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DocMorris AG
3/19/2026
So good morning everybody here in Zurich and at the webcast. It's a pleasure for us to present our full year result 2025. With me today is Daniel Wurst, our CFO. My name is Walter Hess. I'm CEO. Let's go straight to the highlights of 2025. We delivered on our promises and we met the financial targets 2025. We achieved 11.1% of revenue growth and minus 48% adjusted EBTA. And with that, we achieved our guidance. The growth of RX was 33.2%. and of non-RX, 7.1%. The digital services, with a growth of 110%, so a remarkable growth rate again, and a significant profitability contribution, it's a contribution margin three, which is more than 50% already of the total company. Our AI health companion, which we have started to launch in October last year as a beta version in our app, has been adopted really very fast. Already every third app user is utilizing this AI health assistant. And with the strong liquidity position of 160 million Swiss francs by end of the year, we are very confident to execute in 2026 and 2027 according to our plans. We are fully aware of the challenging and also critical market environment. However, we today focus on the future, on our successful transition and on our path to breakeven, and to cash generation. We do that by giving you an update on our strategy first, followed by a business update, and then the financial update and outlook given by my colleague Daniel before we come to the Q&A session. There are some real important mega trends in healthcare, which have a big impact on our business. And we see us at the sweet spot of the three major mega trends. One is the demographic change, which gives a structural shift towards prevention and longevity, but mainly also towards a higher chronic care demand. It's the growth of the pharmaceutical market, a market which is not dependent on the business cycles as we see right now in this difficult environment worldwide. Last year, the market size in Germany of pharmaceuticals reached already 62 billion euros. It's a huge potential for us being captured with electronic prescriptions. And the third megatrend is the digitalization in healthcare, which is even accelerated now by AI. And also there we are at the forefront with our digital and AI health platform. How our response to these megatrends looks like, we would like to show you with a short video. It's a video about our health companion, which is live in the app already since last October.
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As you can see, we are evolving from a transaction led retail business into a health platform that orchestrates and covers the full customer and patient journey. By merging the online pharmacy with a marketplace, not only for products, but also for health services, digital health services, and telemedicine orchestrated by the AI Health Assistant alongside with the state-of-the-art retail media business, we have created a platform which is unique and it's a novelty in Europe. This trustworthy and integrated platform with more than 12 million active customers more than 1,000 marketplace sellers and more than 6,500 established doctors in Germany allows us to capture the full value of the entire journey. It makes our business fundamentally more defensible and less dependent on linear retail market growth. With the structural foundation now firmly in place, we are ready to ignite the platform flywheel and accelerate our scale at low marginal cost. And with that, let's move to the business update now. And of course, starting with RX. What you see here is the sustained quarterly growth of our RX business. And I can already confirm now that this will continue in Q1 2026. Last year, we achieved a growth of 33%, which leads to a 1.8 higher revenue in Q4 last year compared to the first quarter in 24, just when ERX started in the German market. If it comes to the quality of the ERX customers, I have to mention that the European and the German Court of Justice last year, they confirmed, reconfirmed that we are allowed to give bonus to our customers and patients. Therefore, we have restarted to do it in July last year with the result of increased retention and higher order frequency of new and of existing customers. And this led to a three times higher retention rate and order frequency of customers that are getting now also bonus with ERX compared with the customers, the previous customers that sent to us the paper prescriptions. Also the average order value. ...is growing quarter by quarter. In Q4 last year, the average order value of an ERX order was already at 128 euros. And just a few days ago, we have waited a long time, the doctors and insurance associations communicated that they have agreed now on a chronic care flat rate for doctors. And they will start 1st of July. but it's limited to a few diseases and to specific customer segment groups. In our view, it's a good start. It's a start in the right direction, in the direction of a more efficient and a more customer-centric healthcare in Germany. And it's a start of a catalyst, which is called RepeatScript, which we have already integrated in our product as we speak right now. It was important that in the first five to six quarters, we invested in creating awareness for the card-link solution, so that the solution that customers, patients can redeem prescriptions digitally. We have seen that the incremental cost of new customers that we had to find and to acquire via upper funnel channels like TV, out of home or radio were in economic with regard to the relation of customer acquisition costs to customer lifetime value. Therefore, we have started to shift and we have done it in Q4. We have shifted and we have reduced the marketing spend. into the RX acquisition. And we have started to prioritize on performance marketing channels to ensure that we remain in the economic zone, which you see on the slide. It's the green zone with our customer acquisition costs in relation to customer lifetime value. But in addition, We have a growth lever, which is the direct bonus and the exemption from co-payment, which in combination gives us the right mix to continuously grow with our ERX business. Let's come to the non-RX business now. Here you see we grew by 7.1% last year. If we talk only about the OTC and BPC business, the growth was 4.8%. But this growth came with the discontinuation with the Zerose