Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining Stille's quarterly conference call for Q2. My name is Ulrik Berthelsen, and I am the Group CEO of Stille.

I am joined today by our Group CFO, Niklas Tyrén, who will take you through the financial overview shortly. I will start with the key highlights for the quarter and provide an update on the development of the business.

Overall, we are very pleased with the performance in the second quarter and for the first half of the year as a whole. In the second quarter, we delivered strong top-line growth, with revenue increasing to 187 million SEK, corresponding to 50% total growth and an organic growth of 27%.

This marks our third consecutive quarter of record group sales and reflects a strong underlying demand and solid execution across the business. We also saw a positive development in profitability, with an increase in EBIT margin compared to last year, achieving 14.6% for the second quarter and 15.7% for the first half of 2026.

If we look closer at the different business segments, performance was good across both Surgical Instruments and Surgical Tables. In Surgical Instruments, we continue to see solid momentum and demand across our core markets, with Europe and rest of world performing particularly well in Q2.

Growth is both reflecting continued market demand as well as improved delivery performance. At the same time, Surgical Tables delivered record sales in the quarter, marking three strong quarters in a row now.

The strong Q2 results reflects robust global demand for imagiQ3 legacy, supported in part by EU-funded hospital investment programs in Central and Eastern Europe. Surgical Holdings continue to contribute well to the growth of the group, and we're starting to see the impact from leveraging our organization in the UK to cross-sell products from other companies in the group.

Finally, we continue to progress with our operational activities. In Q2, we saw improved delivery performance, as I alluded to earlier, and we were able to make some reduction in back order levels for Surgical Instruments.

To summarize, we've had a strong Q2 and first half of the year, with good performance across the business and continued progress on our key priorities. Now let me briefly elaborate on the operational and strategic progress behind the development in the quarter.

As we discussed also after Q1, we strengthened the group structure and our capabilities substantially towards the end of last year and during the first part of this year. That was really with the aim to improve the scalability and secure the future growth.

During Q2, we began to see these strengthened capabilities translate into improved commercial and operational execution. We are improving our planning processes and stepping up support for our partners, which contributed to the strong sales development in Q2.

We have further scaled production and the supply chain. As part of this, also hired additional people in both Sweden and Switzerland.

This is beginning to support a higher output, with further benefits expected in the coming quarters as new employees complete their onboarding and training. Delivery performance is improving for Surgical Instruments.

We were able to meet increased demand from our customers and also reduce back order levels during Q2. Our priority is to continue this progress during the second half of 2026.

On Surgical Tables, we have also scaled production to support future growth and ensure that we can respond quickly to periods of strong demand, like we saw in the second quarter. Finally, we are strengthening our internal M&A capabilities to support selective acquisitions.

We continue to see attractive opportunities in the market to further develop the group, but it's important for us to ensure that we remain disciplined regarding both the strategic fit as well as the value creation. All in all, we are encouraged by the progress we're making across both operations and the commercial side of the business.

With that, I will hand over to Niklas, who will take you through the financials in more details.

Thank you, Ulrik. Starting looking at the revenue, as Ulrik mentioned, we saw a very strong revenue development in the quarter, with total revenue of 187 million SEK, corresponding to growth of 50% compared to the same period last year.

Organic growth was 27%, while Surgical Holdings contributed 29 million SEK of revenue during the quarter. The year-on-year currency impact was considerably lower than in the first quarter.

Currency translation reduced Q2 revenue by 1.3 million SEK, and in constant currencies, total growth was 51% and organic growth was 28%. Moving on to looking at the profitability, we can start by looking at gross margin.

That was 48.4% in the quarter compared to 52.1% in Q2 of last year. The decline primarily reflects the incorporation of Surgical Holdings as well as a higher proportion of sales from Surgical Tables in the quarter.

Excluding Surgical Holdings, group gross margins was 49.4%. Exchange rate movements also had somewhat of an adverse impact on gross profit in the quarter, although to a considerably lower extent than in the first quarter.

