Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Interim Report January to March 2022. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. I must advise you that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to the first speaker today, Mr. Thomas Axelsson. Thank you, and please go ahead.
Thank you very much and welcome to Vitrolife Interim Report January-March 2022. The speakers of today will be the CFO of the company, Patrik Tolf, and myself, Thomas Axelsson, and I am the CEO of the company. Please go to page number two, so we can look through this report. This is the first quarter that we have done within the Vitrolife Group, the combination of the service business within the genetic field and the device business from, let's say, the earlier Vitrolife. What we are doing and the ambition between this group is to continue to have good growth and a good momentum is what we can see in this quarter. We will go through in this presentation the sales growth and explain where it's coming from, both from the regions and also from our business units.
Initially, you know, I would like to address that our Consumables business that is based on repetitive business has shown incredibly good results and also a market region Americas is something that are showing a definitely a good trend. The Genetic Services and what we are focusing on there has been and currently are the preimplantation business, and that's showing good growth. Always when you do a big acquisition and when you are transforming a company that we currently are doing, it is a challenge in getting a good response from the customers. So far, the response has been very good from the market, and that is seen within the numbers. Should we go to page three? Page three and look more into the sales and growth per market regions.
I'm not going to do too much number crunching because there are many numbers regarding the organic growth and then the currency effect and all of that. Patrik will come back and explain it more. I would like to focus on actually two things. I take away the currency effect. One is that the company is growing with 85% then, and also that we are growing organically pro forma with 11%. That's good numbers. The market regions, I'm saying that is good numbers. It is always for us to compare, you know, with a normal case. I don't want to discuss COVID or those.
Let's say that overall, the global market is back to what it was before COVID came, of course, with some regional differences. Let's start from the left side on the page number three, number three. You can see that the Q1 growth in local currencies was 255%. Of course, that's due to the acquisition but also due to a good underlying growth in all of the regions. What I'm pleased with is that one of our ambitions has been to actually grow within the Americas and especially within U.S. We can see that the product portfolio with the registrations that we have got and with the acquisition of the Genetic Services business at Igenomix, where they are quite strong in Americas, has for sure contributed to these numbers.
What's good is that today, the Americas is around one-third of the Vitrolife sales. EMEA. EMEA is our biggest territory then. What I would like to say there is the same kind of organic growth pro forma that we are having in Americas, that's 16%. Especially good there is that more or less all markets are showing good progress and are also showing good, let's say, support for our acquisition and integration activities. Next area on the page is what we are calling Asia, and that is mainly China, and that's growing with 2%, and there is a mix then regarding the sales in different product lines. I'm going to go through that when we are going into the business areas. Finally, Japan Pacific, that is mainly Japan and Australia.
There we see a drop of 5% in the organic growth. Explanation later on what product areas. Good growth organically and in the right markets. Okay, let's go to page four and look upon the different business areas. We currently have three business areas. One of them, and our largest business area are the Consumables. It grows 18% in local currency. Very pleased with that result. As you can see on the right side, the different arrows, it is growing well in all territories, 21% in Americas, 32% in Asia, and 20% in Japan Pacific.
Taking that into consideration and what was on the earlier page regarding the organic growth of 2% in Asia and -5% in Japan Pacific, you can then read that our base earlier products with scalability is having a good growth in all our market. Regarding China, that has been our biggest market, and with this it is not anymore our biggest market. The question, how is China doing then? If you see this. With Asia 32%, a lot of that is the China business, but the China business is a difficult one to judge. Why is it difficult to judge? Yes, we can see that if you change page and go to page five, where you see that the Asia business on the right side has a decline for the business area Technologies with 51%.
That is due to the situation that we can work with the clinics and support them with Consumables, but it is a difficulty to actually do installations and training. That is, of course, due to the restrictions in the Chinese market. Enough regarding COVID and the situation in Asia then. Japan Pacific down 36% completely due to that last year, first quarter was two large orders to two different clinics, one in Japan and one in the Pacific area. What's so good with this quarter is that, we are, you know, within the biggest market for time-lapse within the EMEA, showing definitely good growth and also within the Americas. It is two different reasons for the growth in those territories.
