Good morning, everyone, and a warm welcome to the AddLife first quarter presentation. As usual, we will be going through the developments in the different parts of the business as well as the financials, and after that, we will open up for questions. After the Q&A session, we have prepared a video from one of our subsidiaries, this time around Bonsai Lab. We do encourage you to stay on to listen to that very interesting video. Let's move on to the highlights of the quarter. In the first quarter, we're pleased to note that these high margins continue, and at the same time we are increasing the acquisition activity. The EBITDA margin remained high at 12.5%, only slightly below the very high levels of Q1 in 2025.
In Labtech, which had a really strong quarter, we saw an increase of one percentage point to a 13.1% margin. Very, very strong. On the Medtech side, we were able to retain almost 13% EBITDA margin, even though it's slightly below the record level of 13.5% in Q1 of 2025. The underlying demand in all businesses is quite solid. If we exclude the divested endoscopy business in the U.K., we saw an organic growth on a group level at 3%. It's also worth to note that we had a fantastic finish to 2025. The start of the quarter was somewhat more cautious. Towards the end of the quarter, the demand picked up significantly. We had a very strong month of March.
We are going to talk quite a bit about advanced products in this quarter. We are seeing a fantastic development for a broad range of advanced products, both in Labtech as well as in Medtech. We are pleased to note that since we have been able to reach and exceed our ambition level when it comes to the balance sheet, we are able to pick up the pace with acquisitions, and we have done that in the past few months. We are going to talk today about two acquisitions, one in March, BioSpectrum in the U.K., and one in April, CoaChrom in Austria. With that, I'm gonna hand over to Christina, who will take us through the highlights of the financials. Welcome, Christina.
Thank you, Fredrik. In the first quarter, our companies delivered stable underlying growth. The growth was impacted by significant FX impact, as well as divestment from the endoscopy business in the U.K. in the latter part of last year. If we adjust for the divested endoscopy business, organic and acquired revenue growth was 5%, organic being 3% and acquired growth contributing with additional 2%. Currency had a negative impact of 4% and the divested endoscopy business impacted with negative 3%. The endoscopy business had a full year revenue of SEK 140 million last year. With this being a capital-intensive business, the majority of revenue was in the first quarter. It was about 40% of total year, meaning that for the coming quarters, the impact will not be as big as in this quarter.
The organic and acquired EBITDA growth was 1%. The organic growth of -2% was of course also impacted by the divested endoscopy business. Acquisitions contributed with 3% and currency was -4% in the quarter. Total net sales was -2%. Currency was -4%, and the divestment was -3%. The underlying organic growth was 3%, and acquired growth was 2%. The lower volumes was somewhat mitigated by a stronger gross margin, and the gross margin increased with almost 1%. This is due to higher prices in new tenders, also by diligent price management within the companies and the move towards more advanced high-margin products. Also, OpEx increased in the quarters driven by growth investments for the future. The interest cost was significantly lower compared to the comparable quarter last year, and the profit before tax increased with 7%.
EBITDA margin has definitely established at a higher level. If we look at the last three years, in 2023, full year EBITDA margin was 10.5%. 2025, the full year EBITDA margin was 12.1%. In this quarter, the Labtech margin was a clear improvement year-over-year. It improved to 13.1%, 1% more than last year's 12.1%. The Medtech margin was also at a high level, even though it was slightly lower compared to the all-time high last year. In this quarter it was 12.8% compared to 13.5% last year. Improving the EBITDA margin remains our top priority. Operating cash flow in the quarter was seasonally weak. Cash conversion remained high at about 100%. This is slightly higher compared to where we should be.
Looking ahead, probably the level of 95% is more reasonable. Working capital efficiency, of course, continues to be a focus area. The cash flow was negatively impacted by working capital, SEK -228 compared to approx. SEK -70 last year. The main reason was that the year started a bit slow in revenue, but we had a very strong finish to the year and that meant that accounts receivables was much higher compared to last year. Also, inventory increased. This is more a temporary impact due to timing and when we receive deliveries, etc. Looking at inventory towards sales, last year we had 16% throughout the year.
