Good day and welcome to Medios AG analyst and investors call on our first half 2026 results. My name is Katrin Neuffer and I'm Director Investor Relations at Medios. It is a pleasure to welcome you to today's call. Our CEO, Thomas Meier, and our CFO, Stefan Bauerreis, will take you through the presentation today. They will provide an overview of our business performance in the first half 2026, including the key financial figures and important developments at Medios. Following the presentation, we'll have time for a Q&A session, during which you will have the opportunity to ask questions. As a reminder, this conference will be recorded and all participants will be in a listen mode only. All relevant documents can be found on our website. With that, I would like to hand over to Thomas Meier. Thomas, please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. We prepared 30 slides today. We want to keep it short so that we have ample time for Q&A and for the partial solar eclipse later over Europe. The executive summary to start with. We achieved revenue of EUR 1,075 million, and that's a plus of 8.4%, and the first time that Medios achieved more than EUR 1 billion in the first half year. Our EBITDA pre is at EUR 44 million. That's - 5.1% and an EBITDA pre-margin of 4.1%. Our focus is unchanged. We focus on profitability, cash conversion, and operational efficiency. For that, we started the project Avanti-Medios! that is helping us to cut costs and to help those operational excellence initiatives that are long-term, but I think we see the first positive development in the second quarter.
Yesterday, we announced a strategic milestone with the acquisition of Caelo, a company that fits our compounding initiative and helps us to enter the German market. We're excited about this opportunity, and we will give you more detail in this slide deck. Looking at the numbers of the first half year, we see that our revenue grew. All segments helped with the revenue growth, and at the same time, the EBITDA pre-margin is lower than in the previous year. That is due to lower profit margin and increased operational expenses. We see those effects continue in the second half of the year, and that's why we adjusted our guidance as we told you last week. If you look at the different business areas, we see pharmaceutical supply with a revenue growth of 8.5% and at the same time price pressure on specific margin-high products.
That resulted for that segment a 2.7% margin compared to 3.3% last year. That's where we had the biggest impact in the first half year. Patient-Specific Therapies, on the other hand, we also see a strong revenue growth of 8.5%, and what's very rewarding to see is that in Q2, our operational excellent measures helped to increase the EBITDA margin to 10.2%. We expect positive development for the second half of 2026 in that business area. Our international business revenue growth is 6.9% and also a healthy EBITDA, and at the same time, we see some margin pressures going forward, and we took that in our adjusted guidance. On the regulatory radar, we see the drug price regulation Hilfstaxe still under arbitration, so we don't really know what the outcome will be.
We expect that to be closed, this arbitration procedure, in 2026, and in our forecast, we have only a limited impact there, knowing that it is not yet known. For pharmacy reform plan, we do not actually see a significant influence on Medios, and the GKV Contribution Rate Stabilization Act is in force since the July 30th, and we got a negative there that the cannabis flowers are no longer reimbursed. That movement was a little bit faster than what we expected, and we took that negative impact into our adjusted guidance. Health Security Act is still under planning. It is not yet in the government bodies. We expect that to be happening in the fall window and see there an opportunity for Medios once the regulation is known. The EU directive is a rather long-term project. There is nothing changed.
We believe that the national law will integrate those adjustments in the second half of 2028, and we see those development in Europe. We are rather supportive of our business model. So much for the regulatory radar, and now to what everybody is probably most interested in is the acquisition of Caelo. Here are the details. We are going to buy a 74% stake in Caesar & Loretz GmbH. That is a total consideration of EUR 9.4 million. We pay EUR 7.9 million for the 74% of the shares. We have a EUR 1.5 million control premium, which later can be deducted when we will buy the remaining 26% of the shares. Included is an earn-out provision that depends how the market develops of EUR 1.8 million. Caelo is the market leader for compounding ingredients in Germany, so it accelerates our entry into German market.
That is something we were looking for, and it has a complementary product portfolio to our PST business that is complementary and also serves the pharmacies. We see synergies there. We also see process synergies in combined sourcing, marketing, and sales mainly going forward. Signing was yesterday, and now we are going to the antitrust process, and we hope that we can close the deal in a relatively short period of time. What is the company, Caesar & Loretz? We have 240 employees working there. We are serving pharmacies, hospital, industrial clients, mainly in Germany. Overall, it is the compounding essential business. We sell OTC products to pharmacies, to hospitals, and also to the pharma industry. Overall, they make EUR 40 million revenue, is the expectation in 2026, and they expect an EBITDA of EUR 1.6 million. Our target for the EBITDA is higher.
