Medios AG

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the earnings call of MEDIUS AG for the first nine months of 2025. At our 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 hearing the conference, please press zero followed by the hash key for operator assistance. May I now hand you over to Claudia Nicolaus, Head of Investor and Public Relations and ESG Communications at Meteos. Please go ahead.

Welcome everybody to our earnings call for the first nine months of 2025. 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, and our CFO, Falk Neukirch. Matthias will start with an executive summary, followed by Falk, who will then provide details on the financials of the first nine months and the guidance for 2025. After the presentation, we will begin the Q&A session. I would now like to hand over to Matthias.

Okay, thank you, Claudia. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our conference call for the first nine months of 2025. We continue to see solid growth, which is reflected in strong financials for the first nine months of 2025. We posted record revenues for the third quarter as well as for the first nine months of 2025, driven by organic and inorganic growth. With Thomas Mayer, we could announce our new CEO as of February 26. I'm very confident that he, together with my executive board colleagues and the entire team of meteors, will lead our company into the next decade of growth, success, and market leadership. Back to the highlights and achievements in the first nine months of 25 on slide three. We had a very good year so far, and I'm proud of the progress we made. Again, we posted very solid financials. Revenue grew by 9.2% to 1.5 billion euros. All segments contributed to revenue and earnings growth, meaning both organic and inorganic. EBITDA-free rose disproportionately by 26.1%, to 70.4 million euros. Consequently, EBITDA pre-margin rose from 4.0 to 4.6%. I would especially like to highlight the solid organic earnings growth of 5.1%. This is in line with our guidance assumption of organic growth in the mid-single-digit percentage range. Furthermore, EPS increased by 84% to 79 cents and EPS, the chart grew by almost 26% to 1.5 Euro. Also, the operating cash flow was strong, up 90% compared to last year. All in all, we have once again succeeded in our ambition to increase our overall profitability. This confirms the operational strength of our company and our strategy, which is focused on increasing margins while maintaining growth. Based on these results, we fully confirm our guidance for the year 2025. Falk will provide more insight into the financials later. Our international activities strongly support our European platform, and make us a leading player in the specialty pharma compounding in Europe. This network is an excellent basis for our further international expansion, the realization of synergies and cross-selling opportunities. Furthermore, it will support the development of our activities in the field of advanced therapies, the future of individualized medicine. As outlined at our last earnings call, we successfully conducted a share buyback of 1 million Meteos shares, representing 3.92% of our current share capital. Another good news was that since October 16, we are back in the SDAGs. Also in October, we welcomed Janus Henderson as a new major shareholder in Meteos, with a stake of around 6.4%. They bought all the shares from Bensys Capital. And since November 4, we have a new analyst coverage by Montega, with a buy recommendation and a target price of 24 euros. Slide 4 shows the quarter-on-quarter development of our two KPIs, revenue and EBITDA pre-evaluation. There are fluctuations between the various quarters. In 23 and 24, we saw very strong third quarters due to the special effects the inflation-related price increases. Even without this effect, Q3-25 revenue was on a record level. EBITDA-3, however, was slightly below Q3-24. Falk will come back to this later. Now the same illustration for the first nine months shown on slide five. Whereas revenue for the first nine months, 25, increased by 9.2%, EBITDA pregrew even stronger by more than 26% compared to the first nine months of 24. As already mentioned, this is in line with our strategy to further focus on profitability. Let's move to slide six. with some comments on our activities in the field of advanced therapies. We are establishing a stronger presence in this new field of activities that is predicted to reach a double digit growth rate in the future. Currently, our focus is on the subfield of personalized cancer vaccines. These vaccines have the potential to replace conventional cancer therapies and even to cure cancer. Manufacturing these new vaccines require high expertise in the area of small-scale fill and finish. This expertise already exists within the Mateos networks. Before I hand over to Falk, I would like to thank everyone who participated in the perception study conducted in September. We received valuable feedback that we will consider, in particular with regard to our investor relations work. This is all for now from my side. Now, Falk will provide more details on the financials for the first nine months of 2025 and the guidance for 2025.

