Attendo AB (publ)

Welcome to Attendo Q2 Report 2026. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions and answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key 5 on their telephone keypad. Now I will hand the conference over to CEO Martin Tiveas and CFO Michael Malmgren. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning, everyone. Today, we present the 10 most results for the second quarter of 26. As usual, we'll focus on the key drivers behind our performance, our operational progress, and how we continue to execute our strategy. I will start by giving a general update on the development in the quarter, and then our CFO, Mikael Malmgren, will take you through the financials in more detail. Next slide, please. So let me start with the key highlights from the quarter. I'm pleased to present a strong quarter with improved results in both business areas, driven by higher occupancy, improved operational efficiency, and a strong delivery on our quality indicators. Customer satisfaction reached the highest level we've measured so far, and employee satisfaction continues to improve from already high levels. While reported net sales increased by 1%, underlying growth in continuing operations remains strong at around 5%. The delta is explained by ending outsourcing and home care contracts in Sweden as well as currency effects. Profitability improved significantly with lease adjusted EBITDA increasing by 56% to 321 million kronor. On the rolling 12-month basis, lease adjusted EBITDA margin improved by 2 percentage points to 7.8% for the group. Adjusted earnings per share increased by close to 80% in the quarter, and we delivered a strong free cash flow of 269 million, supporting increased investments in new capacity. By continuing to develop quality of care and by adding new capacity to society, we are part of the solution to the care challenges of both today and tomorrow. Next slide, please. Before we go into the quarter in more detail, just let me briefly recap the plan we presented in February. Since 2023, we have doubled our adjusted earnings per share from 3 kronor to 6 for the full year of 2025. That was the delivery of our previous financial plan. In February this year, we announced a new financial target to reach an adjusted EPS of at least 9 kronor per share by 2028. In other words, another 50% increase from last year's level. We illustrated the EPS journey from 6 to at least 9 kronor per share with three building blocks. The first building block is margin improvement in Scandinavia, where we communicated an expected margin uplift throughout 2026, driven by improved staffing accuracy, focused non-operations, exiting of unprofitable contracts, and improvements in ways of working. As you can see in our Q2 numbers, and also later in this presentation, the margin uplift in Scandinavia is already well underway. The second building block is our core growth model that we have followed over the past five years, what we call the balanced growth model. I will return to that in a moment. And the third building block is active capital allocation. Primarily through continuous share buybacks conducted within our mandate, we will target to buy back around 5% of outstanding shares per annum. After the second quarter of 2026, our rolling 12-month adjusted EPS reached 7.14 kronor, well on our path towards our financial target of reaching at least 9 per share by 2028. So let me just spend a moment on the balanced growth model itself. Next slide, please. Our model for balanced growth contains several growth levers that over time can fluctuate a bit between quarters and years, but together they build up to an EBITDA growth of at least 10% per annum. Newer capacity through greenfield openings contributing to average around 2-3% of growth per year. Marginal creative bolting acquisitions contributing around 2%. Occupancy improvement, where we assume at least 1 percentage point of improvement per year in existing capacity, That 1% point higher occupancy together with better ways of working typically also translates into higher productivity contributing to around 2%. Further, we have economies of scale effects and finally price compensating for annual cost inflation. On top of annual growth in EBITDA, continued share buybacks supports an even higher growth rate in adjusted earnings per share. As I said in the beginning of this presentation, in this quarter, we were in line with or ahead of plan on all these growth levers. Let me show you three where we have the most report today, which is new capacity, acquisitions and occupancy. Next slide, please. So starting with new capacity, this slide shows our project pipeline. As you can see, we now have around 900 places under construction, 600 in Finland, about 300 in Scandinavia, and we have signed agreements for a further close to 600 places where construction has not yet started. Over the next 12 months, we will open around 770 new places across Finland and Sweden. Already construction started projects, as you can see, now corresponds to around 4% of our total capacity. After planned closures of units with low occupancy or weak economics, that well supports the 2-3% net capacity growth in our balanced growth model and gives us good visibility on openings into 2027 and 2028. Next slide, please. The second growth lever is M&A, where we over time expect around 2% EBITDA growth per annum. Our approach is to acquire high-quality, marginally-created bolt-ons in segments we know well, and we integrate them into our own quality systems and ways of working. Year-to-date, we made four transactions, two smaller bolt-ons in Finland, completed early in the year, and another two strategic acquisitions signed during the second quarter. One is Skåningegård in southern Sweden, with nine units within disability care, individual and family care, and elderly care, and the other one being A-Klinika in Finland, with 17 units within substance abuse and addiction treatment. Combined, these businesses represent around 450 million kronor in net sales and around 50 million kronor in lease-adjusted EBITDA before synergies. That corresponds to roughly 4% EBITDA growth relative to our 2025 results. Hence, we've already delivered more than the full year ambition of at least 2% from acquisitions. Further, A-Klinika in particular strengthens our position in specialist care in Finland and broadens what we can offer the welfare regions. Next slide, please. The third growth lever is occupancy, and here we continue to deliver above the one percentage point per year that we assume in the model. We ended a quarter at 88% for the group, up around two and a half percentage points year on year. In Scandinavia, we see a clear improvement in occupancy from more sold beds and from active capacity management. During the quarter, we closed one old nursing home with poor location, In Finland, occupancy was 87% against 85% last year and stable sequentially. The second quarter is seasonally softer in Finland in combination with several openings during the quarter. Occupancy carries a very high drop through to earnings and we continue our path back to our target of reaching at least 92% average occupancy for the group, which is in line with historical levels. Next slide, please. So let's turn to the development of our rolling 12-month lease-adjusted EBITDA margin. So we see a continued margin uplift in both business areas, both sequentially and year-on-year. Rolling 12-month group margin is up to 2 percentage points from a year ago to 7.8. Finland has now delivered a steadily improving margin trajectory for 14 consecutive quarters. In Scandinavia, we expect to continue to gradually improve margins during 2026. You can also note that rolling 12 months net sales has been broadly flat at around 19 billion for a number of quarters as an effect of the transition in Scandinavia in combination with currency effects. We expect to gradually return to net sales growth from the second half of this year as the effect of the transition in Scandinavia wears off in combination with acquisitions. With that, I hand over to our CFO Mikael Malmgren. Please go ahead Mikael. Next slide please.

