Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the presentation of Omda's achievements for the fourth and final quarter of 2024. This presentation will last approximately a good 35-40 minutes, and it will be followed by a live Q&A session. You can type in your questions at any time, and we will attend to them later. A copy of the presentation is available on omda.com and on Newspoint, and after the presentation, a live webcast, sorry, a recording of the webcast, will be made available on our website, along with a transcript. As always, I'm here together with my long-term partner and our CFO, Mr. Sverre Flatby.
Actually, I've now become the CEO, Einar, but thank you, and thank you for being awake this early. To everyone, welcome, or should I say, happy anniversary, because in a few weeks, Omda will celebrate its 20th anniversary. In that context, we've also thought that a different approach to some of our topics in the quarterly presentations will be changed. Let me go through the agenda and what we're going to go through today. First of all, I will go through the highlights of the quarter, and then I will also go into the combination of our short-term guiding and our long-term ambitions. As some of you have seen, the late fourth quarter, we started guiding specifically with absolute numbers. We have not done that before, but we will continue to guide in the quarters going forward as well.
I will go through that properly, and after that, I will give the word back to Einar, who will go through the quarterly results in more detail. Of course, the P&L and cash flow, working capital, but also addressing some of the questions we've got regarding the organic growth. With a short summary, we enter into the Q&A at the end. As Einar mentioned, please type in your questions during our presentations, and we will attend to them later. Let's go on with the highlights. First of all, we have a record high revenue this quarter, which is a good present for our 20th anniversary, and 6% growth. The content of the income is strong, as it always is. The recurring revenues are also growing 6% reported this quarter.
If you look at our comparison to the last year, the growth is good, and it will continue to grow as we will get into in the guiding going forward. We have also had an EBITDA margin. We guided specifically in December that we will have 13%-14% for the year. We had 14% adjusted EBITDA compared to 19%, slightly lower than in 2023. On the other hand, there are reasons for that, given the fact that we have been working on a restructuring project. Very good news, very strong, another record, minus 31% in net working capital, a good cash situation, and thanks to 10 dedicated business unit leaders, we have managed to turn around the activities around working capital. Very happy about that.
Of course, importantly, the acquisition strategy we've had, we have now, in the fourth quarter last year, been able to get going with acquisitions again. I would say, I would like you to go back to our 20th of December webcast and look at that if you want more information about those three. They are highly important and give us good value creation going forward. We are continuing the work with acquisitions also going forward. The most important milestone is obviously that we have finalized the restructuring. The work with the restructuring has been ongoing for a long time, as you know. After we IPOed, we had a lot of acquisitions, and then we started a decentralization project, and the final part of that was done during the second part of 2024.
To finalize, that gives us the opportunity to give you what many of you have asked me about, the specific guiding with absolute numbers going forward, since now it is an ordinary operations within 10 business units, makes it much easier to present. I will go through that, but before that, let's look at the fourth quarter. As we guided in the 20th of December webcast, we said we will get a revenue around NOK 410 million-NOK 420 million for 2024 in total. As you can see, we reached that target slightly above, which is, of course, we are very happy about that, giving us the opportunity to look forward in the same way and see a stable recurring revenue growth. Also on the EBITDA margin, the adjusted EBITDA this time, given the final restructuring one-off booking in the accounts.
We said 13% to 14% for the year. We reached that slightly above, but then again, as planned, you will say. Having said that, looked at the fourth quarter, then more about the content of the income, because I think it's important every time when you look at our results, what is actually the value creation on the top line. As you will see, the recurring revenue here, 75% of the sales year to date, but look at the arrows around the circle here. If you look at the green one, that is formally a recurring revenue of 75%, but also the light blue one here is also semi-recurring. This has to do with understanding the ability we have to forecast the income going forward, not only for a year, but also next year.
That is why we want to go deeper into 2025-2026 to give you the taste of what is actually going on on our income side. Okay, more importantly, who is actually paying? I think in these disturbing days, if you look at the world situation, I think it is fair to say more solid foundation than we have is difficult to get. Our solid counterparties that represent more than 90% of our sales and revenue is, of course, a very good place to be for us. Not only that, we have a lot of contracts in a lot of countries, highly diversified, and with no binary threat to Omda. We are quite happy with the fact that our strategy with specialized software has given us this very, very strong position.
