Good day, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Ambea Interim Report First Quarter 2026 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, 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. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mark Jensen, CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you so much. Welcome to Ambea's presentation of the first quarter of 2026. I am Mark Jensen, CEO. With me today is Benno Eliasson, CFO. We will start with a brief group overview and our growth drivers. Benno will take you through the financials and business areas before we wrap up with concluding remarks and a Q&A. Ambea is the leading care provider in the Nordics with operations across Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland. We operate through strong local brands and business areas covering elderly care, social care, and staffing and competence solutions. This breadth and scale create resilience and long-term growth potential. In the last 12 months, we reached over SEK 16.6 billion in sales and delivered an adjusted EBITDA margin of 9.7% on group level. We continue to grow through both organic expansion and acquisitions.
Let's go straight to the highlights of the first quarter. Quarter one was characterized by strong growth with several new care homes opened and one acquisition closed. Net sales increased by 16%, mainly driven by acquisitions, but also solid organic growth. To support growing needs in society, we continue to build our pipeline of new care places and expand capacity across business areas. At group level, adjusted EBITDA amounted to SEK 380 million, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 9%. The improved result is driven by high occupancy, operational improvements, and acquisitions. At the next slide, we will look at how we build our organic pipeline. On this slide, we show the high pace we have entered the year with.
Already in the first quarter, we have signed more new care places than we did in any of the years from 2021 to 2023. 2026 will for sure become a record-breaking year in terms of pipeline additions. When needs in society increase, it is important that all operators, public and private, step up and do their utmost to find relevant new projects when demand forecasts are showing a clear need for additional supply of modern and qualitative care places. At Ambea, we take this responsibility extremely serious and won't rest before we know everyone in need of care will have a fair chance of receiving qualitative care at the right place and at the right time. We are active and collaborate closely with all Nordic municipalities where we are welcome. Would more municipalities open for private operators to help them overcome the care challenge, we could do even more.
To us, it has no intrinsic value who adds the needed supply if it gets done. We worry that many municipalities have no plans for needed future supply and also no plans to use private sector in their supply model. This is a threat to the fabric of society, which we urge politicians, regardless of party, to address with more urgency and determination. Turning the page, let's review the total organic pipeline. Organic growth is a cornerstone of our strategy. Now we have almost 2,000 care places in our growing pipeline, and this is an industry-leading number in the Nordic care sector. During the quarter, Vardaga was the most expansive business area, but it is also promising to see Altiden in Denmark being back building organic pipeline with all managed residential elderly care, with two newly signed contracts for nursing homes to open 2028 and 2029.
We have had an expansive first quarter with several openings, and looking 12 months ahead, we will add another 304 care places to the Nordic market, which supports continued growth and improved economies of scale. Quantifying the revenue growth from the old management pipeline can be somewhat difficult, but we have this quarter added expected revenue, assuming all new homes fully ramped up. A ramp-up would normally take 12-24 months from opening date, depending on size and type of care home, as well as local demand. In 2026 prices, the expected total pipeline revenue will accumulate to approximately SEK 2.5 billion. The pipeline covers openings in 2026-2029, where more projects will be added to the later years during the remaining part of this year.
With this level of mid-single digit organic growth from pipeline expansion, it is important to maintain and develop our position as an employer of choice, which we will continue to invest in our workplaces, work environment, career opportunities, and competence and leadership development. We will now have a look at acquired growth. Acquisitions are an important complement to organic growth, building to the overall 8%-10% growth target. We have maintained a high level of M&A activity with a focus on bolt-on acquisitions. During the quarter, Validia in Finland expanded and closed the second strategic acquisition within child welfare services, adding SEK 118 million in annual net sales. We continue to see an active pipeline across markets, and we remain selective, focusing on quality assets, strong operational fit, and value creation through integration.
