Welcome to Attendo Q2 Report 2025. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions-and-answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key five on their telephone keypad. Now, I will hand the conference over to CEO Martin Tivéus and CFO Mikael Malmgren. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Today, we present Attendo's results for the second quarter. I will start by giving a general update on the development in the quarter. Then, our CFO, Mikael Malmgren, will take you through the financials in more detail. First, let me just give a brief backdrop to Attendo for new listeners. Next slide, please. Founded 40 years ago, Attendo is one of the early pioneers in Nordic care. Today, we are the largest care operator in the Nordics, operating close to 800 care units, serving 28,000 customers across Finland, Sweden, and Denmark. Our mission is to provide a better and more appreciated care for our customers at a lower cost to society compared to the public sector's own care operations. Next slide, please.
In the second quarter, we continue to deliver in line with our strategy for sustainable growth, with new openings in all markets, combined with bolt-on acquisitions in attractive segments. During the quarter, we opened new care homes in both Finland, Sweden, and Denmark, taking rolling 12-month new openings up to more than 400 new beds. With the announcement of our acquisition of the disabled care company Främja in Sweden earlier in the quarter, we are now already above our annual EBITDA growth plan of adding at least 2% EBITDA through new capacity and another 2% through acquisitions. Top-line sales were down slightly compared to last year, mainly due to weaker euro, ended outsourcing and home care contracts in Scandinavia, and slightly lower pricing in elderly care in Finland, following the lower staffing requirements since the start of the year.
From the underlying business, we still see healthy growth of around 4% compared to last year. Our lease adjusted EBITDA continued to improve in the quarter, up by 26%, or SEK 42 million to SEK 205 million . Earnings were driven primarily by operational improvements in Finland and more sold beds in all nursing homes in both business areas, while the underlying result in Scandinavia was in line with last year. In Finland, we continue to see positive effects of the swift adoption to the new staffing requirements imposed by the turn of the year. We also see effects of further operational improvements and more sold beds. In Scandinavia, the underlying result is in line with last year. The reported result in the quarter is sampled by non-recurring costs related to ended contracts in home care, as well as anticipated startup costs for new units.
Having said this, we are not entirely happy with the current performance in Scandinavia and have implemented several actions to improve performance and stability going forward. Latest adjusted EPS was up 25% to SEK 0.85 per share in the quarter, bringing the rolling 12-month EPS up to SEK 4.81, up 48% from Q2 last year. Hence, we are well on track towards our adjusted EPS goal of a minimum of SEK 5.50 per share in 2026. In Q2, we saw further improvements in customer satisfaction, with CMPS rising to an all-time high of 49 from 45 in Q2 last year. This result is attributable to all the efforts we make to improve everyday life for our residents and customers in our care units.
It is also a testament that our individual centered care model, Attendo A, continues to deliver great operational results. It further shows that our focus on strong unit leadership and smarter tools for our care staff has positive effects on both operations and satisfaction among our care residents. Employee engagement remains at high levels, with overall EMPS slightly down compared to a year ago. This relates to Finland, where the recent restructuring of staff following the new staff requirements has led to a slight drop in EMPS. Next slide, please. Let's turn to occupancy development. Overall, we have seen continued inflow into our units with more sold beds in both business areas. Reported occupancy, however, is slightly down compared to Q1 as a result of new openings during the quarter.
In the quarter, we opened new nursing homes in Denmark and Finland, as well as a new disabled care unit in Sweden, in total close to 100 new beds. On top of this, we reopened close to 100 beds in Finland that have temporarily been closed for renovation. Combined with newly acquired units and openings in the first quarter, we have added approximately 500 new beds so far in 2025. Occupancy in the quarter was also slightly negatively impacted by seasonality, as some customers leave the care homes for summer holidays with their families to return after December. Excluding newly opened and reopened units, occupancy continued to improve in the quarter. This graph shows a rolling 12-month sales growth and latest adjusted EBITDA margin. Margins continue to improve in the quarter, primarily driven by improved operational efficiency in Finland.
In terms of net sales, we saw a slight drop in the quarter due to a weaker euro and ended contracts. All in all, margins should continue to improve gradually in the second half of the year. Let's take a closer look at the financials for the quarter, and please go ahead, Mikael.
