Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Ambea Interim Report Fourth Quarter 2021. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be the question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press Star and One on your telephone keypad. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would like now to hand the conference over to our first speaker today, Mark Jensen. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Ambea's fourth quarter 2021 report presentation. Speaking is Mark Jensen, CEO of Ambea, and presenting with me today is Benno Eliasson, CFO. Last quarter, we gave an introduction of Nytida. Today, we will lead our presentation looking at one of Nytida segments to give you a better view of the business. Then I will give you an overview of the quarter, including an update of the latest customer survey. 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. Starting off with a brief overview of Ambea. As you probably know already, Ambea is the leading Scandinavian care provider.
We have about 26,000 employees across Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, and revenues of about SEK 11.5 billion. We have a complete service offering within elderly care, disability care, psychosocial support, and staffing solutions. We have more than 350 municipalities as our clients and our important partner in the solution of the welfare challenge. Nytida, Vardaga, and Klara all operate in Sweden, where Nytida offers social care, Vardaga offers elderly care, and finally, Klara offers staffing solutions. Stendi in Norway and Altiden in Denmark both have social care and elderly care. Now over to a short introduction of Nytida. Last quarter, we gave a short overview of Nytida, which is the largest business area within Ambea.
Nytida is high-level divided into two main segments: disability care, which accounts for about 2/3 of the revenue, and individual and family care, contributing 1/3 of the revenue. This quarter, we will zoom in on the largest business segment being disability care. First, we take a look at the legislation that governs the service. The Swedish Act concerning support and service for persons with certain functional impairments in Swedish LSS is an entitlement law that guarantees good living conditions for people with extensive and permanent functional impairment, ensuring that they receive the support they need in their daily life and where the care receiver can influence the support and services. The number of people with support according to law has increased by 22% since 2010, according to the National Board of Health and Welfare in Sweden, and the most common support is daily activities.
One reason for the increase in support is that the population is increasing. People with disabilities such as autism spectrum disorder or acquired brain injury often have a lifelong need for support and care. Due to Nytida's broad range of services, we can offer a variety of care with personalized support throughout all stages and needs of life, including assisted living facilities and daily activities. Between 2016 and 2020, the overall market has grown by 5% annually. The private sector holds approximately 20% of the market and Nytida approximately 22% of the private share. Although Nytida is by far the largest player within disabled care, it is a fragmented market with fierce competition and many local and regional players.
During the pandemic, the private sector has increased overall market share by one percentage point, but there's still a lot of room to grow within the private sector and overall for the private sector to gain a higher share of the total market. In terms of organic growth within disabled care, we focus on filling vacant capacity in our existing facilities. Further, we currently have 12 new assisted living facilities under construction and are looking for more opportunities to construct new assisted living facilities in attractive geographies. On top of this, we continue to look for attractive bolt-on acquisitions of small and mid-size local and regional players. I hope this has provided a better understanding of disabled care, the largest business segment within Nytida. We will now move on to customer satisfaction, a prerequisite for sustainable growth.
Care receivers' experience of Ambea is the ultimate measure of how well we have succeeded with our business. We are proud of the latest customer survey conducted during quarter four. The diagram shows the results from the question of the care receivers' overall satisfaction with our care and service. All business areas are improving their results, and within Vardaga, Stendi, and Altiden, the development has been particularly good. Nytida has been part of the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions 2021 National Care Receiver Survey. Altiden and Stendi and Vardaga has conducted Ambea's own customer satisfaction survey. Being able to compare results and develop the business is important for Ambea, and we will therefore increase the number of customer surveys in 2022, starting in Vardaga, who will conduct three customer satisfaction surveys during the year.
By working focused with the survey and the results, we will gradually increase the response rate and be able to take faster action within areas for improvement. All business areas are currently reviewing the results to act on how we can continue to develop satisfaction with our services. Now let's have a look at our growth development. At the start of the pandemic, overall group revenue was impacted negatively as occupancy dropped, especially within elderly care in Sweden. Since quarter two, the trend has reversed, and we see an increase in the number of care receivers, high occupancy rates, and increased revenue year-over-year. Over the last three quarters, the growth is accelerating and amounted to 8% in the last quarter of the year. Organically, we have been growing the last two quarters.
