Good day, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Ambea Interim Report third quarter 2022 conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be the question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear automated message advising your hand is raised. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to our speaker today, Mark Jensen. Please go ahead.
Thank you so much. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Ambea's third quarter 2022 report presentation. Speaking is Mark Jensen, CEO of Ambea, and presenting with me today is Benno Eliasson, CFO. Last quarter, we provide an overview of our updated strategy. Today, I will present Ambea's ESG work with a focus on social sustainability and one of our segments, Klara, before we present an overview of the third quarter. Benno will then describe the development of the financials for the group and for the different segments in Ambea.
After that, I will summarize the quarter and compare to our financial targets before we open up for questions. I would like to begin with a brief overview of Ambea. Ambea is the leading Scandinavian care provider. We have about 31,000 employees across Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, and revenues of more than SEK 12 billion.
We offer a full range of services within elderly care, disability care, psychosocial support, and staffing solutions. We have more than 450 municipalities as our clients, and we are an important partner in solving challenges in the welfare system. Before we turn to events in the third quarter 2022, let's look at how Ambea differentiates in the care sector. Ambea deliver value and inspire to become the most attractive company in the care sector for all of our stakeholders. Customers, meaning care receivers, their relatives, and the municipalities and society as a whole. Our 7,000 Swedish and international shareholders, but of course, also our 31,000 employees delivering daily care and support to 16,500 care receivers in our three markets.
Last quarter, we explained our updated strategy and how we through four strategic focus areas and our distinct efforts within ESG aim to make the world a better place one person at a time. This leads to our mission to create a safe, secure, and sustainable care for everyone while living our values of respect, knowledge, simplicity, and responsibility. From a distance, care providers can look somewhat similar, but at a closer look, there are distinct differences, and we have listed some of the most important here.
This outlines how Ambea differentiates and at a closer look, can provide something unique. In regards to our shareholders, we aspire to be the most attractive investment in the care sector. On the next slide, we turn to an update of our work within sustainability, and this quarter will focus on the S in ESG, meaning social sustainability.
Delivering high-quality care that's sustainable and sufficient for everyone in society lies at the heart of our mission. Sustainability is therefore an important topic for Ambea, and especially social sustainability as our core service. To improve integration and attract new employees, but most of all as a humanitarian effort, Ambea has been active over a number of years in offering newly arrived people work or internships combined with Swedish language training.
During this year, we have devoted extra focus to people who have fled from the war in Ukraine, providing an opportunity to become established on the labor market. We now have 30 Ukrainians working or performing internships at Vardaga and Nytida. More on the way, and we continue to develop ways in which we can support those affected by the war in Ukraine, as well as others new to Sweden.
The joint movement is important to all of our care receivers. Kongsberg Games in Norway is an annual sports event that aims to spread the joy of sport and physical activities for disabled people. Stendi was the main sponsor of the games this year, and the team from Stendi included Paralympic champion, Salum Kashafali, who by far was the most popular man of the day.
The participants wanted photos and autographs, but the highlight of the day for many was when they got to challenge a Paralympic gold winner in a 100-meter race. The Kongsberg Games was a successful event, and Stendi will continue to develop the partnership. In August, Gloppen was organized in Sweden. Nytida has been a partner of the race for many years. The purpose of this event is to promote physical activity and to provide this opportunity to as many people as possible.
Of course, including a significant number of Nytida's care receivers. As part of our updated strategy, we are working to develop new platforms for recruiting employees. Collaborating with schools and providing internships as an example for assistant nurses and nurses is one way to attract competence. Within Nytida Vardaga, we currently have about 10 coordinators who work to promote school cooperation, something we will further develop in 2023.
In Stendi, we have successfully been working with internships for people starting to become childcare workers and have a good track record in recruiting newly educated to workforce. You will find more ESG examples and key figures regarding quality and sustainability in the quality report. Now, let's turn to quality and the recent public unit survey in Sweden. The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare conducts two surveys every year, a care receiver survey and a unit survey.
In the second quarter presentation, we focused on the results from the care receiver survey for Vardaga, and this quarter we present the results from the unit survey, both for Nytida and Vardaga. The unit survey measures adherence to processes and routines to support good quality. The purpose of the survey is to stimulate knowledge and quality development. It is the local unit that answers questions about its operation. Here we show the average result for all questions and care homes in the survey. As you can see, both Nytida and Vardaga achieve strong results compared to both the public and the private sector. We are very proud of these results because clear routines and processes are the basis for systematic quality work.
