Earnings call transcript: Byggmax Group Q3 2025 sees stock drop 14%

Byggmax Group AB (market cap: USD 6.75M) revealed mixed Q3 2025 financial performance, with the stock price declining sharply by 14.49% in pre-market trading. The company reported sales of SEK 1,965 million, a decrease of 7.8% compared to the previous year. Despite improvements in EBITDA margin and gross margin, the company’s earnings per share (EPS) and revenue failed to meet market expectations, contributing to the negative market reaction. According to InvestingPro analysis, the company maintains profitability over the last twelve months, with net income expected to grow this year.

Key Takeaways

• Byggmax’s Q3 2025 sales fell 7.8% year-over-year.
• The EBITDA margin improved significantly to 14%.
• Stock price dropped 14.49% in pre-market trading.
• Consumer confidence remains weak, affecting large renovation projects.
• Focus on increasing sales within the existing store portfolio.

Company Performance

Byggmax Group AB experienced a challenging quarter, with sales declining by 7.8% compared to the same period last year. Despite this, the company improved its EBITDA margin to 14%, a notable increase from the rolling 12-month figure of 5.7%. The company also reduced its net debt to below SEK 200 million, lowering its leverage ratio to 0.4x from 1.3x last year. These improvements highlight Byggmax’s focus on operational efficiency and cost management amid a competitive market environment.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: SEK 1,965 million, down 7.8% year-over-year
• EBITDA margin: 14%, up from 5.7% in the previous 12 months
• Gross margin: Improved by 158 basis points
• Net debt: Reduced to below SEK 200 million
• Leverage ratio: Decreased to 0.4x from 1.3x last year

Earnings vs. Forecast

Byggmax’s earnings per share (EPS) and revenue did not meet market expectations. The company’s EPS forecast was SEK 3.18, but the actual results fell short, contributing to the negative market sentiment. This miss contrasts with the company’s previous quarters, where it had shown a trend of meeting or exceeding expectations.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, Byggmax’s stock price fell by 14.49% in pre-market trading. Currently trading at USD 26.99, the stock sits between its 52-week range of USD 22.52 to USD 33.20, showing a modest YTD return of 3.02%. InvestingPro data indicates a FAIR financial health score of 2.09, suggesting stable fundamentals despite market volatility. This movement reflects broader market concerns and the company’s inability to meet earnings expectations. For deeper insights into Byggmax’s valuation and comprehensive analysis, investors can access the detailed Pro Research Report, available exclusively on InvestingPro.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking forward, Byggmax plans to prioritize customer proximity and drive sales through operational efficiency. The company is considering expanding its store network and increasing sales within its existing store portfolio. These strategic initiatives aim to position Byggmax favorably when market conditions improve. InvestingPro analysis reveals a strong free cash flow yield, though short-term obligations currently exceed liquid assets. Subscribers can access additional ProTips and detailed financial metrics to better understand the company’s growth potential and financial stability.

Executive Commentary

CEO Karl Sandel emphasized the company’s strategic focus, stating, "We continue to increase profitability in 2025." He also highlighted the solid foundation secured by strategic efforts and expressed confidence in the company’s position when the market improves.

Risks and Challenges

• Weak consumer confidence impacting large renovation projects.
• Potential supply chain disruptions affecting inventory management.
• Inflationary pressures on costs despite stable cost levels.
• Competition from other discount retailers in the Nordic market.
• Dependence on digital sales channels, which account for 80% of sales.

Q&A

During the Q&A session, analysts inquired about Byggmax’s e-commerce assortment refinement and inventory management strategy. The company confirmed its focus on the consumer market segment and discussed variations in seasonal product mixes. These discussions provided insights into Byggmax’s operational strategies and market positioning.

Full transcript - Byggmax Group AB (BMAX) Q3 2025:

Sarah, Moderator: Good morning. Thank you for attending today’s SpeakNext Quarter ’3 Interim Report. My name is Sarah, and I’ll be your moderator today. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call with an opportunity for questions and answers at the end. I would like to pass the conference over to our host, Karl Sandel, CEO.

Please go ahead.

Karl Sandel, CEO, Big Mac: Thank you. Thank you very much. And again, welcome to this conference call where we will present Big Mac’s report for the 2025. I’m Carl Sandel, CEO and with me is Helena Nathos, our CFO. And as usual, you’ll find the presentation that we are referring to on our website, and we will try to guide you to the relevant page during this call.