Let's have a closer look at total revenue growth on the next slide. Revenue growth remains above our long-term target, driven primarily by strong acquired growth combined with solid organic development. This reflects the strength of our business model. We grow by improved occupancy, expanding capacity in our existing operations, signing contracts for new care units, and by successfully integrating acquisitions. Overall, this creates a balanced and sustainable growth profile. At the core of our model is quality and care, strong local leadership, and high employee engagement, which I will talk about on the following slide. During the quarter, we presented Ambea's Quality Award, an annual recognition given to one unit in each business area. The award highlights units that combine high quality, strong alignment with our values, concepts and working methods, and also solid financial performance. Illustrating the strong correlation between high care quality and healthy financial results.
Local leadership remains critical to ensuring consistent quality across our operations. In the quarter, we conducted the first leadership index survey of the year, resulting in a score of 77 out of 100, a stable and encouraging result that reflects our long-term focus on present and supportive leadership. We continue to invest in leadership development. During the quarter, managers across the organization started new leadership programs at different levels. Finally, Validia brought together 250 managers and employees in an initiative aimed at strengthening leadership and quality while ensuring that everyone can influence their daily life and the support they receive. You can read more about our quality and sustainability work in the quarterly report, and also in the newly published annual report for 2025, which include plenty of new information and additional transparency through the new CSRD requirements.
Now I would like to hand over the presentation to Benno for a financial summary.
Thank you, Mark. Net sales grew with 16% and were primarily driven by the acquisition of Validia, but we also saw solid contributions from Nytida and Vardaga. The growth, the good growth we have seen in the recent quarters continued, driven by both acquisition in Nytida and organic growth in Nytida and Vardaga. Validia this quarter added SEK 420 million to net sales. Stendi and Altiden still face some currency headwind in SEK of 3%-5% because of the strong Swedish currency. They both showed steady growth in local currency. Klara still faces tough market conditions with a 13% decline in sales. Now the EBITDA. This slide shows how the different business areas have contributed to the adjusted EBITDA of the group. The acquisition of Validia of course affected the EBITDA most.
A strong performance added SEK 42 million to the group. Stendi faced tough comparison from a strong Q1 last year, and EBITDA margin was down 1.3 percentage point. Vardaga grew both EBITDA and EBITDA margin despite all new openings the last quarter, which is really strong. Nytida continued EBITDA growth with more steady occupancy that led to higher margins. This quarter, Nytida added SEK 17 million more to the group EBITDA. Lastly, Altiden, which delivered a really strong Q1 with more than double EBITDA margin versus last year. Adjusted EBITDA in total increased by 24% to SEK 380 million, and the adjusted EBITDA margin in the group was 9.0%, up from 8.4 last year. Operating cash flow was in line with Q1 last year, but much lower than last quarter.
Q1 is the weakest cash flow quarter of the year, and seasonality effects get even larger over the years. Since this quarter also followed by an extremely strong Q4, this was showed more obvious this year. Cash conversion is still over 91% rolling twelve. This slide shows the way from the EBITDA excluding IFRS 16 down to the free cash flow post-tax. The rolling twelve numbers are now at SEK 713 million. The numbers are still affected by the one-off effects of the Validia acquisition and the settlement of the old Norwegian dispute last year. We expect the full year figure to increase when these effects are out of the rolling twelve numbers. The underlying solid cash generation gives us both flexibility and strength to continue investing in quality and in growth. Now to the utilization.
This is how we have used the generated SEK 713 million. SEK 185 million was distributed to our shareholders as dividend. SEK 1,312 million was spent on the five acquisitions, and SEK 521 million was spent on the buyback programs. Net debt has increased by SEK 1,375 million, mostly driven, of course, by the strategic acquisition of Validia, which mainly was financed by external loans. The increased debt has led to an increased leverage from 1.8x EBITDA to 2.5x, still with much headroom to our financial target at below 3.25x. Now to the earnings per share.
The strong development in sales and profitability, together with the share buyback programs conducted, have produced a strong growth in earnings per share over the last years. This quarter, reported EPS grew by 45% compared to the last year, and the growth pace over the last years is very high. The compound annual growth rate the last two years are 24% in reported EPS. If we adjust EPS for the IFRS 16 and items related to acquisitions, the growth rate is at 20% per year. Now to the different business areas. We start, as always, with Nytida. Net sales increased by 5%, driven both by acquisition and start-up units.