brand, which counted for 2% to 3%. So effectively, the growth of the OTC and BPC business last year with the remaining brands was between 7% and 8%. It also came with an improved marketing performance leading to higher customer retention and better customer lifetime value of our OTC and beauty personal care customers. The digital services continue to grow remarkably with 110% on revenue growth with continuous really attractive margin growth. both will go on also this year and beyond. On slide number 13, you see that our core brand, Doc Morris, accelerated really rapidly last year and grew by more than 20%. So this shows a clear proof point for the successful execution of our brand strategy that we have defined at the beginning of last year. At the same time, our sub-brands, Medpex and Apotal, were managed well and kept at a slight growth, contributing positively to the overall platform performance. Let's deep dive a little bit in the two parts of the digital services. There's a teleclinic, the telemedicine platform, and the retail media business. Teleclinic first. The number of treatments in 2025 was 2 million, which is a growth year over year of more than 50%. A patient in an average had a doctor on the screen in the app within five minutes. That's amazing. Imagine how long it takes until you have an appointment and you see a local doctor if you have an emergency. TeleKlinik is available 24-7 with GPs and specialists. And almost half of all the treatments have been done outside the opening hours of the doctor practices. That shows the importance of this telemedicine pillar as part of the standard healthcare in Germany, but also in other countries. As said before, So the number of doctors already reached more than 6,500 and is continuously growing. But the most important and the key success factor for teleclinic is the strong partner network, which is secured by long-term contracts. It's with insurances, digital health providers, and doctor associations. To expand this partner network is the most important key strategic priority in TeleKlinik, also for this year and the years after, and also expanding the services they give to these partners, be it insurance companies or doctor associations. In 2025, TeleKlinik achieved a revenue of €26 million. But please be aware, this 26 million euro, that's not comparable with retail revenue. Retail revenue with relatively low margins, here we talk about take rate revenue with much higher margins and a completely different value. TeleKlinik is the leading platform for statutory and private healthcare in Germany. And telemedicine is a key pillar also for the new ministry in Germany. It's part of the coalition agreement. And now, as they are preparing the new digital strategy, so teleclinic is part of the primary care, but also of the emergency care solution of the future regulation. You see, it's still a huge potential for telemedicine. in general. The market penetration of telemedicine is still below 0.5%. So we are still at the very beginning and already now 26 million of take rate, mostly take rate revenue. In 26, we expect a mid-double digit revenue growth and the further increase of the EVTA margin. Our retail media business, we started with it. three years ago and we are meanwhile the leading retail media healthcare platform in Germany. We could prove to the advertisers and their brands, the brands you all know, that by using our retail media platform they can strongly increase engagement and strongly increase conversion. and achieving really attractive ROS metrics. Last year, with retail media, we generated a double-digit Euro million revenue with really high margin, even higher than with the telemedicine platform. And also in the upcoming years, 26 and further, we expect continuous strong and profitable growth of our retail media business. So let's come back to the Health Companion, where we have launched our AI Health Assistant in last October in the app. Right now we are rolling it out in all our web applications. So during March and April, you will see more and more visibility of the Assistant also in our web. The Health Assistant is the central intelligence of our platform. Here you see on this slide, slide number 17, three specific use cases of our Health Assistant. In the area of the transactional AI commerce, we integrated conversational intelligence in our search bar. in order to give personalized responses and recommendations to every customer and patient using our app. In the center, you see the AI assistant providing AI-generated, advice-oriented insights and becoming more and more a trusted health advisor for our customers and patients. And on the right-hand side, The assistant acts as proactive health orchestrator, seamlessly guiding the user, for example, from having a symptom to a doctor, be it a local doctor or a telemedicine doctor from teleclinic, of course, or guiding them to a skin check service. And there, by the way, within only two months that we have this service live, we could detect already more than 200 skin tumors and melanomas with our service and our digital health assistant. So by managing health in one place as we do, the AI assistant helps to maximize the patient and customer lifetime value and accelerates our transition to a digital and AI health platform. So on slide number 18, we are really very proud that today, together with Google, we could announce an incredible strategic partnership. We have chosen Google in order to leverage on their cutting edge AI capabilities and infrastructure. Google has chosen us in order to combine their most advanced technologies with our deep digital healthcare and pharmaceutical expertise. Together in this partnership, We are defining and delivering new seamless health products in the future in order to make healthcare better and more accessible. One point which was really important for us and which we secured is that we keep the full sovereignty of our data while meeting also the highest requirements for data privacy and security. Let me conclude this first part with the strategy and the business update. We have spent the last few years in building this platform engine. Now we have started to drive it. Our strategy is set, our positioning is unique, and our priority is on relentless execution. Just to unlock the full value of our DocMorris platform. And with that, I would like to hand over to Daniel for the financial update and the outlook.
