Humana AB (publ) (HUM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Humana Q2 2024 Report Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Now, I will hand the conference over to speakers, CEO, Johanna Rastad; and CFO, Fredrik Larsson. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Welcome to Humana's Q2 2024 presentation. My name is Ewelina Pettersson. I'm the Head of IR at Humana. With me today, I have Johanna Rastad, our CEO; and Fredrik Larsson, our CFO. Over to you, Johanna.

Thank you, Ewelina, and good morning to all listeners. We continue with a high pace of change also in the second quarter and at the same time improving our existing business performance substantially. The adjusted operating profit increased by 40%, reaching SEK 107 million, up from SEK 77 million last year. This is primarily due to the improvements seen in elderly care, where the reinforced change program we initiated about a year ago has continued to give positive effects, but also due to the activities in personal assistance targeting increased efficiency. In elderly care, the improvements in occupancy as well as reduced staff turnover and sick leave in the segment is both satisfying and also promising for the future. In Finland, we execute on our specialization strategy and sign an agreement to divest 21 elderly care units to an enterprise value of EUR 25 million. The transaction is subject to approval by the Finnish Competition authorities and is expected to be completed during the second half of the year. And in the quarter, we also closed the transaction of Team Olivia in Norway and integrate the business and accounts from June onwards. The integration is going according to plan. Team Olivia in Norway contributes with sales of SEK 88 million and an EBIT of 4 million in the second quarter and we use existing cash and new share issue to finance the acquisition. And after almost 6 years in Denmark, we decided to exit the country through the sale of our small subsidiary. Denmark is not a focus area for Humana going forward, hence their strategic position. I want to direct my warm thanks to Lone Hansen and a great team for all these years. Being on my seventh year in Humana, this will be my final quarterly report and I have over the last weeks handed over to Nathalie Boulas Nilsson who takes over the role as President and CEO from this coming Monday. So it's pleasing to see that the performance curve heads upwards with net revenues improving with 5%. Organic growth reaches 1.3%, just above 5% excluding Personal Assistance, which still suffers from the wrongly revoked permit by the authorities in January last year and the subsequent legal process. Adjusted operating profits, as I said, reached SEK 107 million in the quarter, corresponding to a margin of 4.2%. That is 5.4% excluding Personal Assistance. Now over to Sweden, so the country out first, where we see continued clear performance improvements in elderly care following the reinforced change program initiated last summer, where occupancy reaches about 92%, which is up another percentage points from Q1 with organic growth of 6% about 50-50 due to price volume. Both owned managed units and contracts improved profitability in the quarter. And after a few quarters, we clearly -- improvements in occupancy levels, reduced staff costs and staff turnover as well as lower sick leave, we now conclude a more formal program. And that said, we're far from satisfied and we will continue working on improving our operations, offering to clients and also payers, as well as improve our efficiency in this coming phase. We've learned a lot in the process and it's comforting to know that the Individual & Family and Elderly Care team are now fully working together and they can continue striving towards further improvements to secure continued progress in the course to come. And although operating profitability improving Personal Assistance, net customer outflow continues in the quarter. We are working intensely on the so called net journey, which is to create a positive net client inflow through a number of activities. And simultaneously the adaptation of overhead cost continues and we do see effect from that in the quarter. However, as the net client outflow persists, the actual P&L effect is smaller than we would like it to be. A substantial improvement from Q1 is seen in Individual & Family with occupancy levels -- which occupancy levels increase about 1 percentage points as a total. And notably the child and youth segments, within -- with family care leading the way, making the largest improvement from the first quarter and is now on an operating profitability perspective in line with last year. And that said, we still have lower occupancy than in the second quarter of '23, but significantly higher than in Q1 and continuing to increase also into July. Operating profits in I&F moved sequentially closer to last year for I&F as a whole. And now turning over to Finland where we have announced in the quarter, taking another step in our specialization journey by signing an agreement to divest elderly care units. Growth continues, however, at a lower speed with organic growth reaching 4% in the quarter. And in June, we pay a one-time salary payment in according to our collective agreement, which totals SEK 11 million. Despite this one-off payment adjusted profitability increases and reaches SEK 28 million or 5.6%. And in Norway, our like-for-like business continues to grow with 12%, while actual operating profits remain stable. The main event in the quarter is of course the acquisition of Team Olivia in Norway, which in June adds SEK 88 million in turnover and SEK 4 million operating profits and full quarter consolidation will take place in the third quarter. Focus from the team has of course been to prepare for and take the first steps in the integration process and so far this has proceeded according to plan. It's very pleasing to have welcomed so many competent employees from Team Olivia over the last month. And now over to you, Fredrik, for a summary of the financials.

