Earnings call transcript: XXL Q1 2025 sees revenue growth, stock dips

XXL ASA reported its first-quarter 2025 financial results, marking a return to revenue growth for the first time since Q1 2023. The company achieved a 7.2% increase in revenue, reaching 1.67 billion SEK, though trailing twelve-month revenue shows a 9.77% decline. Despite this growth, the stock price fell by 4.59% in pre-market trading, closing at 10.4 SEK. The earnings per share (EPS) forecast was set at -1.49, with actual EPS figures not disclosed. According to InvestingPro data, the company’s financial health score stands at a concerning 0.86, rated as WEAK, suggesting underlying challenges despite the revenue uptick. The market reacted to the company’s mixed performance and ongoing restructuring efforts.

Key Takeaways

• Revenue grew by 7.2% to 1.67 billion SEK, the first growth since Q1 2023.
• Stock price dropped by 4.59% in pre-market trading.
• New private label "Bounce" launched, boosting women’s fitness offerings.
• Inventory increased by 4%, while net debt decreased to 968 million SEK.
• Phase 2 cost-cutting initiative announced, targeting 300 million SEK.

Company Performance

XXL ASA’s performance in Q1 2025 showed a positive revenue trajectory, with a 7.2% increase marking a significant turnaround after several quarters of stagnation. The company’s strategic focus on digital marketing and private label expansion contributed to this growth. However, the decrease in gross margin to 38.2% and ongoing restructuring efforts may have tempered investor enthusiasm.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: 1.67 billion SEK, up 7.2% year-over-year
• Gross margin: 38.2%, a slight decrease of 0.6 percentage points
• EBITDA: 12.4 million SEK
• Inventory: Increased by 4% to 1.9 billion SEK
• Net debt: Reduced to 968 million SEK

Market Reaction

Despite the revenue growth, XXL ASA’s stock fell by 4.59% to 10.4 SEK in pre-market trading. The stock’s decline reflects investor concerns over the company’s profitability and restructuring efforts. InvestingPro analysis reveals the stock has lost over 80% in the past year, with particularly volatile trading patterns. The stock remains closer to its 52-week low of 7.2 SEK than its high of 88.6 SEK, indicating ongoing market skepticism. For deeper insights into XXL’s valuation and 12 additional exclusive ProTips, consider exploring InvestingPro’s comprehensive analysis tools.

Outlook & Guidance

XXL ASA is targeting full-year growth in 2025, with a focus on restructuring its store footprint, modernizing its media mix, and enhancing its customer rewards program. The company expects to continue leveraging its private labels and digital marketing strategies to drive future growth.

Executive Commentary

CEO Freddy Sobin highlighted the company’s return to growth, stating, "We are now back to growth for the first time in two years." He emphasized the commitment to profitability, saying, "We will do whatever is necessary to get us back to profitability." CFO Lars Sise Kristansson acknowledged the challenges, noting, "We are not satisfied with the current profitability levels."

Risks and Challenges

• Profitability Concerns: Despite revenue growth, profitability remains a challenge.
• Market Competition: Intense competition in the retail sector could impact margins.
• Restructuring Costs: Ongoing restructuring efforts may incur additional costs.
• Macroeconomic Factors: Economic fluctuations in key markets like Norway, Sweden, and Finland could affect performance.
• Inventory Management: The 4% increase in inventory requires careful management to avoid excess stock.

The Q1 2025 earnings call for XXL ASA highlighted both opportunities and challenges as the company navigates its growth strategy amidst market pressures. The focus on private labels and digital transformation continues to be central to its plans moving forward.

Full transcript - XXL ASA (XXL) Q1 2025:

Tolk Gretrud, Moderator/Presenter, XXL: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the First Quarter Results Presentation. My name is Tolk Gretrud, and I have the pleasure of guiding you through today’s presentation. And our CEO, Freddy Sobin and our CFO, Lars Sise Kristansson will take you through the presentation and then followed by a Q and A session. And for the media, there will be an opportunity to perform separate interviews after the presentation. So please direct your request to our press contact.

So without further introductions, I turn the floor over to

Freddy Sobin, CEO, XXL: you, Freddy. Thank you, Tolle. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to everyone joining us in the room as well as everyone joining us online. We’re here today to walk you through the first quarter results. And just like the headline says, we are very happy and proud to report strong top line growth for the first quarter of twenty twenty five of 7% or exactly 7.2%, and that in itself driven by the reset and rethink strategy and the progression of that.

