Ambea AB (publ)

Good day. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the MBIA Interim Report Third Quarter 2026 Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mark Jensen, CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much, and welcome to Ambea's presentation of the third quarter of 2026. I'm Mark Jensen, CEO, and with me today is our CFO, Benno Eliasson. We will begin with an overview of Ambea, the highlights from the quarter, and our continued work to build future care capacity. I will also cover the acquisition of Humana, which was completed after the quarter. Benno will then take us through the financial performance and individual business areas. I will return with our financial targets and priorities ahead before we open the call for questions. I'm Bea as the leading care provider in the Nordics and we operate across Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland through strong local business areas with a broad range of care services. This slide illustrates both our business mix and our geographical presence. Elderly care and social care for adults are the largest parts of the group, complemented by social care services for children and young people and staffing and competence solutions. Over the last 12 months, Ambea generated almost 17.3 billion SEK in net sales with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 10.4%. Let me now turn to the quarter's main highlights. The third quarter was both strong and eventful for Ambea. Net sales increased by 8% with organic growth of 5% and acquired growth of 2%. Adjusted EBITDA increased to 668 million SEK compared with 570 million SEK last year and the adjusted EBITDA margin improved to 15.0% from 13.9% last year. The earnings improvement was supported by higher occupancy and operational improvements across several business areas. At the same time, we continue to build our future care capacity. Our pipeline of care places under construction increased by 51% year-on-year, reaching 2,444 places. After the quarter ended, we also completed the recommended public offer for Humana, which we can turn to next. The completion of the public offer for Humana marks an important step in Ambea's development. Following the extended acceptance period, Ambea has acquired approximately 98% of Humana's shares and compulsory redemption of the remaining shares has been initiated. Ambea and Humana are complementary care companies with a shared commitment to quality, responsibility and long-term development. Together, we will have an even broader presence across the Nordic countries and a stronger platform from which we can meet the growing care needs. Our immediate priorities are the quality of care, continuity for care receivers and employees, and maintaining strong day-to-day operations. Integration planning is underway, with an emphasis on sharing successful practices and building on a sustainable combined organization. From now on I will enter Ambea's financial reporting from October 1st, 2026. Now let's look at our continued organic expansion. Organic expansion continues at a high pace. During the first nine months of 2026, we signed agreements for 1,088 new care places. That already exceeds the 659 places signed during the whole of 2025. Vårdager accounts for 540 places signed so far this year, and Altinn has added 309. Nysgitter, Stanley and Validia also contribute to the total. The need for quality care continues to grow across all markets, and these agreements are an important contribution to our future capacity. We will continue to be selective, focusing on locations and services where demand is clear and where we can establish high-quality operations. The next slide shows how these signed agreements contribute to our overall pipeline. Our whole management pipeline reached 2,444 care places at the end of the third quarter. That is an increase of 51% compared with the same quarter last year. During quarter three, Vårdag assigned lease agreements for two new nursing homes in the Stockholm area, adding 220 places. New Seed Assigned Agreements to expand existing daily activity operations in Notelli and Stockholm by 40 places and Stand Design Agreements for three new care homes adding 14 places. Looking ahead, around 480 care places are planned to open over the coming 12 months. When the entire pipeline is open and fully ramped up, it is estimated to represent approximately 3 billion SEK in annual revenue based on the current business mix and 2026 price levels. These are future capacity opportunities, not immediate revenue. Opening and ramping up care operations take time, and we remain focused on quality staffing and demand in each local market. From next quarter, we will include Humana's organic pipeline through the numbers by business area. And let's now move to acquired growth. Acquisitions complement our organic expansion. Following the third quarter, we completed the acquisition of Humana. This is the largest transaction in Ambea's history, and it significantly broadens the scale of the group. Nutit also completed the acquisition of Imera on October 1st, adding operations within disability care with annual net sales of 77 million SEK. The chart illustrates