Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Terveystalo's Q2 results call and webcast. My name is Kati Kaksonen. I'm responsible for Terveystalo Investor Relations and Sustainability. As usual, I'll present our CEO, Ville Iho, and our CFO, Juuso Pajunen, will present the results, followed by Q&A. We'll take questions both via the phone lines as well as from the webcast after the presentation. Without further ado, over to you, Ville.
Thank you, Kati. Let's dive straight to the key highlights of Q2. Terveystalo's profitability journey continues. Q2 2025 was an all-time high in absolute profitability, EBIT of EUR 36.7 million, and relative profitability with an EBIT margin of 11.4%. This was done even with slightly lower revenue than the previous year. Basically, all of the KPIs that we are reporting are on a very high level, except for the revenue, and that one we'll discuss in depth later. The story throughout the three different businesses and segments is actually very, very constant. Profitability journey continues, starting from the smallest one, Sweden. Execution of the turnaround program continues as per plan and is delivering. The turnaround will happen during this year. It's still in negative numbers, but what we are seeing inside the tent, so to speak, is way higher efficiency and profitability improving with lower revenue.
Also, looking forward, Sweden's sales funnel and commercial activities are looking promising, so we will get there. Portfolio Businesses' story continues. Revenue is coming down, specifically due to the terminated contracts and some softness in the staffing market, but profitability continues developing in a positive way. Also, looking forward, looking at the market opportunities, things are looking brighter, and that will be commented just in a minute. Within Healthcare Services, in our core business, also the profitability journey continues. We came down slightly with revenue, but all-time high profitability in absolute terms and in relative terms. Strategic KPIs in good shape. We acknowledge that the revenue organic growth did not materialize during Q2, but we have ample opportunities to grow our business going forward, and that's going to be the storyline for the next slide.
If we dive deeper, first of all, into H1 and then look forward, how the businesses are tracking and what is the outlook in different markets. Again, if we start from the smallest business, Sweden, we have commented the turnaround journey. Efficiency is improving, profitability is improving, even with the lower revenue. Now, looking at the market opportunities and active sales funnel, even mathematically, we can see that revenue is bound to grow going forward, and we are expecting that the next year will be stronger with a strong top line and turnaround activities being finalized. In Portfolio Businesses, we have already seen heightened activities in consumer-driven businesses, dental and massage, and now we have also explicit and implicit indications from the public system that activity in their buying of our services will increase going forward.
The outlook from a revenue point of view is brighter than we have seen during the last two years, so to speak. In the core business, Healthcare Services, during H1, as per forecasted, public business went down, but consumer and insurance business was a good news story. These combined, it is always a combination. They were tracking nicely upwards. We were gaining, and we increased the business. Looking forward, the trend will continue and will be further strengthened by the Kela 65 pilot that we'll discuss later during the presentation. Consumer-driven businesses are looking good going forward.
We acknowledge that the softness that was not forecasted in our plan was in Occupational Health , and that's specifically in the buying behavior, lower buying activities in our existing customers than we saw during Q1. That is partly seasonal, partly due to the pressure on different companies with their own finances, and we are taking action on that front. That is going to be a high focus going forward after summer break during H2. All in all, looking at the revenue picture and market opportunities, there are, as I said, ample opportunities to grow. This will be further supported by a fairly active M&A market where we are also taking action. Kela 65, it's an exciting new model. We have, of course, as a backbone public system in Finland, a mature occupational healthcare and insurance market.
To make sure that there's access to services for all of the segments, new innovation is needed, and Kela 65 is a positive push to improve access to care for people who typically fall out from the workforce and fall out from Occupational Healthcare Services. Under this scheme, citizens over 65 can use private services with the same fee as they would be using public services. The expected volumes in this trial will be material, and Terveystalo's position to capture its fair share of the market is very good. Looking at the consumer preference in this segment, Terveystalo is the number one choice, and we are all in this pilot. It is going to support H2 revenue. We acknowledge that there was a softness in occupational healthcare during Q2. We are taking action. We are investing heavily in customer-facing solutions as we speak.