EBITDA rose by 14% to SEK 135 million compared to SEK 118 last year, thanks to the continued good performance in previously completed acquisitions, together with improved occupancy for start-up units and some adjustment made in the service offering. We have continued to adapt our service offerings in favor of those services with expected high demand going forward, as well as successfully adjusting the capacity. This is the third consecutive quarter with a higher margin than previous year, and the rolling twelve margin now increased up to 12.9%. Turning to Vardaga. Vardaga continues to deliver a solid growth. Net sales increased by 8%, driven by higher occupancy and by the AvAsta acquisition.
Sales in own management grew by 11%, reaching SEK 997 million due to higher occupancy in new as well as established nursing homes. During the quarter, we have opened three new nursing homes with a total of 176 care places, adding to the two new nursing homes we opened Q4 last year. The occupancy in these recently opened facilities showed a better-than-planned development in the first quarter. Net sales in contract management increased by 3%. EBITDA increased by 13% to SEK 125 million, and the profitability development in mature units continues to be strong, and the negative effect that normally comes from newly established units was lower than expected. In total, the EBITDA margin increased by 0.3 percentage points to 8.8% in the quarter and to 9.6% rolling twelve.
We expect the strong growth in own management portfolio to continue the coming quarters, but the sales in contract management will turn to negative growth since contracts with a total revenue of SEK 204 million is set to end the coming 12 months. We turn to Norway to overview of Stendi. Stendi had a quarter where occupancy for care services for adults was slightly lower than last year, while our services for children and youth had more stable occupancy in the quarter. In local currency, total net sales increased by 2%, but in SEK, net sales decreased by 1%. EBITDA amounted to SEK 57 million, and the EBITDA margin was 7.0, which was 1.3 percentage points lower than the strong Q1 last year. This is an underlying trend that is a bit stronger than the previous two quarters.
The weaker earnings performance versus last year was mainly due to the lower occupancy in our social care service for adults, which led to lower staffing efficiency in the quarter. We are constantly working towards units with high capacity and better operational efficiency and are phasing out smaller units. We expect to gradually see the clearer effect of this in the second half of the year. Now we are turning to our Finnish business area, Validia. Validia is now reporting its fourth quarter as a new business area and has been consolidated into Ambea's account from April 1, 2025. Validia showed continued solid performance together with the completion of the second acquisition in a new segment of child and youth welfare. That latest acquisition was closed January 21 this year.
Net sales in the quarter amounted to SEK 420 million, and EBITDA reached SEK 42 million, corresponding to a margin of 10%. In total, for the first 12 months in Ambea, Validia has reported SEK 1,593 million in sales and an EBITDA margin of 10.8%. Validia was acquired as a growth platform in Finland. We will continue to create growth through new establishments, bolt-on acquisitions, and continued development of the existing operations. Now turning down to Denmark and Altiden. Altiden delivered a overall very strong quarter with continued strong revenue growth in local currency, driven by higher occupancy across both elderly and social care. Net sales increased by 6% in local currency. In SEK, however, net sales were only 1% up.
Net sales in own management increased by 10% in local currency. The decline in contract management was due to the termination of 1 social care contract last year. The profitability improvement continues at a high pace. This quarter, EBITDA increased to SEK 19 million, corresponding to a margin of 5.7%, up from 2.4% last year. Positive earnings development was driven by the higher occupancy and by operational improvements. We have now eight consecutive quarters with margin improvement. The rolling-twelve margin has gone from negative 3.3% to positive 5.2%. Our extensive work on new projects in Denmark resulted in signing of two new nursing homes with a total of 184 places scheduled to open for care receipts in 2028 and 2029.