With a higher commercial focus to fill vacancies in existing facilities, more facilities opening in 2022, and a normal flow of bolt-on acquisitions, we look positively at our overall growth potential. On next slide, we will have a look at organic growth. We see occupancy improving in most of our Vardaga units, and we opened one new unit with 60 beds in the quarter. Nytida opened one new unit with a total of 6 beds, and more openings are on the way. We have, during the last two years, been cautious in opening new Vardaga units due to the weaker local demand. During the quarter, two Vardaga care homes, with a total of 154 beds, were abandoned due to low demand for private elderly care in those municipalities.
As the demographic development calls for construction of more nursing homes and care facilities, we continue to actively explore opportunities for organic growth within elderly care in Sweden and Denmark and within social care in all three markets. In Sweden alone, a recently updated report from the think tank, Timbro, highlights the need of more than 400 new nursing homes by 2030. This analysis is based on data originating from the Swedish Ministry of Finance. To overcome the significant challenge of building enough new modern care homes, society should open for more private involvement and long-term thinking. The pandemic has unfortunately narrowed the focus somewhat, and public funds available have been spent on more short-term support and subsidies to tackle the impact from the pandemic.
As there's no change to the underlying demographic challenge of an elderly population, we have a few critical years in front of us, where pace and construction must increase to meet the post-war baby boom generation soon in need of elderly care. In the last two years, we have opened almost 900 new bed placements, and as partners to the municipalities, we will continue the work to further develop a healthy pipeline of new care homes. With that, let's turn to acquisitions. In 2021, we have closed the acquisition of LSS Omsorgen in Sweden in Q1, adding about SEK 58 million in annual revenue. In quarter two, we closed the acquisition of EKKOfonden's care operations in Denmark. This acquisition added about SEK 379 million in annual revenue. In the later part of the quarter, Nytida acquired Christinagården in Lindesberg and the subsidiary Yxe Herrgård.
The acquisition includes two treatment and psychiatric homes, including training apartments for LSS residential facilities and one daily activity center. Last reported annual net revenue amounted to SEK 96 million. The acquisition has been closed first of February 2022. Strong cash generation gives us the opportunity to seek for bolt-on acquisition, which we see as an essential part of our strategy. We are active in all our markets evaluating potential opportunities for future value creation and continue to see M&A as a key driver of growth. Now to the summary of the quarter. All segments, apart from Stendi, delivered net revenue growth in the quarter versus last year. In total, sales grew 8% compared to quarter four last year, primarily driven by our active M&A agenda, but also through organic growth and a positive currency effect.
Adjusted EBITA came in at SEK 214 million, an increase of 7% versus last year. The increase was mainly explained by Vardaga's healthy occupancy trend and strong operational performance, but counteracted by Nytida, where Q4 last year was impacted by positive one-off effects. In December, Stendi was informed that the Supreme Court of Norway will not hear the case related to cost for temporary staff. Ambea became party to this legal proceeding through the acquisition of Aleris Omsorg in 2018. The ruling thereby established a precedent for similar legal cases, and Ambea subsequently reserved an additional SEK 145 million, which was charged to the fourth quarter. Of this amount, SEK 70 million has previously been announced. In Stendi, we have initiated an operational turnaround program in the quarter where effects will start to materialize gradually during 2022.
Further, we increase our focus within social care and are divesting the elderly care division. We continue to see positive development in Altiden in Denmark, and our strategic focus on social care and elderly care homes delivered solid net revenue growth in the quarter. We're happy to report that once again, the positive occupancy development within Vardaga has continued after the quarter ended, and we will further strengthen and increase investments behind relevant informational and commercial activities to reach future care receivers and their relatives. With that, over to you, Benno, for a presentation of the financial summary.
Thank you, Mark. This quarter, we see increased growth numbers. From last quarter's 7% year-on-year to this quarter's 8% year-on-year, and the growth versus last quarter was 2.6%. If we look into how the different business areas have affected the group numbers, we can see that both Vardaga and Klara is up 12% versus last year. In Vardaga, we have opened five new nursing homes since the beginning of Q4 last year and have had increasing occupancy throughout this quarter. Nytida is rather flat, and Stendi shows growth in SEK, but have negative growth in local currency by 5% as we are adjusting our capacity. Altiden is affected by the acquisition of EKKOfonden on the positive side by SEK 96 million, and on the negative side by exiting home care contracts by SEK 24 million.
