Good day, and welcome to the Getinge Group conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Johan Malmquist. Please go ahead, sir.
Well, thank you very much, and sorry for the slight delay we've had. We'll try to make up that time. So we're hosting this telephone conference in relationship to the press statement that we issued earlier today, and I'm joined here on this call also by Ulf Grunander. We appreciate that you may have had difficulties accessing the slide presentation as per the instructions in the press statement. It's that piece of technology should be up and running now. If you still fail to access the slides, you can also visit our website, where the presentation is uploaded. So with that, I suggest that we go into the presentation. I think even if you don't have it, I think what I'm going to say is probably explicit enough for you to understand.
The first slide is around the transaction overview. As you can see that we intend to make a public offer for the outstanding shares of Pulsion Medical Systems, which is a German-listed company on the Deutsche Börse. The offer price that we're suggesting is EUR 16.90 per shares, which represents a 22% premium over the volume-weighted average price for the preceding 90 days, as of yesterday. This values the company on an enterprise value basis at EUR 137.5 million. That is net of the cash position in the company. The offer, as such, is going to be subject to terms and conditions that will be communicated in the next couple of days, most likely, which will set forth the required acceptance level and will also stipulate that we will need approval from relevant competition authorities.
The reason why we're announcing the intent and then releasing the offer document down the road is simply to comply with the regulations of public takeover bids in Germany. The offer as such represents an enterprise value EBITDA multiple of 10.7, based on the projected earnings for this year and based on the enterprise value, such as we see it, net of the cash position in the company. As an equity value, it's gonna be around EUR 139 million. The financing for this transaction will be through a new credit facility, and we expect to close the transaction during the first quarter of next year. We move over to the next slide and give you some facts about Pulsion.
Pulsion is primarily a provider of advanced hemodynamic monitoring solutions, which is targeted both to the intensive care units of hospitals and also to the operating rooms. As I said before, the company is listed on the Deutsche Börse. It's headquartered in Munich, has a number of own sales subsidiaries in the United States, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, UK, Benelux, France, Poland, Spain, Turkey, Mexico, and Australia, and had revenues last year of just under EUR 35 million. The rate of organic growth for this current year is about just over 6% year-to-date, and I think with that, you can sort of work out the likely sort of revenues for 2013. Of the product portfolio, there isn't only hemodynamic monitoring, but it makes up the bulk of the business, 83%, and then there's a product called perfusion imaging.
And I'll speak briefly about that down the presentation. The company has about 130 employees. If you move to the next picture, you will see the two product areas that the company is engaged in. So on the critical care side, the product offering consists of standalone monitoring solutions. Those are the hardware's you see in the upper left-hand corner, and connected to that are catheters that are used for this invasive method of hemodynamic monitoring. The product, the monitoring solutions, can also be connected to most major multiparameter monitors, so the likes provided by Philips, et cetera. In which case, you have a little module attached to that multiparameter monitoring, and then you can get up the data on someone's screen.
The perfusion business that you see on the right-hand side is a little bit of a specialty, a very niche-oriented business. You see the little vials at the top, they contain a contrast agent. That contrast agent is injected into the patient, either systemically or via syringe, and then you use the device below to actually visualize the contrast agent. And it's predominantly used to secure that you have perfusion in a patient. It's used in ophthalmology procedures, but it can also be used for simply seeing that you have blood flow, for example, in a flap surgery in a patient where it's essential to understand that circulation is occurring. I move on to the next slide. You will see the breakdown of the business.
So the company is heavily sort of emphasizing the recurring revenue side of it, which makes up just under 80%. The rest is the capital equipment they have. The breakdown by business units, as you saw earlier, we have 17% in the perfusion side and the remainder in the hemodynamic monitoring field. And then you can also see geographically that the European arena is where this company has its stronghold, and it is a leading player. It's the number one player in hemodynamic monitoring in a European context, but it has a very, very small footprint in North America and also a small footprint in markets outside of Europe and North America. The leading player in the U.S. market or the North American market is Edwards Lifesciences.
