Asker Healthcare Group (Stockholm:ASKER) Q3 2025 Earnings Call

0:01 Hello, welcome to Askers Q3 Interim Report. This is Johan Falk speaking, the CEO. I'm happy to present the third quarter result that was increasing with 25% out of which 6% organic. So we have a good quarter behind us. If we give you some highlights from the quarter, we have strong earning growth and driven by radiant West and Central. As you have seen, we have some tough comparables in North. That's why you see some negative numbers there. We'll come back to that later, but no big worries about that. The EBITDA increased with 25% to 383 million SEK, out of which 6% was organic. The sales went up with 15% to about 4 billion this quarter, also with a good 5% organic growth.

0:59 Our EBITDA margin that we have promised to get to 10% within the mid-term future is also going up to 9.3% for the last 12 months. And we have operationally in Western Central seeing some really good operational performance and some soon in this effect, some positive operational effects that gives us really good growth numbers there. As a serial acquirer, we have our twin engine, as you know, organic growth plus M&A growth. We have a lot of good acquisitions, both historically in the last 12 months, but also a fantastic pipeline to come. I'll come back to that later on in the presentation as well.

1:44 So all in all, very proud to present this quarterly report. Our key measure R over RK or EBITDA over networking capital is keeping steady at 66%. So getting a good free cash flow to buy new companies. Looking at a bit longer time perspective, the last 12 months, we have, as you know, our most important promise to you is to grow the earnings with over 15% per year. And we're rolling 12 now is at 20%, 25 for the quarter. So feel good about that. R over RK steadily at 66. So we have efficiency gain from squeezing out working capital and being efficient with our working capital, making sure we have a good free cash flow.

2:36 Our margins creeping up towards the 10% that we promised. The rolling 12 is now at 9.3 and the leverage is now at 2.2. We have said that we will not go about 2.5 as you might remember during the IPO we took in some new cash that we have used to establish a few new platforms. So we have successfully managed entry to new countries and also a new product segment. So 2.2 is kind of normal level and will be between 2 and 2.5, I would say, for the near term future, but not about 2. Looking down at the acquisition pipeline and also the list the last 12 months, we are doing the 2025. We have done 12 new acquisitions and we are now luckily or depending on how you see it, we are attracting a lot of good companies now, small and medium sized businesses that are successfully run during sometimes several generations that come to Asker. Totally 2.2 billion in sales.

3:50 All of them are now delivering over 10% EBITDA margin. So there is also a positive mix effect from adding new companies to the group. We have a platform Finmed that we use to enter into France. We also have entry into a lot of new interesting product segments. I don't have the time to go into everyone, but all in all, we're strengthening our base. We're now present in 19 markets. We have bought over 60 companies. and during the period here, we have welcomed a handful of new companies as well. So the pipeline looks really, really good. I think our position as a market leader in Europe in our market has also helped us to attract new good companies. So the pipeline is stronger than ever for us.

4:47 To do a little bit of a deep dive, I usually do this in the quarterly summaries, the FINMED, is a not very large 380 million SEC but it's an important starting point in France very good management team that have done acquisitions themselves and are knowledgeable in that field they have a good reputation in the market and we feel that that could be a good good platform and as you know we're buying companies 10 to 20 companies a year paying roughly six to eight times EBITDA for the platforms we pay one to two multiples higher and that is what we have seen these 12 companies come in as well but from now on you can expect us to use our cash flow to buy more of both small and medium-sized companies and maybe once a year or once every two years we open up a new platform to have a good new stable base.

5:44 With that, I'll leave the word to Tom to talk a little bit more about the financials. Great. Thanks, Johan. Yes, let's dive into the numbers in a bit more detail. If we start with a look at the group as a whole and the P&L, as Johan mentioned, we've had a good Q3. Net sales up 15% in the quarter, of which 5% of that growth is organic. And again, as Johan mentioned, we have good performance in regions west and central, a weaker performance in region north. I'll come back to that in a second to give you a little bit more colour on the differences between the regions. But adjusted EBIT A up 25%, of which 6% is organic, as Johan already mentioned, and the margin nudging in the right direction up to 9.3% in the quarter. And then if you look on the right hand side of this picture, you can actually see the year to date figures presented and the Q3 really mirrors the year to date picture as well. So we have 6% organic everyday growth, 14% coming from acquisitions, A negative effect, a small FX headwind. You'll remember that we had a slightly larger negative headwind in Q2, which has moderated a little bit, but still there to some extent.

