Attendo AB (publ)

Thank you and good morning everyone. Today we present Attendo's results for the first quarter of 2025 before diving into the development of the quarter. So just let me zoom out to make some comments on Attendo's status and strategy going forward. Slide two please. As a private welfare company, our mandate to do business and keep growing is closely linked to our ability to deliver a more appreciated and specialized care with higher stakeholder satisfaction at a lower cost to society than public sector. Last year, we completed the acquisition and integration of Team Olivia in Sweden and strengthened operational efficiency in Finland. Hence, we entered 2025 with more diversified operations. From an operational point of view, we have made strong progress in terms of stakeholder satisfaction among both customers, relatives, employees and payers. Last year, according to national satisfaction surveys, we reached both higher satisfaction scores among care customers in both markets while delivering care at a clearly lower cost than public providers, hence making room for increased availability to care services. This goes hand in hand with our long term vision to deliver better care to more people. Next slide, please. In the first quarter, we grew top line with around 8%, mainly driven by the acquisition of Team Olivia and more sold beds. Underlying adjusted EBITDA improved by 71 million or 44% to 234 million, an effect of both underlying operational improvements, increased occupancy in nursing homes and the Team Olivia acquisition. In Finland, we had positive effects for more sold beds in combination with continued improved operational efficiency, both in general and related to new lower staffing requirements that came into effect January 1st. In Scandinavia, we delivered expected earnings growth related to the integration of Team Olivia and improvements in all nursing home operations, mainly from inflow of new customers. Having said that, we also had some negative headwind from home care and slightly higher cost base due to new openings in recent quarters. Lease adjusted EBITDA per share continued to improve to 4.63 SEC, an improvement by 46% compared to the first quarter last year. Our strong EPS growth is mainly linked to higher earnings, but also in effect to our share buyback program, reducing number of outstanding shares. All in all, we're well on track towards our adjusted EPS goal of minimum 550 per share in 2026. Now some comments on the progress of our sustainability work and non-financial KPIs. Over the past few years, we've gradually been implementing new evidence-based methods to measure quality of life of individual nursing home residents. While we've been piloting these methods since 2021, we've now implemented them broadly in all of our nursing homes. In Sweden, we've introduced a method called ASKOT, while we use a method called RAI in Finland. The purpose is to measure and improve the health and well-being of our nursing home residents. The results of the ASCO-TNY assessments helps our staff to better understand what to focus on to impact quality of life for each individual resident. It also provides the data to understand if the resident experiences a positive impact from the care, food and services that we provide. The results indicate that this way of working with improving quality of life is having a positive impact on our nursing home residents. While it's still too early to draw more detailed conclusions from the measurements, we will, as we get more data, be able to compare development over time. This will also help us to build more knowledge about what actions that have the most impact on our residents' health and well-being to further develop our care operations for the future. Next slide, please. So let's turn to occupancy development. In Scandinavia, we saw a solid inflow of new customers early in the quarter. Hence, occupancy remained almost flat in Scandinavia at 87%, despite the opening of a new 60-bed nursing home in Stockholm during the quarter. Finland showed a more distinct improvement in the quarter, bouncing back from the seasonal effect that brought occupancy down over the Christmas holidays. During the quarter, we also made two acquisitions with a total of 200 beds at 90% occupancy, which in combination with the close down of a few low occupancy units also impacted the occupancy level positively. This graph shows a rolling 12 months sales growth and least adjusted EBITDA margin. Sales continued to improve in the quarter, mainly driven by the acquisition of Team Olivia in Sweden and more sold bets. Sales in Finland remained strong despite flat prices versus last year as a result of the lower staffing requirements valid from January 1st. If we look at the group margin, we continue to improve as more sold bets and higher staffing efficiency in Finland drives earnings recovery. In Scandinavia, we improved margins due to improved operational efficiency in all nursing homes and the Team Olivia acquisitions, slightly offset by weak development in the home care segment. As part of our strategy, we have terminated a few selected home care contracts with unsustainable business terms during the quarter. So let's take a look at the financials for the quarter, and please go ahead, Mikael. Next slide, please.