On the technology front, we hope that we will be able to disclose some exciting news in the area during the coming weeks. We will design our services to cater for changed market demands and customer expectations, and we will improve transparency so that buying is easier and paying is more understandable and traceable. Technology continues to be a cornerstone of our development agenda. We have made good progress already with the efficiency in Digital Services, and that journey will actually accelerate going forward. We are seeing that the whole journey from customer recognition, customer data, patient guidance to digital or physical channels, and improving brick and mortar efficiency, and specifically the digital efficiency, will allow us to improve efficiency materially and also to develop services for our customers with lower price points and at the same time higher margin.
Customer steering, customer recognition, customer data, heightened efficiency in the services, regardless of the modality, will be the key. In H2, we are in a position to make some exciting launches in this area. Architecture is there, capability is there, and as Juuso will explain later, our ability to invest into this area is there. With that, I welcome CFO Juuso Pajunen to the stage.
Thank you, Ville, and good morning to all of you. My name is Juuso Pajunen, and I will present our Q2 numbers to all of you. Let's start from the group level. I think that it's very good to note, and I'm really happy to state that this is the all-time best second quarter in absolute EBIT and in relative EBIT. If you look on the EBIT numbers, all of our segments improved. We have relative profitability improvement and absolute profitability improvement in Healthcare Services, in Portfolio Businesses, in Sweden, and even in the reconciliation items. We are solid, efficient, lean, and mean machine when we look at how we can digest the revenues. We do know and do acknowledge that we had headwinds in the revenues, and the total volumes did not meet our ambitions, like Ville explained.
It's still very good to remember that we have the megatrends that support us. If we look short-term, we have the Kela 65 pilot program, we have the gradual opening of the public market, and we have a solid plan when it comes to Occupational Health . All of this is tied up with our very strong digital capabilities and the digital transition that is happening at the moment. Record strong second quarter when it comes to profitability, and revenues will follow. If we take a bit deeper look under the hood and go to the segments, we have Healthcare Services, we have the profitability increasing both in relative terms and in absolute terms when we are looking at the adjusted EBIT. We do note that especially in the consumer market, we have growth.
If you look by decision maker, if you look by payer, then it is captured by the insurance as a payer. We have a positive momentum in there. We are growing, and we need to remember that all of this happens despite one working day less. If we look at our biggest customer group, we have Occupational Health , which was negative. Also, this was burdened by one working day less, and the volumes were, or the revenues were down by roughly 2.5%. This is coming from less connected employees, though this is give or take the same amount as we had in Q1. Like Ville explained, the buying behavior of our clients has changed mainly due to weak macro-economic pressures and increased cost consciousness.
These are topics that we are addressing at the moment, and we are confident that we are getting forward, like we have always delivered on our initiatives. All of this, if we think about once again looking forward, we are in a positive place when it comes to outlook. It's supported by digitalization, Kela 65, and then also the revolving demand, especially in the public sector, of course, depending on how you define also Kela 65. If we look at portfolios, we have a clear improvement in profitability also in here. We have the termination of low margin outsourcing contracts. We have an improved operational efficiency, and those ones are in total leading to a 3.2 percentage points increase in the adjusted EBIT margin and EUR 1 million more in the adjusted EBIT in absolute terms. If we then look at the different market segments, we have the public market.
Outsourcings have been weak as expected. There's normal volatility on the contract volumes, so there's a bit more contract volume loss than we have maybe anticipated, but there's nothing specific in that one. We have the staffing market that has been declining, partly due to our own tendering selection earlier, and then the market has been weak when well-being counties have been ramping their operations up and establishing themselves. It's good to note that in both of these material segments within portfolio, we see positive movement. There are a couple of bigger outsourcing or partnership contracts coming to be tendered now in the second half, and we have the staffing market little by little coming back. As an anecdotal fact, we have just won Itä-Uudenmaan Own Doctor services for elderly people, and this just highlights that little by little also this market is revitalizing.