We see that as a combined entity, we can increase this margin profile going forward. It was founded a long time ago in 1886 and headquartered in Hilden and Bonn, and the Managing Director, Asiye Dogan, will remain in the director role, while Ulrich von der Linde will retire to be shareholder going forward. How does that deal fit with our strategic objectives? It will strengthen our core market in Germany. That is very important, and it will add services for pharmacies as we do the dispensing for smaller quantities in those facilities that are GMP approved. Caelo is the clear market leader with what you see up here in the right corner, a very well-known brand in the pharmacies. You really see the Caelo label in every pharmacy that does some compounding business.
We see a good opportunity to further strengthen that brand recognition and position it in the Medios network even more successful than in the past. It is also a next step for our European API platform extension. We have Metapharmaceutical in Spain and Magis in Belgium, and we will combine that as Compounding Essentials GmbH under the leadership of Constantijn. We see growth opportunities in Europe and have now a solid platform to further go after those opportunities. Where are the synergies? Certainly in the supplier network, it is important that we have a professional sourcing organization for all three companies, and we see opportunity there to have a better procurement operations going forward. We also add capacities to our network where we believe we can further grow the business, and will do that in our integration office going forward.
With that, I pass it on to Stefan, who explains you more about the financial details of this transaction.
Thank you very much, Thomas, and also welcome from my side. I will jump in directly in this slide regarding the financial assessment of the transaction and the acquisition of the 74% of Caelo. Let me focus on three topics: synergies, the valuation, and also how we will finance the whole transaction once closing takes place. On the synergy side, as Thomas already pointed out and mentioned, there is mainly opportunities around there in terms of the cooperation between all our API businesses that we have with, now with Caelo in Germany, but also in Spain and in Belgium and combining this kind of stuff.
We also tried really much to separate and to see what are the opportunities in terms of synergies that we could get out for and that you can see on the black bar, which are the synergies that we will see on Caelo level itself and what are the ones that we believe that we will see on the level of the other two companies. That will mean we will have, let us say, a good two years, two to three years to really come to the full extension of the synergies that we want to get or that we believe that are realistic. They are obviously mainly focused on the strengthening of the cooperation of a very good purchasing network.
Therefore, really much this has to be the focus of our synergies, the operational excellence, the cooperation between Magis, Meta, and Caelo, and this will start immediately after closing took place and all the approvals are there. In total, we will see 2.1 million opportunities, which, compared to the EBITDA number that the company currently has, is a quite significant improvement that we believe that we could get. In addition, then coming to the valuation, all what you see here, the EBITDA multiple based on the 2024, 2025, because the company has a fiscal year, which is not the calendar year. That is why it is called like that. It is an EBITDA multiple of 5.4. You have to know that all these numbers that were discussed with Caelo as of now before closing are numbers of a company which is doing all their accounting based on German GAAP.
All these reclass, what you normally see or you have to see based on IFRS 16 for leasing expenses, is not yet included and therefore by technical issue itself will also increase margin and will optimize also here the multiples that we see. What you see here in the numbers, it is all the EBITDA multiple based on the German GAAP numbers and, therefore, with the synergies, we really strongly believe that we will bring a significant improvement of the qualities of earnings in there. Talking shortly about the financing of the transaction. We made there a bridge financing of one year, which is based on the following condition. This is the euro short-term rate is the basis, and we have there an interest margin of 0.85 that we have to pay.
I think these are very good conditions in terms of getting the financing structure of the company. Why we decided to do a one-year based bridge financing in the first instance, because you know in our credit facility that we have with our core banks, there is also a kind of revolving credit facility involved where we have an increase option that we then can take in 2027. The point is here, we will not refinance the bridge with a complete different transaction in terms of financing, but with the structure of the extension increase option of the RCF, we are able to do that in a very easy level than in 2027 and therefore are here on a very safe side.
In addition to that, you have to know that our leverage ratio is, as of now before the acquisition with 1.32 on a very conservative and a very good and low level. Even with the acquisition also already here taking into obligate in mind the leasing obligation that we then have to show as financial debt, we will change that to increase from 1.32 - 1.42 due to the fact that we have to finance the purchase price and on the other side, also having there a five-year term loan, a five-year rental agreement for both locations in Hilden and Bonn, but with additional extension option also for the future. Flexibility in that perspective is 100% on our side, and that is very healthy and very good.
