Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the conference call of the Diagnostyka Group after the first quarter of 2025. Our presenters include the Co-Founder and CEO of Diagnostyka, Professor Jakub Swadźba, and Vice President, CFO, Paweł Chytła. This presentation will be broken down into two parts. First of all, we will discuss the results, and then we'll move on to the 15-minute Q&A session. You can ask your questions in writing via chat.
If you would like to listen to the broadcast in English, please select language from the menu located at the bottom of your screen. You can also download presentation from our website. The conference will be divided into two parts. First, we will discuss the presentation, and then you will be able to ask questions in the chat. Thank you.
The floor is over to Jakub Swadźba, CEO.
Good afternoon. Jakub Swadźba speaking. It is very nice to be with you today during our first quarterly conference call. This is our second conference call after the presentation of annual results after the last year. We will keep the similar tone and spirit as during the previous conference call. This has been yet another solid period for the Diagnostyka Group. In line with the expectations, we have recorded stable growth across the board. Speaking of this, one of the specific metrics and the value we are keeping a close eye on, that is tests volume. The volume is going up year-on-year. We are talking about an increase of just short of 9%, and we performed 45.2 million tests all in all.
In terms of our sales revenue, these grew faster due to the inflationary pressures, but also to the fact that the test mix is moving towards more expensive tests and more specialist tests that we are offering. Especially, it will change because the volume and the share of diagnostic imaging in our product mix is going to increase, and we all know that diagnostic imaging is more expensive than laboratory tests. This all translates into a better result overall for the company, and the Q1 EBITDA came in at as much as PLN 161 million. That is an increase of 18%, and the net profit attributable to the owners of the parent came in at nearly PLN 73 million.
The last purely financial figure I wanted to talk about now is the fact that the Management Board proposed the payment of 50% of last year's net profit as dividend. This was approved by the Supervisory Board, and today, in just two hours, we will have a General Meeting of Shareholders which is to approve this recommendation. As of now, it is still uncertain, but today, after two hours, this decision might be finally approved after noon. In terms of other non-financial facts and figures, in addition to M&As in diagnostic imaging, we are planning two laboratory diagnostics acquisitions. They are small-scale acquisitions. They are bolt-on acquisitions, and as part of our business, we have the very important Profilaktyka 40 PLUS Preventive Screen Program.
It was still in operation for the three months of the year and the fourth month of the year. Now it is replaced by My Health program. As you all know, we have launched the new modern line in Poznań. We keep investing. We rented an entire floor in our lab. This is a cutting-edge CCM line in order to expand our capacity in the regional labs. Also, at the beginning of the year, first patients were accepted, were welcome to our longevity clinic. This is an end-to-end diagnostics laboratory and diagnostic imaging clinic, but it also offers ultrasound scans, eye examinations, teeth examinations, vascular examinations and r ight now we are launching this business and upscaling it consistently based on the Jutrzenka 100 clinic. We have also introduced some changes in our IT muscle.
We have a new VP, CIO, a very experienced manager to supervise the launch and deployment of the ERP program as of 1st January of 2026. Last but not least, we need to mention that we went public in this quarter. This was a major milestone for us. We put a lot of work in it, but you know all about it. You know the stock price, both during the IPO and right now. I believe this has been one of the best, most successful IPOs in Poland. Let us leave it at that, because it does not apply to this quarter only, quarter one only. It applies to a longer term, not only this quarter. That will be all from me in terms of my introduction.
I'll be with you for the second part and during the Q&A, but I'll now give the floor over to Paweł Chytła to discuss the finances. Paweł Chytła, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Jakub. It is my pleasure to discuss our financial performance after the first quarter. Generally speaking, our financial performance is as expected. We are in line with the guidance and the projections in terms of our performance in the first quarter, so we are heading in the right direction. In terms of our sales and revenue in the first quarter, we generated a solid year-on-year growth. We're talking about the growth of 23%, translating into PLN 592 million from contracts with customers. As in previous quarters, this was due to mainly organic growth, which came in at nearly 21%.
The structure of our sales channels changed a little bit due to consolidation of the diagnostic imaging segment as of the beginning of the year. You can see on the slide in pie charts, B2C represents 38%, B2B 61%. In terms of the growth by channel, we see that B2B grows faster than B2C. This is obviously due to the consolidation of the diagnostic imaging segment because we all know that it is the segment that is dominated by B2B in 90%. As Jakub mentioned, we are growing by volume. We are talking about an increase of 8% year-on-year. Obviously, the 40 PLUS program was a major contributor here, but let us not forget the fact that the 40 PLUS program in the first quarter represented only 4% of our results.