The results are presented at a national, regional, municipal, and unit level, so the general public can use the results to compare units, which we encourage and see as a competitive advantage.
Now over to Klara. Today, we will give a more in-depth description of Klara. Klara is a clear example of how Ambea differentiates from other care companies and gives us an advantage. Klara is our smallest business area, but has an important role within Ambea and the care sector as a leading provider of qualified and competent staff solutions within the sector. This includes mobile care teams and employees in student health services and rehabilitation. Customers are both internal and external. Klara also helps us to provide career paths for employees, and gives Ambea an advantage when it comes to attracting competence and as a recruitment source for Vardaga and Nytida.
Klara is also a certified staffing company that supplies temporary nurses, psychologists, and speech pathologists, and the service comprise both long-term and short-term assignments. A large staffing pool is essential for finding the right person for each placement, and Klara has more than 3,000 nurses in its database. Klara also offers on-call mobile care teams for both day, evening, and night shifts at nursing homes. Mobile care teams are also available for day shifts at residential LSS facilities.
The service is offered on a subscription basis. A key group is small facilities that might find it difficult to maintain sufficient staffing capacity. Klara team also has rehabilitation teams with occupational therapists and physiotherapists who work on a consultative basis within elderly care and LSS. Further, Klara provides staffing services and total student health solutions with care provider responsibility for both municipal and independent schools.
The service offering includes nurses, school doctors, psychologists, counselors, career advisors, and special education teachers. Student health service is a fast-growing segment that I will come back to on the next slide. In line with our updated strategy, Klara has both acquired and divested businesses in the past six months. We have grown in student health services through the acquisition of SkolPool in May and divested our doctor staffing business to Adia Group in September. Today, we have a unique market position within student health services through the combined platform of our existing student health business and the SkolPool acquisition. Klara and SkolPool combined now holds a strong position in the student health market and can be found all over Sweden. As seen on this slide, student health services is now a significant part of Klara.
We expect the staffing solutions will represent a smaller share of total net sales over time as we exit the doctor staffing business fully by the end of this year. Doctor staffing had a turnover of SEK 120 million in 2021, but low margins and limited synergies with Ambea's other operations. We have seen strong growth in all business segments within Klara this year and continue to explore both internal and external opportunities. The reshaping of Klara is part of our updated strategy, and we see promising results so far. With this development, we expect Klara to contribute more to the group's results going forward. I hope the run-through gave you a better understanding of Klara and how Klara contributes to the group and positively differentiates Ambea in the care sector. Now to overall organic growth.
In Q3, the pipeline is again growing, and we have more than 1,500 new bed placements in pipeline, most of them in Sweden and some in Denmark. We will continue to work to further develop good access to new care homes to meet the increasing demand and wealthy municipalities. Demographic changes require the construction of more nursing homes and care facilities. We still see an ongoing occupancy improvement within Vardaga, and more openings are planned in Vardaga and Nytida year to go. We actively continue to seek opportunities for organic growth within elderly care in Sweden and Denmark and within social care in all three markets. Let's look at acquisitions. During 2022, we made five acquisitions with an annual turnover of SEK 263 million. One acquisition in February, where Nytida acquired Christinagården.
One acquisition in March within the home care segment in Vardaga, acquiring Hanna Hemtjänst in Stockholm. Two acquisitions in May, Alternatus Familia within Nytida and SkolPool within Klara. One acquisition in June, Reflect in Altiden in Denmark. If we look into the future, we see M&A as a key driver of our growth and as an essential part of our strategy. Ambea has a strong cash generation that gives us the opportunity to seek for bolt-on acquisitions. We are active in all of our markets evaluating potential opportunities for further value creation.
Now to the highlights of the third quarter. In local currency, all segments deliver net revenue growth compared to last year, apart from Stendi. In total, sales grew by 9% compared to Q3 last year, primarily driven by organic growth, but also M&A activities.
Adjusted EBITDA amounted to SEK 359 million, an increase of 4% versus last year. The increase was mainly driven by Vardaga's positive occupancy trend, Stendi's earnings improvement, and the increased contribution from Klara. Our free cash flow increased in the quarter and amounts to SEK 560 million rolling 12, excluding IFRS 16. The divestment of the remaining part of our elderly care business in Norway is ongoing. With the capacity adjustments and all other actions taken during the previous quarters, we can now see earnings improvement in Stendi. Going forward, the execution of the updated strategy will strengthen the profitability in Norway. Vardaga continues to show a positive development in occupancy, and our mature units are now at pre-pandemic occupancy levels. Now over to you, Benno, sorry, for a presentation of the financial summary.