This year we increased a bit to 17% inventory towards sales, and the ambition is to come down towards the 16% again during the year. Acquisitions of SEK 84 million that relates to the acquisition of BioSpectrum and also announced that has been paid for previous acquisitions. Net debt increased slightly with SEK 85 million in the quarter. With majority of the loans in euro, the main driver for the increase was FX. Net debt to EBITDA was 2.3, clearly below the ambition of being at 3 or below that we set up to ourselves back in 2023. Net debt to equity was 0.7 below the internal guidance of 1. I think we can summarize that the balance sheet now supports both organic and acquired growth going forward. With that, I hand over to Fredrik again.
Thank you very much, Christina, for that comprehensive review of the financials. Now we will dig into the business area update, starting with Labtech, of course. Labtech had a very strong quarter in the first quarter of 2026. The currency adjusted growth was 3%, which is great, growing in line with or above market, I would say. EBITDA margin improved one percentage point to 13.1%, so very strong margin development there. We have a few important drivers of this strong performance. One is the previously won tenders that continue to support growth and margin improvements. On top of that, we can see certain areas that are developing really well. The well-established area in blood gas and the more new and fast-growing areas of immunology and Alzheimer's disease diagnostic are developing very well also.
Advanced products, including genomics, which we're going to talk about in more detail soon, are supporting growth and margin development as well. It's great to note an improvement in demand in the European research arena. We have been seeing for a long time a bit of a hesitation around future funding for research. In the previous quarter, we talked about you know, signs of improvement, and I think in this quarter we can see that those improvements are really taking shape and happening, positive developments in research spend across European markets. That's good news. Something else that's also very good news is of course the acquisition of CoaChrom that we were able to conclude last week. We will get into the details of that very soon as well.
Moving on to advanced technologies, and genomics and gene sequencing, is an area that we're very excited about, and this is an important area for life science in general. It's become an indispensable tool in research, but also in diagnostics and healthcare guiding therapies. It is not only gene sequencing. We're also talking about technologies like single cell technology and spatial transcriptomics that allow for an even more accurate definition of changes and a localization of the problem, so very exciting technology there. These things are really enabling precision medicine with examples such as cancer treatment, rare disease diagnostics, infectious disease diagnostics, and prenatal diagnostics. AddLife companies are active in many markets with these technologies, in Scandinavia, in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as in Southern Europe.
We are representing more than 10 leading suppliers in this area, and the sales are actually around SEK 400 million. This is a substantial business for us in an area that's growing at least 10%-15% per year. All in all, a substantial business for AddLife with good margins, high growth, and significant potential. Moving into Medtech, the revenue development was a little bit slower, but the acquired growth was 2% and organic growth 3% when adjusting for the divestment of the U.K. endoscopy business. In the U.K., we saw a positive sales trend. Capital equipment developed well, and the fact that patient waiting lists are coming down is indication that the NHS efficiency measures are indeed starting to take effect. We're cautiously optimistic about the development in the U.K.
In Spain, we had a solid underlying demand, but the growth was somewhat held back by doctor strikes in February and March. In all, in the Medtech business area, we continue to focus on the work to lift margins in selected companies and increasing the share of advanced products, driving growth and margins. In the Medtech business area, the majority of business is indeed within advanced products, and in this case, specialist devices and equipment. These are advanced specialist products with high revenues per procedure and proprietary consumables and a substantial service revenue. To be able to handle these products and make them work in the hands of their hospitals, you need training and technical support resources, oftentimes clinical and patient-specific support on site. This gives you the opportunity for a differentiated offering and high value proposition.
This represents around 70% of our products in the Medtech business area, on average. The medical supplies, which are more volume products with slightly lower margin that are used in volume during surgical procedures, that represents around 30%. In this area, we try to have a substantial part of that business with own products. Advanced products represent the majority of the product portfolio within the Medtech business area. I wanna dig into one example, and this is Mediplast. Mediplast is one of the biggest companies within our group. They were the foundation of the whole Medtech business area, and so they've been with us since the start of AddLife in back in 2016. They have a very broad range of products. The majority of them today are in the specialist devices and equipment area.
As you can see, a broad range of custom product groups here, described in the slide, they also have a comprehensive portfolio of the more basic medical supplies. They have a high share of own brands. Almost 40% of the product portfolio is actually own brands, and part of that is own manufacturing as well. This is way above the average of the group as a whole. The group as a whole has between 11% or 12% own products, so they are much more than that, and they are quite good at it as well. I want to highlight the transition that Mediplast has gone through because that has been a very important and deliberate move to improve the business.