After short business update from my side, Helena will walk you through the Q3 financials. And once the presentations are finished, we open up for your questions. But let’s begin and please go to Page number two in the presentation. And as I hope you already have seen, we continue to improve our profitability in this quarter. Even though we’ve been operating in a weak market, we deliver on our focus areas and we adapt to the market conditions.

The third quarter is part of our high season and we have strong focus on operations and performance have been robust throughout this season. Our sales in the quarter is 0.8% lower than last year. We have some negative currency effects on sales, which mean that like for like sales is 0.2 lower than 2024 in the quarter. So it’s very similar to last year. But I will come back to different categories.

But overall, positive development in in garter related categories, while offsetting consumer still meant weaker performance when it comes to larger renovations. And we also have effects on our refinedecom offering with high margin and positive contribution to profitability, but negative impact on sales during the quarter, about 2% on total sales. We continue to maintain a high gross margin, and I have touched part two of the results for this, demand mix and changes to ecom. But early payment and strong operational performance with the low waste levels also contribute. And high gross margin in combination with strong cost control mean better results.

Our profitability improved for the sixth consecutive quarter and the EBITA margin in the quarter was up to 14%. In addition to improved results, we reduced both net debt and leverage and our net debt is now below SEK 200,000,000 at the end of the quarter. So overall, strong operations and improved profitability in the quarter. Before we get into more details, let’s go on Slide number three, a short overview. Big Mac was founded back in 1993 and today we have two twelve stores across four Nordic markets.

Our core is built on a strong selection of products for home renovation and maintenance, heavy building materials, primarily for consumers. And we offer everything from from this building materials and paying some times to to flooring and more. And our in store in store assortment is enhanced by online, providing both the wide range, but also home delivery of heavy building materials and and customized products. We are a true discount retailer and offering the best prices requires, of course, maintaining the lowest possible cost. And our store design not only keeps operational costs low, but also ensures an efficient shopping experience, which we see that our customers highly appreciate.

And in addition to the Big Mac brand, we have right sized tiles in Norway, focusing on tiles and bathroom, and also Kosta Bivouro, which offers products and buildings for home and gardens, such as conservatories or greenhouses. Please continue to page number four, and there you see that our sales last twelve months was SEK 6,100,000,000.0, and we delivered 348,000,000 in EBITA, and that’s an EBITA margin of 5.7%. Our business model is efficient, and we have high cash generation and cash conversion, and this is seen in strong cash flow as you will hear more about later. And we have a good strong mix of physical stores and ecom, and today about 80% of our total sales is through our online or digital channels. On page number five, we have some macro context, and and the market remains weak.

Consumer confidence improved during last year and were more positive in the beginning of this year, but weakened during the spring. When comparing Q3 this year to last year, the consumer confidence remains below last year in Sweden and Denmark and it’s stable at low level in Finland. So in most of our markets, confidence among consumers is actually weaker or as weak as the same time last year. And I guess the the general view is that consumers continue to be cautious, especially when it comes to to larger investments and and purchases, and that we see an increased household saving. At the same time, it’s good to see that house transaction continue to develop in the right direction.

The level is now similar to what we saw before the inflation shot. And together with disposable income and view of the future and some, those are historical drivers for our type of business through the vision projects. As we used to say, it’s always hard to predict the future. And that’s why we follow the market developments very carefully. And we have short lead times and we are used to quickly adapting our business to different level of demands, something that we have shown through the last quarters.

The current macro context is also reflected in our sales, if you turn to Page number six, please. Cautious consumers and customers concerned about their personal finances tend to hold back on larger purchases in The Netherlands. We have seen it before and we see in this quarter. Major renovation projects such as home expansions and large indoor refurbishments or roof replacements have developed more weekly. This is natural.

Customers are keeping a close eye on their wallets. As a result, there are fewer big ticket items in the mix. At the same time, other parts of our assortment have performed well, particularly products related to gardening and outdoor living, and this includes everything from planting, garden maintenance, to decking, sunsetting and repainting. And we’re also pleased to see growth in windows, garden buildings and greenhouses, especially the new greenhouse range sold under our own private label. And this mix has effect on the gross margin.

