Arctic Blue Beverages

THE INTERIM PERIOD JANUARY – SEPTEMBER 2023

• Revenues (Jan - Sep): SEK 5,441 thousand (SEK 8,177 thousand on corresponding period 2022 which was positively affected by one-time other operating income of SEK 1,345 thousand)
• EBITDA: SEK –11,879 thousand (SEK –28,975 thousand)
• EBIT: SEK –13,591 thousand (SEK –30,295 thousand)
• Net result: SEK –14,691 thousand (SEK –30,488 thousand)
• Earnings per share (EPS) -0.57 SEK / share
• Cash and cash equivalents: SEK 363 thousand (30 September 2023)

JULY - SEPTEMBER 2023

• Revenues (Jul - Sep): SEK 1,150 thousand (SEK 2,316 thousand on corresponding period 2022)
• EBITDA: SEK –3,029 thousand (SEK –8,316 thousand)
• EBIT: SEK –3,615 thousand (SEK –8,845 thousand)
• Net result: SEK –3,859 thousand (SEK –8,702 thousand)
• Earnings per share (EPS) -0.15 SEK / share

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS DURING JULY – SEPTEMBER 2023

• No significant events during the reporting period.

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS AFTER PERIOD

• Company entered into loan agreements amounting to a total of EUR 200,000
• Company’s subsidiary Arctic Blue Beverages Oy informed signing of a collaboration agreement with Noho Partners Oyj regarding a showroom distillery and tightened collaboration on the Finnish market.

REPORT HIGHLIGHTS

“Summer 2023 in Finland was very successful for us within the Finland’s HoReCa landscape, demonstrating notably increased product listings and sales performance. Collaboratively working alongside our distributors Norex Selected Brands Oy and Oy Sinebrychoff AB, and our partner NoHo Partners Plc we have achieved great results in important flagship bars, restaurants and nightclubs around the country. Unfortunately, we have not yet been able to turn the successful trend in HoReCa into sales in Alko, the Finnish retailing beverage monopoly, which constitutes a significant part of the company’s sales. It has however been proven that in the long run the HoReCa success will grow the brand awareness and have positive impact also in the Alko sales. Therefore, we are optimistic that we will be able to fight against the declining market and improve our sales also in Alko.

During the third quarter of 2023, our sales revenue decreased by 52% compared to the corresponding period last year. This decline is mainly because an unfavorable sales trend in Finland and the Travel Retail sector. Also our distribution partners abroad has been struggling with the sales across the export markets, signalling much lower sales than originally anticipated.

In the third quarter of 2023, sales revenue decreased by 42% compared to the previous quarter. This drop was predominantly attributed to the fulfilment of stock-in orders in Q2/23. Also due to challenging economic times consumers are switching to cheaper products and this can be seen in our main sales channel in Finland, Alko alcohol monopoly, where gin category sales in was down by 6% and premium category even more.

Towards the end of 2023 we will carefully analyze all our markets and tighten the focus for the year 2024. We have succeeded in cost-cutting and cost optimization measures during 2023 and continue to change to a more cost-efficient operation model during the year 2024.

We have great new products in the pipeline and exciting new projects are underway, like Showroom Distillery project with NoHo Partners Plc. All these new opportunities combined to our current tightening focus in all the operations, and our multi award winning product portfolio, will put us into very good position going towards the year 2024”, says Valtteri Eroma, CEO of Arctic Blue Beverages.