I move on to the next slide, you will see that the company has had a very impressive turnaround in terms of profitability, so generating very healthy levels. And as I said earlier, the growth rate for this current year is just a little bit north of 6.3%, year to date. If I move to the next slide, sort of the reasons why we think this is a good deal for us. I mean, first of all, you can say that we have started to enter the market of what we would term advanced monitoring of patients. And we're just now in the process of launching the Eirus, which is the device for continuous glucose and lactate monitoring. And we also have other catheter-based technologies that we are commercializing, and not least the NAVA.
We believe sort of overall that this is an attractive segment. And with Pulsion now, we get sort of a much more significant product offering that is very targeted towards critically ill patients that require monitoring, that is more invasive in nature. When you look at sort of the technologies and you look at the geographies, I think you will see that there are very, very good possibilities for us to deliver cross-selling synergies across this business and in combination with our own existing commercial activities in the critical care arena. So moving on to the final slide, we do see some sort of cost-based synergies from combining the two companies, and not least on the sales company infrastructure that you can see there's a fair amount of overlap that we will try and use in the best possible way.
But more importantly, we think there are some very attractive revenue synergies that we can derive from this platform and with our existing technologies, and not least geographically, as I mentioned before. When we look at this transaction, we estimate that it will be EPS accretive in 2014, even when we include for the restructuring costs, the cost of financing, and also with inclusive of the amortization that will be tied to the overvalues associated with the acquisition. There will be some antitrust scrutiny of this transaction. We don't foresee any difficulties there, but it's a process that we need to go through. And as we've already said, we believe that this is a transaction that we can close during the first quarter of next year.
So with that short introduction, I suggest that we open up for questions and hopefully some answers from our side. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question today, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Please ensure that the mute function has been switched off in order for your signal to reach our equipment. A voice prompt will indicate when your line is open. Once again, please press star one if you'd like to ask a question. We will now take our first question from Patrik Ling of Nordea. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes, good morning. Johan, could you give us a feeling for how much cost savings you think that there are? And second question, when you look at the number of employees, they have 130, how are they split up in different functions? I mean, how many are sales, marketing, admin, and manufacturing and R&D?
I think we've obviously done some work on the cost synergies, and I think that you probably have to satisfy yourself with the comment we made on the EPS accretion next year, inclusive of all the different items there. We're not going to make, I think, a significant top-line impact in terms of revenue synergies during the first 12 months. But I think there is an element of cost synergies sort of contained in the fact that we report instantaneous EPS accretion on an all-inclusive basis. And again, there is an offer document coming out, and this is obviously sort of a public offer, which means that you're possibly a little bit more restrictive with the type of information we give out at this point in time.
I'm desperately trying to find the number of direct sales. So the sales force in the company is just short of 50 people, and the rest are in other functions. You can say the supply chain is very light in this company, so, and a good portion of it is outsourced to other sub-suppliers. So it is a company that is sort of front-end heavy with sort of a good commercial organization in the geographies where they are present.
Okay. Second question, when it comes to product development, could you give us a feeling for what these guys have in their pipeline? And also, if there are any opportunities for you, for example, to combine this system with the Eirus system or do something other, where you could really in get some synergies on the R&D side and maybe on the installed base of these systems?
I think sort of very, again, on a very high level, I would say that the market is pursuing opportunities to have sort of quality hemodynamic data from patients by means of less invasive technologies. It's almost always a trade-off between accuracy and validated output data and the degree of invasiveness. So this company also have plans to develop and ultimately commercialize technologies that are less invasive than they are currently. So you can say that's sort of the general direction of the product development. I think that, yes, I'm pretty sure that you could combine sort of display of patient data on one and the same monitoring. But I would guess that doing so is more the job of the multiparameter monitoring companies than us.