The contracts demonstrates the improved market condition in Denmark following the 2025 elderly care reform. Additional contracts for new care homes are expected during the year. Now to Klara. Finally, Klara saw lower net sales due to the weaker demand of several of their services. Net sales decreased by 13% to SEK 87 million . Historically, strong supply of nurses in the labor market has led to some customers to employ their own staff instead of purchasing external services from companies like Klara. EBITDA amounted to SEK 9 million , which with a margin of 10.3% compared to 8% last year. The good margin development reflects well-managed cost adjustments and continued focus on profitability even in a softer market environment. With that, back to you, Mark Jensen.
Thank you, Benno. Our financial targets remain as we drive profitable growth, strong margins, and disciplined leverage. We remain committed to consistently deliver on all three financial targets, which we have also done in the first quarter of the year. The rolling 12 months growth rate is now at 16%, which is well above our growth target, thanks to the high pace in acquisitions and good organic growth. Rolling 12 profitability landed at 9.7%, which is above the target of 9.5%. We will continue to invest in people, quality, and growth. Our leverage is slightly up to a ratio of 2.5x net debt to EBITDA, below our target of 3.25 x. We maintain our financial capacity to engage in the right bolt-on acquisitions. Before we open for questions, I would like to provide an outlook post quarter one.
Ambea is the only Nordic care provider with a brand new tailor-made and group-wide quality management system, which was ready for launch at the end of the first quarter. The system named MiraQ has been launched in the first business area after the quarter ended. We will continue the rollout of the new system to all business areas during the remaining part of the year. With MiraQ, we have further optimized and standardized operational quality work, improved system performance and features, as well as data quality and access to predictive analysis and cross-country quality improvements. Care needs are increasing, we remain committed to sign contracts for more care homes across markets, adding to further organic growth, supporting society and further growing our market share.
Validia will continue to build our new Finnish segment within child welfare services, and we are actively working with all aspects, ramping up the business segment. We will also see more bolt-on acquisitions and in more markets throughout the year. The adjustments in Stendi are progressing well and will deliver margin improvements in the second half of the year, leading to full-year margins above last year. We are more people giving care to more care receivers in need. I am proud of what we do, and we will employ and train thousands of new care professionals in the coming years as we grow and support society. In a world of conflicts and division, our wish is that politicians and civil servants can unite with us behind the core challenge of a functioning and respective welfare system.
We strive to make the world a better place one person at a time. With this razor focus on each individual care receiver, our team strongly contribute to the attractive of a society with equal rights for all. This concludes our presentation, and we will now open for questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw the question, please press star one one again. We will now take the first question from the line of Julia Angeli Strand from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you for taking my questions. My first one relates to Vardaga. I know ahead of this quarter, there was some caution around the pace of openings, and that was expected to weigh on margins. This has not been the case, rather the opposite. I was wondering, can you say a few words on what drove the margin or sort of what changed compared to before this?
Yes. Thank you for the question. I mean, what drove the margins and what changed according to our own expectations also was the pace of ramp-up in the newly opened, the Vardaga units. As, as a total, the average was faster than expected. We have opened three new care homes or nursing homes in this quarter and two in the last quarter. At the end of the third quarter, we opened also one. It's a lot of new openings in the last six, seven months. They have ramped up faster than than we anticipated. That has, together with the good development and continued strong performance in our mature care homes, delivered the strong performance of Vardaga this quarter.
Okay, understood. Just as a follow-up there. Yesterday, one of your peers reported, and it seems like they noted that the demand for Swedish elderly care picked up a little bit. Would you also agree on that?
There is an increasing demand in the years to come for more elderly care. That is driven by demographics. We will continue to see that for many years to come. The issue is here that the society needs more capacity, therefore we are also very focused on building additional capacity in our already strong pipeline. One could think, and that will of course depend on local demand, and it's a little different from case to case, that ramp-up could be somewhat faster in the future than they have been in the past as needs are increasing.
Okay, understood. Secondly, on Validia, could you say something about the underlying margin? Because there was some startup costs in this quarter. Also maybe say how this quarter seasonally can be compared to Q2?