If we look at the private demand, this echoes what is happening in the healthcare services. We have a positive trend continued in the dental especially. Going for Sweden, also in here, EBIT is up a bit. EBIT margin is up, and we are progressing in our profit improvement program as planned. The second quarter was burdened by one working day less, and also the timing of the public holidays, so bank holidays, was such that it incentivized people to stay Friday also off the office. The calendar impact is a bit heavier, especially in Sweden compared to other regions. Despite this, we are improving the profitability, which basically highlights that we are reaching a point where we can state that we are efficient. We have clear operational KPIs such as utilization or occupancy rates that are now on levels that we have never seen in feel-good earlier.
This one highlights that once we start loading the volumes into the machine and we move forward, it will yield results as we have been saying for the past 18 months. All in all, we start to see the improvement, and with the efficient machine, it will come through the whole income statement in the future. Investments, there's nothing new in here. We continue to invest in organic. We continue to do disciplined M&A. During the quarter, we have made two smaller M&As in the mental health part and then in the dental part. At the same time, it's good to note, like Ville has also explained and said, that technology is the place where we have our eyes on whether it is organic, but it could be also inorganic. We will accelerate our technology agenda when we are going forward.
The EUR 42 million, 3.2% of the revenues, is still below the levels we have been saying for the past year or so. Looking at cash flow and the net debt position, we have a strong leverage ratio. Net debt to EBITDA is strong. It's developing positively. Remembering that in the second quarter, we paid out half of our annual dividends. If you remember, the annual dividends are materially higher than they were in previous years. We continue to have lots of powder in our balance sheet. If we look at operating cash flow, it is a tad bit soft. We have normal seasonality in the net working capital. We had some bigger outflows during the first half, mainly taxes in the first quarter, and then in the accounts payable sides for the second quarter that don't increase the cash flow into the levels that our profitability immediately would indicate.
That's normal seasonality. We are in a nice position, especially when it comes to accounts payables, that we can, due to our very stable and predictable environment, accept earlier cash flows every now and then when we get a financial benefit for that one. This type of behavior creates a bit of volatility on the cash flow, but it's chosen volatility. All in all, we have a strong balance sheet. We are in a positive place when it comes to cash generation, and it has minor volatility, as you can see from the stability of the graphs. Let's go to the guidance. First of all, I think that when we are now clarifying our guidance structure, it's a natural step on our journey within how we guide the investor community. We have started from EBITDA percentage and growth, and then we have basically changed our financial targets to be EPS.
Now what we are taking is the final step on that structure, that instead of guiding profit and growth separately, we are guiding profit growth. Absolute EBIT, and we think that this is the best proxy for the EPS development on an operational level. With that one, our guidance is stating that our full year 2025 adjusted EBIT is expected to be between EUR 155 million and EUR 165 million. If you are mathematically oriented, you quite quickly grasp that this is in material parts, same guidance as we have issued earlier, but we have narrowed the range. This is a clarification on the earlier guidance and removing one mathematical rehearsal from the analyst Excel or other market participant Excels in that sense. Basically, the assumptions behind the guidance remain the same, excluding that we are expecting that the portfolios in the outsourcing operations will lose EUR 30 million instead of EUR 25 million.
If we take a bit wider look and we look for the H2 and we think about where we are standing, we are in a position where five out of six KPIs are ticking in the right direction. We have the cultural ones, employee engagement, indicating that our people are happy is on a high level. We have the client satisfaction in place. We have the medical quality in place. We have the operational efficiency and cash flow in place, whether you look at EBIT margins or leverage ratios. Now we have all of our eyes on growth, which you understand that the market is coming back. We have the megatrends supporting, and we have positive underlying momentum in those ones. With these ones, I'm happy with our all-time high Q2 and iterating our guidance. Our full year EBIT will be EUR 155 million to EUR 165 million.
With these ones, let's jump to questions, Kati.
Thanks, Juuso. Do we have any questions from the phone lines?
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Iris Tiemann from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. I'll ask these one by one. Firstly, regarding your volumes in Healthcare Services, those went down by 6% year- over- year. Are there any drivers in H2 that could basically reverse this trend, or do you expect a recovery more likely next year?
I went through the revenue split in Healthcare Services in the presentation. The big lever, positive big lever, is Kela 65 and continuing trend in the insurance business. That has been positive for quite some time. Within Occupational Healthcare , that was discussed in detail. The Q2 softness was partly from buying behavior, and that's something that could reverse, especially when we think about typical Q2, when companies are buying preventive services. H2 typically is more sickness-related services, which are not sort of controlled so much by a payer. That depends more on the average morbidity rates that we'll see during H2. There are positive things that will boost the revenue during H2. We will work on the Occupational Health care segment.