I think that the likely outcome is that we will maintain sort of bespoke, dedicated monitoring solutions connected to the catheters and the sensors. And then when we look to multiparameter, we would most likely ensure that we're integrated with the larger patient monitoring companies.
Okay, thank you.
You're welcome.
We will now take our next question from Kristofer Liljeberg of Carnegie. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Yeah, good morning. Kristofer Liljeberg from Carnegie. Few questions. First, have you said anything about the required acceptance for this deal to happen?
No, that will be disclosed in the offer documents that is going to come out, I think, quite imminently.
Okay. And that would also I guess you won't say anything if there's any, you know, large owner that that have accepted already.
No. No.
Okay. Okay. Secondly, could you just remind us about or of your, you know, financing costs, right now, what you're paying in interest rates?
Yeah, I'll leave that to Ulf.
Hi.
Are you there, Ulf? Hi.
Absolutely. I'm sitting here beside you. We will probably have a lower, for the first year, we will have a lower interest rate, but at the end of next year, we will move it into our total credit facility, where we have an average interest rate of approximately 3%, but in the first year, that will be somewhat lower.
Okay. And the 3%, that will continue to be the average for the group now, going into 2014?
It looks like that.
Okay. Very good. And finally, given the competitive situation and only 7% of their sales in the U.S., are there any structural reason why that shouldn't be much larger proportion of sales once this is in your hands?
No, I don't think so. I mean, one should always have respect for entering the U.S. market, but I think the major challenge for Pulsion has been one of cost with the U.S. market relative to their size and the relative strength of the incumbent, Edwards Lifesciences. I mean, they sort of, this area of analysis sort of dates back to the Swan-Ganz catheter, which sort of historically has been a little bit the standard, which is very high accuracy, but also is tremendously invasive in nature. And from there, has evolved a number of sort of less invasive, but still invasive technologies for cardiac output monitoring. And so yes, I think that we can make an inroad, and I think that is one of the more substantial revenue synergies that we seek to realize.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And just, finally, I could, of course, look that up myself, but, you only talked about premium versus an average period. So what, what's the premium compared with closing price yesterday? Do you have that, for the bid?
At the top of my head, no. We'll see if we can get it out during the day.
No, no problem. I could find out myself. Okay, thank you very much.
You're welcome.
As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star one on your keypad. Our next question comes from Martin Wales of UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you. Firstly, what is happening with the management of Pulsion? Are they staying, are they moving on?
They are. We very much like the management of Pulsion to stay on. They've done a very good job, and in the conversations we've had with them, that's also their intention to stay with us.
Okay. And just to be clear, is it your intention that this all, Pulsion's business will sit entirely within critical care in the first instance?
Yes, absolutely.
Then there'll be potentially sales synergies in Medical Systems business over time. Is that the way you're thinking?
Well, it is. You could say that, the reality is that in all the countries where we have sort of own representation and also through the network of distributors, we are selling all of Medical Systems products through that channel. But in a practical context, the sales of critical care devices is done by a dedicated critical care sales force. So it's more a matter of integrating it into that division also in a practical sense.
Okay. Given that you talked a little bit about sales synergies, what's the scope to bring third-party distributors in-house, and in what time frame?
Yeah, we will look at that, and I think it's gonna be a case-by-case analysis to see where it makes sense and what can happen. I think that will be most likely part of the more complete disclosures I'm sure we will be doing down the road, possibly being a little bit more specific about from what sort of pockets we see the different sources of synergies to come from. I reckon that will, at the latest, when we hopefully close this transaction, we'll probably be in a position to be a lot more transparent and upfront with specifically where we see the different sources of synergies.
Okay. And, a couple of clarifications. If you expect clearance, obviously, for closing Q1, while you are anticipating regulatory review, you're not expecting that any significant problems, otherwise, surely it would take longer than three months. Is that correct?