Thank you, Mark. The strong growth numbers we saw last quarter continues, and all business area contribute to the growth like in previous quarter. We are up 9% year-over-year and 1% versus last quarter. Of the 9% in this quarter, 5% was organic, 2% came from acquisitions, and 2% came from currency effects. If we now look into how the different business area have affected the group number, we can see that Nytida is up 6% driven by acquisitions and an increased contract management portfolio. Vardaga increased 13% versus last year. We saw again an increased occupancy throughout the quarter, which is very satisfying from our point of view.
Stendi showed growth in SEK but had negative growth in local currency by 1% as we have adjusted capacity versus last year, and Stendi gradually over the year is leaving the elderly care segment. Altiden is up 12% as an effect from both start of new contracts, increased occupancy in our own managed nursing home, and the acquisition of Reflect. Klara increased 36% and continues with growth in all sub-segments and thanks to the acquisition of SkolPool. Turning to EBITDA. These slides show how different business area have affected the EBITDA of the group. We can see that Nytida had a lower occupancy in some of our own managed facilities, and EBITDA versus last year. EBITDA last year was also affected by government reimbursements.
In Vardaga, we see the ongoing improved occupancy and operational improvements generates a high profitability compared to previous year. In Stendi, we can see that the positive earnings improvement in Q3, the capacity adjustment, and other measures that have been taken during the previous quarters resulted in EBITDA that increased by 20% compared to last year. In Altiden is behind expectations. We saw higher integration costs for the Ekko acquisition and higher staffing costs for start-up of units within elderly care. Actions have been taken in Altiden to improve operational efficiency going forward, and more about that later in the presentation. The strong underlying demand in Klara, as well as acquired SkolPool, has generated higher EBITDA than last year.
The EBITDA in all business areas were negatively affected by higher costs for food and energy with a total of SEK 30 million for the quarter. All in all, EBITDA grew by 4% versus Q3 last year, showing an EBITDA margin of 11.3%. Operating cash flow, excluding IFRS 16, increased a bit compared to the same quarter last year in line with earnings growth. Q3 is seasonally one of the weakest quarters from a cash flow point of view as the working capital reaches its highest point in the end of the quarter. The rolling 12 operating cash flow is almost at 100% of EBITDA. Seen in a longer perspective, the cash flow is very strong and gives Ambea good opportunities for growth and financial flexibility.
This slide shows the way from the rolling 12 reported EBITDA of SEK 853 million to the SEK 774 million in EBITDA, excluding IFRS 16, and the way down to the free cash flow post-tax. We can see, for example, that we have paid SEK 103 million in taxes, SEK 76 million in interest and investments, SEK 99 million in fixed assets. We have also gained SEK 160 million from sale of our real estate in the second quarter and had a negative effect on working capital by SEK 126 million. All in all, we have generated SEK 560 million in free cash flow post-tax based on the old accounting standard. On the next slide here, we can see how we have used the generated SEK 560 million.
SEK 109 million was distributed to our shareholders as dividend. SEK 226 million was spent on the five acquisitions we made the last four quarters, and the rest was reduced on our interest-bearing debts. The increased EBITDA in combination with the strong quarterly cash flow has affected the leverage ratio positively, and we are at the same net debt ratio as last quarter, which is 2.8 times excluding IFRS 16. We have also, after the quarter, closed a loan agreement of a 3+1 years agreement with a limit of SEK 5 billion, of which SEK 4 billion is so-called committed from the bank consortium. Yesterday, we also communicated that we are launching a share buyback program, but more details about that later in the presentation.
If we go to the different business areas and start with Nytida, sales increased by 6%, mainly driven by acquisitions and growth in our contract management portfolio. Own managed homes showed slightly lower occupancy than last year. EBITDA decreased 2% due to lower occupancy rates in some units, but more important, higher costs for food and energy. Last year was also affected by government reimbursement for sick leave costs, which affects the comparison versus Q3 last year, of course. EBITDA in the quarter landed at 17.3%, and rolling 12 EBITDA is still at the high 13.5%. Turning to Vardaga. Net sales increased by 13% year-on-year, driven by higher occupancy and the acquisition within home care.
Occupancy in mature units were in the third quarter higher than last year and shows a continued month-on-month growing trend. Units started 2019 and 2020, which is now included within mature units, had 48% higher occupancy compared to last year. EBITDA increased with 11% to SEK 99 million, mainly driven by this higher occupancy, but the quarter was negatively affected by higher costs for food and energy as well as in Nytida. Last year was positively affected by the government reimbursement for sick leave costs, which affects the comparison versus Q3 last year. Then it's Stendi. Net sales increased by 6% in SEK, but decreased by 1% in local currency. We have reduced our capacity in our own management portfolio in the previous quarters, and we are gradually reducing our business with elderly care.