the growing annual revenue base represented by acquired operations over recent years, with Humana clearly the dominant addition in 2026. We will continue to evaluate opportunities regarding Bolon acquisitions in selected business areas. Let's have a closer look at total revenue growth. The total revenue increased by 8.1% in the third quarter. We continue to deliver stable organic growth at around 4-5% over recent quarters. This demonstrates the strength of our underlying operations and our ability to grow organically, even as the contribution from acquisitions normalizes following the acquisition of Validian Finland. Looking ahead, the acquisition of Himona will significantly increase the contribution from acquired growth in the coming quarters, starting from Q4 2026. Quality and our people remain essential to delivering the growth, which brings me to the next slide. As we continue to grow across the Nordics, delivering safe, high-quality care remains our top priority. We work systematically with quality and sustainability with monthly follow-ups across our care units. During the quarter 29 of our Ukrainian employees graduated as care assistants through our partnership with Breskovsyster. They completed a year of studies alongside their work at Vodoga and Nytida, and are now continuing their education to become assistant nurses. The program aims to improve Ukrainians' opportunities in the Swedish labor market while helping to ensure a sufficient supply of skilled workers in the care sector. Vårdager continues to receive positive feedback in the annual care receiver survey with improved overall satisfaction compared with last year. We are particularly pleased with the improvements in how residents experience the way they are treated by employees. This is an area in which we take a long-term approach through training initiatives and our care model The Good Day. We have as always published the results for each nursing home on Vårdag's website. In Finland, Validia once again partnered with Fight Back Run, an event promoting physical activity and community. The event encourages everyone to participate according to their own abilities. And you can read more about our quality and sustainability work in the quality report. I would like to hand over to Benno for a financial summary.

Thank you, Mark. I will now take you through the main financial developments in the quarter. Revenue growth adjusted EBITDA and cash flow, followed by our earnings per share and the performance of each business area. And I will start with the revenue bridge. Group net sales increased from 4,114,000,000 SEK in the third quarter last year to 4,447,000,000 SEK this quarter, an increase of 333,000,000 SEK or 8%. All business area contributed to the growth. The largest increases came from Stendi with 115 million, Vardaga with 84 million SEK, and Validia with 67 million SEK. Nitira added 46 million SEK, Valtieren 21, and Klara 5 million SEK. Let us now see the adjusted EBITDA developments on the next slide. The adjusted EBITDA increased by 98 million SEK, or 17%, to 668 million SEK, and the adjusted EBITDA margin improved from 13.9% to 15%. Vardaga has a large increase of 45 million SEK, driven by higher occupancy in both new and established nursing homes. Nytid Anständigt contributes 20 million each, reflecting better capacity and staffing efficiency. Altidem added 12 million SEK and its higher occupancy and operational improvement continues. And Vardaga Klarar was what a slap was last year. And now turn to the cash flow. The operating cash flow showed a solid growth in the quarter, up 12% versus last year to 766 million SEK, supported by the higher earnings. Cash flow naturally varies between quarters because of the timing difference in customer payments, taxes and other types of payments. Looking over a longer period gives a better indication of the underlying capacity to generate cash flow. On a rolling 12 basis, cash conversion is 94.6%. On the next slide, we bridge this down to the free cash flow, excluding IFR 16. And this bridge starts with adjusted EBPA, excluding IFR 16, of 1,624,000,000 SEK for the rolling 12 months ending in this quarter. From there, we adjust for non-cash items, capital expenditures, interest, tax, Working Capital Movement and other cash flow items. This brings us down to the free cash flow of 1 billion 29 million SEK. And this means that our operations for the first time have generated more than 1 billion SEK in free cash flow over the last 12 months. This cash flow provides a strong foundation for investment in quality and future organic growth. The next slide shows how cash generation has been used alongside our strategic capital allocation decisions. And this slide puts our cash generation and capital allocation into perspective. On the last 12 months, free cash flow excluding IFRS 16 amounted to 1 billion 29 million SEK. We paid out 220 million in dividends and paid 189 million SEK for four smaller Bolton acquisitions. The share we purchased amounted to 1,474,000,000 SEK in total, of which 951,000,000 SEK related to the re-purchase program connected to the Humana transaction, which was closed after the quarter ended. Net debt