Asker Healthcare Group (Stockholm:ASKER) Q4 2025 Earnings Call

0:01 Thank you and welcome to our Q4 presentation for Asker. I'm happy to present this another robust earning growth quarter for us. You know, I usually say that one of the best markets to be in is medical supplies, device and equipment. And regardless how nervous the world is or financially hard the climate is in the world, We never give up helping our loved ones. From we're born to we pass away, we need these supplies and that's what gives this fantastic market very stable. Q4 isolated, if we just summarize it first, we had a good quarter despite the headwind from tough comps in North.

0:50 and FX. Net sales were up 9% to 4.7 billion. Adjusted EBIT A increased by 16% to 470 million, driven by strong performance in Western Central especially. We have some tough comps, as I mentioned, in North. The underlying business to regions, municipalities and private players in Nordic are still very strong but once in a while you get these extra orders from different areas this time 2024 we had deliveries to the Ukraine war and the preparedness across the Nordic regions so the comps were a bit tough but the underlying business is performing well I'm happy to say that we reached the EBITDA margin of 10%, as you know, that's one of our financial targets.

1:51 Q4 is the strongest quarter of the year, so we will see some weaker numbers for a while, but it's always good to feel that you can break the ceiling of 10%, so we're very proud of that. Our cash flow was very good in the quarter as well. Even though we did four acquisitions in the quarter and a total of 14 during the full year, our leverage maintained at 2.26, which is good. And we have a very, very strong pipeline for new acquisitions coming the next year. Thank you. All right, looking at the full year then, the best way to follow Asker as an investor or if you're interested in our company is to look at the rolling 12 months. I would say it's a stable, slow moving, but in the right direction.

2:49 And we're proud to see that we're exceeding our financial targets. The most important promise I have to you as investors is the adjusted EBITDA growth of over 15%. And despite the headwind and tough comps, we have 17% growth, which I'm very happy to see. The R over RK and the operational important measure to be a working capital light company. And we have 67% on a stable level. On the rolling 12 month, even though we reached 10% in Q4, rolling 12 is 9.5 and continue to increase, which is good to see. Net debt 2.26, giving us headroom together with a strong cash flow to continue our M&A journey.

3:40 For the first time as a listed company, the board proposed a dividend of 30%, which is 39 öre per share. Looking at the longer time series, which I like to do because this is I've been in our many, many years and hopefully many years to come as well. We have a very exciting future ahead of us consolidating this market. And we have seen well above 15% CAGR over the years, quarter by quarter. And I know that some people are a bit nervous with one quarter and tough comps coming in, but the underlying business is performing very well.

4:26 The twin engine, as we call it, with organic growth as the highest priority to grow faster than the market and get some efficiency gain. together then fueling the second engine of M&A has delivered quarter by quarter growth above 15%, which we're looking forward to deliver as well going forward. So that's the summer of the quarter. I'll leave the word to you, Tom, to go through the detailed financials. Great. Thanks, Johan. Let's let's go through the numbers in a bit more detail. Just add some some color to what Johan has said. So if I start with the group as a whole net sales in Q4 up 9% of which minus 1% organic minus 4% from FX and the adjusted EBITDA in Q4 up 16% minus three organic minus three from FX.

5:14 I'll come back to the different regions in a little bit more detail in a second. But as Johan said, the big picture, the big story is, of course, good, solid performance, both in West and Central and moderated by those tough comps in North. I think the important thing from our perspective is to be comfortable that the underlying organic growth is very much for us to deliver on that target to be faster than the market. And if we make that adjustment for those tough comps in 2024, we're confident that we're still doing that. The other headline note, perhaps a new one touched on it, the EBITDA margin reaching 10% for the first time. There's always some variation between the quarters and Q4 tends to be the strongest quarter of the year. But even so, a nice milestone for us to reach. And then if I turn to the right-hand side of this picture, the full year, very much in line with what we've seen all the way through the year and what we see in Q4.

