Asker Healthcare Group AB

Yes, hello everyone. This is Johan Falk. Thank you so much for taking the time listening in to our first Q1 report. It's an exciting day for us, of course. This is the first time after the IPO being out with the quarterly report. I've been here 13 years, so I have many, many quarterly reports behind me, but this is the first in the public environment, so it's a bit exciting. I'm happy to convey that we have a good Q1 behind us. We have a solid momentum in the business and overall we feel good about both the organic growth and the M&A growth. Our net sales increased with 16% and more importantly the organic growth which is kind of honest through what the customer thinks of us is we're going faster than the market which is very much appreciated. We have and EBITDA that has been increasing 17%, so a bit faster than the top line, which also is good. Our EBITDA margin, most of you know that we have put a target of 10% in the mid to long term future, about 10% EBITDA margin and we now have 9.1, so it's increasing slowly but stable towards that, that's also a good sign. and we had two new acquisitions this quarter we had a little bit other things to focus on also the and this IPO has taken a little bit of time as you can imagine but we're happy to see two acquisitions in the quarter and as you maybe follow we did one more just the other day here so that also feels good I'm coming back to that in a little while the IPO was of course a mega event for us as a company and also personally for the management team it was a successful event we have A lot of advisors doing a good job and 20,000 new shareholders is fantastic news that people are interested in taking part of Asker and seeing the same vision as us. I mean, we want to improve the healthcare system in Europe and we know we're playing an essential part to make that happen. So for other people to think the same way and also see that this could be a good investment at the same time is the same view as we have. So we're very grateful for that. Our net debt over EBITDA has been reducing from our 2.2 level to 1.7 thanks to capital injection when we IPO'd. So we have a strong balance sheet. which means that we can have a high pace of acquisition in the future as well. Our cash flow, as you know, is high and stable, but having a bit of extra firepower is very good. The opportunities out there is not endless, but it is a lot of good companies out in Europe. I mean, as you might know, this market is fantastic. It's 1,300 billion second in turnover each year and we have listed 800 companies in Europe so that means that we have you know a lot of interesting deals that What differs the good and bad players in this market is finding the right people, finding the right entrepreneurs that are market leader in their niche. That's where we excel, I would say. So we have a good list of companies that we could acquire going forward. So we have the cash and we have the people out there. So it feels really good. And I mean, what we call the twin and organic and M&A growth is doing what it should. If we turn to page three then and looking at our financial targets, I hope that most of the shareholders that are part of this and showing interest in ASKRA is looking at this over a longer period of time. As I mentioned, I've been here a long time and I see this smooth, stable, soft development in the future. I mean, I think you should look at this over time and we have a market that is growing with 3%. We should grow faster than the market which we show. So our most important matrix is the adjusted EBITDA growth and if you look at the last 12 months it's 22% which I'm very proud to present. We have a target of over 15% that's the promise to the market and being able to do that both in the quarter of 17% but over the last 12 months of 22 feels really good. The R over RK or the EBITDA over Networking Capital is a key matrix for us internally. Every new entrepreneurial company that comes into the Asker families is working hard to please the customer and have a good EBITDA margin, but at the same time having an efficient working capital. So 67% and seeing a little bit increase in the quarter as well feels really good. And I touched upon the EBITDA margin, which is slowly going upwards to 10%. If we turn to page four, looking at the list of acquisitions here, you should expect us to do between 10 and 20 acquisitions per year. I mean, it's both the number of acquisitions, but as importantly the total addition of EBITDA so we are you know our list of companies that we potentially could buy is roughly 800 companies in Europe and we have active dialogues with quite a few in the process as well we have a and aim to have at least 10% of our EBITDA each year. So it's both the number of companies, but also the absolute amount. We're trying to stay out of the larger acquisitions. As you can see on this list, our aim is to buy companies between 100 and 300 million SEC in revenue. and the last one here or the one at the top of the list HSL in Northern Ireland is a little bit of a platform acquisition it's less than five percent of our turnover but it's a good solid company in Northern Ireland that could be used as an acquisition platform for the future they already now have a list of small bolt-ons that they could do so that's really good and they have had a good start as well So 12 acquisitions in the last 12 months in an accounting to 1.8 billion SEK is also where it should be. Looking into the HSL, I mean we're doing quite a lot of acquisitions and we're not presenting everyone in detail but this is a little bit larger so I could take maybe one of two minutes. As you know we are provider of medical supplies, device and equipment. HSL is leaning a little bit more towards equipment and devices and also have a higher part of their revenue comes from services. So the value add is quite high in HSL where we also see a higher bottom line margin of EBITDA over 10% which is good and it's adding to our journey towards 10% for the group. 800 million second revenue, 150 FTEs and they have a strong track record in many markets in Great Britain and Ireland.

