Tua Stenius-Örnhjelm
Good morning, everyone, and a warm welcome to Oriola's Q1 audiocast. I am Tua Stenius-Örnhjelm from Oriola's Investor Relations.
With me today I have our CEO Katarina Gabrielson and CFO Mats Danielsson. We will start with Katarina's presentation, followed by Mats' financial review.
After the presentation, we open up for your questions. As a kind reminder, in the Q&A we will focus on questions relating to Oriola's business and financial performance.
Like always, you can start posting questions to us already during the presentation through the chat. Finally, please note that we are recording this audiocast, and the recording will be available on our website later today.
Before handing over to Katarina, here is the disclaimer that we all should be aware of. Now, without further ado, Katarina, please go ahead.
Katarina Gabrielson
Thank you, Tuula, and also welcome on my behalf. If we look at the first quarter, we can see that the demand for Oriola's distribution services has remained strong.
It has been supported by continued engagement with existing customers and also a solid pipeline of new customer opportunities. In the wholesale business, the positive development from last year has continued, building on the actions and improvements implemented in 2025.
We last year said that we were investing in this business, and we can also now start to see the results. We have strengthened our footprint in the growing retail channel, and we have also expanded the sales channel mix for animal health.
Growth has also continued in the e-com channel. In the first quarter, Oriola's net sales was growing by 10.7% to €49.8 million and adjusted EBITDA was €7.7 million.
That is corresponding to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 15.4%. In Finland, we have also started the construction of Oriola's new, highly automated, state-of-the-art distribution center in Järvenpää.
This has started well, and also is progressing as planned. In parallel, the investments to renew our ERP and warehouse management system continues.
Like we announced last time, we have had a first phase now in Sweden during end of last year, and we are now underway for the second deployment, planning for the second deployment in Sweden. Our supply chain operations has remained stable during the quarter, and operations at Enköping and Mölnlycke sites has performed very well.
While volumes in Mölnlycke central warehouse were high also in the first quarter. This is partly reflecting the customer in our distribution business building inventories in Oriola warehouses.
At Enköping distribution center, we have continued the improvement in ways of working, and we have enhanced operation efficiency. An improvement in filling rate in our totes has reduced the numbers of daily trucks and has also been supporting the cost control that we have in the supply chain area.
This is also contributing to environmental objectives, since less totes will give less environmental footprints in our transportation. In March, we also announced that we will do a €5 million investment in Enköping distribution center in the automation.
This will further increase the level of automation, improving efficiency and also competitiveness, and strengthening our ability to respond to market growth and evolving customer requirements that we can see will come for the future. Then if we look at the joint venture company Kronans Apotek.
From Oriola's point of view, I will state that we are not satisfied with the performance that has been in Kronans Apotek in the first quarter. In Kronans Apotek, there will now be corrective actions to be able to get where we should be on the performance.
Kronans Apotek is therefore launching initiatives that are focused on both revenue and cost efficiency. On the revenue side, efforts are directed towards strengthening commercial execution.
It's also about optimizing product mix and also enhancing in-store and digital sales performance. In parallel, there is a cost optimization program launched with a particular focus on reviewing the head office functions and also adding additional synergies from the recent integration that was finalized in the end of last year, but is of course still some parts to be done.
This includes identifying and eliminating inefficiencies, ensuring an appropriate cost base going forward, and also clarifying which costs are structural versus temporary in nature. These actions are aimed at improving the profitability, also strengthening the operational discipline, and also positioning Kronans Apotek for more sustainable performance in the coming quarters.
If we go for operating environment, we can see that in the first quarter the value of the pharmaceutical distribution market has been growing in Sweden with 12.5%, while the growth was more modest in Finland with around 4%. We can also see that the market share in both countries were stable.
Let's add that one also. If we look at the geopolitical situation, we can see that there is an increased uncertainty in the operating environment.
Oriola is affected mainly by the higher fuel prices and also inflationary pressure. Our aim is to put these costs towards our customers, and that is something that we are working on for the coming quarters.
Mats will come back to this later, but we can say that for the quarter one, we haven't seen so much cost increases as most likely has been expected from other sources. In the pharmaceutical companies, we can see that they continue to build inventories like I mentioned before, and that is to ensure the availability of pharmaceuticals.