EBITDA improved significantly by 20% compared to last year, and EBITDA margin was at 10% in Q3 and 4.1% rolling 12. On the next slide, we describe a little bit our work in Norway in a more detailed way. We have since Q4 last year actively worked on our capacity, and that means we have closed down some, we have restructured some, and we have relocated some of our units. We have also renegotiated or handed back contracts to the municipalities, and we have optimized our staff on an entity level to the present demand and structure. We have reorganized on a regional level, and we have strengthened some commercial functions on national level to better catch the demand that are in the market.
We are now ready to act the role as the market leader we are and do it with confidence and transparency towards all stakeholders. We will continue to invest in our organization's ability to deliver top-class services to the municipalities in Norway, and when the time is right, look into selected M&A possibilities to deliver further profitable growth. All of this, of course, in line with our updated strategy. Altiden. Net sales grew by 12% and was affected positively by the acquisition and by increased occupancy in our own managed nursing home. Profitability-wise, Altiden was behind expectation in the third quarter. EBITDA was down SEK 11 million to SEK 4 million. We saw high costs related to the integration of Ecco organization with the existing Altiden organization and higher staffing costs in the contract management facilities.
Maybe more about the status in Denmark on the next slide. We are now establishing a combined and scalable platform in Denmark. In the last two quarters, we have seen higher costs related to the integration and reorganization of the company. At the same time, we have had operational startup issues in some of our contracted nursing homes. The platform that we now are building are based on a number of previous acquisitions and organic growth initiatives aiming to reach critical scale in Denmark.
Without these acquisitions, there would be nothing sustainable to build on in Denmark. The integration of the different organization is relatively complex and will be concluded in first half of 2023. We remain focused and confident Denmark as an important market for Ambea, providing significant future growth opportunities. We have now a strong but rather new management team in place.
The new managing director only started just this week, and several other management team members joined in the second or third quarter or were appointed in these quarters. We remain confident, however, that the current challenging situation doesn't change the attractive potential that Altiden holds. We are working determined and focused to overcome these challenges. Klara. We presented in the beginning of the presentation, net sales, as I said, is increasing 36%, and we are growing in all Klara subsegments thanks to the growing demand and the acquisition of SkolPool. Klara grows on the external market as well as service delivered to Vardaga and Nytida. The strong growth give us the opportunity to gain scale in more geographies, which in return provide better staff efficiency and margin improvements.
EBITDA margin was in the quarter 14.9% at rolling 12 at 9.6%. With that, back to you, Mark.
Thank you, Benno. To sum up our financial development versus our targets, our growth target is 8%-10% through a combination of organic and acquired growth. We have reached our target in quarter three with 10% growth rolling 12. In 2022, we have done five acquisitions already, and that together with strong organic growth have improved our opportunities to fulfill our financial growth revenue target in 2022. In line with our updated strategy, we now have detailed growth plans in place addressing future growth opportunities. Looking at the profitability target, we have a midterm adjusted EBITDA target of 9.5%. Since quarter two 2021, we have seen improving occupancy, which in turn will support an increased margin going forward. Also, the efforts that improve profitability in Norway positively contribute to the margin development of 2022.
We will work with the same effort to improve profitability in Denmark. Finally, leverage is still low at 2.8 in the quarter. This will give us more potential to grow, and we expect that the solid cash conversion will continue, which gives us financial flexibility. That brings us to the share buyback program. Yesterday, we announced that the board of directors in Ambea has resolved to repurchase a maximum of 5 million own shares on Nasdaq Stockholm during the period until the time of the company's annual general meeting 2023. The resolution is made by virtue of the authorization from the annual general meeting 2022 to repurchase own shares. The objective of the share repurchase program is to optimize the company's capital structure and contribute to increased shareholder value.
The share repurchase program will be managed by a credit institution that will act in accordance with instructions from the company. On the next slide, I will wrap up the quarter and give an outlook post quarter three. Ambea is showing good overall growth and good organic growth in the quarter. The positive occupancy development within Vardaga has continued month-on-month throughout the quarter. EBITDA increased despite higher costs for food and energy of approximately SEK 30 million, and we now see earnings improvement in Stendi.
