Hello. I would like to welcome you everybody to today's investor presentation to AddLife. It's 10 o'clock, so I think it's time to open up a presentation for some 20 minutes, and then, of course, we are open to do any Q&As. I am the speaker today, Kristina Willgård, CEO. In the room we also have our new CFO, Christina Rubenhag. I will try to do also all the financials today. If you have any specific question, she will be available to answer those in the end. We have today released a report with the headline, A Quarter in Change. I think that's what we all have seen happen in this quarter.
Just as we have expected, the COVID sales would decrease one day, because we knew that the pandemic will sort of fade out, and that actually happened this year in Q2. When you compare quarter to quarter, we realize that the comparison quarter Q2 2021 was the strongest record quarter we have had when it comes to COVID sales. We see a big drop, of course, in COVID sales in the quarter. It's actually 88% down. On the other hand, we see also a growth that is coming specifically from the acquisitions we have done. Also, when we look at our existing companies, we see a growth due to increased elective surgery in the market.
We also see a comeback in the home care market, where we have opportunities to meet customer, do tryouts, etc. . We also see that more general research is coming back also in this quarter. The organic growth excluding COVID was 4%, a little bit higher in our Medtech business and 3% in our Labtech business. We have completed two acquisitions in the quarter, and we did a small acquisitions on the first of July, also in the Q3 quarter. Net sales ended at SEK 2 billion SEK. It was a decline of 9%. Our Adjusted EBITDA came out on SEK 240 million, which gives us an EBITDA margin of 11.6%.
If we go specifically again into the COVID, because I think the COVID, what's happened in the COVID market is really what gives the big change in this quarter. I think we have tried to be as transparent as possible during the last two years. You really see in this graph that the big volumes we had during Q4 2020, Q1 2021, and Q2 2021, we are not even close if you look at the quarters right now. That is actually what happened. We have, of course, less testing in our diagnostics companies from the COVID during the quarter. I think more or less all countries has decided to decrease the testings. If you look at the market as a whole, I would say, what happened in the market in the quarter is that it has normalized.
We see that we have been able to meet with the customers again. We have been able to to have meetings. We have been able to be at different fairs. We actually see an increased activity in all our subsidiaries during the quarter. Since infection rates hasn't really sort of come down to zero, we also see in the end of the quarter that the infection rates in the COVID has actually made that the recovery in surgical field hasn't been as sharp as we would expected. It has been a slower pace in the recovery. On the other hand, of course, it has increased a lot compared to last quarter, but still it's a bit hesitant.
Coming back to sales in the quarter, we see that the net sales came out, as I said, on SEK 2 billion, and you see the bridge on the right hand. The upper side is the quarter bridge and below you have the year to date figure. In this quarter you see that we have organic growth of SEK 63 million. We have SEK 300 for acquisitions, but a drop of SEK 600 in the COVID sales was, of course, very difficult to compensate for in one quarter. Long-term, though, I think if you look at the year to date figures, we really see that acquisitions we have done during the last years and the acquisitions we have done in this year really compensates the drop in the COVID sales. That has actually been the strategic idea we have had throughout the last two years.
That has been one of the main reasons why we have dedicated a lot of effort to do strategically right acquisitions to compensate for the expected drop in COVID sales, which happened right now. Looking into our Adjusted EBITDA in the market, of course, it was a hit in this quarter, due to the factors I tried to describe. We come out with an Adjusted EBITDA margin of 11.6%. And year to date, we are coming out in a margin of 14.5%. If we just talk a little about the global economy, we all know that we have the awful war continuously in Ukraine. We see increased inflation, we see increased prices. There are still a lot of difficulties in sourcing and supply chains.
What I would like to emphasize is really that our subsidiaries have been extremely successful in transferring the price increases towards our customers. Actually, in both business areas, we see an increased gross margin in the business. Coming mainly, as I said, from price increases, but also from a change in the product mix. This quarter, we have more of a sales of instruments to elective surgery, which have higher margin than other medical disposables or medical products that we have been able to sell during the last two years. That's why we have a better gross margin, which I'm very pleased to see. I would say, looking ahead, I think really we have good chances to increase the margins even further.
