Norway and Denmark are steaming ahead...
...more than offsetting the weaker Sweden
Profitability coming down from a high base
Q3: 13% organic sales growth y-o-y, +6% vs. ABGSCe
Dedicare reported Q3 net sales of SEK 525m (+16.5%, of which 13% organic), which was 6% better than we expected driven by higher organic sales. In terms of geography, Norway and Denmark continued their excellent trend, whereas Sweden continued to struggle in Q3. Worth noting was that Sweden only accounted for 21% of group sales in Q3. The deviation from our forecast was driven by Norway, which saw accelerated growth q-o-q, whereas we thought that growth would normalise after a particularly strong period. EBIT of SEK 36.7m (41.1m) was down y-o-y as profitability is normalising from a high base. The transition is faster than we anticipated, and EBIT was 6% below ABGSCe. With the high sales growth y-o-y in Norway and Denmark, we think profitability between quarters can vary a lot depending on Dedicare's ability to optimise costs short term.