Looking at the sales back in 2016, more than half of the business was indeed in the more basic product like medical supplies, 55%. Over the years, they have developed in line with customer demand, adding more and more advanced product to the portfolio. As you can see now, the advanced products are actually representing almost 80% of the portfolio. This has been a long and deliberate activity to move the portfolio and build the competencies and customer relationships. It has worked very well. They have grown to become a much bigger company during this period of time. They have raised their margins from single-digit into solid double-digit margins today. A great example of a long-term effort to drive the changing portfolio towards more advanced products with higher margins.
We're super happy to welcome BioSpectrum into the AddLife family. This is a fast-growing distributor of surgical solutions in the fields of urology, gynecology, and general surgery. They serve hospitals and clinics across England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland through framework contracts with the NHS. The portfolio includes single-use endoscopy, which is a very exciting technology, urology, gynecology consumables, surgical staplers, and capital equipment. They are just below SEK 100 million in terms of sales. They are certainly contributing to our ambition to improve margins. They are well above the average of 12%, and they have been acquired at a healthy multiple in the range of seven. Moving on, we are very pleased to announce last week the acquisition of CoaChrom. This is an Austrian niche company specializing in advanced coagulation diagnostics.
They develop and supply highly specialized assays and reagents for primarily hemostasis diagnostics. The company has a really strong reputation for scientific expertise, quality, and service, and maintain long-standing relationships with leading hospitals as well as major industrial clients. This will become a part of the Labtech business. Here we also see a very healthy margin, significantly above the 12% average, and a healthy acquisition multiple also. We're super happy to be able to welcome both CoaChrom and BioSpectrum to the AddLife family. Warm welcome to you all. This takes us to analysis of the acquisition funnel and the acquisition activity. Over 2025 and 2026, we have acquired five companies, but as you can see, the activity has really picked up the pace because in the past five months, we have actually made four acquisitions.
This is a reflection of our increased activity, and we are also optimistic about the funnel for future acquisitions, even though we are picky, we are selective, but we are finding very healthy companies of the type that you have just seen. With that, we can summarize the quarter and the outlook for the remainder of the year. We're pleased to note that the margins are continuing to stay at a high level with significant improvements in Labtech, continued high level in Medtech in spite of a slightly softer demand development. The gross margin has strengthened, which is also a very good sign. The adjusted organic growth was at 3%, even though doctor strikes in Spain temporarily reduced the growth. We see positive underlying demand trends in multiple areas.
Advanced products, which we have talked about quite a bit in this presentation, are very important for us, and they are relevant in multiple areas. They drive growth and higher margins. This together with a strong balance sheet, we can now feel very confident in our ability to improve margins, to grow organically, but also to pick up the pace further when it comes to acquisition. With that, I wanna wrap up this presentation and open up for the Q&A. All right. Well, thanks for listening, and I think we are now ready for the questions. If we can start with Albin, you're raising your hand. All right, let's get started with the questions. We can start with Albin, if you're ready. I see that you're raising your hand.
He needs to unmute.
Yeah. Just make sure you unmute, Albin, so we can hear you. Oh, looks okay. No?
Okay. Can you hear me now?
Yeah.
Yes.
Perfect.
Now we hear you.
Yeah. I had some really bad troubles here with Teams.
Yeah.
The microphone button was off. I also had some bad internet connection, so maybe you answered this question already. Just one on the working capital tie-up, you mentioned it reflecting higher trade receivables here, following a stronger end to the quarter. Maybe if you can comment on what exactly you saw in the end of the quarter and also how that has developed through April. Thanks.
Sure. I can start, and maybe Christina can fill in. That's correct. We did see a clear strengthening in sales in the month of March. That was great. It was maybe to be expected after the strong finish to 2025 that we'll have a slightly slower sales in January and February. March picked up clearly, and that is, as you correctly state, it drove not only inventory, in terms of we're building up some inventory to be able to deliver, but also, of course, accounts receivables. That clearly impacted cash flow in the quarter. It should be noted that cash flow in Q1 seasonally tends to be relatively weak, so nothing out of the ordinary there really. Is there something you'd like to add to that, Christina?
