around the same loss that we had in first half, and you can just multiply that with two. So we will see more or less the same effect on the top line in Q2. No, in 2025 as we did in the 2025.

Maria Wickstrom, Analyst: Yes. Perfect. That’s helpful. Yeah. Yeah.

And then I wanted to touch upon the the competition. I mean, given that the monopoly volumes have been muted for some time, I mean, typically, I mean, then there I mean, a lot of the players are just focusing, I mean, getting, I mean, some volumes, and I would think that the price competition is intensifying. So how could you describe the competition competition situation, I mean, across, I mean, your the across your Nordic markets?

Kirsty Puntila, CEO, Anora: Yeah. Obviously, the biggest markets where we can see the sort of a negative effect are Finland and Norway for more rather different types of reasons. In Finland, of course, the channel shift from the monopoly to the grocery retail is a significant change for us. Still, as you know, I mean, the market share for wines in Finland is extremely strong. And then we are accelerating also in providing products of low alcoholic beverages to the spirits in the spirits segment to the grocery.

So then it’s that whole playground in Finland has changed quite a bit in the past year since the 8% wines were introduced to the grocery. Then looking at maybe the other sort of market where you see the sort of share losses mostly is Norway. And that is a combination of different elements. I mean, historically, if you look at our business in Norway, it’s probably the most polarizing in the way that we have been very dependent on legacy categories such as Akabeet. And there, the sort of a changing to the grocery retail takes a little bit longer time because there hasn’t been the similar type of a law change as in Finland.

So we have more of a polarized portfolio that we have the legacy categories that have recently been declining. And then the speed of moving to the new channels and getting listings in the segments where we are not yet present, it will take a bit longer. It doesn’t mean that the plans are not there or the actions are not there, but in Norway, it looks like it’s taking a little bit longer to be able to change that environment. So the competition is there’s no new I don’t know how to say it, but there are no new miracle brands or products that would be completely disrupting the market that we wouldn’t know of. On the contrary, I would almost say that we are quite quick in reacting to the market changes as far as the consumer trends are concerned.

But yes, in certain markets like Norway, turning this ship is taking a little bit longer than maybe somewhere else, like in Sweden, where you can quicker react to the wine market share changes to say one example.

Maria Wickstrom, Analyst: And then finally, I would like to I’d like to ask for the the growth rates in in the nonalcoholic category. And if you could remind, I mean, how much of your sales is coming from nonalcoholic beverages? And then also interested a bit more color on the RTD segment. And is is that mostly like, now you talked about Koskenkorvo. I would assume that this is relating to Finland.

But if you can talk about r your RTD strategy across the Nordic markets and bits, like, how big part it represents currently on your sales?

Kirsty Puntila, CEO, Anora: It is growing in importance, of course, because of the consumer trends, but also because of the Finnish grocery channel, as you rightly pointed out. We do have, of course, I mean, the two biggest pockets of the, I would say, ready to drink business is coming from the Kostlenkron variants, which is now the new Longero three new Longero long drink variants, and we are obviously introducing new products to that portfolio. But also, as far as the partners are concerned, our Pellegrino water brand is a very important brand for us, and we’re super proud of the Pellekrino success in Finland in particular. So yes, it’s growing in the actual percentage. I don’t know if we’re going to reveal that or not, but I mean, it’s a more and more significant part.

And for us, the low ALK basically means wines that are less than 10%, spirits that are less than 30%, and then, of course, the sort of RTD and the no alcoholic beverages, which are also growing in in terms of the total share of portfolio. The challenge, of course, is that, if I’m if I’m I’m truly honest, is that when you come with a background of sheer spirits business, it’ll take some time for us to offset, of course, some of the losses that we are seeing now, especially in Finland, when the ALCO numbers are what they are. But we are very good in responding to that changing environment. But the actual percentage, how quickly we are growing it, we will not maybe reveal here.