This having said, I would like to close my additional information on the financing side of the transaction and give you a flavor what are the next steps. Obviously yesterday, as Thomas said, we had the signing of the contract now. In the following days, on short-term basis, we will make the notification to the competition authorities, the Bundeskartellamt, with all what we know, all what we got as information from the lawyers. It is nothing that we should expect in terms of any issues. It is a formality that we have to do, but nevertheless it is an important one and we take it serious.
The intended closing, once again, it is always depending on when we get the green lights from the Bundeskartellamt will then we be there and hopefully and we believe that in Q4 we can manage that in having there the closing of this transaction. This having said, going back to the financial overview of Medios and coming back to the half year numbers and giving you a little bit more detailed flavor of where we are. Thomas already pointed out that we have a strong organic growth in revenues. But at the end of the day, when we are talking about the EBITDA pre margin, we reduce from 4.7 on last year to 4.1 percentage point. We will come when I guide you through the different segments to the different reasons why we had that.
An additional information I think which is needed is, even when it is not yet guided, it is the cash flow from operating activities. It reduced significantly from EUR 23.4 million in the first half of last year compared to the EUR 11.2 million this year. This is mainly due on the one side, obviously, due to the somehow a little bit lower level of the EBITDA that we have as a company. But on the other side, and that is what we have to know, it is mainly timing issue due to tax payments because significantly higher tax payments or lower tax refund took place in the first half of 2026, compared to 2025, what we saw there. This alone on the tax side, these are impacts on around EUR 6 million, which obviously negatively impacting the operating cash flow.
Talking about everything what is working capital, we are absolutely on track in optimizing that. For sure you see an increase between the first half of 2025 to 2026. But let us say the development in the first half last year and the development of the working capital was quite positive, and we were able to optimize also here and to improve slightly our ratios that we have. Therefore, working capital transaction and activities are on track. Mainly impacted cash flow by additional tax payments, which did not take place in the first half of the year 2025. Therefore, not that somebody believes that due to the operational business, we are not able to generate any cash flow anymore. This is absolutely not the case.
We will come back and also our targets that we see with a straight operational cash flow steering and management will continue in that way for the second half of the year. Now as promised, getting back to the growth and the overview of the different segments. Pharmaceutical supply, patient-specific therapies and international businesses. Here you can see the quite significant good growth, mainly with 8.5% in pharmaceutical supplies, but also in the patient-specific therapies. There we are very happy that we were able to realize there in the first half of the year a very good performance. You see on the EBITDA pre side that in the pharmaceutical supply, we are below prior year. This is mainly due to pricing issue with some specific products that we were not able to get this higher margin in this year on the pharmaceutical supply side.
On the other side, when we go to the patient-specific therapies, it is always still on the half year a little bit below prior year, but the second quarter was already very promising. Last but not least, obviously the international business also developing here good with a growth of 6.9% in sales and a slightly better EBITDA pre-margin in that year. As I already mentioned, revenue went up in pharmaceutical supplies, but EBITDA pre decreased. That is obviously not the structure we like to see, but this is due to continuous price decrease on selected individual products, which unfortunately also we will see that this will maintain in the second half of the year. There we do not believe on a big recovery in that perspective.
Nevertheless, I think we are all nevertheless here on quite good track and also compared with other wholesalers, we still have a good margin that we are able to achieve. Medicinal cannabis business already started. You know that from the presentation of the first quarter. It was a little bit later, so it was a delay in the first quarter, but it developed quite positive in the second quarter of this year. We gained the momentum. Unfortunately, with the now new law in not getting any reimbursement anymore of the cannabis flowers, that will make the development very difficult or more difficult in the second half of the year. But that, as Thomas said, is already included in our new guidance in there. Also, you have to know that nevertheless, cannabis is not the big revenue contributor still for Medios.
Going to the bridge that we showed first time in the Q1 year-over-year. You can see the major impacts are the EUR 2.7 million with the price drop of various products, individual products that we have there. Then we see a good development in new businesses like the Novartis and also the cannabis one. On the other side, there are some operational expenditures increasing, labor cost increase, which are normal. Apart from this price drop, we would say business are developing okay, but the price drop, unfortunately, in that business, we cannot compensate here. Coming directly to the patient-specific therapies, also here, the situation now in here, I would like to draw the attention mainly to the second quarter. Also those who participated in the call of the Q1 notice that there we were, due to several reasons, below expectations in the margin.