Thank you, Matthias. Welcome also from my side. I will give you a more detailed overview of the financials for the first nine months of 25. You can, of course, find the full financial statement on our website. Let's go to slide eight. All in all, we had strong first nine months in 25. Revenues rose by 129.5 million euros to 1.53 billion euros, which is an increase of 9.2%. Of this increase, 65.3 million euros, 4.7%, are attributable to inorganic growth of segment IB. The inorganic growth mainly comprises the nine versus four months effect, as Sabin was initially consolidated as of June 24. The rest, an amount of 64.2 million euros, 4.5%, is attributable to organic growth. Thereof, 48.3 million euros to PS segment, 4.5 million euro to pst and 11.6 million euros to ib segment gross profit of medius group improved significantly by 44.3 million euro to 151.5 million euros and increased by 41.3 percent this improvement is mainly due to segment ib which contributed 34.1 million euros gross profit payoff due to inorganic growth approximately 32 million euros. Beside the nine versus four months effect, as the income from divestments of smaller Sabin entities, mainly pharmacies, in the amount of 2.1 million euros contributed to the inorganic growth. Growth profit of PST segment rose by 7.5 million euros to 42.2 million euros, due to organic revenue growth, a better product mix, but also the elimination of performance-based payments for compounding orders in the amount of 4.8 million euros. Growth profit of PS segment increased again organically by 2.8 million euros, with a gross profit margin of 3.8%, which is unchanged compared to previous year. All of this contributed to a higher meteo screw cross-profit margin, which rose by 2 percentage points to 9.9%. Personnel costs rose by 15.9 million euros to 51.7 million euros. The essential part of the increase amounting to 13.2 million euros is attributable to the IB segment, fully caused by inorganic effects because of the initial consolidation of CBAN in June 24. In addition, An amount of €1 million is caused by modest personnel cost increases in PS and PST segment services. Personnel costs increased by €1.7 million, say of €1.2 million, attributable to changes in the executive board. Non-cash expenses for stock options amounted to €0.6 million versus €1.1 million in the previous year. Other operating expenses rose from €27.4 million to €36.2 million, an increase of €8.8 million, thereof €7.7 million attributable to the IB segment, of which approximately €7 million have an inorganic character because of the initial consolidation of Saban in June 24. The EBITDA pre-increase to €70.4 million compared to €55.8 million in the previous year, the EBITDA B margin increased to 4.6% compared to 4% in the previous year. This was supported by an EBITDA contribution of segment IB with higher EBITDA margins in the organic rows of PS and PSD, also focusing on higher margin products. Excuse me. EBITDA pre was adjusted by extraordinary expenses in the amount of 6.7 million euro compared to 11.7 million euro last year. These expenses consist of 3.8 million euro for ERP system implementation, 1.4 million euro one-offs related to changes in the executive board, 0.9 million euro other M&A expenses and 0.6 million euro expenses for self-option. The decline in overall adjustments is mainly attributable to the discontinuation of performance-based payments for increased compounding volumes and lower M&A expenses compared to previous year when C1 was acquired. Depreciation and amortization increased significantly by 6.6 million euros, 28.4 million euros, largely due to the acquisition of the C1 group. Of the total amount for depreciation and amortization, €18.2 million are attributable to the amortization of customer base, €4 million are attributable to leases, and the remaining amount of almost €6.2 million belongs to operational depreciation. The financial result of my 7.3 million Euro decreased by 1.4 million Euro, mainly due to higher interest expenses for the syndicated loan. The tax expenses rose from 6 million Euro to 8 million Euro, reflecting a tax rate of 29.7% compared to 36.2% in the previous year. The tax rate in the previous year was impacted by non-tax deductible expenses for M&A activities. Due to the strong performance of all operational segments and the expanded consolidation scope plus the described reduction in extraordinary expenses, the net result almost doubled to 19.9 million euro. Also, depreciation, amortization, and financing costs increased significantly. so earnings per share rose from 0.43 euro to 0.79 euro an increase of 84 percent the adjusted earnings per share increased to 1.5 1.50 sorry euro compared to 1.19 euro last year this figure is based on the net results after tax adjusted for extraordinary expenses, PPA depreciation and amortization, as well as corresponding tax expense adjustments. Operating cash flow rose significantly by 91.1%, now amounting to €52.7 million. This has been achieved by an increased cash generating operational performance and lower tax payments. Due to the very good operational cash flow, also the free cash flow of €48 million, almost doubled compared to last year. Please note that quarterly fluctuations in the operating cash flow are by no means unusual, as has been the case in the past. The investing cash flow of minus 2.3 million euros mainly reflects capex of minus 4.7 million euros and subsequent accrued purchase price payments for the acquisition of Sabon of minus 2.3 million euros, as well as cash inflows of 3.4 million from divestments mainly due to the sale of smaller pharmacies in the Netherlands. Financing cash flow of minus 63 million euro primarily resulted from scheduled term loan repayments of 18.8 million euro and net repayments of the RCF of 20 million euro. Interest payments for loans 6.4 million euro and payments for these liabilities, 3.8 million euros, and the repurchase of treasury shares of 12.6 million euro. For more details on the repurchase of shares, you will find a summary in the appendix of this presentation. Cash and cash equivalents amounted to 93.4 million euro at the end of the reporting period. The equity ratio was nearly unchanged at 55.2% at the end of September 25 compared to 54 0.6% on December 31st, 2024. On slides 9 and 10, we have provided again a breakdown of the organic and inorganic growth. Slide 9 shows that inorganic revenue growth amounted to 65.3 million euro or 4.7% fully dedicated to IB segment. Organically, revenue increased 64.2 million euro or 4.5% resulting from operational segments from from all operational segments, but mainly from segment PS. Slide 10 shows the organic and inorganic EBITDA pre-breakdown by segment. EBITDA pre-increased inorganically by 11.7 million, or 21%, fully dedicated to IB segment. All three operational segments have delivered organic earnings growth. The EBITDA pre-development in segment services reflects mainly intensified activities for the new strategic segment advanced therapies, but also increased board remunerations. Let's go to slide 11, providing the nine months overview of all segments compared to the previous year. As already mentioned, the 9.2% increase in group revenue is mainly driven by IB and to a lower extent by PS and PSC. The external revenue of PS segment increased by 4.1%, to 1.24 billion euro, and revenue of PST segment by 2.7% to 166 million euro. The AB segment contributed 124.2 million euros, external revenues for the first 25, which is an increase of 76.9 million euro, there of 65.3 million euros inorganically. EBITDA pre for the PS segment amounted to 38.8 million euro, a plus of 4.7%, and for the PSD segment to 18.1 million euro, a plus of 8.4%. This organic earnings growth was boosted by a targeted focus on higher margin sales. IB contributed with an EBITDA pre of 22 million euros for the first nine months of 25, sale of 11.7 million euros inorganically, and EBITDA pre and an EBITDA pre-margin of 17.7%. EBITDA pre of IB segment includes an income of 2.1 million Euro from divestments. Slide 12 provides status information on the recent financing structure. In November 25, the debt finance of MEDEOS was replaced by a syndicated loan facility in the total amount of 225 million Euros consisting of two transfers. A term loan facility of 125 million euros with a term of five years. Repayment has started in March 25, and for the first nine months, 25, we repaid 18.8 million euros. And a revolving credit facility, RCF, of 100 million euro, also with a term of five years. The RCF has a term extension option of up to two years and a step-up option for further 50 million to finance future growth. There is net debt amounted to around 100 million euros at the end of September 25. That leads to a leverage ratio of approximately 1.1. An estimated free cash flow of 40 to 50 million euros enables majors to repay the term line and to finance further costs. At the end of the reporting period, the total loan amount drawn under syndicated loan agreement amounted to 161.3 million euros, 106 million euros. €2.3 million under the term facility and €55 million under the RCF facility. Overall, we are confident about the business development for the fourth quarter and confirm our guidance for the full year 2025 as shown on slide 14. Our guidance parameters are revenue and EBITDA-3. For 2025, we expect revenues to reach approximately €2 billion, reflecting growth of around 6%. EBITDA pre is expected to grow by around 21.5% to around 96 in Euro. Organic growth should be in the middle, in the mid single digit percentage range. Both parameters reflect an EBITDA pre margin of approximately 4.8%. The EBITDA pre guidance is adjusted for extraordinary expenses like M&A related expenses for stock option programs and implementation costs for ERP systems and for one-off expenses due to the change in in the executive board as explained before. Thank you for your attention. I'll now hand over to Matthias.