Even though it will be a challenge, of course, which is really dependent on what's happening in the world economy, and inflation rates. Coming back to our model, I think we have shown YoY the strengths we have in being very able to take on changes in our market environment. A few words, though, in our Labtech business. Yeah, the significant drop of COVID sales was, of course, here, where we had the big drop in the diagnostics field, close to SEK 500 million, sorry, drop in sales. On the other hand, we saw also organic growth coming back. We could always argue if it was possible to get more organic sales already in the first quarter. I think it.
We have to realize it takes a little bit time for our customers to change from the COVID testing to other testing. We are working really hard with all customers to make sure that they use the install base of instruments to do other tests going forward, which will hopefully see a higher growth rate in next coming quarters. We have done one acquisition in the quarter. It was BioCat, a research company. After the quarter, we did JK Lab Nordic, which would be a small add-on to an existing Swedish company. All in all, we had sales of SEK 786, and the EBITDA margin came out close to 15% compared to the very strong margin last year of 23.9%. We have, as you know, also a lot of details discussing the diagnostics and the research.
I think I've mentioned most of it. As I said, we see high activity in the market, that more traditional sales is coming back, but it will probably take a few months until we really see it's up in normal pace. What I think was very positive from the research side was that we saw a much higher demand, both for normal research reagents, not only research reagents for sequencing of the COVID-19, but we also saw a big interest in our instrument product portfolio. Thus, we see that we have longer lead times from our suppliers when it comes to installing these instruments, but the pipeline really looks good here. We have a high interest when it comes to specific microscopes to really advance research for many customers.
A few words in our Medtech business as well. The Medtech business in the quarter, of course, we saw that operations, elective surgery coming back strong in many countries, both in April and May. I would say in the last 10, 15 days of June, we saw it slowing down a little bit again. That was, of course, driven by the return of higher infection rates. As I said in the beginning, number of surgeries really need to increase even more to take care of the enormous queues. We still are facing a lack of personnel resources at the hospitals in most European countries. That's why we can't really see the high pace coming back as we all want to see it. We have had one add-on acquisition in the quarter.
It was O'Flynn Medical in Ireland, which are fully integrated now into Healthcare 21 in the quarter. Summarizing Medtech, its sales up 17%, SEK 1.3 billion. We have an EBITA of SEK 129 million, which gives us a margin of 10% in the quarter. A little bit more details in Medtech. As I said, elective surgery and resumption takes a little bit longer time. What I haven't mentioned so much is actually home care. We see good opportunities in the home care right now, which have big interests and big strong growth in, I would say, more or less every company here. What we think is very interesting is really the high interest we have when it comes to our digital solutions.
We have also in the quarter now integrated Telia Health Monitoring that we acquired last quarter into our own companies, and we have continued to develop our digital self-monitoring systems in the quarter, and that is something we will continue with for a number of quarters coming forward. In this quarter, we have put in SEK 11 million extra in development cost in the results in the quarter. You can see here also in the Medtech, we haven't got any COVID sales at all, neither in last quarter and not in this quarter in 2022. The acquisitions we have done so far this year is five acquisitions. They together add some SEK 855 million on full year revenue, and we have added totally 355 new employees to the group.
Talking about AddLife and the thoughts we have right now when it comes to acquisitions, we are actually working hard with increasing our pipeline of acquisitions. We think it's not perfect timing of doing a lot of acquisitions right now. The work for the continuing part of the year will be to grow the pipeline and to have interesting discussions with a lot of acquisition candidates to continue later in the year or probably early 2023. Where are we when it comes to our financial goals? You know, we have a goal long-term profit growth of 15%. If we summarize right now after this quarter, we have had an Adjusted EBITDA growth of 10% for the rolling twelve months. We still have a very high profitability though. Profit over working capital is 74%, which we have a target of 45%.
