Bokusgruppen AB (publ) Year-end Report October–December 2025

Comments from the CEO

Our positive trend continued, with sales up 5.4% in the quarter and 8.3% for the full year. Our margins continued to grow, resulting in stronger EBITA in the quarter and a full 32% improvement for the full year.  This growth was driven by both segments. Akademibokhandeln mainly reported organic growth, while Bokus was positively impacted by acquisitions. Our investments in a new e-commerce platform for Akademibokhandeln have had the desired effect, with online sales growing by 14.4% in the quarter. The next step will be to launch Bokus on the same platform. Two of our three financial targets were achieved during the year.

We can now look back on a year that was very positive in every way – with increased sales and gross profit, stronger margins, high customer satisfaction and numerous milestones achieved. For the full year, the overall increase in sales was 8.3% and the increase in gross profit was 15.3%. Akademibokhandeln noted a strong trend both in stores and online, with sales increasing 6.7%. Bokus’s 11.7% sales increase was mainly driven by BTJ, which was acquired in late 2024. Bokus Play performed well, and the new subscription models launched during the year contributed to significantly stronger gross profit. A sharp increase in gross profit and good cost control meant that full-year EBITA increased a full 31.8% to MSEK 158.5.

The fourth quarter was also positive, with an overall increase in sales of 5.4%. Both segments contributed higher sales, with Akademibokhandeln up 4.6% and Bokus up 7.6%. Following a change in e-commerce platform, Akademibokhandeln’s online sales accelerated during the autumn and Christmas period, with sales up 14.4% in the quarter. Along with a total margin increase of 1.4 percentage points for the entire Bokusgruppen, gross profit increased 8.8% in the quarter. EBITA increased 2.0% for the quarter.

Net profit for the full year more than doubled compared to last year and amounted to MSEK 88.1. MSEK 18.1 of this was a positive effect of a non-recurring item comprising the reversal of an additional contingent consideration related to the acquisition of BTJ. Excluding this effect, net profit also increased 67.0% to MSEK 70.0. Given these strong earnings, the Board proposes a dividend of SEK 4.00 (3.60) per share The dividend has steadily been increased by 10% per year since 2023.

We are delighted to report that we achieved two of our three long-term financial targets during the year. With sales growth of 8.3%, we were well above our target of an average of 4% per year, and our ROCE of 39.7% exceeded the target of 35%. With an outcome of 7.4% for the year, we are also making good progress towards our long-term target of an 8% EBITA margin.

New e-commerce platform boosts sales

The launch of Akademibokhandeln’s new e-commerce platform in the third quarter had a clear positive impact on online sales in the fourth quarter. Our plan is now to launch the platform within Bokus during the spring. Once this has been completed, we will begin phasing out old systems and thereby increase cost efficiency, a necessity for achieving our long-term EBITA margin target. The new platform will allow us to significantly accelerate our business development in accordance with customer needs and make us more efficient, which will now be the focus of our investments going forward.

New stores strengthen network

We are continuing to strengthen the Akademibokhandeln store network. At the end of the year, Akademibokhandeln’s franchise store at Marieberg Galleria outside Örebro was acquired. Ownership is scheduled to be transferred on 1 April. In 2024, seven franchise stores were acquired in the Umeå and Gothenburg regions. We had a positive experience with these acquisitions and are therefore pleased to have the opportunity to acquire another attractive store.

In December, an agreement was also signed to open a new store in Skärholmen Centrum outside Stockholm – an attractive location with solid potential – by the summer. We welcome the opportunity to open more stores when we see good prospects to strengthen our customer offering, brand and performance.

Unfortunately, 2026 started with a store closure at Odenplan in Stockholm, where the property owner intends to demolish the building and build a new one. We are actively looking for replacement premises.

Following these changes, we will once again have 95 stores by the summer, 78 of which will be centrally owned and 17 will be franchises.

Bokus strengthens position in B2B and public sector sales through BTJ

During the year, we initiated the integration of BTJ. The acquisition of BTJ has significantly strengthened Bokus’s position in B2B and public sector sales. The next step will be to leverage the synergies between the companies to capture an even stronger position.

It was very gratifying to see BTJ win tenders during the year to supply books to libraries and schools. The largest of these was an agreement with the City of Stockholm, where BTJ will supply all literature for libraries, schools and preschools for two years. BTJ is also supporting schools in complying with the new law requiring all schools to have a school library – for example, through its turnkey school library service, where BTJ can deliver a complete school library in just nine weeks.

Dedicated sustainability work progressing in right direction

During the year, we continued our dedicated efforts towards achieving our sustainability targets. We have now achieved about 50% of our 27 sub-targets. While this is a clear improvement on last year, we still have some way to go to reach our overall target of achieving 90% of our sub-targets by 2026. Our climate report for 2025 will be presented in our Annual and Sustainability Report, which will be published in late March.

During the year, we continued our important activities to promote the joy of reading and writing among all age groups. We reached even more children and schools with our Läsborgarmärket initiative and other reading-promotion activities. Our short story competition – part of the Vässa Pennan initiative – has grown, encouraging more secondary school students to write and express themselves. The newly established Booktoker of the Year award has attracted a new target group of young people, and we continued to encourage students to spread the joy of reading through the Bokus scholarship. For older audiences, we organised over 960 events and offered writing courses.

We also continued our efforts to create sustainable supply chains and safe products, partly by engaging in close supplier dialogues, social audits of manufacturers and product testing. We also increased the share of ecolabelled products, which now amounts to approximately 50%.

Customer focus results in more members and happier customers

Our strong customer focus is delivering results. The Akademibokhandelns Vänner loyalty club attracted even more members during the year, bring the total number of members to well over 2.3 million, a clear testament to the popularity of the brand. At the same time, customers’ willingness to recommend both brands increased, as measured by our Net Promoter Score (NPS). Our NPS for the year was 70 for Akademibokhandeln and 67 for Bokus, providing further proof that our customer offerings are appreciated.

Outlook

Before looking ahead, I would like to thank all of our employees for their outstanding efforts during the year, which have enabled us to achieve these excellent results. I would also like to thank everyone else who was part of our success: our suppliers, publishers and other partners.

We are now seeing welcome signs of economic recovery, although our business has proven to perform well even in challenging times.

We will continue to improve our business performance, while also spreading the joy of reading and creativity across Sweden.

Maria Edsman, CEO

Further information

For more information, please contact Maria Edsman, CEO Bokusgruppen, on +46 76 888 26 10 or Alexandra Fröding, Press Contact, on +46 70 775 27 83.

The Company is listed on Nasdaq First North Premier Growth Market. The Company’s Certified Adviser is DNB Carnegie Investment Bank AB (publ).

Bokusgruppen AB (publ)
Corp.reg.no.: 559025-8637
Box 2100, 103 13 Stockholm, Sweden
Lindhagensgatan 126, plan 5, 112 51 Stockholm, Sweden
Tel: +46 10-744 10 00
Email: [email protected]