No. I absolutely agree. We can also look at the amount of days accounts receivable, we can conclude that amount is less in comparison to total accounts receivable end of Q1 compared to end of the year. It's really due to an increased revenue end of the quarter.
All right. Have you seen the pickup continue in April, or can you comment on that?
We can't really comment on April sales just yet, but I think we have seen and we have also described a few quite positive trends when it comes to demand that we are observing both in Medtech and Labtech. You know, we see no reason to believe that would not be continued. Of course, we have to keep an eye on the strikes in Spain, and hopefully that will be resolved. That will also have a positive impact, no doubt.
Also just last one on that question. The pickup in March, can you split that between geographies?
I think it was pretty much across the board.
Yeah
To be frank, both in terms of geography and, when it comes to, you know, the companies and business areas.
All right. Thanks. I will jump back into the queue. Thanks.
Yeah. Thanks.
Thank you.
Great questions.
Thank you.
We go further with Philip. Are you ready for us?
Remember to unmute.
We cannot hear you just yet, Philip.
Let's see. Do you manage to unmute, Philip?
Hello, Philip. We cannot hear you.
Now you should be able to hear me.
Now.
Now.
Now we can.
Perfect.
Perfect. I think I had a similar problem as Albin. We were blocked from the ability to unmute. Let's start with capital goods sales in the U.K. Positive signs here.
Mm-hmm.
Could you elaborate a bit on the broad-based? So how broad-based was this? And is the order book supporting a continued positive trend into Q2 and perhaps into the rest of the year?
Well, I think we have seen an increased activity. That is clear. I mean, that's clear from data generally available as well. The number of procedures did increase substantially over, you know, pre-COVID levels. That's clear. Activity picking up. We did see a reduction in the waiting list, which is a positive. We are cautiously optimistic, I would say, about this being the first signs of all these things that has been discussed for a long time, how the NHS can and will and need to pick up the pace. We are hopeful that this is actually the first sign of that actually starting to happen. I think we're cautiously optimistic about a continued positive development.
When it comes to capital spend, I would like to also clarify that as many of you know, the endoscopy business was relatively capital heavy. When we say capital intense sales in Q1, it was much less in absolute terms than it was in the previous year because endoscopy is no longer there. There are other products like various type of imaging products that we do sell. Those were the same. Those went well and we saw an increased activity there. I think cautious optimism about further reduced waiting lists and more surgical activity.
These are activities that support the product portfolio we have, the type of products that can actually help in terms of efficiency in the hospital, in terms of better clinical outcomes, in terms of being able to send the patient back home quicker and so on. That aligns super well with our product portfolio. We're cautiously optimistic. I hope that was an answer to your question.
Yeah, it was. Thank you, Fredrik. Perhaps on the divested business, how should we think about the impact for the rest of the year? It was SEK 63 million in Q1 in impact. Is the rest, so to say, evenly distributed throughout Q2, Q3, Q4? How should we think about the seasonality of the impact, please?
Yeah.
Yeah. Pretty much the same distribution throughout the rest of the quarters.
Yes. Evenly distributed after this. Again, you're very correct. We have communicated earlier that this is around SEK 140 million sales per annum, but we actually saw SEK 63 million in the first quarter. Around 43% of the annual sales happened in one quarter. That may be a little bit of a surprise to some that it's such heavy first quarter and way above the 1/4 that should be logical in some ways. Less of an impact going forward is the conclusion.
Got it. Thanks. Perhaps two more, if I may.
Yes, of course.
You flag potential cost pressure from the Middle East situation, and I understand this will be difficult to answer, but how much is realistically or how much you realistically believe you can push through price increase? What time frame do we talk about here?
Yes, I think this is something we need to be aware of, and that's true for every business, I would imagine. We're talking about freight costs here and perhaps raw material cost that is related to oil and gas prices. I would say nothing that we have been feeling or seeing happening just yet. Of course, if this conflict continues, I think we need to be prepared for a little bit of a cost increase related to those things. I would not be enormously worried about it because I think in many ways it resembles the situation we had in connection with COVID when prices came up due to inflation and so on. During that period of time, I think our companies proved that they were able to handle that type of adjustment very well in close collaborations with the customer. I wouldn't make too big a thing of it yet. It's more that we are aware of it. We're prepared for it. I think we have high confidence in the ability to handle it.
