Welcome to Asker Healthcare Q1 Earnings Call 2026. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen only mode during to during the questions-and-answer session participants are able to ask question by dialing pound key five on their telephone keypad. Now, I will hand the conference over to CEO Johan Falk and CFO Thomas Moss. Please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. This is Johan Falk, and welcome to the Q1 report. As we said on the headline here, strong start of the year. That's how we feel. We have a good Q1 behind us now. The growth of the adjusted EBITDA was 21%. We all know that 4% headwind could have taken us to 25% in total if it wasn't for the FX effect. 21% we're proud of as well, of course. Of that, 8% was organic, very importantly. If we look at the margin, 9.8% coming closer to the 10% short to midterm target. A 70 basis points increase. That's also a signal of having good efficiency and purchasing power in the group that we're using in the right way.
If we just look on the highlight side here, we have a net sales of SEK 4.5 billion this quarter, up with 13% out of 5% organic top line growth, which is faster than the market. adjusted EBITDA of SEK 442 million, up with 21%, as I mentioned, and 8% organic. A bit faster bottom line growth than top line growth, which we like. Showing the efficiency and scale that we now can see of the groups. We have an Adjusted EBITDA margin strengthened with 70 basis points up to 9.8%. You might remember that we had 10% in Q4, but that is our strongest quarter of the year. We have a steady uptick towards the 10%, which we're on our journey.
Robust cash flow this quarter, thanks to the strong earnings growth and also from the new acquisitions. two acquisitions signed during the quarter. That's also good to see that we are continuing our high pace of M&As with our own cash flow. Staying steady with a leverage below 2.5, as we have communicated before. Looking on the rolling 12-month basis. One year back from now, we have delivered on our most important financial targets. I promised you to deliver adjusted EBITDA over 15% per year, which we had for many years, and now it's 18% for the last 12 months. Our overall net working capital, very important efficiency measure for our operations. 68%, something we're proud of keeping on a high level.
I mentioned the adjusted EBITDA margin, 9.7% on the rolling 12-month basis. Hopefully, we will break through the ceiling of 10% on the yearly basis as well in not too long of a future. 2.15 is the net debt over EBITDA and the leverage ratio. Tom will come back to that a little bit later in the report. But the overall message is that we're keeping that steady as we now are welcoming and acquiring companies on our cash flow. The board has proposed a dividend payout of EUR 39 per share, which is in line with the 30% target of our net profit after tax.
We, I've been here many years, as many of you know, 14, I think it is. We have been fortunate to deliver quarter by quarter growth, organic as well as M&A. This is another quarter which we add to the series. The yellow line here is representing the 15% growth. I'm happy to stay above that, which we have no reason to believe we can't do going forward. Now into some details with Tom.
Great. Thanks, Johan. I will add some numbers just to support the messages that Johan has given there. Overall, the group financial performance, very solid in the quarter, and pleasing for us to see good organic growth across the group. I think one of the things that is most satisfying is that this growth is genuinely broad-based across the regions, across the companies, across the countries, coming both from well-established businesses within the group, but also the recent M&As, driving both growth and margin improvement. If we look at some of the numbers, Johan mentioned them already. Net sales in Q1 up 13%, 5% of that organic with the FX headwind that we have been struggling a bit with in recent quarters.
Adjusted EBITA up 21% in Q1, 8% of that organic, also with the FX headwind affecting the EBITA side of things as well. Margin up to 9.8%, as Johan mentioned, continuing to move in the right direction. If we go one level further down and look in a little bit more detail at the business areas, starting with Business Area North. Performing well, good organic growth across the region. Important to note that the large defense and preparedness sales that we have talked about during 2025 are now out of the comps. It's good to see a clean quarter that shows how this region is doing without those comps confusing the picture. We see Adjusted EBITA growth of 5%, 4% of that organic, and net sales growth of 7%.
Organic growth also at 7% in the quarter. A brief mention of the new distribution center that we've talked about also in the past down in the southwest of Sweden. Progressing nicely. We're starting to do some tests in the facility which have delivered good results. As a reminder, we will be ramping up that activity through the course of this year. There will be some additional double manning costs and some additional inventory coming in towards the end of 2026 and 2027. We will be fully operational in the early part of 2027 and the full P&L benefits coming through in the second half of 2027. Business Area West, strong growth in the region, pleasing to see that we are really getting some benefits from some of the scale effects in the region.