Okay. Regarding your guidance, you are no longer providing a sales guidance. Does this imply that you are not expecting growth this year, given that your H1 sales went down by 3%?
No, basically, you shouldn't take any kind of guidance from non-guidance. To be specific, this is a natural step that we have been continuously highlighting after the CMD that we are doing everything that enhances our EPS. From that perspective, we have taken our guidance to be on absolute EBIT. Nobody needs to guess percentages on percentages, and it is an absolutely clear way of doing that one. You shouldn't take any kind of notion that we would have feelings about where the revenues are going. This slide that we have now on the screen pretty much describes the growth drivers, and to me, at least, it looks fairly green if you look at the next graph.
Okay, thank you. Probably still regarding sales headwinds that you mentioned in the report, did you anticipate this level of headwind?
As I think I said in the presentation, maybe a majority of this one was forecast. In Sweden, we anticipated a negative trend, but the buying behavior with the existing customers was slightly lower or buying activity was slightly lower than we expected due to negative macro still in Sweden. In Portfolio Businesses, equally, most of this one was forecasted. Some more softness in the staffing business, but there we see a sort of reversing trend already. In Healthcare Services, the only sort of non-forecasted thing was that within the existing customers, the buying behavior was slightly more passive than it has been during typical Q2.
have probably one question still, if I may. Regarding ASP, it was up 5% even though the comparison figure was quite high. What is basically driving ASP? Can you explain which customer groups, and is this a good proxy for the rest of the year?
By ASP, do you refer to average sales price?
Yes, in Healthcare Services.
Yes. Basically, our average sales price is always a bit volatile depending on the structure of who buys and what buys. I think that it is clear that year on year, we have higher sales prices than we had in 2024. As we have stated since CMD, you can't bank on that we will continuously increase the prices in that type of a level. At the moment, the best proxy is to look at the same sales mix from the previous year and adjust it with the kind of known price escalations.
Okay, thank you so much.
The next question comes from Anssi Rausi from SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes, hi all, and thank you for the presentation. A few questions left, and if I start with the Occupational Health care, which was, of course, clearly weak in Finland. You mentioned this corporate customers' buying behavior as one reason. Was it more about customers buying less services or changes in the services included in contracts, or did you actually lose some corporate customers?
It's actually, for full transparency, a combination of different things. We are down with the contracted employees by 4% since last year. It has not changed throughout the year this year, but buying activity has gone down. The 4% is a combination of the market shrinking slightly depending on the source. The employed personnel within our segments has shrunk from 1% to 2%. That's part of that one. We have lost some agreements. Throughout the profitability journey, we have been very prudent and strict with our pricing and protected profitability rather than volume. With the post-inflation environment, companies are more and more cost-conscious and looking at the price more and more. We will most likely see or do some changes to our policies, but we have that room because the profitabilities or the margins are going up all the time.
The buying behavior as such is a combination of a scope within the contracts. There's slight change and volatility in that one, but nothing material. It's more like activity. Within the pressures on different companies due to the macro, that's pressing the buying activity down or did so during Q2.
Okay. If we look at the, you mentioned that the next 12 months you expect a flattish trend in Occupational Health . I guess, of course, you have some kind of outlook there, internal outlook, but is it more about the number of working days, or is this flattish expectation, working day adjusted expectation to say?
This is more like a, we are not guiding as such. This is more like an anecdotal view on how the market is tracking in our terms. Do not take this one too sort of mathematically. We are not adding new numbers to our guidance. What this is stating is that we do not expect sort of new changes to the market during H2. Of course, we are taking action, and we have some new tools kicking in early in H2.
Okay. Got it. Maybe one question regarding this Kela 65. How should we think about the margin impact? How is the pricing in these services from your point of view if we compare to your typical business and services?