Now, the good message here is we are back on track regarding the growth of the business in terms of the revenue. We increased from EUR 54 million in the Q2 to EUR 59 million revenues. It is a growth of 8.6%. In this market in Germany, I think it is a good development that we have. Second, also here, and that is also what we promised on Q1, the margin and the margin quality of these segments will come back, and here we are. We managed to get the 10.2 percentage point EBITDA. Thomas already mentioned our Avanti-Medios! project. Also here shows the first good positive impact. Also, I just want to draw the attention on the effect that in what we announced that we closed the location Aschaffenburg and the site Aschaffenburg end of last month.
Therefore, that will mean positive impact due to this. Let us say change in the structure is not yet included in Q1 because this just will take place in Q3. That is why we are quite positive that the good development will continue in that segment. We are absolutely delivering with our business here in Germany what we promised. Our guys with our colleagues, with Christoph, they make here a really great job to optimize here margin in a German market. In terms of our bridge, what does that mean? We have here a quite positive volume impact, which is obviously helping us and which brings us the growth. The drug price regulation, that is this impact on the German Hilfstaxe. That is the normal, let us say, price impact that we have to compensate, and we have to live on that perspective.
On the other side, then, there is also an increase in personal costs and also some other costs still in the first half of the year. We were working on that mainly on the other side to improve the situation and also the operational efficiency and excellence will help us going forward in the second half of the year. I think well done. Coming now briefly to the international businesses. Also here, revenue went up. We are now at EUR 44 million. When you have a look at the Q2 last year, it is EUR 42 million. It is also here quarter-by-quarter increase of 4.8% in terms of revenues and sales. Also the EBITDA margin is with 17.5%, one of the best that we had. Obviously it is not the best, but compared to the Q2 of last year, I think we were quite significantly improved.
Also here, management and the people made there a good job. Also here we know that on the terms of operational efficiency, we have already identified the activities to do, and we will work on that also with the Avanti-Medios! project, which is a total group perspective program, also will then step by step show positive impacts on the next month to come. We know that there are some higher material costs, mainly with the eye syringes that we are delivering to our customers. Also these are topics where measures already are started to solve that issue and to improve here the gross margin in that product segment. Coming also here, as a summary to our EBITDA bridge. Positive volume effects of about EUR 4.2 million.
Then we had last year and this year both two different disinvestments, which we believe that for transparency reasons we should show there as separate impact. This were mainly sale of one pharmacy last year, and this year it was the sale of a building that was not used anymore in Belgium where we had extraordinary earnings, if you want to say it like that, of EUR 0.8 million. So still last year, more higher positive one-timers than this year if we compare that. On the other side, we have the known additional material costs, mainly talking about the eye syringes products. Then the topics like wage increases, which are the normal increases of wages that we have from one year to the other year. You see personal cost savings on the one side.
That is correct, but it's unfortunately compensated via the OpEx on the other side. Why is that the case? Because currently some internal plant people are not hired currently mainly on the pharmacy side and are used with external people, and these costs are shown in the other operational expenditures and therefore it's more, let's say, a change in the cost level or in the cost line where you can see that. Finally, we were able to increase here the EBITDA pre. We were able to increase for the half year one the total number. That is great. The second quarter was even a very good development of margin and that makes appetite to get more and to develop further this international area. Last but not least, coming back to the Medios Group as a whole.
You already know with the announcement that we made last week that we say on the sales or revenue side we developed quite good. So, also here, our now revised guidance is a little bit higher in terms of sales than what we, when we had in the first guidance. So we now say it's EUR 2.1 billion up to EUR 2.16 billion as our sales or revenue guidance. On the other side, and that is not our target, but due to the fact that we have these pricing issues mainly on the wholesaling activities in PS segment and on the other side the positive development of cannabis not coming in the second half of the year.
This major impacts also, if you want to say it like that we have to take down a little bit the EBITDA pre-guidance margin from EUR 94 million - EUR 102 million, now down to EUR 88 million -EUR 92 million. You can see on the right side all the different reasons for that. I can assure that the management is working hard on really focusing on the Avanti-Medios! and make all the operational excellence activities happen this year and also for the years to come. But I think also here that is the realistic guidance. With that, I hand over and I give back to Thomas for the focus activities and the takeaways. Thomas?
Thank you, Stefan. I am going to keep it really short. Nothing changed here with our focus activities. We have the One Team Medios initiative. We want to bring more transparency and collaboration in the entire group, now also with Caelo, and we are using processes to do so, but we also use digital, and we will introduce a SAP S/4HANA system at January 1st for Medios Pharma. Operational excellence is key in the business that we are running, so we are focusing on capital master plan, business integration, digital roadmap. We get those concepts out. We want to bring that on a group level and make sure that we can lift those synergies we see when we have more transparency and processes that span all our geographies. We continue to accelerate our organic growth.