We see adjusted EBITA growing 32%, of which 15% of that was organic, and we see net sales growing 12% with organic growth contributing 5% to the net sales. Quite a large negative FX effect in Business Area West. The margin, as I mentioned before, moving nicely in the right direction, up to 9.5% in the quarter. In a way to repeat the message that we have for the group as a whole in all of the other regions, good organic growth, both from the established businesses and the acquired units as well. With a particular note in Business Area West that we see some really strong performance from our home care operations there, that continue to find additional growth opportunities.
Actually really starting to see some nice scale benefits from those operations, which is good to see. Turning to the third Business Area Central. Also strong sales and EBITA growth across the region. Net sales up 26%, 13% organic, and Adjusted EBITA up 47% in the quarter. Organic growth contributing on the net sales side, 3%. Again, I feel I repeat the message, but really a broad-based contribution to the growth across the companies, across the countries within the region. As we've talked about before, we continue to focus on margin-enhancing activities in the region just to look at the range, look at the portfolio, take out some of the less attractive products and segments from the range here. Turning now briefly to our RORACE, EBITA over working capital.
We talked about this many times. I always talk about it. It's a key internal metric for us, making sure that we're really focusing hard on our capital efficiency and capital utilization. And as we've also talked about many times before, an important source of the cash that we use to fund the M&A engine. Good to see that that's still performing well across the group in the quarter. Going further through the financial statements, a few words about cash in a little bit more detail than perhaps we've provided in the past. The overall picture, really good, solid, robust cash flows. We have very good visibility because of that stability about future outflows, and hence that feeds into good visibility around our M&A planning as well. I'll say a few more words about that in a second.
Cash flow from operating activities, SEK 419 million in the quarter, naturally driven by the strong top and bottom line that I've talked about on the previous pages, but also the continued work we do around working capital efficiency and squeezing cash out there. I perhaps should just note that the SEK 109 million that we saw in Q1 2025 was a abnormally low figure. We had lots of costs, if you remember, associated with the IPO and whatever. Although cash flow is good and it's solid and we're happy with SEK 419 million, perhaps the growth is a little bit flattered by the low figure we had in the comparable period. CapEx, brief mention, I mentioned the distribution center in Göteborg a few pages ago.
We have approximately SEK 100 million remaining to be paid out for that business over the next 9 to 12 months. As we've said, the business is, the development of that DC is progressing nicely. To look a bit to the cash flows coming in the future, particularly in Q2, we've had a few questions around this. I've discussed this with analysts and investors, just to be super transparent on this, we do have a relatively large earn-out cash outflow coming in Q2, SEK 450 million, approximately. Those, as a reminder, are for deals that were done, M&A deals that were done back in 2022, to some extent 2023. Those businesses have developed well.
They have reached the end of their earn-out period at the end of 2025, and then we pay the earn-outs after we've got the annual reports signed off and audited for those businesses, which is why we have the big cash outflow in Q2, SEK 450 million, as I say. We have the dividend, SEK 149 million, our first dividend, which will flow out during May. I think the thing that I want to emphasize is that these regular or non-regular cash outflows that we see coming up in Q2 are well modeled, they're well understood, they're fully built into our thinking, our leverage planning, our debt planning, and of course, that then leads into our capacity to do M&As. Perhaps I also add a further note.
When you look forward to the earn-outs in 2027, i.e., for deals that we did in 2023 and, to some extent 2024, whose earn-out period comes to an end at the end of 2026, we expect that cash out amount to be around SEK 130 million. I think it's interesting just to contrast that with the relatively larger amount that we're gonna be paying out now in Q2 2026. I think that's an indication, not that those businesses have performed less well, but more that we have evolved our earn-out model as we have gone forward through the development of our second engine, our M&A engine. Then one final page from me, just taking the cash flow and the leverage discussion one step further.
We have a stable leverage well below our target of 2.5x, giving us good capacity for those continued acquisitions, that key fundamental second engine that's a part of our business. A few numbers on this page. I tried to take them steadily so we don't get confused. The net debt to EBITDA, according to our current definition and our current 2.5x target, comes in at 2.15x during the quarter. For the two deals that we've completed in the quarter, Van Heek and GHC, actually, we haven't yet fully paid out all of the cash for those acquisitions. The reason for that is we're actually waiting for the final annual reports, the audited annual reports. We like to receive that before we complete all of the cash outflow. Clearly, those are part of those deals.