Thank you, Walter, and also a very warm welcome from my side to the people here in the room and the ones on the webcast. First of all, I want to provide you with some further insights on the financial performance of 2025, but then much more important also to provide you with the outlook and the guidance and specifically how we will achieve EPTA break-even in the course of 26, and then subsequently free cash flow break-even in the following year, meaning in 27. Let's start with a quick look back on the financial year 25. As Walter already has mentioned it, we could secure... Comfortable and good top line growth of 11.1% in local currency. And I'm very proud that all the business lines have contributed to this growth. Of course, Oryx and digital services had the lion's share of the growth, with Oryx growing more than 33% and digital services above 110%. Reported revenues, which are the revenues without the upper toll, showed even a better performance and grew with 12.4% in local currency. There you already see that the growth of upper toll was below the average of the group and also, for a small part, also the growth of the segment EU. I'm very... Proud also that the gross margin of the group increased by 90 basis points to 22.2%. Despite the reallocation of marketing expenses from marketing into bonus and bonus And co-payment, which had an impact that will be directly deducted from sales and therefore has a negative impact on the gross margin and therefore the 90 basis points are even more remarkable. As you know, we only started with the co-payment and the bonus basically from Q4 onwards and until Q3, we did a lot of additional upper funnel marketer spend. Let's quickly deep dive into the two segments where I will focus on segment Germany because that's the lion's share of the contribution. You see segment Germany, a growth rate excess of the group of 11.7%, also fueled by Oryx and digital services. Even here, the gross margin is even developed a little bit better, 10 basis points more with 100 basis points in addition, and that also with the reservation that the Payment of bonus and the co-bonus will have a negative impact on gross margin, but will then be reversed on the CM3 level, contribution margin 3 level, because it's just a reallocation of direct marketing spend to bonus and co-payment. Segment EU, a modest growth. I think we would have expected a little bit higher growth, but they managed also to improve the gross margin by 40 basis points. But unfortunately, given... the low growth and the indirect cost base that didn't manage then to have a positive effect on the EBTA level, while that's the reason why the segment EU is still slightly EBTA negative. With that, let's come to our KPIs, which all look very similar. promising and which are kind of pleasant in our view. Let's start with the active customers. For the first time, we have also included the teleclinic customers because that's a significant number of customers. But let's first of all stick to the online pharmacy customers, which show the substantial increase of 700,000 from 10.3 to 11 million. You remember Walt told you that The discontinuation of the Zurose brand, and you can assume that a few hundred thousand customers have been lost. We have not adjusted for that, and without that, the number would even look better. But we are very pleased with what we see here. Also, teleclinic increased the customers on their platform by 300,000. 0.9 to 1.2 million and both numbers are on an ongoing basis increasing. Also in relation to the app downloads, I think there's an active tracking of the app downloads. I think it's an indication, but definitely not the one and only. But also here, you see a decent increase of 200,000 app downloads compared to 24, and we reached 2.1 million app downloads in 25. Now, let's come to the average order values or the basket sizes. First of all, on Oryx, you see an increase of 4 euros, which is by itself already a remarkable increase, but you have also seen A few slides before, that in Q4, the average order size was 128 euros. And you see really that in the first three quarters, the average basket size was much lower compared to Q4, where we really started our efficient and dedicated marketing. And that also tells you something about the quality of the newly acquired customers. One remark, please note that our basket size is calculated excluding VAT. Just for reasons, if you compare other baskets, you always have to make sure that if it's with or without VAT, given that the VAT in Germany is 90%, that makes pretty some difference if you cross it up. our basket and it would be much higher than the 114. On OTC, Walter mentioned it, we focused also on economic and customer lifetime value and the economy of the customers. Therefore, slight decline from 42 to 41, but basically almost stable and nothing to worry about it. The order frequency also here, good development from 3.9 to 4.0 time. OTC remained flat with 2.0 orders per year. The repeat order rate, which was already extremely or very high and decently high at 76, further increased to 77. which is also a very good value and just all in all shows the quality and the quality of our existing but also of our new clients which we have acquired during the last year. Now let's quickly talk about a few highlights or perceived lowlights based on the first reactions. I do not want to go here through line by line through the whole P&L. I think the top line and gross margin we have discussed. Let's focus on different cost pillars. Personal expenses, there I'm very pleased we could lower the respective ratio by 50 basis points. That's the first, showing the first positive impacts on our business. managing the indirect costs, which are basically 200% personal costs, but also shows the improved efficiency where we really go through the processes and kind of automatize and also using KI to better allocate resources, and that has already a very nice impact in 25 on the personal cost ratio, and there will be some much further leverage in the coming years. Marketing expenses, as mentioned, rose by over $11 million, and there we are talking only direct marketing expenses. We have said we shifted basically from direct marketing expenses not completely, but partially to indirect marketing, which you see as a decline or lower revenues, and therefore it's not only the 11 million, but you have to add a small single-digit million to really see the full additional marketing impact, which has been done in 25. Distribution expenses, there the ratio unfortunately went into the wrong direction. On absolute level, that shows the increase