Thank you, Martin. Good morning, everyone. So let's take a look at the sales development for the quarter. Reported net sales increased by 1.3% to north of 4.7 billion kronor. Our continuing operations grew by 4.9%, with growth in both business areas. Scandinavia grew 7%, driven by more sole beds and owned homes, and price. Finland grew close to 4%, excluding the divested individual and family care business, and currency, driven mainly by owned nursing homes. However, reported growth was partially offset by firstly ended and ending outsourcing and home care contracts in Scandinavia, which reduced reported net sales by 113 million. Secondly, last year's divestment in Finland impacted sales by 24 million. And finally, FX headwind had a 22 million negative impact. Ending and exiting contracts, net sales impact, will gradually wear off during the remaining part of 2026 and first half year of 2027. In Scandinavia, only two decided outsourcing exits remain in the portfolio, and both leave in the fourth quarter of this year. Next slide, please. Moving to EBITA development. Reported EBITA improved by 121 million to 470 million. least adjusted EBITDA increased by 116 million to 321 million and up 56% versus same period last year. The improvement is broad-based with least adjusted EBITDA in Scandinavia improving 62 million and substantially higher than last year. and Finland also performing very well, improving lease-adjusted EBITDA by 53 million, excluding FX effects. Group and other items was broadly neutral in the quarter, and currency had a marginal effect on reported EBITDA and lease-adjusted EBITDA. Next slide, please. Turning to Finland. Net sales was 2.8 billion kronor, up 1.9% reported, and 2.7% adjusted for currency. Excluding the divested business and currency, growth in continuing operations was approximately 4%, driven mainly by more sole vets in primarily owned nursing homes. Going forward, we expect to see continued growth driven by new openings and further supported by recent acquisitions. Lease adjusted EBITDA was 235 million against 183, an increase of 29%, or plus 52 million, with the margin improving to 8.4% from 6.7%. Earnings improved in all segments, but the largest contribution came from care for older people. Two things drive it. First, occupancy, up to 87% from 85% last year, supported by higher inflow of new residents and a well-managed start to the summer period. Second, staffing is now well-matched to the needs of the operations, driven by investments in staffing This has been our biggest focus on our agenda in Finland for the past two years. Occupancy development was further supported by our active work to improve our geographical footprint. On capacity, we opened three new homes with 103 places during the quarter. We also took over one home with 59 places in high occupancy from a welfare region. At the same time, we continue to improve our geographical footprint, closing down around 100 places in units with low or no occupancy. We also started construction of two new homes with 65 places. During the quarter, we had a positive net inflow of new customers, and as a result, occupancy was stable despite some summer seasonality. Looking ahead, we plan to sustain our investment in new capacity with currently 600 plus places under construction in Finland. In addition, we have a strong pipeline of signed lease agreements equal to a further 270 plus places where construction has not yet started. Finally, as Martin covered earlier, we completed one Bolton acquisition in Finland during the quarter and A-Klinika, an additional strategic acquisition, closed on August 1st. A-Klinika is expected to deliver incremental EBITDA from January 1st onwards. Post-integration is completed. Next slide, please. So turning to Scandinavia. As communicated already last year, we expect to improve margins in Scandinavia during the whole 2026. In Q2, growth in continuing operations was 7% and offset by ending outsourcing and home care contracts. In line with our financial plan and margin uplift in Scandinavia, lease adjusted EBITDA increased more than 60 million to 106 million, with the margin improving to 5.4% from 2.2%. The improvement has three key drivers. Higher occupancy in our own homes, better operational efficiency, primarily more accurate staffing planning, and improved central support function ways of working. In addition, the second quarter of last year carried non-recurring costs in home care contracts that were being exited. Also in Scandinavia, we continue to improve our geographical footprint, closing one own nursing home, which had zero occupancy already end of Q1. At the same time, we're starting to increase our investments in new capacity, with new openings from Q4 onwards, and so we expect to see gradually positive net sales growth, further supported by the recent acquisition of Skåningegård. Next slide, please. As mentioned previously, net sales growth in continuing operations grew 7% in the quarter to 1.9 billion, and lease adjusted EBITDA grew close to 80%. This marks the third consecutive quarter of improved margins, reaching 5.7%. At the same time, the ended and ending contracts decreased 130 million. The revenue base is now small, and the impact year-over-year will continuously diminish over the next couple of quarters. As a result of our actions, total lease adjusted EBITDA increased 141%, with the margin now up to 5.4%. Next slide, please. We continue to see strong free cash flow on a rolling 12-month basis. That said, free cash flow to firm was slightly lower in the quarter due to timings of working capital. 178 million last year. The change is the main explanation for the year-on-year movement in free cash flow, where the comparison quarter had a more favorable working capital timing development. There's no change in the underlying payment behavior, and we expect this to be reversed ahead of next quarterly update. CapEx investments was stable at 44 million against 49 million. Again, a positive reminder of how capitalized our business model is. The firm was there for 269 million in the quarter and 1.2 billion on a rolling 12-month basis. Worth noting is that we paid our first of two dividends, 129 million, and we repurchased shares of 241 million against 36 million in the comparison quarter. Since the start of share buybacks in February 2024, we have repurchased 5% of outstanding shares on average per year, and the pace we aim to at least continue. As such, I'm happy to announce that the board has approved a new repurchase program targeting to repurchase an additional 250 million worth of shares until the time of the Q3 report in November. Next slide, please. So, a quick look at the key metrics, all of which continue to move in the right direction and ahead of that. starting with the earnings per share bridge on the right. Adjusted earnings per share improved by 79% from 0.85 to 1.52 kronor. By far, the largest contribution comes from the higher lease adjusted EBITDA at around 0.8 kronor per share. Financial items contribute positively as financing costs come down. Tax takes some of that as expected on higher profits and buybacks add further. On a rolling 12-month basis, adjusted earnings per share is now 7.14 kronor. If you look at the top right, the rolling 12-month lease adjusted margin was 7.8%, up from 5.8% a year ago, and improving every quarter throughout the period. At the bottom left, our leverage was 1.1 times, down from 1.7 times comparable period, and in line with previous quarters. Going forward, we expect leverage to increase slightly due to increased investments in new capacity, the recent acquisitions in both Scandinavia and Finland, and due to our active capital allocation. And bottom right, net increase expense was 25 million in the quarter against 31 million. During the quarter, we also refinanced the company one and a half years ahead of time, improving our financial flexibility by an additional 1 billion SEK. With improved financial flexibility supported by our bank group, we are confident to be able to sustain our investments in acquisition, add new capacity, and maintain an active capital allocation. At the same time, we expect a gradual improvement in the net interest expense as the effects of the refinancing comes through. With that, I hand over to you, Martin.

