Good day. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the interim report first quarter 2023 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mark Jensen. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Ambea's first quarter 2023 report presentation. Speaking is Mark Jensen, CEO of Ambea, and presenting with me today is Benno Eliasson, CFO. Last quarter, we gave an overview of Ambea's quality model, and today I'll present Stendi, our business area in Norway, before we get to the financials of the quarter. Benno will 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 12.8 billion.
We offer a full range of services within elderly care, social care, staffing, and competency solutions. We have more than 450 municipalities as our clients. We are an important partner in solving challenges in the welfare system. Let's have a look at some of the reasons to invest in Ambea. Ambea deliver value to society. We aspire to be the most attractive investment in the care sector. From a distance, care providers can look somewhat similar. At a closer look, there are distinct differences. We have listed the most important for Ambea here. The need for care will increase, driven by a growing and aging population. Regardless of the economic climate. We're the market leader in all of our markets: Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. We focus on quality and invest in our employees and our quality system.
We have an advantage through unique solutions in Klara and Lära and well-developed care concepts that create quality and economies of scale. We create growth by actively building up a pipeline of new care homes and through bolt-on acquisitions and through developing new care services. We have a balanced risk as our customers are 450 municipalities in three different countries and because we provide multiple services through five business areas. Ambea also has a long history of strong cash flows and stable dividends. In general, this is how Ambea differentiates and can provide an attractive investment in the Scandinavian care sector. On the next slide, we will go through some of our recent work within ESG. Sustainability is an integral part of our updated strategy.
Our reduced climate footprint and our positive contribution to society within social sustainability through our care services are constant areas of focus combined with robust governance. During the first quarter of 2023, Vardaga partner with the Nordic Center for Sustainable Healthcare in the launch of Grønnrökulta, world's greenest care home. Grønnrökulta is a network and a digital arena for public and private organizations interested in spreading knowledge and sustainable solutions within elderly care. We plan to play an active role in this network and will contribute with our knowledge. We have also signed a partnership agreement with the Swedish Armed Forces. The partnership gives us access to students within the military nursing education, for example, through participating in recruitment meetings and advertise our vacancies on military job boards.
The purpose of the collaboration is to establish a structure for flexible careers, combining service in the military with a career at Ambea. Flexibility is an important solution in the context of a future shortage of care workers and higher need for military personnel. During the spring, Ambea and Norrmejerier initiate a new collaboration to supply dairy products to more than 8,000 Swedish care receivers, exceeding 1 million liters of dairy products every year. Decided to replace all suppliers with active ties to the Russian market as a consequence of Russia's illegal war in Ukraine. This is a part of our work to guarantee an ethical supply chain. The shift to Norrmejerier also gives us the benefit of a lower carbon footprint compared to our previous supplier. With the change of dairy supplier, we are in principle ready with supplier changes due to the war in Ukraine.
Next slide, please. We continue the presentation of our business areas. Today I want to give a more detailed presentation of Stendi. The care market in Norway grew 7% annually during the 2017 to 2021 period and is expected to continue to grow. The main drivers for the growth is the political intention to increase individual care and increased number of complex and chronic diseases and technological innovation that enables new types of care. The private market share is approximately 13%. Stendi is the largest private care provider with almost a third of the private market. Norway is a sparsely populated country with 5.5 million inhabitants and 356 municipalities. The many municipalities have a responsibility to provide care for its citizens in line with the welfare model in other Scandinavian countries.
For many small municipalities, it is, however, impossible or overly expensive to build up the competency needed to provide care for a small amount of care receivers, especially if there's a need for expert knowledge. Here, private care providers have an important role to meet both the care receiver and the society's needs. Stendi has approximately 140 municipalities as our clients today. Stendi has a turnover of SEK 3 billion and is our third largest business area. The operation is divided in three main segments. First, disabled and social care, which is our largest segment. It stands for 53% of Stendi's turnover. The services include person-centered residential facilities and care services for types of complex needs. One target group is people with disabilities, such as autism or intellectual disabilities, where the need for social support interventions is often lifelong.
Other target groups are people with, for example, substance abuse, often combined with a diagnosis. Children and youth is our second-largest segment. It contributes 36% of Stendi's turnover. We offer two main services, foster care and residential childcare homes. Foster care is the most common and first alternative when a child is moved out of the ordinary family. Residential childcare homes are situated in normal residential areas, and typically one to four children are living in each facility in a home-like environment. The children receive daily care and treatment and participate in the daily life, attend regular school, and take part in social activities in the local community. Some units offer short-term placements, while others are designed for long-term placements. Personal assistance, BPA, and home teams is our smallest segment in Norway, with around 10% of the turnover.
