Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Ambea's Fourth Quarter Report Presentation. Speaking is Benno Eliasson, CFO and acting CEO, and presenting with me today is Jacob Persson, Ambea's Head of Group Business Control and Investor Relations. I will start today's presentation by giving an overview of the quarter and the status around COVID and its effect on our business. I will also cover the status of our growth drivers and will take you through the financial for the group. Jacob will describe a bit more the financial development for the different segments, and I will summarize the quarter before we open up for questions. Starting off with some highlights from the quarter. The second wave of COVID hit the Scandinavian countries in November. This time, we saw the virus spread more in Denmark and Norway and in southern and western part of Sweden compared to what we experienced in the spring. We, as well as society in general, were better prepared than in March, and mortality has not increased as much as it did in the spring. The negative EBITDA effect from COVID in the fourth quarter is in line with what we estimated in our Q3 report, around SEK 35 million on EBITDA, a little bit less than expected in Sweden and a bit more in Denmark and Norway. The small uptick we saw in occupancy in the beginning of the quarter was slightly down again later in the quarter, and the negative effect on revenues were around SEK 100 million. Sales was down 1% versus Q4 last year, driven by currency effects in Norway and lower occupancy in Vardaga, but also due to a few contracted units that came to an end. In the fourth quarter, we opened up 166 new beds. Adjusted EBITDA came in on SEK 200 million, which is 30% above last year, and EBITDA margin strengthened from 5.5% to 7.3% versus the same quarter last year, despite the negative effects from COVID. During the quarter, we have been active on the M&A side, and we signed two acquisitions in January. One of them, LSS Omsorgen in Nytida, we have already closed as of 1st of February, and the second one, EKKOfonden, is waiting for approvals from Danish authorities, which hopefully will happen during Q2. COVID-19. Vardaga elderly care in Sweden is still where we see the most operational and financial impact. In mid-November, we only had a few homes with infected residents, but then spread of the virus increased rapidly in society. We then, of course, also got more of our homes infected. This time, we benefited from the routines established during late spring in preventing the virus to come into our homes. Together with more effective testing and tracing capacity from the regions, we could limit the effect for our residents once the virus got inside as well. We have seen with more testing that residents as well as staff with no symptoms could carry and spread the virus, and with that knowledge, we could now more efficiently limit the spread once inside our homes. As of today, in all our nursing homes in Denmark and Norway have the residents received a second dose, and in Sweden, that will probably be the case during sometime next week. Vaccination for our staff is ongoing according to the national plan. A large part of our staff have got the first dose of vaccine, and sometime next month will most of our staff receive the second dose as well. The willingness to have the vaccine have increased the last weeks. The financial impact is, of course, predominantly in Vardaga Sweden. We now got the extra cost for sickness pay and protective equipment covered by the government program, but we do not get any compensation for lower occupancy or lost revenue. This quarter, we estimate the loss of revenue to around SEK 100 million. The EBITDA effect was limited to -SEK 35 million due to cost savings and some retroactive cost compensation. This quarter, we also saw a negative effect in Norway and Denmark, where the government do not compensate fully for our extra cost. The market for our services in elderly care has made a dip in 2020 due to the COVID-19 situation. Long term, demand is still there, and we see no structural impact on sales or profitability. COVID-19 will of course affect our business in 2021 as well. The ongoing vaccine program will help the demand to pick up again, but how fast this will happen is hard to tell. We estimate that we will still have a negative effect in Q1 of SEK 90 million-SEK 100 million on sales and SEK 30 million-SEK 40 million on EBITDA. We do not give an estimate further away. When Vardaga's occupancy starts to improve again, we expect that the efficiency measures taken in 2020 will help to speed up our margin recovery. Turning over to our profitability development, where we continue to deliver improvements. Despite the negative effects of COVID-19, Ambea's total EBITDA margin improved. Nytida had yet another strong quarter and completed an exceptionally strong year. Important measures have been taken in Vardaga to generate savings in former Aleris units and operational improvements in other units as well. Stendi in Norway has improved EBITDA significantly versus last year. Cost improvements, implementation of Ambea's operating model, and strong local leadership are behind these improvements. Despite the fact that we in the later part of the quarter saw negative effects regarding sick leave and cost for protective equipment. Our efforts to continue to get Stendi up to their full potential. Altiden in Denmark had a quarter with weak development in the home care