Thank you, Mikael. Next slide, please. So, let me summarize. Most importantly, we continue to deliver appreciated care, creating value both for individuals and for society. Our latest surveys show record high and stable satisfaction across the stakeholder groups, which confirms the resilience and sustainability of our operating model. For us, delivering high quality of care is not only our mandate for long-term growth, it's also part of our promise to society to deliver better and more appreciated care at a lower cost to society. The higher and stable quality across our operation is paired with strong financial performance driven by continued improvement in occupancy and strong operation efficiency. We also continue to strengthen our geographical footprint by gradually leaving less attractive areas and opening new units in locations with stronger long-term demand and better economics. With the two strategic acquisitions made during the quarter, we're already ahead of our M&A ambition for the full year. For the second quarter, rolling 12 months least adjusted earnings per share increased to 7.14 kronor, well ahead of plan towards reaching at least 9 kronor per share in 2028. Our strong financial results and cash flow enable increased investments in new capacity to meet the growing demand for care in society. Currently, we have around 900 new care beds under construction and a total pipeline of close to 1500 places, capacity that will be well needed given the demographic situation in the Nordics. Overall, Attendo is well positioned to meet increasing care needs in society while delivering sustainable and profitable growth for shareholders. With that, thank you for your attention and let's open up for questions. Operator, please go ahead.