Thank you, Martin, and good morning, everyone. Let's turn to page seven. In the quarter, we saw underlying growth in both business areas of 4%, offset by ended contracts, exits, and FX headwind, which resulted in reported net sales decreasing 3% to SEK 4.7 billion versus last year. Adjusting for currency, the overall growth was fairly flat, meaning currency had a 3% impact on total sales. In Attendo Scandinavia, the underlying growth was 3% and down 5% reported. We see continued growth in owned nursing homes. However, growth was more than offset by ending outsourcing and home care contracts. In Attendo Finland, the underlying growth was, excluding divested units, plus 4.4% and 3% in local currency, with an increase in new customers and all key segments showing positive growth.
Currency had, as expected, a larger 3% negative sales effect in the quarter, and based on current trading, we should expect a similar to slightly lower effect in the coming quarter. Slide eight, please. The reported result improved to SEK 349 million, one of our strongest Q2 results ever. Correspondingly, the lease-adjusted EBITDA increased from SEK 163 million to SEK 205 million, up 26% versus the same period last year. Lease-adjusted EBITDA in Scandinavia was slightly lower than last year, negatively impacted by exit costs in home care, some startup costs in new homes, and Easter seasonality. Finland lease-adjusted EBITDA improved SEK 52 million year-over-year. Currency had a SEK 13 million reported and SEK 9 million negative effect on lease-adjusted EBITDA. Next slide, please.
Growth for Attendo Finland amounts to - 2% reported, + 3% in local currency, and adjusting for the exited rehab business December last year, the underlying growth was 4.4%. Lease-adjusted EBITDA was SEK 183 million, an improvement of SEK 52 million compared to last year. The quarter improved by better staffing and more sold beds. Occupancy rate also improved versus last year, with more sold beds and from exiting a few low or no occupancy units during the year. In the quarter, we also opened a new home and added new capacity within existing units. Next slide, please. In Scandinavia, underlying net sales growth was 3%, driven by growth in owned nursing homes. However, growth was more than offset by ended outsourcing and exiting home care contracts, resulting in total growth down 5% year-over-year. Lease-adjusted EBITDA was SEK 44 million.
We delivered, despite some startup costs, continued improved results in owned nursing homes. Our new home in Stockholm, which opened in March, is developing well, and in June, we opened an additional new nursing home, which is off to a good start. Ended outsourcing contracts had no material impact on results. However, as mentioned in Q1, we terminated a few selective home care contracts where sustainable conditions mainly no longer exist. In Q2, these contracts had a SEK 20 million non-recurring negative impact on the result, slightly higher than the estimated effect communicated in Q1. Going forward, we expect less, but still some negative impact in Q3 and subsequently lower impact in Q4. While we delivered a result in line with last year, when adjusting for one-off effects in both this and last year's quarter, the result is not satisfactory.
Scandinavia has more to give, and ongoing actions are expected to improve performance. Finally, in line with our strategy, we signed an agreement to acquire Främja, which will further strengthen our Uniqa disabled care offering. The acquisition has a revenue of approximately SEK 150 million and above average margins and is expected to close end of Q3. Slide 11, please. Our free cash flow was strong and improved to SEK 869 million on a rolling 12-month basis, where Q2 free cash flow was SEK 316 million versus SEK 199 million last year. CapEx was at similar levels versus last year, and during the quarter, we paid out our dividend of SEK 1.20 per share, which impacted the cash flow by SEK 179 million.
In the beginning of the quarter, we also made SEK 36 million worth of share repurchases, and today, we launched a new repurchase program aiming to repurchase SEK 150 million worth of shares until the next quarterly report in October. Next slide, please. Over the last 12 months, we continue to deliver on our 2024 to 2026 financial plan and a more active capital allocation. As a result, we have utilized approximately 70% of our free cash flow for dividend payments and continued share buybacks. In addition, we have continued to add high-quality value-equity bolt-on acquisitions, firstly in Finland in Q1 this year, and we aim to continue with this, adding further value-equity bolt-ons during the rest of the year. Also worth mentioning is that during the quarter, we agreed with our banks to increase our revolving credit facility from SEK 1.4 billion to SEK 2 billion.
This will enable us with increased financial flexibility and ensure we have enough acting space to deliver on strategic initiatives and overall also our active capital allocation strategy. Next slide, please. Let's have a look at our key financial metrics, which continue to move in the right direction. If we start at the top left, the adjusted EPS improved by SEK 0.17 per share, up 25% versus last year. Improvement primarily due to higher adjusted EBITDA and further supported by our continuous share buybacks. If we turn to the top right figure and our adjusted margin in percent, adjusted for non-recurring items last year, we continue to improve our adjusted EBITDA margin. In Q2, the rolling 12-month margin was 5.8%, up 1.2 percentage points compared to Q2 last year.