That gives us predictability on the revenue side because of the type of sustainable software we are delivering. It lasts. Talking about our 20-year anniversary, we have a lot of customers. These on the left side are only examples, but some of them have even been—we have contracts signed before our company was established, and we side with some of our acquisitions we have done the last 20 years. It gives us predictability over decades sometimes here. This is why we have low churn. Recurring revenue, semi-recurring revenue, low churn, it is because of the mission-critical systems that we deliver. They are tied into very important processes inside specialized areas and emergency. Having that in mind, when we now are going into 2025 and 2026, looking at this type of very strong income and how the company is going to perform.
The outlook for 2025 and 2026, now it's much easier to communicate with this restructuring behind us, fully behind us, gives us the ability to look more to what is going to happen. Before I do it, I have to specify, if you look at our business model, what are we actually going to guide here? What is the forecast and for what? As you've always seen this slide, probably, the three bricks in the bottom here, that is the description of our strategy with our organic business. That is what we're going to guide today. On the top here, you'll see that the purple part, that is, of course, what we're still going to do, continue acquisitions over time, and we will work on that with our organic growth, profitable organic growth platform in the bottom here.
What you're going to see now is the number that we expect is coming out of the bricks one, two, and three, and the profitable organic growth there. This is how it looks when you look at our top line. We have a fact on the left-hand side, NOK 429 million, which is more than double than what we had when we IPOed, so it's a good starting point. We see an interval at the moment between NOK 460 million-NOK 485 million on the top line. What is that? It is no new acquisitions. However, there are the revenue related to our current organic business, including the acquisitions we made in the fourth quarter, closed in the fourth quarter, and also in the beginning of the year.
When we look at 2026, we will see that our target is to pass the NOK 500,000,000 turnover on our organic business at that point in time, as we see it now. Obviously, the next quarter, we will report according to this and see how it goes and look at those intervals. This is how we see the businesses will go on for 2025 and 2026. If you keep that in mind about the sales, let's dive into the actual performance. There have been questions about how and why we are performing lower than our target margin. I think you will see now that with this restructuring behind us, it will be quite different.
The 12% in the first half year when we had this slightly low performance from the emergency entity, which is almost half of our business, and then also in the second half when we made the actual decentralization and restructuring. Twelve percent in the first half year and then 15% in the second half. That is the facts. What's going on in 2025? The first half year, we guided specifically in our December meeting that between 18% and 22%, or around 20%, is what we go for and what we think based not only on budgeting, but also on an analysis of our current run rate in January and into February, we see that this target is what we're going for in our organic business. In the second half year, why is the interval that wide and why guide between 25% and 35%?
Combination of things. Obviously, each quarter, we would look at that interval and see how much more we can specify. If you look at the average here, we have guided on the 30% EBITDA in the second half of 2025, and we stick to that guiding that we gave you the 20th of December 2024. Also, that gives us the possibility to further get into the next year with a run rate like that, with no restructuring or change activities going on in the operations. That is really good news for us. We see that we have development both on the top line and on the performance EBITDA margin that we can stand for at the moment. To summarize how this is actually going, let's say the 15% and the 429 for 2024 is a fact.
Let us look at the summary for 2025. You will see that in the first year, we think that we will, as we guided in the fourth quarter, reach around 25 or in the interval 23-27. That is how we see it now with the top line of NOK 460 million-485 million. When we enter 2026, we see that the second half of 2025 is going to continue when we look at organic growth and EBITDA margin, making it most likely a range between 28%-32% EBITDA margin. I think this is, if you see also passing the half a billion NOK target in 2026, I think this guiding is related only to the current business because we are not only going to run our organic business, we are going to continue as a roll-up company, obviously, as well.
I think this is important for all of you. Before we enter into details about the fourth quarter, let me also summarize a bit the history and our ambitions going forward. Having this 20-year anniversary in a couple of weeks, it's nice to reflect a bit on the history here because going from a startup here in Norway in a specialized hospital, working with all these complex software types, and then exported to other countries in the Nordics early on. We got to be actually the leader in the Nordics in the period of 2015 and then until we IPOed.