User-controlled personal assistance is a way of organizing practical assistance and training for people with substantial long-term needs for personal assistance. The care receiver organize and lead the work of the assistants, but they're employed by Stendi. In Norway, the municipalities are solely responsible for personal assistance in a transparent and well-organized model that works well for both care receivers and care providers. Regarding opportunities, Stendi has improved performance during the last quarters with improved profitability due to the capacity adjustments, commercial initiatives, and organizational improvements implemented. We see a potential for growth in Stendi due to a growing population and overall increased need. We believe and also experience that private care providers are needed in the Norwegian welfare mix and play an important role in solving the welfare challenge, both short and long term.
With our strategic focus on three sizable care segments and opportunities for both organic and, over time, acquired growth, we look to the future with confidence. Being an active important, and I would like to share some examples on the next slide. As a market leader in Norway, we take our responsibility for driving development within the care sector. We are active in the public debate and try to proactively contribute with our knowledge and solutions-focused approach. We have just signed a new national framework agreement on children and youth care, which we see as a sign of excellent work by our employees and of high-quality care delivered. We also have collaborations with schools and universities to further train and develop our employees and offer vocational training opportunities for students.
We map competency needs for key roles and ensure we assign training and follow up on formal competency development through our online learning-and-training platform. This is an important part of our commitment to quality and continuous learning and development. Exercise and physical activity are important for everyone based on their own terms. Stendi is a proud sponsor of the Kongsberg Games, a sports event for people with an intellectual disability that aims to spread enthusiasm and inclusion. Stendi also has a collaboration with Salum Kashafali, the world's fastest para athlete. This to increase the visibility of para sports and highlight the right to, and importance of, personal assistance. Salum has become a fantastic ambassador for Stendi and personal assistance in general. His outstanding achievements and positive mindset continue to inspire us also outside Norway.
I hope this gave you a good perspective on Stendi, a business area we will see develop and contribute more to the Norwegian society and to Ambea going forward. With that, we go to organic growth. In Q1, the pipeline remained strong, and we have almost 1,500 new beds in pipeline, most of them in Sweden. In Norway and in Denmark, we are building a pipeline in segments with good potential and fair commercial terms in line with updated strategy. The pipeline increased compared to the previous quarter, and we signed one new nursing home contract in Vardaga, and Stendi increased the pipeline with 11 beds. Work to develop good access to new care homes to meet the increasing demand. Demographic change requires the construction of many new nursing homes and care facilities.
We continue to actively seek opportunities for organic growth within elderly care in Sweden and Denmark and within social care in all three markets. We remain positive that the urgent need for increased supply will lead to more opportunities going forward. We are pleased to have an active pipeline in all three markets, with Stendi Norway again being more active in prioritized market segments. On the next slide, we will look more specific into the revenue growth delivered. The organic growth showed in the dark blue bars has been stable at a good level for a number of quarters now. The total growth are this quarter at a lower pace. Lately, it has been helped by a stronger Norwegian currency, but this quarter the currency impact from Norway is negative. In total, the currency effect on top line is flat in the quarter.
The effect from the divestment of the doctor staffing business late 2022 is now letting out the effect from previous made acquisitions, which means that the organic growth and the total growth shows the same number in the quarter. We remain positive about our overall growth potential in the coming quarters. In local currency, all segments deliver net revenue growth compared to last year, and total sales grew by 5% compared to Q1 last year. Adjusted EBITA amounted to SEK 216 million, an increase of 11% versus last year. The increase was mainly driven by higher occupancy and higher prices in Nytida, Vardaga, and Stendi. Stendi's underlying earnings improvement continued this quarter with higher occupancy and staffing efficiency. The share buyback program has been completed.
By the end of the first quarter, Ambea has bought back 5 million own shares according to 100% of the mandate granted by the board of directors. The objective of the share buyback program is to optimize the company's capital structure and contribute to increased shareholder value. With that over to you, Benno, for a presentation of the financial summary.