So I will begin with the CEO update, then leaving the word over to our CFO and then coming back for some final remarks. So starting off, the first quarter of twenty twenty five is actually the first quarter of growth since the first quarter of twenty twenty three. So this is the first time we’re growing in two years’ time. It’s been a long road here, but we’re finally back to growth, something we’re now very much focused on remaining on that journey, on that recovery path. And all through 2024, we were on a very clear sales recovery path.

And if you remember the last quarter, we reported growth in December, but we’ve been able to hold on to that growth all through the first quarter. If we break it down month by month, we especially see that February and March delivers double digit growth, which I think is really strong. Being in a quarter where we had maybe not the best of winter conditions, we saw very heavy and challenging campaign pressure all through the market. And also keep in mind that we had one less store versus Q1 of twenty twenty four and also that we no longer have any operations in Denmark, which we had last year. So, I think the growth that we are delivering is strong.

If we double click on it and kind of look at what is the underlying drivers for the growth in itself, we can see that our digital dual campaign tactics are really paying off, meaning that we are no longer only focusing on maybe the most seasonally relevant products, but actually leveraging the full width of our customer offer. That is really working well for us. Also, e commerce driving the growth, stores not far behind, they are also growing. But e commerce really pushing us forward, meaning also that we are becoming more lean, agile, flexible and really leaning into the digital market. What’s also really pleasing to see is that all three of our markets are contributing to the growth in the quarter, meaning both Norway, Sweden and Finland is back to growth.

Sweden, again leading that growth, something we’ve seen ever since the second quarter of twenty twenty four. That trend continues. Private label, also a trend that continues. Our private label share of sales continues to increase, something we’ll come back to later on. But that also helps us to become even stronger in delivering value for money to our customers and widen our mass market appeal.

And lastly, our customer club, which we relaunched in October 2023, continues really to deliver. We are now up to more than 4.4, almost 4,500,000 members in our club. And I think that in itself just speaks numbers and heaps. Moving on, reset and rethink, that is has what we’ve been focusing on now since summer of twenty twenty three. It’s now starting to really pay off as top line growth is back for the first time in a long time.

And as every quarter, looking into the reset indicators, our must win battles, how they are delivering, we really see increasingly positive indicators across all must win battles. Starting with category reset. The light green graph shows you the quantities in our inventory, the volume, whilst the dark green shows you the revenue development. And you can clearly see us in 2023, we took down our inventory value, thus also the volume of products in inventory that hurt us a lot on top line. The strategy to rebalance the composition of our inventory towards more low price, but still maintaining also mid and high price points.

The repositioning, the rebalancing has helped us to regain volume and inventory. So while inventory value is up by 4%, inventory volume, the number of pieces in inventory, is up by an amazing 25%. And that in itself has really helped to drive growth throughout the quarter, together with the strength and value for money proposition. Private label, helping both in availability and value for money, being up with 7.2 percentage points in sales share. So a really strong growth in private label, something we’re very proud of.

Looking at pricing in the quarter, we wanted to go out of the quarter with a balanced winter inventory, not going out of it too heavy. So we had to do quite some end of season sales campaigning to get the winter products out, which meant that the gross margin took a hit. So it’s 0.6 percentage points lower year over year, but still, I think it’s a good and sound gross margin, well above 38%. Looking at our two sales channels, e commerce continues its both short and midterm trend of improving in profitability, while stores delivers a really solid 3.3 percentage points increase in conversion rate. I think that conversion number in itself also speaks heaps about the strengthened offering and assortment that we now have in place in our stores.

Also, revenue per worked hour was up 9%, also that a strong increase. So I would say all indicators continues to move in the right direction. And really, for the first time, we see reset and rethink really driving materially the business forward. It’s taken some time to get here, but now we’re here. And now we’re really focused on continuing to hold on to this to continue growth.

That is really key for us. Moving over to Rethink, so the more long term transformational strategic pillars for the company. We continue to restructure physical stores to downsize our store footprint to elevate store experience. We’ll come back to that in a later slide. Acceleratingecom.

We see ecom growing with almost 10% in the quarter, a strong number. But again, stores actually being quite close behind that as well. Doubling down on private label. ’24 was a big year for relaunching McKinsey, launching Stormberg again in XXL, strengthening White, one of our strongest private labels and also launching Pilago as a new brand. But also now in Q1 twenty twenty five, we launched yet another in house brand, a new private label called Bounce, which I’ll also get back to.

