Warmly welcome here to the Q4 investor call. The intention today is to do like normal. I will take you through the quarter, high level, the different movements in the business here and in the business development and looking a little bit ahead. As usual, opening up for questions in the end.
You can take the questions directly by raising your hand in Teams or just posting it in the chat. If we start by looking at the financials for the quarter here, it was a lot of technical issues today. It was a really solid sales growth here of 45%, taking revenue to a little bit north of SEK 113 million compared to SEK 78 million last year.
That is a fantastic sales growth that we are very happy with, taking the full year growth here to around 40% and thereby enabling us to complete successfully the five-year plan here, which we had, which was to grow on average by 40% as a CAGR growth from 2020 to 2024-2025 and having an EBITDA margin in the last quarter of at least 25%.
The sales growth was driven by the new launches in the quarter and launches that were carried out earlier in the year that were not in the Q4 last year. The gross margins were 41%, and they are still negatively affected by this Red Sea situation, the blockage of the Suez Canal. Now, I have seen in the last couple of days here that it seems the American president is very positive, at least that the Houthi rebels are surrendering.
This needs further independent verification. It needs to be risk-analyzed by the shipping companies and then implemented. We are carefully optimistic here, but it still remains a couple of steps to be seen before we can declare that situation as passed. The EBIT, the operating profit after depreciation and amortization, increased by an impressive 174% to SEK 23 million.
I think we should also bear in mind that the comparison quarter of SEK 8.4 million was a relatively kind comparison quarter. Going into next year, we have more difficult comparison quarters, but we are obviously very happy to be able to show such a solid profit growth. The EBITDA margin was 25% or SEK 28 million compared to 14% in the same quarter last year.
We were able to achieve that by working actively here on cost control while at the same time launching products with a high contribution margin here in the quarter. The growth outlook for the upcoming financial year is around 30%. If we would reach that, we would then have marked a good start to reach our new five-year goals, which are to grow 30% year on year up until 2028-2029. We will come back to those a little later.
The leverage ratio, something that we will start reporting here and talk about, is 3.5 times pro forma restated EBITDA. In the quarter here, we successfully placed a bond, which is, by the way, trading very good here in the secondary markets, meaning that credit investors have a positive view on our company, I would say.
We raised this bond of SEK 350 million to be able to finalize the Medilink acquisition. It was heavily oversubscribed, and it was closed on STIBOR 90 days interest plus 400 basis points. It was a very successful bond placement. To the bond investors and to the credit investors, the leverage ratio here is very important. We will start reporting that and talking about it more going forward.
We have stated in our five-year goals that we want to have a leverage ratio that does not exceed 4.0 at any time. Let's say a peak leverage of 4.0, and we want to steer the business towards 2.5. I expect in the short run, I do expect the leverage ratio to be sort of around 3.5 and 4 here until we really start consolidating the cash flows from the acquisition.
We also have a very intense CapEx year ahead of us. Already during the autumn here, I expect the leverage ratio to start coming down a little bit and then moving towards our target of 2.5. The way we would then view acquisitions would be that as long as the leverage ratio is closer to 4 than closer to 2.5, we are not actively seeking new debt-financed acquisitions.
We are rather focusing on managing the leverage ratio here and taking responsibility for that. When we will see it sustainably going down, we will start thinking about new acquisitions, of course. Looking at the business development in the quarter, I am extremely satisfied with the quarter. We added a record number of 11 products to the pipeline.
This is a mix of development products and license products, but it's a majority, eight or seven, I think, development products. The reason why we had sort of a catch-up effect here or a chunk of products in one quarter was that we have been for a longer period carrying out a tender of new development candidates. One, let's say, wave in that tender was closed in the quarter.
We were able to sign those and start those products, which we are extremely happy about, of course. We also signed our first sales deal outside of Europe. This is a deal for Meluson with the company Pharma Link for the GCC region. This is Gulf Cooperation Council countries. It's basically the Arab Peninsula minus Yemen. That is a very nice market. Pharma Link is a very well-renowned company there.
In this case, EQL will be MA holder and Pharma Link will be distributor. That means that we will actually be the holder of the MA and thus the asset in a region outside of Europe, which in my mind is a significant step for us here. Memprex procedures ongoing in Germany and France with the ambition to launch during this financial year and launch preparation for the U.K., also with the ambition to launch here in the first half of this upcoming financial year.