6:05 Organic growth of adjusted EBITDA at 4%, strong contribution from acquired growth, 16%. FX headwind that we've had all year and was particularly strong towards the end of the year of minus three. But overall, we're delivering adjusted EBITDA growth of plus 17%. And as Johan said, above our 15% external target. If I turn to the business areas one by one, let's start with business area north. Also, here important for us to be comfortable and confident that the core business, as Johan mentioned, continues to perform well. Obviously, the growth rate figures are significantly affected by the lower project-based sales that we've talked about a lot through the course of the year.

6:51 And we estimate those to have been around 350 million of lower sales year on year. as a result of that, but also important for us to repeat that we remain optimistic. We see this as an area of lots of activity going forward and lots of opportunity for us, but the timing remains uncertain. Also in North, we should just touch on the new distribution center that we've talked about progressing very nicely down in Gothenburg, putting in some of the automation and some of the other technical installations during the quarter. and going very well. We expect the operations to be up and running towards the second half of 2026, and then us really starting to get the efficiency gains and the benefits into the P&L during 2027.

7:39 And then if we look at the full year numbers on the far right-hand side, again, I think no great surprise, the adjusted EBITDA growth down at 9% for the negative reasons that I've described, and net sales down 4% in the region full year. Business Area West, strong performance from Region West, net sales up 20%, adjusted EBITDA up 36% in Q4, and the margin moving nicely above 9%. And actually, when we look at Region West, we see a very broad base of activity and improvements across the countries and across the companies in the region, both that strong focus on organic growth and operational improvements, plus of course the very positive contributions that we've got from the M&As that we've done, particularly the larger deals HSL that we did at the beginning of 2025 and scan module that came in during the middle of 2025. Both of those and all the other M&As contributing very strongly to the region.

8:38 Small note, we did have some one-off cost relating to warehouse reorganization in the Netherlands. That money has now been spent and was a temporary effect just here in Q4. So that affects the organic EBITDA growth a little in the quarter, but we expect to see the efficiency benefits of that coming through during 2026. Full year figures on the right hand side. Good to see adjusted EBITDA growth at 39%, net sales growing at 20% on a full year basis. And then turning to our third region, Region Central, also a strong performance in Region Central, net sales up 17, adjusted EBITDA up 44% in the quarter, and also pleasing to see that the margin moving again above 9%.

9:27 As I've talked about before, we've really focused on driving margin in Region Central and it's good to see that both the newly acquired companies have performed strongly. They really help improving the margin mix, but they also of course help with the top line and the growth in the region. But actually the organic focus on margin improvements in some of our older businesses in the region is also bearing fruit. We see those efficiency benefits coming through and a bit of a focus on phasing out some lower margin product categories in some of our companies. On a full year basis, adjusted EBITDA growth up 52%, with a big chunk of that, of course, coming from the acquired growth, but organic growth also delivering very strongly for Region Central during the year. And then net sales growth, a little slower and a little slower on the organic growth you see there.

10:16 But as I've said, we are occasionally happy to sacrifice a little bit of growth to get the margins up. And that's what we've seen in Region Central. A brief word on RO over RK, EBITDA over Networking Capital, our key internal performance metric, keeping the organization, keeping the operations focused on cash and cash delivery. Happy to see that that is maintained at a high level. I've talked about it before, but we're always pulled in two directions on this metric because the M&As that we do tend to have a lower working capital efficiency, working capital utilization efficiency, and we're constantly diluting the overall group picture. But we're working to improve things the whole time. And so as those two things pull in different directions to deliver a flat result on an ongoing basis is actually something that we're very happy with.

11:06 It shows that the business is working and focusing on the right things and generating plenty of cash that we use to fuel the M&A engine that Johan mentioned and actually that we can see a little bit of here on the next page when we look at the cash flow. Solid cash flow, full year and in Q4. The good performance on the top line, of course, contributing to that, but also, as we keep emphasising, this real focus on working capital efficiency, delivering. fully a capex running at a slightly higher run rate than I think is normal for this business. But we've talked about that as well, where we have the big new investment in the warehouse in Gothenburg, which as I say, is progressing nicely.