In the EMEA, it is a continuing use of time-lapse for morphology, for efficiency, for workflow, but also that the growth of 44% shows that customers are using the hardware frequently, so it's being standard of care. We have the software that we can sell in the EMEA region are impacting currently the growth number, which is good. In U.S., the software, the artificial intelligence is not yet approved by FDA. We can see that the growth there is coming from a completely different reason. It is that they are introducing time-lapse as part of getting more efficiency workflow into the IVF laboratories. Okay, let's go to page six and the new area, Genetic Services.
If you're not familiar with Genetic Services, it is easier to reflect on the Igenomix business. What we see there is the growth in local currency with 10%, and that's a growth of 46 million SEK. The most important market here is for us the Americas. In the Americas, it is a growth of 16%. That growth is coming from the preimplantation business, the endometrial testing business. In EMEA, 9% more or less in line with what some of the consumables business were, the repetitive business. Of course then growth in the other two areas. It was growth in all areas. The growth was coming from the preimplantation and endometrial testing business.
One reflection on the Genetic Services is that a buildup of part of that business is the genetic disorder, which is then traded GPDx. Currently sales is quite low. It's growing well, but it's very, very small numbers compared to total sales around 2%-3%. Overall, I'm pleased then to hand over to Patrik on page seven.
Thank you, Thomas. I'll talk you through on this slide the financial highlights. If you look in this one, you see the table, you see the light blue numbers in net sales, which is the number from last year. In light gray, you see the pro forma numbers for Genetic Services. The dark blue is the actual Vitrolife Group at the end of the first quarter. As you can see, we increased the first quarter sales with SEK 373 million or 98%. With the acquired growth of SEK 304 million, that sums up to SEK 752 million.
More importantly is also then to compare them with the pro forma, where you can compare them the 684 with the 752, which then gives a pro forma growth of approximately 10%. Also, the Genetic Services business are reducing the activity in COVID testing. And as we wrote in the report, that has fallen quite strongly during the first quarter from SEK 58 million to SEK 11 million during the first quarter, which of course then has an impact on the sales numbers. If you then exclude the COVID testing, then the growth in SEK was 18% and 11% in local currencies, as we showed in the previous slide. Moving on to gross income.
We increased the gross income then, compared to last year, with SEK 166 million, from SEK 263 million up to SEK 419 million. This is also where you see the effect on the combined business, because the gross margin for the Q1 last year was 65%. Combining the business, meaning that the pro forma analysis is of more importance. There you see that the pro forma for last year was 57%, and for the first quarter, it was slightly lower than 56%. Moving on to EBITDA, that increased to SEK 228 million.
In comparison to what it was for Vitrolife during Q1 last year, it was an EBIT margin of 43%. Again, the comparison should be done with the pro forma, which was 34.4% versus 30.4%. The EBITDA margin on pro forma was four percentage points lower, which I'll come back to in the coming slides. If we move to slide number eight. First of all, we see that the EBITDA per share has increased from SEK 1.50 to SEK 1.69, which is an increase of 13% compared to last year.
Starting on the EBITDA, net sales increased with SEK 242 million, positively impacted by the strong sales that we had in Consumables, but also the product mix in Genetic Services, phasing out the COVID testing. The gross income then had negative impact, as I mentioned previously, and on the business combination, but also cost related for the supply chain and general cost increase. OpEx, which is for the group, at higher level. Moving back to the EBITDA of SEK 228 million. Moving to slide number nine, which shows OpEx. That increased in comparison with last year with SEK 40 million or about 17%. The main drivers for that one is increased activity levels.
The selling and admin expenses have increased. That is then based upon that we are going more into. We meet more customers, we increase that activity on customer events and so forth. It is also related to the build-up that Thomas talked about previously here for the genetic testing activities in GPDx, genetic disorder testing on the GPDx that we have as an impact then on the buildup on the OpEx cost. SEK 40 million increase in comparison with the pro forma number. Moving on to the next slide is a summary of the financials.
If I summarize then, we say the sales growth is 98%, of which then acquired growth is 74%, with the currency impact of 13%, leaving then an 11% in the local growth in currencies, in local currencies. On pro forma basis, the growth was 10% in SEK. If we then exclude the discontinuing COVID sales that I mentioned previously, going from SEK 58 million to SEK 11 million, and the currency impact, the growth was 11%. On currency impact, it has an impact then on sales with 13%, but also impacted EBITDA negatively with SEK 20 million.