Thank you, Falk. Dear investors and analysts, today is my last analyst call for Matthias. After more than 10 years serving as CFO and CEO, I will be stepping down from the management board at the end of this year. It's been an unforgettable decade, truly the professional experience of my life. And I have to admit, this isn't an easy step for me. There are so many things I'm grateful for and just as many that I will really miss. It's been a privilege to work for so many years alongside some of the smartest and most talented colleagues in the specialty pharma sector and to build together with our entire team what Meteos stands for today. Germany's leading specialty pharma company and one of the key players in Europe. A healthy, solid, gross business, ready to take on the challenges of the future. Together with our 1,000 colleagues, we now produce more than 1 million individualized medicines every year across Europe. In doing so, we help ease the suffering of patients, slow or even stop the progression of diseases, and in some cases achieve complete cures. That's something I'm particularly proud of. To everyone I have had the pleasure of working with over the past 10 years, and especially to all of you on this call today, our valued investors and analysts, I want to say a sincere thank you. Thank you for your trust, your support, and yes, also for your critical questions and comments. I've learned a lot from them, both professionally and personally. It has been an honor, and I truly appreciate it. But now feels like the right moment to move on, to make room for new minds, new ideas, and fresh energy. I am confident that my colleagues on the management board, Falk, Christoph, and Konstantin, together with my successor, Thomas Meyer, and all of our 1,000 colleagues, will continue to do an outstanding job. I'm sure they will take Meteos to the next level, making it an even more profitable and globally recognized leader in specialty pharma. Thank you once again for your partnership, for your engagement, and for being part of this incredible journey. With that, I would now hand back to the moderator to start the Q&A session. Falk and I are glad to answer your questions.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press 9 and the star key on your telephone keypad. In case you wish to cancel your question, please press 3 and the star key. So please press 9 and the star key now to state your question. And the first question goes to Michael Haider of Birnberg Bank. Please go ahead.