With those words, I leave the word to Tom. Great. Thanks, Johan. I will just take a few minutes to go into some of the numbers in a little bit more detail and just step through the different regions. So here on page six, uh the summary very much is is steady growth in in sales and EBITDA really continuing the trends that we as a business have seen over the over the last few years um so on the top left here you see the net sales grew by 16 the adjusted EBIT a 17 up to 364 million sec um and so the slightly faster growth in EBITDA versus sales is just nudging the margin upwards, which is very much in line with what we want to do and what we want to achieve going forwards. The RO over RK, as Johan mentioned also, moving in the right direction. I'll come back a little bit more to that later on, given the importance of that as a steering metric in our model. The main contributors to the growth in the quarter have really been the regions West and Central. Again, I'll say a little bit more about that in a second. but we do when we look across the 50 companies in the group we do see product mix improvements coming both from from the acquisitions that we've done but also the ongoing operational efforts across the across the business area a little bit of an FX effect we should just mention not huge during Q1 but potentially larger in in the later parts of the year but we will all Obviously, keep an eye on that. And so if you turn to the right hand side of this page, we just tried to break out the different elements of the growth. So as Johan mentioned earlier, 6% organic growth in EBITDA through the quarter, which we're very happy with. And then the acquired growth coming on top of that at 12%, a small negative impact from the FX effects, primarily translation effect of Euro into SEC. And the total growth in EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA growth in the quarter of 17%. If I just flip forward, we can have a brief look at the different regions. So if we start with business area north, a very stable quarter for business area north. Actually, when we lift the lid and look into the individual countries and the individual companies, we see lots of areas to be pleased with, solid performance, continuing to develop the mix across our countries and finding those operational efficiencies. There is overall a slight decline in EBITDA as you see there, 2% down to 177 million sec EBITDA for the quarter. This is mainly due to project-based activities that we have beginning to come into business area north and in this quarter largely in the government events and equipment area which was extremely strong during Q1 last year, so in the comparable period. It's a relatively small part of the region's performance, as many of you will know. The region north is very stable by servicing the regions and the commune. But we have introduced, which we're happy about, a slight lumpiness with some of this project-based activity. And that explains that slight dip in EBITDA in the quarter. I think it's also important to note that we we feel very strongly that this is an important growing and interesting area going forward so we we have no doubts that that it'll be an important part of the business in the future final note just to mention we have a new distribution center state-of-the-art distribution center being built in in Gothenburg and the build and progress on that construction is going entirely as planned so we look forward to getting the benefits of that in future years as well and if you look over to the right hand side of things you can see the summary organic growth down three percent in the quarter on EBITDA level acquired growth contributing a little so minus two percent overall adjusted EBITDA growth net sales growing at two percent in the quarter turning now to business area west on page eight Some good attractive growth numbers we see in business area West. We see the net sales growing 19%, adjusted EBITDA growing 35%, and the effect of that is to lift the margin by one percentage points versus the same period last year. The high organic growth levels in Region West largely driven by the strong growth in patient numbers For those of you that followed the details through the IPO process you'll know that we managed to acquire some additional customer databases last year and we are now running those through our system and as you see they are contributing well to Business Area West We also see continued improvement from the COSA cooperation between our different companies in the region and particularly in the home care area of business which is delivering some nice results across the area. Two acquisitions that Johan mentioned earlier, HSL in the UK and Ireland and Myomana in the Netherlands. and then to the right hand side of the page you can just see the summary again organic growth was strong at 24% acquired growth 12% and a small negative effect as I mentioned earlier the translation effect of euro reporting into SEC as the group currency the final region business area central our youngest and newest and fastest growing region very much driven by the active M&A agenda You see the overall net sales growth at 37%, EBITDA growth even stronger at 75%. And as you look over onto the right-hand side of the chart here, you also see the strong contribution of the M&A growth through that period at 62%. acquired growth in EBIT A and 33% acquired growth in net sales. I think also worth noting that we're pleased to see that the activities that we're doing to get margins up, both the mixed effect of the new M&As, but also the operational effects on businesses that we already own are nudging the margin nicely in the right direction in region central. A quick word from me on page 10 on R over RK or EBITDA over Networking Capital when translated into English. It's a metric that we will keep coming back to, extremely important to us given the diversity of the group, 50 companies in different areas of business and different operating models. and to have a single metric that we can look at all of those companies on that focuses us and focuses them on the operational efficient usage of capital is very powerful and something we believe in strongly. So I will keep coming back to this. and in the quarter we are happy to see again a small positive move continuing in the right direction and I can just note as we've had the question in the past the ask a target about 50% means that we want every single individual one of our companies to be above 50% rather than managing the group total to 50% yep and then Just a final page from me just to mention a little bit on the debt, the cash, the leverage picture on page 11. I maybe start on the right hand side of this chart. You will see our net debt to EBITDA has dropped. primarily as a result of the capital injection we got during the IPO. So we took in 1.5 billion of new equity during that period. So the leverage is now down at 1.7, which, as Johan mentioned earlier on in the presentation, is giving us a little bit of firepower in the short and medium term to do some more M&As, which we're happy about. One final note, cash flow was a little bit lower in the comparison period to Q1 2024. The vast majority of that effect comes from HSL, the acquisition that we just did. They have customers who have year end at the 31st of March, which means actually we build up quite a large chunk of accounts receivable in March. which is a phasing and a dynamic that we've not had in the group historically, but obviously will even out going forward as HSL rolls into the group in full. I think that's it from me. I hand back to you, Jan, for a few summary words.

Yes, thanks, Tom. All right, so before we leave the word to you for Q&A, Just to summarize, I mean, I feel good about this Q1, as I mentioned, we have a solid performance and we are where we should be. It means over 15% EBITDA growth coming from both organic and M&A, which we are delivering of 17%. And showing the organic growth in markets, I mean, it's partly due to this very stable market, the underlying market in healthcare is growing with 3-4% and us delivering more than that. We see, as you saw now and explained by Tom, there could of course be quarter by quarter in some regions by project based. We can see some lumpiness in the cash flow as we saw in some, but I've been here now many, many years and over time, looking at this rolling 12, this is just normal business, so to speak. So I'm very, very pleased to see this. and M&A where we drive very hard to be in the forefront. We are today market leaders in Europe and we see very little aggressive competition. I would say it's healthy competition. Very few times where we want to buy a company that they don't sell to us to good multiples. So I feel good about the M&A part of our agenda, which is very, very important. and also the Strong Balance Sheet giving us firepower for the future. So all in all, we're a happy team and we hope we have happy shareholders as well. So thank you so much. Now over to questions.