segment and COVID-19-related costs in other segments as well. All in all, the total LTM margin is continuing to climb upwards and reaches now 7.9% adjusted EBITDA. Organic growth. It's sad to say that opening up new nursing homes in Sweden is challenging, as many municipalities have empty beds at the moment. Ambea takes a cautious approach, and we will only open up and staff new nursing homes if we feel comfortable that they have a high likelihood of filling up within a 12- 18 month timeframe. If not, we are taking discussions with our real estate owners to delay construction, or just to keep them empty with no staff costs until the occupancy situation is back to normal again in the local market. We currently have a handful of such situations and will have a few more in 2021. In Q4, we open up two new nursing homes, one in Salem, south of Stockholm, and one in Tierp, and both have started off well. We also open up four new units in Nytida in the municipalities of Ljusdal, Nyköping, Klippan, and Stockholm. In Q1 next year, we do not have any planned openings. Acquisitions. We had a lot of acquisition activity in the quarter, nothing shown in the numbers. That will come in 2021. LSS Omsorgen is six well-run LSS units clustered in two regions of Sweden that we, of course, will integrate in our Nytida business. The other acquisition, EKKOfonden, is more of a strategic platform acquisition where we will integrate Denmark's largest operator in residential care for adults with our existing business in that segment. This is the next important step in our strategy to shift the business mix in Denmark to segments with more long-term profitability, meaning own management residential care for elderly and individuals with disabilities. If we look into how the different business areas have affected the group numbers, we can see that in net sales, total sales declined 1% to SEK 40 million. Starting with Vardaga, sales was down SEK 48 million. Important to remember that most of the SEK 100 million that we reported as corona effect was in Vardaga, where the occupation was lower than normal and rather flat throughout the quarter. In total, the decline in sales was 5% versus last year. Nytida sales increased by SEK 27 million, or 3%, mainly related to new contracts started. Sales in Nytida is only marginally affected by corona. In Stendi, currency effects continues to affect the reported SEK numbers. The average NOK/SEK rate is down 10% versus last year. Means that the sales in local currency was actually up 4% versus last year, but down SEK 44 million reported in SEK. In Altiden, we made two acquisitions in the beginning of 2020, which have added on 41 million in sales in the quarter, but contract management decreased by SEK 9 million. At last, Klara, who is still hurt by the new Swedish VAT regulation for healthcare staffing services from 2019. By that, turning to the profit numbers. As said, we are pleased that we managed to increase our EBITDA margin under these challenging circumstances in four out of five business areas, as well as for the group in total. Vardaga increased by SEK 2 million, or margin by 0.5 percentage points, despite hurt by most of the negative corona effect of SEK 35 million. The Nytida margin was still benefiting from the capacity adjustments made in 2019, as well as productivity increases and some positive effects of government reimbursements. In Stendi, the restructuring program completed earlier this year now had full effect. We saw more COVID-19-related costs than in previous quarters. Altiden was, as said, this quarter's disappointment, where our home care business had a weak development in combination with more COVID-19-related costs. Klara continues to deliver stable margins. All in all, an increase from SEK 154 million to SEK 200 million, or margin up from 5.5% to 7.3%. IFRS 16. We have, since the beginning of 2019, been reporting including the new leasing standard, IFRS 16. This means that all reported quarterly and year-to-date data 2020 are comparable with the reported numbers for 2019. However, data that includes quarters from 2018, like rolling 12 data up to Q3 2019, is still affected by the different reporting standards. In this slide, you can see the effect of this. We can see also that the rolling 12 margins, excluding IFRS 16, is increasing as well for four quarters in a row and are on a rolling 12 basis, up from 6.3% end of last year to 6.9% this year. The strong operating cash flow continued in the quarter. This was the sixth consecutive quarter that we increased versus last year. Now to SEK 568 million versus SEK 562 last year. If we exclude the IFRS 16 effect, we were at an operating cash flow at SEK 367 million in the quarter versus SEK 382 million last year. Q2 and Q3 were slightly positively affected by government program in Norway, where tax payments were moved into Q4. That means, of course, that the Q4 cash flow was in the same way negatively affected. If we measure our cash conversion rate, which is the operating cash flow versus the EBITDA on a rolling 12 basis, we see that for the third quarter in a row, we were above 100%. Financing. The deleveraging of the group is continuing, of course, in line with the good cash flow that we have saw. If we look back and compare with the same quarter last year, we have decreased our net debt by more than SEK 500 million and come down from a net debt ratio of 4.0 to 3.1 as of now. The increase in lease debts for more than SEK 1 billion in the year