Hi, everybody. And yeah, Matthias, congratulations for your successful journey at Medeos. And really thanks for the exciting time we had together. But I'm sure we will see us and I will continue with some questions so that you don't get bored here. First of all, you mentioned that you have sold some pharmacies in the Netherlands.

can you elaborate a little bit more is this the start of the exit of the pharmacy business or was it just like um opportunistically maybe yeah so thank you michael we are happy that you are back as our analyst and we we missed you as the first one asking all of these questions so thank you for the for the first question and Yeah, you're right. And you and most of you remember, we talked about the pharmacy. So when we acquired Seban, we acquired 23 pharmacies we own in the Netherlands. And from the very beginning, we knew that this is not our core business. and so because of that if there is an opportunity so the goal is not to sell the pharmacies you know but if there's a good opportunity meaning that we get a higher multiple when we sell the pharmacies then when we bought them plus some additional business so so as the netherlands is different than than germany as you know in the netherlands corporates are allowed to own pharmacies so there are some chains and they they of course they are they are very interested in in buying more pharmacies and also interested in our pharmacies so that means that on the other hand we can ask for for some support for our business as well that we cooperate in the future for example that we do business for for limited time in the future together and things like that and if we can achieve both so higher multi plus additional business then we consider selling pharmacies. And this is exactly what happened.

Okay. And related to this, when I look at the international business and the margin, which stood at 18.6% adjusted WTA after nine months, when looking at a prominent competitor of yours, one has the impression that there's more upside to this. um what do you think is this maybe also related to selling pharmacies because that's probably a lower margin business than the rest or where do you think the margin of um seban can go so if you're talking about our competitor i know whom you mean there's only one in in europe and as you know and and all the other listening this call

knows that they are very active in the US. They have a huge US business where they have even higher margins than they have in Europe, as far as I know. And so you cannot fully compare this kind of business, because we are limited to Europe so far, only a few countries in Europe. And margin is now 17.7, coming from roughly 20. buying from a private equity you know that they looks a little bit different at the beginning if you buy something from private equity they do what they can do to to make the power tubes and they have done very good and now we have the 17-7 so the truth is somewhere between 17-20 so of course our goal is to bring it up we are working on that and but what you can see now is i think it's a it's it's typical if you buy a company from private equity i would say yeah maybe also on the international business i was very positively surprised by the strong growth in the third quarter is there anything specific to mention here what that drove what drove the growth no we already talked about it so at the beginning we we have been focused very much much on integration on coming back from acquiring a company costs a lot of money and a lot of time as well and involves a lot of people and that not only at Meteos also at CEPAN and we could finish that we proceeded very much with the integration of CEPAN so now people can go back to work and focus on business and sales and that's I think the figures are exactly reflecting this.