Demand has been more tilted than usually towards products with higher margins. Earlier this morning, actually, new data from Swedish Building Materials Index was released. And on the consumer side, that data showed that the market grew by 1% in Q3 compared to last year. So we are performing at least as good, especially considering that we have removed ecom sales corresponding to 2%. Current market conditions mean that operation control is, of course, extra important, see Page seven.

And during the high season, operational excellence is one of our most important priorities. And this year, perhaps more than before, we have stayed focused on the core. We have dedicated more time and energy to strengthen our existing business, and this has resulted in strong performance throughout the quarter. We’re working with materials such as timber, operational discipline is key to to to minimize waste. It’s essential to always maintain a good order, and our store teams have done an excellent job containing very high standards.

And in addition to the service like service like customers, this has resulted in in very low waste levels. And all this is made while maintaining strong cost control. As some of you might remember, we increased the staffing levels a bit early in Q2 to make sure that to have full capacity from the start of the season. And during Q3, this has been adapted to the volumes. And despite inflation and wage growth, we managed to keep our cost at almost the same level as last year.

And finally, we have put in a lot of effort into securing a smart buildup of the inventory with successful prioritization of products. We have secured strong product availability and well stocked stores while maintaining the total inventory on a good level. It’s actually slightly lower than last year. Please stick to to the next page, and and and you will see more improvements to the customer offer experience during the quarter. Let’s start with the left hand chart on this page because that is closely connected to the right hand chart on the previous slide.

Because, of course, the flip side of lower inventory levels could be that the product availability in stores go down. But we have worked very carefully with this and for products with higher demand, we have raised stock levels while adapting, sometimes reducing inventory for products with lower turnover. And this has resulted in both improved service levels with even higher product availability in our stores than before, even though total inventory is slightly lower than last year. And in addition to better product availability, we continue to improve the customer experience in our stores both through rearrangements to secure better customer flows and by enhancing our self-service checkouts and other services. This strengthen our ability, for example, to communicate with customers by displaying offers or reminding all the products that they might have forgotten when they are in the checkout.

And in addition, those self-service checkers that we have free up our staff from the cash registers and allowing them to be more present in the score and to assist and support customers during their visit to us. And this number more than 50% of the customers is really used self-service when they checked out from our stores. And then speaking of digital tools, we are also continuing to develop the digital support tools that we offer our customers on on our website. For example, our AI driven shop and shop. It helps customers with their project and and adds to select the product to to the shopping carts.

And this service is is still on an earlier stage, but we can already see that it contributes both to customer experience and satisfaction, but also to sales. On page nine, some words of ecom. Our ambition is always to offer the most attractive assortment to to our customers, where our store assortment is complemented with a wide range online. And to secure relevant products for our customers, we add products where we see potential, but we also phase out selected non core ones. And lately, have further refined the comp offering where we have removed some categories to secure higher relevance, but also to improve profitability.

And short term, this had somewhat negative impact on sales and as mentioned, a positive 2% in the quarter on total sales. But at the same time, it contributed positively to margin and profitability. Before handing over to Helena, next slide, looking at the bigger picture and the longer term. Over the past two years, we have secured a strong financial position with low net debt and low leverage. In this year, we had a very strong operation control and we have made improvements to to our customer offering.

And we continue our long term ambition to be the leading low cost home improvement retailer in our markets. We we operate very high efficiency retail model that delivers positive customer experience and the right quality at the best to the best prices with scale and simplicity. We will develop our core with a strong customer focus to further enhance our offering. And our ambition is to increase sales and volume in our existing store portfolio, and we will continue to secure efficiency and leverage our operations. And with with deeper customer insights, development of the commercial offering and strong execution capabilities, we secure foundation for for profitable growth.

So just to summarize, focus on what matters more most of our customers, expand through smart commercialization of our offering, and scale with ambition and discipline. But now over to Helena and this quarter’s financials.

Helena Nathos, CFO, Big Mac: Thank you, Carl. And the actions and priorities you have described are clearly reflected in our numbers. On Slide 11, we show the rolling twelve month sales and margin development over the past three years. It’s been a long period of weak and volatile demand, but our early actions have helped mitigate the impact and stabilize performance. During 2025, we are now seeing a gradual recovery in sales even though macro and our consumers remain cautious.