We have had, as all of you have taken part of, the period from 2022 to 2024 where we had to work with decentralization, integration of complex acquisitions, but also then ending this phase, which is very important if you look at Omda as a long-term investment, which you should. Let's talk about the future. Having done 17 acquisitions and get into a situation where the ending of our restructuring is done in the fourth quarter 2024, we will continue on top of the guiding we just given to focus on further growth in Europe. We will continue to do acquisitions like the three we just passed, important type of software that has the same characteristics with the same long-term revenues, includes software that we can add to our current contracts with current customers without tendering.
By doing it that way, we are sure that we could continue with the predictability on the organic side while adding important acquisitions, as you see from our history. Since we see, when we look at the competition worldwide, there are not that many companies that have the same type of strategy that Omda has. When it's to focus on these deep-diving niche components inside complex areas, I think we still have the possibility to become a leading player worldwide when it comes to handle and deliver these software types and create a larger portfolio of business units doing exactly that. To continue to perform the right way based on our current platform into 2025, we will focus on those four boxes you see down to the right here. What are those? First of all, organic growth is, of course, very, very important.
We have got a lot of questions about how and what is actually organic growth in our business. That is why we will go back to that during the financial update to focus on explaining the organic growth as part of our business plan, which is very important when you look at Omda in a perspective of 20 years back and 20 years ahead. We will, of course, focus on profitability. On the other hand, it is now a delegated action plan in each business unit handling profitability. A portfolio of 10, working day-to-day specifically with a budget and controlled by a monthly run rate, gives us comfort that the profitability will increase as planned and as guided in the 20th of December and as guided today. Then cash discipline.
You have seen a successful ending of a task list for each business unit manager to actually look at what can we do to get a better cash discipline, a better net working capital, and a better cash situation. That is shown in the report, and we'll also go into that in this presentation because that is important as well. The fourth box, which is the DNA of Omda and the whole point, is to get hold of a lot of interesting components into highly specialized areas in healthcare and emergency and put those together in our current organic platform. We will continue to do that as the most important growth part of Omda in the next leg of 20 years.
Having summarized everything here from the guiding specifically of our short-term 2025 to 2026 and now to 2030 to 2035 and as a long-term strategy, I would give back the word if you're still awake, Einar, to go through the financials.
It's hard to go to sleep when you have such an exciting report to present. All right, let's go through all the juicy numbers. This is an old classic. It's the revenue diversification. On the left there, you see we are diversified into six business areas, and those business areas are further divided into business units, so a total of 10 business units now. Emergency, which comprises four business units, is still the biggest business area. Almost half of our sales come from that business area. You see Connected Imaging and Limbs growing and also Women and Child.
There is a close tie between health analytics and medication management. We are still very much a Swedish company, almost half of the sales and employees, for that matter, are in Sweden. Norway accounts for one-fifth of the sales, and the rest of the world is now the third largest country, if you like. That is how that is. Look at this, the recurring revenues really keep increasing and reaching a new record of NOK 86 million in the quarter, and that translates into an annualized run rate of NOK 345 million. As you can see, we have been increasing steadily over many, many years since 2017. The revenue mix is also a very good one in the quarter.
At first glance, you may see that, oh, recurring revenue, the proportion is reduced as a percentage of total revenue, but do not be fooled by that because, as you see, it has actually been increasing from 81% to 86%. It is on a record high. It has never been higher. The reason why the percentage is slightly lower is because professional services has increased markedly. It is one of the best quarters ever. That is also what we said we would focus on, and we can see that we succeed on that one in the fourth quarter. This is a rather busy slide. Let me try to decipher it for you. You can see there the FTEs, full-time employees. I see that they are becoming right-sized, and you see that they are coming down from 283 in the fourth quarter of 2023 and down to 268 now.
From last quarter to the third quarter in 2024, from 271 to 268. That does not look like too much, but keep in mind that we have at the same time acquired Predicare. They are included in the numbers. The real reduction is actually camouflaged in those numbers. You can also see that we have some restructuring costs. Why do we have those? The restructuring, they are related to people that are released from the duties in the fourth quarter, and the cost is no longer in 2025. That is also keep in mind that it is not like the run rate is like just removing the restructuring cost and saying that, okay, the rest must be the run rate going forward.