Welcome to Attendo Q2 Report 2026. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions and answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key 5 on their telephone keypad. Now I will hand the conference over to CEO Martin Tiveas and CFO Michael Malmgren. Please go ahead. If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad. To enter the queue, if you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 6 on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Bjorn Olsson from SEB. Please go ahead.

Good morning, guys. First a question on Scandinavia. The margin uplift you described was I guess a mix of all fronts but could you break down the different components in terms of how much was the occupancy improvement adding versus the efficiency effects and I mean given the high occupancy rate in Scandia at the moment I would assume that the margin improvements to come are from efficiencies and then Would you say that the potential margin level then if operating at peak efficiency should that be sort of approach the Finland level or could you give us a bit of a flavor here?

As you know, we generally don't guide on the margins or margin breakdowns, but on the improvement in Scandinavia, I mean, as I said, we communicated that already last year that we foresee a gradual margin uplift in Scandinavia throughout 2026 and a bit into 2027 due to the transition that we are working on in terms of moving away from outsourcing contracts and unprofitable contracts with a focus on own operations. That in combination that the demand growth that we're seeing in society also make that the fill-up phase goes faster now than it did a couple of years ago. So the new units that we opened during 2025 are basically already full. So what you're seeing here is a combination of the transition towards a clear focus on all operation in combination with occupancy improvements and ways of working. As I said, it will continue for another couple of quarters.

Okay. Thanks. I know that you don't guide, but is it I guess we should then assume that the peak margin is still at the lower range than in Finland.

I mean, we've said historically that the ways of running operations in Scandinavia is slightly different and more complex than running operations in Finland. in Finland you have a national regulation with the same ways of working across all units whilst in Sweden that is more directed at municipality level which then leads to slightly more complex ways of working and increased cost.

So structurally there is a slight difference between mature and modern levels in Finland and Scandinavia, yes.

And then just on Finland, I mean your occupancy level has flattened out to still improve margins by optimizing the staffing. Are you done with that work now or do you see additional efficiency gains like at the structural margin improving level from here as well?

We operate now at a strong operational efficiency level that we're happy with. We're not still happy with the occupancy levels, but that is something that we foresee should be going up up to reach the target of at least 92% occupancy level. Q3 is seasonally a bit softer in terms of occupancy because you have a tradition also in Finland to take home people during during summer breaks and so forth. Also, we are investing more in capacity growth in Finland, so we're opening, we're entering now, as you know, from this quarter onwards, a period of stronger opening base or higher opening base. And of course, that will also, at this short term, might hold back occupancy growth before it continues to grow.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Anna Salomon from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.

Thank you. So you've now completed two acquisitions post quarter and are already ahead of the plan on the full year M&A target. Does that mean you're accelerating the pace further or are you more pausing or slowing down for now?

We have a very disciplined approach to acquisitions. So we acquire only marginal creative, high quality, well-run companies. We have a strong M&A team both in Finland and Sweden. They're continuously working on the pipeline. So M&A is difficult to plan exactly when sellers are willing to sell. But the fact that we reached 4% this year doesn't mean that we will stop looking for good acquisitions. We are continuing that work in the same pace forward as we have been. So if we can do more than the at least 2% that we have in the model, then we're just happy.