Those are cash amounts that are associated with completed deals. To be completely open and transparent and clear, we've added those back. When that amount is added back, you see that actually 2.25x is the leverage in the quarter. I think that's the more relevant figure to look at. You can see on the right-hand side of this picture, the chart. You know, our leverage is extremely stable. We manage it in a good way, and we're conscious to keep it at that stable level. I add one further footnote, again, simply because I've discussed this so much with analysts and investors. There is an alternative way of looking at the leverage ratio. Actually, this way is equivalent to our bank leverage definition, covenant definition.
That would be to include all of the earn-outs and outstanding payments for the next 12 months in the debt side of the calculation. At the same time, to also include the 12-month pro forma EBITDA from acquisitions that we've done, which I also think is very reasonable. You know, these are businesses that are part of the Asker Healthcare Group now. That cash-generating capacity is part of the group. It's only reasonable to include that as well. If you were to use this alternative leverage calculation, you would come to a figure of 2.36. Just to reinforce again, that is not our current definition, but it's another way of looking at it.
I think what it does when you see that is it just reinforces the point that the strong and stable cash flows that this business generate enable us to manage leverage, have good insight, and deliver on our M&A agenda going forwards. With that, I pass back to you .
Thank you, Tom. Good bridge to M&A. I mean, we use our strong cash flow to welcome new companies to the group. As I mentioned many times before, we're improving the pipeline and, being a market leader in Europe now in medical supplies, device, and equipment across 19 countries, we're seen as the natural leader. We see that, family businesses, entrepreneurial-led businesses want to join the group because they see that they will perform even better, and they are among friends and helping the healthcare improve in Europe. If anything, every quarter that I've presented this, we have a stronger and stronger pipeline, and we can cherry-pick the best ones out of it. Last year, it was around 15 deals we've done, and we had a pipeline of close to 90, with deals we could have done.
That gives an indication of how we work with this. This quarter is no exception. We have welcomed GHC/MPF and also Van Heek Medical, adding some SEK 650 million in annual sales. We also done the acquisition of RMS Medical Devices that was signed in Q1 and was completed in the 1st of April. I think all of these deals now and going forward will contribute positively to our EBITDA margin. If anything, we are cherry-picking the ones that are above 10% EBITDA margin to start with. We have also on top of the scale and positive synergy effect, we also have a positive mix effect helping us to improve the margin.
If we do a deep dive, as I usually do, into one of the acquisitions to give you a flavor of how we help the healthcare nurses, doctors, and patients across Europe. We have GHC MPF, which is two interlinked medical supplies companies within the home care segment where we're strong. This time it was in Germany. We're helping them with incontinence and urology products. That's a strong attractive niche. They're adding roughly SEK 300 million in revenue. They are a team of 140 employees with expertise in these fields, which really supports the home care patient in Germany. That's also have a positive EBITDA margin effect. All right. Coming in to summarize this quarter.
As you can hear, we are happy and proud of having a good start of 2026. Being on this fantastic journey of consolidating the med tech market in Europe, helping the healthcare system to improve. We have seen, we are continuing growing faster than the market. This quarter was 5% top line. We are getting the scale effects out of our operations, so 8% Adjusted EBITDA growth on bottom line. The acquisitions are coming in and will hopefully do so during the year, the following year and the year after with a strong cash flow, good pipeline, and a very good team centrally as well as locally, helping us find the best entrepreneur. I think that is that will pretty much summarize the quarter.
Our visibility is good as you know. Medical supplies, device, and equipment, regardless the tough times around the world, we are in constant need of these products. Even if the financial climate is tough and the war is going on, we need these to take care of our loved ones, and that what we see. Also, the type of customer relationship we have with long customer contracts, we have good visibility. For that reason, we're feeling that we have good progress today, but also good visibility for the rest of the year, both in M&A and organic growth. Thank you very much. I think we go from here to Q&A.
If you wish to ask a question please dial pound five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question please dial pound six on your keypad The next question comes from Erik Cassel from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, everyone. First I wanted to discuss the North organic growth a bit more. Is it possible to sort of split out the different parts of North? Specifically, if we can talk a bit about OneMed, how's that doing? I also wanted to discuss the distribution rights of the orthopedic contract that you bought in the Baltics. Is it possible that that's somehow Q1 weighted? If so, how meaningful is that to the reported organic growth we're seeing this Q1?