At the same time, profitability has strengthened for the six consecutive quarters, lifting the rolling twelve month EBITDA margin to 5.7%. This demonstrates that our strategy of being efficient and focused on our core is paying off in this uncertain market. On Slide 12, this quarter illustrates that our focus on core and simplification of our offer drives profitability even when sales are stable. In the third quarter, sales are 7.8% lower than last year, reaching 1,965,000,000. And the two main factors explain this.

First, a negative currency impact, primarily from the Norwegian currency of around 0.8%. And second, our delivery of the movement of parts of econ assortment, which had a further 2% impact on sales. We ended this quarter with two twelve stores, one new store in Sweden and a net of zero change in the Adder Nordics. Sales in Sweden performing somewhat stronger than the rest of the Nordic in this quarter, but the real strength lies in our gross margin, which improved by 158 basis points. And the improvement comes from several of drivers.

A more profitable product mix, especially as commented from garden and maintenance categories, targeted initiatives in ecommerce with streamlined assortments, early payment discounts from suppliers, and low waste levels in our stores. Altogether, it’s a broad based margin improvement, not one single factor, but many disciplined actions reinforcing each other. If we move to slide 13, as Carl described, operational excellence is one of the cornerstones of our strategy. Over the past two years, we have adjusted our cost base to match lower volumes while improving flexibility and speed. Costs have been reduced in both schools and administration, creating lean process, sales and and organization that can scale up and down.

In this quarter, total operating expenses increased by up 0.8%. This confirms that our cost discipline remains solid even as we continue investing in the consumer experience and in digital tools that simplifies operations. By simplifying how we work and keep close control, we built an organization that is both efficient and flexible going forward. And on Slide 14, we can clearly see how our efforts translate into profitability. Looking at the performance year to date, EBITDA has improved by a 115,000,000 versus the same period last year.

This improvement reflects the scale advantages we built up across the business. The the operation has become more aligned, and the incremental sales contribute directly to profit. But also in the creation related to lease agreements, we remain stable while the lower investment levels have contributed to the the decrease in total depreciation. This contributes to higher profitability as the volume increases and also continuing to Page 15 finally, we have the rolling twelve month cash flow from operating activities amounting to NOK $830,000,000, demonstrating the strong continued cash generation. It reflects that not only improved profitability, but also efficient working management with stable inventory levels and disciplined investment decision continues.

Net debt has been further reduced, and the leverage is now 0.4 times. It’s down from 1.3 times last year. For balance sheet, it’s by that stronger, and it gives us both flexibility and resilience. And by that, I’ll hand back to Karl before we open up for questions.

Karl Sandel, CEO, Big Mac: Thank you, Elena. And please move to the next slide in the presentation. I think it’s number 16. Our key messages again. We continue to increase profitability in the 2025.

We have a strong and stable position. Leverage ratio is down to 0.4. And as you heard from Elena, we have a very efficient model. And year to date, we have improved the gross profit by SEK 110,000,000 while increasing OpEx with SEK 14,000,000. Our strategic efforts have secured a solid foundation with an attractive assortment, high customer satisfaction and short lead times.

We are well positioned when the market improves. And going forward, we are prioritizing three things: staying close to our customers, driving sales, doing so with high and good operational efficiency. The focus on simplicity and speed in execution, which gives us the flexibility we need in the in the day to day operation. And finally, really would like to highlight our employees. They have delivered a very strong summer season with high operational performance and customer satisfaction.

And now we’re heading into fall and winter, less busy seasons, but we will secure the same energy and commitment also going forward. And with that, we thank you for your attention, and we’re now happy to answer your questions.

Sarah, Moderator: Thank Our first question comes from Benjamin Wallstead with ABG. Your line is open.

Benjamin Wallstead, Analyst, ABG: Good morning. Two questions from me. So first of all, I was wondering if you could give us some more flavor on the like for like growth in the quarter, please. What is your view of the market growth?