Underlying, we see a good organic growth in both social care and elderly care. Adjusted EBITDA in Vardaga, we see that the improved occupancy and operational improvements have generated a higher profitability than previous year, despite the fact that last year was positively affected by retroactive government reimbursements. In Nytida, we were not able to match the last year's strong margin. This quarter, we see more of a normal Q4 margin. In Stendi, we have positive one-off effects from the finalized collective salary agreement from 2020 and 2021. The underlying profitability is more in line with last year and still on a low level. In Altiden, we are comparing with a weak quarter last year. The acquired EKKOfonden business contributed well. EBITDA was still negatively affected by a new open own managed nursing home and the downtrading of the remaining home care contracts.
All in all, the adjusted EBITDA grew by 7%. Cash flow. Q4 is normally one of the strongest quarters from a cash flow point of view, and we see again this year a total operating cash flow of over SEK 500 million, even if it's slightly lower than last year. In 2020, the Q3 and Q4 numbers were positively affected by different government measures related to the pandemic. This puts the rolling twelve operating cash flow slightly below 100% of EBITDA, but seen in a longer perspective, still very strong. Cash flow statements, including the new leasing standard, IFRS 16, are sometimes a bit tricky to follow. This slide shows the way from the rolling twelve reported EBITDA of SEK 711 million to the SEK 629 million in EBITDA, excluding leasing, down to the free cash flow post-tax.
We can see in this graph that we have paid SEK 125 million in taxes, SEK 63 million in interest, and invested SEK 70 million in fixed assets. We can also see this year that we have a negative effect on working capital, and this is connected to the government program mentioned before in 2020, which then the cash flow-wise is reversed in 2021. We have generated SEK 359 million in free cash flow post-tax based on the old accounting standard. This slide we see how we have used the generated SEK 369 million. SEK 109 million was distributed to our shareholders as a dividend. SEK 189 million was spent on the two acquisitions we made in the first half of this year, and the rest was used to reduce our debts.
The seasonally stronger cash flow in Q4 is of course also affecting the leverage rate in a positive way in the quarter. We managed to reduce our leverage from 3.5 times to 3.3 in the quarter, but still on a slightly higher level than previous year. As you can see in the graph, we are financing around two-thirds of our debt by our own commercial paper program. Turning to the different business areas, starting with Nytida. Sales was flat versus last year, but up 3% versus last quarter. Our managed homes show slightly lower occupancy than last year, and we opened one new assisted living facility with six beds in the quarter. Last year, we saw a positive EBITDA effect in Nytida from the government programs, especially in Q2 and in Q4.
This quarter's margin is more of a normal margin of 13.5%. Rolling twelve EBITDA is slightly down from last quarter then, but still at a high 14.2%. In Vardaga, net sales increased by 12% year-on-year and by 3% versus last quarter. We have opened up five new nursing homes since the beginning of Q4 2020, and occupancy in mature units as well as the ramp-up units opened 2019 to 2021 were in the quarter higher than last year and shows a month-on-month good trend throughout the quarter. We can also see in the national statistics for November that there is an increase in the total market since January 2021, but still on a lower than pre-pandemic level.
The number of elderly living in a nursing home were approximately 2% higher than Q4 last year, and this means, of course, that Vardaga has gained market share during the year. EBITDA increased with 40% to SEK 59 million, driven by both higher occupancy and strong operational performance. We have now around 10 nursing homes that we have not yet opened up for care receivers. We evaluate the local markets very carefully, and we'll open up two of them in the first quarter of 2022 in the city of Gothenburg, where a local political decision gave care receivers freedom of choice from February 1st. To further improve occupancy, we continue to boost our communication and marketing activities based on local needs and opportunities received. Stendi. Net sales increased by 2% in SEK, but decreased by 5% in local currency.
We saw a slightly weaker demand and have also reduced the capacity in our own managed portfolio. EBITDA was up from SEK 15 million-SEK 28 million , which were in the later part of the quarter affected by the strict Norwegian COVID quarantine rules impacting salary costs. In the quarter, we have a positive one-off impact from the retroactive and final salary regulation for 2020 and 2021. The underlying profitability was more in line with Q4 last year. We are working now on different turnaround measures, both to further adapt our capacity to the demand in the market and other programs, such as staff reduction on an entity level to improve the profitability. Effects on this will be shown gradually in the P&L during 2022. Altiden. The repositioning of Altiden is progressing according to plan in the quarter.