I'll just start and hand over to you, Tom, to go more specifically. I think in general, we have a very broad base of growth in all regions, starting with the whole group across the 19 countries. It's not that we have a concentrated growth and profit from some areas, and that goes for the Business Area North as well. Specifically for OneMed, where we've been working for many, many years, and we see that the trust from our customers in Sweden, it's 290 municipalities, 20 regions, and roughly 100 private companies well spread across those. We have a strong tender team winning tenders and contracts, and that can go a little bit up and down.
In general, if you look back 10 years, that has been an increase in trust from customers and increase in growth. OneMed has, you know, is stronger than ever, I would say, in the underlying business. Maybe you want to add something, Tom.
No, I support that. I think the growth, as we've said through the presentation is genuinely broad-based. It's broad-based in North. It's broad-based across the regions. Erik, just to take your specific question about the distribution rights in Benelux. It's small numbers. We're talking low 10s of millions of SEK of revenue and low single-digit millions of SEK in EBITA contribution.
Okay. Is it just possible to frame if, say, OneMed was near the 7%, or if there's other parts, say something in Norway that stood out with, say, double digits instead?
I think as Johan said, I think we are gonna be a bit reluctant to go into individual companies or individual countries in too much detail. No is the simple answer to your question. That there is no spike in any individual company or any individual product. The growth is genuinely broad-based across the region and across the company.
Okay. Good to hear. I just wanted to ask a bit on the acquisition margins. I tried to do some math on Van Heek and the GHC contributions that you have now in Q1. To me, that sort of implies that those companies had 18% EBITA margins now in Q1. You obviously haven't disclosed the, like, underlying margins for it, but would you say that, like, 18% is some sort of normalized level? Is that contribution going to fall for the full year?
Got it. I think, yeah, that 18% sounds a little bit punchy, I would say. I think, you know, for commercial reasons, we don't want to be too specific on the margins of the deals that we buy, but you can read a little bit into the way we communicate the margins. When we say it's margin accretive, we mean it's a little bit above the kind of 10% average of the group. If we start talking about very accretive, then you could perhaps guess that we're above 15% margin. These deals are accretive rather than very accretive, I would say.
Okay. Got it. Got it. I remember normally that there tends to be more pricing adjustments in Q1 compared to the other quarters in the year. I guess that's primarily for North and OneMed. I just wanted to ask now, if what sort of pricing tailwinds do you expect to see now for 2026 if you've had some, say, adjustment outcomes now in Q1? Also how you would compare that to what you're expecting to see for input cost increases, now that there seems to be a bit higher overall cost inflation going on?
Yeah. I'm sorry to. This seems like we're answering the same thing on all the question. Given the extreme broad base we have in our 60 companies, 19 countries, 2,000 suppliers, and thousands and thousands of products and also customers, I would say, it's like a white noise. It's a little bit of everything across the year. There is no specific spike. If you go down to a specific country, to a specific contract, of course, you can see such trends. I think the message for Asker as a whole is, I usually give an example that it's like a floating bit of cork on the water. When it goes up and down, we kind of follow it in a good way.
If anything in problematic and disturbed, when the picture is disturbed with the pandemic or with something, we usually come out on the positive side, being a little bit quicker to act, being a little bit more forward-leaning. When the world is changing, we usually have a little slight positive effect, but that should not be taken into, you know, any dramatic picture. Now when we have the Hormuz situation, we haven't so far seen any problems with this. Of course, our product is so broadly based and, some of them are oil-based, we are keeping a close eye to it. We have been very quick this time as well to, you know, secure supply, making sure that we have a good logistic way so we don't get disturbed. So far, we haven't seen it.
On the price side, we see, if anything, you know, it could be a slight uptick, but you should see it as a normal business.
Okay. nothing has really changed on, let's say, volume to price mix we expect to see for the organic growth this year compared to previous years, essentially what you're saying?
Yes.
Okay, perfect. Thank you very much. I'll jump back in queue.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Jacob Lemke from SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes, hi, good morning. My first question is on the Business Area West. I'm wondering, I mean, if you're securing new clients here now, should we then assume that you have secured sort of more recurring revenues that we should expect this sort of higher EBITDA growth to remain here for a few quarters?
Just to be super clear, Jacob, I guess when you say clients, you mean patients in their home rather than Because actually the funding system in home care in the Netherlands is primarily driven by the big insurance companies. It's, so we're talking about patient numbers or did I misinterpret your question?
Yeah, I meant patients.
Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, when you see double-digit growth in West. I think if I was building a model, I wouldn't build in 15% growth in West in perpetuity. I think that would be a little bit on the ambitious side. It is fair to say that, you know, we are doing well in West. We are growing that business organically. As I mentioned, the scale benefits that we got, we had a little bit of a discussion around this in Q4 because we've had a bit of a warehouse reorganization, for example, in West and finding those benefits.
We have had for a long time in the group a large business called Bosman that has continuously and consistently done extremely well. We bought another large business called MediReva three or four years ago, and that's nearly really running at full steam now as well. The combination of those, the scale that we're getting from those and the extremely good relationships we have with patients and the insurance companies means that there's no reason not to believe that we will continue to deliver good results from West. I'm certainly not gonna sit here and tell you that you should mold 15% organic growth in West going forward. That I think would be a little bit extreme.
Yeah, that's, that sounds fair. On Business Area North, I'm wondering what's the reason that the organic growth is higher for top line than on EBITDA, so that you don't get the scale?
I can take that one. I think this one is much more driven by normal fluctuations, if I can put it that way. I certainly wouldn't read too much into that in the 0.3% drop in margin quarter-on-quarter. The actual amount of money involved to swing the margin by that amount is relatively small. As Johan and I are kind of keen to emphasize, you really should look at these things on a rolling 12-month basis. What we see is that Business Area North is a region that delivers above 13% consistently. We're super happy with that. There is no one factor that means that there is a mathematical, technical small margin drop in the numerical figures presented for Business Area North this quarter. It merely is just the normal fluctuations within the business.
Okay. A question on the seasonality in North. Is it fair to assume that Q2 normally is a bit stronger than Q1?
Correct. Yeah. We typically see in North that Q2 is a strong quarter. Sometimes it's affected a little bit where Easter falls, whether that falls in Q1 or Q2. Typically, Q2 is a stronger quarter in North. There's a little bit of preparation pre-summer that goes on in many of the countries in North. Q3 tends to be a weaker quarter in North. Yeah.
Then finally, just how we should read your comments about I guess the leverage and cash outflow in Q2. Does that mean that we should expect maybe a bit more of a quiet period now for M&A and sort of getting back to full throttle in the second half? Or do you think that you can close anything here also more short term?
I can take that with a slightly longer term perspective, maybe, Jacob. You know, we've set to grow EBITDA by 15%, as we've said. We hope and anticipate that organically we will deliver 5%, 6%, 7%, 8%. On top of that, we've said we want to add 10%-12% EBITA on an annual basis from M&A to enable to reach that 15% and above. We are very confident that we will be able to add M&A that adds 10%-12% of our EBITA through the whole of 2026. You know, as a little side note, you can do a bit of a back of the envelope calculation yourself.
The deals that we've already done get us close to 50% if you include RMS, 40% if you just look at Van Heek and GHC. In terms of our trajectory, the amount of M&A we want to do, the pace at which we want to do it, we are absolutely on track. Whether that means there will be 10 deals in June or not, in some ways, you know, we are confident that we will get there full year. You know, we have a good pipeline. We have plenty of deals lined up, depending on, you know, more local technical circumstances, depending on exactly when they will be signed. The overall perspective is the pipeline is good. We're proceeding according to plan. We're adding M&A as we want to, and we have very good visibility because of the stability of the cash flows.
Okay. Sounds fair. Maybe just a short final one, if you can give an update on the Kirstine Hardam acquisition.
Yes, I can do that. I mean, we have a very good relationship with the owner of Hardam. That's actually not a private player this time. It's more of a big American company where we have a good collaboration in many aspects. When it comes to the specific case, Hardam, it's an authority going through an authority process, which takes a lot of time and usually we don't have these long periods. Right now we have not closed it, and we'll see where that will end up. If anything, we have such a long pipeline, so there will be If Hardam would not happen, we have five in taking that position right away because today our limit is the cash flow we have.
We have a long lineup of company that wants to come in. Hardam, it has been an exceptional long authority and process, which we usually don't have. It's not closed, and we will see what happens, and we will inform you as soon as we have the information.
When do you expect to get a decision?
We cannot say that, but hopefully in the near future. It's been dragging on for longer than we have expected. I mean, we've done close to 70 deals. This is an outlier from that. This is not usually how it plays out. Hopefully within the near future, I would say we know how to do it and we have a good dialogue with the owner to kind of manage the process.