That is not what it is because all the people that were released from the duties in the fourth quarter, all the cost is still there until the very last day of September. All right? They are included in the fourth quarter as ordinary cost, but they are excluded when we head into 2025. We have a much lighter rucksack when we walk into head into 2025. We will continue to trim this to right-size the number of employees. Okay. You see the other costs there, like the COGS and other OPEX. COGS is slightly higher this quarter, and that is because of a large hardware order in Emergency in the fourth quarter. No trend changes there. Other cost is also actually within the guidance of around 15% of total sales, but we think there is still room for improvement there.
Do not be too surprised if it keeps falling. Okay, the EBITDA. The adjusted EBITDA is fully in line with the guidance we gave you on the 20th of December. What we have removed are the restructuring cost and other non-recurring cost items. The run rate cost is significantly lower heading into 2025 than they were exiting. Also note that on the EBITDA, when you compare, if you compare apples to apples, this is slightly apples to pears, but some sort of fruit. The CapEx related to development of IP is very much lower, 2.3% lower in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to the fourth quarter of 2023. The distance is not really as large as you think if you think of cash EBITDA or EBITDA-wise.
Speaking of CapEx, CapEx is first and foremost related to development of the IP, but there is also some other PPE CapEx. You can see that total CapEx and development CapEx is coming down in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to the same quarter last year. Down from 13% to 10%. That is what we are showing you, but nothing that should be new to you. PPE CapEx typically hovers around 1%, sometimes a little above, sometimes a little below. On the development CapEx, we have said before that the risk is probably on the downside. We have continued to guide on 10% of total sales, but the risk may be on the downside, so to speak. Okay, working capital. We said for the last few quarters and in the December update that this is a very strong focus.
We are focusing on anything and everything that has to do with cash, including, of course, networking capital. Our target is to be at - 10% or better. We ended up at - 31% in the fourth quarter, which is actually a record high or low, if you like, for Omda. Very happy with that. This is due to all the ongoing work, nothing revolutionary here. We ended up, as you probably noticed, if you look at the balance sheet, with the cash position that we guided should be on par with the same quarter last year, actually slightly better. Again, comparing apples to apples, keep in mind that the neutral position would be to deduct the dividend of approximately NOK 10 million, buy back our own shares, and then the cash we paid out to the former owners of Predicare.
That is NOK 30-35 million. Actually, there is an improvement there from what would have been a neutral position. That is, of course, how can that be? You are looking at it as improvement in networking capital management. Speaking of cash management, we will continue to focus on that. It may, again, it can go up and it can go down, but we will continue to focus on cash management. There are no secrets in the source. Counter-receivable invoicing practice to invoice any annual recurring revenue annually or semi-annually or quarterly, anything you can do to invoice it upfront. Supplier terms, and we will continue to manage other costs effectively as well. That is that. Let us take a closer look at organic growth. We have had some questions about the organic growth. Sometimes it looks good, sometimes it looks less good.
Why the highs and why the lows, and how can we explain this, and will we shift the guiding, and what can we expect going forward? This quarter, you know, uplifting this quarter was disappointing, and so the story goes. What you see in front of you is the next step from the quarterly report and the table there that we're just taking a copy of. This is, you can see the organic income, EBITDA, OPEX, and the organic growth on the quarter and the last four quarters of a year sorted by the different business areas. You see some highs and some lows. What you can see is Medication Management was strong the last quarter, very strong this quarter, very strong the last four quarters. This looks like a success story.
Why could not all business areas be like this all the quarters? Why could not each day be like Christmas Day? Okay, medication management is actually a very good case study to try to understand organic growth in Omda and in this business. Why is that? The history of medication management is a long one. We acquired that business halfway into 2008, and 2009 was the first full year within Omda management. It has been in the same company, Norwegian part, Omda AS for all the years. There has never been an acquisition within this business area. If we study the business area of medication management, we are actually studying just the organic growth within that particular business area. There has been no noise and nothing to adjust for within that business area.
Let's take a look at that and use that as a case study, and let's see where that takes us. Actually, if you look at this particular business area, Medication Management, and just take a look from 2020 to 2023, it's a rather disappointing picture we're looking at. Wow. From 2020 to 2023, it shrunk by 16%. Nothing to get too excited about, is it? The annual growth was - 4%. We actually had some comments from some investors, looking at us, maybe this business area is too small. Maybe you should divest it. It needs to be turned around. What's wrong with this? Should we merge into another business area? I mean, etc., etc., etc. Again, let's take a look at a bigger picture from 2009 until the end of 2024. It looks quite different, doesn't it? I mean, we quadrupled the business area in size.