Yeah. No, we from a regulatory standpoint, we think this is not a complicated deal, given that we're simply not in this space today. And the rest is sort of an administrative process, which is a little bit sort of easier to predict in a sense. But I think if we say Q1, I think we feel comfortable that that's a reasonable time frame to close this.
What happened? It seems to be becoming increasingly commonplace in deals in Germany that someone gets hold of the stakes, wish to block the deal and demands a higher price. I mean, what is your thought process in the event of that happening, or do you think that can't happen in this case?
Well, I think we have brought forward what we think is a very fair valuation of the company. And there is, of course, that possibility. But I think we will stand our ground when it comes to the share price and the valuation of the company.
And sorry, finally, I'm curious as to why Pulsion management want to sell now, given the chart you've shown of their improved sales and improved profitability of the business. Do they just feel they can't take this business any further as an independent entity, or, and they need the support of a bigger company like Getinge?
Well, I think I mean, I can only speculate. I think the best persons to answer that question would most likely be Pulsion themselves. But my personal view is this, that the company has done an excellent job of managing their competitive edge, their cost structure under the scale and the size the business has. I also believe they've done a very good job of growing the business, considering its current geographical exposure. I think to take this business into the United States, for them, would mean a relatively sizable impact on earnings over possibly a couple of years.
Whereas I think that Pulsion would share the view that growing the business outside of Europe, not only United States, but also other overseas markets, would is the way forward, but would also require quite an investment in resources that may not be sort of the best interest of, of, the shareholders. I think that would possibly be their view.
Okay. Thank you.
You're welcome.
We will now take our next question from Lars Hevreng of SEB. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you. Can I just ask about the capacity they have in manufacturing, as I mentioned, what's the current utilization, and what's the I mean, I understand it's very early days, but do you see any immediate need to invest there, or is there significant scope to improve the utilization? Given your plans to make this business a bit more global.
Yeah. No, I don't see any limitations there. The source of the catheters is from a sort of well-known bona fide contract manufacturers that has long experience in this industry and is sort of a key supplier to many medical device companies. And they certainly have enough capacity there. So I don't see any. Can I just insert there, the question earlier on the premium on the day before closing share price was just a little bit over 14%, would be that sort of premium.
Can I also ask, should we view this more, more as a, as a acquisition driven by, I mean, the, the future benefits driven by regional expansion? Or is it also do you also see significant value in the pipeline? I mean, they, they have mentioned some non-invasive blood pressure monitoring devices. Is that the main part of, of the attraction here, or is it more the, the, the regional expansion part of it?
I think it's the existing portfolio is a good portfolio of technologies. And I think I would view this as give Pulsion an infrastructure to grow internationally. But I wouldn't underestimate also the positive impact this can have on our existing technologies that I mentioned, Eirus and also NAVA. Because I think when you look at our existing critical care business, which is predominantly respiratory and anesthesia, those two activities are very, very much about selling hardware to customers in an investment cycle that is maybe eight to 10 years. And this means that our sales force do not typically have sort of the regularity of contacts and relationships with our customers.
So we think that with a sales model that Pulsion has, which is very much about sort of driving adoption and usage of the of the catheters, I think it would lend itself extremely well to drive for example our Eirus. In conversations with Pulsion, it's interesting to note that one of the exciting opportunities they saw themselves was to develop a a monitoring solution for continuous blood glucose or glucose monitoring and lactate monitoring, which is now a technology that they will be able to include in their portfolio. Lars?
Okay, thank you.
I was afraid we've lost everybody. Thank you, Lars.
As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, you can do so by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. We will now take our next question from Volker Braun of Commerzbank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes, thank you. One of the questions is at least answered in part, but I want to rephrase it a bit. There's a major shareholder, Mr. Wittek, the chairman of the company, who owns more than 50% of the shares, and I would at least be interested in whether he has select interest or support and what the outcome of your discussions was. Secondly, with regard to the product, if I recall it right from the past, the Pulsion monitoring system was basically an add-on, which was then included into other systems, and they, in the past, had a contract with Philips, as far as I know. I might be not up to date, but would it be used exclusively only with Getinge monitors going forward, or will you have to deal with competing companies as well?