We have shown growth in all business areas, and we want to keep it that way. We are looking for additional business with existing customers or new customers. As we have done with Caelo, we are looking for selective M&A activities that are value accretive in add-on acquisitions or collaborations. It is important here to mention that an M&A starts with the integration plan, and those plans are already in the making for the Caelo integration, and I think we can set a nice piece there in showing that we really can gain together going forward. We will talk about all this and more at the second Medios Capital Markets Day on September 29th. A good opportunity to see compounding hands-on and personal, and also to network with the top leadership team.
For that, we also have a dinner on the 28th, and I hope all of you will join and use the opportunity to know ourselves, get closer together, and also see what we do in our Breda operation in the Netherlands. Key takeaways I would like you to go and see is the broad-based growth we have in our business. So growth is there. We are delivering a market that likes our services, so that is very positive. We see first small, but still, I think, sustainable progress on margin in the PST business. More should be coming there, and we have now an acquisition of Caelo, where we want to further strengthen our compounding business, where we bring additional services in Germany for the pharmacies, and we really have a broad product range that pharmacies will be able to buy from us.
I think there is a lot of strategic sense to this acquisition, and I am really looking forward to have a nice integration process starting as of today. With that, we come to the question- and- answers, and I pass it on to the moderator.
Thank you. We will now begin our question- and- answer session. If you have a question for our speakers, please dial star nine and the pound key on your telephone keypad now to enter the queue. Once your name has been announced, you can ask a question. If you find out your question is answered before it is your turn to speak, you can dial star three and the pound key to cancel your question. If you are connected online and listening via the web interface, please click the telephone handset button and then the raise hand icon. This will allow you to ask your question verbally as well. If you are experiencing technical issues, you can also send a written question. Please use the ask question button just for technical problems.
If you would like to ask a question with the telephone, please click star nine and the pound key on your telephone keypad, or you can also use the web dial-in function in the browser. And we have the first question from Tim Kruse from Montega AG. The floor is yours.
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you very well.
Perfect. Thank you. Couple of questions on the Caelo acquisition, if I may. The first would be, was that a structured sales process from the seller or how did that originate? The second question would be, if you could comment on the total sales volume of the API business in the whole group? You mentioned that the EUR 40 million of the Caelo, how much addition is that to the current business? And maybe also on the margin profile compared to the API business in the IB segment compared to Caelo. Then, can you confirm that I understand the slide correctly, that you expect in total roughly EUR 3.4 million in synergies in the three-year timeframe? Then the last question on Caelo would be that the multiple slide you provided, thank you very much for that, implies a slight EBITDA decrease in the current fiscal year for Caelo.
Could you maybe comment on that also? Then I have a few other questions, but I will start with that. Thank you.
Thank you, Tim. That is a bucket of questions. So, I would say it was a half-structured process. It was probably initiated by personal contacts at the very start, and the discussions were ongoing for quite some time, and we are really happy that we could ultimately close the deal in the way we could now structure it. I think it was good work of the team, of the M&A team and everybody involved. So quite pleased with what we could achieve in terms of financial numbers and also collaboration with the sellers team there. We do not break out the API business as a reporting here, but I can tell you that our margin expectations, as we mentioned in the call, is substantially higher for that business than what is currently achieved in Hilden and Bonn. So we get to work to lift the margins there.
That is the key initiative I see from an operational standpoint. For the synergies, maybe Stefan, you have those numbers better in your head. I think they were correct, but I am not absolutely certain.
Yes, I can confirm the synergies you mentioned are correct. You made the right adding up of this both. One part will happen on our existing companies in Meta and Magis, and the other one, the bigger one, obviously will happen on the seller side, what we see here. Perhaps also to add to your last question, as the multiple will increase based on the current forecast. Yes, it is correct that the overall EBITDA margin of this current fiscal year is expected to be slightly lower. On the one side, and I think that is the main issue here is also there are a little bit lower in terms of sales this year than anticipated, but we strongly believe that this is only a temporarily activity and an issue.
Therefore, I am really much convinced that we will gain track on that perspective very soon in terms of sales and also on the one side with the improved synergies that we believe that we will get on the one side. On the other side, I mentioned that shortly during the presentation, all the numbers you see here are based on German GAAP, and the company uses, in both location, rented buildings. If you take a real IFRS 16 approach, where you have to show that to compare apple with apples because on Medios side, it is an IFRS accounting in place for sure, and also here applying IFRS 16. Then you would add up somehow a little bit the EBITDA by another EUR 1 million around to reclass the rental payments from EBITDA to EBIT to compare apple with apples.