reflects the fact that we have increased the number of startups of new units under own management, and these units come with longer rental conditions than the average portfolio. With that, over to Jacob, who will take us through the business areas a bit more in detail. Thank you, Benno. Starting with Vardaga, where total sales reached SEK 867 million in the quarter, down 5% versus last year. This is mostly driven by lower occupancy rates in mature units, but also a decline in contract management due to ceased contracts. New units in ramp-up have affected the sales positively versus last year, but not as much as expected. We continue to see a slower ramp-up pace in these new units due to the COVID-19 situation. The fourth quarter showed improving occupancy in our contract management care homes. Since the beginning of the fourth quarter, we have seen several of our homes under contract management showing almost the same occupancy levels as before the COVID-19 situation. Our home care business continues to perform well and are less affected than the nursing homes. EBITDA for Vardaga reached SEK 42 million, versus last year's SEK 39 million. Most of the negative corona effect of SEK 100 million in sales and SEK 35 million in EBITDA hit Vardaga. However, we also saw overall operational improvements, especially in the former Aleris Care units. That indicates that the margin improvements can come rapidly when the occupancy rates are increasing again in our own management portfolio. The quarterly earnings was also positively affected by retroactive compensation for COVID-19 costs by SEK 20 million. The EBITDA margin for mature units decreased to 10.7% in Q4 from 11.1% last year. This decline is both driven by lower occupancy and the fact that we this year report the former Aleris Care units as mature. These units are operating with lower profitability on average, which is important to note. Over to Nytida, where total sales reached SEK 946 million in the quarter, up 3% versus last year. Own management sales were flat, reaching SEK 786 million in the quarter. This was an effect of the adjustment of the capacity that we did in mid-2019 and relatively few new startups. Contract management sales reached SEK 160 million, up 19% versus last year. Strong win rates during 2019 have turned around the negative sales trend we previously had in contract management. EBITDA reached SEK 159 million in the quarter, corresponding to a 16.8% margin. This is an increase by 3.7 percentage points, and it's actually the eighth consecutive quarter that we see the EBITDA margin growing in Nytida. We saw its effects from the Aleris synergy realization, as well as taking out the overlapping capacity after the acquisition in 2019. Government reimbursements had a positive impact on profitability in the quarter. Nytida's rolling 12 EBITDA margin reached 16.3%, up 0.1 percentage points versus Q3. Over to Norway and Stendi. Sales decreased 6% and reached SEK 726 million. Currency effects had a major impact in the quarter, and sales in local currency actually increased 4% versus last year. In local currency, the own management sales increased by 6%. In SEK, the own management sales decreased 2% and reached SEK 672 million. Contract management sales reached SEK 53 million versus last year's SEK 81 million, where the decline is explained by a return of nursing home contracts in late 2019 and Q2 2020. Quarterly earnings were positively affected by the ongoing efforts to implement Ambea's care model in combination with synergies from previously completed restructuring program. Costs for COVID-19-related sickness and protective equipment increased compared to Q3, which had a negative effect on EBITDA. Adjusted EBITDA reached SEK 15 million, or a margin of 2% in the quarter versus -0.3% last year. We saw a better sales mix. Mostly the profit increase comes from the cost improvement program that we launched in Q1 2020. The adjusted rolling 12 EBITDA margin increased by 0.6 percentage points from Q3 and is now at 4.6%. Over to Denmark and Altiden. Sales amounted to SEK 158 million, up 21% versus last year, explained by the two acquisitions made in beginning of 2020. In local currency, the sales increased by 24%. The acquisitions, Vivamus and Casablanca, have performed well in line with expectations and contributed positively on profitability. In the fourth quarter, Altiden had an EBITDA of -SEK 16 million. EBITDA was negatively affected by weak development in home care services, where costs for termination of contracts were also taken in the quarter. The second wave of COVID-19 hit Denmark harder than the first wave, which in turn affected Altiden. Increased costs for COVID-19-related sickness and protective equipment pressured earnings compared to previous quarters in 2020. As previous quarters in 2020, the investments we've made in building the Danish overhead organization also pressured margins in Q4. We plan to continue our strategy to grow in more profitable segments of disabled care and own managed nursing homes. We are starting our first greenfield nursing home in Q2 2021 in the municipality of Holte. Finally, over to Klara. In Klara, net sales were down 3%, reaching SEK 67 million in the quarter, SEK 2 million down versus last year. The decline versus last year is predominantly in the staffing business, which is explained by the changed VAT regulations toward private operators introduced in July 2019. Total revenue, which includes internal sales, were slightly up versus Q4 last year. Klara continues to perform well, due to growth in Klara team services and administrative savings, EBITDA was stable compared to last year at SEK 7 million. The rolling 12 EBITDA margin on total revenues reached 7.3% in the fourth quarter. On that note, back to you, Benno. Thank you, Jacob. To sum up our financial development versus our targets. Our growth target is 8% - 10% through a combination of acquired and organic growth. 