The annual growth has been almost 10%, 9.4% to be exact. We have made no adjustments to FX or anything here, so it might be some fine-tuning. It is from 2009 to 2024, so more than just a couple of years. What you see here is that just like you as an investor, when you build a portfolio of stocks, you have different stocks in your portfolio. It is the same thing with us. We have different business units in our portfolio or business units or business areas. Just like the old saying, if you miss the 5, 10, or 20 best days on the stock market, you will miss all the extra performance. Since the year, the success and the growth does not come in small, pre-portioned measures. It is a bit lumpy. You can see that some years are very good and some years are more lackluster, b ut hang in there, apply a long-term view. And by long-term, I'm not speaking about a quarter or two or maybe a year or two. I mean, look at this from 2009 to 2024, almost 10%. So this is also where the 5%-10% value comes from. On a quarterly basis, what you see here, and even on annual readings, they may deviate significantly from the trend. What you see here is the annual growth compared to the trend growth, the trend growth in this business area, medication management, almost 10%. But you see the annual growth there, it deviates a lot. A gain, the signal and the noise, and beware of the noise because it can be very misleading if you try to analyze the business. Okay, but this is also why we continue to guide on 5%-10% because that is our experience.
All the other businesses that we have acquired and also all the reports that we have from outside, they point to the same annual growth. This is what you should expect long-term, but not each and every quarter, all right? Okay. Excuse me. Based on this, we will continue to focus on what we set out to do when we IPO'd and each day and each week and each month and each quarter. We will continue to focus on what we said we would focus on, on this large market with natural structural growth. We will continue to focus on specialized healthcare for emergency and clinical disciplines. We will continue to address a public sector or public sector-like customer base with stable and predictable recurring revenues and with low churn.
We will grow as fast as we can organically, 5%-10%, but maybe not each and every day. We will do acquisitions. We will strike when the opportunity is there. I can promise you, when opportunity knocks, we will not get to the noise. We will act. We are in no hurry to do bad deals. When we have the opportunity, as you saw in the fourth quarter, we announced three deals. Will we announce one in the first quarter? I don't know. In the second quarter? I don't know. As soon as we have something and the opportunity is there, we will strike. To sum it up, in Q4, we completed the restructuring of Omda. We think we are now all ready and ready.
The key numbers, they are in line with the guidance we gave you on the 20th of December. We are thus heading into 2025 with a very comfortable run rate on the income side and on the cost side. We will continue to focus on organic growth and on the EBITDA margin and on the cash EBITDA margin and on cash in general. We will ensure that we will work hard and diligently to integrate in a good way, decentralize, but still able to achieve the synergies that we identified during the deed process. All the acquired entities will make sure that they are integrated efficiently. Last but not least, we will continue to explore the M&A opportunities out there. Okay, that was it. I think it's now ready for Q&A. Let me bring up my screen here to see if there are any questions.
Yes, there are currently three questions. While we attend to them, if you have any other questions, just type them in and we will attend to them as we go along. The first one here is from Oliver. The question is, and this is for you, Sverre, do you factor in further cost-cutting or restructuring in order to reach a 2026 margin target, or can it be reached only through operating leverage? What can we say?
Well. That is a good question, and it is definitely the latter. It is going to be handled only through the ordinary budgeting and the ordinary operations we have because there is only one activity that is ongoing that has been part of the restructuring, which is phase-out of external consultants, which is planned in every project and also be ended in June.
That is why we guide on 20% in the first half year and 30% in the second. How we see it, the ordinary budgeting process in the autumn 2025 will be an ordinary operational task for every business unit leader in 2026 without any new restructuring activities. As we see it, as a present to ourselves in our 20th anniversary, the restructuring is actually done and ordinary operations will be ongoing. Obviously, if we acquire something big at some point in time, we have to look at the new picture. When you ask the question about our current operations, including the current acquisitions we made, we will stick to an ordinary operational mode in 2025 and 2026.