Free cash flow was strong at SEK 560 million rolling 12, which will give us opportunities for further bolt-on acquisitions. With the strong cash flow, we have launched a share buyback program. In Stendi we expect continuous improvements from the activities conducted. For Altiden in Denmark, we have a special focus on establishing the right future platform and improve efficiency.
Cost inflation is a matter of fact, and we are since early this year, working with several initiatives to dampen the effects. This includes investments in central procurement and efficiency, energy efficiency program, staff awareness, and good overall cost control. We have a strong pipeline for new beds and placements, which will contribute to future growth.
This is a pipeline we want to further expand, supporting society to overcome the welfare challenge. At Ambea, we continue to look optimistic at the opportunity to support our clients, 450 municipalities across three countries. Last but not least, I want to thank our dedicated employees for their strong and caring efforts again this quarter. Together, we will follow our vision to make the world a better place one person at a time. With that, I conclude our presentation and open up for questions.
Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for a name to be announced. Please stand by, we will compile the Q&A roster. This will take a few moments. Now we're going to take our first question. The first question comes from the line of Jakob Lembke from SEB. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Hi, good morning. This is Jakob Lembke at SEB. My first question is from Stendi. I mean, do you foresee any further impact from the capacity adjustments that you have done and you have previously also talked about price adjustments? When do you foresee these to have impact?
We will continue to adjust capacity in the Norwegian market according to demand. We have been working intensively to find models for how to be faster in terms of adjusting capacity up or down to the market demand. We believe we have a better model for that now. We see of course that there are demand changes as in any other market in Norway from time to time. Instead of still sitting with idle capacity, we will be fast on our feet, so to speak, to make sure that we have a universe of opportunities that fit the marketplace.
This will be more of an ongoing business, and we think the most of the efforts we have done now to adjust to the existing market reality is conducted at this point in time. In terms of increasing prices, we have renegotiated a number of contracts, as Benno explained, and we have also handed back some contracts to municipalities, some underpriced contracts where the care needs over time proved to be higher than the initial contracts. That has been a good work. We believe that we now are right priced with the contracts that we have.
There will be some also negotiations in the future on an ongoing basis, but we have kind of brought the house in order in terms of contracts that were unprofitable in the portfolio if you look one year back. Also from that perspective, a more like an ongoing business in terms of managing operations in Norway on a day-to-day basis.
Okay. My second question is on inflation. You mentioned that you have SEK 30 million here in this quarter. Looking into next year when you also have substantial wage increases, how do you foresee sort of the balance between potential price increases and cost inflation in next year?
I can take that. It's very hard to say because we don't know so much about the wages for next year in any of our markets. That is hard to say. Of course, we see that the inflation we have this year that this has hurt the business this year is probably not going to be as percentage-wise as high next year. We also know that some of our, for example, rental contracts will be much higher next year than this year. There will be inflation affecting the cost next year for sure. The most important thing is of course our wages level, and that is so far not any.
We don't have any insight into that at this time.
Disregarding what the sort of wage increase will be when they occur, do you expect sort of to be able to offset that with higher prices immediately, or will there be lag effects?
We have in majority of all our agreements with our 450 customers, we have some kind of index regulation, but it different from country to country and from service to service. In some of them, you can have an index regulation for expected wages, and some of them are looking backwards. There could be a lag in some of the contracts for wages and for other types of inflation. There is index clause in the majority of our agreements.
Okay. That's good to hear. Lastly, just sort of on the bigger picture here, I mean, Vardaga has been going in the right direction for some time now, and now also Stendi is pointing upwards. Is there anything else you need to sort of achieve to get back or get to your financial targets of 9.5% EBITDA margin?
Yeah, there is of course also the establishment of the platform in Denmark, which will be an important priority going forward. That will take a bit of time as we explained. We are confident in the market going forward and also in our ability to establish that platform. That will of course also contribute to achieving the margin target. Then it's also about helping the municipalities actually delivering solutions for the care need that we have ahead. There have been an election in Sweden recently, as you know, and many municipalities are now forming the new political reality.
Some of the things that the politicians in many municipalities will have to look at very fast is the demand for more care homes, and especially within the elderly care segment, where hundreds of care homes need to be built toward 2030 to meet a growing need. We are ready to contribute to that welfare challenge and are ready to enter dialogue with the municipalities that are in need. Looking at the demographic changes, there will be much higher demand coming already in 2026 and onwards, which we believe provides a good opportunity going forward. Of course, only if we can establish care homes where the care homes are needed.
Those discussions over the coming couple of years will be very important to meet that increased demand by 2030.