Okay. And what do you think, how much more synergies are possible in the combination with the German business?

Yeah, so we also talked about that. So there are synergies possible, you know, the game, the API business, which we will bring to Germany and things like that. We are working on that. There will be some more synergies in the future. But as you know, we also depend very much on regulation and lawmaking here. So some things are changing within Europe, but that looks good. We have positive signs that there will be some good changes in the future, which will support our business and the synergies. So we expect more synergies coming out of that, but same than last call, really hard to quantify those synergies. But there will be some more.

And then I've seen that there was more one-offs relating to M&A in the third quarter. Is there something cooking? Are you looking for the next deal or was this in relation to the divestment you mentioned?

It goes back to the acquisition of C1. It is a tax aspect VAT deductible or not on transaction costs C1 group had to make the power twitch in the past. to take up this slogan from Matthias. And the VAT was unfortunately denied. The VAT deductibility was denied by the Texas Authority in the Netherlands. And so unfortunately, we had this aspect now as a cost item in the P&L. So we're always cooking something, but this is not related to the cooking process for the future. It's a nice try.

Okay, so nothing really shortly ahead or something, right? I mean, that's what's on the M&A side. If that would be the case, we would have to release it, you know. Okay, then maybe two more. The growth or let's say free cash flow was super strong. Congratulations. Very nice. But as you have already mentioned, it's a bit lumpy. So for the full year, I do not have to really increase the assumption, right? I mean, it could be also a slightly negative fourth quarter on the cash side.

Well, I still think to 50 to the operational cash flow, no increase, and the free cash flow, as I mentioned, is 10 million down, which is 40 to 50. Of course, we are very close to the upper end, so we were quite successful. As Matthias said, we had a very successful nine months. It was, of course, very positively influenced by the operational performance, and we are lucky we had no negative working capital impact. So we are learning how to deal with it. And there was, in our expectation, there was also a tax payment we expect for the previous years, but this didn't come yet. So this is difficult to calculate. So I would stick to what I said in the past because I'm not a tax authority. I cannot tell you when the tax payment will come. So please stick to it. If it's more, you probably don't get angry. I don't think it will be significant less. We will perform also in the fourth quarter at the big question mark, and we will also try not to have a big working capital impact. in the fourth quarter, and if we are lucky on that, the only question mark they get is the tax payment. I cannot answer that question.

Okay.

Yeah. Well, many thanks.

Thank you, Michael.

Next question, please.

Hello? And the next question. Yes, yes. The next question goes to Michael Kuhn of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I'll start with a quick one on Q3 EBITDA in pharmaceutical supply. There was an organic decline. Obviously, you had the price markup effect in Q3 last year. Is that entirely explaining the year-over-year decline in the third quarter, or were there other effects included as well?

No, this is 100% what remains, I would say, because we, of course, we performed also quite well in the PS segment in the third quarter, 25, but the impact of the price adjustments in 24 was quite huge. And this part we were not able to offset by the operational performance in 25.

So the inventory effect was probably something like 2 million in Q3 last year.

Yeah.

Let's say on a normalized basis, looking a few years down the road, would you expect, let's say,

occasionally those inventory effects to to reoccur or was that rather like a like a non-recurring thing over the past two years and and we shouldn't bake in those those effects going forward anymore yeah well mike that's hard to predict because as you know that depends on inflation so as if inflation would come back we could expect those effects because then then as Inflation gives the pharmaceutical companies the chance to adjust prices, and usually they do it. So, yeah, that really depends on the development of the inflation we will have here in Germany.