The focus now is to continue work a lot with both these targets and specifically with our profitability targets since all of you know that profitability as we measure it really gives us cash flow into our business. I think that is important to generate. If you also look at the quarter results, we did good cash flow in this quarter. A few words also about our full result in the quarter. We have talked about Adjusted EBITDA, and we also see in this slide that we have increased the gross margin. It was actually 39% in the quarter. It's actually an increase of 4% units compared to last quarter, which I think is very strong. As I said, coming back to the surgeries and also the acquisitions we have done and the price discussions in with our customers.
We have increased depreciation of intangibles due to the acquisitions we have done, and you also see that our financial net is increasing, and that is dependent on increased interest rates on our debt and increased exchange rate variances in the quarter on debt in U.S. dollar and euros. Looking at the balance sheet, we have a balance sheet where we see financial net liabilities of a little bit SEK 5.5 billion, and that gives us a net debt to equity ratio of 1.2. We have as a goal in AddLife and always talked about that we would like to have a long-term multiple that is not more than 1.
From that point of view, you realize all that we are now looking forward to work with our cash flow to repay debt over the coming months and quarters. If you look at the net financial liabilities to Adjusted EBITDA, it's now 3.6. I also would like to mention that we have, after the quarter, negotiated our credit facilities. Of the credit facilities, we have prolonged SEK 2.2 billion. Now we have a maturity date in Q3 2025 with an option of extension for another 24 months. This gives us a more long-term liabilities, which I think is very sound in the world economies and the capital markets we see right now. Cash flow, I mentioned very short.
Even though we see that we have had a quarter with lowering our profits, we continues to have a good cash flow from our operating activities, which means that our companies are working hard with both accounts receivable but also a lot in inventory, of course. We are happy to see that we are good at continuously collecting good cash flow from our operations. To summarize, I would just like to mention this is the big quarter for transition. It's a quarter that we have seen would come one day. We all knew that the COVID pandemic would fade out, and it seems to have done it right now.
What I'm very proud of is that during the pandemic, we have really reinvested our profits from COVID sales, and we have been able to build a very strong European platform in AddLife. I'm sure that this, with this, we can deliver a long-term sustainable growth more than our 15% target in the coming years. With that, I would like to open up for questions. Please, unmute. Carl.
Yes, good morning. I have a couple of questions. Maybe if we start with the margin side, which I think is the most interesting part in this report maybe. Especially within Medtech, I noticed that the margins are down sequentially.
Is there any kind of seasonality that has created this effect? I know Healthcare 21 has a large quarter in Q1, but why is the margins down? Is there the freight cost, material inflation, or what is impacting the margins negatively from the Q1 reports?
As I said, one part that is pushing the margins down is the SEK 11 million that we have invested in development cost that hits the margin in our Medtech business during this quarter. That's actually the main answer to your question.
Okay. Maybe I have a question regarding the sales in Medtech because I noticed they are also down somewhat sequentially. Is that due to Easter, or is there any other seasonal effects impacting?
Yeah, partly we have had the Easter, but that's. Sequentially, as you said, we know that Healthcare 21 always have their very strong quarter in Q1, so that is one of the main answers to that question. So you actually answered the question yourself.
Okay, that's good. Just curious about the digital investments which you mentioned now. When do you expect these solutions to be launched, and can you give some kind of indication of what it could contribute with to AddLife? Because I guess SEK 11 million in development, it's quite a lot for you. I mean, you usually don't do this kind of digital solutions.
Yeah, exactly. You know we had a lot of different discussions long time ago in the board if we should. When we go into the digital area, which I think is very important in the home care especially, going forward, either we buy something extremely expensive, which, you know, these digital companies normally are, or we go in a little bit earlier and continue to invest in development. We choose the last one of those. We bought it a little bit early, and then we continue to invest. You will see that in a number of quarters ahead as well. Actually, we have the first deliveries here in Q3 to customers on this new platform.
Which is very positive, and we have a number of interest from new customers also to get into the platform because it's really state-of-the-art what we deliver in the market. We have high interest, but we don't want to go too broad with the first customer. We start with a few pilots, and then we do step by step. We will hopefully see it coming much more after the summer.
Okay. Is this only in Sweden, right? The launch.
Right now, yes, only in Sweden.