I can take that. In total, in the total year of Validia, we have now rolling 12-month, you know, on 10.8%. We have had a transaction and integration cost of the two acquisitions, both in Q4, more in Q4 than I would say than in Q1. This quarter it was not so much. We have a more a little bit more effect on the Q4 numbers than Q1 numbers. For sure, the margin would have been above 11% if we haven't these transaction costs in the rolling 12 numbers.
Going to the Q2, the Q2 is the weakest quarter, I would say, in all business areas because of the seasonality of the number of invoicing days and the Easter holiday and other banking holidays. This is also in Finland. Maybe the seasonality effects is a little bit lower in Finland than the rest of the countries.
Okay, understand. If I may squeeze in a follow-up question before I get back in the queue. Can you say something about the organic growth for Validia? I know we don't have historical quarters, but can you give us some guidance on how that developed?
When we bought Validia one year ago, the occupancy levels was really high in the existing unit. There's not so much to gain to increase occupancy in the existing unit. Of course, we are planning to open new units, and we have planned four new openings to open in the second half of this year. We of course want them to be part of the organic growth situation in Finland going forward.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Björn Olsson from SEB. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. first on Stendi, how much do you think we could extrapolate additional margin improvements from potentially increasing occupancy and staff improvements, in addition to the ones you delivered, this far?
Sorry, once again, how much we can expect you? Sorry. Please repeat.
No, It was a poor question.
Yeah.
You said, you know, you had a lower occupancy, and it was not fully offset by the lower personnel costs.
Yeah.
You know, for the trend ahead, how should we think about the curve for the year, in terms of right-sizing the staff?
I get that. In Stendi, I mean, we operate two main segments. One is childcare that is progressing well with stable occupancy and with good results. The segment where we have low occupancy is in social care for adults. Here, we are doing some adjustments both to capacity and to staffing, as you allude to. They will have an increasing positive effect throughout the year. There will be some improvements in quarter 2. They will not be material as it takes time to right-size also Norway. There will be more improvements in quarter 3 and even more in quarter 4.
As we said, we expect the full year margins of Stendi to be above last year's margins, for the full year, but the impact will come as we move into the remaining quarters of the year.
All right. Thanks. Just to follow up on Julia's question on Vardaga as well with for the coming openings now, because it sounds like, you know, we were all a bit positively surprised that there wasn't really a margin pressure from the new openings. I guess you sort of guides that they had a higher than expected occupancy faster than you would expect.
The established or the sort of the old homes had also increasing occupancy. Do you think we could extrapolate this trend to the coming openings as well, or could those sort of pressure a bit more on margin?
It's difficult to say because all markets are local. I mean, if you look at elderly care receivers, they come from the local municipality, and even from the city or the area of the city where the nursing home is located. It can differ from place to place. Now we have the care homes, we have nursing homes we have opened now in the, in the last quarters have been well located, compared to local demand. Of course, going forward, as also the size of the nursing homes differ a bit, and we build somewhat larger nursing homes now than what we did, like, two, three years ago.
I don't think we can extrapolate, you know, any trends into the future that it would be faster or as fast as we have seen in the last two quarters because it is very local. Between 12 and 24 months, we still think is a reasonable time for a ramp-up of a new nursing home. Of course, it depends on local demand and what the municipalities are doing with their own portfolio of homes.
That makes sense. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Adrian Elmlund from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Hi, Mark and Benno. Good morning. I just have one question really here regarding the sales plan in Klara. Like, do you view the shift here in customers basically hiring their own nurses as cyclical, or is this more of a permanent shift in demand? And is there anything that could be similar in the other countries as well?
I would say that we thought it was more temporarily a year ago or so because it's all the reason behind is that the Swedish healthcare region are no longer taking in nurses, rent nurses. That made the labor market shift totally. There are much more nurses out in the labor market now, and that has also reduced the staffing services from other companies and the municipalities. I think that will probably be, it's not a trend that we see will shift back towards where we were, say, two, three, five years ago.
Right. This sounds more of a permanent shift and kind of like, are you expecting to change your operations there? Is there a similar shift in any of the other countries like Norway or Denmark?