Thank you, Johanna. Revenues are up 5% compared to last year. Personal Assistance has lost SEK 54 million in revenues that have been compensated by the good organic growth in all other businesses. In addition, the acquisition of Team Olivia contributed with SEK 88 million from June 3. The operating -- adjusted operating profit increased by 40% from SEK 77 million to SEK 107 million compared to last year. This is our highest adjusted operating profit in actual terms ever in Q2. Both Q2 this year and last year were impacted by non-recurring items. I will elaborate more on those later. The profit increase by SEK 30 million is primarily explained by the recovery in elderly care in Sweden that contributed SEK 20 million and personal assistance that contributed with SEK 8 million compared to last year. In the second quarter, net debt increased with roughly SEK 150 million, whereof SEK 216 million is related to the payment for the purchase price for the acquisition of Team Olivia. Our leverage has increased 0.2x during second quarter to 3.8. This is primarily due to the acquisition of Team Olivia that increased our leverage with 0.4x. Excluding the acquisition of Team Olivia, leverage would be 3.4. Operating cash flow of SEK 172 million in the quarter was even stronger than in Q1. This is explained by our good profit generation. There were only minor effects in this quarter from changes in working capital. This is explained by the fact that both Q1 and Q2 ended on non-business days. During the quarter, we had negative items affecting comparability, reducing our operating profit with SEK 27 million. This amount included SEK 9 million related to IVO's revocation of the permit in Humana Assistans and the subsequent claim. Costs related to the acquisition of Team Olivia in Norway was included with SEK 9 million and we had a SEK 10 million for remeasurement of contingent consideration to be paid for the acquisition of Assistans för dig. In 2022, Personal Assistance acquired Assistans för dig. A major part of the consideration was deferred and based on 2023 multiples. In Q2, the final contingent consideration amount has been established and the difference of SEK 10 million between the previous estimate and then the final contingent consideration amount is recognized as an expense. This is consistent with previous adjustments of contingent consideration that have been recognized as positive items affecting comparability of in total SEK 106 million in previous quarters. Q2 last year included SEK 12 million positive items affecting comparability including a positive adjustment on the contingent consideration of SEK 42 million offset by costs linked to IVO's revoked permit of SEK 29 million. And finally, this quarter is compared to last year partly impacted by Easter. We have estimated Easter had a positive impact on EBIT with some SEK 20 million due to lower personnel costs. Easter effect is, of course, neutral on the half year period. Now some final words from you Johanna.