increased by 980,000,000 SEK over the 12-month period, mostly of course linked to the preparation of the Humana acquisition. And now let's take a look at the earnings per share. The improvement in earnings per share is also visible in this earnings per share slide. Of course, on the rolling 12 basis, reported earnings per share after dilution reached 10.45 SEC compared to 8.14 SEC one year earlier, an increase of 28%. Adjusted earnings per share, excluding IRR 16 and acquisition-related items, Over the last two years, adjusted EPS as well as reported EPS have both shown a compound annual growth rate of 23%. And with that, we take a look at the business areas, starting with NITIDA in Sweden. In NITIDA, net sales increased by 4% to 1,194,000,000 SEK. Growth was supported by higher occupants in existing operations as well as contributions from acquisitions in newly opened units. Savings in owned management amounted to 960 million SEK while contract management contributed with 234 million SEK. EBITDA increased by 10% from 194 million SEK to 214. The EBITDA margin continues to improve in this quarter by 1 percentage point to 17.9%, and rolling 12 up to 13.5%. This reflects from better alignment between demand and capacity, together with continued improvement in staffing efficiency. During the quarter, NITIRA signed lease agreements to expand two existing daily activity operations in Nortellia and Stockholm, adding 40 new care places in total. and now it turns to Vardaga, the Swedish Anglican business. Vardaga delivered another strong quarter. Net sales increased by 6% to 1,465,000,000 SEK supported by higher occupancy in both recently opened and established nursing homes. Revenue in own management increased by 10% to 1,051,000,000 SEK. Contact management revenue decreased to 440,000,000 SEK because of contracts previously handed back to municipalities. EBITDA increased by 25% to 222 million SEK compared to 177 last year. The EBITDA margin improved to 15.2% from 12.8%. Profitability in material units was also strong, reaching 16% in the quarter. And the rolling 12 EBITDA margin is now at high 10.6%. Both are assigned lease agreements for two new nursing homes in the Stockholm area, representing another 220 care places. It will support future organic growth. And now turning to Norway and Stendi. Stendi's net sales amounted to 933 million SEK compared with 818 million SEK last year, growth of 14% in SEK and 6% in local salaries. The SAFEs development was supported by higher share of care receivers with higher reimbursement levels alongside occupancy and mixed effects. EBITDA increased by 20% to 120 million SEK and the margin improved to 12.9% from 12.2 mainly reflecting the stable occupancy in the quarter and effects of earlier operational adjustment and more efficient starting. We continue to work towards larger and more efficient units where we can improve capacity and operating performance. During the quarter, Sven defined lease agreements for three new care homes with a total of 14 places. Next to go is Validia in Finland. Validia reported net sales of 455 million SEK compared with 388 million SEK in the same quarter last year. Revenue increased by 17% with them primarily by acquisition in the new child welfare segment. EBITDA was slightly higher at 60 million SEK compared with 59 million SEK last year and with a margin of 13.2%. The margin is below the strong Q3 last year by two percentage points, reflecting startup costs and the work to establish and integrate the acquired child welfare operations. During the quarter, Validia opened one new care home with 63 places while closing three smaller homes and transferring care receivers to the new facilities. And now let's move to Altiden in Denmark, which continued to improve profitability in the third quarter. But starting with net sales. Net sales amounted to 362 million SEK compared with 341 million last year. In local currency, revenue increased by 7%. supported by higher occupancy in both social care and in elderly care. EBITDA increased by 31% to 51 million SEK corresponding to a margin of 14.1% compared with 11.4% in the third quarter last year. Better occupancy and staffing efficiency remain the main drivers. All four nursing homes operated under contract management will be returned to the municipalities during the first half of 2027. The expected annual revenue effect is approximately SEK 320 million. These contracts have margins slightly below Altiren's average margins. Our focus in Denmark remains on operational improvement and developing future capacity in own management as well as both on acquisition. Finally, Klara recorded an improvement in demand during the quarter. Netset increased this time by 6% to 91 million SEK, supported by demand for mobile nursing teams. Evita amounted to 8 million SEK compared to 9 million SEK last year, giving a margin of 8.8% in the quarter. For the first nine months, demand in several service lines was still below the last year's level. Clara has therefore continued to adapt its cost base and develop services that provide high value to customers. That completes the business area overview. Mark, back to you for financial targets and concluding remarks.