Humana AB

STO:HUM

Earnings Call Transcript

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Humana Q3 Report 2020. [Operator Instructions] Today, I'm pleased to present CEO, Rasmus Nerman. Please begin your meeting.

[Rasmus Nerman, CEO & President]

Thank you very much, and good morning. Welcome to this presentation of Humana's third quarter in 2020. This is a quarter where we continued to stand up well to the pandemic, whilst also making good overall progress. As always, I will start by giving you some of the financial and operation highlights of the quarter. And I'm not alone, I will then hand over to our CFO, Noora Jayasekara, who will take you through the business of the quarter. Towards the end, we will address any questions that you might have. Next, and first slide, please. The focus for the group in the third quarter continues, of course, to be on minimizing the effect of the pandemic, ensuring a safe work environment and preventing the transmission of the virus in our operations as well as in society as a whole. We continued to stand up well to the pandemic with control over the situation and very low transmission of the virus. We also monitor the situation closely and frequently revise our recommendations and guidelines for all Humana staff. During the quarter, we're also pleased to see Humana making important progress in sustainability areas such as equality and equal opportunities. In the third quarter, we recorded an all-time high in our Humana Quality Index. We also improved our already high customer satisfaction in Personal Assistance. And we received high grades in the National Board of Health and Welfare's national quality survey. We're also very proud to, again, be distinguished for our equal opportunities, ranking top 3 among all listed companies in Sweden. On September 1, Noora Jayasekara was appointed CFO for Humana. Prior to this, Noora had the position as Group Finance Director. During the quarter, we also welcomed the proposal for a satisfactory increase in reimbursement for Personal Assistance. It further confirms our belief that Personal Assistance is an attractive segment for Humana to be in. And after, in the quarter, we acquired RO Omsorg, a quality provider of assistance in Stockholm. Moving on to the next slide, please, and the financial summary. In the third quarter, operating revenue amounted to SEK 1.93 billion, this is in line with previous year. The organic growth in the quarter was 2.2%, slightly down from previous year. And the operating profit in the quarter was SEK 172 million, down slightly compared to last year. The adjusted operating profit was SEK 172 million; this was in line with last year. And the operating margin was 8.9%. In the quarter, our operating cash flow was SEK 146 million, and our net debt was SEK 3.5 billion. And finally, our leverage at the end of the quarter was 4.5x, in line with the financial target and down significantly from 6.0x prior year. Moving on to the next slide, please, and a few words on our work on quality. Our focus during the quarter has, of course, been on handling the pandemic. We continued to prioritize education and training. Compliance to routines remains very high. And we continue to revise guidelines, routines and recommendations. In the third quarter, the Humana Quality Index improved to 95% in spite of challenging times. This is an all-time high and is primarily driven by improved customer satisfaction and fewer serious deviations. I am truly grateful for the work and endurance of our fantastic staff. Next slide, please, and over to our segments starting with Personal