Okay. There are three questions pending. Type them in if you have any. We will continue with one other question that relates to the organic or the operational side. This is from Emilia, and it's about organic growth. I think you can start on this one, Sverre, as well. You reported slow organic growth in 2024. Can you help us understand the main drivers behind this? The mix of price increases, upsell, and churn, and how we should think about growth in 2025. I tried to explain a little bit about this earlier . There are naturally no variations there, but are there anything in particular that you can point to?
Yes, you're quite right in measuring that specific thing for 2024. It is low, yes. Then again, we also clearly stated what has happened with almost half of our business Emergency, which we performed very bad on the top line in 2024, especially initially in 2024.
The most important thing here, that I would say will be the main driver for 2024, which is not there in 2025, by the way. The reason is not related to our software business. Please remember, our software is increasing, recurring revenue is increasing. This has been about large projects in 2023 compared to 2024, which is not there. When you do not reduce the cost related to a lower income stream, that is what is happening in what happened in 2024. The reason behind, of course, the restructuring also is to secure that the decentralized mode makes it easier for us to measure the growth and the cost side. It is not a trend, as Einar showed you in the graphs about organic growth. There is no trend, a negative trend on the software side in our customer market, it's quite the opposite.
If you look at the absolute numbers we are guiding on today, you will see that the growth is healthy in 2025 based on the run rate and what we know about operations today and also for 2026.
Okay. There are two more questions that are pending and one related to M&A and one on networking capital. I'll take the one on networking capital first. This is from Oliver. The question is, Omda networking capital performance seems almost exceptionally strong in Q4. Is this mainly the result of structural networking capital improvement measures, or are there any particular cash flow timing elements we should be aware of going into the first quarter? I went through some of the elements. By and large, it has to do with focus. As we discussed in the third quarter, we said that there were NOK 10-20 million in account receivables, delayed invoicing, etc. Discipline and structure. Most of this is related to discipline and structure internally. There always has been, and you can see that on past reports, there is always, do we invoice in the fourth quarter or do we invoice early in the first quarter? - 31% is strong, yeah, by any standard. It is not like we have never been in that territory before. If you look at the first quarter 2020, I believe you see - 26% in the first quarter. We have been in this territory before, and we had questions, why cannot you come back there around that level? I mean, that said, - 31%, it is not where we can maintain a position. There will always be seasonal fluctuations there.
We said that we will be at minus 10% or better, but do not expect minus 31% to be a sustainable level for all quarters. That is not what we said. By and large, we have just focused more on this and we will continue to do that.
Okay, another question, I think this one is for me as well. That is related to M&A and settlement of transactions. The question is, will future M&A deals be made with a lower proportion of stock and more cash given increased profitability? What are your biggest worries going forward? I think maybe you can take that. I do not know if that is related to M&A or in general or if it is life in general. The settlement of M&A, I do not see that we will settle them with shares right now.
I think we discussed this also when we announced the Predicare deal and on the business update and on Q3. It was a bit exceptional. As long as the share is trading so significantly below what we think is the intrinsic value of the share, it makes little sense of settling in a transaction in shares. We would rather be using cash or other means of financing. You have seen on the past couple of acquisitions that there are other ways as well, seller credit, earnouts. We will find a way. Shares at this level is definitely not the preferred option. The biggest worries going forward. I am actually quite optimistic about the future. What are your worries, Sverre?
Well. I have been worried before, but I am not worried. If this is related to our complete business, I would say that our current organic business is extremely stable, easy to predict, and very strong. Into the run rate we have analyzed in this quarter, in the first quarter, we see that we are quite comfortable. When it comes to M&A, it has been worrying a couple of years ago that the prices of some of those targets we wanted to acquire have been high due to, I think, the market looked differently after the IPO and some years after. While now, I think that trend is the opposite way, actually. I cannot say I'm worried. I think, to put it, conclude easily here, the organic growth is quite predictable and safe. I think the trend on the M&A side is actually in our favor.
All in all, the answer to the question, I'm not worried, that would be the precise answer, actually.
It's good to be precise if you can. Okay, there's one more question. We'll attend to this question. If you have any more questions while we answer this one, please type it in. If not, we'll head right into it. I think this is also for you, Sverre, it is about headcounts and FTEs. I don't know how precise we can be. The question is, can you quantify the planned headcount reductions in 2025? How many of the reported FTEs are external consultants that you expect to cut in H2 2025? I guess this is, first and foremost, pertains to the remaining SABU consultants.
