Good afternoon, welcome to this live video interview with Zinzino following the Q1 2026 report released this morning. My name is Niklas Elmhammer from Carlsquare Equity Research. We're very excited to be joined today by CEO, Dag Bergheim Pettersen. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to use the chat function and submit your questions and we will try to answer as many as possible. Now, without further ado, welcome, Dag. Great to have you with us today. Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure to be here with you. The chat function and submit your que- Do you have a sound problem in the studio? Sorry about that. Dag, very welcome. Great to have you with us today. Thank you. Thank you, and thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure, as I said, so it's always good to be here with you. You released your Q1 report this morning. Strong growth, more than 20%, and even more significant increase in the margins and profits. How would you describe the development in Q1? Is it according to expectations? Yeah, it's a little bit above our kind of expectations, I would say. The profit margins are a little bit higher than it used to be like in the Q1. Q1 is probably the most difficult kind of start of the year. Q4 is the best one, traditionally. Very pleased to see that we are growing, and at the same time, having good profits. It's very good. We are investing a lot, so we need some of that profit to invest more. We invested quite heavily in inventory and new markets and new technology and products in general. We are acquiring some companies. All of that is fantastic for us. Margins are one thing, but the growth, continuous growth, super important for us. All in all, it's a really good quarter for us. Yeah. Great. You have expanded in North America during 2025 and 2026. Could you elaborate a little bit on this market, what trends you see here? You write in the report that that was indeed organic growth. Well, we both have organic growth and we also have some from the acquisitions. I still think today we have a little bit of, it's more on the organic side than on the acquisition sides, but it's a little bit depending on how you're calculating things. We started in U.S. like 10, 11 years ago, with kind of a dream. We know that that is one of the most important and largest markets in general for what we are selling. It had taken us some years to get up to speed. Last year, as you were mentioning, we were acquiring three companies in the U.S., and this year we've acquired one in Mexico and one in U.S. Of course, that is a big part of what we have done, is to acquire acquisitions in the U.S. We do believe that it's going to be head-to-head the most important market this year, together with Germany and that region. It's a long-term strategy process to run different markets, and we try to run it the same way with scale advantages and where we are more or less having the operations very centralized here in Europe, where we are putting together logistics, of course, in a small matter, and then customer care, but sales more or less out in the global world of the different markets. Excited to see that the U.S. is now have a good run rate and a good revenue. I have strong beliefs in that market, but also in Mexico, and we've launched Peru, and in June, we will open up Colombia as a market as well. We are on our way to really expand and grow our business. If I'm reading the leaves right, I see the underlying growth with bit of a slowdown in North America in the quarter. Is this correct, or are you saying, is this the view? No, I don't see it as a slowdown, but I'm not comparing quarter four with quarter one. I'm comparing quarter one with quarter one last year a little bit more. I see it a little bit different, and I see the underlying growth figures from customers and partners and intake of that. I see a good growth in North America, but it's a lot of work. It's a lot of more work to do. The potential is we haven't even started, I would say, in growing. Remember if you look at the markets close to ourselves in the Nordic, Scandinavia and the Nordics, we have a much higher intake, if you compare that to the population, than in the other markets. We have a lot of work to do to really take out the market potential. More questions about the U.S. or your acquisitions. How is the integration It Works! going? Do you think they will able to do above $45 million new sales this year? Start with the last. Yes, I do believe we're going to extend that number. It's a lot of hard work implementing a new acquisition. It has been a good transition. Everything is in our database now. Everything is within our tech system and our payment gateways. It's fully integrated. Still a little bit early to say what kind of level of revenue this will give us over the next two, three years. It has been the largest transition that we've done. We can see the complexity. It's a little bit more work than what we normally would be adding to an acquisition, but I think the benefits of it over the next years will be tremendously good. Yeah, I'm not going to say that it hasn't been hard work, because it has been hard work, but we've gained a lot. We have now employees from It Works!, part of the group helping us out a lot. We have a lot of new distributors and customers, and we have not only gained the revenue in U.S., but also in France and in Spain and here at Europe as well. All in all, it has been a super positive acquisition. We now have the third largest shareholder from the family that we were buying the company. We are super excited to have that family as owners in Zinzino as well. Just one additional question on that front. I noticed that you, I believe, you mentioned $45 million as guidance. It's down compared to the previous guidance of $ 60 million. Well, you were asking me, do I believe we're going to be above $45 million? I just confirmed, yeah, I believe in that. I'm not sure if it's going to be $50 million, $55 million, $60 million or $65 million. It's a little bit too early to say. We are tracking it. Very often, we do lose a little bit of momentum when we are acquiring companies. It takes a little bit time to re-engage the customers and re-engage the distributors as well. What I can tell you is that we're working hard to gain a lot of benefits, and we have now, the last three, four months, worked really hard on that. I am very positive on the acquisitions that we have done, both the one in Mexico, Sanki, and this one, It Works!. I think we're going to gain a lot of benefits out of it. On the numbers side, we were hoping to get more than $ 60 million. That is still my hope and the dreams, and I'm working hard on accomplishing that together with the team. Okay. Thank you for the clarifying comments there. Now moving over to Central Europe. 