Got it. Thanks. A final one from me. Both BioSpectrum and CoaChrom both came in above margins, or so you say in the report. Are you seeing multiples staying around the historical 6x-8x EBITDA that you guided for, that you pay for? Or is competition pushing prices up? What do you see in the pipe right now for what you pay?
Great question. I think that you are correct. We have communicated around the multiple range of 6x-8x. I think these are clearly in the lower end of that range. We're very pleased with that. These are fantastic companies, well-performing, high margins, and quite a reasonable and fair price tag. I think in these cases, we're both exclusive, so we cannot say that prices have increased through competition or whatnot. Absolutely not in these instances. I wouldn't worry too much about it. We have a good ability to find targets individually or on our own, so to speak. We don't feel an enormous competition here. I think we also have a benefit of being at home in around 30 countries in Europe. Our hunting ground is bigger than for others.
There are many companies that we talk to that see the value of becoming part of AddLife based on our presence and our relationships with both customers and suppliers. Being part of a bigger group with very, very strong product knowledge in-house is a key benefit as well. I'm not super worried about competition, to be frank, and I think multiples are very reasonable.
Sounds good. Thank you very much. I'll get back into the queue and leave room for the others. Thanks.
All right. Thank you very much, Philip. Let's continue. We have Sino, right?
Hopefully you can hear me well.
We can. Wow, that worked quickly. Wonderful. Well done.
Fantastic. Yes, just starting off with a follow-up question on the U.K. Medtech side. You mentioned the positive statistics which are pointing in the right direction. Can you elaborate or you can provide some color on why it's now that we're seeing these positive signs?
Well, I think maybe there was an expectation that this would have happened much earlier. I mean, there has been a very clearly stated, you know, intent and direction from the current government in the U.K. It's been somewhat delayed, but of course, it's the NHS, a big organization. Changing that takes time. Now, in the quarter we did see not enormous, but there's, you know, still a noticeable drop in the waiting list, so that was positive. We also have data indicating that the number of procedures is increasing by around 5% compared to pre-COVID levels. There are some solid data supporting what we are also feeling in the organization.
Of course, discussions with our teams as well as representatives from the NHS do seem to confirm the same conclusion. However, you know, it's not everything at once. It's a gradual increase. It's a stepwise approach, so we do remain cautiously optimistic based on both, you know, official statistics as well as behaviors that we are noticing.
Thank you. Moving over to Labtech with the strong margin there, you point to tenders and market share gains and also advanced products. Can you help us with seeing when we're looking at this ahead, have these new tenders, are they structurally different to how they were in previous years, and should we expect them to continue with giving good support ahead as well?
I think we can expect them to continue to be supportive. We have won over the past few quarters a number of big and important tenders. Some new ones, of course, bringing new business to the companies. Others an update or a prolongation of previously won tenders with updated pricing and so on. I think it reflects our strong service organization. I think we are very much a trusted partner to the healthcare systems. It reflects the value that the customers attach to that, and it's not only around, you know, the price of the product. I think that's very rational in some ways because the cost of having challenges when it comes to these types of diagnostics is way above the cost of the actual product.
There is clearly a value to reliability of product and the reliability of support and service. I think that's one thing. The stable and well-developing business within diagnostics. Some very well-established technologies, but also some that are more recently added, you know, more of a growth phase like immunology and Alzheimer's disease diagnostics that I also mentioned in the report. Of course, quite excited about genomics in general, which we're kind of highlighting here. All of these things contribute with advanced products, with high margins, with an important service component. Finally, the research field, which has been a bit of a drag for a number of quarters.
Research funding in Europe has been a little bit subdued, a little bit of hesitancy around it now. We talked about it in the last quarter that it looks to be improving, and I think that improvement trend we clearly saw strengthening in multiple countries in the first quarter. I think a lot of contributing factors, and I think in many of the companies we have a great habit of cost consciousness, continuous development of the product portfolio, continuous improvement of how we work and efficiency internally and fantastic focus on customer service. All of these things contribute.
Very clear. Thank you.
I hope that was an answer to your question. Yeah?