I also want to say regarding the EBITDA margin. The target here for us was to reach 25% or above in the final quarter of the final year. That was managed here by delivering 25%. To me, that is a very important milestone to the company because it sort of breaks a glass ceiling for us.
It shows us that when we do everything right, we are able to reach that level. Bear in mind here that the goal in the upcoming five-year plan is to perform sustainably at this level. That is the first goal. Once we have managed to show that we can do that, the secondary goal towards the second half of the period is to stabilize EBITDA margin above 25%.
We will have to come back a little bit more regarding exactly what that will be. It is difficult to judge at this point. Right now, the full focus is to be able to be sustainably at 25%. Operations and sort of other topics. We have a very high focus on our pipeline right now.
That is because we are still in a position with adding products to the pipeline can help us positively in this upcoming five-year period. We want to give ourselves, of course, as good conditions as possible to deliver on that plan. Also, we are in a position where if we want to be able to keep being a fast-growing company, even after that period, we need to start adding products in our new business unit, special generics, and outside of Nordics, of course. We are working very intensively with that so that we can keep on being a fast grower for many, many years to come. We are also focusing, we are always focusing, of course, on the progress of our projects.
Going into this new five-year period now, we are investing more heavily in operational resources to really, really be able to meet all the time plans here and to be able to increase our success rates in projects from 70% to maybe 85% or 90%, which would be a very important step here in reaching our new five-year goals. We are also working continuously here by strengthening the organization and optimizing OPEX over sales.
We're still having areas where I believe that cost can be optimized, not necessarily by reducing the number of people, but by minimizing the amount of consultants working risk-adjusted so that we sort of decide where to focus, etc., etc. We have now a Bangalore office with nine brilliant colleagues working in QA, regulatory, and project management.
We also have started to recruit colleagues in Eastern Europe, and we have colleagues in Nordics, of course. We are expanding and optimizing our organization here. The goal in this five-year plan was reached or actually even a little bit exceeded. This is a very nice picture. I think I might even put it on my wall at home. Very happy about this. This is our growth monument.
What can look big from one perspective can look small from another perspective. Looking into what we have set out to achieve here, all of a sudden, the bars look a little bit smaller. I mean, any sane person would have respect for this journey.
I believe that we are very well positioned here to keep on this very nice growth trajectory, considering our very strong pipeline, considering our fast-growing branded products, considering our new business unit, and considering that we will, in due time, have the opportunity to complete more acquisitions here. Looking at the portfolio and the pipeline, the portfolio has expanded from 40 - 46 products.
We launched six products in the quarter. Four of those products were the Medilink products, and two of them were retail products for the Swedish and the Danish market here. Let's say normal EQL products. The pipeline is 44 products, where 28 are in development, 8 are in review phase with authorities, and 8 are in the launch phase. Down below here, you can see the expected as of now, the expected timing of the launches throughout the coming years here.
For the upcoming year, or actually the current year here, 2025-2026, the expected amount of launches remains at six. This is moving materia here. Bear that in mind that it can depend on project plans and authority decisions and so on and so forth. The table here is to the best of our knowledge at any given time. I also wanted to give a little bit of a status update on our geographical expansion.
What you see in front of you is a map of the world, obviously. The green-marked territories are territories where EQL, either by itself or by strategic partners, are already in commercial phase and selling products. The blue areas here are countries where we are in the process of doing so, in most cases, that we are in a regulatory phase and waiting for approvals.
Orange territory is added since last quarter. I think I would come back to this picture from time to time to be able to very illustratively here follow our progress out into wider geographies. In the quarter, we presented our new ambitions for the coming five years here, or actually coming four years.
To straighten out some confusion there, it is five measure points since it starts with the year 2024-2025 and ends with 2028-2029, but it is actually four full years. I understand that that can be a little confusing, but I will refer to it as our five-year plan, even though it is four full financial years. What did we then set out to do? We have the aim to grow our sales by on average 30% in the period, taking us to a little bit north of SEK 1 billion in sales.