11:52 And then you also see on this page, we had a relatively high level of acquisitions in 2025 post IPO, but that was funded to some extent by the equity that we took in during the IPO that you see on the financing line on this slide. And then just one more from me before I hand it back to Johan. Stable leverage just below 2.3. Also pleasing to see that this part of the model is working well for us, giving us the capacity to continue to drive the acquisition agenda using our own cash flow. We obviously remain extremely committed to our 2.5x threshold. and we're confident that we can manage that continued acquisition agenda and use our strong own cash flows to continue to buy interesting and exciting businesses around Europe. And with that, I hand it back to you, Jan.

12:45 Thanks, Tom. Okay, talking a little bit more about acquisition, our second engine then. 2025 was an exceptional year. We had a little bit extra cash coming from the IPO, where we used this to buy three platform acquisitions, as you know. So the activity had been a little bit above normal, but 14 signed acquisition in 2025. We entered into four new countries, four new markets, and continuing with this strong pipeline going forward. So I think we now have come, I don't know, half the way to the fully consolidated Europe. We are now present in 19 markets and a very, very nice and interesting years ahead of us. continue our journey. Being the market leader in this market, it has been very good to see how we can attract the best niche players across Europe in different markets and being very disciplined when it comes to quality of the business, quality of management, and also being disciplined on multiples. As we have mentioned before, we pay usually six to eight times for normal deals. a little bit more for a bigger platform.

14:04 But that has been very, very good to see that our strategy continues to deliver. If we dig down into two examples, which is good to do, I mean, it's all about numbers in this quarterly report, but for us it's delivering some 70,000 boxes per day ending up at the nurses, doctors offices with critical products and solutions. and one of those companies is Van Heek Medicals. The first one I'm going to present is in the same area that we are very strong already in the Netherlands. They are a leading provider of medical supplies in the Benelux region. They've been around for a very long time, actually since 1926.

14:51 This is a good example how we buy sometimes three-generation companies with very, very good and stable business in their own niche. And this company are providing branded and private label medical supplies for diabetes, incontinence and wound care, primarily to home care, pharmacists and nursing homes in the Benelux region. Some 350 million SEK in revenue a little bit more than 60 employees. So it's a good representation of how an acquisition can look like. Also a positive addition to our EBITDA margin. The next example is Inomedicus.

15:38 This is a more niche company, highly niche actually, with the urology and prostate cancer selling to specialists across Europe. and here is a good example of how it's not only about supplies, device and equipment, but rather the competence in a therapeutical area where you need a mix of products, a mix of services and also expertise in software and solutions. So being a partner to healthcare, you need to be an expert in understanding the nurses and doctors everyday life and put together a basket and the competencies that makes their life easier. and that's the type of company we buy and together we're now more than 60 companies. We're becoming stronger as a group using the efficiency and scale to be able to attract more companies and help the healthcare sector in a good way. So two good examples and we're very happy to have them on board.

16:42 So if I just would summarize the Q4 then. Solid quarter with an adjusted EBITDA growth over 16%, reaching the EBITDA margin of 10%, which is great to see. Strong development in West and Central, driven by acquisitions and operational improvements. And as Tom and I have mentioned, the tough comps in North is of course disappointing that we didn't get those deals that we got in 24. But going ahead, we think that this area could come in with some very attractive deals in the future as well. 14 signed acquisitions, all of them margin accretive. So we're happy to see that the companies we buy actually have a positive mix effect on our EBITDA margin as well.

17:30 So all in all, a good year and we continue to deliver on our twin engine and with a strong cash flow, which is very, very important. We see no reason why 2026 shouldn't be as exciting as previous years as well. So with that, I think we stop the summarizing part and go to Q&A. If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad. To enter the queue, if you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 6 on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Carl Ragnarstam from Nordia. Please go ahead.

18:15 Good morning. It's Carl here from Nordia. A couple of questions. Firstly, in North, quite impressive margins standalone but especially adjusting for the defense volumes as you also mentioned. Can you help us understand a bit the margin drivers to this delta? Was it a positive mix in the quarter with smaller pass-through products and also especially if you compare it to the Q3 margin that was quite a bit lower, right? Should I take that one, Johan? Yeah, thanks, Carl. Good question. I think the slightly trite and simplistic answer is you might have expected the margin to dip a little bit in North year on year because we have lost or we have not repeated some of the GDE business, which does come in at slightly higher margins. The reality is actually the rest of the business has been doing very well. It has had a good quarter.