Yeah, it's a combination of sort of appointment price and margin, and then diagnostics. Diagnostics prices are low in our sort of spectrum. They are not lower than in some of the lowest corporate contracts, but they are low. Of course, it's going to be then a combination of these two. Actually, the margin contribution will be clearly positive. It's a new inflow of customers, and especially the appointment price allows us to get healthy margins from these new customers.
Okay, thank you. That's all from me.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial the pound key five on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Sami Sarkamies from Danske Bank Markets. Please go ahead.
Hi. I would still like to go back to some of the topics discussed earlier in the call. Related to the previous discussion, you said that you're down 4% in contracted employees within Occupational Health care. Was this the case already in Q1, or was this change during the first half of the year?
Yeah, it was the situation coming into this year. There's always volatility. There's outgoing and incoming customers, but really, the starting point is the same as where we are today.
Okay. This is not explaining the sequential change within Occupational Healthcare ?
Not from Q1 to Q2. No, the buying behavior and morbidity rate is the explanation.
Okay. If we think about Q2, you're talking about changed buying behavior. Is that purely related to preventive services?
Buying behavior as such, with the sickness-related services, cannot be controlled. When people are sick, then they are sick. Preventive services are, of course, of a different nature. Sickness-related services are, of course, related to the scope of the services. Within certain agreements, there are some changes in the scope as well, but against the big picture, they are not material.
Most of the softness was in preventive, but also some in sickness-related services. Hello?
Yes.
We hear you.
Yes.
We hear you.
Yes, yes.
Great.
We just confirmed what you said.
I understood it right.
Yes.
Yes.
Okay. Good. There was some bad publicity during Q2 regarding some over-invoiced cases. Did Q2, to any extent, suffer from those, for example, from any compensation payments? Any one-time impacts from those cases impact negatively?
No, not from that angle. We can see a sort of billing behavior change. There is sort of an inherent additional control amongst the professionals because the billing behavior is always a distribution. Some self-control was imposed, maybe too much during Q2. That is something that we can see in the numbers, but nothing related to any one of compensations.
Okay. Thanks. Finally, regarding operating cash flow, quite a bit lower than a year ago for the first half of the year. Can you still give the main reasons for that, and what are you expecting in the full year relative to last year?
Yeah, I think that already last year, when we closed Q4, we reminded that we had an exceptionally strong Q1 and a strong Q4 in totals. We had solid cash quotas in those ones, and the timing meant that the total cash flow was quite high for 2024. This needs to be always in mind when you look at the comparables. What comes to Q4s, I think the LTM trends and those ones are fairly good places. Calculate EBIT and calculate operating cash flows and see those trends, how they move a bit back and forth. We don't guide cash flows, so this is just for tools to evaluate it.
If we look at the first half of this year, in Q1, we had tax payments that you see very transparently in our cash flow statement that we basically paid 2024 taxes out in 2025, which is quite natural when you have a material profit improvement in place. The taxes come a bit after the improvement. Otherwise, if we look at Q2, on the positive note, our accounts receivable levels have been decreasing, basically because we had one banking day more. The last of June was Monday. We have accounts payables that have been, we have been paying more out money to our vendors due to the timing of the invoices, which is also normal volatility. These ones go to different directions.
I referred a bit on my slide for this topic on that sometimes, especially when it comes to IT services and softwares, you get fairly good payment terms if you are willing to commit to a term and pay beforehand. These types of items, with our very stable and predictable business, we like to utilize. That's why if you look at our balance sheet, you see that we sum up accounts receivables and other receivables. You see that there's actually an increase. We have taken a benefit, which is EPS enhancing due to very low interest rate levels in these types of agreements. That is the final component why you see that we have a receivable in balance sheet related to tools and softwares that we tend to use also in the future.
Okay, thanks. Finally, if we look at the revenue development, it's down 3% during the first half. Are you expecting a stronger second half, and what would be the main levers?
Yes. If we reiterate what I said also earlier, that if we look forward, first of all, in the longer perspective, we have the megatrends. We do know how aging and all of that one is happening. If we look purely on the second half and we look at this picture that Ville went through carefully, we see that the public sector is little by little opening up. We do see that in the short end, staffing, for example, we now have tenders. We have won tenders, and it looks like that this market is coming little by little back. Those ones will happen on time to support also the second half. The bigger outsourcing contracts will not have an impact in the second half, though. By nature, longer agreements, and if we win, the service provision will not start this year.