That sales growth will come majority from launching pipeline products. Pipeline products basically becoming portfolio products. Those are the 44 products in our pipeline. Growing and expanding our strategic key products, Meluson and Memprex. Adding business from our new business unit, special generics, which is basically non-interchangeable generics, whether for one or another reason is no interchangeability.
Thirdly, when it makes sense and when there is leverage space, acquisitions. Regarding profitability and EBITDA margin, our target is to, in the initial part of the period, in the first half of the period, to stabilize EBITDA margin on 25% to set up the business so that we can show that we can sustainably be on that level. After that is proven, then we take two deep breaths, and then we have as a secondary goal to, in the second half of the period, stabilize EBITDA margin above 25%.
Above 25%, that can mean, as somebody stated out here, that could mean 27% or 32% or whichever number that is bigger than 25%. The simple answer is that we also do not know at this point what is realistic. We know that it is realistic to aim to stabilize it above 25%, but exactly at what level we will have to come back with.
Regarding gearing, since we now have bond investors as well as equity investors, we have a target to steer the leverage ratio towards 2.5 times EBITDA with an additional rule to never go above 4.0. We can have a peak leverage of 4.0, and that is mainly then in close association with an acquisition. Let's say 9-12 months post an acquisition, I would expect the leverage to be, let's say, in the higher regions or closer to 4.0.
Once an acquisition is integrated and consolidated and some time has passed, I would expect it to be a little closer to 2.5. That is the area that we will sort of be in between there. That was everything I wanted to show. I stopped sharing my screen, and we open up for questions here. You can either just raise your hand or ask it straight out or in the chat room here. No questions?
I can't believe it. Is it because it was such a good quarter? Hi. I have a question. I'm wondering how you look at the number of current employees for the future with the expansion in mind. I also wonder what's your view on the COVID-19 sales statistics further along the line. Are they still going to be pretty low, or how do you look at it? Okay. Thank you.
If we start with the number of colleagues here, it's a very good question because it points out the fact that to be able to really leverage from this business model, we need to make our platform scalable. I think that we have a couple of quarters we have sort of been through an inflation phase here because profit is growing much faster than sales. That is, to me, a sign that the additional contribution margin added from new products is not eaten up by additional OPEX.
Obviously, we will need to add on more colleagues as we grow, on the one hand, to be able to handle our growing portfolio, on the other hand, to be able to, in a responsible manner, have a forceful progress in our pipeline. Having said that, we are constantly looking at the smartest way to do things.
If we're looking in the rearview mirror a little bit, very high focus in the last couple of quarters has been to deliver on the past five-year plan. Now I can proudly say that we have done so. I think that in my mind that we have deserved a little space to, let's say, experiment with the optimal setup going forward. We're spending a lot of time now looking at different setups for regulatory and QA, for example, and logistics, which are big costs for us.
We have colleagues working from Nordics, colleagues working in Eastern Europe, colleagues working in India. We are experimenting with this, let's say, OPEX base and trying to optimize it as we go along. I hope that we will find the best setup here going forward. I hope that answers the first question regarding the colleagues.
If not, just let me know. Yeah, thank you. The second question. Good. The second question regarding COVID-19 tests, I mean, that all depends on virus spread in the society. In the financial second quarter here of last year, there was a little bit of virus spread. As a result of that, we had a couple of million SEK sales on COVID-19 tests. We expected a peak in Q3 and/or Q4, sort of November, December, January, but there was no such peak.
My conclusion is simply that nobody knows when there is a virus spread. What I can say is that when and if there is a virus spread, we still have inventory to be able to sell. We have a setup where we are able to sort of order new goods, and we have customers internationally that we can export to.
We are trying to keep those inventories as lean as possible here to not carry any scrapping risk. I mean, the short and simple answer is that I do not expect it to be a major part of sales. I would sort of stay with my old estimation here of SEK 5 million-SEK 15 million per year as an estimate. Thank you very much. No more questions. I think we have to conclude, Anna, that when we deliver fantastic quarters, the amount of questions is much less than the course.
We learn from that, me and Anna here, and keep delivering quarters like this. In case there are no further questions, thank you very much for joining here. Wish you all a lovely Thursday. We have Thursday today and a nice weekend once you get to weekend. See you again next quarter. Thank you, Christer. Bye, everybody.