We don't have these services in the other countries. Klara is only active in Sweden for these services. We have the share of, you can say all traditional staffing services are really low now in Klara. It was the largest sub-segment a couple of years ago. Now it's really low. Now it's the student healthcare services and the nursing patrol services, the two most important in Klara, and will be so for the future.
Okay, fair enough. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Filip Wetterqvist from SB1 Markets. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. I have a couple questions. I start with the Vardaga. You currently have approximately SEK 200 million of ending contracts that are expected to end in the coming 12 months. Are they expected to end evenly throughout the period, or are they front or backloaded, or how should we think about that?
Rather evenly. We have some now in the second quarter. I think we have some in each quarter. I'm not fully have the exact dates of all the ones, but you can expect them to leave evenly. I think it's eight different, smaller nursing homes.
All right. Thank you. I assume these are margin dilutive, right? It will help the margin when you have exited those contracts.
Normally, contract management homes are a little bit lower margin over time than own management. I don't say something about the margin of these specific ones, but normally over time, the margins are lower in contract management.
Yeah. A question on Denmark. Denmark keeps showing great volatility quarter to quarter. Do you think this 6% margin you reported today is something we can extrapolate going forward, or do you expect continued volatility, or how should we think about the margins in Denmark?
The margins in Denmark and Norway are very seasonal differences. The Q3 is by far the strongest, and Q2 is by far the weakest. That is because of the high extra payment for the banking holidays that are in Q2, and that won't shift going forward. We can expect lower margins in Q2 than in Q1, especially in these two countries that are really the strongest seasonal effects.
Yeah. Year on year, you're expecting progress.
Yeah, year on year, when 2025 and 2026 is the same calendar, you can say, the Easter is in the same quarter. 2024 was a different story, but 2025 and 2026, we have the same calendar throughout the years. You can compare the quarter, year on year, of course.
Yeah. Then one last question still on Denmark. What has changed there that you now make, that you now feel comfortable to add a lot more capacity there?
What has changed is, first of all, that we have a much more stable business now, performing better, with good management and good control. Also taking leverage of the systems and methods that the Ambea Group can provide. That's, of course, the foundation for future growth. The second thing is that last year was the new elderly care reform in Denmark put in place and voted through parliament. That new reform basically gives private operators freedom to establish across the country and a full freedom of choice for the care receivers also across the country with a good revenue model, which we think is attractive also to private operators.
Since then, we have, of course, been looking actively in the market for new projects for nursing homes. We have signed 2 so far this year for opening in 2028 and 2029. We will sign more contracts as we move into the year for nursing homes to open in 2029 and onwards. Sorry, 2028 and onwards. We also see opportunities for organic growth in the social care segment, both for children and for adults. We're also looking for opportunities there. There will be more pipeline expansion from the organic side in Denmark as we move into the remaining part of the year.
All right. Per, thank you. That was all for me.
Thank you. Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Jacob Andersson from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Mark and Benno. I hope you can hear me. I just have a few follow-up questions. If you start with Stendi, on the ongoing capacity adjustment there, where are you in that process, and how large has the margin had been from these restructuring efforts?
We have said that we believe a good margin level in Norway is between 8% to 9%. We have also said we will get closer to that range this year, but most likely not all the way. I will reiterate that we expect higher margins for the full year than what we had for the full year 2025. The capacity adjustments are ongoing, and they're progressing well, but capacity adjustments takes a bit of time. We are not talking about hundreds of placements. It's some handfuls of placements that we are shifting around. We are moving some between the segments. Some of the care homes we can rebuild to childcare, which we are doing. Some of them we are leaving.
The ones that we are leaving are the smaller units with lower efficiency, and the ones we are signing and entering are larger units with higher efficiency, and where we can also offer more competitive prices to the Norwegian municipalities without impacting care quality or work environment. The effects will come gradually throughout the year with more as we move into the year. You will see some improvement next quarter, but the majority will come in the second half of the year.
Yeah, perfect. Thanks for that. Just a follow-up question. You mentioned in the Q4 report that demand was kind of stabilizing towards the end of that quarter, but how do you view the market conditions now in Norway over the next, say, six to twelve months?