Yeah, the first question I will not comment on. But the second question, you can say that in terms of actual usage of catheters, the standalone monitoring solution makes up for a bigger, a significantly bigger sort of catheter usage. But as I mentioned earlier, there is sort of monitoring modules that you can integrate with any sort of major multiparameter patient monitoring device, including Philips, that you mentioned yourself. So the company has been very successful in setting up relationship with, I would say, all major multiparameter patient monitoring companies. So the intention going forward is to cater for both of those channels. But if you ask me, where is the bulk of the business today? The bulk of the business is still connected to standalone bespoke monitors for hemodynamic monitoring.
Yeah, the follow-on question would be, I learned in the past that they, it was included in multiparameter monitors, but it was not really obvious whether physicians then made use of, in particular, of the Pulsion part of the business. So, I don't know how real the market or acceptance in the market, how widely spread that is. Is it really a feature that is taken on by physicians on a broad basis?
Yeah.
We all know, yeah.
I think the volume development of the business and that of competing Edwards Lifesciences would probably support that there is a strong interest in getting this patient data to begin with. But I think that when you sell a bespoke monitor, the customer has made a conscious decision of using that specific patient data point for the management of that patient. If you buy a multiparameter patient monitoring that contains this and many other modules for pulse oximetry and what have you, I think they may not necessarily have taken the decision specifically for the hemodynamic monitoring opportunities. I think this is a matter of presence, marketing, these products require clinical support to you, you're after all talking about positioning an invasive catheter in a patient.
So, I think it has probably got more to do with practicalities than anything else. I mean, the one thing I can say for the commercial process of Pulsion, I wouldn't call it maybe gold standard, but it's a very, very professionally run sales process that the company has that I think we can learn a lot from in our own business.
Mm-hmm. All right. Thank you.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Johan Unnérus of Swedbank. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Thank you. Good day, it's Johan Unnérus, Swedbank. A few questions then, please. Is the growth historically, is that purely organic?
Yeah, I would say that growth this year and even on a currency-adjusted basis is pretty organic. It's mostly, as you can see, euro-based sales with their presence. And we've queried that, and they're with 0.1%, actually, the nominal and the organic is pretty identical.
In terms of direct sales, so what proportion is direct sales and, distribution and?
Let me check that for you. I would think that possibly somewhere around. Let's see here. Direct sales. If I look at the three-month ending, then we had, let's see, Ulf is doing the math here for you. It looks like some 80%.
Eighty percent.
80% was direct.
Presumably, that's related to sales in Europe, strongly, I guess.
Yes. I mean, it's related to the, sales companies that I mentioned, earlier in my presentation that you have in the slide deck. And it's also, of course, connected to the geographical distribution of the sales. But I think, that would, by definition, then be mostly Europe, and to a much lesser extent, United States, which is also their own sales company.
Yeah. And in terms of growth on the four years you're showing, it seems to be sort of 5-6% average growth. I don't know, there's some currency effect, perhaps, as well, which is of course, okay. But the margin expansion is extraordinary. Can you give us some reasons why? Is there an R&D change, or are there any other explanations?
No, I think they have tightened up the organization quite a lot, and it's there are structural things in there, and I also think that they have a great leader of the business that's simply done a very good job. I think the actual level of profitability that you're talking about today is not unusual, I would say, for this type of a business. But if you go back a couple of years, I would say the level of profitability would maybe have been unusually low in there. But there is no doubt that the current management has done a very good job of turning the profitability around in this business.
Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you, Johan.
Our next question comes from Stefan Wikholm of Consultor. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Thank you. In the presentation slides you showed us, there are some things that I think I would like to see more clarification regarding. You state here, for example, that Pulsion is to form the base for an advanced monitoring business within critical care. The question is what you actually are telling us here, are you telling us that the combination of the existing Getinge products and the Pulsion products are going to be this base? Or are you telling us that this area, advanced monitoring business, is going to a future growth area for you, where we are going to see many more acquisitions to come?