If we look at the figure at the bottom left, our adjusted net debt to EBITDA ratio was 1.7, in the lower part of our target range of 1.5 - 2.5, and down 0.5 times versus the same quarter last year. Finally, if we look at the figure on the bottom right, net interest expenses in the quarter were SEK 31 million, in line with last quarter, where we see the effects of improved market interest rates. With that, I hand over to you, Martin.
Thank you, Mikael. Next slide, please. Before we move on to the Q&A, let me just briefly summarize. We continue to deliver on our strategy for sustainable growth that we set in 2024, with stable financials, strong operational development, and high satisfaction scores. In the first half of this year, we have continued to show a strong development in our underlying business in both business areas. We're selling more beds, adding capacity, and filling up new units according to plan or slightly faster. In Finland, we continue to deliver operational improvements in a changing environment with solid earnings growth, and with the combination of new openings and bolt-on acquisitions, we also have improved our footprint for further growth. In Scandinavia, we see a continued positive development in the nursing home segment, while earnings in the quarter are negatively impacted by one-off costs for new openings and ended home care contracts.
The ended outsourcing contracts have no material impacts on earnings, well in line with our strategy to exit contracts with unsustainable terms. As announced in June, we're adding Främja to our existing Uniqa brand offering in disabled care in Scandinavia, expecting closing during September. Supported by strong cash flow in our business, we'll now resume with share buybacks. All in all, we're well on track towards our adjusted EPS target of at least SEK 5.50 in 2026. That concludes our presentation, and let's turn to the Q&A session. Operator, please go ahead.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. Next question comes from Julia Angeli Strand from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you for taking my question. My first question is on Scandinavia and what you said there about home care contracts and their impact. I wonder, have this dampened your outlook for performance in Q3 and possibly H2 materially, or will maybe sole placements and price be able to offset the potential year-over-year decline?
Thank you, Julia. Let's see. I mean, we don't guide on outlook on that detailed level. Basically, what we're meaning is that the ended contracts that are ramping down still to be exited will be at a slightly lower level than compared to last year.
Okay.
The ended contract, it takes six months to exit the contract according to the agreements. During that time where we have ended the contract, so during the exit period, the business is sort of ramping down slowly.
Okay. A second one on the strong improvement in Finland. I know you mentioned operational efficiencies, but is this mainly attributed to, or how much of this is attributed to lower staffing requirements, and/or is there any other operational improvements we should know about?
If we compare to last year, remind you that we come from a period of increasing staffing requirements over a number of years, and the last increase was actually last year on April 1. According to the elderly care law, the former elderly care law, the staffing requirements were supposed to go even further up by December last year. Instead, they lowered it from January 1. During these years when we've had increasing staffing requirements, it's been difficult to work on operational efficiency simultaneously because we've been basically hunting for staff to make sure that we can maintain occupancy level while being compliant with the staffing requirements. At the end of this period of raising staffing requirements, we're really able to start working with operational efficiency again. With the lower staffing requirement, that has become easier.
We've seen a gradual improvement basically from Q3 last year in terms of operational efficiency. Now we are on the level where we should be at.
Just to add to that, Julia, we have become also better in terms of our staffing with improved systems and data. We've also seen a lower personnel turnover, which is resulting in, as you can understand, with a large employee base, in lower recruitment costs. I think it's a combination of several factors where the team has worked really well to improve what we call operational efficiency.
Yeah. To finalize on that, as Mikael said here, we have, during the past 18 months, worked with a number of AI pilots and digitalization projects to minimize administrative tasks, which also improves operational efficiency.
Okay. That was all my questions. Thank you.
The next question comes from Maria Karlsson Osipova from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Hi, Mikael. Maria here from DNB Carnegie. Thank you for taking my questions. You've touched upon some of the things that I was going to ask for, so I have two shorter ones. To begin with, in Scandinavia, could you paint us a picture, maybe in broader terms? Do you expect the earnings to increase year-over-year again in the latter part of the year, or do you think it will take until next year to return to that? You mentioned you're taking several actions, so I just wanted more flavor on that.
Our margins should improve during the second half of the year.
That was a very short answer. Thank you. What actions are you taking? Not the ones that you, the operational efficiencies and so on. Is there anything else you haven't mentioned yet? You've said quite a lot too on Julia's question.
Yes, we're working on operational efficiency, of course, but we also have been reviewing over the past six months, we're reviewing our home care operating model and are implementing a number of improvements and changes into that. Of course, also right-sizing segment overhead based on the new volume, basically.