Thank you. But then also on free cash flow and not particularly on this year but let's say also looking over the next two to three years, I guess you will try to achieve further organic earnings growth which should be supported for the cash flow. We are already underway towards the upper end of the 40 to 50 million free cash flow bandwidth. probably the inventory management will also continue to be disciplined. So is there a chance to, let's say, increase that bandwidth at some point and thereby also, let's say, your financial flexibility, both in terms of paying down debt and also doing CapEx and M&A?

Yeah. I mean, of course, as we would like to grow the operational result and we continue keep going on this. And I expect, but this is actually the question for March, in March 26, not now. But of course, we try to increase the operational cash flow and the free cash flow. And as you said, well, investment or capex is something which will also maybe slightly increase in the future. But now we are still not capex intensified. We will remain on that level. So the 10 million is a good amount. But operationalize, I would say, well, of course, if I say this year, 50 to 60 next year, everything I'm saying now is... A little more. Yeah, definitely we will, looking at the numbers, we will end up at more than 60. This is very realistic. As I said, we have, and this is a little bit, not a showstopper, but it's reducing the fun. We have some tax payments which are related to the previous years, and it goes back really to 23, 22, and even before. And the question is when this will kick in, but actually I hope this will be finalized in 25 already now. It could have an impact on 26 as well. And unfortunately, these tax payments are part of the operational cash flow. But fundamentally, I see this figure increasing as we would like to increase EBITDA and EBITDA Pre.

Understood. Thank you. Then one on EBITDA in Q4. Looking at the 96 million figure, you would need some sequential improvement in Q4 with Q3. Have you identified yet which segment will drive that development?

Yeah, if you look at the figure, so 24 million in Q3. So today I already got the question, but Q4 is always weaker than Q3, right? If you look at the past two years, but there, that was your first question, Michael. We had the inflation-adjusted price effect, which we will not have this year. you will not see that sharp decline from Q3 to Q4. So we have a good run rate, 24 million. Business is increasing. If you look at the EBITDA, you can see a slight increase every quarter. So we expect this to continue. And if you have a little bit on top of the 24, then we are approaching the 96, and this is still our goal. We are working very hard for that. It's challenging, of course, but we believe that we can achieve it and we work for that.

Thank you. And then one last question on the future CEO, Mr. Maier, obviously joining from a market cap wise, much bigger company, almost like 15 times. say, not absolutely straightforward for that move. So, interested to know, let's say, what is the key kind of skill sets and capabilities he brings in that made him, let's say, the right candidate ultimately and, let's say, what do you think is his personal challenge with that particular move?

So that would be the perfect question for Dr. Sampson, for the head of the supervisory board, but I try to give you some indications. As you just said, he's coming out of the industry. He's working at the polymer industry, which so the know-how will be helpful for Meteos, especially for the future field of advanced therapies. They do manufacturing. They sell in, as far as I know, I don't know how many, many, many countries around the world, including the US. So he's very good connected. He has done this job from the scratch, coming to CEO, being CEO for six years at Meteos. his company and at barham and within that time he almost doubled the revenue so so yeah he knows how to manage companies how to grow companies they they have a much higher epda margin than we have so i think all of this is know-how that will help and as i just mentioned in my at my speech open for new ideas now. We need fresh ideas and things like that. And also, from my side, what I can tell you, I met him several times. I think he's a good guy. He's capable enough, has the knowledge, and will be able to continue our business doing a good job. But I would say maybe, as Falk just mentioned, postpone that into March and then you can ask him directly and I'm sure some many of you will meet him personally as well. But I can tell you that I have a good feeling and that I think that he's really capable and a good guy. He has done a good job and he will do a good job at Meteos as well.

Thank you very much and then I would also like to use the opportunity to thank you for the great collaboration over the past few years and also a link to the hope that our paths might cross again at some point. Thank you.

Likewise. Thank you, Michael.

Thank you. And the next question goes to Tim Kruse of Montega AG. Please go ahead.

yes thank you yeah mr gattner sorry it's our first and our final uh earnings call together but i already wish you all the best um a lot of questions already asked um but two follow-ups from my side maybe one on the the question michael already raised on the growth of the international business so just to clarify Excluding the positive one-off effect from the sale of the pharmacies, that would imply roughly 14 to 15% organic growth. So that's something you feel comfortable with looking forward for the Cevan business, for the international business?