Milena Hekstrom, Head of Investor Relations, Anora: Or actually, Kirsty, maybe I tell that it was disclosed actually in our sustainability report. So it’s 5.99%. Percent for last year.

Maria Wickstrom, Analyst: K. Perfect, thank you.

Milena Hekstrom, Head of Investor Relations, Anora: Good, thank you, Maria. And we have the next question coming from Heli Lehtela. Please go ahead.

Heli Lehtela, Analyst: Thank you. I kind of missed the part you were talking about barley prices. Have I understood right that other raw materials have risen in in price, but barley has fallen? And what was the effect of that to you? And secondly, barley price has is very low now in Finland.

Are you very worried about the situation, about the future of barley farmers? Thank you.

Stein Eriksen, CFO, Anora: Yes, I can comment on the barley prices. Yes, of course, barley, especially Finnish barley, is a significant part of our input costs. So and that’s also why we choose to show it on a separate slide. But it’s exactly like you say, the Vale prices, they are at the low point and lower than what we expected at the beginning of the year. I think that’s fair to say.

I mean, the harvest of Finnish barley will be now during the next two weeks, of course, excited to see how the harvest will go. But you are correct, barley prices at low levels. When it comes to your second question related to the farmers, I don’t have any good answer to that, I think. I can’t really answer what the farmers are thinking, but you are correct. The barley prices in Finland are at low levels, and of course, this will then also potentially impact our gross margin going forward.

Kirsty Puntila, CEO, Anora: I think the farmers have been quite happy in the past years because the prices been exactly. Quite

Milena Hekstrom, Head of Investor Relations, Anora: Thank you. And let’s move ahead. So we have the next question from Rauli Juva at Inderes. Please go ahead.

Rauli Juva, Analyst, Inderes: Yes. Thanks, Raul from Inderes. Just wanted to ask on your outlook assumptions. Basically, continue to see that the full year market volumes would be roughly on the same level as last year, and the H1 was down 5%. So is that kind of is that still in the range of roughly at the same level?

Or are you expecting some improvement in the market volumes for the second half?

Kirsty Puntila, CEO, Anora: You want to start and then I can

Stein Eriksen, CFO, Anora: Yes, I can answer that one. Yes. It’s like you said, Rolle. Yes, the volumes, they have been pretty soft for the 2025. It’s between 45% in volume decline for the first half.

We do believe somewhat improvement in the 2025. That’s in our internal prognosis. But of course, let’s wait and see. But as you know, the monopolies, they have launched now the July numbers, and at least they look somewhat better than the year to date numbers. Then I’ve touched a little bit about the guiding that no doubt that we are somewhat underperform versus our own expectations for the 2025.

But then also remember that Q3 and Q4 normally is between 65% to 70% Anora’s yearly results. And when it comes to the guiding, it’s based on thorough estimates, and we are still in still believe that we will be in the range between EUR 70,000,000 and EUR 75,000,000 in EBITDA.

Rauli Juva, Analyst, Inderes: Yes. And how dependent is that on the some recovery on the market? So if we would see minus 5% for the full year, is it possible to reach your guidance with those kind of market development?

Stein Eriksen, CFO, Anora: I don’t want to comment specifically on the numbers. But what I can say is that when it comes to our internal prognosis, we are pretty pleased, as I started with, with the development in gross margin. We are pretty pleased with the OpEx development. And also, like Kiese said, we are accelerating now the actions with the Fit, Fix and Focus program. And then also we have a strong brand portfolio in Kostke and Kurva.

We are gaining stronger and stronger momentum in wine, especially in Sweden. That is the biggest market. And then we have an upcoming and important log season, and at least from what I hear from our internal people is that we have a strong program coming up in Q4.