Net sales was affected positively, as said, by EKKO on SEK 96 million, and on a negative side, on the planned exit of home care contracts by SEK 24 million. We saw, as said, underlying solid growth in both elderly care and disabled care. Q4 is normally a soft quarter in Denmark. Compared to last year, EBITDA increased by SEK 17 million, driven by the acquired EKKO operations and the one-off revaluation of the additional purchase price by SEK 7 million. This was reduced by losses in our first own managed nursing home, opened in late Q2. Normally, it takes eight to 12 months until a newly opened nursing home reaches break even. At last, Klara. At Klara net sales increased by 12%. We are growing our business towards external public and private operators, as well as towards Vardaga and Nytida.
Compared to last year, we have expanded our nursing patrols geographically to three new cities in Sweden and expanded our business in several existing geographies as well. The business model of Klara delivering nursing services on-site in evenings and weekends only when needed has proven to be very attractive for smaller care units. EBITDA margin was stable at 8% and rolling 12 at 7.3%. 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 acquired and organic growth. In 2021, we are back to growth and have announced two acquisitions in the first half of the year, LSS Omsorgen in Sweden, and EKKOfonden's care homes in Denmark. Profitability-wise, we have a midterm adjusted EBITDA target of 9.5%. Since Q2 2021, we have seen clear signs of improving occupancy, which in turn will support an increased margin going forward. Also, the turnaround program in Norway is expected to positively contribute to the margin development during 2022. Finally, leverage dropped slightly for the second quarter in a row, but we are still above target. That said, our solid cash conversion will reduce leverage over time.
Summarizing the last quarter of 2021, Ambea is showing organic growth in the quarter and see a continued positive occupancy trend in our elderly care segment in Sweden. We have initiated a turnaround program for Stendi in Norway, continued to adjust capacity and focus on social care where we have scale, high competence and growth opportunities. The strategic repositioning in Denmark follows plan. In 2022, we will see a different shape of the business with a higher proportion of all managed care homes and an exit of the last remaining home care contracts. In a tough year, we have lifted customer satisfaction in all four main business segments. Satisfied care receivers provide a good base for continued growth, and with the positive feedback, we're extra motivated to improve even further.
Earnings per share is lower than last year because of the SEK 145 million provision in Stendi. The board proposes a dividend of SEK 1.15 per share to the AGM, which is the same level as 2021, as we see the accrual in Norway as a one-time effect, not impacting future earnings. The dividend represents 46% of earnings per share. An accelerated impact from the pandemic hit all operations towards the end of the quarter, but has been handled very well with very few cases of serious illness and good cooperation internally and with local authorities. The impact continued into the first quarter of 2022, and it's here expected to have some impact on salary costs due to high levels of sick leave and current quarantine rules not being fully compensated by government support programs.
We have not seen any negative impact on occupancy in quarter four or in the beginning of quarter one. Aiming at an evolution, a renewed strategy is co-created by the extended management team. This to build on our strengths and capture new opportunities. The strategy is currently being finalized and will be communicated later in the year. Before new restrictions kicked in at the end of the quarter, I had the chance to visit our teams and several care facilities in all three markets. Their relentless focus on our care receivers 24/7 and the resilience demonstrated by our staff makes me proud. As we can now look more optimistic at the future, it feels great to have such competent staff in place to support our clients, 350 municipalities across three countries.
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. Operator, can we have the first question, please?
Thank you, dear participants. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. The first question comes from the line of Karl Norén from Danske Bank. Please ask your question.
Yes, good morning. So I have three questions, but we can start with the provision maybe. You did an additional provision of SEK 75 million after you announced the first provision of SEK 70 million. I was wondering what made you take this larger than firstly estimated provision? Is the question, is there a risk that the figure will increase any more, or do you feel confident that this is enough, the additional SEK 75 million?
Thank you for the question. The reason for increasing the provision is that more claimants came forward than previously expected after the end of the quarter. With the knowledge we have today, we believe that the provision is sufficient to cover the ruling of the Norwegian court.
Okay. Maybe another question on the Stendi business. You write down the line result is quite flat this year-over-year, so I guess the margin is also rather stable. I was wondering how confident are you that the margin now will improve already in the first half of 2022 versus 2021?
We are in the middle of the turnaround program, and we have made a lot of things that will have effect from the first and second quarter last year. Of course, short term, the high sickness rate has made the very start of the 2022 quarter maybe that we don't see it so obvious that we would have seen otherwise.
Okay. Just a last question on Vardaga. I'm just curious to hear how many openings you expect to have during 2022 and how we should think about net added beds in Vardaga business?