If we look on the gross margin, what you see here is both the gross margin and the adjusted gross margin, and the difference between those are related to amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets. If you take the adjusted gross margin of 58% and the gross margin of 56%, we see a larger drop in the adjusted gross margin due to that we have a higher part of amortization for this year. Again, the gross margin 56% versus 57% for last year. I mentioned previously also EBITDA per share SEK 1.69 versus SEK 1.50. Earnings per share is SEK 0.60 versus SEK 1.09.
Also, the net debt to EBITDA has come down a bit, lower than it was during the fourth quarter. We are just south of three times net debt to EBITDA, which is in line with our objective. In addition to that, we have a strong position and undrawn backup facilities of about EUR 70 million. With those words, I hand over to you, Thomas.
Thank you very much, look on page 11. Our long-term outlook has not changed, but I would like to mention a couple of things regarding the long-term outlook. As you've seen within this quarter, we have broadened the product portfolio, and we then also have a service offering. In our long-term outlook, that's what we will continue to do. Of course, now through product development, but also through expansion with, you know, our product range and continue the M&A situation. Expansion of sales, yes. With the integration activities that we have started, one of the things that we will work with is to have hopefully a better support by going more direct in some key markets, and expansion of sales will then happen.
If we are looking on then why we believe that we will continue to have good growth within this market. It says the long-term market growth is 5%-10% in monetary terms. I would like that we go over to page number 12 and just pinpoint a couple of things. You know that the demographic and social trends is still a thing that will drive the market. I would like, especially for Vitrolife situation, that the technical improvements that we are working with within the genetics, within the vitrification techniques, and also of course, regarding the improvements of IVF lab procedures, where we, for instance, have products such as the time-lapse equipment.
We will also see that the favorable regulation that markets are starting to open up for genetic testing in more and more countries, and that is an underlying growth. Of course, also that I mentioned within the CEO comment that there are public reimbursement programs being changed, and in all cases where it changed, it is going to become more favorable as it looks like. The major change right now in this quarter going forward is the reimbursement system started first of April in Japan. There is the same trend, and that's a trend that is behind the growth on the U.S. market, is a different kind of program that are supporting the employees and also to some extent, the changes within the mandatory things regarding the IVF in the U.S. states.
By that, this first presentation is ready before Q&A. I would like to hand over to the operator. Please, Maria.
Okay, thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone and wait for the operator to get your first and last name. Once again, please press star and one if you wish to ask a question. Once again, as a reminder, please press star and one if you wish to ask a question. We have a few questions coming in. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A queue. This will only take a few moments. Okay. Our first question comes from the line of Ulrik Trattner. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much, and good morning. I have a few questions, mainly related to sort of the cost here of GPDx. Looking at the pro forma numbers for last year where Igenomix, if it were to be included, would have been a lower part of total sales, but still reported roughly 61% gross margin and roughly 35% EBITDA margin. Obviously some COVID revenues there, but just how much of sort of the additional costs are both on the gross margin and the EBITDA is related to one, COVID and two, this GPDx expansion.
It looks like also just taking the numbers that you provided at time of the acquisition until sort of full year that a lot of more OpEx costs have been put on this GPDx, giving sort of the margin development. Is that set to continue?
Hi, Ulrik. I will go into some of your questions then and try to answer those. The GPDx business, yes, it was a business and, you know, last quarter last year, the GPDx business had, you know, not started to take the expenses and investments that they started to do within late Q2, something like that, and going forward. We don't see any major revenue yet. I said that roughly around 3% of the Genetic Services currently are from the GPDx business. There are investments in that field, of course. It is a combination when we look on the OpEx, where we should not only say it is due to the GPDx business.
It is a combination of that COVID business has gone down and the efficiency, let's say that could come within the organization of Genetic Services is not really done. The combination of OpEx is investments, let's put it that way, in the GPDx, and also less efficiency within the operations. That's the two main things. We should not blame just the GPDx. Definitely not, because there are also combined resources that can be used for supporting our customers in genetic counseling. You know, what we do, what we try to do is to grow the business by having extremely good support, and that is through genetic counseling.
Great. Thank you. Would it be any reason for why not Igenomix should be able to return to its former 28% EBITDA margin?
I don't see why it would not, you know. I am addressing the situation that we have looked into this, and of course, you know that different kind of program has started or will continue to get scalability and some efficiency into it. A situation when you have a long time between signing and closing and when a business has an investment area that they started then is a reason, you know, that probably most likely, I'm trying to be humble here, that some of the resources you were having less focus on the expansion on OpEx from management, since it was a selling process, and we are having a full focus on running a scalable good business.
