Interim report New Wave Group AB  (publ)

THE PERIOD 1 JANUARY – 31 MARCH 2014

• Sales amounted to SEK 909 million, which was 4% higher than last year (SEK 877 million).
• Acquired business contributed by SEK 9 million in turnover and SEK 0.1 million in profit after tax.
• Operating profit amounted to SEK -5.9 (16.1) million.
• Profit after tax amounted to SEK -11.3 (0.1) million.
• Earnings per share amounted to SEK -0.17 (0.00).
• Cash flow from operating activities amounted to SEK 88.8 (106.1) million.
• Equity ratio improved by 5.4 percentage points and amounted to 51.4 (46.0) %.
• Net debt decreased by 16.6 percentage points and amounted to 56.8 (73.4) %.

CEO Comments

2014 began somewhat better than what we had expected in both sales and earnings. 4% growth despite continuing shortages is quite OK, but we should remember that we also had a positive calendar effect this year because of the later Easter.

We also thought our earnings would be somewhat worse but costs were slightly lower than expected.

We are once again increasing the number of employees and from 1 January to 31 March, the Group increased by 36 people. As we previously mentioned, the majority of recruitments are within sales and it takes between 6-12 months before they are productive. We will continue with recruiting in the coming quarters.

Our building up of inventories and launching of new products and collections are, for the most part, following our plan. We will, as we have said before, have some stock shortages even in the second quarter but during the third quarter we will be completely in phase. All in all, this means that we repeat what we said earlier, namely that the second quarter will be a weak quarter and from the third quarter onwards we will have good growth with an aim of growing by at least 10%.

The balance sheet remains very strong which is positive for future expansion.

Last but not least, the Olympics were held in the first quarter. The success of Craft and Auclair’s athletes was almost difficult to understand, including successes by the Swedish cross-country team, the Dutch skating team and several Canadian teams!

We look ahead with confidence!

Torsten Jansson
CEO

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

CEO Torsten Jansson
Phone: +46 (0) 31–712 89 01
E-mail: torsten.jansson@nwg.se

CFO Lars Jönsson
Phone: +46 (0) 31–712 89 12
E-mail: lars.jonsson@nwg.se

  
The information in this report is that which New Wave Group is required to disclose under the Securities Market Act and/or the Financial Trading Act. The information was released for publication at 7 am (CET) on 24 April 2014.

Tags: