Ambea AB (publ)

Welcome to Ambea's presentation of the first quarter of 2026. I am Mark Jensen, CEO, and with me today is Benno Eliasson, CFO. We will start with a brief group overview and our growth drivers, and then Benno will take you through the financials and business areas before we wrap up with concluding remarks and a Q&A. Ambea is the leading care provider in the Nordics with operations across Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland. We operate through strong local brands and business areas covering elderly care, social care, and staffing and competent solutions. This breadth and scale create resilience and long-term growth potential. In the last 12 months, we reached over 16.6 billion SEK in sales and delivered an adjusted EBITDA margin of 9.7% on group level, and we continue to grow through both organic expansion and acquisitions. Let's go straight to the highlights of the first quarter. Quarter one was characterized by strong growth, with several new care homes opened and one acquisition closed. Net sales increased by 16%, mainly driven by acquisitions, but also solid organic growth. To support growing needs in society, we continue to build our pipeline of new care places and expand capacity across business areas. At group level, adjusted EBITDA amounted to 380 million SEK, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 9%. The improved result is driven by high occupancy, operational improvements, and acquisitions. At the next slide, we will look at how we build our organic pipeline. On this slide, we show the high pace we have entered the year with. Already in the first quarter, we have signed more new care places than we did in any of the years from 2021 to 2023. 2026 will for sure become a record-breaking year in terms of pipeline additions. When needs in society increase, it is important that all operators, public and private, step up and do their utmost to find relevant new projects when demand forecasts are showing a clear need for additional supply of modern and qualitative care places. At Ambea, we take this responsibility extremely serious and won't rest before we know everyone in need of care will have a fair chance of receiving qualitative care at the right place and at the right time. We are active and collaborate closely with all Nordic municipalities where we are welcome. With more municipalities open for private operators to help them overcome the care challenge, we could do even more. To us, it has no intrinsic value who adds the needed supply if it gets done. But we worry that many municipalities have no plans for needed future supply and also no plans to use private sector in the supply model. And this is a threat to the fabric of society, which we urge politicians, regardless of party, to address with more urgency and determination. Turning the page, let's review the total organic pipeline. Organic growth is a cornerstone of our strategy. Now we have almost 2,000 care places in our growing pipeline, and this is an industry-leading number in the Nordic care sector. During the quarter, Vårdager was the most expansive business area, but it is also promising to see Altiden and Denmark being back building organic pipeline with all managed residential elderly care, with two newly signed contracts for nursing homes to open 2028 and 2029. We have had an expansive first quarter with several openings, and looking 12 months ahead, we will add another 304 care places to the Nordic market, which supports continued growth and improved economies of scale. Quantifying the revenue growth from the old management pipeline can be somewhat difficult, but we have this quarter added expected revenue, assuming all new homes fully ramped up. A ramp up would normally take 12 to 24 months from opening date, depending on size and type of care home, as well as local demand. In 2026 prices, the expected total pipeline revenue will accumulate to approximately 2.5 billion Swedish kronor. The pipeline covers openings in 2026 to 2029, where more projects will be added to the later years during the remaining part of this year. With this level of mid-single digit organic growth from pipeline expansion, it is important to maintain and develop our position as an employer of choice, why we will continue to invest in our workplaces, work environment, career opportunities, and competence and leadership development. And we will now have a look at acquired growth. Acquisitions are an important complement to organic growth, building to the overall 8-10% growth target. And we have maintained a high level of M&A activity with a focus on bolt-on acquisitions. During the quarter, Validia in Finland expanded and closed the second strategic acquisition within child welfare services adding 118 million SEC in annual net sales. We continue to see an active pipeline across markets, and we remain selective, focusing on quality assets, strong operational fit, and value creation through integration. Let's have a closer look at total revenue growth on the next slide. Revenue growth remains above our long-term target, driven primarily by strong acquired growth combined with solid organic development. This reflects the strength of our business model, We grow by improved occupancy, expanding capacity in our existing operations, signing contracts for new care units, and by successfully integrating acquisitions. Overall, this creates a balanced and sustainable growth profile. At the core of our model is quality in care, strong local leadership, and high employee engagement, which I will talk about on the following slide. During the quarter, we presented a BAS Quality Award, an annual recognition given to one unit in each business area. The award highlights units that combine high quality, strong alignment with our values, concepts and working methods, and also solid financial performance, illustrating the strong correlation between high care quality and healthy financial results. Local leadership remains critical to ensuring consistent quality across our operations. In the quarter, we conducted the first Leadership Index Survey of the year, resulting in a score of 77 out of 100, a stable and encouraging result that reflects our long-term focus on present and supportive leadership. We continue to invest in leadership development and during the quarter managers across the organization started new leadership programs at different levels. Finally Validia brought together 250 managers and employees in an initiative aimed at strengthening leadership and quality while ensuring that everyone can influence their daily life and the support they receive. And you can read more about our quality and sustainability work in the quality report and also in the newly published annual report for 2025 which include plenty of new information and additional transparency through the new CSRD requirements. And now I would like to hand over the presentation to Benno for a financial summary. Thank you, Mark.

Net sales grew with 16% and were primarily driven by the acquisition of Validia, but we also saw solid contributions from Nytid and Vardaga. And the good growth we have seen in the recent quarters continued driven by both acquisition in Nytida and organic growth in Nytida and Vardaga. Validia Discord added 420 million to net sales. Stendi and Altiden still faced some currency headwind in SEK of 3-5% because of the strong Swedish currency. They both showed steady growth in local currency. And Clara still faces tough market conditions with a 13% decline in sales. And now the EBITDA. This slide shows how the different business areas have contributed to the adjusted EBITDA of the group. The acquisition of Validia of course affected EBITDA most. A strong performance added 42 million SEK to the group. Stendi faced tough comparison from a strong Q1 last year and EBITDA margin was down 1.3 percentage point. Bardaga grew both EBITDA and EBITDA margin despite all new openings the last quarter which is really strong. Nytida continued EBITDA growth with more steady occupancy that led to higher margins. This quarter, Nytida added 17 million SEC more to the group EBITDA. And lastly, Altiren, which delivered a really strong Q1 with more than double EBITDA margin versus last year. Adjusted EBITDA in total increased by 24% to 380 million SEC, and the adjusted EBITDA margin in the group was 9.0%, up from 8.4% last year. Operated cash flow was in line with Q1 last year, but much lower than last quarter. Q1 is the weakest cash flow quarter of the year, and seasonality effects get even larger over the years. And since this quarter also followed by an extremely strong Q4, this was showed more obvious this year. Cash conversion is still over 91%, rolling 12. This slide shows the way from the EBITDA excluding IFR 16 down to the free cash flow post-tax. The rolling 12 numbers are now at 713 million SEK. The numbers are still affected by one of the effects of the Validia acquisition and the settlement of the old Norwegian dispute last year. We expect the full year figure to increase when these effects are out of the rolling 12 numbers. The underlying solid cash generation gives us both flexibility and strength to continue investing in quality and in growth. And now to the utilization. This is how we have used the generated 713 million SEK. 185 million SEK was distributed to our shareholders as dividend. 1,312,000,000 SEK was spent on the five acquisitions and 521,000,000 was spent on the share buyback programs. Net debt has increased by 1,375,000,000 SEK, mostly driven, of course, by the strategic acquisition of Alidia, which mainly was financed by external loans. The increased debt has led to an increased leverage from 1.8 times ABTA to 2.5 times, still with much headroom to a financial target at below 3.25 times. Now to the earnings per share. The strong development in sales and profitability together with the share buyback programs conducted have produced a strong growth in earnings per share over the last years. This quarter reported EPS grew by 45% compared to the last year, and the growth pace over the last years is very high. The compound annual growth rate the last two years are 24% in reported EPS. And if we adjust EPS for the IFR at 16 and items related to acquisitions, the growth rate is at 20% per year. And now to the different business areas. We start, as always, with Nytida. Net sales increased by 5%, driven both by acquisition and startup units. EBITDA rose by 14% to 135 million SEC compared to 118 last year, thanks to the continued good performance in previously completed acquisitions, together with improved occupancy for startup units and some adjustment made in the service offering. We have continued to adapt our service offerings in favor of those services with expected high demand going forward, as well as successfully adjusting the capacity. This is the third consecutive quarter with a higher margin than previous year, and the rolling 12 margin now increased up to 12.9%. And then turning to Vardaga, and Vardaga continues to deliver a solid growth. Net sales increased by 8%, driven by higher occupancy and by the Avasta acquisition. Sales in own management grew by 11%, reaching 997 million SEK due to higher occupancy in new as well as established nursing homes. During the quarter, we have opened three new nursing homes with a total of 176 care places, adding to the two new nursing homes we opened Q4 last year. The occupancy in these recently opened facilities showed a better than planned development in the first quarter. Net sales in contract management increased by 3%. EBITDA increased by 13% to 125 million SEK. the profitability development in mature units continues to be strong and the negative effect that normally comes from newly established units was lower than expected. In total the EBITDA margin increased by 0.3 percentage points to 8.8 in the quarter and to 9.6 rolling 12. We expect the strong growth in our management portfolio to continue the coming quarters But the sales in contract management will turn to negative growth since contracts with a total revenue of 204 million SEK is set to end the coming 12 months. And then we turn to Norway to overview of Stendi. Stendi had a quarter where occupancy for care services for adults was slightly lower than last year, while our services for children and youth had more stable occupancy in the quarter. In local currency, total net sales increased by 2%, but in SEK, net sales decreased by 1%. EBITDA amounted to 57 million SEK and the EBITDA margin was 7.0, which was 1.3 percentage points lower than the strong Q1 last year. This is an underlying trend that is a bit stronger than the previous two