A Word from the CEO

Flokk CEO Lars Roiri shares his thoughts on the continued growth and development of the Flokk House of Brands, including the acquisition of several new brands and a challenging 2020.

A strong year based on a consistent strategy

2021 was a year of great achievements for Flokk! Financially, we delivered both top-line growth and margin expansion. Flokk's underlying profitability and cash flow is strong and unrivalled within our industry.

Furthermore, we have gained market share and solidified our position as the market leader within office seating in Europe, to which we have added a solid foothold in the US through 9to5 Seating, which was acquired in the end of 2019.

There are several reasons why Flokk is an industry leader, and I would like to highlight some of them here and illustrate how they are related to our consistent long-term strategy.

Offering a complete portfolio of seating solutions

The Flokk portfolio now consist of brands and products which can serve the entire seating needs of our customers. We are therefore now able to address the market as a total solution seating solution provider, not just a manufacturer of office chairs. We have developed this offering significantly in our core markets through 2021 and see high potential in leveraging this position to continue winning market share going forward.

This position has enabled us to benefit from work trends that have grown stronger over the past couple of years, partly driven by the global pandemic. The key word is flexibility. Offices are increasingly set up with a...

Lars_Roiri_2

Sustainability

The HÅG Tion may also serve as an example of the increasingly important area where Flokk excels: Sustainability. Since the early 90s we have set an example in the industry through intelligent development of circular products and efficient operation of our production sites. Always with the aim to minimise the overall environmental impact of the Group and our products without compromising on design and quality. We designed Tion from the bottom up based on Flokk's long-standing circular design principles. The chair is made with close to 75 percent recycled materials as well as above 90 percent of the recycled plastics and aluminium are...

chic-lounge-3-jpg[ppt]

Additionally, the quality is first-rate. HÅG Tion comes with a 10-year warranty, and the core components are designed to last much longer. It is designed for disassembly, meaning that parts can easily be exchanged for repairs, and in the end, the parts can be recycled. Instead of buying off-the-shelf components, we design all key components ourselves, with recycling in mind. And lastly, the Tion has few components and is extremely lightweight, giving it a smaller carbon footprint.

Sustainability has been in Flokk’s DNA for decades, and that DNA carries through to our products, services, and processes where we set strategic targets to be...

SFF_picture

Efficient operations and great design

We have built a strong organization over many years and invested in modern facilities to produce high-qualityproducts extremely efficiently. We have world-class production facilities covering both Europe and the US. Over the past year, we have invested significantly in our Polish factory, which has become our biggest. In 2021, we successfully moved the production of our Giroflex and Offecct brands to Poland from Switzerland and Sweden respectively. We are currently also investing in additional production capacity and increased automation of our Norwegian plant at Røros, where we produce our HÅG brand, which has experienced double digit...

Flokk_Concept_28[ppt]

Successful M&A strategy

There is also efficiency in scale, and Flokk has pursued a long-term M&A strategy to consolidate the fragmented European industry as an addition to organic growth. We believe there is a compounder effect in our M&A strategy, as the acquired companies are integrated and trend towards best practices in the group, increasing the scale and profitability both in the existing and new brands. One such transaction that we started working on in 2021was the formerly mentioned acquisition of the UK firm Connection, which we announced in March of 2022. By combining Connection with our existing UK operation, we join the major league in the strategically...

HÅG Capisco Puls 8010 Snow-plough-markers_1400_1200

Digitalization

The last factor I would like to highlight is digitalization. Flokk has long had a strong digital back-end infrastructure, supporting highly efficient order registration, planning, manufacturing, and logistics. Increasingly, the front-end is also digital, both our own channels as well as other high-quality partners. Especially small- and medium-sized businesses are increasingly buying online. This trend became even more pronounced in 2021.

I believe digitalization is a trend favouring larger companies,as the investments are substantial and hard to sustain forsmaller niche players.

2_resize

Looking ahead

In 2022, Flokk is in a very strong position to continue winning market share going forward. In 2021 we saw a partial rebound after a 2020 that was heavily affected by the pandemic. We expect this trend to continue in 2022, although the ongoing war in Ukraine has increased the uncertainty in the market.

However, we continue to believe there is a very attractive long-term outlook for the industry driven by significant refurbishing activity combined with the shift to more flexible workspaces and home offices requiring investments in new seating solutions. Against this backdrop, Flokk will continue to improve on all aspects of our operations. We will drive further improve efficiency in our existing and acquired businesses, we will strive even harder for first-class design and sustainability, we will move more and more of our business online, and we will continue to explore potential acquisitions to consolidate an industry which is still highly fragmented.

In conclusion, I am truly proud of the way the Flokk team performed in 2021, and I am confident that the progress will continue in 2022.

 

Lars I. Røiri

Chief Executive Officer