of the orders, which come with higher distribution costs. But on top of that, we have seen a substantial increase of logistic costs, transport costs, given kind of the high demand for logistic services. But we think that that should come to an end and otherwise if it would be ongoing and we have already started with that, that we have to pass it to the clients with different models that either they pay for earlier delivery or other models just to kind of compensate for any potential further distribution and logistic cost increases. I think reported EBITDA was 1.6 million lower than the adjusted EBITDA. Where do the adjustments come from? We have a net restructuring cost with the closure of that's net minus 1 million because we could also sell the property and therefore it's only net minus 1 million. We also adjusted 2 million positive EBITDA contribution through the sale of the Swiss properties. And then we made additional provisions for legal cases in the magnitude of 2 million. I think in our business, that's business as usual, nothing to worry because you notice that every year Second week there, someone is kind of putting a claim against the online pharmacies, and therefore we have kind of just for the corporate practice some legal provisions in the amount of $2 million. On the net financial result, that also seems to be kind of going completely into the wrong direction. with 12 million additional net financial result. But just to calm you down, the 12 million are all non-cash. It's 5 million FX impact on our intercompany loans. You know we fund those in Swiss francs and give the intercompany loans in Euro to our companies. And at the end of the year, we have to kind of compare it then with the actual Euro value. And as you all know, the Euro substantially devaluated against the Swiss franc. There, 5 million from that side. Last year, we had a positive effect of 4 million. If you add it up, then you're at 9 million. And the other $3 million, which would then add up to the $12 million, and that has a cash effect, but it will level out. That was the early repayment and repurchase of the 26th convertible bond, because as you remember, the offer was 103.5%, and we had to Take that as a financial expenses, but on the other hand, we will save more than the 3.5 in this year because we do not have to pay the coupon of 6.875 of the 26 convertible bonds. So, therefore, if you deduct the 12 million, basically exactly the same net financial result. And just for your information, going forward, we have now redeemed the 26 fully. 250 million out, then the 3% coupon, 7.5, and then you have to add 4 to 5 million of IFRS 16 financial expenses, and that brings you to roughly 12 million of real cash out interest financial expenses for the coming future. Also on tax, you have seen we have not paid, but recorded 12 million tax, negative tax burden. Also there, no cash at all. There's zero cash that's gone out. It must be also somehow logical because we have recorded still a loss. The reason for that is that the deferred tax assets where we have taxes carry forwards of several hundred million and given a little bit lower growth in Oryx and in some of our subsidiaries, that's just a manual thing and we had to devalue the deferred tax asset, the positive ones, and that was this booking of this $12 million, no cash effect at all. And given that it's based on a five-year plan, the next year we most likely have to do it the other way around, and then you will see there a positive contribution, but also with no tax effect. So far, to the P&L, the balance sheet, I keep very short. I think, as a CFO, I'm very relaxed with this balance sheet. It has been substantially strengthened last year with the rights issue in May, but then also with the partial refinancing issue. of the 26th convertible bond, so that we now have a very strong liquidity base of 160 million. The net debt has been reduced to 138 million, and the equity ratio, which was strong already before, is now even stronger and amounts to 50%. As you may have read, we had redeemed the remaining $22 million of the $26 million convertible bond by the beginning of March, and that's what I said. As from now on, we only have the $50 million and the $200 million convertible bond outstanding, which are the only financial and interest-bearing debt, besides the $4 million to $5 million lease payments, which we have also to pay on an annual basis. Let's have a quick look on the indirect cost and the net working capital. Indirect cost, everything goes into the right direction. From my view, the arrow is not yet steep enough, but it will definitely steepen. 7.2, that's nothing you can be or I as a CFO can be proud of. But as I said in the past, you can be assured that this ratio will become significantly below 5% in our midterm plan, and you will see on an annual basis further improvement on that area. Networking capital also there, maybe that's because the liquidity position was so comfortable, or is so comfortable, maybe not that focused by the end of last year. We had some overstocking of 11 million, but that was based on a very strong Q4, which already started by the end of Q3, and we had really to overstock and the flu season also was kind of skewed towards the end of the year. We have done it a little bit too much. I think definitely $5 million could have been less stocking. And then what I do not like very much is the $9 million accounts receivable there. Let's call it sloppiness, and I take it on my part. But that is also a nice asset to reverse in this year and the coming years. So far, everything on the cost, net bank capital and indirect cost side on track. And now let's go into details how we will achieve EBITDA breakeven in 26 and then subsequently free cash flow breakeven in 27. And we heard some complaints that We have now introduced CM3, contribution margin 3. I would say, okay, maybe the analysts have it not yet in the spreadsheet, but I think it's the highest transparency you can really get from our end. And what is CM3? CM3 is... The last line of operating profit, you only have to deduct indirect costs and then you are at EBTA. And I think that's definitely kind of, in our view, how we steer the company and how we, that's really the basis and the fundamental of our target and our mission to become EBTA break-even. And that's the reason why we want to share that with you. As you can see in 25, and you see the value of digital services, basically three-quarter or even more than three-quarter of CM3 contribution came from digital services, while the online pharmacy, that's Oryx and OTCBPC, including EU, are keeping