First glimpse of improving Swedish macro
While the trough for Swedish Byggmaterialindex, house transactions and build starts might be near, the level is still below last year for all three indicators (April -6%, -11% and Q1 -23%, respectively, all y-o-y). In Q2, we thus expect sales declines to be smaller sequentially. We look for -6% organic growth for the Svedbergs brand y-o-y compared to -22% in Q1. In the UK, softer house transaction data (April -15% y-o-y, -8% in Q1) means we forecast a sequential slowdown for org. growth of 2.5% y-o-y in Q2. At group level, this translates into -1% organic growth. We expect gross margins to be strong on the back of Roper Rhodes' price hikes, but sales initiatives offset some of the margin gain, just like in Q1. We expect Thebalux to continue to be clearly accretive, for group EBITA of SEK 81m (growth of 41% y-o-y, margin +190bp y-o-y).