We can also talk about organic growth among our existing clients. We're also growing in terms of price. In the laboratory diagnostics segment, the average price went up by around 10%, and this is obviously due to the influence of the product mix and customer mix. The truth is that the prices are growing. However, these increases were not introduced specifically in quarter one. We're talking about a quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year performance because the price increase is an ongoing process. Our contracts expire. We take part in new tenders. We are negotiating new conditions, new prices. All the conditions that we negotiated in the second, third, fourth quarter last year, we see those effects when we compare those prices to the first quarter of 2025.
Our average price went up by 14% all in all because this was due to the consolidation of DI, that is diagnostic imaging, where prices are higher than in laboratory diagnostics. In terms of our operating expenses, we are talking about an increase of over 24%, outpacing our growth in sales. This was due to the fact that in 2024, in the second, third, fourth quarter, we prepared ourselves to the IPO, to becoming a public company, so these costs naturally went up. Comparing quarter one 2025 to quarter one 2024, we can see that the dynamics of operating expenses growth was higher. In the table, you can see on the bottom of this slide that the services went up considerably. This was due to higher costs of purchase of services.
We're talking about the services of histopathology and radiology specialists, and this is obviously due to the consolidation of the DI segment. Naturally, it was compounded by an increase in the cost of IT services, where largely we have B2B services. They are provided by solopreneurs. This is also due to the fact or connected with the fact that we are in the midst of digital transformation. We are deploying ERP. It is worth noting that employee expenses, that is a very high big group of costs, did not outpace our sales growth. We're talking about 20.5% only, and the share went down year-on-year.
In terms of the recurring EBITDA margin, if we compare it to year-on-year, we're talking about a slight increase, and if we compare it to quarter-on-quarter, in Q1 2025, we're talking about 27.3%, so it went down. However, it is still high because we are comparing it to 26.1% in 2024 year-on-year. This was due to the fact that in Q1, Q2, and Q3 of 2024, we were building or we were focusing on building our organizational structures because we were preparing ourselves to the IPO to becoming a public company, but also to the future growth.
If you look at the EBITDA bridge, you will see that the main contributor to the downward trend in EBITDA were growing costs of services, diagnostic services, due to which our EBITDA margin went down by over 3%. However, the cost of materials, raw materials, employee costs, and other costs were positive contributors to our EBITDA margin, and as a result, we are reporting a solid EBITDA margin of 27.3%. Thanks to that, and also, thanks to solid growth in volumes, we are talking about robust 18% EBITDA margin in year-on-year increase 18%, representing PLN 30 million year-on-year.
In terms of net profit, comparison year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter, we're talking about 10%, so it's a little bit slower than the increase in EBITDA, which is due mainly to a slightly higher growth in D&A year-on-year, depreciation & amortization, which is due to the fact that in the second half of the year, we opened a new big regional laboratory in Łódź. We communicated it last year when we presented our annual results. It is also compounded with a negative effect of finance income going down, which is mainly due to the fact that in quarter one 2024, we had a high positive impact of our IRS valuation, which is used to hedge our financial debt. However, the valuation in the current year is neutral.
It represents only 700,000 on a plus side, which is due to the fact that in Q1 2025 it was a positive effect. Right now, interest rates are going down. It has become a reality. Last year we only talked about some forecasts. In terms of our income taxes, the taxes are growing in line with the growth in our business. We're talking about the growth of around 20%. However, this is a little bit slower than an increase in our sales revenue. We are using certain tax optimization methods. We use tax incentives. We launch some R&D tax reliefs.
We have a number of innovative programs, especially in IT, and we recognize already, we have already recognized PLN 4 million in our reliefs in terms of our central laboratory system, and we will continue this program in the future. In terms of our cash flow, our cash flow is still going strong year-on-year. We're talking about an increase of around PLN 30 million, free cash flow, quarter one to quarter one 2024-2025. Free cash flow to EBITDA went up. We're talking about 82% right now, so it is still very strong. It allows us to invest and grow. CapEx-wise, we decided to put on hold our M&As in the first quarter, which was obviously due to the fact that we were in the process of IPO. Therefore, our M&As were relaunched only in April 2025.