Well, not quarterly, I would say. But yeah, sure, we very much appreciate what's happening. developing in the segment international. And yes, I think this reflects what we have strived for in the last month and tried to get things in line, find or establish new business activities and develop new products and the fruits or the results are kicking in now. first time in the third quarter, and we expect a similar development in the fourth quarter. So yes, we are very confident about this.

Could you maybe comment if there's already the AP sales to the German market already realized in Q3, or is that something which is still going to come up in the next quarter?

This started, but this is not the main driver for the results. This is something which is still to come.

Okay, interesting. And then maybe just one final question on the advanced therapies. I know this is, yeah, you see a lot of potential in that, but maybe you could outline for me as a newcomer to the company, sort of what kind of impact that already has on your business and how do you expect that to scale up and what that also means in terms of maybe additional capex and, yeah, kind of growth momentum. That would be really interesting.

Yeah, so the idea of advanced therapies is we are, if you look at all the Lonsas and Co., they do batch sizes of 100,000 of millions of products. If you look at Matos, we are the expert for batch size one. So we are... considered, and we are the expert for doing really individualized drugs, always batch size one, focusing on the patients. And this is a very high expertise we have. We have the infrastructure for that. We run 10 GMP labs over Europe. And now if you look at the advanced therapies where we talk about mRNA or gene and cell therapies, This is where you exactly need this kind of know-how, because to bring those therapies to the patients, you need very close labs and know-how to provide those therapies, to bring it to the hospitals and to the patients. This is what we can do using our platform within our labs. what we are doing. So we employed first the employees. We have a good management team already. We started setting up the know-how within two of our labs. And there are some investments. There are no major investments. So this is included in the 10 million euros Falk talked about. So there's no major additional investment needed for that. it's more important to really train our people, our employees, to set up the management for that. And this we are doing, so these costs are included in the figures you can see as well. And we already signed the first contract, so we are very proud of that. We already signed two contracts. We produce cell therapies and mRNA mRNA products already for biotechnological companies coming out of our labs, going into the hospitals to the patients where we also can support that. And what I mentioned before, I'm very proud on that as well. And so you will see no contribution this year, but we expect in the coming years that there will be It will kick in. There will be maybe some six in the six-digit area, but that will increase mid to long term because advanced therapies on the long run will replace the traditional therapies. And for that, we are prepared and we will be the partner of the pharmaceutical industry. We are ready for that. But as you know, we only have a guidance at the moment for this year. And next year, we will have one for next year. But of course, I give you this idea. So now we talk maybe about six single digits. But in the future, I'm sure that advanced therapies will replace the traditional therapies. And yeah, we are ready for that.

That's very, very helpful. Can you just maybe comment on the reimbursement structure and the HIV tax mechanism for these therapies? Does that fall under the same kind of mechanisms or do you expect also other kind of opportunities there for you?

Completely different. That's a good question because that really makes it different. There we do not talk about the Hilfstaxe. Usually we have direct contracts with the pharmaceutical industry. So it's between Meteos and the pharmaceutical industry. So no Hilfstaxe involved, no Arzneimittelpreisverordnung involved. So we do the contracts, we get paid for our work, for our input, and of course that makes it really interesting and more flexible okay very much many details so so if you're interested we we can have a one-on-one about that yeah so maybe it's boring for all the other participants thanks a lot welcome and the next question goes to all of price of okay consult private equity please go ahead

Thank you very much for taking my question. And also, as it's your last call, all the best for the future. And I think you did a great job in growing Medios. So two questions from my side and maybe one follow-up, depending on your answer. In one of the last quarterly calls, you, Matthias, said that you didn't believe Donald Trump would succeed in his, like, most favored nation, narrowing of prices in between the US and Europe. But if he would, it would not hurt Medios, but it would benefit from it as margin contributions narrow in the US and expand in Western Europe. So can you see any positive effects as Donald Trump succeeded, as opposed to your judgment? So is that not only not hurting Medios, but are you benefiting from that? That is the first question.