up substantially in the second half. That's the green part of the bar. For 25, we are very open and nice and even put the number on it, slightly grounded, but nevertheless, very good indication. And then you see we're also confident that we will reach EBTA break-even. There will be a substantial contribution from digital services. As you know, they grow. Top line, and as Wolf has said, it's basically take rate equals gross margin, more or less. The slight deduction equals EBTA. But also the online pharmacy is substantially keeping up in 26. You see that, the green bar? And they are almost on an equal level, in absolute terms, with digital services, with the CM3 contribution. Okay, they are on top line much bigger, and that should not be a surprise. But having said this, In 26, even Oryx, and that's really exceptional, will be CM3 positive. That's due to our very focused and increased marketing efficiency, which has been substantially double-digit negative still in 25. And you see the same pattern goes on for the first half in 27 and the first half in 22. We will increase the March CN3 margin by more than 300 percentage, by three percentage points, and more than double the CN3 contribution in absolute terms in 2026, and you see there will be, there's not the end, that will be ongoing also into 2027. I think that's really important because if you now have CM3, you deduct the indirect cost and then your EPTA level. And how that looks, we go even further into the detail on the next slide. That's really kind of to the heart of what the CFO usually, not any longer in Excel, but in Sheets keeps and does not share with anyone. But here you see the phasing of our EBTA ramp up. The basis is Q4-25. In Q4-25, we had still a negative EBTA, but it was in the area of minus 7 million. which is a huge positive development. You know, due to the right issue, we had to report Q1 25 EBTA, which was minus 16 million. Q4, we were down at minus 7 million. And Q4 is really the run rate for our journey, EBTA journey in 26. With Q1 being somewhere in the area of Q4, because we see the same trends, the same patterns, the same dynamics. Improvement in Q2, which is usually the first two quarters are not the best runs. It has some seasonality in our business, but not too much, because there is additional measures included. Then Q3, we are, at this point in time, confident that we will reach a break-even threshold. and Q4 will then be EBTA positive. And this all together, you will see first half, the lion's share of the negative EBTA contribution, and the second half of the year, there we will hopefully see kind of a positive EBTA contribution. And that leads us, that's a little bit, that will come now later to our guidance, but you see that it's minus 10 to minus 25 is our guidance for the EVTA. As I said, it's CM3. That's the bridge, the minus 48.2. Then the CM3 contribution, I said more than double. We haven't put the numbers there, but you also have something to calculate. And then the indirect costs where we are really working hard and try to bring them down, but that's according to budget, still some negative contribution, and that will lead us to the EBTA guidance, which you see on the screen, of minus 10 to minus 25 million. I think CM3 is a very important pattern to get there, but also in combination with operational and marketing efficiency. And then we will also very tight CapEx management and also on the indirect costs. You see, we have many... where we can play and really optimize to get to achieve our target first of all in 26 to become EBITDA break-even in the course of 26, but then with the same patterns and instruments we will become free cash flow positive also in the course of 27. That brings me now to the guidance for, first of all, for 26, the short-term guidance. We have pretty broad guidance on the top line, mid-single digit to low teens. Reason for that is that we Achieve EBITDA breakeven also with relatively modest growth, which is more the left side of the mid-single digit. But we also see patterns that we could even become EBITDA break-even with accelerated growth. And that's the reason why we just want to keep the flexibility to play EBITDA versus growth, especially on the marketing side. And that's one explanation for the rather broad guidance. And as you know, we try... to definitely come out at the right end of the guidance, but given, let's say, the different patterns, we will then have to narrow it during, in the course of the financial year 26. As a soft guidance, how does that translate into kind of the business segments? ORIGs will be around 20%. which is kind of basically in line with what Walter showed before. We cut the 20% non-economic customers. That comes with kind of a little bit lower, but much more profitable growth on Oryx. OTC, we stick to the mid-single digit, as we have been before, and as we have demonstrated that that's possible. And digital service, there we will see mid-double digit growth, growth as digital service combined and with a substantial increase of the EBTA margin, of the already very high EBTA margin, but there will be further appreciation of the margin. I talked about EBITDA, minus 10 to minus 25 million. That's kind of, that's also need to be said, improvement of 300 basis points, or three percentage points of the EBITDA margin. That's coming from the wrong direction, but I think it's still substantial, such kind of relative increase. And then CapEx, roughly 30 million. maybe rather at the high end and be a positive step that could be maybe slightly lower as we have seen in 25-27 million. That will lead us to our ultimate goals, EBITDA breakeven and free cash flow breakeven 26 and 27. And with these two years, taking into consideration that we have to really drive profitability, maybe a little bit against growth, the mid-term guidance, we are very pleased that we basically can confirm the mid-term guidance which we put out ahead of the rights issue. Of course, it's not 20% CAGR anymore, it's 50% CAGR anymore, but I think the most impressive thing in my view is that we can keep the 8%, we can even stay more behind it, because given that The relative growth of Oryx goes down and that makes the relative rate of digital service even bigger at the back end and therefore the business mix is really in favor of us with kind of having OTC which is very important also for customer acquisition for Oryx but also for our teleclinic and retail media business. Oryx, which is decently growing, and then digital services with high EBITDA contribution and high growth, which will have a higher relative share at the back end of our