19:11 When I dive into the details of individual companies and individual areas within individual companies, we see a broad-based, strong performance across the core distribution operations. and there are no big one-off effects that are driving that. Fundamentally, our core operations in North are capable of delivering 13, 14% EBITDA margin. Q4 is always the strong quarter. I think that's always to note. And especially when you do a sequential comparison, you go from the weakest quarter Q3 to the strongest quarter Q4. So that you perhaps shouldn't read too much into that. But if you look over the 12 months, the northern region even without GDE is capable of delivering 13-14% EBITDA margin and that's pleasing for us to see.

20:02 Now that's very clear and looking into north you had 175 million top line impact on organic sales meaning that underlying organic growth in north is low single digits I guess. Entering Q1 do you see any reasons why that pays or shouldn't be kept at the underlying pace that is given that I think we're exiting all of the defense comps in Q1 right? Yeah, I can perhaps say a few words about that as well. I mean, obviously, there is still uncertainty about whether if timing of this new lumpy business that we, you know, we still expect and hope to see.

20:47 But I do think that the, you know, the fundamentals in North, it is a very stable business, and it is moving in the right direction. And we are doing lots of the right things across all of our companies in all of our countries in North. So, so if we take a sort of a step back and view North without the lumpiness, there's no reason to expect some dramatic acceleration or deceleration in the fundamental momentum in North, no. Maybe in addition to that, I mean, I think we have a good 2026 ahead of us where we will hopefully over deliver on our financial targets as we have done many, many years before. But we should also say that we are investing in the warehouse, which of course is a very exciting thing to see.

21:37 This business is in the end game about efficiency, scale, robustness, and to to allow ourselves to invest as we do in Gothenburg and other areas. I think that's an important part of it. So that will, of course, affect us a little bit when you do such a big thing. But the underlying business, once again, stable and robust. But you can expect us to, you know, with this investment, of course, some disturbance in some quarters could happen. Not to raise expectations too high in addition to what you say, but nothing spectacular.

22:17 Okay, that is very clear. Then we have sort of in West, you have the new logistic center. What is the sort of SS net sales and EBITDA impact from the ramp of that? And do you expect it to continue in Q1 as well? Sorry Carl, I missed the, say the last sentence again.

22:42 Did you have the ramp up of the new logistics center in the Netherlands? What was the sales and EBITDA impact from that during the quarter and do you expect sort of elevated costing Q1 as well? Understood, yeah. So the sales impact, minimal stroke zero. We took a little bit less than a million euro of cost, extra cost in the quarter that weighs down the result a little bit in West in the quarter. But that's money that's spent. There is no continuation of that cost coming into 2026. So the reorganization is done.

23:22 Okay, very clear. That's all for me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Paul. The next question comes from Albin Nordmark from SB1 Markets. Please go ahead.

23:34 Yes, thanks, Andy. Good morning, Johan and Tom. Just want to submit on CapEx. So quite high here historically at 223 million and India at 3.5% of sales. So obviously Gothenburg and the new warehouse in Netherlands is some of that. But can you give us any guidance of what to expect here entering 2016? Yes, I can take that. So the total cost in Gothenburg is a little bit more than 300 million, approximately 300 million SEC. And we've spent approximately half of that cost has now come in 2025. The other 150 million will be spread out relatively evenly through the rest of 2026.

24:31 All right, so 150 million from 426, but in CapEx as a whole then? Yeah, CapEx as a whole, this is a relatively CapEx-lite business on an ongoing basis. So generally, we don't have big bits of equipment, machinery, those sorts of things. Our heaviest investment is in, for example, the high-tech automation machines, for example, that are a big chunk of the CapEx that are going into the warehouse in Gothenburg. So once that's gone, we should return back to a more normal CapEx level, which I estimate will be somewhere around 2% of revenue. That's the kind of rough run rate. And of course, it will vary a little bit down over time, but in the normal circumstances, that's roughly what

25:18 we see. All right, thanks. Understood. And then just looking at note two here, I think I note some changes in accounting for goods and services in this quarter versus the last quarters. So now we see that... Services is somewhere 21% of sales. So could you please comment on that? Yeah, that's just a technical change in definitions. There's no real change in the business. It's always a slightly... Note two is a technical note, which I'm not sure is especially revealing, but we had a technical change in definition in one of our larger units, which explains the change, but there's no fundamental change in the actual business underlying it.