Thank you. The strong growth numbers we saw last quarter continued, and all business area contributed to the growth in local currency like in previous quarters, now at +5% year-on-year. If we look into how the different business area have affected the group numbers, Nytida is up 3%, driven by acquisitions and new contract management operations. Occupancy in own management is slightly lower than last year. Vardaga increased 10% versus last year. Like in previous quarters, there is an increased occupancy trend throughout this quarter. There were no new openings this quarter, but the five openings we made last year contributed to the growth. Stendi was more or less flat in SEK, but had a growth in local currency by 3% versus last year, and the sales grew in their own management portfolio by 7%.
Altiden is up 12%, which is mainly driven by currency effects and the effect of the acquisition of Reflect. In local currency, Altiden grew by 5%. Klara increased 9% and continues with growth in all sub-segments. We have a new structure in Klara, which is making the comparison year-on-year a bit trickier, but more about that later on. EBITDA. This slide show how different business area affected the EBITDA of the group. In Nytida, the EBITDA was same as last year. We have a stable, profitable business in Nytida, which performs very well, even if we had external cost pressure in the quarter. In Vardaga, we saw improved occupancy, primarily in the units started last year, which affected the EBITDA positively.
In Stendi, the positive effect of the improvements made in the first quarter last year continues to show in the EBITDA, and the EBITDA margin increased by 3.3 percentage points from last year. Altiden is behind last year as we saw higher operating costs and higher costs linked to the reorganization. Last year was also positive affected by a reverse of a purchase price on the acquisition by SEK 7 million. The strong demand within all Klara sub-segments continued, and Klara generated higher EBITDA last year. The strategic repositioning of Klara is delivering higher margin than in previous quarters. If we sum up this all in all, the EBITDA margin was 6.7%, up from 6.3% last year. Cash flow.
The operating cash flow increased compared to the same quarter last year. We see that a rolling twelve operating cash flow is almost 95% of EBITDA. This gives, of course, Ambea good financial flexibility going forward. If we now look at the free cash flow, rolling twelve, we see that from the EBITDA SEK 975 million to the SEK 887 million in EBITDA, excluding the IFRS 16, down the way to the free cash flow post-tax. We can see, for example, that we have invested around SEK 100 million in fixed assets. We have paid SEK 100 million in interest and around SEK 100 million in taxes. Other non-cash items are mainly changes in provisions from litigations in Norway.
We have also gained SEK 117 million from sale of a real estate in the second quarter last year. During the rolling twelve period, we have a minor negative effect on working capital. All in all, we generated SEK 551 million in free cash flow post-tax based on the old accounting standard. In our next slide, we see how we have used the generated SEK 551 million. SEK 109 million was distributed to our shareholders as dividend. SEK 136 million was spent on the three acquisitions we made the last four quarters, and SEK 226 million was spent on the share buyback program.
We are very pleased that an active capital allocation has enabled Ambea to acquire profitable group, profitable growth, maintain dividend payout according to our policy, and for the first time, also buyback program. At the end of the first quarter, we had a net debt ratio of 3x EBITDA, excluding IFRS 16, which is the same ratio as the last quarter, but 2.3 x lower than last year. A higher adjusted EBITDA has affected the leverage ratio positively compared to last year. Now to the development of the different business areas, starting with Nytida. Sales increased by 3%, mainly driven by acquisitions and the growth in our contract management portfolio. Own management homes showed slightly lower occupancy compared to last year. EBITDA was at the same level as last year, SEK 119 million.
We think this is a strong performance given the external cost pressure and the fact that last year's first quarter included government reimbursement for high cyclic costs. Cost increases have so far been met with efficiency measures and higher prices. EBITDA margin in the quarter landed at 12%, and rolling 12 EBITDA is at 12.9%. In Vardaga, net sales increased by 10% year-on-year, driven by high occupancy, mainly due to the nursing homes we opened last year. Occupancy in mature units were also slightly higher than in the first quarter compared to last year. The own management portfolio as a whole increased net sales by 17%, while the contract management decreased by 3%. EBITDA increased with 35% to SEK 66 million, mainly driven by strong occupancy development in the units opened in the beginning of last year.
Mature units showed a margin of 8.3%, up from 8.0% last year. This means that we are so far have been able to compensate the high cost pressure by efficiency measures, a better price mix, and by price increases. As in Nytida, last year's first quarter was positively affected by government reimbursement for high cyclic costs. Stendi. Net sales were flat in SEK, but increased with 3% in local currency. We saw a stronger demand, our own management portfolio increased net sales by 7% in local currency with growth in all sub-segments. Contract management was down because we are gradually reducing our business within elderly care as we are leaving the segment with our last remaining contract ending in March 2024. Elderly care represented 4% of the business in this quarter.