6:54 But net-net, an 18% adjusted EBITDA growth in the first nine months of the year. If I turn now to the regions, I'll step through them in turn, starting with business area north. And really, the story in north is in two parts. The first part, the core sales that we make on a regular basis to regions and municipalities across the business area continue to develop very solidly through the period. But what you see is that EBITDA and EBITDA margin are lower year on year, and these have been significantly affected by the project-based sales in defense and preparedness that we got a lot of during 2024, but have not returned in 2025.

7:41 And those sales also come with significant scale effects. They're quite concentrated large orders, which perhaps explains the large effect on the margins as well. It's worth noting, and we've noted this before, that we still see good opportunities in this area in the future. And it's an area that we see will develop. We have good relationships. We have good products. We don't believe that we have missed out on deals. It's simply that they haven't come through yet. And we remain optimistic in the medium term that this will be an important area of business for us. If I turn to Business Area West, strong performance in the quarter in Business Area West, net sales up 24%, adjusted EBITDA up 57%, and that together is obviously driving the EBITDA margin upwards as well, up to 9.6% in the quarter.

8:37 And I think the pleasing thing for us is when you look a little bit into the details and into the individual countries and companies in the region, we see that that really is a broad based performance across the region. And particularly notable is the operation improvements we see in the organic businesses where we see more cooperation, more collaboration between our companies, particularly in the very interesting and developing home care area. There's a lot of good things going on driving this performance. And then on top of that, obviously in the region, we have very positive contributions from our recent M&A activities. The two larger ones being ones that Johan mentioned, ScanModule and HSL Group as well, contributing very, very strongly to the region and strongly to the growth year on year.

9:27 And then finally, if I turn to our third region, Business Area Central, also a very pleasing, solid performance in the region. Sales up 15%, EBITDA up 39%. And again, driven by a good combination of acquisitions, historic acquisitions performing well, organic expansion in the region, driving the margin up to 8.9%. And I think in Region Central, we see particularly nice development in new product areas, new customer categories, new channels, new routes to market. So a genuine drive across the region and broad based contribution to that performance in Region Central. A brief look at RO over RK, EBITDA over Networking Capital, our key metric around operational working capital utilization.

10:21 Relatively stable at a very attractive level of 66, just over 66%, demonstrating to us the continued high capital efficiency across our whole business. And I would note that we always and still see opportunities to improve this metric. And we are in this constant push and pull as new companies come into the group, acquired companies. Working capital focus tends not to have been their highest priority. So we have an opportunity to improve those as they come in and generate additional cash flows from that. So an important area of focus for us. A brief note on the cash flow, a positive picture on cash flows in Q3. If I start at the top of the chart, 439 million of operating cash flow.

11:10 You may remember back in Q2, I mentioned that we had a little bit more locked up in working capital than perhaps I would have liked, but we were very confident that that would flow back in cash flows later on in the year. So I think this figure is a testament to that, which is good to see. CapEx a bit lower in the quarter. We haven't had any big expenditures on the Gothenburg warehouse that I mentioned earlier. There will be some money flowing out for that in Q4. And then finally for me, before I hand it back to Johan, a look at the leverage picture. Leverage is at 2.2, as Johan mentioned, net debt to EBITDA in the quarter. This is very much in line with what we would consider historically normal levels. We had a brief dip with the new equity injection that came in at the IPO.

12:01 And as we said at the time, we intended to deploy that capital into some interesting and exciting, slightly larger deals. And we've done HSL, we've done ScanModule, and now we've done FinMed, bringing the leverage back, as I say, to normal levels. And we will be in and around that range going forward. We want to have the capacity to continue to drive our M&A agenda using our own cash flows and continuing to make the very clear statement and commitment that we will remain below the 2.5x threshold. Johan, hand back to you. Thank you very much, Tom. OK, to summarize before we leave the floor for questions. So all in all, a good quarter, strong performance in the quarter, 25% earnings growth, which is our most important KPI, I would say towards the US owners and who follow us. We have said more than 15%, so 25% is of course something we're proud of and also making sure that the organic growth is on par or better than the market, which 6% clearly is.