26:12 All right, thanks. And yeah, that's all for me. Thanks a lot. The next question comes from Jakob Lemke from SEB. Please go ahead.

26:30 Yes, hi and good morning. My first question is that I want to come back to the profitability in North here in the quarter. The way I have understood it is that these defense sales we've had in the past have quite strong profitability and given that you sort of lose that year over year, my sense is that the underlying modern increase in north is actually very strong. So I'm just wondering if you could come back and sort of highlight what initiatives that have driven this or what is behind that really? Yeah, I think you're right in terms of the way you read the numbers, Jakob. So the defense and preparedness contracts have typically been higher margin than the average. When we look into the numbers, they were slightly lower amount higher in Q4 year-on-year, but NetNet, you're right, you might have expected the loss of those to have resulted in a lower margin in Q4.

27:31 But I come back a little bit to the answer I gave to Carl earlier. It is quite broad based across the operations, across the companies, across the markets. Q4 is typically a strong margin quarter, but there isn't actually one individual or even just two or three small individual elements that have contributed to that. Fundamentally, the business in north and that combination of companies, customers and whatever is capable of delivering 13, 14% margin. So I understand in a way it would be easier if I could point to one or two initiatives that have driven that, but actually it's relatively broad based across our operations and countries in North.

28:18 Okay, that's understood. I also follow up on the margin in North. As was mentioned previously, it's a quite big step up from Q3. I think you were at around 14% also for the first half of this year so the question is really would you say the sort of margin in between the quarters here in 2025 is representative for 2026 or how should we think about the seasonality? Yeah, I think that's kind of an important topic. So Q3 is always our weakest quarter. It's, from a margin perspective, without being too simplistic about it, it's driven by, you know, the holiday period. We have a have a business that is a little bit quieter through that extended Nordic holiday period and Q3 is the lowest margin quarter Q4 is the highest margin quarter so when you try to do that sequential analysis it sometimes looks like there is a sort of a big jump or something has changed in the business the reality is it hasn't it's simply about the amount of volume that is flowing through our operations I would also say that 2025 has been a year where we haven't had very much of the lumpiness on top, the preparedness on top.

29:38 So when you look at the margin profile in Region North in 2025, you have quite a good picture of what a normal underlying margin in North would be through the course of a year.

29:54 Okay, but just to follow up, I guess you would do lower volumes in Q1 compared to Q4. And should we also assume that you should do lower margin in Q1 compared to Q4? Yes, if you look over and the margin doesn't wildly dramatically change. And certainly internally, we're always looking at rolling 12, as Johan mentioned. But Q3 is the weakest margin. Q4 is the strongest margin. So sequentially, the margin in Q1 will always be lower than the margin in Q4. All else equal.

30:30 Okay that's very clear. Now my next question is on West where if I get it correctly I sense that the sort of organic EBITDA growth if you remove this one of cost is around mid single digits here in Q4 and is that a reasonable level sort of to expect to inform? That's a reasonable conclusion to come to yeah.

30:54 Okay good and then also if you would like to comment any on the profitability in central which I think looks strong both driven by acquisitions but also on an organic basis if there's something behind that uh yes i can i can maybe tell that one yeah the observation is right the same applies for central as it does for um it does for the other regions Q4 tends to be the strongest margin uh quarter i i would say and i think we've mentioned this a little bit in the past as well we have had a strong focus on margin in business area central it's been a a key topic for the leadership down there we've been looking at how we We rationalize the range, how we take out low margin products, how we start to gain some benefits of economies of scale.