This is a way, of course, to address the geopolitical situation from our customer point of view. In advisory services, we see that we are affected by the situation with more cautious customers, and they are cautious more when it comes to the decision-making.
The lead times are longer, and it's significant longer even, and it's affecting both the availability of new medicines in Europe, and that's also affecting, of course, us when it comes to advisory, and to some extent maybe in the future also in pharmaceutical distribution. Consumer confidence is weak in both Finland and Sweden compared to normal levels.
Then during the first quarter, we also announced a change in the financial reporting, and I want to add it's already here, even if I know that Mats will come back to this later when we come to the financial metrics. Oriola ensures safe and efficient distribution of pharmaceutical and health products, but we are fundamentally a service company offering value-adding logistics and also advisory services, and we also have a wide portfolio of health products.
Our aim is to be more transparent towards you and also make it easier for you to understand what we're doing, and that's why we have now changed the revenue recognition policy and also started to use new segments. When I now go to the segments, it's the first time that you will now see these segments.
The first segments that we have is then the Services segment. The Services segment is then a little bit different from what we had before.
Today it consists of the distribution of pharmaceuticals, it's also the value-adding services, and the parallel imports in the Nordics. This segment also includes the advisory services and the commercial data solutions.
Everything that we see where we have a service fee is part now of this segment. In this segment, the net sales during the quarter increased by 3.7% and landed on €36.6 million.
The growth was driven by positive development in the distribution of pharmaceuticals in Finland and Sweden, as well as continued high volumes in the parallel import in Sweden. I can also add here that this product mix is affecting our profitability because parallel import has a lower margin compared to the rest of the pharmaceutical distribution.
In the pharmaceutical distribution, growth was then supported by higher volumes, also the specialty flows that we have, and that is vaccines, it's exports, and it's also animal health, and also by the overall market growth, particularly in Sweden. Advisory services, though, has had a slow start of the year, resulting in a decline in the net sales compared with previous year.
That is coming back to then the overall geopolitical situation where we see that this is affecting the segment. Adjusted EBITDA decreased to €8.8 million with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 22%.
The reduction was mainly due to the weak performance in advisory services and also the product mix that I mentioned earlier in parallel imports. Then going into the other segment that we then have, and also the first time that we are then talking about this one, and that's the Products segment.
The Products segment consists of wholesale of traded goods and also over-the-counter products like painkillers. This is covering also our own brands and the specialized medicines that we have in Finland and Sweden.
The segment also includes the dose dispensing business in Finland. The net sales was in this segment growing by 9.6% to €15.4 million.
The growth was supported by both the wholesale and the dose dispensing business in Finland. The Finnish wholesale business has continued the positive developments that started at end of last year, that is supported by the expansion in the retail channel and also the continuous development of own brands.
Sales of specialized medicines in Sweden were lower than in the comparison period. Adjusted EBITDA amounted to €2.1 million with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 13.9%.
The improvement was driven by the wholesale and the dose dispensing businesses in Finland. With this, we will then go on to the financial review.
Please, Mats.
Mats Danielsson
Thank you, Katarina, and and and and welcome from my my part also. This is now, as Katarina said, the first first quarter we report with the new revenue recognition principles, and we believe that this this new reporting will improve the transparency of our financial reporting and and the understanding of our of our business logic.
We have looked at the and judged the the distribution customer contracts and reclassified those as Oriola as an agent in in in in these contracts. This has had the impact on on net sales, and we will now have been recognizing net sales on a net basis.
This is the only a change in the in the in the pharmaceutical company contracts that we have. It's not a change to the to the own business we have, it's not all contracts that have have been have been reclassified.
This has had a had a of course an impact on the segments due to this, and we have now the two segments that that Katarina mentioned. We have the Services, and we have the Products business.
Services, it's a service fee, and and and the Products business is actually no change on the on the revenue. If we then look at the the the the segments, the Services is distribution of pharmaceuticals.
We have we are distribution distributing about 300 million packs per year. We have a €4 billion invoicing that we perform as a service to the to the to the pharmaceutical companies, and and and and this segment also of course includes services that we do to to these the same companies, and then we have parallel import and advisory services is included.
