Anora Q4'24 flash comment: Slightly better than expected across the board

Translation: Original published in Finnish on 02/12/2025 at 09:08 am EET

Anora’s Q4 adjusted EBITDA increased slightly, supported by the Wine segment, while we expected a small decrease. The dividend was kept unchanged when we expected a drop. For this year, Anora expects a relatively stable market and an EBITDA of 70-75 MEUR, while our forecast has been 69 MEUR. Thus, the report is slightly better than expected across the board.

Revenue declined slightly less than expected

Anora’s revenue decreased by 3% in Q4, which was mainly due to the 5% decrease in the Spirits segment due to lower volumes. The Wine segment only decreased by 1% and was slightly better than we expected, and Industrial performed as expected. As was already known before the result, sales of monopoly channels decreased in Finland and Norway, but increased slightly in Sweden. 

The result was closer to the top of the guidance and improved from the comparison period

Anora had guided adjusted EBITDA of 65-70 MEUR for 2024. The result for the whole year ended up at 69 MEUR, which meant 29 MEUR for Q4. This was better than the comparison period and our expectations. The positive surprise came from the Wine segment, where revenue, the gross margin and fixed costs were all better than our expectations, and adjusted EBIT improved to almost 14 MEUR (Q4’23: 10 MEUR), when we expected only 8 MEUR. On the other hand, the Spirits and Group segments were weaker than our forecasts. Non-recurring costs weighed on the reported result. Anora made write-downs totaling nearly 4 MEUR in the Wine and Industrial segments, which were recorded as non-recurring costs.

The dividend is unchanged and a slight improvement is guided for this year 

Contrary to our expectations, Anora kept the EUR 0.22 dividend unchanged. Anora’s balance sheet is at its strongest at the end of the year, and the net debt / adjusted EBITDA of 1.8x is not very high. However, Anora’s balance sheet situation is not particularly strong, which is why we expected a cut in the dividend.

For this year, Anora expects an adjusted EBITDA of 70-75 MEUR, while in 2022-2023 it has been 68-69 MEUR. Anora expects market volumes to remain relatively unchanged, but measured by value, the market is expected to grow slightly. Our adjusted EBITDA estimate has been 69 MEUR, so there is upside potential compared to the guidance. On the other hand, we note that Anora has, in the past two years, had to lower its guidance during the year, and we believe that market development could still be negative, contrary to the company's assumption.