EBITDA increased by 50% to 36.5 million SEK, while the EBITDA margin remained unchanged at 19.6%. EBIT, on the other hand, increased by 65% to 27.4 million SEK, and the EBIT margin improved by 1.3 percentage points to 14.6%.

On a comparable basis, excluding the acquisition effect, EBIT margin improved by 1.8 percentage points. It is indeed encouraging to see the continued improvement in the rolling 12-month EBITDA and EBIT.

If we look to how the different segments contribute to the development, we can see that both business segments have delivered strong sales growth, and on a comparable basis, excluding acquisition effect, EBIT margin also improved in both segments. Surgical Instruments delivered total sales growth of 49% and organic growth of 18%.

The reported EBIT margin was 15%, slightly below 15.4% last year due to the incorporation of Surgical Holdings. Excluding the acquisition effect, the EBIT margin improved by 0.5 percentage points.

Surgical Tables delivered sales growth of 52%, while EBIT margin increased by 6.4 percentage points to 13.5%. This reflects the strong volume development and improved operational leverage in the business.

Finally, we continue to maintain a healthy financial position, which gives us the flexibility to further evolve the group and pursue selective acquisitions. Looking at cash flow from operating activities in the quarter was 29.3 million SEK compared to 15 million SEK in the same quarter last year.

The year-on-year improvement is primarily driven by the profit uplift, with marginal changes in working capital. The net debt to EBITDA ratio was a negative 0.2 at the end of the quarter.

Overall, we're very pleased with the financial development in the quarter and continued positive momentum from the first quarter. With that, I hand back to you, Ulrik.

Thank you, Niklas. To conclude, Q2 marked our third consecutive strong quarter, with continued progress both commercially and operationally.

Our priorities for the second half are clear. We want to continue to improve our delivery performance, leveraging Surgical Holdings to further strengthen our position in the UK market, and increasing our commercial activities to support the continued organic growth.

At the same time, M&A remains an important complement to organic growth. We are strengthening our capabilities while maintaining a selective and disciplined approach, supported by our strong financial performance and position.

With that, we are happy to take your questions.

Thank you, Ulrik and Niklas, and good afternoon. I have a couple of questions regarding your strong organic growth of 27% in the quarter.

Could you please help us understand how much was driven by back order fulfillment versus new underlying demand?

Absolutely. Hey, Christian.

Thank you for the question. I think I would sort of separate it into three parts.

Last year, as we have talked a lot about, we were not able to deliver sufficient products to meet demand, and that of course created a lower baseline in 2025. In 2026, we see the combination of essentially three things.

We are meeting demand this year, we are supplying in accordance with that. We are also seeing a increased demand for both Surgical Instruments as well as Surgical Tables.

Lastly, we are reducing the back order level for Surgical Instruments. It's really the effect of all three happening at the same time.

If you were to sort of say, okay, well, what is big and what is small here, the main thing is really coming from meeting demand and meeting a high level of demand, and then on top of that, we are adding some reduction in back order levels for Surgical Instruments. Those are the three things that are driving the organic growth.

Got it. Is the back order backlog now back to normalized levels, and could you also give us the status of the supply situation?

Absolutely, Christian. We remain with elevated back order levels also after Q2, in line with what we have previously also communicated our expectations to be, is that we would see sort of a gradual decrease of the back order levels during 2026.

We're happy with the delivery performance we have at the moment, but remain with some back order levels that are elevated that will gradually be drawn down also during Q3 and Q4.

Great. How should we think about the growth trajectory for the second half given the strong first half momentum?

I think if we look at sort of growth in general for the rest of the year, there's a couple of different aspects to take into consideration. From August and onward, we will have Surgical Holdings in the baseline from last year.

We are consolidating Surgical Holdings from August 2025 and onwards. When we look at the absolute levels of revenue we have been delivering so far, we think that is a good representation of where the business is heading.