five-year business plan, meaning that this is true for 2030, basically covering five years. CapEx has also been reduced by 5 million. I think we are comfortable with 30 million average CapEx rate. And I think that's basically the guidance where we are aiming for and where we are kind of being measured to. And before I hand over to Walter, because he's already jumping up, just two subsequent events which you have seen on the conveyor belt I've already talked about. The closure of Ludwigshafen, which we announced also today, just some, I cannot say highlights, but some financials to that. We will have one-time restructuring costs between 3 to 4 million. If you take the midpoint, then you should be at the right spot. These are the token euros. Out of this, 3 to 4 million, 2 million have an impact on EBITDA because these are severance payments. and the remaining port is below EBTA, that's kind of on-race contracts because we have lease agreements which we have to, due to RFS, immediately to write off, but that will be an impairment between EBTA and EBIT. We will adjust for that, roughly 2 million, but I think the very positive effect is that we will have at least from 2017 Onward, €2 million, in excess of €2 million annual recurring savings, because we are moving the €3.5 million parcels from Lugishofen to Herlen, where we have ample of capacity. There will be better capacity utilization in Herlen. The handling and packaging is two times more efficient than in Ludwigshafen because we are in Helen fully automated, and therefore, I think the $2 million is a baseline annual savings, but there is definitely potential for more to come. And then last but not least, current trading. As I said, we have seen the positive trend from Q4 ongoing in Q3. Everything is according to plan, meaning budget, and also I think that gives us a lot of comfort to kind of handle and managing these challenging but very exciting times ahead of us until we are free cash flow break-even. Thank you very much for your attention, and I'm happy to hand over to Otter again.
Thank you. Daniel, so just before we close and open the Q&A session, In the last two years, we have not only built the platform engine as shown before, we have also built a high-performing leadership team. As you can see here on the slide, a leadership team that bridges the gap between traditional retail excellence and disruptive health tech and AI innovation. And I can assure you, also in the name of the whole team, that we are fully committed to execute the defined goals and to transform our platform into tangible shareholder value. It's not only at the level of the management It's also a change which is mirrored at the board of directors. And therefore, we have informed that we nominate three new members of the board that we will present to the AGM. It's Thomas Bucher, a well-known seasoned CFO. with a lot of experience in listed and private companies. It's Nicole Formica-Schiller. She's an expert in AI and digital health transformation, but also regulation on a European and a German level. And she has also a wide network in Germany in the healthcare sector and a deep understanding of the regulatory landscape in Germany. And it's Thomas Reuter, an experienced corporate and capital markets lawyer. So these broad nominations, they ensure that management and board is perfectly synchronized with the company's vision and AI-first platform strategy and also shall provide the necessary stability to the company. And with that, we are at the end of the presentation. We had to tell you a lot to give you a lot of information, but now let's immediately move to the Q&A session.
Ladies and gentlemen, on the telephone, if you would like to ask a question, please press 9.
Okay, we will share the microphone.
Yes, hello. Here is Laura for Octavian. I have a question on your sales outlook for this year. So what is the primary swing factor within your guidance range? Is it mainly driven by uncertainty around RX growth or is it rather related to OTC performance and maybe specifically on OTC? Could you elaborate on what you are currently observing in terms of competitive dynamics?
to the first and the second part?
I think, Laura, the same factor is definitely Oryx, which, as I said, we have kind of, we play operating profit against growth, and given that the co-payment and the bonus, which have been developing not in the entire group because we only did kind of a pilot with some selected Oryx customers. They developed very well in Q4 and we rolled out kind of this concept to the whole Doc Morris just recently. That really is kind of the swing factor and also the reason for the wide range of the I think you can assume that OTC, BPC, that's the mid-single digit, meaning something between 3% and 7%, not much deviation. Also, the absolute volume is high. The digital services, double-digit, mid-double-digit growth, but on a relatively low revenue, absolute revenue level. And the swing factor is really Oryx, whether that's kind of, let's say, 10 or 40%. But that's not that you take that as just to show you what kind of the volatility could be on Oryx.
And you mentioned the competitive landscape and the price pressure. I guess you meant there in the course of last year, we have adapted our pricing strategy, improved our strategy. I've seen the improvement in the gross margin. That's a result of it. But in general, we don't see now a change. on prices or price levels in the market. In our market, pricing, the pressure is always on, but not now a big change with new market entrants coming in.
mid-term is that around 2030 and then on your mid-term growth targets of 15% when I still find that a little bit high, the OTC part is growing at mid single digit I guess because in your outlook in mid term and I guess on the digital service side I don't know if you can have this mid double digit range also percentage range all the way in the mid term future so that if I then go back to the RX That should be higher than 20%. Arex goes to reach this 15%. Am I right about that?
Yeah, you are perfectly right. And I think what you need to really consider, given EBITDA break-even and free cash flow, as said, that we have to limit the growth and really play on our marketing efficiency. And that's also why we stated in the guidance of the fine print in the ellipse that it's back and loaded in 26 and 27. You will definitely see lower Oryx growth than what will then come again from 28 to 30 onwards. And if you... You said it's substantially about 20%, and I can sign into that, but it will be 20% in the first two years, but then we'll substantially be keeping up again.
