AcadeMedia AB (publ)

So good morning everybody to a fantastic day in Stockholm. We have a great spring day and finally we see the sun and welcome to this presentation of the third quarter and the new year of Academedia. And together with me, I'm very happy also to introduce our new CFO, Peter Sylvone, and I will hand over to him in just a few minutes. But first, if we change page, we have a short update and I must say that we have started the new year in a very good way. The number of students has growth in a stable way and if we look at the revenue, it's more than 10% up and it's mainly driven by organic growth and the international expansion. And we also continue to increase our international growth with an acquisition in Finland. So we run now 113 preschools in Finland and it has a revenue of around one billion Swedish crowns. So Academedia now have all different sort of education in five countries and we also have small businesses in also in Poland and in UK. And we have also invested a lot in quality. We have increased the number of teachers that had academic results. We have also invested a lot in our school buildings and also the grade has also been a debate in Sweden and I must say that no organization has done so much as Academedia when it comes to quality. And we continue also our campus strategy with the new campus in Malmö and in August 2025, we will have 1000 students entering a really fantastic building. So if we look at the campuses in Stockholm, we have two campuses in Olsen-Göttenberg, in Örebro and in Uppsala and now also in Malmö and that will be really, really great. And we also have some exams result when it comes to the PISA and we also are very proud that the independent schools perform very well when it comes to the results of PISA and it's also been announced the report around that. So the overall picture, good growth, good development and we also have invested in quality and that is also a stable platform to continue to develop Academedia into the future. And then if I hand over to Petter and he will go through the numbers.

Thank you, Marcus. And good morning, everyone. As the new CFO to the company, I'm so honored to present my first quarterly report and I'm delighted to kick off with such a strong quarter. As Marcus outlined earlier, we achieved a good growth of 10% with contributions from the acquisitions of Tula in Finland and Winford College in Netherlands amounting to 3.6%. Additionally, our adjusted profit margin increased to .1% compared to last year's 6.6, which means that we were reaching 327 million in absolute terms, up 50 million from last year. This increase in adjusted profit reflects the growth across all our segments. Most segments experience also improved profitability except for upper secondary where the revision of school vouchers still isn't sufficient to compensate for higher costs. Moreover, this increased profit has translated into a correspondingly higher free cash flow. Now turn to page four, please. The improved adjusted EBIT are, as I mentioned, evident across all segments, as you see in the picture. Apart from the better compensation through annual increases in school vouchers, which now adequately account for inflation, the positive change is most notable in the preschool and international segments where in addition to better school voucher compensation, the acquisitions also contributed an additional 8 million. As we have mentioned in previous quarters, the increase in group overhead costs is a natural outcome of our growth. So some of our staff functions are adding extra resources to accodimate our expanding operations. Move to page five, please. Our rolling 12 month net sales have now reached 16.7 billion. Adjusted EBIT has climbed to 975 million while we maintain a stable margin. Once again, we observe a very positive trend in free cash flow development. Now let's look at the quarters development within each segment and we start with preschool and international segment on page eight. The number of children increased by an impressive 13.2%. With growth witness across all countries except Sweden, where five preschools were closed in the past 12 months, affecting the year over year numbers. Our growth was primarily driven by the acquisitions of Winford in the Netherlands and Tula in Finland, along with new preschool openings in Germany. The international operations account now for 27% of the group's total sales this quarter and 30% performance. Net sales increased by .8% compared to last year with organic growth at 6% and acquisitions contributing 10.9%. Adjusted EBIT and margin improved compared to the previous year. This year's margin reached .7% up from last year's 5.5 and the operating profit was 108 million compared to last year's 76. These improvements are attributed to better compensation for inflation costs through annual school voucher increases, reduced energy costs and contributions from acquisitions. The item affecting comparability in this year is the cost of acquisition for Tula. Moving on to compulsory school on page nine, we noted .2% increase in student numbers. Net sales rose by .3% driven by increased number of students, the positive impact of the annual school voucher revision in January of .5% and higher government growth. The school voucher revision was in line with our previous estimate in Q2. Adjusted EBIT and margin improved compared to the previous year. This year's margin reached .1% up from last year's .8% and the operating profit was 78 million compared to last year's 69. These improvements attributed to better compensation through the school voucher revision, increased capacity utilization and decreased energy costs. Now turning to upper secondary school on page 10, we there observed .8% increase in student numbers. The sales grow of .5% is driven by more students as well as the annual school voucher revision of 3.8%. Although it's worth noting that this revision hasn't been sufficient to offset inflation cost increases. Consequently, the adjusted margin was somewhat below last year's 8.4%. Despite improved EBIT in absolute numbers due to higher capacity utilization and lower energy costs. Moving to adult education on page 11, we see a .7% increase in sales driven by a higher number of students in higher vocational education and the acquisitions of BIRG. In the municipality business, our implemented capacity adjustments and cost cutting measures from last year continue to yield positive effects. Adjusted EBIT increased to 43 million from previous year 33 with a margin of .7% compared to 8% last year. We anticipate the full year EBIT margin within the lower range of 9 to 11% given the seasonally weaker fourth quarter. Continue to page 13, free cashflow and investment. Free cashflow for the quarter was 200 million higher than last year, attributed to higher profit and a more favorable network and capital development. Maintaining capex as a percentage of sales has likely declined to 1.6%. The significant increase in other expansion capex is associated with the acquisitions of Winford and Tula. Proceeding to page 14, the financial position. Net debt excluding IFRS 16 increased by 1.5 billion compared to last year with the leverage ratio including IFRS 16 at one, well below the financial target of less than three. Including property related lease liabilities, net debt was higher due to growth, the acquisition of Tula and the share redemption program. And finally, on page 15, our financial performance against target. Our organic growth including small bolts on acquisition stands at 7.4%, exceeding our financial target of 5 to 7% growth. Our adjusted EBIT margin of .1% fall below the target range of 7 to 8%, but in the quarter we deliver .1% worth notice. Our leverage ratio of one remains comfortably below the required threshold of three. And with these words, we end this presentation and open up for questions.