Okay, thanks. That was all on my end.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. The next question comes from the line of Hans Boström from Trinity Delta. Your line is open, please ask your question.
Yeah. Good morning. I had a couple of questions, please. I wouldn't mind going back to your declaration of the 2% margin contraction in the mature known units in both Nytida and Vardaga in Q3. Going back also to Jacob's question about margins and the inflation impact. I mean, apart from the food and energy costs, are there really any wage impact on these margin contractions?
I'm thinking going into the winter, now that we have obviously considerable more heating costs coming in the two coming quarters, is there a risk that these margin contractions will actually increase in the next two quarters for this, those two businesses? On a rather more positive note, I was just wondering about the Klara business. To what extent you, this business meet your own or can feed your own demands for temporary staff?
Is this sort of a business that really fully supports your own needs for temporary staff? The second subsidiary question to that is this business in a position to raise its margins as demand for temporary staff is likely to accelerate? Thank you.
Okay, I can take the first one. When it comes to wages inflation, if that has affected the margins of Vardaga and Nytida. The answer is no. I think that the index, the price increases that we have in 2022 is reflecting the wages increases that we have had in this year. We have had a several year agreement with the unions, which is easier to also handle the index regulation. For the food and energy costs that we have in this quarter of SEK 30 million, you are right that normally you will have a higher energy consumption in the fourth quarter than in the third quarter.
That also are depending on what the fuel prices or energy prices will be in the fourth quarter. I don't have any forecast of that. We know that in the third quarter, we have record high numbers in August and September, and the food prices are probably gradually increasing a little bit throughout the second and third quarter. They will probably be percentage-wise higher in Q4, but the energy price is very hard to predict, because it's on a day by day basis, as you probably know.
To the question on Klara. In terms of temporary staff, of course, we have temporary staff linked to the specific units as one source of staff when needed. Especially for nurses and staff with special competencies, Klara is a very good asset to have in the family, so to speak, as they can provide most of the need to our own units in Vardaga and Nytida. They can support smaller units in the countryside with special competencies that would otherwise be hard to recruit in some of these areas. That's a very good asset to have and something that we see also that can contribute further to the group's margins going forward.
In terms of the ability to raise prices, I would say that obviously, I mean, prices will be raised in this business also with inflation. Here it's also about gaining geographical efficiency. When we get critical mass in certain geographical clusters, of course, we will see a margin effect from that. As we expand our footprint, of course that effect will also contribute to margin expansion in Klara. This quarter was especially good and we have a more positive view on the reshaped Klara going forward. We also have to say that this was a good quarter.
Just to maybe follow up on my, the last point here. I mean, this business clearly is something that across many geographies is doing extremely well. I was just wondering, are you locked into fixed price contracts from a sort of 1, 2, 3-year basis in terms of structured cost increases for your customers? Or are you in a position to raise prices more in line with how demand might be spiking? I'm just curious about how this business actually works from your side.
Yeah, that would be a mix. Some of the contracts, I mean, the nature of this business is that that is often very flexible and relatively short contracts. I mean, that would be a mix of, you know, both an ability to raise, you know, relatively on relatively short notice and somewhere you're locked in, as an example, to annual index adjustments.
Okay, great. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Now, we're going to take our next question. Please stand by. The next question comes to line of Karl-Johan Bonnevier from DNB. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Yes. Good morning, Mark and Benno. Couple of follow-ups to what you've already said. I think if you just could give us maybe a little better view on how you see that 9.5% margin target where you stand for the moment. Given what you have now done in Stendi, what you're doing in Altiden and the recovery in Vardaga, where do you see the support coming from to get up to that target on a group level? What needs to happen in the different units to really support that target?
I can take that. We have now a rolling 12 number of 8.1%, so we are not so far away from our margin target. Of course, we have 4.1 as rolling 12 margin in Stendi, and we have had one good quarter, and we are looking for more good quarters to come, of course. We expect that margin to rise over time, that is needed to have the 9.5% in the group. Also, of course, we are more or less making no money in Denmark, rolling 12. Of course, we foresee to have a positive margin going forward there after this restructuring and building a new platform has been finalized.
These two are important stones in the building. Also, we think that Vardaga has more to come. We still have a lot of units that have not fully ramped up the capacity. We also have a couple of still empty homes that we are paying rents and have no care receivers in just yet. We think that there is more to come from Vardaga as well. With these three steps, we think that in a reasonable time, there is absolutely a possibility to reach the margin target.
When you look at your assumptions for Stendi and Altiden, is it possible to get those operations up to, say, high single digits or even get it up to the group target, or how should we see it?