It was. I'll get back in line.
All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. We have Jakob, right? Are you ready for us? Okay, Jakob, can you hear us?
Yeah. Hello. I think I can speak now, right?
We can hear you also.
Great. First on the EBITDA margin in Medtech, which is down obviously. I know there was, you know, a tough comp. There's probably some FX effect and the divestment. My question is really, do you still see that sort of underlying trend among subsidiaries that you are improving efficiency and margins? Also, when we look into Q2, for example, do you think that we can see margin expansion again in Medtech?
The quick answer is yes. I think, of course we are down from 13.5%, but we have to remember, you know, not long ago we were around 8%-10% margin in Medtech. Now, down a little bit to 12.8% from some 13.5%. I mean, it's not to be seen as a drop. It's more of a I would see it rather as us keeping a very high margin level in the Medtech business. Of course, we had an impact of this divestment and as we talked about earlier in the call, a big chunk of that impact did come in the first quarter and less would be in the coming quarters.
Apart from that, we are driving a number of improvement initiatives which we haven't talked that much about in this quarter, but they remain on track and in a positive direction. I'm talking about a number of companies, but the main, the big ones are of course within the area of eye surgery and home care where we do see a lot of improvement potential still, and we are seeing a positive trend in those activities. That's great. Another thing is of course the continuous addition of new products. In the U.K., we're adding a range of new products that will over time compensate for the drop in the revenues linked to the endoscopy business. That will be a positive. We are adding a number of highly advanced products.
A great example of that is, of course, robotics, which has picked up the pace, you know, I must say faster than I had expected. The companies are doing an excellent job here and a meaningful business has already been established. In combination, you know, the effect of the endoscopy divestment, you know, will fade away. We are working on improvement programs in multiple companies that are, you know, moving nicely in a good direction. A number of new products are being added to the portfolio. Then of course, on top of that, acquisitions as well. I think we are optimistic about the profitability in the Medtech business for sure.
Okay. Sounds promising. Another question on the instrument sales in Medtech, which is also down, and then there's probably also the divestment partly. I'm wondering a bit on what you're seeing now in Q1, sort of if it's more normal levels or if it's still subdued and yeah. Yeah, what you're seeing there.
Yeah, I think you're right. The endoscopy business did represent a big chunk of the instrument sales in the U.K., and that's now out of the numbers. That was a big thing. The other types of capital investment are doing well, and I think you know it looks healthy and a positive development. I don't know if there's something you'd like to add to that, Christina.
No, the underlying, instrument business actually grew in this quarter.
Yeah.
If we exclude the endoscopy, then we actually had an increase. Moving in the right direction.
Great. Thank you, Christina. Maybe that answers the question. Now we move on to Ulrik, right?
Yes. Hopefully you can hear me.
Yes, we can.
Yes, we can.
Yes, we can.
Great. I'm actually just sort of tagging along on previous questions here. A bit of sort of the strong development in Labtech, and you talk about higher margin tenders. I just recall that we talked about this a year ago when you actually-
Yeah
Started to leverage it and get more high margin tenders. Is this a continuation of those tenders or have you been awarded further tenders which have further increased your margins?
Great question. I think in general it's the continuation of during a few quarters we won a number of tenders, you know, sequentially, so to speak, and they're still contributing to improvement. Then of course, we are also winning smaller ones, but there were a few substantial ones that we won that continue to contribute.
Sort of by that fact, the margins that we're seeing in Q1, which were really, like, high, should be able to be somewhat sustained throughout the rest of the year.
Well, we don't see a reason why they would come down. We are always, as you know, cautious about making forecasts or predictions. I think there is no big one-off or unique sale that went through in the quarter that would indicate that it should come down. I think, you know, there's a huge level of stability in general in Labtech, and even more so in the area of diagnostics, of course. Now when we see that research is rebounding and a number of companies have been successful in their improvement programs as well in the area of Labtech, both big and small companies have really picked up the pace when it comes to margins, which we are pleased with. I think, you know, we are optimistic about the development there.
Great. Also sort of tying back to that, Christina, you talked about previously in sort of the introduction about lower volume balanced by higher gross margin from like one part was the higher margin tender and the higher advanced products, but one part was also increased pricing. If you can just sort of talk a little bit about what type of price measurement has been done here.
