Karnov Group AB

Welcome, everyone, to Kano Group's earnings conference, where we will present the outcome of the first quarter of 2024. Please go to slide two. I am Pontus Burusson, president and CEO of the company. With me, I have our CFO, Magnus Hansson, and our head of investor relations, Erik Berggren. Magnus and I will present the outcome of the quarter using a few slides, and then we'll open up for questions. As you may have noticed, a bid consortium consisting of Green Oaks and Longpath has earlier today announced a cash offer on all shares in count of 84 cents. The board of directors has unanimously decided to recommend shareholders of the company to accept the offer. We refer any questions regarding the board's recommendation to our chairman, Magnus Mandelsson, through our head of investor relations, Erik Bergen. and any questions regarding the offer to the consortium. With that said, let's get started with the presentation of the first quarter. Please go to slide three. Karnov Group delivers on our promises in the first quarter. We continue to expand our mission-critical legal information solutions for our customers, creating value for all stakeholders. We have a strong focus on delivering profitable growth and harvesting synergies while at the same time launching new innovations, including AI. Net sales grew to 632 million SEK. The organic growth was 3%, with Region North driving organic growth in the quarter, while Region South, now reported organically, was flat in line with what we earlier have communicated. The adjusted EBITDA margin was 23% in the first quarter, with synergies coming through as expected in region south, while we have taken actions on our newly launched acceleration initiative. I'll dig deeper into the harvesting of synergies in the coming slides. At the end of March, our leverage was at 2.7 times EBTA last 12 months, an improvement compared to Q4.

Let's move over to slide four.

The synergies from the region south integration come progressively over the period. And at the end of the first quarter, the annual run rate synergies amounted to 3 million euro. We reiterate our ambition to generate synergies of 7.5 million euro on annual run rate basis by the end of 2024 and 10 million euro by the end of 2026.