It depends on what you mean with high. We think that a couple of percentage points up in Stendi is absolutely possible. In Altiden, we are at a lower level, so saying high single digits right now is a little bit tough maybe. We have to build a platform, and we are looking at gradually better margins over time, for years to come.
When you look at your positions in Norway and Denmark, is there any reason, say, when you have yielded those and got the positions where you are, is there any fundamental reasons why Denmark and Norway that wouldn't support those kind of margins?
Which margins do you mean now?
No. Yeah, no, getting up to, say, the level where they should support the group margin targets at 9.5%. I can realize that Nytida Vardaga should be higher than 9.5%, and those are yielded correctly, so.
Yeah. I mean, there's nothing kind of structural that would hinder us from reaching the margins that would be needed to reach the 9.5% in Norway and Denmark. I mean, of course, still, we would like to build somewhat more critical mass in Denmark, also to kind of carry the needed overhead and the needed quality of overhead. Right now, I mean, we are focusing on what we have and making sure that the platform will be solid. But over time, of course, we want to expand further organically and through acquisitions in Denmark, and we need that also.
Size-wise, in Norway, there is no hindrance for Norway to contribute to the margin target as Benno just laid out.
Excellent. Looking at Vardaga, I notice that you still have about 60% of the pipeline without any set opening dates when I look at it. Is that with the kind of good performance that is now coming out of the base and the movement you see in the units you open in 2020, 2021? Is it logical to see that more of those units will be opened fully in 2023 maybe, or how do you see it?
Not fully in 2023. I don't think that, but I mean, we have a number of cases still where there is also a discussion with the municipalities in terms of you know, how and when to open. It's not only about demand, it's also about some political discussions in certain municipalities that we need to get through. Here we of course also waiting for the new political majorities in the municipalities to be established in the beginning of next year to continue these discussions. Not all of them will be open in 2023, we don't believe that. We have quite many openings scheduled for 2024, and there will be some of course also in 2023.
From an opening point of view, 2023, from Vardaga's perspective will be a relatively calm year, and more openings to come in 2024.
Getting those units open where you already are paying rent, so to say, is that largely a problem that will be solved during 2024 then?
That's the ambition.
Excellent. I think the share buyback mandate sounds like a fantastic addition to your capital allocation portfolio. It would be nice to hear your considerations, how you see share buybacks where compared to your previous kind of dividend statement, if that's gonna still be reinforced, and also how you see share buybacks with potential acquisition opportunities.
We are of course not in position to say what the dividend will be on next annual meeting, but there is no signals that we are sending out that dividend policy is not valid anymore. We think that we can reach the dividend policy, we can reach the M&A agenda that we have, and we can also conduct this buyback program at the same time with that strong cash flow that we're now having.
When you look at the loan refinancing that you just did, what kind of covenants do you have in that? Is that does that allow you to go all in, so to say, for the full mandate at this stage? Maybe also what kind of cost levels do you see in the new financing?
Regarding the limits, there is of course covenant in that in this agreement as it was in the previous one, but we have no limitation in the buyback program or anything like that. The margins now are in the market a little bit higher than when we set the old loan agreement in 2019. It's handleable and it's not a massive change from the previous agreement, I can say.
The board and you, Benno, are still thinking that your gearing assumption is still the right one to stay below 3.25?
Absolutely.
Excellent. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. Please stand by. The next question comes to line of Victor Forssell from Nordea. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Thank you. Morning. Hope you hear me well. Starting off with Stendi and the improvement you saw this quarter. If you could just help us think a little bit around the Q4 situation. Is it still feasible given the trajectory here to expect earnings to improve year-on-year even in Q4? Also if you could explain a bit on the top line, I think you said negative 1% organic growth. Just help us think a little bit around that number and going forward, that would be helpful.
Yeah, I can take that one. If we start with the growth, I mean, we don't expect any major changes to the growth trajectory in the short term for Stendi. But we do expect earnings improvement year-over-year, also in the fourth quarter.
On the growth side, is that the most significant sort of drop from these type of levels organically that you say? The capacity adjustment that you've made or, you know, you're quite happy at the moment, but obviously still, you know, just fine-tuning that, how should we look at all that?
We haven't made so much capacity adjustment in the latest quarter. The capacity adjustment were made earlier previous quarters. Of course, we are leaving the elderly care segment, where we left partly in May and partly now in September. There will be the turnover from the elderly segment will be lower in the fourth quarter than in previous quarters because of that.