Karl Sandel, CEO, Big Mac: Hi, Benjamin. Well, we note that the market continues to be characterized by uncertainty with cautious consumers and increased household savings, and that especially impacts the larger tickets, the larger renovations. It has done so before, and we saw that also in the quarter, while at the same time, other categories developed more positively when it comes to Gartner and more as we mentioned. Looking at our core categories,

Giulia Batu, Analyst, Pascal Adviser: see that we continue to

Karl Sandel, CEO, Big Mac: have a very strong position and that we develop at least as good as at the market. As mentioned, we just received the building materials index for Sweden, which shows that we are developing at least as as the market. And and also as mentioned in when we look at like for like for us, we we made changes to the e com offering corresponding to approximately 2% of total sales in in in that order.

Benjamin Wallstead, Analyst, ABG: Perfect. And I was wondering as well if you could elaborate on the gross margin improvement, please. What is the largest or the main driver behind taking the gross margin to an all time high level, basically?

Karl Sandel, CEO, Big Mac: Yes. As you heard both from me and Helena, it’s driven by several factors in the quarter. And one key thing is the effect of demand. As as mentioned, has come consumers have resulted in fewer big ticket items in the mix, and demand has been more tilted than usually towards categories for for projects with higher margin. So this is one impacting factor and the larger of the four that I will mention.

In addition, we have the improvements to ecom when it comes to assortments and logistics, which have a positive effect on the margin as well. As you heard, also a negative one on the sales, positive both on margin and contribution. And then we have some early payment. Our strong financial position enables us to both order and pay early, which gives some discounts. And finally, we have very low waste levels in the quarter.

Very strong operations have led to low waste levels. And the size of the four is in the order that I mentioned.

Sarah, Moderator: Our next question is from Magnus Raman with FB1 Markets. You may ask the question.

Magnus Raman, Analyst, FB1 Markets: Thank you. Maybe tying in firstly to what you just replied to one of the first questions here on taking out certain low turning products from your e com and stating then having a two percentage points negative sales growth effect for the group in Q3. Can you remind us of when you started these initiatives and the effects in the preceding quarters and thereby also when approximately you expect these measures to annualize?

Karl Sandel, CEO, Big Mac: Well, we started during the spring and it’s been gradually. We are analyzing the assortments continuously to see, you know, to make sure that we have a very attractive assortment, but also very relevant to our customers. So started during the spring and with with larger and larger effects. We mentioned in q two that it had some effect, but we didn’t say now because it’s was a smaller number than what we see now. Now it’s at 2%.

And and I guess that we will have a full effect. So we started during the spring and and had larger effect in q three than than during q two. And then the effect in total depends on, you know, category mix during the seasons. We have tried different seasons, right, with much larger due to the seasons than the winter season. So it will depend on quarter and season patterns.

Understood. But

Magnus Raman, Analyst, FB1 Markets: these measures also apart from them having a negative impact on your top line growth, it also supports your gross margin on group level. So I’m trying to figure out if as it has been sort of having a larger and large effect over the quarters, is it spring on your top line growth? Did it also support to a larger and larger extent your gross margin at the same time?

Karl Sandel, CEO, Big Mac: Yes. Yes. It yes. And and but but again, the the gross margin is is due to several factors. Right?

Where some of them are our own measures, but also, of course, market conditions, but yes, larger, as you say.

Magnus Raman, Analyst, FB1 Markets: Great. And then as

Karl Sandel, CEO, Big Mac: it

Magnus Raman, Analyst, FB1 Markets: relates to the product mix, which was also touched upon already, is it fair to assume when we enter the sort of the winter quarters and the low season quarters for you that it is more likely that smaller E, higher gross margin items will be representing a larger share of your sales? Or is the seasonal pattern the same?

Karl Sandel, CEO, Big Mac: Hard to say. Of course, during summer, we have more larger usually, have more larger outdoor projects. But at the same time, we have a base of larger renovations, renovations, you know, there’s no year round. So so I think it’s hard to to effectively say, and then it also depends on the market development almost month by month, right, to to see what is the the norm for for different categories during different time of the year. So I think we will come back to the fourth quarter sales and sales development later when we release that report.

Magnus Raman, Analyst, FB1 Markets: Fair enough. And then just finally here, you have maintained more or less a flat store network over the recent two years. At the same time, as you also showed in your presentation, your balance sheet has strengthened considerably. This, I guess, opens up for you an ability to invest. And in that regard, how do you see the expansion potential or sort of the your market maturity, if you wish?

Do you think you’re fully penetrated in your home markets? Or is there a possibility here for you to gain in rather slowly growing market overall to gain market share through expansion on the basis of your strong balance sheet?