31:43 And we have got a particularly positive mix benefit coming in from the M&A's that we've done in central as well. So it's a combination of factors that we are happy to see are bearing fruit. Typically, when we look across the group as a whole, when we do our five years backwards looking analysis on margin, we see that approximately half the margin benefit comes from mix, from M&A mix. and approximately half comes from our organic operational efficiency type programs now that will vary quarter by quarter region by region it will vary a bit over time but if you want a little bit of you know guidance to think about where margin improvements coming from very very simplistically and very crudely it's about half from from M&A mix and half from organic activities

32:37 Okay good and then you finally coming back to a question on the capital expenditure I guess if you remove or if you think if you disregard all of this capex to the distribution center would you say that that is a sort of normalized level that we can expect going forward? Yeah I think so I And we've discussed this here as well, whether that's appropriate to do, because as this business grows, as Johan mentioned, we will look to drive economies of scale. We will look to find consolidation activities. As you know, we want a highly decentralized model, so that's not our main focus. But over the medium term, there will be benefits to come from finding those consolidation activities. So you might argue that, OK, it was the Gothenburg warehouse this year.

33:28 Maybe it's a warehouse in Central Europe in three years time or something. But yes, sort of simplistically, short term, mathematically, if you take out the Gothenburg warehouse, you have a capex, which is sort of in line with our normal run rate. But I don't want you to take that to mean that I'm promising that we might not invest in another big new warehouse in three years time, because we probably will.

33:54 Okay, that sounds fair. That's all from me. Thank you very much. The next question comes from Eric Castle from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.

34:09 First, I want to sort of dwell a bit on your capacity to do M&A now in 26. First, if we're looking at the sort of depth items outside of your definition of depth as, you know, contingents and protocol options, what's the sort of timing of payments you're seeing for those? Because that's close to a billion now. I'm just thinking if they may hit now in age one, or we could expect, for example, low M&A pays at the start of the year. Just generally anything on that would be helpful. Yep, I can take that one. And good, fair question, Eric. So we have approximately 450 million that will go out during H1 for earnouts.

34:56 So of that 900 plus that you referred to, approximately half of it will flow out in earnout payments in H1 2026. Of course, you can imagine we're super aware of that. We see that it's in all of our cashflow forecasting and our Our M&A agenda and it's built into the models. So it's a core and regular part of the business. It's slightly higher this year than next year because the remaining 450,500 million in that liability flows out over the next three years. So you can imagine that the amounts are a bit lower in 2027, 2028 and so on. But the answer to the heart of your question is no, we don't see that as a limiting factor.

35:41 The business generates a lot of cash. It generates a lot of cash quickly. This is a well-known element of our model that we build in. And we're confident that we can do the 10 to 15 deals a year, the 10 plus percent EBITDA extra contribution from M&As that we will buy through the course of the year and maintain leverage below 2.5 and pay out the earn-ups. Sorry, that was a very long answer to your question. I hope it made sense.

36:08 No, no, that's good. That's good. But on that as well, I noticed that the sort of proportion of contingents in our input calls, I mean, was a proportion of the acquisitions done a bit higher than normal. So I just wanted to ask now that we have, I guess, another upcoming 500 million, at least, on these two acquisitions you've closed now recently. Are you structuring these sort of deals any differently now with a smaller part of cash out to sort of be able to keep the M&A pace as your targets? No, I wouldn't say so. We have over the years bought 100% of the shares as a standardized deal with 70 to 30% 70 to 80 percent payout at the start and then two to three years earn out model and that's where we are and sometimes it's a bit more sometimes a bit less but we're not adjusting this to keep up the pace and kind of as I partly read your question and that you know we're keeping up the pace but increasing our debt going forward that's not the model so we will have a proportionally the same earn out dividend and cash out every year and since we're growing with 15% plus we can continue to buy you know 15% more earnings I mean everything it kind of scales up going forward and we've done this now for over a decade with the same model.

37:40 So I see no reason to be worried about that. So good cash flow. If anything, we're buying more better and better companies to stronger and stronger. Our position is stronger. So I'm looking five years ahead rather than five years backwards. I'm more positive to the future than the past, to be honest. And actually, I can add, Eric, that the trend actually is in the other direction very, very slightly. As I say, when we have this conversation in July, when we've reported the Q2 numbers, that liability that sits, as we say, at above 900 million today will sit at 500 million or something because a large portion of it will have been paid out. The reason why there's quite a large chunk flowing out now is is actually because a number of the businesses that came to the end of their earn out in 2025 have performed exceedingly well.