We believe they look good in child welfare. I mean, it's, we are a strong supplier to the Norwegian Society in Child Welfare, and we continue to be so. We also are developing our services in line with the needs and demands from the state and from the municipalities. We expect that to be stable to slightly growing. Whereas in adult care, we expect a demand situations which will be stable, flattish, throughout the year, and where it's more about adjusting capacity to make sure that we have the capacity in the right parts of Norway, and where we can also offer capacity at the competitive prices with good quality and good work environment.
Okay, perfect. Just a last one there. You also in Q4, you flagged those investments in a broader operational structure. Can you give us some sort of update on the magnitude of these investments in Q1? At what point should we expect these to start declining?
We continue to invest, we will continue to do so, for many quarters to come. I mean, it's very important for us as we grow, that we maintain high investments in systems, processes, people and leadership, because this is a people business, and we are very depending on high quality care in our operations. We will employ, as I said, thousands of new employees for just looking at the organic pipeline we have, it's thousands of new employees coming in just with the pipeline we have now. As we will add more to the pipeline, we will of course also add the need for more care professionals, coming into us. They need training, they need development, we need to invest in new care homes. We need to invest in our systems and processes.
This is not a kind of 1 quarter or 2 quarters effort. This is an effort which is ongoing and which will continue. And we think that also correlates to our financial targets where we have a high growth ambition, but we have maintained also our target on a profitability target on 9.5%. Now we are a bit above, but we think with an increased pace in our growth and continued investment in our people and operations, it's a good level to be at and reflects also the quality of operations. It's not like that, you know, investments have come down or will come down next quarter. We will continue to invest in those things.
Okay, thank you. That was all for me.
Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, please press star one and one to ask a question. We will now take the next question from the line of Kristofer Liljeberg from Carnegie . P lease go ahead.
Yeah, thank you. Three questions. First on Denmark, surprisingly strong margin for being a first quarter. Was any type of one-offs or positive events that impacted this?
No, nothing at all at that kind. It's the underlying underlying margin is as they reported.
If I just compare with last year, of course, you had a pretty weak you know, it gradually become better. Q1 last year, you did 2.4% EBITDA margin Q1, then you ended up for the full year, you know, 2 percentage points higher than that. Is that the type of extrapolation you could do also for this quarter, or is that maybe too aggressive?
I think that most of the profitability improvement, the large one is do we have behind us as of now. We still expect the margins to increase going forward as we see there are still occupancy improvements to gain. We think there are also more operational efficiency to gain, but it won't be percentage points per quarter as we have seen this quarter and some quarters last year.
Okay, that's fair. On the new openings in Finland, is it possible to quantify the size of them and how much growth they could add?
Yeah. We have around, I think it's 88 new places. Got that number in front of me, I think it's we have one large unit, a large home, and then we have three smaller units where two are part of the acquisitions that we made now in child welfare. This is how it looks like to open up in the second half of the year.
It is 88. You are right.
88. Yep.
Okay. Then finally on the group margin, I think, if I remember correctly, you indicated even that EBITDA margin could be slightly down this year with a lot of openings, et cetera. I think that seems pretty cautious now given the strong start of the year, and you talk about further improvements in Norway, for example. How do you view now the full year margin for 2026?
We are not changing the margin target, but you're of course right that we have seen a stronger start to the year than one could have expected at the back end of 2025, with good operational efficiency, good increase in occupancy and the well-performing business units and teams. You know, going forward, we have, of course, more openings and more acquisitions to conduct this year. It has been a good start indeed. One could think that we would perform slightly better than the profitability target, but I will leave that to you and your analysis to determine what you think. It's looking definitely positive from the start of the year.
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back to Mark Jensen for closing remarks.
Thank you all for joining us today and for your continued interest in Ambea. Thanks for all the good questions from all of you. The report from the second quarter will be published on August 19th this year. I wish you all a very nice day. Stay safe and healthy. Thank you.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.