13:09 We see Central and West showing really good numbers and there's some comparables that are tough in North. And to give you the perspective, a little bit longer perspective, I've been here now close to 14 years and the way to view Asker is anything that is spiking super high or super good, you should take down and something that is really bad and so it's not as dramatic. We have a very good and stable market here. 19 markets, we are 60 companies selling millions of products every month to the healthcare sector that is growing slow and steadily, and we're spread across that. So there's very little drama if you take a little bit longer time perspective. But of course, you shouldn't be too super enthusiastic of positive things or super negative of negative things.

13:58 I think that's a good word of advice that I've learned during my years here. The acquisition, as the second ending is all about, I really must say is a good uptick since we became a listed company. So many good companies are turning to Asker, seeing what we're doing. We are the market leader and the pipeline we have right now is better than we've ever seen. That doesn't mean we're going to buy a lot more companies, but we're going to pick the best ones. I mean, in every market situation, you have A, B, C, D, E players. And we are in a situation where we can pick A and B players. And, you know, building a team of any kind, being able to pick A and B players over time, that gives you better results.

14:44 So that's something that is really a positive effect, I think, and I'm very proud of. So with that, I think we'll leave the word to you and some questions. If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Eric Castle from Danske Bank. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning, everyone. First, I want to touch upon the potential to deliver the leverage over the coming six months. Could you perhaps quantify a bit of the topics that's going out for Gothenburg and also if there's any other notable say earn out payments or other cash flow affecting items that you expect to see?

15:38 Yep, I can mention that, Eric. The first thing to say, and you see it in the numbers, this is a highly cash generative business. We generate a lot of cash, we generate that cash pretty quickly. So if we were to overnight stop doing M&As, which we clearly won't do, actually deleverage happens very, very quickly in this business. but I think our broad objective is continue to drive the M&A agenda as Johan mentioned 10, 15, 20 deals per year spending our own cash flow our leverage will you know it'll be in that two to two and a half range through that period we believe that that is very much the most value creating strategy for us in this business at this point in time So that's the sort of the big picture context.

16:27 In terms of your specific questions, earnouts we tend to pay in Q2. So there will be no more cash out for earnouts in Q4 or Q1. We typically are paying earnouts based on full year results at an end of a two or three or four year period. And we wait for those to be audited, usually in Q1 or Q2. And so the cash out for earnouts always flows out of the business in Q2 rather than at any other point in the year. and you can see on our balance sheet we have around 700 million of debt available or set aside for those future earnouts to be paid over the next two, three, four years. And then on Gothenburg, we have said that that is a facility that's going to cost us around 300 million SEC, all in all.

17:14 That 300 million, we paid out 50 million in Q2. Actually, there was no capex for Gothenburg in Q3. There will be another chunk of capex going out in Q4. And then the remaining payments will be sort of spread gradually over the next 15, 18 months. Okay, but no potential to be a bit more specific on Q4. Well, I can be relatively specific. I think, you know, as I said, we have around 250 million left to spend in CapEx to bring us up to the 300. There are five quarters ahead of us, so you can do some 250 divided by five gives you a decent indication for Q4.

18:02 Okay, perfect. Then I wanted to sort of understand a bit more how North is doing underlying. I understand that you may have added some costs to be able to serve these sort of project-based defense contracts. How much cost would you say that you've added to sort of be able to get these contracts so we can get a feel for what margins would have been if it wasn't for defense at all, so to say? Yeah, I can maybe start that, Johan, and then you can dive in. I would say that the best starting point if you're looking for a view of how North is doing and what margin you can expect in North stripping out the effect of the lumpy project based sales that we've talked about is actually to look at the year to date figure.

18:57 We've had three quarters this year without significant volume in this area. So the margin that you see in year to date, I think is a good guide for what to expect and what the underlying business in North is delivering. You mentioned costs. I think there is an element of that. As I mentioned a little bit earlier, these contracts are quite large. They are quite concentrated. So you do get a relatively good economy of scale. You get a relatively nice efficiency as they flow through our system. So the pricing and the trading contribution on these contracts is very much in line with with the rest of our business, but they do flow very efficiently through our system, which boosted the margin in 2024.

19:47 But as I say, I go back to my main point, I would look at the year to date margin as an indication of how North is doing on an underlying basis. Okay, just a quick one on that as well. Do you have any now indications for timing of potential additional orders? Could it Could there be something done in Q4 or are we more looking towards next year? Yes, if I answer that question. I mean, overall, we see that this segment, we shouldn't, I mean, of course, I understand it's interesting to talk about in specific quarters since it's affecting us, but underlying, we have our 60 companies and millions of products is serving the healthcare system as such.