If we look otherwise, we have the consumer insurance market. You have seen the trend. We have been talking about the Occupational Health. On this one, the biggest component is basically Kela 65. That, as said, Kela is expecting 1 million visits, and we are confident that with our top-of-mind and preferences, we have our share of that one. These ones will support growth also in the second half.
Okay, thanks. I don't have any further questions.
There are no more questions at this time. I hand the conference back to the speakers.
Thank you. Maybe going back to the Occupational Health care, there's a question from Joni Sandvall from Nordea. Can you please clarify what actions are we taking on the Occupational Health care to boost top-line development?
There are several. It's actually a program that we have embarked into. A lot has to do with the digital development, specifically providing new types of services to SMEs where we are not so strong today. Additional transparency for larger customers and easier buying, easier tracking, easier tracing, easier impact reporting. All in all, sort of improved and enhanced efficiency in our services. We have a solid agenda to be implemented, and we are sort of full throttle on with this one from August onwards. We hopefully have some sort of supporting news coming up in the coming weeks for this specific segment and technology.
Great. Thank you. Maybe over to you, Juuso, a question on the Easter timing, and how does that explain the differences in internal? Easter does tend to happen every year, but it was timing-wise a bit different.
Yeah, of course. We are in a business where the number of working days impacts our revenues. When people are not working in Occupational Health or when you don't have a working day, you have far less population who use our services. Every working day less reduces our revenues, and that's purely natural. Easter was timed differently than the previous year, which led to having one working day less in the quarter. You can also think about that, especially in Sweden, which I highlighted, that when these bank holidays or national holidays occur, they also impact people's behavior. For example, this year, the 1st of May was Thursday, and everyone who works in professional services or kind of white-collar job understands that that Friday was probably half a day or even increased holiday absence day, meaning that people are away.
All of that then impacts on how Occupational Health Services especially are used. It's, in the end, simple mathematics.
Thank you, Juuso. Over to you, Ville. Could you open a little bit more about the upcoming technological changes and what's the sort of potential impact and time aligned to P&L impact regarding this one?
The fundamentals that we have in place are there. Architecture-wise, we are where we should be. We are actively implementing and executing. This is not sort of a dreaming type of scenario. We will have launches in our core ERP system called Ella during H2, which will boost productivity in brick and m ortar. It has already boosted productivity in text-based services, in chats. On that basis, the journey will continue adding more modules, more automation, more AI into that core ERP. Potentially, that's going to be combined with even more intelligent, more comprehensive customer steering engine. Now we are good in steering customers when they are coming in from certain segments through certain agreements, but we are making this one comprehensive. Through whatever channel you come from, be it physical or be it call center or be it booking engine, the customer steering logic will be the same.
Through intelligent customer steering to the right channel, right service from the first activity onwards, we can lower the cost and improve the sort of solution rate and time to solution for our customers. With this one, we can also be more active in customer steering. As we know, in Digital Services, we have a higher potential for efficiency than within brick and mortar. That shift is going to change over time. As to the timing, as I said, there will be launches throughout this year. The journey has started. We can see already improving efficiency and continue next year. Really, the journey is endless, but we are not talking about sort of five-year hockey stick. We build on an existing platform and keep on delivering.
Anything that you want to add, Juuso?
No, I think that was very comprehensive.
Great. At the moment, we don't have any further questions from the webcast. Maybe final words over to you, starting from Juuso.
Yes, as stated, we have recorded record high Q2. What comes to EBIT, what comes to relative EBIT, we are really proud of that one, and we will continue delivering. As you heard, we have also had winds, but we are fully capable to steer this boat in different wind directions.
Yes. Efficiency and profitability journey continues in all of the segments. Specifically, the positive thing is that since, I guess, decades, there will be a new element kicking into the private healthcare, which is Kela 65. It's not the silver bullet, but it's a very strong indication that this market continues developing and continues providing opportunities for Terveystalo.
Great. With that, thank you for your time and have a nice rest of the week.
Thank you.
Thank you.