Assistance. In Personal Assistance, the performance in the quarter was strong. Pleasing was also to see that we improved our already high customer satisfaction. The Net Promoter Score, which is a measure of customer loyalty, is a remarkable plus 45. After many years of insufficient increases in the reimbursement for Personal Assistance, we're now glad to see that the Swedish government proposes an increase of 3.5% in the budget for 2021. Whereas we do not yet know the increase in salaries, our assessment is that this should at least offset pressure on margins. This is important for Humana as well as for the sector as a whole. We continue to be positive for the future prospect of Personal Assistance. And on November 2, we acquired RO Omsorg, a small but qualitative provider of personal assistance in the northern parts of Stockholm. Moving on to the next slide, please, and Individual & Family, I&F. In our I&F care segment, we continued to -- sorry, we encountered a rather stable demand, although weaknesses in the youth segment remain. The COVID-19 situation continues to dampen the overall demand. Thanks to good overall efficiency, we do see a stable development, however. And the weaknesses in the youth segment are compensated by strong performance in the adult and LSS segments. Our efforts to improve operations have seen results, and increasingly, we are focusing on organic growth. During the quarter, we opened 3 new own-managed LSS units. All in all, a stable quarter for I&F. Next slide, please. In our Elderly Care segment, the focus remains on handling the COVID-19 pandemic with safety for our clients as that is, of course, top priority. Swedish Elderly Care is the segment which is the most affected by the pandemic, both from an operational as well as financial perspective. Throughout the pandemic, the ban on visitors in elderly care units has been challenging for both elderly as well as their loved ones. We see positively on lifting the ban, but it does also come with an increased responsibility for all stakeholders, especially now when we see an increase in the transmission of the virus across the Nordics and in Sweden. The National Board of Health and Welfare has just published a national and annual quality survey, and Humana again receives very high-quality grades, coming in better than both public and other private providers. Finally, our focus on growth continues with 3 new units opened in Falkenberg on October 1, and intense preparations for our 5 own-managed openings in early 2021. Next slide, please, moving over to Finland. In Finland, we continued to fend off the negative impact of the pandemic, but whilst also making progress in improving our operations. Our Individual & Family segments continued to perform well, and we increasingly turned our focus to organic growth in these segments. In our housing services segment, our improvement program continues to move in the right direction, but we do still expect a delay in progress due to COVID-19. Overall, we see a steady and improving performance in Finland during the quarter. Next slide, please, moving over to Norway. We have continued to see a stable demand, a stable development and a strong organic growth. Just after the quarter, Humana won also an important tender within BPA, so Personal Assistance in Norway. In 16 Norwegian municipalities, there will be a total of 4 eligible providers and Humana ranks as the #1. Similar to other operations, the pandemic has been handled well and we'll continue to make investments to reap the benefits of future growth in Norway. With this said, I would now hand over to you, Noora.