quarters. The weaker earnings performance versus last year was mainly due to the low occupancy in our social care service for adults, which led to lower staffing efficiency in the quarter. We are constantly working towards units with high capacity and better operation efficiency and are phasing out smaller units. We expect to gradually see the clearer effect of this in the second quarter, in the second half of the year. And now we are turning to our Finnish business area, Validia. Validia is now reporting its fourth quarter as a new business area and has been consolidated into ABEA's account from April 1st, 2025. Valeria showed continued solid performance together with the completion of the second acquisition in a new segment of child and youth welfare. That latest acquisition was closed 21st of January this year. Net sales in the quarter amounted to 420 million SEK and EBITDA reached 42 million corresponding to a margin of 10%. In total, for the first 12 months in Ambea, Validia has reported 1,593,000,000 SEC in sales and an EBITDA margin of 10.8%. Validia was acquired as a growth platform in Finland and we will continue to create growth through new establishments, both on acquisitions and continued development of the existing operations. And now turning down to Denmark and Altiden. Altiden delivered an overall very strong quarter with continued strong revenue growth in local currency, driven by higher occupancy across both elderly and social care. Net sales increased by 6% in local currency. In SEK, however, net sales were only 1% up. Net sales in home management increased by 10% in local currency. The decline in contract management was due to the termination of one social care contract last year. The profitability improvement continues at a high pace. This quarter EBITDA increased to 19 million SEC corresponding to a margin of 5.7% up from 2.4% last year and positive earnings development was driven by the higher occupancy and by operational improvements. We have now eight consecutive quarters with margin improvement and the rolling 12 margin has gone from negative 3.3% to positive 5.2%. Our extensive work on new projects in Denmark resulted in signing of two new nursing homes with a total of 184 places scheduled to open for care received in 2028 and 2029. The contract demonstrates the improved market condition in Denmark following the 2025 elderly care reform and additional contracts for new care homes are expected during the year. And now to Klara. Finally, Clara saw lower net sales due to the weaker demand of several of their services. Net sales decreased by 13% to 87 million SEK. The historically strong supply of nurses in the labor market has led to some customers to employ their own staff instead of purchasing external services from companies like Clara. EBITDA amounted to 9 million SEK, with a margin of 10.3% compared to 8% last year. The good margin development reflects well-managed cost adjustment and continued focus of profitability, even in a softer market environment. And with that, back to you, Mark.

Thank you, Benno. Our financial targets remain as we drive profitable growth, strong margins, and disciplined leverage. And we remain committed to consistently deliver on all three financial targets, which we have also done in the first quarter of the year. The rolling 12 months growth rate is now at 16%, which is well above our growth target, thanks to the high pace and acquisitions and good organic growth. Rolling 12 profitability landed at 9.7%, which is above the target of 9.5%. We will continue to invest in people, quality, and growth. Our leverage is slightly up to a ratio of 2.5 times net debt to EBDA, below our target of 3.25 times. We maintain our financial capacity to engage in the right bull on acquisitions. And before we open for questions, I would like to provide an outlook post quarter one. Ambea is the only Nordic care provider with a brand new tailor-made and group-wide quality management system, which was ready for launch at the end of the first quarter. The system named MiroQ has been launched in the first business area after the quarter ended. We will continue the rollout of the new system to all business areas during the remaining part of the year. With MiroQ, we have further optimized and standardized operational quality work, improved system performance and features, as well as data quality and access to predictive analysis and cross-country quality improvements. Care needs are increasing and we remain committed to sign contracts for more care homes across markets, adding to further organic growth, supporting society and further growing our market share. Validia will continue to build our new fitness segment within child welfare services and we are actively working with all aspects, ramping up the business segment. And we will also see more bolt-on acquisitions and in more markets throughout the year. The adjustments in Stendi are progressing well and will deliver margin improvements in the second half of the year, leading to full year margins above last year. We are more people giving care to more care receivers in need. I am proud of what we do and we will employ and train thousands of new care professionals in the coming years as we grow and support society. In a world of conflicts and division, our wish is that politicians and civil servants can unite with us behind the core challenge of a functioning and respected welfare system. We strive to make the world a better place, one person at a time. With this raise of focus on each individual care receiver, our teams strongly contribute to the attractive of a society with equal rights for all. And this concludes our presentation and we will now open for questions.