EBITDA tripled or increased by SEK 25 million - SEK 37 million . This is mainly an effect of the actions we took in Q1 last year, which gained full effect from Q3. EBITDA margin in the quarter was 4.8%, and the rolling twelve margin increased by almost 1 percentage point to 4.7%. Altiden. Net sales grew by 12% in SEK and by 5% in local currency, mostly due to the previous made acquisition of Reflect. The EBITDA in Altiden is still at an unsatisfying level. In Q1, the EBITDA was -SEK 11 million , which is SEK 25 million behind last year. Last year was, however, positively affected by earn out the revelation of SEK 7 million. We are making a total reorganization of the business and are integrating now all units acquired during last years into a new platform.
This work has proven to be more difficult than first anticipated. We will see improvements going forward, but it will take some quarters still of continued work before Altiden is at full speed. Klara. In Klara, net sales increased by 9%. We continue to grow in all Klara sub-segments, thanks to increased demand and because of SkolPool, our solution within student health services. The divestment of the doctor staffing business affected the sales negatively by SEK 31 million, but was more than fully compensated by the acquired SkolPool, the now included training company, Lära, and the underlying growth in other segments. Klara delivered growth in the external märket as well as through services delivered to Vardaga and Nytida. EBITDA increased from SEK 8 million- SEK 13 million, and the EBITDA margin was at 11.2% and rolling twelve at 11.7%.
Our strategic repositioning of Klara with acquisition of SkolPool and divestment of the staffing business of doctors has proven to be successful in terms of growth potential, and also in term of better margins. 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 reached our target in 2022 with 10% growth. In the first quarter of 2023, we grew 5%. We have not made any acquisitions since quarter two last year, and we also have a negative effect from the divestment of the doctor staffing business. In terms of acquisitions, there are still interesting qualitative targets that would complement Ambea well. We remain active and are in several dialogues, but in the current environment, we closely evaluate all opportunities for capital allocation. Over time, the growth target can still be reached. Looking at the profitability target, we have a midterm Adjusted EBITDA target of 9.5%, which we have not reached.
The pandemic and the rapid increase in inflation have made the target tougher to beat short term, but is still reachable midterm. The leverage level is still 3 x EBITDA in quarter one. We expect our solid cash conversion to continue, which gives us potential to grow and leads to financial flexibility. On the next slide, we will look beyond the first quarter before we open up for questions. Ambea continues to show good organic growth in the first quarter. The positive occupancy development within Vardaga has continued month on month throughout the quarter. Predictability will increase by the end of quarter two with concluded salary negotiations and collective bargaining agreements in all our markets. The majority of cost increases will be met by efficiency measures, price adjustments, and higher occupancy. Since last year, we have worked with several efficiency initiatives to dampen the effects of inflation.
These efficiency measures include central procurement, energy efficiency programs, staff awareness, and overall operational cost control. We continue to see underlying earnings improvement in Stendi, and further improvement is expected. In Altiden, we continue to establish the right future platform and have special focus on improving profitability. Last but not least, I would like to thank our 31,000 employees for taking care of our 16,500 care receivers. Their work makes me proud. With that, I conclude our presentation and open up for questions. Operator, can we have the first question, please?
Of course. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. We will take our first question. Our first question comes from the line of Kristofer Liljeberg from Carnegie. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning. I think I have three questions. First, could you say something about what you expect for the salary increases in the three different countries and your opportunity to compensate for that now for the reminder of the year? On that topic, do you still expect Vardaga earnings to be lower in 2023 versus last year? On Denmark, I don't know if you comment there about restructuring taking longer. If that was relative to the initial plan or if it takes longer than you thought a quarter ago. Maybe you could comment when you think Denmark will reach break even again. Thank you.
Okay, we can start with the first one then, salary increases in the three countries.
We have not concluded the negotiations in all the countries. There is still local negotiations to take place in Denmark and Norway, and there is also the central agreement in Sweden, which is not yet set. We have, of course, the export-oriented industry, the so-called märket in Sweden, and we have the municipality organization set their contract, but our contract with the employees is not yet set. In Sweden there is the 4.1% in the so-called märket is there. We think that our agreement will be something like that, but we don't know yet.