2020 shows only marginal growth, given the corona effect on Vardaga occupancy, negative currency effects, low M&A activities, and a cautious approach to greenfield openings. We expect that number to grow again from 2021. Profitability-wise, we have a midterm adjusted EBITDA target of 9.5%. We have seen EBITDA margin improvements four quarters in a row, despite the corona pandemic. We will have some margin pressure in 2021 as well, we are, of course, hoping to have the negative effects from corona behind us soon. We also need improvement in both Norway and Denmark coming from delivering on the plans that are put in place in both these countries to reach the midterm target level. Finally, regarding leverage, we have seen improvements in many consecutive quarters, and we are now in line with the target. Strong cash flow throughout the whole year has put us in a position where we again can be more active in looking at potential M&A activities. Summarizing the last quarter of 2020, COVID-19 is still affecting operations and our financials. We are, of course, hoping that effect will gradually become lower from the second quarter as the vaccination program continues. In the first quarter, we see roughly the same effect as in Q4. Despite the corona difficulties, Ambea delivered us profitability improvement in four business units out of five, and totally 30% increased EBITDA. Thanks to Ambea's high cash conversion, our debt position has improved a lot, and we are now in line with our financial targets. The board proposes a dividend of SEK 1.15, which are in line with the dividend policy. On the 8th of March, enters Mark Jensen as the position of the CEO of Ambea. With that, I conclude our presentation and open up for questions. Operator, could you please have the first question? Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now take a question. Once again, for the participants, if you have any questions please press star one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. To cancel your request [audio distortion] The first question, it's from the line of Kristofer Liljeberg from Carnegie. You may ask your question. Yeah. Thank you. Good morning. Let's see. I have a few questions. First, on Norway. To get a better understanding of the underlying improvement, which I think is so important for the group margin, could you explain what the COVID impact was on earnings in the quarter? I think that the most difference versus the fourth quarter last year is the program that we run with SEK 40 million yearly, which means SEK 10 million per quarter. The COVID situation is not affected that much, but we have a single-digit lower number. If that will guide you something. You said COVID impact single digit on EBITDA? Yes. Okay. Even adjusted for that, it's not a very impressive quarter, I guess you agree with, in Norway? I think we have much more things to do in Norway, but we are pleased with the quarter as it is right now given the circumstances with the COVID situation. Okay. On Nytida, of course, fantastic margin improvement. The only question is how sustainable this is. Maybe you could give some indication how much the margin have benefited from government support in 2020, or I don't know. I guess there have been a positive impact actually on margin for Nytida due to the pandemic. Yes, you are right there. We have a positive, especially in Q2. Also in Q4, we have some retroactive cost compensation that has benefited Nytida in this quarter. Is it for the full year? Is it if we assume- Yes. ... a percentage point, or is it even more, the positive impact? Just to make sure we get the expectations right for 2021. Something like a percentage point of margin, you can say. For the full year? Yes. Okay. On home care in Denmark, when will you be out of this business? First, will there be additional negative impact on earnings from one-off like things like you had in Q4 before that happened? When you are out, what will be the positive impact on earnings? The historic earnings in home care has been more or less nothing or flat. In this quarter, we saw losses in the operational business as well as starting to have closed down costs. We have right now 10 different agreements, 10 different municipalities where we run home care business for, and four out of them is turning out in Q4. Sorry, in Q1, as we have already started. As they come closer to closing down, of course, staff are getting to look for other jobs, and we have much more sickness, both COVID-19 and not COVID-19 related. We have had more cost in the quarter than we estimated. We hope that this will cover the close down on the cost that adjustment that we did in Q4. Of course, we have still 10 contracts that we are running in the beginning of 2021. When will the rest be terminated? We have agreement of six of them to close in 2021, and we are in discussions with other municipalities as well when to close. Okay, you have four terminated in Q1? Four will be terminated in Q1. Yes. Then another six. No, another two. Yes. That already decided that we will leave. