Nobina Year-End Report 1 December 2021-28 February 2022

Fourth quarter

• Net sales amounted to SEK 3,384 million (2,860), an increase of 18.3 percent compared with the prior-year quarter, of which +12.5 percent was organic growth, +1.0 percent currency ef-fects and +4.8 percent acquisitions.
• EBITA amounted to SEK 249 million (171).
• EBIT amounted to SEK 118 million (156).
• Profit before tax amounted to SEK 73 million (114).
• Profit after tax amounted to SEK 56 million (111).
• Cash flow from operations was SEK 537 million (611).

Full year

• Net sales amounted to SEK 13,125 million (10,787), an increase of 21.7 percent, of which +17.2 percent was organic growth, +0.1 percent currency effects and +4.4 percent acquisi-tions.
• EBITA amounted to SEK 1,247 million (757).
• EBIT amounted to SEK 1,048 million (689).
• Profit before tax amounted to SEK 876 million (534).
• Profit after tax amounted to SEK 693 million (445).
• Cash flow from operations was SEK 2,505 million (2,147).

Significant events

During the quarter

• On 24 January 2022, Basalt declared its public offer unconditional, which meant the acquisi-tion could be completed. On 16 February, the Nobina share was delisted from Nasdaq Stock-holm and an extraordinary general meeting on 22 February elected a new Board of Directors.

After the quarter

• As a result of a change of control and delisting, Nobina will repurchase bonds for a total nominal amount of SEK 660 million during the first quarter.
• The Board of Directors proposes that no dividend be paid for the 2021/22 fiscal year.

Statement from the CEO

During 2021/22, Nobina grew and achieved its highest ever earnings. Sales for the fiscal year, adjusted for cur-rency effects, rose 21.6 percent to SEK 13.1 billion. EBITA amounted to SEK 1,247 million (757). A continued strong trend was reported in the fourth quarter of the year. Sales, adjusted for currency, rose 17.3 percent and EBITA rose to SEK 249 million (171).

The sustained strong performance in the fourth quarter is linked to rising traveller volumes in our core business of public bus transport services. The largest contribution to the increase came from Nobina’s Swedish operations. The removal of restrictions has meant passengers are again, to a growing extent, choosing to travel by public transport. The sharp rise in fuel prices at the end of the quarter also supported the volume increase, convincing more people to leave their car at home and travel by bus instead.

The high fuel prices are due to the dramatic deterioration in the global situation and the major, both economic and human repercussions of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We feel that Nobina remains stable in this crisis. We are financially strong and have a business model that makes us resilient, but we see a negative effect on our CO2-target for example due to some PTA’s whom for cost reasons decided that certain contracts should be run on diesel instead of HVO.

Growth in extra traffic and service traffic

At the beginning of the fiscal year, the pandemic had reduced travel on our buses to half of the volume we are used to. Since then, the trend has reversed and travel is again rising, even during the fourth quarter. This means that volumes have returned to more normal levels in several traffic areas. We are also still benefiting from the growth in extra traffic – mainly in replacement traffic in bus-for-rail services – where we have secured several new contracts in Sweden and Norway.

During the fourth quarter, we also renewed and expanded contracts to operate service traffic in Stockholm. The agreement encompasses about 500 vehicles and represents an increase in the current assignment of approximately 50 vehicles. We are also expanding in service traffic in Gothenburg as well as in Skåne and Gotland, where Nobina strengthened its positions through the acquisition of Telepass in July 2021.

Service traffic has generally had a major, positive impact and contributed to the strong earnings, again in the fourth quarter. During the year, we conducted extensive Covid-19 testing activities in Sweden and been responsi-ble for vaccination logistics in several regions. These activities are being discontinued as the need is now declining. I am proud that these many new social care services have paved the way for greater entrepreneurship at Nobina. We have developed new ways of working and as a result have identified several attractive business opportunities, where we can benefit from our expertise in everything from social care to logistics.

New sustainability initiatives

Work has also been underway to develop sustainability initiatives and we have taken a more proactive approach to diversity and inclusion at Nobina. This is being carried out through an action programme that the “Mitt liv” organisation is behind and that we, together with eight other companies, have joined. As part of this programme, we will regularly measure diversity, broaden training initiatives, and increase the focus on diversity in recruitment activities.

In parallel, we are advancing our position in other areas in order to be more transparent in the work that we do. As of the first quarter of 2022/23, we will report every quarter on our position relative to our key sustainability targets, which cover such areas as traveller volumes, carbon dioxide emissions and the percentage of renewable fuel used by vehicles. We will also report the outcome of employee targets for equality and employee commitment.

I presented Nobina’s new business areas in the previous interim report. In addition to this, we are now also changing our segment reporting, which is based on five segments – Nobina Bus Sweden, Nobina Bus Norway, Nobina Bus Denmark, Nobina Bus Finland and Nobina Care.  The new division better reflects our operations, but also takes into consideration the strong development of Nobina Care and the fact that it has now grown into a larger care segment.

New owners – continued development

Major news at the end of year was naturally that Nobina has a new owner and was delisted from the stock exchange. Now that our stock exchange journey has ended, I am proud to see that Nobina has generated a total return of 355 percent, which compares with the Nordic Mid Cap Total Return Index of 220 percent during the same period.

Our new owner is Basalt (see definition on page 11). We look forward to working together with our new professional owner to further develop Nobina in all of the Nordic markets. As we now look back on an out-standing year in terms of earnings, I would like to thank our 13,000 employees for their tremendous contribu-tions. It makes us stronger at a time when public transport is again growing and more people choose to travel with Nobina.

Magnus Rosén,

President and CEO