Thank you, Olaf. Also, thank you for your wishes. So we all know If we like Donald Trump or not, but we know that usually he's doing what he's saying. And so you're right. He has done that as well with Trump, our X and all the things with the goal is to bring pharmaceutical prices down in the U S and on the other hand, uh, uh, uh, up in other countries that there's not such a huge difference we can see at the moment for truck prices between the us and other countries and that would mean that prices should come down in the us and on the other hand go up in other countries and this is what i cannot see and do do not expect but if it happens then that would be good for me just of course because as you know our trading business is regulated by partly by the truck price by the term truck price regulation uh fixing the prices and if prices would go up that would mean that our revenue would go up and that our earnings would go up as well but i still can't see that i cannot believe because you know that the health systems health insurance systems all over the world in all civilized countries, it's under huge pressure, and I cannot see that prices just will go up in those countries. I do not expect that. But so I think no impact, and if impact, a positive one. I think to summarize that, that's still my opinion.

Okay, thanks a lot for that. Second topic as to the sale of Benz is to Janos. I mean, the big picture is, of course, it's great. It's great for the shareholders. It's great for the company to have such a renowned long-term investor, also known for his proper due diligence before investing. as opposed to a private equity, which business is not to hold listed equity. So a share overhang is removed. And of course, it's kind of a great title for you leaving to have acquired them as a long-term investor. And I also understood that the board put a waiver on the lockup of the Benz's shares. However, it has been seen that there is a difference in between those 6.67% of Bensys and the 6.39% of Janos, which is roughly 70K shares. So did they have a waiver in the past with the share repurchase, or did they short before they acquired the Bensys shares? Or is there any other...

uh possible solution which i did not think of so a b or c so so olaf thank you great investigation and uh if you if you purely look at the these figures and and this is what what the companies release you you are right but the the truth is uh that benz is sold the all of their shares completely uh to Henderson, so it was, I think, 6.7. And within Henderson, you know, companies like Henderson, they have several different funds, and we do not exactly know in which funds they do the shares finally and how the funds are related together, if they have to see it as one unit or not. But I can assure you that all the shares moved from Benzies to Henderson. There's not even one single share going through in the market. And that's just a technical thing. So I think you can be relaxed, fully relaxed there.

Okay. Thanks very much. Then one last follow-up regarding the index. I mean, personally, I think Medios was very lucky to return to the Aztecs twice because somebody else was taken over. First Synlab, now Seconomy. Now with the share price drops, which actually surprised me after the entry of Janus Henderson. It surprised me a lot, to be quite honest. Is there any possibility to keep Medios from dropping out of the SDAX for a second time in your last year, especially given the free cash flow, which is quite pleasing right now, as I understand your call, So can you do anything kind of to keep Medios from executing a second time? Do you have the legal and financial possibility to do so?

So the only thing we can do, so you can help us, so the more shares you buy and your colleagues attending this call, the higher the price will go, and that will assure our position at the SDAX. And for that, we run the business. I think we do a good business. We will support this. So it's, you know, there's a ranking, and this is free float shares times share price. So it's the so-called free float market cap, I think. This counts, nothing else. We cannot influence it. But if the share price goes up, so days like today can help. And this is interesting, coming back to your last question. So it's always the question is how the Deutsche Börse considers the shares as free float or not. and and that that could be different between the benzes where we had a different icing and now henderson so i i cannot tell you 100 but that that might help so increasing free float increasing share price this is what helps and and there's no legal way or something like that to influence that we just we as a management we work on doing a good job and running the business and trying to convince you as investors to invest into our share. And if you do so, that would help.

Yeah, personally, we're asking for the legal possibility. I ask if there is a legal possibility right now to repurchase more than that 1 million shares that you already have repurchased at 1250.

But that would be counterproductive because that would reduce free flow.

Okay. Okay. But are you confident on staying in the index this time or rather not?

I can't tell you. As mentioned, that depends on the share price. It's really hard to predict not only our, in general, share prices. I hope so.

My understanding is more ETFs are focusing the European indices than the SDAX index. Do you have any knowledge about the situation there?

Nope.

Okay. Thanks for everything and have a good day.

Bye. Thank you to everyone. So this time we've fully used the one hour, which is the first time, I think. So we are happy that you have so many questions that you are so highly interested in Meteos. And thank you very much for that. And I wish you all the best. wishes from Berlin and bye-bye from Berlin and see you soon maybe in the future. Bye-bye.

Bye.