And lastly, our workshops, our service offering. We see that for the first time actually ever. In 2024, the workshops were profitable on a full year basis, which means that we now are ready to really scale them up to deliver even more workshop services to our customers. We see them being in big demand. Winter is being driven a lot by skis and skates.

Now we’re moving over to more bike services, repairs, etcetera. But really something also being in high demand from our customers. If we zoom in on our stores, because we have 86 stores in The Nordics currently. 2025 will be a big year for the stores. Once again, we are taking out approximately 10,000 square meters from our store footprint.

So we are very much committed to getting both commercial area down in order to get rent levels down because we still see rent levels being unacceptably high in the market after index clauses and the last year’s inflation driving them up to really, I would say, unsustainable levels. In 2025, we’ll be touching many stores. We’ll be relocating, we’ll be downsizing, opening, closing, reconcepting, refitting, etcetera. We really see that the store elevation strategy and also actually the downsizing works very well for us. So it’s something that we will continue with.

Just like last week actually, so after the first quarter, we opened our first new store in quite a long time, this time in Trollhetten in Sweden, a white spot for us, a very promising first few dates in opening and something we very much look forward to. And we are still looking for further new locations in all three countries. So we are very much open for any and all proposals and suggestions as long as it’s a strong location and also commercially an attractive lease contract. Because once again, the rent levels that we’re currently seeing are too high, and it’s something that we will be taking on even more so. But that being said, we are also now quite soon closing one more store in Finland.

And once again, with unacceptable rent levels, we are ready to walk away and leave stores as well. So we are opening, we are closing, we are relocating, we are downsizing. We are very much committed to strengthening our entire store footprint and the entire portfolio. We see nothing else being acceptable. Getting back to private label.

In January, we launched Bounce, our first in house brand solely focused on women and fitness. And this has really been off to a strong start and really also allowed us to widen and welcome furthermore new customer segments into XXL. And we see that the products, the quality, the price points hits just right in the market. So this is really something that also I think will drive continued private label success for us. And with that, just to conclude on the first part, the reset and rethink strategy very much progressing, very many positive indicators.

And ultimately, being back to growth is the most important thing. And we are very much now focused on continuing that, aiming for 2025 to be a full year of growth for XXL once again. And with that, leaving over to Lars.

Lars Sise Kristansson, CFO, XXL: Thank you, Freddy. Let’s take a look at the highlights from a financial perspective in the first quarter. As Freddy has already explained, we see a strong top line development in the first quarter, delivering growth in operating revenue of more than 7% and on a like for like level, 7.8% as we’ve actually had one less store for the most part of quarter one. That leaves us with a revenue of 1,670,000,000.00 in the quarter. And again, looking at the geographies, we see the strongest performance in the Swedish market with an above 10% growth in Q1 and channel wise e commerce, as Freddy said, being the growth driver in the quarter.

We will take a closer look at category sales performance a little bit later in the presentation. Gross margin comes in at 38.2%, a slight reduction compared to the first quarter last year as we have invested gross margin in the quarter to ensure that we’re exiting the winter season with an acceptable level of winter stock in our inventories. Operational costs in the quarter, $625,000,000, an increase in the cost base driven predominantly by salary inflation, but also increased volumes being managed throughout the XXL supply chain. That leaves us with a slight EBITDA improvement in the quarter, 3.7% to SEK 12,400,000.0. And again, looking at the country perspective, we see Sweden with the most significant EBITDA improvement in the quarter, while more disappointing EBITDA developments in Norway and Finland.

Our inventory out of Q1 ends at just north of 1,900,000,000.0, an improve or an increase with 4% compared to the same quarter last year. And we’re exiting the winter season with a well positioned inventory, ready also for the springsummer season, which is upcoming. Liquidity, approximately $344,000,000 available. That’s a reduction with approximately SEK $250,000,000 compared to Q1 last year, but that reduction is driven by a reduction of more than 300,000,000 of the revolving credit facilities that the group has available with our core banks. Taking a closer look at our category development, there’s two things worth noticing in Q1.

First of all, XXL is able to deliver growth across all category sectors, highlighting the competitive strength of a broad value for money assortment. Secondly, amongst the bottom categories, we find typically important winter equipment categories, important to traditionally drive sales in the first quarter. However, in this quarter, we have been able to offset sales decline within these categories with sales growth within apparel and sporting categories. This comes as a result of a strategy where we have actively reallocated capital towards soft goods with high margins as well as developing new commercial capabilities, allowing us to execute a dual campaign strategy. In the months and quarters to come, we will continue to refine these capabilities in order to continue to drive category sales performance going forward.