And how do you take this? How do you... It's believed that it's higher than 20%. It's just that you put in more marketing again then, or you see the market growing faster after 27 in online hours?
Yeah, I think it's really kind of that you then have order or ease. once we are free cash flow positive, we can then really also, not that we fall back in the old patterns, that you won't see then kind of us spending all of a sudden 30 million in TV again. But I think with the bonus and the co-payment, that's a very strong instrument. But as said, at some point in time that you are in balance with growth and profitability, We have for the time being still certain limitations and there you can definitely kind of play that even more aggressive.
And sorry, what we also will see is platform dynamic kicking in. So you have seen the partnership also with Google. So where we have joint development teams, also with them developing new services, adding services to the platform. And this will drive traffic, will drive engagement, will drive loyalty. So we will see the effects there definitely within even one to two years already.
And mid-term is 2030? 2030, yeah.
to market questions first I remember the market share of online pharmacies was about 5-6 years ago about 1.3% in Germany how has it developed how much is the market share now and how much do you want how much growth do you expect in the next couple of years and the other question Interesting market telemedicine, you mentioned 0.5% market share. Where do you expect it to be in the next couple of years? Thank you.
So on the Rx, yes, it was 1.3, 5, 6 years ago. It went down before Rx started to 0.75%. And since ERX was available now also for online pharmacies, it went up to roughly 1.7%. And where will it go? That's the one million question. So we have, for our assumptions, taken a really conservative view in our midterm plans of 5% to 6% in five years. But Frankly speaking, we think it will be more. It will ramp faster. But in our plans, we did not go now more aggressive than 5% to 6%. And on telemedicine, so, yeah, the share has shown the penetration is lower than 0.5%. Teleclinic is roughly at 0.3%, so has about 60%. And where will it go? So it depends on how fast the digital strategy of the ministry will be defined and will go live. And how prominent telemedicine will be in this different kind of future care pillars and industries. It's too early to say where it goes, but anyway, from 0.5, it will definitely go northwards, definitely. And remember, we have two kinds of businesses. We have a retail business, but we also have a digital service business with completely different metrics, valuation, et cetera. And there is a strong growth, really, already going on and will continue.
And I think if you are interested, I recommend you to read page 175 of our financial report where all the details in relation to the goodwill impairment is, which we with honor cast. But there you have kind of the assumption, the current market share of telemedicine and Oryx and what our underlying assumptions are. It's in Oryx 1.7 and in 2030 5%, 1.7 to 5%. And that's the overall market share. I think then for the whole market and telemedicine, it's even more astonishing, 0.5. And in five years' time, the penetration should be 1.6%. That's on what we base our good daily impairment test. And you could also assume that that's basically then somehow reflected in our business plan.
So no more question here in the room in Zurich. So let's move to the webcast and adding questions from there.
Hi, Gianmarco.
Please go ahead. Hello. Thank you. I hope there's no echo on your side. So first question is the growth outlook for teleclinics. You mentioned mid-double digit revenue growth. Why not 80% or 90% again this year because the penetration is still so low? Do you not do more marketing also there? Because in my view, it's really... So such a comfortable way to get a doctor appointment in Germany, there must be a huge demand from the doctor and from the patient side. So from a top-down perspective. And then the profitability of the overall services business, is it still fair to assume that you are meaningfully above the 55% EBITDA margin for this business? And you mentioned you want to increase the margin for daily clinic, but can you give us a bit more detail about your margin improvement target also for the whole services business? That would be interesting. And then just a third question, if I may, if I have the opportunity, the logistic cost is Just something, I mean, you already elaborated on it, but don't you see risk of patients ordering them less or if they have to pay really then for even more for the delivery services, especially considering your growth expectations in Rx and OTC? Thank you.
To the first question, the growth rate. So you can consider that the growth in absolute values remains at more or less the same level. And then you have to take in consideration that you always have to integrate new network partners, larger ones. And once you integrated them, the growth curve starts to slow down and then you integrate new ones. At the moment, the regulator is just defining the new digital strategy. And, for example, the doctor associations, we talked to several of them. They are ready, but they just want to wait until they know now what the regulator regulates. And so this is the dynamic of the growth that we have predicted for this year. If it comes to the margin, you mentioned 55. So some of the services are even higher. Some of the services are below this 55. And I think, yeah.
On the margin, not sure where this 55 are coming from. I think as of today. Currently, teleclinic has margins in the low 30s that will substantially increase over time over the next five years to the figure you mentioned. I would say it's kind of 45, 50 percent. That's kind of a reasonable run rate. And on the other hand, retail media, that's also very highly profitable. That runs already on higher EBTA margins, but will also kind of in a balanced model will be somewhere around 50% EBTA margin. And I think that's... The mix, you will see this year an over-proportional increase of EBTA contribution, given that we do not have triple-digit growth at the teleclinic. And I think it's always kind of one year, a little bit less growth, but then substantial improvement of profitability. The next year, strong growth, maybe a little less profitability than one year of EBTA. Consolidating everything, increasing margin, and I think the overall pattern and growth pattern is very strong, but it's not a linear line. It's kind of some years with a little bit hold back on the top line, but push the bottom line, and therefore even faster here.