38:35 For us, it's a good sign. It's the businesses are doing well, they're contributing and they continue to contribute and will continue to contribute going forwards even after the end of the earn out period. So, yeah. And maybe the last comment here. I mean, our business is so stable and slowly moving in the right direction, which also means that we have a very good visibility. We're actually internally, we're discussing Q4 26 and Q1 27 when it comes to acquisition. So for us, 26 is almost history for us, even though we're just starting. So we have a very good visibility and control over our cash flow, thanks to the stable business and the headroom in our 2.5. So this is the least thing I think we should be worried about.

39:24 Perfect, and that was a great segue to my next session as well. Could you perhaps talk a bit about how you're viewing comps into 26 and also talk about how much potential volumes that we could see from defense and if you think there's any areas of the business that will end up being mentioned when we have this end of year call next year as having been tough comps or something that sort of distorts the image of earnings that you've then reported. Yeah, if I just start on the high level, then you can detail this. And I think 2025, if we start with 2025 and 2024, I mean, 2024 was a normal year when it came to acquisition and operations, but we had this defense and the Ukraine war that gave us some extra deals on top. 2025, unfortunately, did not have those deals.

40:20 deals to the same extent. I mean, we had some of what we call GDE orders, but not to the extent we had hoped for. 26, we hope that this will be part of the year. But I'll be very clear to tell you when things are coming in, so we don't need to disappoint anyone. So it's, as I see it, we have a market with 1,300 billion SEC, which is the value of this market. On top of this, we have some extra volumes coming from the defense right now. Back in the days, we had it from COVID. And when these orders come, they kind of change the picture in comps, but the underlying business is the same. So hopefully we will get some extra of this business, but we will come back to it when and if it comes. The other part of this year will be this investment in Gothenburg, which could have a little bit of extra cost.

41:15 And I mean, my philosophy when doing this is so important to be robust in having dual tracks and the possibilities to deliver to the customer, regardless if there is some delays or problems. So maybe a little bit of extra cost could come into that. Hopefully not, but I'm just saying what we see in the next year to come. and then hopefully we'll just continue to see some positive effect from our scale and growth and if anything I feel that when we now are a listed company we're growing bigger more and more suppliers are turning to us and want us to take on their lines more and more customers are turning to us so I think every year becomes a little bit better going forward but I also don't want to raise expectations above our financial targets but I have a good feeling for 26 and it shouldn't be any extraordinary things at this year.

42:14 What do you say Tom? No I think it's a good summary I don't have anything to add.

42:19 Can I just ask you on a follow-up is there any part of the business that you think have tough bumps coming into 26. Like Homecare, for example, invested really well in 25. Do you think that means they have challenging bumps in 26? Like if you have any examples of that, I think that would be helpful. I think it depends a bit how you think about it, Eric. So obviously the organic growth in West in the first nine months of this year was boosted by increased patient numbers. So we shouldn't expect the same growth rates are the same extremely high growth rates, but it's not like this is gonna go into reverse. That now is in the base and we will continue to grow organically from that new base. So it's tough in the sense that we can't deliver 15, 20% growth every quarter organically, but there's no reason why we shouldn't deliver the four, five, 6% organic growth from a new higher base.

43:15 And I think we should come back to our most important statement, Our target to grow our earnings, total earnings, more than 15%. We feel very comfortable about going forward. Organically, we should grow faster than the market, which is growing with some three plus percent. We're buying niche lead market leaders, which perform that way. Of course, sometimes it goes a little up or down, but as a group, we have been doing that for many, many years. So that's what you should expect. and our bottom line EBITDA margin of 10% gold, we are slowly but steadily going towards the 10% and breaking that ceiling as we did in Q4 in total as well.

44:00 Thanks to MixEffect, we're buying company over 10% EBITDA margin and we get some scale effect and positive effects from the business. However you do your Excel sheets at the end of the day, make sure it comes to those conclusions and anything that is super extreme upwards or downwards, you should be relaxed about it because it usually comes to those conclusions and view this business on the longer term. That's the best advice from me.

44:31 All right. Thank you very much. I'll jump back in here. There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.