Thank you, Fredrik. Well, as the Humana [indiscernible] society, we have also in this quarter seen an increase in requests for placements of higher complexity. Individuals with substantial care and treatment needs puts pressure on employees' ability to offer solution that will enable our clients to move to a better position in life. So the care sector needs to improve its ability to measure output of treatment and over time also be rewarded for the actual outcome of our treatment. In the quarter, 42% of concluded treatments in Sweden has led to a lower level of care, while 58% of clients in all residential care homes reached their targets in the care plan. It is astonishing that Humana still only can compare to itself when it comes to these numbers. I really wish this will change over time and more companies and public institutions will start to deliver social outcomes to bring up the debate. And why do we do this? To secure young individuals such as Frans to get a better life. A Swedish client's portrait over time. And a 15-year-old that comes into our care with a criminal background, with drug abuse and numerous failures behind him, totally swamped up into a criminal environment. Frans has seen abuse, violence, carried weapons, seen people become murdered and become murderers. Frans is lucky enough to understand that he wants another life for himself. That's why he comes into Humana's care. We can offer solution for Frans. The B12 treatment program aimed at getting children and adolescents into a place in life without drugs and criminality. Throughout the by Humana developed program, Frans can get control of his own impulses, identify and modify his way of thinking, as well as give him a proper chance to choose a long-term sustainable behavior in risky situations. In short, give him his life back. And that's why we exist, that's why we strive towards measuring output in care, because at Humana, we do care. So now over to what happens next. Personal Assistance is of utmost focus for us, mainly to get the net positive client inflow, but also to adapt the cost base according to new volumes. The solid occupancy development in I&F during the quarter built were promising profit momentum in I&F also in the coming quarter. The turnaround achieved in elderly care is pleasing. However, we do need to continue taking steps to further improve the business. For Norway, integration of Team Olivia is absolutely key, of course, to realize the outline synergies. And our specialization strategy continues and we will also continue to develop social outcome measurements. This is the only way for us to properly describe how important our work is. And with that we open up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Kristofer Liljeberg from Carnegie.

Yes. Good quarter and good luck to you, Johanna, in your new -- in the future. I have 3 questions. First of all, Finland earnings seems surprisingly good when we adjust for this one-off salary payments. I just wonder how much of this is driven by the segment that will be divested and how much of this is -- what will remain with Humana, if that's possible to comment on? Secondly, I'm just interested to get some more details about the occupancy development in Swedish social care. You talked about an improvement here. So particularly interesting to hear how the end of the quarter is and the outlook for the third quarter? And then if you could comment a little bit more about the client outflow in Personal Assistance when you think this will start to even out?

Well, thanks a lot, Kristofer. I'm starting with your #1 in Finland. And you are absolutely right, it is a good quarter. And primarily that comes from child welfare services, which is an area that we will continue to have. Actually, the performance in the units that will be divested is sort of approximate to what we have described in the press release previously. So no major changes there. And I think for sort of going forward, child welfare service, we're approaching to be the largest provider of that. So we will have a dominating position in child welfare services that will continue. And then of course there are also other segments, particularly the open care service, that can still have sort of room for improvements where has been more challenging than in child welfare. But, overall, we are pleased with the development in Finland and there is no clear sign that that should change in any way. In terms of -- so moving to your second question, occupancy in I&F. And that is really something that we've had our eyes on, because when that goes well, it sort of carries a lot of the performance for the group. And I&F as a whole has shown an improvement in the quarter of about 1 percentage point. But to really understand and grasp the actual dynamic, we have to come a bit further, dig deeper down into I&F. And I think that the largest contributor to bridge the gap that we've seen in performance on the bottom line has been the young segment. And that's -- they've had a really good development during the quarter, sort of ending the quarter in a positive note. So going from 79% in the beginning of the quarter up to 82-plus percent over the quarter. And without promising too much, I think the seasonality effects in the young segment, generally -- so they -- it tends to drop in June. We haven't seen that drop yet, which is good. So can we continue? Maybe not upwards, but at least to maintain this throughout the summer, we should be well off. So that's for the young segment. When you look at the adult segment...

Sorry, did you say -- yes, did you say 82% end of the quarter?

Yes. Yes. So that's -- which is -- I'm not saying that that should continue the whole sort of third quarter, but that -- those levels in June is good to have.

But could I ask, because last third quarter, the drop during the summer was larger than normal. Was that the case?

