Medios AG

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the conference call of Medios AT. At a customer's request, this conference will be recorded. As a reminder, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. If any participant has difficulties during the conference, please press 0 followed by the hash key for operator assistance. May I now hand you over to Claudia Nikolaos, Head of Investor and Public Relations and ESG Communications at Niklas.

Welcome everybody to our earnings call for the first half 2024. As always, all relevant documents can also be downloaded from our Investor Relations website. Additionally, this presentation can be followed in parallel via the internet link provided to you in the invitation. Today with me is our CEO Matthias Gärtner, our CFO Falk Neukirch, and our CIM Konstantin van Rietvoort. Matthias will start with an executive summary, followed by Falk, who will then provide details on the finances for the first half year 2024, and the guidance for 2024 as well. Finally, Matthias will comment on Neda's growth story, and after the presentations, we will begin the Q&A session. I would now like to hand over to Matthias.

Thank you, Claudia. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our conference call for the first half year of 24. Overall, we continue the solid business performance of the first quarter and are proud to include TATON for the first time for one month, June 24. The main highlights of the first six months 24 are shown on slide three. Let's start with the financials on group levels. We achieved revenue growth of more than 6% to €907 million, with a disproportionate EBITDA-free increase of around 7% to €31 million. We posted a strong operation cash flow of €34 million, compared to a minus €75 million gain period last year. We consolidated Saban in our new business segment international for the month of June. Initially, we had planned to include Saban already in May, but anyway, we are very happy with Saban. The June results were excellent, and we confirm our guidance 24. I will provide more insights on the financials later. The acquisition of Saban was an outstanding event for Meteos, and the highlight of H1-24. This is a milestone on our mission to create the European specialty pharma platform. But there are also other important events in the first half of the year. As announced at our last conference call in May, Konstantin Heinrichsrodin was appointed Chief International Markets and so a further member to the Executive Board effective on May 1st. Furthermore, the executive board contracts of Chief Operating Officer Myung Mila, Chief Innovation Officer Christoph Brutscheidt were extended ahead of schedule. And I'm happy that most recently also my contract was extended as well. Looking forward very much to continue working together as part of this experienced and successful executive team and as part of the whole METEOS team. Regarding our ESG activities, we continue to work on the implementation of the CSRD and EU taxonomy requirements. We have completed our double materiality analysis, which is now under auditor review. Consequently, our non-financial reporting 24 will be fully in line with these new standards. A further review of major NCI ratings was carried out in the first half of the year. Our rating remains stable at an impressive AA on the CCC to AAA scale. This demonstrates our continued commitment to ESG performance. We are pleased to welcome Luxembourg as a new maker and strategic shareholder. In June, they acquired 14.9% stake in Metos from the Metos founder and former CEO, Manfred Schneider, as part of a private placement. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Manfred on behalf of the whole Metos team for his many years of commitment to Metos. As founder and former CEO, he has had a strong influence on our company. With his clear vision and the right strategic decisions, he laid the foundation for the dynamic growth and ongoing success of the Metas Group. We believe that Luxembourg is a great partner not only to support the internationalization of our company, which has just begun. As a solid internationally experienced strategic investor with a well-founded network and know-how, Luxembourg can support us very well on our journey. Furthermore, we appointed Dr. Andreas Schmiede as Vice President Advanced Therapies to drive the business forward in this new field. Andreas holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry and has more than 25 years of professional experience in the fields of diagnostics, biotechnology, and biopharma. Most recently, he was Senior Director and Head of Strategic Business Development, Cell and Gene Therapies at Lonsa. And we are excited to be a member of the S-DAS Index again since July 2015. Finally, a few words on the acquisition of CEPAN from a few people. The DAS market leader with activities in Belgium and Spain as well. On slide 4, you can see an executive summary of CEPAN. This acquisition is the first milestone in our journey and vision to build the leading European specialty pharma platform. In addition, we get immediate market access to three European countries. The new makers group now has a leading position in compounding of specialty pharma in Europe. I will not comment further on CEPAN's operational activities as we already presented this and additional information on the acquisition our prior conference calls. Regarding the integration of Stepan, we only closed the transaction by the beginning of June, so we are only two months underway, but integration is well on track and performance looks promising. Our priority was on integrating Stepan's financials into our system and in the field of compliance and formal procedures. We have made significant progress there. When we look at synergies, we are mostly focusing on the cross-learning opportunities and best practices and knowledge sharing. Last, of course, the economies of scale that the combination will benefit from. First steps have been taken here, and we clearly see the potential benefits, but it is too soon to already see them reflected in these. But we can say that CEPAN is performing in line with our expectations. We implemented a third operational business segment internationally and we fully consolidated CEPAN for one month. During our last call, I stressed that the transaction is immediately EBITDA-aggressive and will increase our earnings margin from the very beginning. This is definitely the case, as reflected in our half-year figures. Pulse will provide more information later on. Briefly, on slide 5, you can see our German-wide network of around 850 specialized pharmacies that is now enlarged internationally by Stepan's network of around 3,300 partner pharmacies and more than 200 hospitals, as well as our 23 own pharmacies in the Netherlands. This is an excellent basis for our further European expansion and the realization of synergies and cross-selling opportunities. Furthermore, it will support the development of our activities in the field of advanced therapies. More information on the SEPAN transaction is provided in the appendix of the presentation. Now some comments on the financials for the first half year of 2024 as illustrated on slide 6 and 7. Slide 6 shows the quarter-on-quarter development of our two KGI's revenue and EBITDA freeing. whereas Q2 revenue was almost flat compared to the level of Q1-24 EBITDA-free and the respective margin grew disproportionately. This was already a result of Vipant's contribution for one month. And despite ongoing regulatory price adjustments in Germany, that further impacted our PST business. Moreover, H123 revenue included €6 million coming from Kölsch Blister that was sold in June 2023. Overall revenue in H124 grew by more than 6% and EBDA3 was even stronger with 7% growth compared to the first half year of 2023, as shown on slide 7. This growth was mainly attributable to inorganic growth represented by Satan. This is all from my side for the moment. I now hand over to Falk to provide more details on the financials for the first half year of 2024 and the guidance for 2024 as well. Falk.