20:33 A small segment there is here, but it's of course interesting to discuss. That's number one. Number two, in the European countries are mobilizing both, of course, supporting Ukraine, but also making sure that we have the defense in terms of healthcare preparedness that you need, preparedness stocks. So this is something that will grow over years to come and make sure that you have solid partners like Askers Companies to help regions and countries in this. So we will see that this is an important market where we also have a fantastic team supporting and taking these orders. When it comes to timing, first of all, it's a political decision. We all know that that can be pushed back and forth, and they come in pretty big chunks. But since we're present in 19 markets or so, now we have been most successful up north, but I expect us to maybe go into this in European countries as well.

21:27 So we'll see this gradually grow, hopefully. and then you know in terms of exactly what quarter this will come I don't think we should look at this as you know plan for a big order in Q4 or so but during 2026 I would be disappointed if we didn't catch these orders we haven't lost them or lost market share it's just that this has been pushed in time. Okay great just one quick final question if I may just looking at the sort of incremental margins you're getting from M&A this quarter. I mean, Central looked really great, 26% incremental EBITDA margins. Is there any abnormality there with perhaps some strong seasonality for some companies?

22:14 And then on the flip side, for West, only getting to like 7% incremental margins in Q2 and then only 8% in Q3. So would you say that the M&A done in West are somewhat underperforming the 10% margin target that you're set? Or is there also some component to CS and ALTA there as well? If I just start and I think I'll come back to my overall comment in my summary here, I think when you see this extreme deviations from our normality, there is most likely, you know, concentrated in time, you know, two companies are put together and then they have extra costs or extra synergies or So spikes, really good spikes, really good, or down ticks in the result.

23:06 there's good explanations for it since we're buying so many companies where some of them are we integrating sometimes we win a little bit bigger contracts so when you look at the country or a region and a quarter you will see sometimes these effects so that's why it's better to just think logically what kind of markets do we have we have so many products so many different companies So you shouldn't be too happy or too worried when you see these things. I'm not trying not to answer your question, but I'll come back to that because that's the best way to view this. If I let the CFO answer your question, then I will answer. That's a hospital pass. No, I 100% agree with you. you know, given the stability of our business, we would always encourage you to look at rolling 12 months, last 12 months, you know, the overall trend is much more meaningful. And I know that we're in this kind of quarterly cycle.

24:04 As another bit of context, I think it's also worth bearing in mind that the Q3 tends to be the smallest quarter of the year, it's a little bit affected by holiday periods across Europe and in the north as well. So I would I would encourage you again, as Johan said, not to try and extrapolate too much from those big trends. I would also say that if you look at all of the deals, I was going to caveat that message a little bit, but if you look at all of the M&As that we've done over the last 12 months, they are all margin accretive to the group as a whole. We've been very focused on that and we've been able to be focused on that because of the strength of the pipeline Johan mentioned as well. Yes, I'm not sitting here saying, wow, the M&As have done really well in Central and not so well in West. Definitely not. We're super happy with the deals that we've done.

24:55 They're all contributing positively. And when we look at the longer-term trends, we're very happy with the way that's developing. All right. I get the point. Thank you very much, guys. Thank you. Thank you. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial poundkey5 on your telephone keypad The next question comes from Gustav Bernebled from Nordia. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning. It's Gustav here from Nordia. I thought maybe just a quick one here to start off in the North Division as well. I mean, I appreciate, you know, you comment a bit on the defense exposure, but if we sort of... so look you know exclude that and compare year year-over-year numbers would you say that the underlying businesses is sort of growing organically in north if we exclude the defense there yes the the the very definite and simple answer to that question is yes Gustav And I think starting from the market dynamic, we have a very strong position.