Karl Sandel, CEO, Big Mac: Well, as we say, we an efficient business model with good cash conversion, enabling both investments in our future business and dividends to our shareholders. And the fact that we have secured a very strong financial position is good. It’s really good. It creates conditions for operational flexibility, possibilities to optimize inventory buildup and utilizing early payments. So we are in a good position.

And our operating strategy remains unchanged. We will continue to drive in profitable growth and aim to outpace the markets. One reason for this is of course number of stores and we see a lot of still white spots because the billing and sales market is very local. So we see more potential, we see more white spots when it to number of stores. That said, we also have significant potential to increase volume and sales within our existing store network and that is a priority now.

Over time, our ambition is for even more customers to have a convenient access, close to an affordable building materials retailers, I. E, more business stores.

Magnus Raman, Analyst, FB1 Markets: Thank you very much.

Karl Sandel, CEO, Big Mac: Thanks.

Sarah, Moderator: Our next question is from Giulia Batu with Pascal Adviser. You may ask your question.

Giulia Batu, Analyst, Pascal Adviser: Hello, Karl and Elena. Good morning to you. I would have one or two questions left, even though you answered many during the last three questions. The first one I really want to understand is this capital refinement in the ecom because I just want to understand, the 200 basis points, it’s only on Q3 because it’s somehow seasonal product? Or this 200 basis will continue in Q4, Q1 and probably fade into Q2 ’twenty six?

Karl Sandel, CEO, Big Mac: Julian. Yes, when it comes to the effect on the revised assortment on ecom, the two percent point was in Q2 on total sales. Q3, sorry. It had some net loss during Q2, but it was smaller, so we did eventually. The effect on total effect, of course, will depend on the size of those categories during different times of the year.

That’s a little bit hard to say and predict. So that will depend on category size versus our total sales during the same period. But the 2% was yes on the third quarter.

Giulia Batu, Analyst, Pascal Adviser: But it will still affect Q4 and Q1?

Karl Sandel, CEO, Big Mac: It will still affect, yes, it will. And it also did in Q2, but to a smaller extent.

Giulia Batu, Analyst, Pascal Adviser: And can you give because 2% seems a lot to be especially e com is only 20% of sales. So that would mean 10% of ecom that has been basically shaped. So can you give examples of products you discontinued?

Karl Sandel, CEO, Big Mac: Well, we’re really analyzing our store business, we have had the categories that is little bit far too away from our core. Products that maybe the customers didn’t expect to find at the Big Mac store. So those and to be able to sell them, we have the stores have very low prices or different logistics set up and so on. So those are categories where we have revised them and we are not satisfied. Is this a value for our customers or not?

So those types of categories have been discontinued. And then we also, as mentioned before, we have also looked through our logistics setups and offers and so on and we can change some adjustments to those. So it’s a mix, making sure that we have a strong contributingecom channel

Giulia Batu, Analyst, Pascal Adviser: for the group. So that means that some products have been directly so customers would order directly from the publisher rather than through you?

Karl Sandel, CEO, Big Mac: Yes, that’s true. I think I understood you right. It was not that we have had the products on the side being delivered directly from the suppliers. And

Giulia Batu, Analyst, Pascal Adviser: if I look at the inventory level, which is very, very low now, I mean, how do you make sure that the, you know, squeezing a little bit too much? And and again, because discussion comes from, for me, in line with the with the previous discussions on your preference versus the market. Correct me if I’m wrong, you are a discount player. And in current times, discount player should be doing better than the market because price consciousness, as you stated many times, is top of mind for many customers. So I’m a little confused at why you’re not showing a bigger outperformance.

And I’m just wondering if the backside of this work on inventory and assortment is not slightly weighing on customer, let’s say, choice or experience in the store because he maybe might not find all the products he wants.

Karl Sandel, CEO, Big Mac: Yes to the first, right. We are a discount retailer. Our core offering is always to offer the best prices to our customers where we have carefully curated assortment. We buy larger volumes to make sure that we have the best purchase terms and so on. And we are also in primarily in the heavy building materials sectors when it comes to larger innovations and so on, and now we are super strong.