We have right now a plan of opening four or five new nursing homes. As said, we are cautious when opening these, and we are looking into several municipalities where we have a home when to open up. Hopefully there could be some more, but right now in place doing four and five.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Kristofer Liljeberg from Carnegie. Please ask your question.
From Carnegie. Hi, good morning. Four questions for me. First, is it possible to quantify the cost you have had or the earnings impact from the 10 homes not yet opened? That's the first question. I wonder if you could give some more maybe clarity how we should think about high sick leave costs in the first quarter. The third question is related to Denmark and the impact you still have from the home care there. Is it possible to quantify that and for how long you expect to have this negative impact? I think I stop there.
Yeah. The first question was how much the ten not yet opened houses have affected the profitability. We're not communicating the exact number, but overall we can see that the rent level is between SEK 6 million and SEK 10 million per house. That will probably give you some guidance on that annually.
The second question was around sick leave in quarter one. As society overall, of course, we have been impacted by absence both at the end of quarter four and also in the beginning of quarter one. That said, we can see week on week that the levels are dropping somewhat over the last two weeks, which is positive. We also have relatively fair government support programs in place in Denmark and in Sweden. That said, in Norway, the support programs are relatively weak, and there we will see a larger impact from absence in quarter one. It is a bit tricky to say how much it will impact us because nobody knows how the absence will look in February and March.
Some impact in Norway in the beginning of the year and we believe that in Denmark and Sweden with the government support programs in place, the impact will not be material.
Given your previous comments about underlying improvements in Norway, is it fair to assume that these two, the positive effect and the negative effect, will even out in the first quarter?
Hard to say, but that could be the case, yes. There was a question about home care in Denmark. As we communicated exactly one year ago that we will leave the home care area. We have at that time 10 municipality contracts. Right now we have still four, and we have agreements to leave three of them, two of them in the first quarter and another one in the second quarter. There is one that we will probably keep for a longer time, but that is connected to a elderly care contract, and it's not loss-making or hurting the profitability. We will see some effect on top line, of course, going forward, but in Q1, that will hopefully be the last quarter that we see some negative effect on the bottom line.
If you had closed those, let's say the three contracts that will end now in the first half, how much better would the earnings have been in Denmark in the fourth quarter?
If we have closed them now in Q4, you mean?
Yeah, but I mean, I think you said that you still have a negative impact on this. It would be, I think, helpful.
Yeah, negative-
If you could explain how much.
Especially on top line, it was SEK 24 million year-on-year. On bottom line, it was substantial in Q4, but going forward it will not be a substantial effect on the P&L.
Okay, you're not gonna say how much the negative impact was in the fourth quarter?
No, we are not communicating that specific area. That was better than last year of course, but still affecting somewhat negative in Q4.
Okay. Somewhat negative or significant? I don't follow there.
Somewhat.
Okay.
Somewhat.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of K J Bonnevier from DNB Markets. Please ask your question.
Yes. Good morning, Karl-Johan Bonnevier from DNB Markets. Just to come back on the provision to make it fully clear, what kind of time horizon does these costs relate to from your perspective? When was the cost incurred, so to say, and that you're now settling? And also, just to be clear that you don't use these kind of temporary setups with any workers in Norway at this stage, so to say. There is then no, say, own recurring kind of theme here.
The cost is back to 2020, and you could say that the ruling basically states that you can claim this three years back. Therefore it's quite complicated also to calculate because you had quite a few hired staff consultants in the business. That was the norm in the market back then. Each claimant has to be calculated quite precisely case by case. We have stopped this practice obviously. Going forward, there will be kind of no new claims coming up, so to speak, from the way we operate in the business today. But o f course we have made this provision to make sure that we can cover up for claimants coming forward with the retroactive claims back in time.
Looking at the agreement you had when you acquired Aleris Care and the AQT where the investor was supposed to pay for this, that is related to things that then happened before the cutoff date when you took charge of this operation and not the cost afterwards that you now reserve for. Is that the way of looking at it?
Yeah, you could say so. It is that way that it was before the cutoff date and sometime after that, but not until today, so to speak. That's why we have been making this provision in the fourth quarter. As we have also said, we do not believe that this will impact our future earnings or opportunity for future earnings. That is also why the board is proposing a dividend of SEK 1.15 in line with last year.
Exactly. On that note, I think this was the first quarter report I heard you took the midterm financial target of getting back to about 9.5% margins, stating it as your own, so to say, as I guess you inherited earlier. What do you perceive to be midterm in this kind of situation? What really needs to come into place for you to be able to deliver on that target?