You can see on Surgical Instruments that it's been quite sort of consistent in the overall levels absolutely we've had in the last three quarters. Where it comes to Surgical Tables, as you are aware, it's a little more volatile given the nature of a capital equipment business.

There we had a very strong quarter in Q2 and all-time record, and there naturally we will see more fluctuation quarter-to-quarter. When we look at it in sort of the different quarters in comparison, typically we see a Q3 that is slightly lower due to the holiday period, which last year was a little masked by the different supply situation we had at that point in time.

Overall again, we see solid demand for Surgical Instruments and Surgical Tables, and we do remain still with some elevated back order levels for Surgical Instruments.

Got it. One final question, please.

Could you please elaborate the reason for Surgical Instruments operating margin declining compared to Q1 and the comparable quarter last year?

Sure, Christian. I think to start off, there's there's always a bit of variation in in margin quarter-on-quarter.

If we compare with last year, clearly we have organically, we still have an improvement in in in the EBIT margin, though it wasn't quite as as big as in Q1. Looking quarter-on-quarter, the most of this relates to different mix impacts coming from market mix and also product mix to a certain extent.

There was also a bit elevated OPEX levels in the quarter as compared to the Q1. That is a lot of it related to phasing between the quarters when when the the costs actually come into to the P&L.

We are, as you as we are also building the organization that will incur some some costs along the way as a result of that. I would say that looking at the OPEX level, it was it is probably more representative to look at the the half-year average than than the Q2 Q2 cost in isolated.

Thank you, Niklas. Can I squeeze in one question there?

Should we expect administration cost, the step-up of these costs in the second quarter to be maintained at these levels?

A bit as I finished off saying, I think that slightly higher than the first half-year average, but the half-year average is more representative than the isolated quarter.

Great. Thank you very much.

I will get back to the trips. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, Ulrik and Niklas and everybody calling in. Hope you're all well.

Just a few questions to add in here on my end. Maybe you could provide some more flavor on the gross margin sort of decline relating to Surgical Holdings.

Is it that it was an unusual high amount of aftermarket services in Q2, or how should we look at it?

Are you talking specifically about Q2 compared to Q1 or...

Exactly. The previous quarters because if I recall, it was the first time you mentioned it in that way, I'm just interested in if Q2 was different compared to previous quarters.

Yes, indeed. Surgical Holdings has increased its share of total sales in Q2 as compared to previous quarters, and as the Surgical Holdings operates at a lower gross margin than the average, to speak.

Yes, but the Q2 in isolation, was that larger on the Surgical Holdings level compared to the preceding quarters, compared like-for-like?

If the share share or the share of sales?

The gross margin level.

The gross margin level,

yeah.

The gross margin level in the quarter in Surgical Holdings was a bit lower than in Q1, primarily driven by product mix, if it was own products or distributed products. They had a higher share of distributed products in the second quarter.

Good. That helps.

I also had a question on the table business. Firstly, it was nice growth in the quarter and also a nice increase in the EBIT margin.

Are there any one-offs in these figures, or is it purely a volume or scale effect?

You mean one-offs in terms of cost or on the top line?

Both, essentially. I'm just interested in seeing how much the increase in volume is correlated with the higher margin, or if it was any one-off we should know about.

There are no particular one-offs that you should think of here. It's predominantly related to a strong top line, and then we see the benefits, scale effects from simply a higher revenue number.

No particularly one-offs. I think in terms of the top line, of course, you can say the nature of the table business is almost all a one-off, if you will, because it's capital equipment, right?

We saw very, very strong demand in Q2, and that's what enabled us to deliver all-time record sales for that. That's I would say the main thing sort of to keep in mind is just the volatility on that front.

We did mention this regarding Central and Eastern Europe, where we have seen some EU funding program for infrastructure programs, and that has been helpful. It's not of material nature, but it's just more to give you a bit of color on the type of businesses that Surgical Tables are involved with.

Right. In the basis then of this strong Q2, how would you advise us to look at the second half of the year for the table business?

We don't guide on specific quarters or what to expect. I think you can see sort of now we have had three strong quarters in a row.