And your third question about logistics, do you refer to what, to the closing of Ludwigshafen?
No, to the logistics costs. And I think it's not that we say, I think we do it a little bit more professional, not saying that you have now to pay two euros more. I think you have definitely other measures. First of all, kind of not reducing, let's say, for the order, that you can say, okay, if you order until five, you get it next day. You can even lower your logistic because if you say, okay, if you order until four, then you get it next day because that has already another price tag on the carrier. And you could also play then with the with the basket size, which is kind of then free of shipping just to balance this logistic cost. And then we see it in the whole market. You see, for example, DMVest free of delivery charges is 60 Euro. our friendly competitor and thus we are much lower but I think you have many things to play and to optimize your logistic costs and it's not a problem of Doc Morris it's kind of the whole online and not even Oryx and OTC online but the online industry and we will just follow the market and to not getting being hit by higher logistic costs.
Okay, thank you. Very clear.
Thank you. And we have one more question from Janko from Deutsche Bank. The floor is yours.
Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my two questions. The first one is on your 2026 Rx guidance, which essentially only implies less than 4% sequential growth per quarter. Why is this the case? And given that your group guidance is quite wide this year, is there a scenario where you accelerate Rx growth in 2026? And then secondly, you mentioned a strong liquidity position of 160 million. But if I take the 160 million at the end of 2025 and consider that you paid back the 20 million convertible and consider a negative free cash flow and probably in the mid to high double digits in 2026, you will start 2027 with probably less than 100 million. A free casual is still expected to be negative next year, and you might have to refinance your 2028 convertible next year as well. So how do you plan to achieve this? Are you open to sell a minority share into the clinic?
Let me take the first question and then Daniel the second one. So on the sequential growth, as we have shown before, the guidance, we have given us some space so that we can maneuver between growth and marketing spendings. And this is also what we see in the first quarter. that it goes in a really good direction already and if it continues like this so we can go more to the upper end but we want to be flexible in reacting and for us the priority this year is completely on becoming break-even in the course of the second half year possibly on the second half year in total, and therefore we need this flexibility and we take for us this flexibility. And on the second question?
Yeah. I think just to start, talk down your right to the 160 million. You have to deduct the 20 million or 22, but let's deduct the 20. That makes it easier for calculation. That's 140, and you are also right that you can assume for this year and next year negative free cash flows, but they will be substantially, even already this year, lower than last year. And in 27, the indication that in the course of, of course, we aim for as low as possible negative free cash flow, but that should... be not kind of the two figures added up should still leave us with a very comfortable remaining caution of liquidity until we will become then for the full year free cash flow positive in 28. In relation to the refinancing of the 28 maturity, I think once we have demonstrated and shown that we are on the right path, That's been something which we tackle by then. It's clear that we do not fully redeem the 200 million, and it's also clear that it does not make sense from just, at least that's what I learned at university, okay, acknowledging that there's some time ago, but that the fully debt-financed balance sheet is definitely not an efficient balance sheet, and I think let's take it one step after the other, and we have ideas, and you referred to kind of right, setting a minority stake of of teleclinic and I think of course that's a very valuable asset which we have in our hand but it's extremely valuable within our platform and therefore definitely not any or the first priority to monetize teleclinic at this point in time.
Understood, thank you. One follow-up, if I may. Are you going to report EVDA in Q3 and Q4 this year again so that we can track your progress?
Let's see. I think could well be, yeah. I think it would be important. At least we gave you a very good indication where we are heading to, and I think this nice picture which we draw in our presentation You can basically, on a quarter-by-quarter basis, track us and see whether the two guys in front of you have not only over-promise, but also deliver on that. But we have to see, but most likely, yes.
Thank you.
Okay.
Then we come... Oh, Ramon? I just want to say that's the point of launch time. Last question. Not going too long.
On the AI campaign, as I understand, you're not getting any money for marketing. Is there a plan that on the later stage you get some money out? Yes. Did anybody say we do not get any money out of it?
I cannot remember. No, it's what we see and we measure very carefully, of course. We see an impact, a positive impact on traffic already. We see a positive impact on engagement already. We see the conversion rates going up as soon as we can take someone by the hand and guide through the platform. And we see significant increase of conversion rate. And this brings us already additional money. And as you have seen on the platform, the marketplace, this marketplace is a marketplace also for health services. And on a marketplace, you want to earn money. And we are filling this marketplace also with health services. And we will get additional margins, revenues and margins from there as well. Okay. So with that, we come to the end. Thanks a lot. It was a little bit long. Sorry for that. But we had a lot of information for you. Thank you for joining. And we wish you all a pleasant and happy day. Bye-bye. Thank you.