We informed you about the fact that we acquired Eurodiagnostics, but we had other M&A projects as well. We keep rolling. We are progressing with our M&A plan right now. In quarter one, our CapEx spending was mainly operational, investments in premises, in equipment. We are continuing the construction of our laboratory in Bydgoszcz, and obviously, we are building a new smaller laboratory in Rzeszów. We're obviously continuing with the increase of our network of collection points. We're talking about around PLN 20 million spending in quarter one and additionally around PLN 13 million of spending on IT.
In terms of what happened between the end of 2024 until quarter one in our cash flow, we have strong free cash flows of around PLN 130 million, and we are investing around PLN 33 million in CapEx, which means that we have PLN 100 million free cash flow net of CapEx spending, which allows us to be on the safe side in terms of our cash flows. Other cash flows, I'm talking about leases, which includes both IFRS 16 and 17 leases, that is classic leases and finance leases. We extended loans to our associate, which currently is building our laboratory in Bydgoszcz, and we also managed to drive down our bank debt by around PLN 55 million versus the end of the year.
Our strong cash flow allows us to reduce the use of overdrafts that we have. This translated into lower bank debt, down by PLN 55 million. We are servicing our debts, obviously. We're paying PLN 10 million in interest. Right now, we have free credit facility limits of around PLN 295 million, which puts us in a very safe position, a position that will allow us to grow and have a positive outlook in terms of our M&As. We have free cash that can be spent on our future growth, on the payment of the dividend, that we have mentioned before. We are talking about free cash flows of PLN 330 million in total. In terms of working capital, which was pretty stable due to our strong cash flows, our net working capital in days is still pretty stable.
Comparing quarter one 2024 to quarter one 2025, it did not change considerably. In terms of our inventory turnover ratio or days in inventory, it went down slightly. We invested a little bit less in inventory. In terms of our days in sales outstanding, it went up slightly by 5 days, which is due to the fact that we consolidated diagnostic imaging, where most receivables come from the National Health Fund, which has a slightly different turnover characteristics than laboratory diagnostics. We're talking about certain problems in payments, delays in payments to hospitals from the National Health Fund. That translates into those effects. However, the situation is under control. We see no major risks.
In terms of our other ratios, DIO and DPO, they went up slightly, which is good news 'cause we are able to finance ourselves with our receivables. This puts us on the safe side where our net working capital is controllable and the absolute level of our net working capital is going up. You can see it on the bar chart, which was due mainly to our growing business. Our net debt went down. We communicated it during our conference call after 2024. Our net debt to EBITDA at the end of the year was at 1.9.
Right now, it is at 1.7, which is mainly due to the fact that our net debt went down by around PLN 50 million, driven by our strong cash flow and the fact that we put our acquisitions and M&As on hold in the first quarter. In terms of our outlook for 2025, for the coming quarters, we can expect an increase in average price to continue, which will be driven by the similar situation observed in the first quarter. That is the positive product and customer mix and the start of consolidation of digital diagnostics, digital imaging, diagnostic imaging. We will see continuing growth in volumes driven by market trends. Let us not forget about the 40 Plus program. It came to an end in April.
It is now replaced by the new program, My Health program. This is a new program. It requires education. It will grow consistently. The same happened in the case of the 40 PLUS program. We do not know what the influence of the new program on our business will be. We do not expect any major turbulence. I'm talking about the end of the 40 PLUS program. As I said before, it only represented 4% of our results. We are keeping an eye. We do not raise any red flags. We feel comfortable to be in line with what we communicated during IPO. We are planning to spend around PLN 80 million-PLN 100 million in terms of M&As and DI.
In terms of our net debt to EBITDA, I believe it will be in the range between 1.5-2 in the coming quarters and at the end of the year. Let me stress it again at this point that we decided to earmark 50% of our net profits to the payment of the dividends. We are talking about 3.31 PLN per share, PLN 112 million in total. We believe that the payment will be made in June. Obviously, this is still a recommendation from the Management Board, which was approved by the Supervisory B oard, but is awaiting approval of the General Shareholders Meeting, which is due to happen today. Waiting for corporate approvals still. This would be all in terms of our financial results and the outlook for 2025.
Right now, I believe we can move on to the Q&A session. We have a number of questions on the My Health program, but I believe that Mr. Chytła commented on it extensively and exhaustively, so I believe that we can move on to the questions on profitability. If I may please, I'll throw in a couple of words about this program and another program. From the point of view of our financial performance, as we said, this program is not significant or was not significant. My Health program is expected to have a less positive contribution to our performance compared to the 40 PLUS program. It will be more difficult to reach the patients, so our assessment of the program is quite negative.