[Noora Jayasekara, Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you, Rasmus. I will now give you a summary of the detailed performance of Humana in the third quarter 2020. Turning to Slide 10. I would like to start by saying that I'm very glad to be here and continue the work on increasing predictability and stability. A lot of work is being done on digitalization and automation, work that, of course, will continue in coming periods. We are also working on our real estate portfolio to better suit the business needs. For Humana overall, financial focus during the quarter has been on improving operational efficiency, and thus, profitability. I am pleased to present a financially stable quarter with the leverage in line with target and a strong cash position. Next slide, please. On Slide 11 in the presentation, you can see the operating revenue for the group. In the third quarter 2020, our operating revenue was in line with last year at SEK 1,931 million from SEK 1,928 million. Revenue is negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic through lower occupancy and lower number of hours performed in Personal Assistance. Also, the strength in Swedish kroner has reduced revenue. In the interim period, revenue increased with 5% to SEK 5,849 million from SEK 5,554 million. Organic growth in the quarter was 2.2% compared to 3.2% last year. Personal Assistance and Norway grew well in the quarter. Organic growth for the interim period was 4.0% compared to 2.4% last year, Personal Assistance and Norway being the main drivers. Next slide, please. Now moving to Slide 12 for more information on our results in the third quarter. Operating profit came in at SEK 172 million versus SEK 176 million last year. And the margin was in line with last year, 8.9% compared to 9.1%. The adjusted operating profit is SEK 172 million versus SEK 172 million last year. The challenges in Elderly Care are compensated by improvements in Finland to reach this stability in total. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected profit from several aspects: lower occupancy, increased sickness absences and increased use of protective equipment. Although the state subsidies vary between business areas and countries, the net financial effects of extra costs and subsidies is well in balance for the group as a whole. But the pandemic has had a marginal financial effect on the profitability for the group. Next slide, please. On Slide 13, the segment performance, starting with Personal Assistance. Revenue for the third quarter are up 4% to SEK 736 million compared to last year of SEK 708 million with organic growth of 3.9% versus 1.3% last year. Higher assistance allowance and increased number of hours drive the improvement. Operating profit for the quarter increased to SEK 57 million, up from SEK 52 million last year, and the margin improved somewhat to 7.7% versus 7.4% last year. The increased margin, although small, is mainly due to increased efficiency. Another well-managed quarter from Personal Assistance. Next slide, please. Now moving to Slide 14 with Individual & Family. Revenues for the quarter reached SEK 522 million, an organic decrease of 1.3% versus last year's SEK 529 million with a negative organic growth of 1.7%. All in all, a more stable occupancy with the decrease in occupancy in the children and adolescents segment nearly fully compensated by an increase in occupancy in the adult segment. Some negative occupancy effects can be attributed to COVID-19 as well. Operating profits came in at SEK 70 million versus SEK 72 million last year, and the margin decreased somewhat to 13.4% compared to 13.7% last year. Quarter 3 was -- last year was very strong. More stable occupancy and efficiency improvements enabled to meet last year's performance. Everything considered, we are pleased with the quarter. Next slide, please. Elderly Care on Slide 15. Revenues grew in the quarter with 3% organically and reached SEK 150 million versus SEK 146 million last year. The positive impact comes from the ramp-up of Kungsängen. But dampening the growth, we also see COVID effects in weakened occupancy and withheld price indexing. Operating profit was SEK 5 million versus SEK 8 million last year, and the operating margin was 3.3% versus 5.6% last year. Weak revenue, higher personnel costs, higher sickness absences and higher costs for protective equipment are behind the lower profitability. Start-up costs of SEK 1 million related to Kungsängen have impacted the quarter. A challenging quarter, but well managed given the situation. Next slide, please. Finland on Slide 16. Revenues for the third quarter in Finland came in at SEK 318 million compared to SEK 336 million last year, a decrease of 6%, and organic decline of 1.3% versus growth of 9.6% last year. There is underlying growth in the I&F area, but this is dampened by exits from unprofitable outsourcing contracts. Operating profit increased to SEK 24 million versus SEK 19 million last year with a margin of 7.6% versus 5.7% last year, the improvements resulting from the turnaround program in the acquired operations. We are moving in a positive direction under the new management, and our improvement efforts will continue in a tough market. Overall, a strong quarter for Finland. Next slide, please. Norway on Slide 17. Revenues increased with 3% to SEK 200 million versus SEK 194 million last year, and the organic growth was 11.9% versus 2.1% last year. The growth development this quarter is due to unit openings and more customers. Operating profit was flat at SEK 21 million. And the margin nearly the same, 10.5% versus 10.7% last year. In local currency, operating profit improved due to high operational efficiency. We are, again, pleased with the stability in Norway. Next slide, please. Moving on to Slide 18 and central costs. Underlying central costs are stable. In Q3 2019, capital gain from sale of real estate and revaluation for earn-out were impacting central costs. Next slide, please. On Slide 19, you can see our financial position. Interest-bearing debt decreased by SEK 305 million to SEK 3,549 million. And leverage decreased to 4.5x from 6.0x last year, being now in line with our financial target. Next slide, please. Operating cash flow for the quarter, on Slide 20, amounted to SEK 146 million versus SEK 206 million last year, the decrease due to an increase in working capital. The drivers being slightly slowed collections and us paying our dues a bit early. This will even out in Q4. Next slide, please. To summarize. Much work remains, but I would say that we are on the right path. Our organic growth is moving in the right direction, so is profitability. And we are pleased with our leverage being in line with the financial targets. With those words, back to you, Rasmus.