On the operational performance of the company, it is nothing to do, but if you compare multiples on an IFRS basis, you should do that to get on a clear structure. That is the one. Second, we also, and that is the last comment that you see on that slide, is that the purchase price, it is really much covered by net assets. At the end of the day, we do not expect a significant goodwill to come in our balance.
Okay, that is very helpful. Then maybe two follow-up or two additional topics. The PS margin, you mentioned that you do not expect a big improvement. Can you clarify, does that mean that you see a further decline in margin or that we should expect Q2 levels to sustain in the rest of the year? On tax and cash flow, can you maybe elaborate? You said this was a one or timing effect on the tax effect, so that should even out over the year. Maybe just clarify that, and then if you could give a rough free cash flow outlook for the full year, that would be very helpful. Thank you very much.
Thank you for the question. I will take the first one on pharmacy supply side. The pharmacy supply side business has a certain level of volatility in there that we should expect at times to be maybe a little higher and at times a little lower. To my understanding right now, we are rather on the lower side, so I would hope that we can stabilize or even increase going forward over the next one or two years. But keep that in mind that specific initiatives sometimes come and sometimes they are not there. It is a little bit of a binary situation. So that impacted our profitability in the first half year. For the other questions, Stefan, you are probably the better person to answer them.
Okay. Thank you. Coming to the tax perspective. As I said, these are mainly, I call that one time, is that you cannot put in exactly in a quarterly level to be comparable. I nevertheless try to give a little bit more flavor on that. This very significant higher tax payment overall. When I am talking about tax payment, I am talking about net tax payment. So it is the net between tax payment on the one side and lower tax refund on the other side for prior years. In Germany itself, the impact on these two ones is EUR 4.2 million, because in the first half of the year 2025, we got a tax refund of EUR 3 million, which in the first half of 2026 did not took place on the other side. In 2026, we had to pay for former years additional taxes of EUR 1.2 million.
So that will mean now EUR 1.2 million paid out in the first half of the year for prior years. Last year, we received EUR 2.9 million, also for prior years as a tax refund. So at the end, it is around EUR 4.2 million only in Germany, which obviously will not repeat in the second half of the year. In Netherlands, which is the other big country where we also have exactly the same situation, there it is EUR 1.5 million net higher tax payment, which is mainly due to the fact that, also here we had tax refunds in 2025 of around EUR 0.7 million, which now we did not have in the first half of 2026.
On the other side, you have to know that in the Q3, that is what we already know because we received it in July, there is a tax refund in Netherlands of about EUR 1 million. Therefore it will be a positive impact on that. Will that be a complete wash offset between the quarters? No, it will not be, because it is an impact on prior years. But it will definitively not repeat anymore. Therefore part of that, like in Netherlands, will be compensate. Part of what we saw in Germany will not compensate this year, but will not repeat anymore because these are one-times. That is to the tax question. What does it mean in terms of cash flow? You know we are not guiding the current operating cash flow.
Therefore, unfortunately, I have to disappoint you a little bit that I cannot give you a clear guidance now on the total number. But to be sure also on that side, we do everything when you take out this specific impact on the tax payments and to maintain and to improve our performance and our cash-generating capability in future. Therefore, also we will be able to generate good cash in 2026 for Medios Group.
Okay. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you very much. Looking forward to seeing you in Breda, end of September.
Perfect.
Thank you. Looking forward to meet you.
Thank you. We have the next question from Simon Scholes from First Berlin. The floor is yours.
Yes, good afternoon. Can you hear me?
Can hear you well, Simon.
Yeah. Okay, very good. I have just got two questions. On page seven, English version actually of the H1 report, you cite some figures for the pharmacy market in Germany in Q1 from IQVIA. Those seem to suggest that on average prices rose for the prescription segment of the market, which is about 90% of the market, by 7%. I was just wondering why there is a deviation between the overall market and the price pressure you are seeing. Secondly, I was just wondering, is substitution by biosimilars having a significant impact on price development at PS? That is it from me.
Thank you, Simon. I think it is relatively straightforward. We are working on specific products, and we had a Hilfstaxe reduction in the fourth quarter of 2025 that is subsidized, is shown in this bridge. That was one specific product that had a lesser price going forward, and it is one of the products that is a substantial part of our business. We could overcome this lower compensation we gained there with improved operational measures and other products. We do not track the overall market in a perfect way. That is probably what I want to say. We have to look at the specific products we are making. For biosimilar exchange, that is in the ophthalmology business, something we were expecting. But right now as we see it, the originator have their contracts out there and are still in a very strong position.