I think that is actually part of our business model, always working with price. Diligent price management is something that we do on a regular basis. That's probably more, yes, down to normal day-to-day work that our company is doing in a great way.
Absolutely. That means, you know, various ways of continuous updates of pricing, not just once a year list price update, but a more, you know, a more detailed and more thoughtful way of doing it.
Great. Just last question on my end. Like, obviously the last few acquisitions you've done are margin accretive to the group. It sounds like a lot of your segments are on the higher end of the margin spectrum versus group margins.
Yes.
Sort of comes down to what is sort of the current margin development. I know you talked a little bit about sort of favorable trend for home care and eye care, but at what level are we today at and what should we expect for 2026?
Yeah, I think it's like you correctly stated, it's a mix of new acquisitions with you know, clearly high margins. It's continuous addition of new products with high margins. It is true both in Medtech and Labtech that we do have a few companies that are pulling down the averages, and you highlighted two areas that you know, that do pull down the margins, but they are in a positive development trend. On top of that, we have a number of companies that are doing reasonably well but can do better, and we have improvement initiatives in those. We have a group of small companies mostly that are you know, absolutely not at the level where we think they should be.
In those cases, a handful of companies perhaps we have clear initiatives in place, and we are pleased to note that these initiatives are really starting to show results even though we're not where we want them to be long-term. We're very pleased with the fact that improvement measures are starting to show in the numbers. I think there's a lot to work with, both in terms of areas of the business that are, you know, kind of pulling down the average and then constant addition of businesses that are raising the average.
Great. That was all on my end then, and I'll get back into the queue. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you. Great question. We move on to Charles. I think you have raised your hand. Let's see if we can hear you now.
Hello.
Yes, we probably can.
I think that might work.
Yes, it does. Yeah.
Great. Thank you for taking my question.
Hello, Charles.
It's Charles Weston from RBC. I've got three, please. First question on European research improvements. You've been talking about the stronger funding environment. I'm just wondering if you could give us a little bit more color around why you think that's happening now, where the funding is coming from and what it's going into.
Yeah. I think this is a great question. There hasn't been in the European market a strong reduction of funding, and I think there has never been, but there has been a concern about future funding, and that has held back some of the researchers in maybe ordering new instruments, uncertain about the, you know, the next project that they're going to apply for. Is that going to be funded or not? I think that uncertainty has, you know, come down a little bit, so we see an increased activity again. We see, you know, picking up a little bit in terms of confidence to order new instruments and what's, whatnot. So I think that's clear.
It's maybe not tons of new money being poured into it, but rather an increased confidence and the researchers feel that, you know, my next project is going to be funded. Well, in the U.S., the situation is different. We are not that exposed, but we have some exposure in there. Funding has been withdrawn clearly, and so there, for the few companies that sell into that market, you know, that's a clear reduction and a clear drop in sales from that. But in multiple countries, I would say, Central and Eastern Europe and Scandinavia in particular, we see a pickup in research spend, so to speak. You know, that's consistent across multiple companies.
Great. Thank you. Just following up on the previous question around pricing, can you comment perhaps a little bit more on like-for-like pricing levels, and across your portfolio?
Yeah, sure. I mean, I wouldn't say that there has been any dramatic changes in pricing during the quarter. No. We work on that continuously, but there's nothing dramatic that has happened in the quarter. You know, in some ways, we are preparing for you know, the potential risk of price increase coming from suppliers based on the crisis in the Middle East. So we haven't seen it in a meaningful way just yet, but we are somewhat prepared, just like we were in the time around COVID where we saw price increases coming.
I think we feel confident based on that experience and the good discussions we've had internally and with customers with a great understanding of the need to have a good dialogue around this and adjust as needed. I wouldn't say price increases was a major driver in the quarter, but we are prepared in case we need to be, in case we need to use that, if prices do increase at all.
Understood. Thank you. One last question, please.
I have one question I want to add to you. Do you have another one?
Oh, sorry.
Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.
Well, yeah, one more please. You commented that March improved nicely off the back of a weaker first couple of months, which you said perhaps wasn't surprising given the strong ending to 2025. If I could just-
Yeah.