It's it's a big invoicing, but now the net sales has declined that that is more related to the service fee that we invoice. It's a huge pass-through margin and and and and the net sales that is smaller.
The Products segment, this is the segment where we we have the ownership of the products, the risk is on in our hands, and and and we have the products in our on own inventory also. The and the Products segments in in in in a big picture includes the wholesale and the dose dispensing business in Finland.
The Products segment also includes now, for quarter one '25, it's including the Swedish dose dispensing business. We have tried to open that up also in the in the different tables and comments so that it's clear what is what.
Then if we go to the if we go to the to the to the numbers, invoicing grew from €1 billion, 8.1%. This is then mainly the pass-through where we invoice on behalf of the customers.
We had a decline in in in the net sales. This is mainly due to the fact that we had the Swedish dose dispensing business in the first quarter last year.
If we exclude that, we have a growth of 10.7%. There is an FX impact of the Swedish krona that has strengthened during during during the the same time, we approximately 2 percentage units of the 10.7% is is is affected by by by the FX.
Svensk Dos will only was only included in the first quarter last year, was sold on the 1st of April. If we look at the development on on on on net sales, we can say that it's coming both from the Services and the Products segments.
Especially the distribution services have been performing well both in Finland and Sweden, and we have a good growth in wholesale and also in the Finnish dose dispensing business and in parallel import. Then if we look at the adjusted EBITDA, and and and we have an improvement from €7.5 million to €7.7 million.
It's mainly driven by the Products segment. We have an adjusted EBITDA margin of 15.4% compared to 14.8%.
If we exclude the the the dose dispensing business in in Sweden, it's slightly declining. This is mainly due to the impact by the parallel import and and a slow start for the advisory business.
In the adjusting items, we have €2.4 million, a bit more than last year, €1.6 million last year, and that is related to the ERP ERP project. As Katarina said, we have very small impact of of, for example, fuel price increases and and and and cost for for the quarter.
Järvenpää, just a reminder that the we have started to build in in in in Järvenpää, and those costs are not shown in the in the in the as it is a lease lease agreement, we are not having those costs before we move into the into the facilities and start start producing or delivering there. Then if we go to to the Services segment, a good growth in the, in as I said, in distribution and in the and in the specialty flows and parallel import.
Advisory services slow and and and and declining slightly, and we can see that the the invoicing is growing 8.5%, net sales growing only 3.7%. On top of the the slow start of the advisory services, it's good to remember that we have a pricing that will affect also that it's not always following the the the invoicing.
We have a margin-based and a transaction-based pricing towards the customers, which which will of course have an impact on on the on the development of the net sales in in in in comparison to the invoicing. If we look at the adjusted EBITDA, slightly slightly declining, and that's a that is mainly affected by the by the the advisory decline in in in in the in the net sales.
There's in the in the percentage, EBITDA percentage, the parallel import also has a has a has a impact on due to the fact that it's not as profitable as as the other services. If we go to the Products segment, this is then has been performing well.
The both the wholesale and and the dose dispensing business in Finland has been performed both very well. This is then where we have the ownership of the products.
We source and sell, and and and we can see that the the net sales is declining. That's related again to the to the to the Swedish dose dispensing business.
Almost 9.6% was the growth without the dose dispensing business. We EBITDA growing from €1 million to €2.1 million.
The EBITDA margin is now at 13.9%, we are starting to come up to the right level in a that it should be in this in this product business. Then if we look at the development of the of the of the result all the way down to the to the net profit, we had EBITDA is slightly lower than last year, mainly related to to the adjusting the cost for the ERP in the adjusting items.
If we look at the depreciations, we had a Svensk Dos impairment last year, which which increased the the the impairment the on on the on the on the number of 8.8. This year, we have accelerated now the depreciations of the some Mankkaa assets, and and we'll have a more some more depreciations during the time until we move to to Järvenpää.
Looking at the EBIT, improving from last year, and of course share the share of result in the joint venture was a disappointment, -€2.3 million, and we end ended up in a in a profit for the for the period of -€2 million. Then if we look at the cash flow, the cash the the free cash flow flow was was negative.