25:59 Now we, as you know, we had the Nordics where we started ASCO Group and we have built relationship with almost all municipalities and regions in all the Nordic countries where we have really really strong connection with nurses and doctors and and so on and our capabilities to win tender it's a tender based business are very very good so we our market leading position in the Nordic countries are very strong and our relationships are very strong and that's kind of proportional to what you can expect so delivering a little bit above market growth is what we're doing and that's what we see and then of course it could come in a quarter you win a little bit you you win and lose some tenders and it could be a little bit of lumpiness but but um at the end of the day it's about relationships with regions and municipalities and nurses and doctors and that's a very very strong market leadership we have that's very helpful and then regarding sort of the margins in Western Central you gave some color there for sure but in terms of I mean seasonality do the different regions you know differ significantly in any way that's my first question and then also sort of follow up on that so I mean 200 basis point marketing expansion in West 160 in Central and of course as Erik said you know impacted by acquisitions there but Is there a negative seasonality effect impacting the margins here in Q3 for Western

27:33 Central? I think big picture, not dramatic. We are not a seasonal business in any sense that that word would be traditionally or classically used. Healthcare is something that rolls every day of the year. The need is out there every day of the year. Q3 tends to be our smallest quarter, and I think that's driven a little bit by the holiday period. Historically, when we were more of a Nordic business, we had a slow period in July, and then everyone's back to work in August. Now, as the business over the last few years has expanded more into continental Europe, we have kind of the August effect when continental Europeans are on holiday as well. But I wouldn't massively overstate any of that seasonality.

28:28 Healthcare is not a seasonal business. So again, I would in a way go back to the answer that Johan and I gave to Eric a little bit about important to look sort of longer term overall trends last 12 months, rather than trying to extrapolate too much on an individual quarter, which obviously you see, you know, good strength in both West and Central on the margin side of things. But also remember that the M&A has been a, you know, a good contributor to that. Now that's very helpful and then sort of continue on group margins as you say it's creeping up to 10% now you know it has gone quite fast but have you done do you think that you have done that easy part now and it will be more difficult to drive that last 70 basis points or if you can just elaborate a bit on that Yeah, I think I see this in different time perspectives.

29:30 If we start with the medium to long term perspective, I think this market is in the beginning of something great for this position in the value chain. For those of you who have listened to me in more detail, I mean, it's a really exciting consolidation game over the next 15 years in this industry that's about to happen, which will gain players like ourselves. There is a lot of cost in the value chain that will be taken out. There is a lot of gross margin that will be moved to us and customers in the future. So the macro level is very clear how the market is moving. It's more and more product flowing through players like ourselves. We are gaining aggregated purchasing power. We have efficiency gain like the warehouse in Gothenburg, etc. So over time, I'm very confident that this is a market to be in and see better margins and also EBITDA margins.

30:27 over time. Short term, we need to focus on product segments and relationship and concentration in different areas because this is so broad. We have 50,000 SKUs. We're about all healthcare sectors serving nurses and doctors in different disciplines. so when we see that we have concentration and the power balance as we call it are you know shifting we see some really good gains so in the long to medium term we're in the beginning of this short term of course when you do an acquisition you integrate and you can have some gains from scale effects of course they come and then then there will not be so many low hanging fruits but Given that we are, you know, buying 10 to 20 new companies per year, we're increasing our power balance. So I would say that everything we do is becoming better and better over time, rather than we, you know, we have reached the peak of it.

31:31 Oh, that's very clear. Thanks. And then just my last one here, if you can just help us a bit here on West, I mean, 9% organic growth in Q3, I mean, even looking year to date, 9% organic growth, quite impressive. Maybe the first one, just what is really driving this and now entering Q4, I mean, up against slightly tougher comps, but is there any reason why you shouldn't expect, you know, upper mid single digits organic growth also here in Q4 for West? Yeah, I can take that one. Good stuff. So as we talked a little bit about earlier on in the year, we did get a bit of a boost on the organic growth from some customer patient databases that we took over in the second half of 2024.

32:17 So obviously the comparable benefit of that will moderate somewhat as we move into Q4. But I would emphasize that we do see a genuine strong organic performance in in the region. You will remember, for those of you that have studied a bit more detail, we've done a couple of slightly larger deals. If we go back to sort of two, three years, there was a business that we bought called Medereva, a business that we bought called Vecro. So we have a group of businesses there that work facing the insurance companies in the Benelux region. They work very much with home care. So I'm a bit nervous about using the word synergy because of the decentralized model that we operate.

33:02 But there is clearly a scale benefit of understanding the system, understanding the model, understanding the home care needs that we are really beginning to see great benefits from. That's very helpful. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Thank you. There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments. Okay, thank you very much for listening in and we see you in three months. Have a good day. Thank you. Bye.