In Norway there is a little bit higher in the central agreement, we haven't concluded a local agreement, we cannot say really what the % will be. We think that in Norway we can compensate rather well with price adjustments. In Denmark, there's also the same way as in Norway. The central agreement is set, not the local ones. The central is a little bit different in different categories, between 4% and 5.5%, something like that is expected to be in Denmark. In Denmark it's a little bit harder to compensate fully because we have a 2.6% increase in most of our agreements in Denmark.
It's the so-called kommun, the municipalities organizations, that affect that mark. In Sweden, we have now what we call OPI, a care price index in English, which is set for 4.6% this year. Of as we said before, we don't have all our agreements linked to that. We have some agreements linked to last year's index, and some are not linked to anything, but that just set the price in the municipality's decisions. A little bit early to say if we can compensate fully with price adjustments and efficiency, but as we said in the report, we think that we can compensate most of the cost increases.
We are not predicting any Vardaga earnings or margin going forward because there is not that transparency yet, and it's hard to say still.
Could I?
Next question.
Yeah, could I just follow up on that?
Yeah.
With the strong start of the year and the OPI here, 4.6 versus the lower preliminary figure, are you more optimistic today than a few months ago on the Vardaga earnings for this year?
Slightly, a little bit more optimistic maybe.
Okay, thanks.
Your last question, Kristofer, was on Denmark, there's no real change versus last quarter. So what we mean is just that it will take some more quarters before we have Altiden at full speed again. So no real change. The work is ongoing, and it's progressing and it's a comprehensive work, but we are getting there, and we will get Altiden back on track, but it will take some quarters.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Jakob Lembke from SEB. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Hi, good morning. I have a few questions. I'll take them one by one. If I start with Norway, if I recall correctly, children and youth have been sort of one of the tougher areas in Norway. Is it possible to give any more color on sort of how low the profitability has been there, if it's possible to bring it back to more sort of the profitability of other segments now with the new agreement?
We have a new agreement, as we have stated, we actually have quite high demand for placements in that type of care service. We believe it's possible to bring the margins back to where they were with the new agreement and the higher demand. We are more comfortable on that segment now than we were before we signed the agreement.
Okay. Then a follow-up on the sort of price and cost dynamics here. if we look into the Q2 and Q3, do you think it's possible to sort of increase price levels more from the level in Q1?
Yes, there is. We have ongoing negotiations all the time with the short-term placements that we can set new prices. That is primarily in Nytida. In Vardaga, the prices are more set on a yearly basis, so there is more mixed issues or something like that that is affecting the price. We also have some agreements in saying that price adjustments are from 1st of April or 1st of June or something. The majority is the 1st of February, but there could be still some price increases going forward throughout the year.
Okay. Just finally on Vardaga, is it possible to give any guidance on where the occupancy is at the moment and sort of your outlook for this year?
No, we don't communicate the occupancy percentage. What we can say is that it is higher than last year in mature units and are now at a level where the potential is not so high any longer for the mature units. We have still a number of units that will open in 2021 and 2022 that can increase occupancy. Maybe the pace won't be as high as we have seen last year.
Okay, I understand. That was all the questions for me. Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone. We will take our next question. The question comes from the line of Karl-Johan Bonnevier from DNB Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes, good morning, Mark and Benno. Just coming back to your statement, Mark, when you looked at the margin chart and the target of 9.5%, which are the building blocks that you see for getting you up to the sought after margin level?
There are a number of building blocks to get us to the margin level. One of them is Vardaga. There are still potential for occupancy improvement in Vardaga and to get the newly opened units to the level of the mature units. That is definitely one of the building blocks. The second building block is then in Norway, where there are still improvements going forward and where many of the measures that we have put in place are showing results. There are more to come from the Norwegian business. That is the second building block.
The third major building block is, of course, Altiden, where we are right now establishing a stable platform and getting the business financially back on track. The quality delivered in the care is still at a very high and very good level. Financially, of course, we need to improve performance in Denmark, and that's the third building block to get to the margin target.
Excellent. If you put a sort of, say, milestone kind of logic to it, when, do you think these kind of things could, say, mature so you get up to the level you want to?
With midterm, we think two to three years, then it would be realistic.
Excellent. When you look at Vardaga, there is still a part of the pipeline that you haven't put any date for potential openings for. Do you see any moves out there? I saw you announced a new unit there.