Yes, so the numbers we published and we talked about in our recent quarterly reports is that we had around 50, just below 50 employees in the Philippines. 20 was released on the last day of the third quarter. We entered into the fourth quarter with 30 employees, which is still part of the headcount. In June, they will no longer be part of our company. As I mentioned initially, the project, the way that is done, is ordinary operations and ordinary phase-out of resources related to current ongoing projects. In parallel, we've also included in our run rate the necessary employees that we have to add to the equation due to the complete insuring of our business. All in all, that is a part of those numbers that we presented in our guiding.
All in all, the specific answer to that question is 30 related to that part, but there's also some others, a few, a handful that is consultants in the first half year that will also be phased out before the first half year is over. All in all, that gives us the predictability also on the cost side for the second half year.
It's like a recipe is to maintain increased revenue and keep the cost in check?
It could be an idea, well.
Okay, there's one more question. This one also relates to M&A and the M&A and the competitive landscape within M&A. The question is, how do you plan on competing with other big European VMS acquirers for acquisitions in geographies other than Norway and Sweden? Can we compete, Sverre, or what can we do?
Yeah, I really like that question. It's an important question. It's not only related to Europe or worldwide because it's the same, of course, in the Nordics. We have a lot of serial acquirers in the Nordics as well. I think the same thing applies if you look at what are the contents of Omda. If you look at the recent three acquisitions, who would like to compete to get hold of such small, important, but very complex dedicated companies like that? They fit extremely well into our business model with a lot of synergies, sharing contracts and customer components. I think that highly specialized approach that we have, we have seen that not many private equity companies would like to compete. They are too small or too specialized.
Many of the serial acquirers also look at them and say, maybe they are too complex, maybe there's more difficult in a generic serial acquirer context as well. It is not that we do not have a dialogue with a lot of European and worldwide companies at the same time. We foresee that we are a very good home for a lot of those companies in Europe and worldwide. We think we have the same strong position as a good serial acquirer for that type of highly specialized entities. I am quite happy and not worried there either.
Okay, good. There are two more questions. One is related to organic growth. You can answer that one as well, Sverre. That is organic growth in Emergency. What on earth happened to organic growth within that business area?
It is quite simple. The main thing is actually that you had a lot of implementation projects with a lot of resources invoicing processes there. The year after, you didn't have those. Without the ability in that large non-decentralized organization, we're not able to quickly enough do what they should do with the cost base. It is actually as simple as that while the software is still increasing. All in all, it has to do with consulting services.
Again, some statistical noise, nothing structural wrong. Okay, one last question. This relates to artificial intelligence. Is that an opportunity for us, Sverre, or is it a threat, or is it both, or what are we doing? Any thoughts on AI, headwind or tailwind?
Yeah, I think it's actually very important what's going on with AI. I think there are three action points for Omda, which are ongoing. To start, one is obviously the administrational parts that we were already using and have been using for a while, the tools to get more efficient when it comes to our administration. That has been ongoing for a long time. You have the coding because we could reduce, and that is part of our insuring project as well, using AI tools much more now to create code and also to maintain code. Reducing vastly the cost base related to coding. That is also a part of a combined effort between our centralized competence in these areas and also with the business areas. The most important is the third one is we are developing AI functionality that we deliver to our customers. We have recently mentioned the cooperation with the University of Barcelona, where we have delivered AI within emergency.
As you see from the acquisition we made, Dermicus added to our Connected Imaging area, it is also an AI-based, very intelligent component added to our stack. All in all, we have a lot of initiatives going on within AI, and we think that is good for Omda going forward.
Okay. Only a couple of minutes left and no more questions. It seems like we will end on time. Seems to be no more questions. We hope you have enjoyed this presentation. Until we meet again.
Appreciate this. We have set the sails. We have cut the ropes. You better get on board because we are on the move and all ready to embark on the next leg of the exciting Omda journey. Tune in again on May 14th, and you will see how far we have come on that next leg of the journey when we will present our report for the first quarter of 2025. Thanks for watching. Take care and stay safe.