Okay. I just have two more questions. First, if you could give some kind of indication of how much, let's say, freight cost and material cost. Because I noticed that gross margins are quite stable or even up sequentially.
They're quite strong. The OpEx is quite relatively flattish as well. I'm just curious, how would you say that freight cost and material etc. Has impacted in the quarter a lot, or is it a smaller part?
No, I mean, the freight cost and all the costs from sourcing raw material and overall in AddLife, it doesn't impact that much. Of course, in a few companies, it's a bit more complicated. On the total gross margin, we have been able to actually price negotiate with customers, so it doesn't hit our gross margin in the quarter.
Okay, that's very clear. Just the last one then on COVID testing maybe. I think we all noticed that COVID is starting to become an issue again in Europe. What are you seeing right now? Are you seeing increased testing in your companies or what is going on?
I would say, we think it will probably come back a little bit now in the third quarter, but this is very difficult to predict. I mean, it's really up to the different countries if they decide to go for more PCR testing or if they think that even though we see that infection rates coming up, it's like a normal flu right now.
Yeah
They don't do the testing. I think it's a bit about how much they want to pay for having the control over coming pandemic or not. It's a bit too early, but just as you say, it's spreading, and I think where we will see it hits most is actually on the Medtech side, where sort of we don't see that all operations can be done. We will probably see that surgeries will be canceled a little bit now in the Q3 as well because patients are infected and people, healthcare workers are infected. To say how much it's ups and downs, extremely difficult.
Yeah. I agree. That's very clear. I also think that we should see some increase in the COVID testing probably.
Yeah
In the upcoming quarter. Thank you, Kristina . Good answers to my questions.
Thank you, Carl. Do we have any more questions?
Yes. Hi. Aline here.
Hello.
Hi. How are you? I have one question. A lot of my questions have already been answered, but I want follow up on the development costs. You said that the development costs will stay going forward in a couple of quarters, and I just wonder, should we expect it to be the same amount going forward?
I would say close to that amount in the coming quarters, yes.
Super. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Anybody else? I see a raised hand, but I can't see who it is.
Good morning. It's Paolo Cipriani . I have a couple of questions, if I may. One is regarding inflation. Now, you mentioned a bit about you have been able to do price increase. Will you perhaps maybe elaborate a bit more, regarding this topic? I mean, in Q2 now, the organic growth is, around 4%. How much is due to price increase? And, how much also you have in terms of, inflation cost over the 2022? I mean, how much has been increasing the cost due to inflation?
If we talk about inflation overall, I would say on the cost side, I don't think we see that much increases in the Q2 or year to date, June, actually. You know, more than 60% of our cost platform is salaries to employees. During the spring, we haven't had any new renegotiation of salaries. I don't see any high increases, inflation increases on that side. Of course, we see that our suppliers try to, as much as possible, to increase their prices due to sort of increased raw material costs and all of that. We have, as I said before, been able to push that further to a big extent to our customers in the quarter. The inflation hasn't so far impacted us so much.
We are talking about very small price increase at the moment, compared, like, in terms of pricing, so, like, very low single digit in terms of price increase that you are.
Yeah
You are planning.
Yeah. That's where we are.
In terms of Adjusted EBITDA margin, I mean, you still have some COVID sales, but although they are minimal now, if you wouldn't have been these COVID sales, EBITDA margin would have stayed something around 10%-11% without this COVID sale in the quarter?
You mean in our Labtech business?
No, no, at the group level.
On the group level. I would say the margins we have on COVID reagents is the same margins that we have on other reagents. It haven't probably actually wouldn't change. It's actually the volume that hits the margin. We couldn't compensate this high volume in such a short notice. Margin-wise, we have more or less the same gross margin on reagents.
Okay. Basically without COVID, you think that you can keep this kind of level of EBITDA margin of 11%, AddLife's marginality going forward, I mean?
When we have discussed the margins previously, I always try to explain it that after the pandemic, I expect Labtech to be close to the 15-ish%, which I think we saw happen already in this quarter when the COVID sales dropped directly. They are on some 14.9%, I think. I think still we have opportunities to increase the EBITDA margins in the Medtech business going forward when we see that the surgeries really are coming back more.