We are in close dialogue with all the municipalities where we have units that we have not still opened. We look for all different solutions. Primarily, we want to open them as fast as possibly. Sometimes the demand is not there or the political will to buy from privates are not there. Then we have to look for other solutions. We have handed over leasing contracts to municipalities before, and that is one solution that we of course don't want to. If we don't can open them themselves, ourselves, that is a solution. We also look for different solutions for other type of businesses. We had one of the ones in one municipality that we now have moved in business.
That's also a solution if that's possible in that local märket. We are looking for, in every way to use the buildings we have to deliver care to care holders, of course.
Do you see this, maybe putting a better framework to it, something that will happen during this year? Coming up towards the end of this year, you have a plan for all the units there?
I would say that we have intensive dialogue in all municipalities, but sometimes it takes two to tango. We think that we are progressing in most of the municipalities, and we'll have, I think through this year, some kind of solution going forward.
I appreciate that you are doing a major reorganization in Altiden. Could you give us some indication how you see the underlying business going there if you try to strip out what you could call more of a restructuring kind of focus costs?
I mean, if we look at the underlying business, of course, when you do a major restructuring as we're doing now and establishing a stable platform, it also spills over in some ways to demand. In some parts of the Danish business, we have not seen the same occupancy improvement as we have seen historically. It's flattish, I would say in some of the segments. It's also about making sure that we have enough external focus, and that's always the challenge when you do these kinds of things, that you tend to be a little too focused on the internal lines and a little less focused on the external lines.
Over time, that of course, impacts occupancy and the time you spend with your clients and these kinds of things, meaning the municipalities in this case. We need to get that balance a bit better also going forward. We had the same issue a couple of years ago. I think we have shown in Norway that we can absolutely get that balance right. We will also get to that point in Denmark. We are opening new units also in Denmark, and we will have one new nursing home opening in Q2 with 75 beds. That is progressing well.
We are working more and more over borders. Vardaga is helping Altiden to make sure that all the systems and processes we have in place from the long experience we have in Sweden are now also used in Denmark for this opening. It's looking good, I would say, with the opening coming up here in Q2. In many areas, things are progressing the right way. It will just take us a bit more time.
When you look at Denmark, there is no, say, legacy operation like the home care operation that is still to be phased out. Now you basically are working with the units that you that will be there for the future.
Yes, that's true.
Excellent. Thank you very much. All the best out there.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Victor Forssell from Nordea. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you very much. Just a quick one on capital allocation. I understand the strategy you have here, and it might not be completely on your table, but would you be surprised if the board does not decide on a new sort of share buyback program here in the near term? Or do you save that up for other types of acquisitions or extra dividends? Or how do you see that progressing in this year from your point of view?
As you said, it's not on our table. If, if I shall elaborate a little bit about it. I think that it's not likely that we will start a new share buy program right now after the annual general meeting next week. I'm sure that the board will get the authorization to do it over the year. If they will start it again later this year, we don't really know. I think it depends on how the acquisitions portfolio goes. If we are able to make some of the acquisitions that we want, maybe it's more unlikely that we have a large share buyback program.
That could be of course, it be room for a smaller one, but that's not for me to decide or for me and Mark to decide, of course.
Understood, of course. Just finally on the acquisition side of things, any sort of change that you witnessed here in recent months, due to, well, of various reasons or not, but anything you can say especially for Nytida, and the acquisition climate or the target climate for you out there?
As we said, we are still active in the märket, and we also in a number of active dialogues. There has been changes in the märket, of course, as valuations have come down, as you have seen. That of course impacts pricing and multiples. Of course a buyer and a seller need to meet, and if they cannot meet, I mean, of course then you can continue the dialogue, but at a certain point in time, you need to kind of find a way through it or then just wait and see what happens. In some cases the seller has wanted to wait and see, and in other cases we are still in active dialogues.
It has changed somewhat and of course also the macro environment has changed quite a lot, so that's not strange. We remain active and we have quite long target list that we are continuously working on, and we will of course do so, but we only want to buy qualitative targets that are good for Ambea, and we also want to do it at the right prices. Those are the two things that we would never compromise.
Yep. Makes sense. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. There seems to be no further questions at this time, so I will hand back for closing remarks.
Thank you so much. Thank you all for calling in. The quarter two report for 2023 will be published on August 17th. Have a nice day and stay safe and healthy.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.