I don't see any reason why we should not come back to normal efficiency within the Genetic Services, Ulrik. Definitely not.
Great. Just looking at old Vitrolife, it looks like a super solid quarter, and this despite sort of the regional lockdowns in Asia. Just two questions. Obviously, you already touched upon sort of the regional lockdowns and the fluctuations there. What we have seen in recent is reimbursement in Beijing, as a sort of pilot project, and reimbursement in Japan, some additional sort of mandated states in the U.S. with cost coverage for IVF. Your take on the underlying market looks really solid. As well as sort of what type of accelerated growth have you seen within the technology space in Europe when you introduce this new AI technology, just trying to decipher what to expect in the Americas once you have that approved.
Okay. Your own reflections regarding reimbursement system and, you know, reasons for underlying growth in Japan and China, I definitely agree with you. Regarding then, you're saying that the Consumables has had a good quarter then and underlying growth. The question regarding, you know, technology, as I guess you have then and the EMEA situation and in the Americas and what to expect is that it is two different views on the market on what technology to use and how should they charge for different things within the IVF clinics. In U.S., the first choice of doing embryo selection is genetic testing.
In a few markets in Europe, especially then, you know, Spain and in U.K., for instance, genetic testing is part of the offering. But in Europe, it is in most cases an IVF cycle without genetic testing and then having good performance. What they have is that they then are using and working a lot with IVF laboratories efficiency. Part of that, and also as a selection tool is time-lapse. With the improvement and easiness of use of, for instance, iDAScore, for sure that iDAScore is a reason for underlying growth. I mean, it's easy to do. It goes quicker. Where they have introduced it and they feel confident, it is reducing time. That's a key thing.
In U.S., I don't think they are going to, you know, it's going to be complicated. We see that with the FDA to have AI software approved. In U.S., the good growth there is coming from that they have lack of competent staff, especially, you know, embryologists within the IVF laboratories. If they can get efficiency, if they can reduce a lot of time in doing the morphology, then time-lapse is a tool that they buy not as a selection tool, they buy it as an efficiency tool. It's two reasons behind it, and I do believe that both of those reasons in those different markets will be growth factors.
Great. Thank you very much, Thomas. Last question, and this might be to you, Patrik, on the tax rate.
Mm-hmm.
It has gone up quite a lot between quarters now that you have sort of the Igenomix business included. What should we expect here in sort of the coming quarters and years?
I mean, as you said, we have then acquired Igenomix, who then is based with headquarters and tax base then in Spain, which then has a higher corporate tax than we have in Sweden. The combination here is higher, as you say. Don't expect anything dramatic to happen on that level in the short run for that one. This is obviously something that we will look through over time, but don't expect any major activities on that side in the short run.
Great. Thank you very much, both, Thomas and Patrik.
Thank you, Ulrik. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Jack Sitherby. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning. Just two questions from me. Could you first just give us some more detail about what you're seeing in your supply chain? Do you see any issues, or are you impacted by cost inflation? And then alongside that, could you sort of let me know if you're seeing or if there are any points in the future where you see important regulation coming up, which could be good for your business, and with this, in particular on the U.S. In the U.S., is it gonna be on a state-by-state basis, or is it going to be on a national basis?
Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Take the supply chain first. I'm sorry if I didn't talk so much about the supply chain during the presentation because I you know. It is the same for us as everyone else. We are working hard. We have been able to through extremely good work to get supply. We have started own production of some of the things that we earlier had supply from outside sources. We have and are moving also from different regions our supply then. What our biggest challenge is to combine the supply with the growth.
We have right now, starting from April, going into situation where we do more shipments for the Consumables, especially for those that are more in industrial than. You talked about inflation, though. The most impact currently is, yeah, I would like to say the ridiculous increase in our freight cost. With the supply situation, that has been a struggle. We have had a lot of air freight situations that are not efficient, and that has, of course, driven down some of our profitability. But with the growth, we've been able to, let's say, compensate that. It's, for us, like everyone else, but I think we are doing it well.
Regarding the reimbursement system, then you said state by state and also from the U.S. This is just my own opinion. I don't think it's going to be any U.S. regulation on a national basis. It is going to be state by state, and that will of course, as it currently is within the mandatory state, be quite different between those. The main driver for support within the U.S. market will be through the normal insurance system that they pay, and they are including IVF as part of the treatment. But especially also the benefit from the employers that they are including, then some check, let's put it that way, for an employer to use for IVF or fertility treatment.