[Rasmus Nerman, CEO & President]

Thank you, Noora, and very pleased to have you onboard. So to summarize the third quarter for Humana. We do continue to stand up well to the pandemic, thanks to the efforts of our fantastic staff. We also believe that the impact will be manageable going forward. I am also pleased with the stable operational and financial performance in the quarter, especially in the light of the situation. Where we do see some weaknesses is, of course, in our Elderly Care segment, which is heavily impacted by the pandemic. We are also very pleased with the positive news for Personal Assistance. Going forward, our focus is on and will be on handling the pandemic in a good way; continuing to drive organic growth, potentially coupled with accretive add-on acquisitions; and driving excellence in execution with a focus on I&F and Finland. I think with that said, we can now open up for questions. Thank you.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Kristofer Liljeberg from Carnegie.

[Kristofer Liljeberg-Svensson]

Yes. I have 3 questions, first on the Personal Assistance margin. If I look back historically, most of the margin is down year-over-year in the third quarter due to timing of the salary increases. This year, it was up quite a bit. So wonder if there's anything specific here or if you could explain what you're doing in Personal Assistance. Rasmus, you mentioned also this tendering in Norway. Is that significant? And if so, could you give the size of it or at least the potential? And then I wonder about the situation with lower occupancy rates in Swedish Elderly Care and if that makes you consider delaying maybe some of the openings planned for next year. That's all for me.

[Rasmus Nerman, CEO & President]

Thank you, Kristofer. Let's start with Elderly Care. I mean, we, as all other providers, do see a lower demand, a lower utilization within elderly care across the Nordics, not only in Sweden. And we do not see a huge difference now compared to October 1, for instance, when the ban was lifted. And we think that, obviously, there is unfortunately now a second wave, which probably impacts this as well. We have a slight increase in utilization, but it's not huge compared to where we were a month ago. So to your question, no, we do not foresee any changes in the schedule in which we open our own-managed units next year. I mean we feel fairly confident about these openings. In one of the units, we have utilization guarantee. In another one, the municipality is closing down a few of their old premises. And the other ones are located in areas where you have big demand and also big municipalities nearby. So we will open according to plan and we feel fairly confident about it. We will, however, of course, monitor the situation. As you do know, of course, a ramp-up of an elderly care unit is a year-long process where you open floor by floor and you take on more and more staff as you open the floors. We will, of course, monitor the development, the utilization and then we can decide the pace in which we open. The tender in Norway, your second question, yes, it is a fantastic win. It's the largest tender in Norway. Is it -- how big is it? It's hard for us to say. Looking at the total size of the tender, substantial is roughly NOK 350 million per year, a 6-year-long tender, which equals more than NOK 2 billion in total contract value. We are already strong in the 16 municipalities. And to say what the impact will be, it's still a customer-choice market. They can choose us or any of the other 3 providers. And we will, of course, know better in the weeks to come. It does depend a little bit on how these municipalities now structure the tender as it goes out. But it is a positive win -- sorry, it is a positive thing and we do expect it to give some tailwind to our BPA in Norway, which is already performing fairly strong. To the third question -- or the first actually, which was within Personal Assistance. It is a strong quarter in Personal Assistance, and we acknowledge that. We do typically see most of the salary effects coming in, in the fourth quarter, though, Kristofer, so that you will see in the next quarter. But it is a strong quarter. Very strong operational efficiency, also slightly lower costs. The third quarter is typically a quarter where we have huge customer events that, for good reasons, obviously, we're not able to have now. So that drove the efficiency slightly. But all in all, a very good quarter.

[Kristofer Liljeberg-Svensson]

Could I ask, those customer events, roughly, how much are you talking about in less-than-normal cost for that?

[Rasmus Nerman, CEO & President]

I would reckon, in total, maybe SEK 1 million to SEK 2 million compared to a year where we typically have it.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Victor Forssell from ABG.

[Victor Forssell, Analyst]

I have one in regards of Finland. It's positive to see and hear from you that you're making good progress in the acquired Coronaria Hoiva, as I read it, at least. Just touching upon that and comparing Coronaria today versus 1 year ago where you are in terms of margins as well as the underlying Arjessa margins as well, just to give a sense of the dynamics between those 2 units today perhaps compared to 1 year ago where you also had some pressure, I guess, added due to high number of new units that you started. So any flavor here and any comments would be much appreciated.