Probably a little less biosimilar exchange than what we have expected a couple of months back. But that is something that is outside of our control. It might happen at a later point in time, I would expect.
Okay, thanks very much. That is very helpful.
Perhaps adding your question regarding the half year report. You are referring about the 7% increase of the cost for medicines in that perspective, if I understood you correctly.
Yes, that is right.
So this 7%
Pricing. Because you have got volume. You have got sales up 6% and volume down 1.3%. So it looks as if you have got a price increase of 7%.
Yeah. So there is overall, let us say, the total segment of those medicines where you can get a compensation increase by 6%, but the volume reduced, so therefore it is a positive pricing. I agree. So first of all, you have to know that this is, let us say, the full market and there are also quite significant increases in terms of specific areas of where we are, mainly when we are talking about new products coming there, which are licensed products, which are also for very specific therapies where we still see, let us say, a quite significant increase on that perspective onto pricing. But, and that is what you have to take here clear, this pricing impact is absolutely not homogeneous in the whole market.
We cannot say if this calculation, the math that you have done, that you said, okay, there should be a price increase, and why Medios does not see that, because here we are working on a very specific niche and therefore, whenever you get completely new and specific other ones where we can see an increase in that perspective. Therefore, it has to be very careful because also Medios is not a fully fledged, let's say, wholesaler on everything what is the medicine there, but we are, let's say, it is a nice, it is a good niche, but it is still a niche and a part of that, and that is why you cannot compare this growth or not growth in that perspective in terms of the pricing. Unfortunately, this is not doable.
Okay. Thanks very much.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star nine and the pound key on your telephone keypad, or you can also use the dial-in function in the web interface to click on the telephone handset button and then raise the hand icon. We have one more question from Yannik Siering from Münchmeyer Petersen Capital Markets. The floor is yours.
Yeah. Thanks a lot. Quite some questions have already been answered. Maybe another one on the guidance and especially on the guidance range. You now stand at EUR 44 million EBITDA pre after H1. Are you able to quantify the drivers of EBITDA in H2, so specifically between the run rate savings of the Avanti program, the PST Germany recovery, and also the pricing issues in pharma? Are there certain bits already contracted? Maybe just some additional color would be very helpful. The second part would be, again, on pharmaceutical supply pricing. Any color here if that is reversing at some point or if it is stabilizing at a new lower level would also be helpful, and also here, where you see it exiting in 2026 from the current levels of around 2.7% EBITDA pre. Thanks a lot.
Thank you for the question. It is clear that we made a bottom-up calculation for our revised guidance, and that is what we are seeing right now. I think this is a reasonable guidance that was done under the new leadership team, and I expect that we can achieve what we now forecast in terms of EBITDA pre. All things need to come together. That is the saving targets we see for Avanti-Medios!. We have there a single- digit middle range number that we try to achieve, and also all segments need to continue to have good volume development and margin improvement in PST especially. We cautioned that maybe in the Netherlands, we have a little bit harder time to keep the margin where they are right now.
For PS, for the pharmacy supply, we also think that what we are seeing right now and/or a little bit more is what is going on going forward. I think I spoke to the volatility of that business, that that is some kind of baked in, but I can also let you know that, of course, the people who are working in that business are looking for improvements every day, and I give them a lot of respect and also trust that they will continue to achieve the margin profile we see today or even a little bit better going forward. I think that is all I can say, and that is what I see.
Perhaps to add off what Thomas said, regarding your point of what is already contracted and what you see in terms of our contract with the customers. That is in our area where we are working, it is different than in other areas of businesses. You do not have, let us say, low orders on hand. It is very much you have to be very flexible, you have to be very fast, and therefore react on everything what is coming across on the market. We see, let us say, in terms of revenues, a good stable development of our revenues in the wholesaling activities, and also I am sure that we can improve year step-by-step revenues. We also will focus on the portfolio of our products.
But here, these are always mid and long-term smaller improvements that you can see because it is mainly dominated by the pricing and what you get there. On all the others, as Thomas said, Avanti-Medios! is running. We started the program just in April. Therefore, there will be positive impacts to come. I said also Aschaffenburg will contribute on that we were able, without losing any customers, to use the other locations in a very more efficient way to compensate and to get also improvements here. So PST is on track, and all the rest will do the same over the next months to come.