Although the presumptions in general, assumptions were positive, that is, bringing the patient closer to the primary care doctor, but we believe it will not be that successful, and it will need some adjustments. We don't think that this will be a universal program, not from the very beginning, definitely. On the other hand, we believe that people will actually come to our blood collection points to test themselves. As a result, our B2C sales are going to go up. In the first quarter of 2025, a lot of patients decided to undergo health prevention screening tests, and they interpreted it themselves or with the doctors. I believe that the market, in terms of our B2C segment, will go up quite considerably in 2026 versus 2025.
We also have good news for the National Health Fund payers. Something positive happened in terms of the cervical cancer prevention program. We will take part in a program of tenders or competitions, actually. This is the wording that is used. We used to have the traditional old Pap smear tests. They were underpaid. They will be replaced by new cutting-edge cytology tests. This is great news for the National Health Fund patients. Also, the National Health Fund will finance HPV tests, so we believe that we can expect higher revenue on that account as well. The end of the 40 Plus program might be negative, but it also can have some positive side to it.
We have a number of questions on recurring EBITDA margin and the outlook for 2025 in that respect. What level do you expect in 2025?
Well, I cannot give you a straightforward answer. I'm not allowed to, I believe, in terms of what kind of a margin we can expect at the end of the year. I mentioned it during the previous conference call. I wouldn't expect yet another increase that we saw in 2024 versus 2023 when it grew by two percentage points. I believe that our EBITDA, recurring EBITDA will remain stable year-on-year. As we said during the IPO in the prospect, in the perspective of two or three years, we're talking about the range of 2%-2.5%, and we're talking about full year after 2025.
We have done actually a lot in the fourth quarter of 2024, and we believe that we arrived at a very attractive recurring EBITDA margin level in 2024, so I wouldn't expect it to change a lot.
We have a number of questions of M&As and the prospects for this year, especially in diagnostic imaging, and also a couple of questions on whether or not you see any competition in the market. Is there any company that is consolidating the diagnostic imaging segment? Do you see any competition that can actually prevent us from being successful in this segment?
Well, after the IPO slowdown, which was made on purpose, we have M&A plans. We want to proceed with them. Obviously, we live in a democratic state. We do have competition.
Similarly, as in laboratory diagnostics, this competition is not very significant. Let me put it this way. We feel, in terms of our M&A market, both in diagnostic imaging and in laboratory diagnostics, we see ourselves as a leader.
A question on costs of materials and employee costs in the context of the outlook and the dynamics in the quarters to come for those two lines or groups of costs.
I believe that costs of materials are stable, and we are talking about multi-annual trends that do not change. We did not see any major positive impact, but we don't, on the other hand, have any foreign exchange risks.
We also have no negative impacts of tariffs because these materials are produced in Europe, even though some companies are American. There are some inflationary pressures remaining or lingering, but in our market segment, they're not very high, so we see a very slow increase in prices. I don't want to give you specific percentages, be it 1, 2, or 3%, but this is not significant in terms of the prices of materials, so lab reagents and so on. In terms of employee costs, there is a discussion going on about the regulation of minimum wage in the health sector. We believe that this regulation will be in effect this year as of July, but this has been budgeted for this year.
We are on the safe side here. We need to earn money to finance it. We are not hospitals. They might have a problem. We will not. The cost of employees will be increasing, but as I said before, we have budgeted it, and it will be also translated into an increase in our tests costs.
Another question, what the scale of increase in sales in diagnostic imaging are you expecting in 2025?
It will depend on M&As. Sometimes it's our plans come through, sometimes they don't, but irrespective of our M&As, talking about our current business, we're talking about 100 million PLN.
Last two questions then. They're pretty similar. The first one applies to the prices and volumes in quarter two and what your expectation for the entire year is.
I believe I've touched upon it during my part of the presentation. In terms of volumes, we will continue to see increases, let's say high single-digit increases year-on-year, which is obviously due to our organic growth, we're talking about over 20% in the first quarter, as well as market trends. In terms of the prices, the average price will increase year-on-year, I believe at around 10%, which will be driven by the consolidation of the diagnostic imaging, but also the increases that we introduce in very specialist segments, such as histopathology or genetic tests which is due to the cost of doctors, specialists. These are the costs of the salaries that we need to pay or the wages that we need to pay to the doctors.
Thank you, everyone. I believe this is a wrap of our conference call. Thank you for the participation, very active participation. If you have any questions, please contact our Investor Relations. Thank you very much. Thank you, and goodbye.