There are a few things that need to come in place. First of all, we need, of course, to see that we continue the positive trend that we have in Vardaga. Vardaga is performing again this quarter very well. We have an increased occupancy trend and strong operational performance, and we need to continue that. And as we also said, the positive trend is continuing into quarter one, which is of course good. We need to see a full recovery, of course, of the Swedish elderly care. We're not there yet, but on a good path, I would say.
Of course, the turnaround in Norway is important for the margin development and the repositioning in Denmark continuing as it is now, and where we will see a different shape of the business in Denmark from 2022 and forward with more focus on own managed care homes. Of course also the exit of the home care, as we just discussed. I would say those three things are important. Obviously our largest business segment Nytida, it is important that we continue also a steady performance there. We can continue also to organically and through acquisitions develop the top line while holding onto our margins. Those are the main components in reaching the midterm target.
When you look at, I guess, Kristofer was alluding to the headwind you for the moment have with all these units that are not coming into operation in Vardaga yet. Is it fair to assume that, with those in operation, say in coming into operation during this year, next year, that 2024 could be the year when you could get closer to or deliver on the margin targets?
Well, I don't wanna, you know, place a bet on a specific year, in this case. We can all kind of make our assumptions, but it is a midterm target. We believe that with the elements I just mentioned, that we have the target within reach. To you know put a year on it, I label it with a year. I don't wanna do that here now.
Thanks. I'm looking forward to that at some stage in the future. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll have the next question come through line of Kristofer Liljeberg. Please ask your question.
Yes. One more if that's okay. Wondering about Norway. Is it possible to maybe explain a little bit more what you have done and why this will have impact now in the first and second quarter or from the first and second quarter?
Yeah. I can do that. First of all, I mean, I would say the good news of the high provision is of course that we have now done what many have in front of them in Norway, basically to make sure that the practice of using consultants is not more in place at Stendi, which means that we are well positioned, assuming fair competition to achieve future growth. That's a good thing. That's one thing we have done, and that's of course something that we have done over time. Secondly, we are of course looking at the future capacity need in Norway and in which segments that we believe the capacity is needed.
Where we believe it's not needed, we are taking out capacity. With that, we are of course also reducing staff. That has been an important part of the turnaround program to review the overall facilities. Exit facilities we believe are not needed in the future mix, and thereby also reducing our staff in line with that. That is, of course a program that has been undergoing during quarter four. It takes a bit of time, of course with such a process, negotiating with the unions and each individual employee. We have done that and that's one of the things that you will also start to see materialize now during the first half.
Other than that, there are other things also on the more commercial side in the program, looking at how we will work closer with the municipalities. There are lots of things happening in the Norwegian care sector also, which open new opportunities for the ones that understand them. And we are spending quite a lot of time also in shaping up our commercial program. It's not only cost related, but of course there's a good chunk of cost in it because that we can control ourselves directly. There's also commercial activities aiming at more top line growth over time.
Do you still have some larger unprofitable contracts in Norway in place that will take a few years before you could leave them or renegotiate?
We have exited some. We have another quite big one within Barnevernet, which is not unprofitable. It is coming up for renegotiation this year. That's of course something we are looking at closely also to make sure that we can aim at kind of capacity that the authorities want us to provide, and to make sure that we adjust that capacity up or down, depending on the need. That's a contract coming up for renegotiation during this year, and that will of course be an important contract to spend time on and also to get alignment on with the authorities in Norway. There is a mix of activities as you are alluding to in the turnaround program, and renegotiating contracts is of course also one of them.
Okay. What would you say is the largest risk in Norway for not seeing a significant margin improvement in 2022 versus 2021?
The largest risk? The largest risk. I believe that the largest risk is probably occupancy. We need to make sure that we get a swing in occupancy and also that the capacity adjustments we are making are correct, so we get in at the right level and with the right level of capacity, but also that we can fill the capacity we have. I would say that's probably the highest risk this year.
Great. Thank you very much.
We don't have that in direct control. What we have in direct control, I'm more comfortable about.
Okay, sounds good. Thank you.
Thank you. Dear participants, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. Dear speakers, we do not have any further questions at this time.
No more questions. Thank you all for calling in. The quarter one report will be published on May 4th. I hope you will all have a very nice day, stay safe and healthy, and see you next time.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect. Have a nice day.