Lyko is a vertically integrated Nordic beauty ecosystem in the painful final mile of its warehouse capex cycle—if automation and cost cuts flip from drag to driver, today’s discounted valuation could re-rate sharply.
Overview
Lyko Group AB is a Nordic digital-first beauty specialist that has scaled from a family salon into a vertically integrated omnichannel platform spanning product development, in-house manufacturing, warehousing, e-commerce, and physical retail. It serves eight European markets via Lyko.com and the Lyko app (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands), with the app now contributing ~25% of online sales and acting as a loyalty/community engine through “Lyko Social.” The company also runs 35 stores/salons that drive both sales and brand visibility. Lyko offers a very broad assortment across mass and premium third-party brands, while increasingly emphasizing 15 higher-margin Own Brands manufactured in two Gothenburg factories. In FY2025 preliminary results, Lyko delivered strong growth (net sales SEK 3,963m, +11% YoY; Q4 +17%) but saw profitability pressured by heavy competition/promotions and the ramp-up of a major automated warehouse expansion in Vansbro (including SEK 11.7m one-off go-live costs). EBIT fell to SEK 78m (2.0% margin). Management is responding with a SEK 100m annual cost-savings program aimed at restoring profitability while continuing to take share, particularly in Norway and Finland.