You also saw a very solid Q4, then a slightly lower Q1, then a all-time record here in Q2. It is a little more moving up and down than the Surgical Instrument business is.

I think, again, we're pleased with where we've seen so far. I think what is driving this is strong demand for imagiQ3 both in Europe, rest of the world, and also in the US, where we're seeing very strong demand, and that we sort of expect to continue also here in the coming quarters.

We are having good momentum, but as we've talked about before, it is not something where we operate with a very long order pipeline. We typically see this with delivery within the next month or two, and that's the sort of real visibility that we have in terms of orders in hand.

Good. That helps.

I have a last one as well, and it relates to something we talked to maybe a few quarters ago, but it relates to sort of the tariff impact, which you also mention in today's report, but it's not quantified. Maybe if you have any pointers on how to view this impact, or if you can even quantify the number for us.

You say the impact related to...

Tariffs.

Tariffs. We do not quantify that specifically.

There's a lot of different moving pieces in this. What we can say is that we are still impacted by tariffs, right?

Even though everybody sort of mentally maybe think of them as having gone away, we have continued with having tariffs on the business. We are fortunate in the situation we've been able to largely compensate for that through pricing, but it does impact the business of everything we sell in the US.

We do not quantify it specifically.

Great. That helps.

Thanks a lot.

Thank you. I have a couple of questions regarding your investments.

Capitalized development costs came at 3.4 million in the quarter. Should we model a similar run rate going forward, and could you please give us some color on what you are currently developing?

We do not specifically mention different development projects, I would start out by saying, but you know that the business is driven by product development both in instruments and in tables. We are, as we've talked about before, we are looking at different ways of driving future organic growth, and product development and having the relevant and most up-to-date product portfolio and offering is obviously a key part of that.

I would maybe just complement with that, you are fully aware that as part of our strategy, having a market-leading premium portfolio of both surgical instruments and tables is a key part of our strategy. I think you can also see the impact from the development efforts we're doing when you look at the results we're seeing from imagiQ3.

That's why this is important for us. Typically what happens on R&D expenses is that they're higher on the tables side.

It's a little more encompassing to embark on R&D activities for capital equipment than it is for surgical instruments. The details on exactly what we're working on, we don't disclose.

Great. Thank you.

Another question, please. You had elevated investments in intangible assets related to MDR readiness.

Is the bulk of that spend now behind you?

I would say that this continue, and I think that we commented on that in Q4 or Q1 report that we are seeing for the year, until we are meeting the deadline, we will see some elevated levels of investments in MDR in order to make sure that we are good to go when the regulation is active.

I can maybe just complement that it sort of covers a couple of different things. It covers both investments into equipment, for example, laser marking equipment or cleaning systems to ensure that, again, we also set up for handling and increased the volume, but it also include sort of costs related to certification or auditing by notified bodies, consulting costs, and so on.

That's the type of investment we're looking at to again ensure that across the different types of devices that we have, that they're fully in line with MDR regulation according to the right timeline.

Thanks for clarifying. One final question regarding tariffs.

Did you have only tariff costs in the quarter, or did you receive any refunds as well?

We started to see nothing material, but small refunds at the end of the quarter, nothing that really has a big impact yet, but obviously we're working on getting as much back as we can from that.

Would it be possible to quantify how much you could receive?

No, we haven't disclosed the information about the tariff impact as such and also not on whatever is refundable.

I can maybe add that we will, of course, as part of the next quarterly report, to the extent that we are able to recuperate these tariffs that were struck down by the Supreme Court, we will, of course, disclose the exact impact from those in the coming quarterly reports.

Perfect. Thank you very much.

That's all for me.

Thanks, Christian. That looks like that is all the questions for now, I think we will close the Q&A.

Yes, I will simply conclude with thank you for joining our earnings call today here on Q2, a strong quarter. We are pleased with the development of the business, and look forward to the development in the second half of 2026.

I wish you all a nice day.