I sort of challenge you a little bit on that. In your fourth quarter report, you didn't sort of call out any expectation that there would be a weaker month or two. Can you just sort of provide a bit more color on perhaps how much of a surprise this was to you?
Well, I think we did notice a strong finish to the quarter in Q4, absolutely. That's a very normal pattern. In some cases it's, you know. It oftentimes is driven by the customer, but then it can be that we kind of sell a lot that's in the order book in December, and then we kinda need to get started again with building a new order book in January and February. These things are, you know, we are, as you know, we're a quite decentralized company. We don't control it in detail. We don't have access to the specifics of each customer and whatnot, so these things we know and see the magnitude of relatively late.
Of course, noticing a big bump in sales in December can indicate that we might have a bit of a slow pickup in January, and that was the case this time around. It has happened before. We did expect you know a gradual pickup in February and March. We did have that. Nothing too dramatic, nothing that we have been pushing very hard, but I think it's a very natural you know cycle of the business, mostly driven by customers with budgets and so on, I would say.
Thank you so much [crosstalk]
It's a little bit hard to predict, I would say. Yeah.
Thank you.
All right. Thank you. We have one more question from Jakob here, right? Sorry if we cut you off earlier then, but you're back again.
Yeah. Thanks. I have two quick things. First, if you can comment a bit on the sort of dynamic when the OEMs you distribute for raise prices that you purchase for and how you sort of can mitigate that or push that forward to your customers. I guess are the prices sort of fixed for your customers and is there a delay effect or is there sort of an ability for you to compensate directly?
Yeah, great question. There are many factors to keep in mind here. Again, we haven't seen this happening in a big way at all at this point in time. But we can draw some learnings from the time around COVID. Price increases came in, you know, and sometimes we also go back and challenge them and say, you know, this is too much, you know. We can't deal with this, you know. You have to think about this again, their supplier. And that usually works, you know, a good and respectful dialogue around what is reasonable. That's one aspect of it. Another is then, of course, the dialogue with the customer. Sometimes you are correct.
Sometimes the prices do not have inflation or a currency clause in there, and then it's more down to you know a negotiation and a dialogue. In that context, we could conclude that in most cases you know the customers they read the papers too. They understand what's going on in the world, so we can very often come to a reasonable way of handling this since we are indeed in a good partnership, and they value the products and the services that we provide. So that's the I would say the normal outcomes of a dialogue with suppliers, a dialogue with customers. Of course, we can always shift pricing as well.
We can always maybe agree with the customer of less frequent delivery, so we can save some money and time relating to transport costs. We can have a good dialogue around various pieces of the cost and price situation. You know, and we have, I think, a very good, you know, and good experience from the time of COVID where this was handled in a good way. There will be instances where we cannot increase price, and then, you know, we'll have to deal with it. In most of the cases, we can. Not a big concern for us, but we also want to highlight that we are seeing it, and we are preparing in the event that we would need to.
Okay. A very good answer. Finally, just I noticed it was other operating income that was a bit larger than usual and also the tax rate looks a bit higher in the quarter. If you can comment on that.
The tax rate was 30%, same as last Q1 last year. It can go a little bit up and down. It's a little bit tricky to set exact one quarter- by- quarter. I think that we had around 30% last year as well as a rolling twelve, so probably that is approx where we should be this year as well. Hopefully going down a bit further on that. I think it's approx in line with what we saw last year. Then operating income and cost, that also goes up and down a little bit, quarter- by- quarter. Just a few pieces from different companies to summarize to that.
Okay. Thank you very much.
All right. Thank you, Jakob. I hope that was the answers you were looking for. Let's see if we have any more questions coming up. It doesn't look that way. So, let's see. No more questions, right? Or did you have a final one, Jakob? No? Okay. Then I think we will wrap up here. As always, please feel free to call or email Christina and myself after the call if you have any follow-up questions you wanna make. But now, again, do stay on to look at the Bonsai Lab video. It's a great video. We relatively recently acquired Bonsai Lab. We acquired that in 2024. A fantastic company with advanced technology.
Here you will hear more about the technology provided and also get some insights from a very important customer of ours at the leading cancer research center. You'll get some perspectives of these technologies and how they can contribute to wellbeing of patients in cases of a serious disease. Please stay on to watch that video. Thank you. Take care.