Great. Thanks a lot.
Pleasure.
Thank you. We have one more question from Orlow Prei s from OK Consult. The floor is yours.
Yeah, thank you very much for being allowed to ask questions as well. First one regarding capital allocation. I am glad to see the structure of the takeover now. I think that is continuing the work which Gärtner did well in terms of capital allocation, buying with debt when the stock is depressed and buying with equity when the stock is high. However, the point of trust in the market is important, and the stock is close to an all-time low. What Gärtner did last year, trying to rebuild trust rather successfully, was the 1,077,000 tender at EUR 125. From my rough ballpark figuring, that is about 1/16 of the cash on hand right now. Are you considering repeating that move?
Especially as for Thomas, when you started, Medios was like 1/16 of Bachem, and it was 1/14 when the stock was in between EUR 16 and EUR 17, and now it is close to EUR 122. Bachem is 22 times larger than Medios right now. Also your own purchases were at EUR 16. So would you consider using cash on hand, or rather 1/6 of it, to do a tender like Gärtner did last year as well? That would be the first question.
Thank you. We understand that the value of the stock is depressed, and we work every day to change that. All options are on the table. We will have a discussion whether we do a share payback program, and once we have a conclusion on that question, we will let the market know.
I think it is especially important as in the markets, trust is a very important thing to have. Of course, guidances are always difficult if they refer to the future, but it surely was not helpful that at the AGM it was stated that the GKV reform would not have a material impact. It was none of the two of you, I know, but it was C-level. If then a profit warning like that comes pretty shortly after that is of course nothing pleasurable and nothing that creates trust. Also, if you look at the topic portfolios with 75% bearish sentiment, that maybe stems also at least from that. I think discussing that with a positive outcome would clearly be a helpful step to rebuild that trust that has been lost by that statement and profit warning afterwards.
If you first confirm and then afterwards you warn, that is really difficult. Second topic would be cannabis. I understand until now that the exclusivity with Bedrocan, which is a very clear loser, is not the clear loser of the GKV reform, as the major asset of Bedrocan was not the quality of its flower products, but the relationship to the payers. As the payers are now completely out of the game, that advantage is completely lost. It did not deteriorate. It is gone. As I understood, the contract binds only Bedrocan, while Medios is only bound by a board resolution, which was by the old CEO and CFO to work exclusively with Bedrocan, but that is internal, not in the contract. Is that board resolution resolved by now, or is it still existing? If so, do you consider to work on that in the near future?
Thank you for the question. It is correct that we were focused on the reimbursed market because we did not target the much larger self-payer market in the past. We are now exploring our options we have going forward. Personally, I share your sentiment that Bedrocan is impacted by this change quite significantly. As Stefan mentioned in his words, the cannabis business is not crucial to the Medios Group. We will assess our options going forward and make sure that we can limit the negative impact of a change that came somewhat faster than what we were expecting back at Assembly General.
Mm-hmm. An important point in that context is that extracts are still refunded by GKV, and of course, there will be a wave of patients who are not affluent, who needed the reimbursement of flower to change to extract dronabinol, first of all. I understood that there have been talks on C-level with the market leader with dronabinol, but as of now, as I hear from the other respective company, no material progress has been made. Do you consider vitalizing that or changing anything in the process or in the personal responsibility to not only not lose business with Bedrocan, but to, as Medios, and you have the clear asset of 1,000 pharmacies being able to provide and also give people advice on the product and basically tell them, yeah, okay, you need it.
You don't get reimbursement for product A, but you can get product B here, which is still reimbursed. Your pharmacies are existing, and it doesn't cost you any money, and I think it's a chance, not a risk of losing less business with Bedrocan, but rather take an opportunity to do that. It would have to be done before somebody else does it, I suppose.
Dronabinol is part of our offering, and we hope that we can grow in that segment, but that's independent of the Bedrocan, the flower situation.
Oh, you're doing that already. That's good to hear. Okay. Good. Thank you very much.
Sure.
I hope you have a lot of success in not only earning money for the company, but convincing shareholders.
We are working on it every day.
If I may say so. Thank you very much.
Good results will help the most. That is what we are laser-focused on. All right. I think it is top of the hour. Maybe one last question if anybody is interested. If not, I will thank you for your attention.
Thank you. There are no further questions, so back to you or to Katrin Neuffer.
Thank you very much for joining today's conference. We look forward to meet you in the Netherlands end of September. If you have any further questions, please drop me an email. Thank you very much, and have a good day. Bye-bye.