I would say, Stefan, a little bit of both. You could say that this is a product area that requires more in sales. It requires a sort of a more cumbersome sales process to get systems placed and get adoption up. But if you're successful, it's definitely worth doing it. And I think that the Eirus technology or the continuous glucose monitoring solution we have, together with Pulsion's existing business, I think is a, is a very good combination. And we have ourselves ideas that we think we could develop, which would represent similar types of approaches to getting patient insights for clinical purpose. But I think we would also be happy to evaluate other sort of external opportunities if they come our way.
There should be a good list of potential acquisition candidates here, small and mid-sized companies working in this area.
I think so, yeah.
Yes. The second question is regarding the slide showing sales and profitability. What is remarkable with this one, and if you look at the development of Pulsion over the last 5, 6 years, the top line growth has been rather meager. Actually, 4 or 5% yearly and not very much, but the profitability has been improving tremendously. And can you give us some reasons for this? What has happened in the company?
Yeah, I believe I just did that. And, I mean, firstly, I think the growth, if we consider that this is a business that is, sort of predominantly exposed to the Western European markets, and w e also factor in the challenges that I would say any company, including ourselves, have had in mature markets in terms of growth since 2009. I actually think this is very good growth numbers, personally. The expansion of the profitability, a good job as it is to get there, I would maybe say that the current levels of profitability are not out of the ordinary, but the profitability of three-four years ago was decidedly on a poor level for the type of industry.
But as I said before, the current management has done a very, very good job of consolidating their base, sorting out the organization, focusing the organization a lot more. So, I think trying to execute well on fewer things, the typical things you would do in terms of a turnaround. I think, for example, that US, which is challenging if you're small, receive more money going in there, but not necessarily better results, if you may.
Mm-hmm. For the last few years, you have made quite a number of acquisitions, and the argument, strong cross-selling opportunities, has been repeated by you over and over again. But in my opinion, we haven't seen too much effect of that. The growth has not expanded that much and not more than could be expected. So is there actually sort of strong cross-selling opportunities?
Yeah, I think so, and I think they are there. I mean, we're again, we're talking about the last few years, where I would say larger healthcare companies have maybe had growth of 2%-3% or lower than that, if you look to this year. And I still believe that we, given the portfolio of technologies and products we have, that we are performing well on the top line. And I would argue that a portion of that is cross-selling synergies that we are realizing. But I'd also be the first one to say that cross-selling synergies are not sort of something that you get instantaneously in one. It takes time to train a sales force. It takes time to train a sales force to new call points, et cetera, et cetera.
And, but I think we've done a good job in the cardiovascular space, most certainly, and that's where most of the acquisition are.
What is the reason why Pulsion has not been able to make a stronger inroad into the U.S. market?
I don't think it's a matter of can. I think it's been the sacrifice in terms of profitability to make those investments. I think for a, if we call it a relatively small company, listed entity, I think it would have probably a relatively material impact on the profitability over maybe a couple of years. I think that if you can achieve the same by allowing yourself to be acquired by someone, I think that you get the opportunity to do that journey in a more effective way. I think selling it now is hopefully, or we hope so, something that shareholders will find attractive. They've made quite a nice development, I think a majority of them.
I think we now have the opportunity to take this company on the next haul of the journey.
Mm-hmm. I wish you good luck. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Konrad Lieder of Equinet Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you. My questions have been answered.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Sten Gustafsson of ABG. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you. I have a few questions regarding the hemodynamic market. Tell us a little bit about the market size, growth drivers, and the market shares, particularly in Europe. Thanks.