This is mainly related to the change in the working capital. We have really large payments coming in, and and and and now we had a we had a few payments coming in a day or two days late, which affected the the the negative change in working capital of of €20 million.
The investment of €5.4 million is mainly related to the to the acquisition of the land area in Järvenpää, and that's the only part that is affecting that we we bought the land ourselves for the for the facilities there. Net debt, no big change, slightly impacted by the by the by the working capital and the free cash flow.
No more comments on that. Then we have the equity ratio and gearing.
Equity ratio impacted slightly by the by the by the impact of mainly impact negative impact on the on the on the adjusting items again and the the result from the JV. We can see that the the gearing also impacted by the by the by the negative cash flow.
Then if we look at Kronans, this was a weak quarter for Kronans, a disappointment for for for for us. Profit on all lines are are lower than 2025.
Most important, they are now starting an initiative to focusing on growth, cost cutting, and and and and that will in the plan will improve the profitability starting already from quarter two onwards. The out- outlook is the same: we expect the adjusted EBITDA to increase from the previous year, and previous year was €35.1 million, so that that was unchanged from last time.
Then we have the we also communicated the new financial targets. Both of these are of course set to drive profitability.
First, we need to grow. We have put as a target to grow at least 5%.
We know that we are growing more right now, but we know also over time it has not always been that the growth, we we if we in our strategy we are aiming at at at 5% at least. Then we have the the efficiency, cost adjusted cost to net sales.
This is a driver to improve on EBITDA. We need to manage our cost base and and and and see that we we get the pass-through margin from the from the growth that we have.
We have also now we have put it at 75%. Last year, we were at 82.6%, and and now for the first quarter we are at at 85.2%.
The first quarter is not really reflecting the full year, but there's a a timing issue also during that. We have improved from 2024 to 2025.
We have also improved now quarter-on-quarter from '25 to '26. Then we have also a new dividend policy, partly new, partly old.
We do not change the two-thirds of the net profit. What we have included is the JV that that that it's that the result from the JV is excluded, and then of course there's a there's a disclaimer to evaluate the the financial status or situation when dividends are paid.
Then there was a a decision by the board to initiate a share buyback program will now be initiated. Maximum number of shares 1 million and a maximum of €1.5 million to be used.
It will start now immediately and and will be ended by 31st of August 2026 at the latest.
Katarina Gabrielson
Thank you, Mats. With this, we will summarize the key takeaways.
Like I started with, I think this we had a really good start of the year. Both net sales and adjusted EBITDA was meeting our expectations.
If we look at the supply chain operations has been stable, and we have also then invested in the decision in in automation in distribution center in Enköping to better get efficiency for the future. I'm also really would like to welcome you all to join our Capital Market Markets Day that is quite soon coming up.
It's already on 12th of May. In that, we think that we can then also give even more clear lights to what we're doing and transparency for the future.
With that, we conclude our presentation, and I can see that there has been some questions coming in, yes, let's see. It's a little bit small for me to see, so...
Tua Stenius-Örnhjelm
Good. Thank you, Katarina and Mats, for your presentations.
As a reminder, please use the chat to send in your questions. In the Q&A, we will focus first on the questions relating to Oriola's business and financial development.
We already have some questions, let's kick off. Relating to the parallel import, could you explain more in detail why product mix impact from parallel import has negative impact on adjusted EBITDA, Mats?
Mats Danielsson
It has it has not an negative impact on on the EBITDA, but it has a impact on the percent EBITDA percentage. The the volume it goes up, but the profitability is a bit lower.
If there's a mix change, then it will it will, compared to to to previous period, it will it will show a EBITDA percentage that is that is lower.
Tua Stenius-Örnhjelm
All right. Good.
Then relating to the costs, could you comment on 25% increase in group administration and other costs? Will this trend continue the whole year, Mats?
Mats Danielsson
This is not a trend, and we have had quite many large internal projects ongoing, and partly related to phasing of that cost. We don't have a plan that the cost would be growing.
Then we also see that there's an FX impact on the cost side as well as on the sales side. I think most important message is that this is not a trend.