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next question, it's from the line of Karl Norén from Danske Bank. Thank you. Thanks. Two questions for me. First, on the opening of new homes within Vardaga during 2021. On your site, it seems to be around 300. Is that roughly a good estimate for openings in 2021? Can you also say anything about, you mentioned that some homes will probably be put on hold and just pay the rent and have no staffing at the homes. Around how many homes are these kind of homes? Another question on the vaccination. Now we have seen that starting on. Have you seen any changes during Q1 in the trends in occupancy and applications for moving into an elderly care home in own management? Thanks. Okay. I think that was a little bit more than two questions, but we try to take them one by one. We plan to start right now five new homes, around 300 beds in Vardaga. Not anyone in Q1, but in Q2 and Q3 and Q4. We have right now five homes that we have not staffed, and that will be some more during 2021, probably. It's not included in the five I just mentioned. We have five right now and a few to come in 2021, as we plan right now, plan to postpone them into 2022. The last question was? The last question was on the vaccination. Yeah, vaccination. The question once again was that? If you've seen any kind of changes in the trends in occupancy and applications? No, I think it's a little bit too early yet. We know that we have to wait until the second dose and a couple of weeks after that to have the full coverage. I think it's a little bit too early yet to see anything. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Magnus Bernet from Direkt News. Hello. I wanted to ask a little bit about the COVID-19 impact. In the Q3 report, you stated that the impact was estimated to be SEK 70 million-SEK 80 million on the sales, and at the outcome was -SEK 100 million in the fourth quarter. Could you tell me a little bit about the deviation? Also for first quarter, you say that the pandemic will affect SEK 30 million-SEK 40 million on EBITDA and SEK 90 million-SEK 100 million on sales. Which assumptions have you made to state this? Are you calculating for a third wave? Okay. Thank you for the question. To start with, our guidance for SEK 70 million-SEK 80 million on sales, which we reported SEK 100 million. When we did that estimation was the first week of November when we reported our Q3 report. The same week or the next week, the second wave hit us. We have seen uptick in the occupancy, which we hoped that that would be the case in November and December, but it happened to be the other way around. That's why the estimated SEK 70 million-SEK 80 million was SEK 100 million instead. We estimated the SEK 30 million-SEK 40 million in EBITDA. That was a little bit more than we then estimated in Norway and Denmark because of the second wave. Because of the retroactive cost compensation involved, they were hit a little bit less than we then expected. Given for Q1, we estimate that we are on a run rate now in occupancy in the first half of the quarter, like we have in Q4. We hope that in later part of Q1, there will be maybe some uptick in the occupancy. That's why we said the range for SEK 90 million-SEK 100 million, and the EBITDA affect the same as in Q4. Thank you very much. Next question is from the line of Kristofer Liljeberg again. Just a question on this retroactive cost compensation. How much more do you expect to get in 2021? It's very hard to tell. We have applied in the two rounds of application. There is still money to get from 2020. It's very uncertain how much we will have from that. I cannot give you a number. It's less than what we already received, that's for sure. Okay, thanks. Okay, the next one is from Klas Pyk from Nordea. Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. Most of them has already been answered, really. It would be useful if you could help us formulate the long-term equity story for Altiden Denmark. Should we view it as a structural growth story like in Vardaga or more like a margin story like the other two big segments? If you could just put some more long-term color on how we should profile that segment, please. Thank you. Yeah. We are right now changing the business mix in Altiden, where we are closing down our home care business, which have been like 20%-25% of the business. We are investing in residential care for disabled people. That for sure will be a larger part of Altiden's business mix going forward. Today, it's around 40%, and I think that will be bigger going forward. We are also now building our first new greenfield own management-run nursing home. We open up next quarter, and I think we will open up more of these, and that will be an essential part of the business mix going forward. We are also still running a lot of elderly care homes on contract management, and this is a sector that we will be part of going forward as well. We don't know long-term if that is going to be a big portion of the Danish model or not, because now it's a lot of talk about own management versus the municipally driven. There are still some contracts out for contract management as well, and we will be part of that as well. Okay. Thank you very much. There are no further questions at this time. Please continue. Okay. If there is no more question, thank you for calling in. Our Q1 report will be published on May the 4th. Have a nice day, everyone.
Loading workspace