Yeah, I think, Sten, those are we have some indications, but these are a little bit numbers that we would like to validate. I think the simple answer to your question is that the main markets are obviously Western Europe and North America. And in North America, the incumbent market leader is Edwards Lifesciences, who interestingly enough is both a meaningful player in blood glucose monitoring and hemodynamic monitoring, as we will become. And as you know, Pulsion has a very small position there. Then in Western Europe, Pulsion is the market leader, and Edwards has a much smaller and less significant position there. The market is. I would say there is a handful of companies. There are the more full-fledged, and Pulsion and Edwards are by far the two larger companies in this space.
And then you have a couple of emergent companies who have specifically concentrated on the non-invasive market for hemodynamic monitoring, which I believe two of them are UK-based.
Okay. And when you say, dominant market share in Europe, is that like 30% or 40%, or even higher?
I think we're talking that magnitude, 40-ish, plus, I would say. But, but I think we'll be able to come back, but we'd like to run those numbers over again so that we, come out with, with, as accurate numbers as possible. We, we unfortunately seldom have sort of a solid database to rely upon, so there's some estimates in there, but it's, it's a material and strong market share in Europe.
The U.S. market, is that larger?
The U.S. market would be, would be larger. Yes.
All right. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
As a final reminder, ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question today, please press star one on your telephone keypad. We will now take our next question from Martin Wales of UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Just a quick one. When exactly are we going to see the documents associated with this deal? Like you said, it was imminent.
Yes, I think that within a week, I would say, you should be able to see that document.
Yeah, within the week, but probably earlier than that.
You'll email that out to us all?
I beg your pardon?
You will email a copy out to us all, or put it on your website?
It will be. We'll send out an email alert, I think, with the document, so that you will know.
It will be available on a webpage.
Okay, perfect. Thank you.
Thank you.
Our next question today comes from Justin Smith of Société Générale. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah, thanks so much for taking my question. It, it was just a couple. It was just trying to get a bit more of an understanding of the, of the timing of the transaction. I, I know these aren't necessarily massive numbers relative to the, the size of, of the entire group, but just trying to understand why you want to acquire the company now and why you perhaps didn't look at it a couple of years ago when, when margins were much lower. And then just the second question was really just trying to get comfortable as to with the margin expansion we've seen, why is it you guys are comfortable that the, the company are not under investing in themselves and trying to obviously, sort of, window dress themselves?
So some help on those two questions would be great. Thank you.
Well, we've I mean, to answer your question, Justin, is we've made a relatively extensive due diligence in this company, right? To determine a whole host of different things, sort of strength of IP, risks in IP, level of investments, and so forth. And we're sort of satisfied that this company has been run as well as can be, with sort of minding that there is a tomorrow also for the company. So we're not uncomfortable with that. I think it's just a great turnaround. And I think the reason, I think we would have obviously liked to buy this company at an earlier stage, but I also believe that owners and management and boards presumably had been on a relatively well-laid-out roadmap of improvement.
I'm sure they have wanted to execute on that roadmap to sort of maximize shareholder value. I think we acquire at a decent multiple, a quality asset that we can develop further. So I think this makes sense for us, and I think it should make sense for the shareholders of Pulsion as well.
Okay, great. Thank you very much, Johan.
You're welcome. Can we take one more question, operator, and then perhaps, wrap this up? If, as always, if anyone has any additional questions, both Ulf and myself are available.
There are no more questions in the queue, sir.
Okay, very good.
Okay.
Well, in that case, thank you so much for attending this phone conference, and sorry that we couldn't start quite in time. I think that if we can complete this acquisition, as we hope to do, I think we'll be, hopefully, the owners of a quality asset that we can leverage further, and that will bring us into an area that I think is exciting, and where I think there are opportunities beyond what we do today and what Pulsion represents, if we manage to conclude this transaction. So, hopefully, this is going to be an interesting future for us. Thank you very much for attending, and as I said, if you have questions, Ulf and I, we're sort of available to take those additional questions one by one. Thank you.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for joining today's conference call. This will now conclude. You may disconnect.