Kirsty Puntila, CEO, Anora: Yes. Maybe I can focus on the excitement on that one because it is true. I mean, as Stijn mentioned, we now have the we’re accelerating our ongoing initiatives, but and also we have the less and less dependence on the monopolies, that third part that Stein was mentioned, obviously, the ongoing Koskinkarva success, market shares in Sweden, which we believe that will reaccelerate, and we can start copying also to other markets. But at the Gluck season, just wanted to add on that. We obviously are not allowed to reveal what the next Glossa Annual is.

So welcome to the PR event. I think it was the September 10, if I remember correctly. But we’ve also now been able to extend the period of the Gluck season, so to speak, and we’re launching a Glu wine as well as the Pumpkin Spice for the Halloween season. So I think we are really, really excited for the upcoming klug season klug season in The Nordics.

Rauli Juva, Analyst, Inderes: Yeah. Maybe I should sell the klugks and klug one also in the rainy summer days.

Kirsty Puntila, CEO, Anora: I fully agree. I fully agree. And obviously, also in all the alpine countries, I would say.

Rauli Juva, Analyst, Inderes: But yes, one more serious question still. On the sold receivables, you have declined on that now. Is that likely to be a permanent shift on the policy? Or is that something that Yes.

Stein Eriksen, CFO, Anora: It varies a little bit between the quarters, Ruili. But I think we also mentioned before, we have stopped selling the receivables of Globus wine, and that’s around EUR10 million. So it will be at least constant with million lower than what you have seen if you compare it to last year. Yes.

Rauli Juva, Analyst, Inderes: Okay, that’s clear. Thanks. That’s all for me. Yes.

Milena Hekstrom, Head of Investor Relations, Anora: Thank you. And let’s also be reminded that you can post questions through the chat, but let’s give the floor to Sanna Perala. Please go ahead.

Sanna Perala, Analyst, Nordea: Yeah. Thank you. Sanna Perala from Nordea. I would still like to touch upon the the guidance. Raul already asked something, but could you elaborate a little bit more on the, like, concrete measures you will be taking in order to improve your profitability in q in h two?

And is it does your guidance require just the profitability improvement? Or will it require also top line growth as well? And if so, how will you achieve it? Market share gains, or what does it require?

Kirsty Puntila, CEO, Anora: Yes. I think we mentioned about the fit, fix or fix and focus initiatives that we will then be telling more about in the upcoming weeks and months. But I don’t know if you want to further add anything on top of what we’ve already said, which our belief in the markets being sort of flattish overall, and then our initiatives, as mentioned, in terms of the revenue management and the further market share improvements and then the brand portfolio initiatives, as mentioned. But I don’t know if there’s anything further that you want to sort of get into the details, Stein, but it is based on these elements that were mentioned to Raul already.

Stein Eriksen, CFO, Anora: Yeah.

Sanna Perala, Analyst, Nordea: Alright, thank you.

Milena Hekstrom, Head of Investor Relations, Anora: And then let’s give the floor to Matti Kaurola. Please go ahead.

Matti Kaurola, Analyst: Thank you for taking the question. But maybe, like, other analysts already covered my other questions, but a bit more about this longer term outlook question. So we’ve seen, like you said, like, sixteen consecutive quarters of declining monopoly sales. And and you also mentioned the BCG report in which they were saying that that the the alcohol consumption in general is quite drastically decreasing in in the whole Europe. And is this kind of a existential question to honor?

How are you gonna mitigate this this kind of structurally melting top line, so to say? I mean, like, of course, you can do internal cost savings and and improve the own performance. But but if you’re in a structurally declining market, how are you gonna kind of respond to that and in in a way kind of find some sort of growth story around this kind of structurally weakening situation?

Kirsty Puntila, CEO, Anora: It’s a very good question, an absolutely relevant question, and that’s exactly what we are working on here in the upcoming weeks. And then we will talk more about our growth path and growth opportunities and growth plans in the Capital Markets Day in November. But of course, I’m still saying the same thing as I did in the quarter one is that it’s not like the change is happening overnight. And I think already now we are well in a well advanced in making those structural changes also internally so that we’re doing things differently. We’re looking at our portfolios.

