Thank you for the introduction and welcome to Bilja's second quarter results presentation with CEO Perra Wander, CFO Kristina Fransén and I Carl Fredrik Eves. We're happy to present a good set of figures, strong cash flow and an even more solid financial position than last year. Here's our agenda.
We will start with the current situation in the industry followed by Q2 numbers then Kristina will go through the financial situation and I will conclude with our outlook. so let's start i'll leave the word to our ceo paravander thank you very much karl fredik the improvement in demand we saw in swedish new car market at the end of quarter one has continued in quarter two the interest from private customers is also higher for new cars compared to the to last quarter and last year in norway we had a strong finish in quarter four due to changes of tax situation and because of that, January and February this year had weak ordering intake of new cars. In this quarter, the demand has picked up a lot compared to last quarter. In Western Europe, demand remained stable throughout the quarter. Many of our brands have strong campaigns, big discounts and attractive private leasing offers. Because of this, our feeling is that we are experiencing a push market in all our countries. The demand for used cars in our countries was on a normal level, except in Norway. In Sweden and Western Europe, prices for electric cars have stabilized on a slightly lower level, and therefore we saw better demand in these countries for fully electrical used cars. In the Norwegian market, there is a wide selection of used cars, But our stock situation is on the balance level, both in Norway and in our other countries. There was a good and strong demand in the service business in Norway and Western Europe with good booking times. In Sweden, we saw slightly better activities compared to the previous quarter, which was a little bit on the Louvre side. Part of the explanation is some years of Louvre new car sales and export of young used cars. The total car market in Sweden 2025 was almost 20% lower compared to an average market the last 10 years. During this period, there has been a shift in the car population to more older cars. Net turnover was somewhat higher compared to last year. We report a result of 411 million with a margin of 3.8% compared to 348 million last year. We had mainly higher profitability in Sweden and Norway coming from our service business. In Western Europe, the higher result is related to the used car business. earnings per share increased to 2.50 crowns improvement of the 20 percent compared to last year on this slide you can see the quarter two profitability from 2020 to 2026 in each of our countries on the left hand side you can see the stable performance in sweden on the right hand side you can see the western europe the best quarter two ever in the middle you can see norway performing better and better since a few years ago on this waterfall chart you can see the different business areas as you can see we improve the earnings in the service business significantly i would also like to clarify for the fuel business the quarterly results included a negative one-time item related to tax changes for a few. We are moving over to the important service business. Our service business represented 70% of the earnings in the quarter and we improved the result and the margin. We reported a result of 323 million compared to 252 million in the same period last year and the margin increased from 10.4 to 12 percent. The main reason for this is improvement of profitability in Sweden and Norway. We also had a positive organic growth in the group of five percent. There are several reasons why we report a higher result in Sweden and Norway. One is higher efficiency. Another is more delivery of new cars. A third, we had one working day more in Sweden and Luxembourg. And another is our dismantling business performed well. The ordering intake of new cars adjusted for required and divested operation was 29% higher compared to quarter two last year. As I mentioned we have seen better activity in all our countries. For the car business we report the result of 141 million compared to 136 million last year. The profitability for cars was related mainly to Sweden and Western Europe. For used car we report the result of 65 million compared to 61 million last year as i mentioned in the beginning the stock of used cars is on a good and balanced level in all our countries the reason for the higher earnings were sweden and western europe but in norway the result dropped due to aggressive new car pricing like we said in quarter one prices of fully electrical cars have stabilized and we can now see slightly increased demand. We have increased our underlying backlog of new cars by approximately 4,700 units, and today we have 16,600. This is, in a historical perspective, a high level. As we mentioned in quarter four and quarter one, some of our brands have launched interesting EV models with long range, attracting lots of interest from our customers. Okay, over to Kristina and the financial situation.
Yes, thank you Per. For this quarter we reported a strong operating cash flow of 546 million kronor generated by the underlying business. As a result, cash flow for the first six months was broadly in line with the corresponding period last year. as we have highlighted in previous presentations cash flow remains a key focus area for us and will continue to be a priority going forward as well our net financial expense amounted to 79 million krono during the quarter representing an improvement of five millions compared with the same period last year this improvement was primarily driven by lower interest expenses on our interest-bearing debts. For the first six months, net financial expense was 27 million kronor lower than last year, again reflecting reduced interest expenses on interest-bearing debt, but also higher income from associated companies. At the end of the quarter, net debt, excluding IFRS 16 liabilities, amounted to just below 2.4 billions, approximately 100 million kronors higher than year-end. Our net debt to EBITDA, again excluding IFRS 16, was 1.3 times unchanged from December 2025 and an improvement from 1.4 times at the end of the first quarter. Consequently, we remain well within our financial target of maintaining a leverage ratio two times. At quarter end, approximately 660 million of our available credit facilities were utilized. Total committed credit facilities now amount to 3.1 billion following the signing of an additional 800 million facility with our existing banks. This facility serves as liquidity backup providing additional financial flexibility to support future growth opportunities and also to navigate potential uncertainty in the global economy. During the quarter we paid the first installment of the 2026 approved dividend amounting to 138 millions corresponding responding to a total dividend of six kronor per share. This dividend is then distributed in four equal instalments with the fourth and final payment scheduled for January 2027. So in summary, our financial position remains strong, supported by solid cash generation, moderate leverage and a good liquidity. With that, I hand over to you Carl-Ferrik.
Thank you for that, Kristina. And starting with our service business, I repeat what Per said. Our service business represented 70% of our operating profit in Q2. We continue to identify opportunities to enhance efficiency across our service business while further strengthening the customer experience. over time higher new vehicle registrations contribute to a larger installed vehicle base creating additional demand for maintenance and repair service so we anticipate the stable market environment for the service business in the next quarter moving over to the car business the demand for used cars was slow at the beginning of the year but has since picked up we expect demand for used cars to remain at a rather stable level this except norway in the coming quarter especially for electrical vehicles this comes as an effect of the fact that prices for used electrical cars have stabilized on and what we believe attractive level our used car inventories are at healthy levels and our intention is to keep that status in the coming quarter looking at new car sales demand for from corporate customers has remained consistently stable and we expect this trend to continue hence a continued macro uncertainty we do see a continued decent demand among our brands in the coming quarter the introduction of several new generation electrical vehicles with extended driving range is expected to broaden customer appeal and contribute positively to volume in the coming quarter we remain committed to strengthening both profitability and operational performance across our existing operations the efficiency program launched last year continues to progress according to plan and is expected to deliver the results as previously communicated maintaining a strong focus on profitability cost control control disciplined capital allocation remains a key priority throughout the organization like Kristina also said earlier so we are very proud and happy to present such a solid set of figures but we would like to emphasize that the current environment in this industry is very tough and our organization works hard to deliver strong together combined with an attractive car brand portfolio we are well positioned for the future we remain humble in our outlook but are encouraged by our ability to continue outperforming the market through disciplined execution a strong customer focus and the dedication of our employees we believe we can continue to perform well compared to the overall market this finalizes our second quarter presentation and we can now open up for questions thank you very much for listening uh it seems like it was crystal clear uh so we we're grateful for that and the best wishes for a happy and relaxing summer goodbye goodbye