Okay, perfect. Thank you. And regarding occupancy, which is improving both segments, in which of the two do you see more room to keep pushing higher from here? And do you see a potential ceiling in any or both of the segments?

We said that the first target is to come back to the at least 92% that was our historical average pre the pandemic. Having said that, we don't see that as a roof. We said that that's where we at least should come back to. Mind you that we are entering the next 15 years will be a long period of structurally growth in underlying demand, especially within elderly care. That also means that we foresee that we will fill up new facilities faster, and it also might lead to higher occupancy levels than we've seen historically. The only thing we're guided for is that we're going to at least 92%. On the other hand, because if you look at we've said that before that we look at our typically in larger cities, we have higher occupancy. And if you look at Stockholm, for example, we're operating at about 98% occupancy currently. So 92 is not a physical threshold.

Okay, thank you.

The next question comes from Julia Angelistran from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.

Hi, and thank you for taking my questions. I'll stick to three and take them one by one. And firstly, I follow up on Scandinavia. And I believe you communicated in Q1 that Q1 was the peak of underabsorption of cost and that improvement in terms of margin should strengthen throughout the year. Is this the case in Scandinavia still, or how should we look at it too?

Thank you, Julia. As we communicated already in Q4, we expect the margins to gradually improve throughout 2026. And we have not changed that view.

Okay, that's clear. And then to my second, could you give us a sense of what the net impact of beds in H2 will be, just so we can balance the openings and the terminations you have, so we don't get too excited on sales?

That's a detailed question. Not sure if I can answer that straight away, Julia.

Okay.

This is a gradual improvement in growth also reported from low levels.

Sorry, can you repeat that?

What we do expect is a gradual improvement in also reported net sales from the low levels.

Okay. Got it. And then lastly, I know that you said you were will increase the investment, and that sounds very supportive for the sector as a whole, but when you updated the financial target earlier this year, you sort of implied that you had the large investments behind you and that you were aiming for more balanced growth. Will this have any visible effects on earnings or impact cash generation?

If we look at increasing investment pace versus our balanced growth strategy, we see that this is balanced growth. Balanced growth means that we will grow with the market in a pace where we believe that we can fill new open capacity within about a year's time, so we can grow sustainably and don't sacrifice margin. Now we are entering a period of stronger demand growth. It comes a little earlier in Finland, and we can see that we're starting already this year with increasing opening pace. And then we gradually started increasing opening pace also in Sweden, basically from year end and onwards. That is in line with the underlying demand growth. So we believe that we can do that without sacrificing money.

Okay, sounds good. Thank you for those four of my questions.

The next question comes from Christopher Liljeberg from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.

Hi, sorry for the background. Two quick questions. First on the improved occupancy in Scandinavia. Is it possible to break that into how much was We closed one nursing home in Sweden.

during the quarter. So that's it. The rest is sales driven. If we look at Finland, as I said, Q3 is normally a bit softer. We're also in a combination of new openings, but seasonally a bit softer in terms of occupancy. But we expect to return to sales and occupancy growth in Finland forward.

The next question comes from Philip Wetterquist from SB1 Markets. Please go ahead.

Good morning, guys. I have two questions. I'll take them one by one. First one on or Swedish elderly care, we see Ambia expanding its capacity quite rapidly. And even though you're expanding capacity as well, it's well below Ambia's pace. So what's the strategic reasoning behind not expanding at the same pace given the significant current and expectation of nursing homes in Sweden?

I guess it depends on your perspective, but yes, so short term, in the next couple of quarters, it's a slightly lower opening pace, but then we also see an increased pace during 2027 and onwards. We are a bit ahead in Finland because we believe that the demand for elderly care is slightly stronger there and comes a bit earlier.

All right, and then Ambea has also signed several contracts in Denmark in recent months, conditions for private elderly carers to have improved there? Are you also looking at opportunities in Denmark and how do you assess the current potential in the Danish market?

So we have three elderly care units that are running in Denmark at the moment. Yes, we're also looking at new opportunities in Denmark, but we are also assessing the new regulation because we want to see it play out in practice, not only on paper. So we are testing the regulation during 2026 and we'll decide from there on how we move on in Denmark.

All right, thank you.

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

Well, thank you guys for listening in. Appreciate good questions. And if you have any further questions, just don't hesitate to contact us after the call. So thank you for listening and have a good day. Thank you very much.