Thank you, Martin, and good morning, everyone. Net sales in the quarter increased to 4.7 billion, up 8% compared to quarter last year. The organic growth for the quarter was 2%. Organic growth was flat in the tent of Scandinavia, where we see continued organic growth in primarily owned nursing homes. However, growth was also impacted by outsourcing contracts that ended last year. Including acquisitions, Scandinavia grew 19%. In Atendo Finland, the organic growth was 2% and primarily driven by increase in net new customers with several of our key segments showing positive growth. Adjusting for leap day and the exited rehab business end of last year, the underlying growth was approximately 4%. Currency had no material effect in the quarter. However, we do expect currency effects in Q2 since last year, the Euro to SEC was at a higher rate than currently trading. Next slide, please. The reported result improved to 381 million, and correspondingly, the lease adjusted EBITDA increased from 161 million to 234 million, up 45% versus same period last year. Lease adjusted EBITDA in Scandinavia improved by 26 million year over year, while Finland lease adjusted EBITDA improved 52 million year over year. Currency had no material effect on lease adjusted EBITDA. Next slide, please. Growth threat under Finland amounts to 1% reported and 2% in local currency. As earlier mentioned, adjusting for loop day and exited rehab business December last year, the underlying organic growth was approximately 4%. This adjusted EBITDA was 189 million, an improvement of 52 million compared to last year. The Finnish Parliament announcement of changed staffing requirements and care for older people, from 0.65 to 0.60 care staff per resident, took effect from 1 January 2025, and the team delivered an implementation better than the base plan. The quarter improved by, and seen already in the last quarter, from better staffing and manning. Occupancy rate improved when adjusting for seasonality, with more sold beds, and from exiting a few low or no occupancy units. In the quarter, we also opened a new nursing home and acquired two quality nursing home businesses, which added an additional 200 placements. Next slide, please. In Scandinavia, the organic growth was flat. We saw an underlying growth in own nursing homes. However, growth was offset by ended outsourcing contracts. Acquisitions had a considerable effect on sales, and in total, Scandinavia grew 19%. Liz suggested a beta increase by 26 million to 68 million. The improvement was primarily driven by Team Illyria acquisition and improved results on nursing homes. In the quarter, we opened a new nursing home in Stockholm and closed down one unit, which together had a negative 10 million SEK impact versus Q1 last year. Next quarter will also be impacted by startup costs as we're opening a new home in Denmark and we carry ramp-up costs from March opening. In addition, a weak home care impacted the result negatively in the quarter. Finally, as part of our strategy, we terminated a few selective home care contracts where sustainable conditions mainly no longer exist. In Q2, we expect exits to impact our results by 10 to 15 million in one-time exit costs. Next slide, please. If we look at our cash flow, our cash flow improved to 752 million on a rolling 12-month basis, where Q1 free cash flow was 40 million versus 20 million last year. CapEx was higher, and as previously communicated, is continuing to normalize at more historical levels compared to last year's low. During the quarter, we also had a strong share repurchase program, buying back a total of 162 million SEAC worth of shares. The cash flow was further impacted by recent acquisitions, which totaled 125 million SEK in the quarter. Next slide, please. Over the course of the last 12 months, in line with our financial plan for 2024-2026, we initiated a more active capital allocation. As a result, we have utilized more than 80% of our free cash flow for dividend and continuous share buybacks. In addition, we made a transformative acquisition with Team Olivia in April, and which was followed up by two quality Bolton acquisitions in Finland in this quarter. Next slide, please. Let's have a look at our key financial metrics. And I'm happy to share that our key metrics continue to move in the right direction. If we start at the top left, the adjusted earnings per share improved by 0.56 sec per share, almost doubling the EPS versus last year. Improvements primarily due to higher lease adjusted EBITDA, but also lower financial costs and our share buybacks, which continue to support the improvement. If we turn to the top right figure and our lease adjusted margin in percent, adjusted for non-recurring items, we continue to improve our lease adjusted margin. In Q1, the rolling 12 month margin was 5.7%, up from 5.4% last quarter and up 1.2 percentage points compared to Q1 last year. If we direct our attention to the figure at the bottom left, we maintain our least adjusted net debt to EBITDA ratio versus last quarter, which is in line with our target range of 1.5 to 2.5 ratio. And finally, when we look at the figure on the bottom right, net interest expenses in the quarter was 31 million. The increase in Q2 and in Q3 is explained by mainly higher financing costs due to the recent acquisitions. While in Q4 and in Q1, we see the effect of improved market interest rates. With that, I hand over to you, Martin.

Thank you, Mikael. Next slide, please. Before we move on to Q&A, let me briefly summarize. We started this year with the same strong trajectory as we ended last year. Improvements in financial performance stems mainly from our finished business, where quick adaption to new staffing requirements and operational improvements have led to continued solid earnings growth. We also made two Bolton acquisitions during the quarter and continue to optimize our footprint through closing some non-performing units. We maintain a positive outlook for the year ahead as lower staffing requirements also gives regions financial relief that can transform into higher demand for nursing home placements. In Sweden, the Team Olivia acquisition has strengthened our operations and contributed positively to our financial development. We expect to further improve operational efficiency post the integration period and build a stronger platform for growth within both disabled care and IOF. I'm also happy to see more sold beds in all nursing homes and that our newly opened nursing homes added in late 2024 and early 2025 is filling up quickly. All in all, we're well on track towards our adjusted EPS target of at least 550 per share in 2026. So that concludes our presentation, and let's turn to the Q&A session. So operator, please go ahead.