Those are sectors or or categories that we really saw this quarter have been, you know, where where consumers still are quite hesitant when it comes to logic on that, they are more affected than other ones. When it comes to the inventory buildup, I think that we better than before have been very careful when it comes to building up the right assortment, the right inventory, making sure that we have strong availability of products when it comes to products with high demand. And we have reduced it somewhat when it comes to products with low demand. So we are more precise, more carefully doing this than before and that has enabled us to both increase our, we call it, service levels and at the same time having that total inventory level up actually slightly lower level than before. But that is something that we are very careful when it comes to and monitoring all the time to make sure that there are products in stock when our customers come close to us and want to make their purchases.

Giulia Batu, Analyst, Pascal Adviser: Okay. Maybe last question on the as you pointed out, they still I mean, you are still far away in terms of revenue per store compared to even five years ago. So it makes it sort of pointless to open stores at the moment. But that begs the question of the leverage, right? I mean, as you pointed out, maybe the debt will increase a little bit because usually Q4 is less favorable in terms of working capital.

Nonetheless, you still have some low net debt to EBITDA pre IFRS, which fair question on the payout. I mean you have 50% dividend policy. Would that mean that it could be bumped up a little bit this year to take into account this over capitalization?

Karl Sandel, CEO, Big Mac: We can pass with the proposal for dividend as you may have stated. It’s usually part of our Q4 communication with the Board to send the recommendation for the AGM. So please be patient and we’ll come back to that our next call.

Giulia Batu, Analyst, Pascal Adviser: And shareholder remuneration would be only through dividend, right?

Karl Sandel, CEO, Big Mac: Buyback? So we will come back to with the proposal or the Board will come back to the with the proposal at the next usually in line at the same time as we release our Q4 results when we have the year concluded.

Giulia Batu, Analyst, Pascal Adviser: Okay. Thanks. Have a good day.

Karl Sandel, CEO, Big Mac: Thank you.

Sarah, Moderator: Thank you. Our next question is from Espen Langevin with SP1 Markets. You may ask your question.

Karl Sandel, CEO, Big Mac: Hello,

Benjamin Wallstead, Analyst, ABG: guys. Just a question regarding the kind of underlying market development and which has been a theme throughout the call. But just just to drill into the route market or what do call the English RMI market, which my understanding is is the the the segment that’s driving the growth at the moment. And these are kind of professionals or contractors locally, maybe are are are purchasing the equipment and and the good sets of the stores and and and big max, which are not particularly involved with the the in the professional segment. So I was just kind of wondering if you could share some some thoughts around the Beerut segment and also your share of the professionals.

Karl Sandel, CEO, Big Mac: Yes. Hello, Wester. Well, the absolute majority of our customers are consumers making projects on their own. And for them, this has no direct effect, right, because students don’t accept tax dedication for at least it’s subsidy for home renovation when you do it with professionals, and it’s not material, but for the work. And then I guess the temporary rule change that we’re seeing right now is more for the building and construction sectors than for building materials.

We haven’t seen any material effect from from this in the quarter because it’s not directed towards us, I guess. It’s it’s more for the professional sector and and for the services, not the materials.

Benjamin Wallstead, Analyst, ABG: Yes. But would that would that imply that, you know, when when we’re discussing the market share loss, which someone have pointed towards, I mean, market may be growing 3%, 4% in Sweden and most of that growth may be coming from the Rolled segment.

Giulia Batu, Analyst, Pascal Adviser: Would that would you agree with that? Or

Karl Sandel, CEO, Big Mac: We are a retailer focused on consumers, not professional ones. And looking at when it comes to this building material index data that came earlier today, it showed that the growth in the businesses to consumers, I. E, our sector, plus 1%, and we are well there adjusting for the econfessions. So I think it’s a little bit two different things, right? And then we the absolute majority of our customers, the ones that we are focusing on are the consumers in this.

Giulia Batu, Analyst, Pascal Adviser: Thank you.

Karl Sandel, CEO, Big Mac: Thank you, Hassan.

Sarah, Moderator: Thank you. There are no questions at this time. So I pass the conference back over to Karl Sandlin for any further remarks.

Karl Sandel, CEO, Big Mac: Well, thank you a lot for your participation and for all the questions. And if not before, we are looking forward to meeting you again after our year end report. So thank you very much.

Sarah, Moderator: That concludes SpeakNet’s quarter three interim report. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your line.

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