It is a positive trend there, but I believe more is coming from the situation. It is difficult to recruit good staff, and this could be a factor that would make an employer look a little bit more attractive to go to.
Done. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Henrik Söderberg. Please ask your question.
Hi, all. Thanks for good report. Could you please just shed some light on the scalability between your different business areas, considering the acquisition also, so sort of more the returns and capital employed rather than margins.
Scalability within Consumables is. Consumables, I would like to divide up into two product groups. It is the consumables that are nutrition solutions. The scalabilities there are in every way good. Very good. We also have a scalability opportunity there without investing in any new manufacturing plant or those. There's still good productivity, but we can increase that mainly by more manpower then. Within the consumables and the disposable devices then, like needles, pipette, and labware, the scalability there is from the automation side and having an opportunity to do those. There, we have some investment, but investments are not huge. It can be a new handling robot and those things.
The asset situation would be then if we needed to build a new manufacturing plant itself for Consumables such as needles or pipettes. We are trying to avoid that.
Mm-hmm.
We will avoid it by adding and doing shifts, for instance, for the production of all type needles. I don't see an immediate, for me is two to three- years range of having an investment into new manufacturing plants. Genetic Services, yes, the scalability is not as it is within the Consumables. It is a service business. We have to remember that it depends upon people. Of course, you know, we have started, and we will continue with automation within the laboratories of a lot of handling, for instance, pipetting and those things. The scalability is less. It is a service business. Is there any larger investments than if you take upon a balance sheet assets? Not really.
Growing within one territory, you might well need a new equipment, but we are talking about EUR 100,000-EUR 200,000 at the most, if you have a good expansion.
Perfect. Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, as a reminder to this, to those who wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Sergio Allegri. Please ask your question.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. Thank you for the call today. Listen, it would be great if you could shed some light on the reason why of the deceleration in China. Is this just COVID related, or is there any other issue, the reason why you are not able to increase your installed base for the technology side?
You mentioned China, and as I said, I think we have a good market intelligence regarding China. If we see on Consumables, we feel and that we have been growing quite well there due to that some others has had some delivery problem due to the supply situation. Also that we have had a underlying growth. Some of the Consumables growth also in Asia, if you look on Asia itself, is coming from the comparison number last year, you know, with Southeast Asia, was extremely low and also in India. So that's good on the Consumables side. On the Technologies, yes, China is a challenge for us currently with the hardware installations. That's driving down our business area Technologies sales in Asia. You know, it was only 51%.
That is not showing the interest from the market. Definitely not.
The difficulty in you know increasing your install base there is due to COVID or is no-
Yes.
Is there any other reason?
Yes.
Like cultural reason
No, it's not anything. No, you're on it, you know. The situation, you know, being able to travel between different regions.
Okay, yeah.
has been a challenge. In some cases, you know, when we do larger installations and are supporting with training, we are not doing that with only Chinese staff. We are doing it with staff from Europe. That has been an obstacle that we have not been able to solve. Long term, we will increase the number of people working on the Chinese market with all of those aspects.
Got it. Thank you. On the America side, I mean, the growth there has been really good. What is driving mainly your growth there, and what's your strategy to, you know, to penetrate even further that market?
Are you then referring to Technologies in Americas?
No, I mean your business as a whole, technologies
Okay, yes.
Consumables and the.
Yeah. Consumables business could start saying like this: we have had U.S. market as a key priority for a year or two. In that ambition, we have increased our activities to get products through FDA. You know, earlier it was you know first get it through Europe and then getting into U.S. Currently, we have an attitude that they should have both fast track. That's helping in getting products into the market. Secondly, there's underlying growth, especially in U.S., that is helping us. I mean, it's not anything that we have done a good job. U.S. are increasing the number of cycles and that's a driver for it.
Also situation that, as I mentioned, that U.S. and with the growth and the, and with the, ability to do therapy, you know, you can do genetic testing and, you know, you have a completely different market. The genetic testing has been the first choice to go for. Currently, when that is getting up to maybe 40%-50% of the market using genetic testing, then they are including more technologies to support and in many cases also reduce the cost for the end user, for the patient that do not want genetic testing or really can't afford it, then time-lapse is a good equipment to support them with their decision process or selection process of an embryo.