[Rasmus Nerman, CEO & President]

Victor, the -- we managed to uphold the margins within the old Arjessa business fairly well. I mean, as you do remember correctly, we had a large number of start-ups roughly one year ago. But there were also some legislative and regulatory changes in Finland. I do think we spoke about, for instance, that there was a small limit on the number of clients that you can have in units. So the old Arjessa part of the business is doing fairly well. I wouldn't say that we've expanded margins. So the performance improvement that we do see now sequentially over a number of quarters is 100% driven by the operations pertaining from the acquisition of Coronaria Hoiva. We are, of course, not yet where we would like Coronaria Hoiva to be as a total. And of course, there are 2 main things that we need to work on besides the internal efficiency: one, of course, is COVID-19, which is impacting Elderly Care in Finland, in many ways similar to which it is in Sweden; the other one, of course, is the change in regulation with regards to staffing and the prices were paid by municipalities. So we need to negotiate prices. Those discussions have been delayed, obviously. Also because of COVID-19, it is more difficult to visit municipalities and sit down with them and discuss future pricing. So -- but we are making progress. We're making good progress. But we're not yet where we want to be.

[Victor Forssell, Analyst]

Okay. And just a follow-up before I head back to the queue, if I have my numbers correct, I think that Arjessa has been seeing some double-digit margins, at least historically. Is that the case for the upcoming year or 2? Or how should we, I mean, look at it underlying it?

[Rasmus Nerman, CEO & President]

We do not foresee any major changes in the margins for the I&F segment, Victor. No. But they're stable.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Karl-Johan Bonnevier from DNB Markets.

[Karl-Johan Bonnevier]

Congratulations to a very stable and good performance. Looking at the challenge you must have in Elderly Care looking at this huge ramp-up that is now coming within the next 6 months, do you feel that you have the staffing and everything that you can have under control yourselves in place at this stage?

[Rasmus Nerman, CEO & President]

I mean it's obviously a huge undertaking. We are, of course, very familiar with opening new units. We do it on a weekly basis. But yes, of course, opening 5 new managed units within a quarter basically is a big undertaking. Where we stand today, we have been very successful in recruiting fantastic unit managers as well as staff for the units. We also have units already located quite close to the units where we open. And so we obviously use experienced staff and experienced unit managers to help out in these openings. We have also destocked up a little bit centrally in our Elderly Care segment with strong resources focusing entirely on these openings because they're obviously very important to us. So I mean with a lot of respect of the quarter next year when we open them, we feel that we are in good shape, yes.

[Karl-Johan Bonnevier]

Excellent. Sounds promising. Looking at your financial targets, I guess with the boost you're now getting from -- on patient fees in the Personal Assistance area and how you highlight Norway and then, obviously, there's Elderly Care. I guess at least the organic growth rate should be well taken care of if I look at those financial targets for next year. But it would be good to hear your comments on how you see that if the volumes are there for you already now to be confident on organic growth. And then maybe also, elaborate a little on what is needed for you to get up to your financial targets, also on margins.

[Rasmus Nerman, CEO & President]

Okay. It's a fairly big question. I mean the reimbursement from Personal Assistance, yes, that obviously helps, right? It does help. But on the other hand, we do see a kind of a slower demand, right, not only in Elderly Care, but also in Individual & Family Care. So that must be offset should the pandemic's impact continue in last year. But we've set 5% organic growth obviously because we do feel that, that's where we should and need to be in the medium term. Now we're, year-to-date, at 4% and we haven't ever really been in modern time at 5%. But obviously, Personal Assistance helps, but the major part in achieving the organic growth is, of course, the growth in Elderly Care. In terms of margins, I think we are taking, obviously, a step in the right direction this quarter but more importantly, year-to-date. What needs to happen in us to really achieve the margin target is, of course, successfully ramping up our Elderly Care segment. It's obviously not something we will do next quarter. We will need some time to do that. And it's also to drive continuous improvements in Finland, maintain stability in Norway and in I&F actually compared to where we stand today. So there is a lot to do, but it's certainly within our grasp and that's why we stand behind the financial targets still.

[Operator]

Thank you. We have no more questions from the line. I will hand it back to our speaker for closing comments.

[Rasmus Nerman, CEO & President]

Well, no more comments from us. Thank you all for participating. Thank you all for good and valid questions. And have a fantastic day, and stay safe. Bye.