If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Carl Johan Bonnevier from DNB Markets. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning Marcus and Petter. First of all, Marcus, good to have you back in in good shape again.

Thank you. I'm a little bit dangerous for the moment. I tell the rest of the staff to know when I'm fixed.

Excellent, excellent. Good to see that the business momentum seems to be good out there for you. Two questions really for me. Looking at the finished acquisition of TUL, I know that's an acquisition target you have been looking at a number of times historically and walked away from. What makes you convinced that there was the right time to go for it now and what kind of opportunities do you see there?

You know, we looked at this 2016 and in fact we gave a bid on the company at the right level, but the price then for the one who acquired the company was very, very high. And now this has been a development in Finland where they have to, they grow too much and they have to restructure the company. And we think that this is the right time. It's a good management. It's the right price. It's the right profitability. And it's also got a lot of opportunities coming when it comes to Finland. So the right price, the right management and the right development. And they have also fixed some of the growth issues that they had.

And when you look at the opportunity as it stands today, what are the main opportunities there?

In Finland, it's to, of course, to increase the profitability of the company through the management's efforts and action plans and also to make both the acquisitions.

Excellent. And when you look at the market position of Tula today, I understand they are the second largest operator in Finland. What is the rest of the structure of the market? How much is public? How much is private and so on? Just to give the ballpark for those kinds of bolt-on opportunities.

It's not so much as it is in Sweden. The market is a little bit different because a lot of families had their children at home and they also have what we call in Sweden, -i-Mama. That is also a big part. So the drivers for growth is that people who have the children at home and at -i-Mama also want to go to professional daycare centers. So that is the key drivers for the growth possibility and the quality of the sector. I would like to say that it's around 10% now. I don't have the really correct number, but it's smaller part than it is in Sweden. And we have some bigger groups. Some of them are owned by Finnish companies. But as you mentioned, this is the second biggest. We really believe in the brand. We believe in the quality that they have. We also believe in the management that we have got to know in a very good way. As I mentioned, we have got to know Tula for many, many years. I think that is a very good idea from Academy Idea side. Just not running around buying companies. Get to know the people, get to know the market, get to know the business. And it was the same in Germany and also in the Netherlands. So we are very hopeful when it comes to the Finnish development.

Excellent, that sounds encouraging. Looking at the campus strategy, could you, how do you see, say, the Malmö opening? Is that the question of moving a lot of other operations in there? Is it the startup from scratch or how is that going to be pursued?

Yes, we are moving three different businesses into that. It's the design gymnasium, the creative higher high school and also our music school, Ritmus, we move there. So it's three existing schools. But if you look at the design gymnasium, it's really hard for them to find places now. It's totally overbooked. So I think it's very good that we could give them this opportunity. So it's three existing businesses that we are moving into that campus. And we really believe in this campus strategy. And we are now so big that nobody else could do this sort of investment because it's really big steps. And then we see that the municipality, they don't do this sort of investment either. So we really believe in it. And we think it's good for the society. We think it's good for the students and for the teachers also. So this will be good for Malmö. And maybe we should mention that that's 50% of all the children in higher upper secondary go to upper secondary in independent schools in Malmö. I saw the numbers now in Gothenburg. The private part is increasing. It's stable in Stockholm. So the upper secondary market where we are really the market leader is stable and good and developing in a good way.

Excellent. And when you look at how the campus strategy has evolved in Stockholm, Malmö, Uppsala, Gothenburg that you mentioned, are you now up to basically full capacity load on those campuses or is there still a big gap to the coming school year?

If we have one campus in Stockholm called Campus Vassastan, it's totally fully booked now. Campus Södermalm still will need one year but has a very good development. And I think in Uppsala, we will need two more years. In Gothenburg, we are really working out to find school places because the demand is very high. And if we look at one of our brands, that is Dr. Blanka, we now run three Dr. Blanka schools in Gothenburg. So in Gothenburg, we are really positive to keep on helping the municipality with vocational programs and training.

Sounds excellent. And when you look at, say, how you're closing up to what you are doing to get the right kind of student to sign up, number of students to sign up for the coming year, how is that work going this year and how you're pursuing it compared to last year?

We think it's developing quite okay. We haven't announced some part of the numbers. It's stable and we see that vocational numbers is really increasing. What we struggle with a little bit is the technical program and that is not the biggest part, but we see a decline when it comes to technical programs in all Sweden. I think we take some market shares, but that is very negative for Sweden. So we're working a lot on that, but that will also affect the number of students in August, but we are increasing in the vocational program, what we call is Praktiska, and the Simi vocational programs that we call Dr. Blanka. That is really positive and fantastic to see how these schools has developed the recent years. And Academia, we have this portfolio of brands and that when we see a decline in one brand, it's increasing in other segments and that give us the possibility to keep on growing. I have an interview with Tietias this morning and they said, before I started to talk, they said, you always report stable numbers. So that is maybe why we have this portfolio group of different brands.

Yeah. Now, thank you very much and good to have you back and all the best out there.

Thank you very much.

There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

Thank you very much for listening and we wish you all a good day and a good weekend. So thank you very much.