All right. Speaking of a totally different topic on EO costs, can you please describe the various types, maybe some type of a breakdown that have burned in this quarter and which weighed the most?
Sorry, could you repeat that one more time? You broke up a little bit, Maria.
The question was if you could describe or give us a bit of a more of a breakdown of the various types of EO costs that have burned in the quarter.
Sure. Happy to. I mean, it's relating to the home care exits. When we are forced to leave in the middle of a month, basically, we have a staff that is still employed while there are no revenues. That is the lion part of the exit costs.
All right. That was the main question that I had. I'll get back into queue and see if you have time for some more later. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
A reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Jakob Lemke from SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, and good morning. First question, wondering the negative impact you expect from home care in the coming quarters. What is that relating to?
Yes. Hi, Jakob, and good morning. Basically, we have a slight difference between revenues as customers are changing to other providers, similar to what we then saw in this quarter, where we will be sitting with a slightly more staff than required. There is an inefficiency ongoing as we ramp down.
Okay. That is related to the contract you will leave next year?
We are also leaving two contracts this year by end of Q3. Yes, a number of contracts are being exited because of unsustainable terms. When you exit a contract, you basically have a six-month period to leave the contract, and during that time, you're gradually ramping down the business. These are not at the same size as the.
Not?
No, not at all. No.
Can I ask how much of sales or sort of the contracts you're leaving this year and next year in home care, what's the sales amount of those?
I think we can come back to that. Those we're leaving now do not have a material sales impact in 2025.
Okay. If you, more in general, could maybe elaborate on the development and outlook across the different segments in Scandinavia.
If you look at the residential elderly care segment, the nursing home segment, we have a positive outlook. I think it's been trending positively for quite some time, doing well. We're keeping filling our beds. I think operational efficiency is strong. That's the largest segment in Scandinavia is doing well. If you look at disabled care and individual and family care, it's stable.
Home care, that's where we've been having a more challenging situation where we have exited a number of contracts with unsustainable terms, which I think is pretty much done. Now it's about also lifting home care again in terms of profitability. We expect margins to increase again during the second half of the year in Scandinavia.
Okay. A follow-on. He's wondering a bit on the synergies from the Tivoli acquisition. Have you gotten everything, or when do you expect to see further benefits from them?
I mean, the activities have been done, and they are gradually coming in. They are set to improve in the latter part of the second half of the year.
Okay. A final question on Finland. Is your outlook for volume growth going forward? I mean.
In Finland, we keep opening units, and we keep selling more beds.
If we look at the Finnish market, just like the Swedish market, the underlying demand growth for elderly care is very strong over the next couple of years. We can already see that queues are building up in most welfare regions in Finland. We think that the future growth prospects in Finland are very good.
Do you see any sort of initiatives or trends among the regions to work down the queues that have been built up in recent years?
I think that we're looking possibly into next year. I think all of the regions are struggling a bit with press financials. They are going to increase budgets going forward. Also, from next year on, the regions are free to start releasing old sort of municipality capacity to move more to private capacity should they choose.
They had a three-year period where they had to still use municipality capacity when the regions were formed three years ago. That was released from next year. We operate at, on average, around 20% lower cost than public operations. I think that there are opportunities over the next couple of years to move more market share towards the private sector. That should also support growth forward in Finland.
That sounds quite promising. That's all for me today. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Next question comes from Maria Karlsson Osipova from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.
It's me again. Thank you for taking the last one. We've talked a lot about the outlook in Finland and the volume growth and the queues that are building up. Yet, you've mentioned lower personnel turnover. Is it for Scandinavia or for Finland specifically? Also, you've mentioned in the presentation that the EMPS has gone down a bit. Are you taking any actions to reverse that trend? How do you look on the personnel question in general, basically?
I mean, we're pretty happy about the staffing situation. We have the staff that we need. I think that the EMPS number has been, we've had a very strong development of EMPS over the past couple of years, a very positive trend, which has made the staff turnover decrease quite significantly over the past couple of years. The drop that we saw in Finland now is a very small drop. I think that was quite expected as when staffing density requirements decreased again in Finland, meaning that we went down a bit. We also released some staff. Do we see a small drop? I think that was expected. We also expect that to reverse up again going forward.
All right. Thank you very much. That was all for me.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad.
It seems like we have no more questions. In that case, we wish you all a great summer, and thank you for today's call.
Thank you very much.