Okay. Understood. That's all from me. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Albin Nordmark from SB1 Markets. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thanks. Albin here. Start off with the gross margin, quite solid here up 40 BPS year-over-year. Can you split that between the product customer mix, input cost dynamics, FX or operating leverage? What should we expect there going forward? These are normal levels, so to say.
Gosh, that's an easy question you throw out there. I think I go back a little bit to what Johan and I have said. The mix in the organization is now so broad, you know, 19 countries, 60 companies, everything from, you know, large, expensive pieces of medical equipment to everyday consumables and supplies. It's almost meaningless to try and break it down at the group level.
Okay. If we try with only FX, how much is FX driven?
How much? FX driven? I think typically we are buying and selling products, in local currencies. We source them in the local currency and then sell them in the local currency. The minus 4% FX impact that you see at a group level, is driven by the translation effects, the weakness of the euro versus the SEK.
Okay. That's clear.
I would just say, Albin, in terms of, in terms of gross margin, you know, gross margins are dependent on the business model. Typically we have the larger, more equipment, pieces of equipment have slightly higher gross margins, but also bigger costs lower down the P&L. Our more consumables products have lower gross margins, but less costs lower down the P&L. There is a big mix impact on that, especially if you look back over, you know, five or six years of how this group has changed and developed. I would also say that as we become bigger and stronger, we are able to use that to have more robust conversations with our OEMs. We, you know, we're not gonna get squeezed down the line.
I think for us, predicting exactly how gross margins develop is not sort of super helpful in terms of how we look going forward. It do depend a little bit on how the mix of the group develops with the companies.
No, no inputs in US dollar then?
No, I think a little bit as Johan mentioned, we tend to move as the market moves. We do not get squeezed in the middle of this chain. We're never gonna be in a situation where an OEM increases the price by 10% and we're not able to pass that through to our customer. What will happen is we will hold back that price increase versus the OEM, and in some cases pass it through to the customer. The position that we're in now, the strength that we have, the relationships that we have mean that we are not going to be the victim of that squeeze if that were to occur.
All right. That's clear. Earnouts, you mentioned SEK 130 million in 2027, SEK 415 Q2 total. You have above SEK 1 billion. Do you have any more in H2 here in 2026?
Sorry, perhaps I should have been clear about that. There are future earnouts that will be paid in 2028 and 2029, which make up the total. There's, you know, there's around SEK 200 million per year in 2028 and 2029. There are no other earnout payments that will be made beyond the SEK 450 million in 2026. As I say, the total forecast of earnout payments for full year 2027 at the moment stands at around SEK 130 million. Sorry, I should have made that clear where I was as I went through it earlier.
Yeah, that's clear now at least. Thanks. Then mentioning the scale of benefits both in the report and then now in the call. How should we think here, especially in Business Area West, and so how much is utilized, let's say? How is it possible to quantify benefits of scale, ahead in 2026?
I would again take sort of a broader perspective on it. If you go back five or six years, the group has grown its margin from sort of 6.5% to the 9.5% we have today. We have consistently added around half a percentage point of margin on an annual basis. That half a percentage point of margin has come very roughly half from the M&As that we've done, the mix enrichment that we get from the M&As that we've done, and the other half a percentage point of the other, sorry, quarter of a percentage point, if you can put it that way, has come from organic operating efficiencies.
Of course, that will vary a little bit over time, depending on exactly what activities we do. We will get larger increases in margin, where there is more headroom in West and Central. Probably, the margin will increase less rapidly in North. Big picture over time, I see no reason why we will not continue to improve margins at the rate that we have done historically.
Okay, thanks. That's clear as well. One last on the tax rate. It's quite lumpy. Now it's 23% down from 29%, but still up, quarter-on-quarter. How should we think about the tax rate?
Yes, lumpy is the word. I think last year with IPO and changes of financing structure and many things going on did confuse the picture a little bit. We are a low 20s tax business. You know, that is what we are fundamentally at our operating core. Over time, paid tax and P&L tax should normalize and come together at the same rate. If I was building a model going forwards, I would put in 22%, 23% as P&L tax and paid tax. I think what you see in Q1, the 23% is the more normal, clean rate of tax. The historical lumpiness has had all sorts of strange things into it. But going forward, we are a 22%, 23% tax business.
We are not doing aggressive tax planning. We are not doing complicated things with our structures to try and avoid paying taxes. That's what I'd put into the model.
Okay, great. Thanks. All from me.
Thank you.
There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
All right, we're coming to an end. Thank you very much for listening in, and see you next quarter.