40% growth, I believe, much of that is organic. How do you achieve this continued solid growth quarter- after- quarter? I'm a little bit afraid to answer it a little bit boring with the same way as I did the last time. We are getting benefits and gaining from long-term work. I'm not sure if we've done a lot of things differently. It's just that we've been very stable in the way that we have been operating. We have a lot of good partners in the field who are helping us out. We have invested a lot in logistics, in products, in customer care, and all of the things surrounded by having an efficient organization. We have a lot of good people working in that region. The good thing is that we believe that we are still kind of on the front run to keep this growth ongoing. Germany and the region, Switzerland and Austria, about 100 million people, they are interested in wellness. Preventative health is something that I believe that region understand and also grasp. I see many years of good growth and lots of benefits in that market, in that region in itself. Continue to work on the basics and doing that and making sure that we are constantly developing and taking care of customers and distributors. A little bit on that front as well in my next question. If I read your annual report, the number of distributors have increased to 40,000 about. That's more than doubling compared to the previous annual report. Yeah. How do you achieve that? What are your success factors here? It is a big part of the success. I'm not sure if that number is totally read correctly, but maybe over 12 months time. We have a lot of our people working part-time with Zinzino, and we've done four or five significant good acquisition the last 12 months, which has gained a lot of, I would say, optimism inside of Zinzino. We are counting customers and really important for us to have a ratio between the customers and partners. Not only partners, distributors, but also customers. In general, I would say that when you are growing, it's extremely important to take care of your customers and also make sure that the underlying things that you are dealing with, meaning that you have an inventory, that you are shipping products, that you are exploring new products, that you are doing all of the basics correctly. That is a hurdle in itself to maintain a certain level of I'm not sure if the word is correct, but we need to have a certain level of maintains to make sure that the customers and the partners feel safe and good. It's important for us to have a lot of new partners, but it's even more important for us to have a lot of customers and to continue grow long-term, not in the short-term picture. Okay, thank you. Now, moving over to margins. That was a strong point in the report. Over 50%, well above your financial target. Yeah Or the lower bar than the financial target. You previously said that one reason for relative conservative target was your uncertainty regarding the impact from acquisitions. Are you more comfortable now with the acquisitions? I am. I am more certain that we are doing the right kind of steps. Sometimes it's good to be conservative because then you're kind of watching the costs a little bit more extra, and you stay a little bit grounded and being humble. There is a lot of investments, so even though the quarter was fabulous, we believe that we're going to have a good year. We get a lot of scale advantages, which is a little bit hard to forecast. Although, we also need to invest certain money in the organic growth and the growth in itself. You can say in a very easy picture, you can say that we're feeding the organic growth with cash and campaigns and promotions while we are feeding the acquisition growth with shares. We find that to be a quite perfect match in a way to grow the business, and that's one of the benefits that we get out of that. To do the forecast and how much things will cost and what kind of revenue you're gaining from especially the acquisitions is a little bit hard to calculate all of those costs. We are really happy to see that we have moved this pretty nicely in this quarter, and I believe we can continue this kind of trend throughout the year without promising too much. Yes. Actually, I have a question regarding the gross margins from the viewers. You have a gross margin of 37%. It's the highest level since 2023, I believe. Is it sustainable, and what impact do you see from the possibility of rising energy costs and freight costs? Well, everyone is impacted by the circumstances in a global marketing economy or market economy. Of course, it impacts us somewhere, and we have a factory, so we see the costs are increasing. We see the interest rates somewhere is also increasing. We are a global buyer of products and inventory and all that. Everything impacts. I'm pretty sure that we will be above the levels that we promised, 20% growth and 11% EBITDA, which it's going to be pretty hard not to beat those numbers. Of course, I want to be staying humble and saying that this is what we promise, and we would like to overpromise or overdeliver the promises. I think the hardest thing is to gain the growth. That's what we put a lot of effort into. It sounds a little bit strange because you were talking about profit margins, but the profit margins are driven by the growth. There's a good parallel between what kind of growth we can achieve, what kind of scale advantages we can gain, and where we are selling the goods as well, has an impact. I strongly believe that we're going to continue our growth journey, and then the margins will be following. Great. One component of growth is, of course, acquisitions. It's a focus area for you, also going forward. What are you looking for now in acquisitions? Is it new product areas or is it geographies? I would say that first we've been really focused on delivering on the acquisitions that we have done. That has been the super focus for this quarter and the quarter that we are within now, in quarter two. I would say gaining distribution power customers will be the main focus for new acquisition. Not products or ingredients, but although we did invest quite heavily last year, and we are investing in an algae production as we speak. That has been important for us, but that is going to give us long-term, a lot of benefits. For sure, those acquisitions, if we're doing any one next quarters, then it would be on distribution power and within existing markets, not necessarily in new markets. That's where we gain the most out of the acquisitions. Okay, thank you. Other questions from the viewers. In the Q3 report, you mentioned strong momentum with the recently launched Gut Test, a lot of orders. Is it possible to comment now on the outcome six months later? Is it according to expectations? Well, it's according to the expectations. I still think that the first concept, the BalanceOil, which is the leading concept still, that is leading things. We knew from the other tests that we have launched, and we are working a lot on the science around that. We still have a lot of work to do, but I strongly believe that the gut test will be the second-largest concept of tests that we have. Things slowed down a little bit, but it's very natural. In the beginning, people are really curious, and then you take the test, and then you start to gain some benefits of it, and then you get the next wave of momentum. Everything is according to what are my expectations and the plan. This is a long-term product and test. I didn't expect us to grow faster than what we did to begin with, but it's going to be significantly part of Zinzino over the next years for sure. Okay, I think we have covered a lot of questions already. I don't know if you have any final remarks, Dag? I don't think so. The only thing I would say is that it's always a pleasure to come here. We are positive about the quarter, and we believe strongly that what we have said in the financial report will be continued with growth and good profits. This year is going to be fantastic, and we have a lot of focus now on 2027 even because the growth needs to continue over the next years. That takes a lot of effort from the team and myself. Okay. Thank you, Dag, for coming in today and putting up with our questions. Thank you for having me. Okay. Thanks everybody else for tuning in and looking forward to see you soon again.