Most important right now, the extremely good growth in Americas is due to that some clinics have efficiency programs and especially related to number of embryologists within the IVF lab, and that is helping our sales. Long explanation, but you need the mechanism between all of these factors.
Great. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Okay. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Anders Rudolfsson. Your line is now open.
Thank you. Anders from DNB here. Two questions from me. The first one, you mentioned regarding China, there's been problems with IVF there and so on. My question is, if you look into how much your sales has been affected during this period, is it possible to so to speak give an amount of the normal market would be if you didn't have the COVID? If you understand what I mean there. The second question is, hopefully we go back to a more normal market in a year or two. What do you expect from the gross margin to be there now when you have the combined company?
Okay. Hi, Anders. First, China had constant growth within the IVF and good growth, you know, for many years up until the beginning of 2020. I would like to say to compare, you know, number of cycles, what's happening in China, we should go the base year 2019. From 2020 up until today, it's been up and down. Currently, on the consumable side, we see that we are back into growth number with the trend that we had before the COVID, customers going for our products. We are able to support the market quite well with the consumables. Going forward, it's difficult to guess. As Ulrik mentioned, there are discussions, trial periods on some kind of reimbursement.
We don't know if that will come in place or not. What has happened in China is that the private IVF clinics has been suffering. So they have declined quite a lot through political, let's say, pressure and the situation then. Going forward, regarding margins, I'm not satisfied. I can tell you now, okay. I'm not satisfied with the EBITDA margin. I'm satisfied if we compare pro forma. I'm very satisfied where we are on the device businesses and how it has changed. I'm very satisfied with what we do with our key core revenue base within Genetic Services. I am, of course, not satisfied with the consequence of having extra resources for growth areas. You can never grow if you are not putting resources into a field.
It is, let's say, the equity story then. You can talk about that. Currently, yes, we are suffering from lower margins. Going forward, growth will partly take care of it, Anders.
Terrific. Well, good luck so much, and talk to you soon.
Thank you, Anders. Thank you.
Thank you once again. To those who wish to ask a question, please press star one. Your next question comes from the line of Patrik Ling. Please ask your question.
Yes. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking the questions. I actually have a couple of follow-up questions on GPDx. I mean, you mentioned that this is only around 3% of sales within Genetic Services today, so it should be around SEK 9 million. Could you say a little bit about how much of the investments that actually went into that and whether or not this operation is profitable as of today, which I suspect it might not be? And what type of volumes do you need to reach before you actually start to make a profit on GPDx?
Okay. First, yes, you are right. It is not a profitable business. Your estimate is quite good regarding sales. That field will have better margin with success. If we are, you know, able to grow it into good business, the, let's call it the costs, will be lower, and the margins will be better when it is an existing business. The challenge is to get up to those volumes on the different fields. That I do believe we can do by having a focus on right geographical areas and on the reproductive cycle. I mean, we are within the reproductive cycle. It is in those fields that we have the competency database and the context. It is regarding focus. Yeah, that's what I can say there.
How much is it we need before we can become profitable? It's a good question. I do not have that completely, but we can do a quick exercise that with a little bit better margin than the rest of the business, and there are some of those extra OpEx goes to that field. It can become at least plus minus zero business within a reasonable time.
Yeah, Thomas, when you say with a little bit better margin, I suppose you refer to gross margin then?
Yes
Than the rest of the business.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yes.
Could I ask you, has it always from day one been a given that you should keep this business, or could there be other interested parties that would like to acquire it from you?
Yes. When we looked into it, and I said that, you know, my own skills with that field was more or less zero. From the process, you know, due diligence and up until the time between signing and closing, we looked into it. After closing, as communicated, we are continuing the business. As I said, you know, this we will continue the business then and doing it more focused. Do we wanna sell the business? Not right now. We see that there are definitely synergies with growth in a couple of areas.
There are opportunities we need to define a little bit better than what has been done or what we had, what we are doing on where, to whom, and with what database and how we will then introduce that kind of competence in the different geographical areas. You know, it is a combination there.
Okay, great. Good. Thank you. That was, actually all from me right now. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. Please continue.
Okay. Thank you very much. It was a long session today, a little more than 50 minutes. I'm very pleased with all the question and that you have been listening in. Thank you, and goodbye from Patrik and myself. Bye.
Thank you. Bye.
Thank you, everyone. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you all for participating. You may all disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.