We are filling the pockets of opportunities. It’s not like people are stopping drinking altogether, but people are more conscious of their choices, what they are drinking. The occasions are still there, so we don’t see that this is like a drastic decline per se, but it’s more of a little bit of a change and structural change, for sure. But still, I would say that we’re very capable of changing Anora to be successful and winning in the new environment as well.

Matti Kaurola, Analyst: All right. Thank you. Then maybe other question. You said that you are not too dependent on the monopoly sales anymore, but what are then the other channels? Like, what is the remaining 55% of the kind of channels you are selling?

Kirsty Puntila, CEO, Anora: And don’t get me wrong. Monopolies are extremely important for us, and we are doing everything in our power to keep it that way so that they are by far single most important channels for us. And we have a very good relationship in all ALCOs, Sustenbolaket and BIM monopole. So we hope that, that will not go away. But of course, back to your original question, we are quickly adjusting to the changing market environment, which means that the other markets and channels that you were mentioning, of course, the retail in Finland, the growing grocery also in Sweden and Norway.

But as was in our longer term strategy in the past Capital Markets Day, the three different three pillars of our strategy are the Nordic markets, but it’s also adjacent markets, and by that, we mean Denmark and all of the Baltic markets and finally, the international expansion. So in the second strategy pillar, we are now obviously growing Denmark as we speak. And as I mentioned, we, a couple of months ago, opened up our own operations in Lithuania, which makes us a strong pan Nordic, panopaltic operator to give the best service for our customers and our partners. And then the international expansion is as planned. I think I mentioned last time that we are consciously increasing our share of international business.

We’re not doing any crazy promises or crazy jumps here and there, but we are very structurally and constructively increasing the share of international and global travel retail for that matter. And on that front, I can happily say that now it looks like the global travel retail is also turning after a very, very difficult period of time, and we see some growth in with our key customers in global travel retail as well.

Matti Kaurola, Analyst: All right. Many thanks.

Milena Hekstrom, Head of Investor Relations, Anora: Thank you. And then let’s move on to chat questions. We have two questions from Joridjasse. So let’s take the first one. On a general level and as a ballpark number, what would you say the margin potential accounting for initiated efficiency measures on an adjusted EBITDA basis for Anora would be at the current level of activity without making any assumptions about increased sales or mix switches?

Maria Wickstrom, Analyst: Do you want to take it off?

Stein Eriksen, CFO, Anora: Yes. I think we saved that for the Capital Markets Day, to be honest. We won’t reveal any numbers here.

Milena Hekstrom, Head of Investor Relations, Anora: And then continuing more specifically, if I understand it correctly, you are currently paying about EUR 8,500,000.0 or NOK 100,000,000 per year to lease the facilities at Jelerosen. At the same time, you have significant overcapacity at this facility. What is your best guess regarding underlying annual savings potential if you were to move out to a more appropriate and right sized facility? And would it be possible to achieve such savings prior to ’36?

Stein Eriksen, CFO, Anora: I don’t think we will answer that question either. It’s yep.

Kirsty Puntila, CEO, Anora: I think I can only say that, of course, with the program that we’re launching, we, of course, evaluate all the aspects of the company, and that’s the work that we will initiate now. So obviously, the supply chain footprint is part of the part of the evaluation.

Milena Hekstrom, Head of Investor Relations, Anora: Okay, thank you. And do we have any more questions from the live audience or from the chat? Please raise your hand to mark that or post questions in the chat. It doesn’t look like that, so thank you to the speakers and to everyone joining us online for all these good questions. Please be reminded that our next scheduled events are the Q3 interim report on October 31 and the Capital Markets Day, like said, on the November 5.

Please mark those in your calendars and look forward to seeing you then. Thank you.

Kirsty Puntila, CEO, Anora: Thank you.

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