Yes. That was the case. It's actually quite. I mean, it's more common that we see a drop in June when the schools close, but we haven't seen that drop this year. And so that's -- and it might be that it's a bit later, but I think the challenge for last year was that it dropped and it didn't sort of come back properly. But now we haven't seen that type of drop in June, which we generally do. And it is carried a lot by both family care and the HVD segment. So it is overall positive when we sort of end the second quarter on these levels. And then for the adult segment, it's really no major change from the first quarter, that are sort of maintained occupancy levels and maintained performance. And I would say the gap now versus last year is sort of fairly evenly spread out, but it comes a bit from the healthcare segment. So the large carrier of the results, and the young and the adult segment, are performing well. So I think that's -- it's a promising road ahead for Individual & Family, we believe. And then to speak to sort of client outflow, in Personal Assistance, which, of course, in the quarter, it's not where we want it to be, but I think what's the -- there will be at some point in time this will, as you also mentioned, sort of level out. We are doing a large change program in Personal Assistance, sort of both working on the net client inflow as well as adjusting the overhead costs according to new volumes. So it is very much a balance. And I think what we have seen in this quarter is that we have relatively lower inflow than we saw in Q1. But we have also had to turn down a few clients due to insight and sort of quality aspects, a bit higher turn down rate than we generally have. So we still have sort of request the demand for coming into us, it sort of remains stable. We also have mapped -- we map all our clients and sort of map out risk clients and so on. So I think we have a fairly good idea of the risks in a continued net outflow, and I think it's hard to tell. It will depend on how much clients we can get in over the coming quarters. But somewhere sort of towards the year-end, maybe in the beginning of Q1, we should be able to see a positive net client info, at least we're working towards that. And I think that, of course, will change the whole game for Personal Assistance.

Is it fair to say that you're turning down more requests than in the past?

Yes, it is fair to say that we are turning down more requests, and we're also -- we have to also conclude some of the placements we have due to insight restrictions primarily not only, but also due to that, which is something that we have not done previously. And that's -- we're not alone in doing that. I think that's a whole -- the whole segment is doing the same. So it's a lot of -- it's a big shift going on in Personal Assistance. But there are also positive signs. I mean, it's discussed sort of the index -- the possible indexation of the prices, for instance. That's something that is highly debated. And there is also sort of rumored to come into this autumn budget proposal, which will be a massive change for us, that is not just a 1.5% uptick in price, but rather tied to cost levels, which will be -- for us, it's way much more predictable in terms of performance. But also actually the fact that the market has slowly -- from a volume perspective, the number of people with granted personal assistance has gone down for several years, but that has actually had a couple of months where those volumes have turned, where more people are granted personal assistance, which also -- maybe it's not a huge turn right now, but over time it should be promising. If that answers your questions.

Absolutely.

Thanks a lot for your comment. Thanks a lot for that.

The next question comes from Jakob Lembke from SEB.

My first question is on the Individual & Family. Based on what you see today, when do you expect occupancies to start improve year-over-year?

We are still a bit behind in terms of occupancy, but what we can see is that the mix effects are also very evident. And so we have fewer, relatively fewer clients, but with higher turnover per client. So the mix effects are balancing that occupancy gap. And it is hard to say, but I think what we see in particular in the young segment is very promising. I think adult is still static, and I think that partly relates to the ability to pay for those type of placements that we have from the municipality side. But I think if we can continue to maintain the development in the young division and then gradually over the year, also try to start to improve the adult, you know, we will be in a good position.

Okay. And then on elderly care. I mean, it has been a very strong improvement here over the past quarters, but can you sort of update on how much empty capacity you have left to fill here?

Yes, sure. And absolutely, it's been -- we've seen a massive improvement, with sort of on the profitability size of improving the SEK 20 million on a quarter by quarter basis. That said, we had a terrible Q2 last year. So even if we're really happy about the improvement, it still comes from a fairly bad level. So we really do believe that there is a significant potential left in there. And in order to really answer your question, we need to look at the 2 different segments, one being the own managed units and the other one being the contracts. And I think from a contract perspective, they have sort of performed fairly evenly during all this period. What's been the challenge has been our own managed units that have ramped up for a long time. And there is still room for improvement in that segment with sort of several percentage points from where we are today, whereas the contracts are -- they move around the levels that we think is sort of reasonable, but there is still -- the utilization levels still have several percentage points to improve.