Just a bit of the same question for Denmark. Quite weak results in this quarter as well, and you come from another weak one in the quarter before. Is it feasible to assume, you know, similar levels now in the coming quarter and perhaps that if we're lucky to see some improvement in the first half of next year? Is that the right way to see it?
Yeah. You must bear in mind that there are strong seasonal effects in Altiden. You have to bear that in mind when you compare quarter-on-quarter comparison. We are also seeing integration costs in the fourth quarter as well and in the first half of 2023. The full effect of this new build company won't show until later in 2023. Yeah, short-term wise there will be still integration costs in the fourth quarter.
All right. Great. Just a bigger picture question. I think I'll try to rephrase it from previous ones. On this balance between indexations, potential ones next year, and comparing that to the obvious sort of cost increases that we will see next year, primarily on Nytida and Vardaga, it would be good to hear what type of efforts and possibilities you have to defend your margins, especially in a scenario where the net balance perhaps could be negative, and also given that you already have quite good occupancy levels in Nytida in general. Any sort of discussions around that would be good to hear your thoughts.
If we look at our ability to compensate for the cost increases, we believe we have a good ability to do that, but there will be some lack in the compensation. As Benno explained, the index clauses differ from contract to contract and from municipality to municipality. Over time, we will be compensated. What can we do in the short term in 2023, apart from what I described of good cost control, energy efficiency, more work on central procurement and these kinds of things? Of course, we can work with occupancy, which we are doing in all our business areas, and that can of course help in general.
There will be some lack in the compensation for higher costs in the short term, but over time we believe we will compensate.
Okay. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. Please stand by. The next question comes to line of Erik Moberg from Berenberg. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Morning, gents, and thanks for taking my question. Just to follow up on capital allocation, your recently announced buyback here, but looking longer term, even beyond that at the annual meeting and your free cash flow generation, I mean, you could essentially buy back 10% of the shares annually and still have room for both dividends and bolt-on M&As. What is your view of being even more aggressive with buybacks if the share continues to be at these levels?
The board have made this decision right now with SEK 5 million; it's 5.3%. Is there room for more to come? Hard to say. It depends on what happens, of course, with the M&A agenda and with other things. As we showed, we have a very strong cash generation and probably there will be more room in the future, but no decision and no directions is taken in that order right now.
Fair enough. One question on M&A. What's your view on the landscape going into 2023? Do you expect a similar rate of transactions as in 2022? What type of assets and regions do you find most interesting?
We believe there are still lots of opportunities for bolt-on acquisitions going forward. We have no other view than we would like to continue the current pace into 2023. We are looking predominantly within the Nytida segment in Sweden, where we have a very strong track record in acquiring and also integrating with success. That's one area we are looking into. We, of course, also having a good look on our updated strategy to see whether there are bolt-on acquisitions in other areas that would contribute to deliver upon some of the strategic priorities, as we have done with SkolPool and Klara this year as an example, and also Reflect in Denmark.
The majority of the focus will be in the Nytida segment in Sweden. As we also explained, I mean, there will be need for more M&A in Denmark. In the short term, we have focus on the existing business. Then of course, when that is in a better position, we will continue our acquisitions also in the Danish market. Then when the time is right in Norway, then of course also there could be good acquisition opportunities in the Norwegian market. Now we have a more stable situation in Norway and also a better underlying structure and profit in that perspective.
Where there will be least opportunities is probably in Vardaga. There are not many elderly care businesses to acquire. In home care, we are very picky and are predominantly focusing on the Stockholm region as the only kind of target market.
Understood. Thank you very much. That's all for me.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. Please stand by. The next question comes from the line of Kristofer Liljeberg from Carnegie. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Thank you. Coming back to Vardaga margins. My question is, do you think further increase on occupancy will make it possible to continue improved margins in 2023 despite this lag you're explaining, between the indexation and the cost increases?
Yeah, there is a possibility that if we have increased occupancy still in 2023, that could drive margin upwards if there is a risk of not fully compensating into 2023 in the indexation of inflation, for sure. That is what we hope. We have still a number of units that are not fully occupied, and we think that from this occupancy, of course, that will gain higher margins, of course.
Okay. Thank you. That's all from me.
Thank you. Dear participants, as a last reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad. Dear speakers, there are no further questions. I would like to hand the conference over to Mark Jensen for closing remarks.
Thank you very much. Thank you all for calling in. The quarter four report will be published on February ninth, 2023. I wish you all a very nice day. Stay safe and healthy. Thank you.
That concludes the conference call. You may now all disconnect. Have a nice day.