I think there are opportunities to increase margins further, and I think I tried to say in a lot of calls that I expect it to be more +12% ish margin.
Okay.
Thank you.
You're welcome. I see one hand. Anna?
Yes. Hi, Kristina . I'm sorry if you've already answered my questions. I got in a bit late on the call. Could you maybe tell us a bit on, you know, the sort of going back to more, to higher activity within Medtech, which regions that may be, you know, taking the first steps and which ones are lagging? Just sort of explain the landscapes as you're experiencing it.
The landscape right now is that we see. I mean, we see somewhat a normalization, but we don't see a recovery fully when it comes to surgeries, and the reason for that is that there are not enough healthcare workers, actually. I think we've heard that it's some, I don't know how many thousands of healthcare workers are missing in the healthcare systems in Europe after the pandemic. I think we should remember that healthcare worker worked extremely hard for a number of month, and many of them have chosen not to continue working this, in the hospitals. It's problematic for most hospitals throughout the world to actually recruit new people. I would say it's mostly nurses that are missing.
This is the shortage we see, and that's why we don't see the, sort of the full swing in the surgeries, and that will probably take some time. Unfortunately, that means that the queues are increasing still. The healthcare can't really decrease the queues. We are still on that phase. I know that most countries are working hard with this. They invest a lot of money in it, like they do in U.K., for example. It takes a longer time to come back. As I said in the beginning of the call, we also see the infection rates coming back, as Carl said, end of June. Right now, at least we hear in Sweden a lot about COVID infection.
Of course, people, healthcare workers and patients, get sick, and therefore, we don't do enough surgeries. It's a little bit mixed picture, but we all know that it will come back, but the recovery takes a little bit longer time.
Yeah. There are no COVID-specific countries that are, you know, exceptionally well or quite lagging. It's generally the same picture.
I would say that we saw Spain was extremely strong, April, May. Had problems from mid-June due to infection rates. We saw more or less the same trend in Ireland and U.K. Sweden has been a little bit weaker all the time, unfortunately. Finland has actually been struggling in the quarter with a lot of strikes from nurses. There are a lot of different things happening in the sort of healthcare environment, why we can't see the recovery as fast as we all would like to see.
Yeah, my last question is on the, as you say, you're in a phase of trying to sort of deleverage a little bit, and then the cash flow is gonna be a huge focus. The working capital and, you know, inventory and that aspect, are you expecting that you're currently on a stable level and might be able to release even more cash in the upcoming quarters? Or do you think that you have to have some increase in the working capital inventory, some time ahead?
The answer on that is will be very dependent on how the sourcing is looking ahead.
Yeah.
It's still a little bit. I mean, we haven't really got good control of sourcing and supply chain right now. I think if we stay at this level on the working capital and inventory for perhaps a quarter ahead, I think that's good. We are focusing on this area a lot and I know our subsidiaries do it as well. Of course, we try to decrease inventories as much as possible.
From this level, it's probably gonna correlate to how the market is developing. If it gets worse, you might have to increase it and vice versa.
I mean, yeah. Like all companies, we are dependent on getting the products at the right time to deliver. If that doesn't work as we expect, we sometimes have to have a little bit higher inventory, and sometimes we can live with lower inventory. I would say in general, sourcing in the world is a bit complicated still, unfortunately.
Okay. That's all from me. Thank you.
Thank you. Okay. I think we should end the call. We have had it for 35 minutes, and the ambition was to have it for 20 minutes. To summarize, even though it's a complicated quarter, perhaps because of big changes, I think I would like to emphasize the strength we have built in AddLife the last years and use the COVID profits to be able to have a good growth in the future. I would like also to end to thank you all because this is my last report. My successor, Fredrik Dalborg, will start on 1st of September, and I'm very confident that he and our CFO, Christina Rubenhag, will continue to do an excellent job in taking AddLife further in our growth strategies.
Thank you to all of you, and if you have questions, come back to me. I wish you a great summer. Bye-bye.