Summarizing EBITDA. An improvement in gross margin of approximately 36,000,000, driven by the top line increase, which again is driven by both improvements in traffic and conversion. However, this gross margin improvement offset by margin reductions following the inventory management tactics that we implemented as well as the increased cost base. That leaves us with an EBITDA in Q1 of SEK 12,400,000.0. And it’s important for us to underline that we are not satisfied with the current profitability levels.

We will continue to turn every stone in order to improve profitability for XXL in the quarters and years to come. As a part of that, we are today announcing a Phase two of our cost out activities. Phase one was delivered in Q4 last year, totaling a total of 300,000,000 in cost out cost reductions. Today, we are announcing a Phase two with an additional SEK 300,000,000 target in cost and capital out. We will deliver that target by optimizing our supply chain and logistics, working with, as Freddy has explained to you, our real estate portfolio, continuing to optimize labor as well as taking out scale effects from procurement and investing in technology supporting our core business processes.

Looking at our Q1 balance sheet, we see a reduction in net debt of approximately SEK 100,000,000 to SEK $968,000,000 following a continued down payment of the Swedish tax debt. From Q4, net debt has been reduced with approximately SEK 200,000,000 following a down payment of our bridge loan. Liquidity, as said, around SEK $350,000,000 out of the quarter. The operational cash flow in Q1 is negative with SEK 124,000,000. It is, however, important to note that more than SEK 80,000,000 is driven by unrealized foreign exchange losses as well as a tax cost reported in Q1 but not paid.

That effect is in total almost SEK 85,000,000. The remaining negative impact on operational cash flow comes from building inventory ahead of the important spring and summer season. As you all know, we have completed our rights issue of SEK 600,000,000 in Q1. In addition, we have downpaid our bridge loan of approximately SEK 300,000,000. In the share allocation from that rights issue, Fraser’s group crossed the threshold to launch a mandatory offer for the outstanding shares of XXL.

This offer was launched on April 15 with expiry on May 13. And we expect a statement from the Board of Directors regarding this mandatory offer on or about May 5. And that concludes the financial summary of Q1. Over to you, Freddy, for the closing remarks.

Freddy Sobin, CEO, XXL: Thank you, Lars. So looking into the outlook of 2025, the remainder of the year. We will drive four main Rethink initiatives to secure that we continue the growth path that we’ve now started successfully in the first quarter. And as I said before, we are very much committed to restructuring our store footprint, the portfolio, but also to elevate the store experience at the same time. And I think we’ve never had as many projects as we have this year, both rejuvenating and really modernizing the store layouts, the concepts, downsizing, etcetera.

So a lot of things are happening with our stores. We are very much committed to strengthening them throughout the year. Our media mix, just like communicated in the last quarter, we are modernizing our media mix and really strengthening our customer communication, leaning a lot more into digital, being a lot more agile, but also really following customer behavior, something we should have done a long time. We have now left the printed and physical DMs behind. We see great results already in Q1 from that and are convinced that it is fully the right way to go.

Also, we will continue to deliver great value for money to our customers. That has really been XSL’s core offering throughout the years and something we’re now taking back as a core strength, both through private labels, but also through increasingly strong strategic win win collaborations with many of our great brand partners and suppliers. And lastly, continuing to drive on our successful growth engine, which is XSL Reward. We want to see even more members of that club. It is growing month by month, quarter by quarter, and we are looking forward to welcoming even more customers into that club.

So in essence, where are we? Well, we think fundamentally that we are seeing the reset and rethink strategy really bearing fruit. We see it in reset indicators. We see it in rethink pillars. We also see that Phase one of our cost out has successfully been concluded in 2024.

We took out almost SEK 300,000,000 in cost, and we are now committing to yet another SEK 300,000,000 in cost and capital. Because now we need to both continue with our growth of top line, continue with strong margins, but ultimately coming back to profitability. And we will do whatever is necessary to get us back to that point. So back to growth, lean and modern operations and a very disciplined capital and inventory steering. That is really the three focus areas for us in 2025, And we are very much optimistic that we are in the right path.

We are seeing very many signs that things are moving forward. And increasingly, we are gaining momentum and accelerating on our path. And before we conclude for today, I really want to send a very big great thank you both to all of our many suppliers, brand partners, but also to the entire XXL organization. With great efforts and great achievements in the first quarter, we’ve finally delivered our first quarter of growth since two years’ time. I think that is really something that we need to celebrate and really hold on to tight.

Because 2025, we want to, we need to deliver growth and we need to come back to profitability. Thank you.

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