Katarina Gabrielson
I can agree to that. We have talked about strict cost control during quite many quarters, and that is still there.
It's exactly like Mats says here, not a trend.
Mats Danielsson
We have...
Katarina Gabrielson
Still strict cost control.
Mats Danielsson
We have a new financial target that's be focusing exactly on the cost side also, so.
Tua Stenius-Örnhjelm
Good. Then a question related to the Services segment: so if the advisory business had performed as in the comparison period, would the Services segment's profitability have been above or below the comparison period?
Mats Danielsson
We don't comment specifically the advisory business as such as a separate, but we would have been closer to the last year numbers if it would have been performed according to last year, yes.
Katarina Gabrielson
We can say in that one that advisory services have a higher margin than the other parts in this segment, so that's a little bit something for you to know.
Tua Stenius-Örnhjelm
Good. Then there are a couple of questions relating to the financial targets, and we will take those, but of course there will be more information about those also in the CMD.
What kind of costs include in your new efficiency target? Does this mean costs in EBIT or EBITDA level?
Do these costs also include group administration costs, Mats?
Mats Danielsson
Yes, it includes all the costs. It includes freights, it includes the operational cost and administration cost, and all the way down to EBITDA.
Tua Stenius-Örnhjelm
Good. Then continuing on that, in the financial targets, is there a reason why you measure costs to sales instead of, for instance, the EBITDA margin?
Mats Danielsson
We actually have chosen to look at the cost to sales because that's the driver of EBITDA. We find it relevant to focus on the driver of improving EBITDA and not the EBITDA as such.
Of course, it will give result on EBITDA if we improve on this.
Tua Stenius-Örnhjelm
Yeah. There's one more question.
I think you already answered this, but just in case you want to add something. The 75% cost to sales target, is this equivalent to 25% adjusted EBITDA margin, or what do you mean by these costs?
Mats Danielsson
I I have not that now calculated exactly what that is in relation to the EBITDA margin. It's of course that we might have a higher cost and higher but it's it's always the cost in relation to to to sales and the EBITDA to sales, we we have more looked at what where do we end up if we have a 75 below 75% in in in in the in the cost related to to to sales.
This is actually what we have as a strategic target in our strategy.
Tua Stenius-Örnhjelm
Yep. Then one more question relating to this efficiency target and the costs.
Are leasing costs of Järvenpää included?
Mats Danielsson
The leasing cost for Järvenpää, we will book that as an asset in our balance sheet, and it will be depreciated, and there will be an interest cost, it's not included in this cost.
Tua Stenius-Örnhjelm
Okay. Good.
Thank you. Then continuing on to the dividend policy: so does your new dividend policy excluding JV result imply that you don't see the recovery plausible anytime soon?
Katarina Gabrielson
I would say like this, that we want to have the possibility to have Oriola as a separate company, and this is one way of showing that the dividend policy that we have is reflecting result of Oriola. When going to Kronans Apotek, we will work for having the recovery as soon as possible, and we will also come back to this also in the CMD a little bit more closer in that one.
It's absolutely so that for us as an owner of the joint venture company, it's important to make the recovery as soon as possible, as it always is for you to get a more clear opinion of us as a company.
Tua Stenius-Örnhjelm
Good. Thank you.
We have one more question in the chat, if you have any other questions, please post them through the chat so that we can take them. It's relating to the share buyback program: so how should we view this share buyback program in the light of your low equity ratio and aim to improve
Mats Danielsson
that? This is a part of our distribution to our owners, and this serves the interest of shareholders also.
The amount is still fairly small, and of course we have in relation to this the dividend policy, and this is a combination that we all the time follow. We also split the dividend now for the spring and the autumn so that we follow and see also how the equity ratio develops.
Tua Stenius-Örnhjelm
Good. Thank you.
Looks like there are no more questions in the chat. Thank you everyone for joining us today.
As a reminder, and already mentioned, the CMD takes place on 12th of May, and it's a hybrid event, and you can follow it live through a webcast. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us.
We wish you all a good rest of the week. Thank you.
Mats Danielsson
Thank you.
Katarina Gabrielson
Bye.
Already premium?