Strong growth for Falck's emergency travel assistance

Falck strengthened its revenue with the delivery of more healthcare services in Europe, the US and Latin America, and continued to invest intensively in digitalisation and the development of healthcare solutions. The healthcare group increased its investments in digitalisation by 60% compared to last year. In combination with lower revenue generated from the ambulance operation in Europe, this led to a moderate decline in operating profit for the quarter compared to last year.

The increasing tourism and business travel worldwide, which have rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, triggered significant demand for Falck's services within emergency travel assistance. Falck resolved close to 35,000 cases during Q2 2024 – an increase of 30% compared to the previous year. The cases cover the mobilisation of emergency medical assistance and repatriation of travellers abroad who, for example, are affected by an accident, injury or illness. The business area also attracted more corporate customers and realised organic revenue growth of 40%.

"We achieved organic growth in the majority of our global healthcare business, where we saw increased sales of healthcare solutions, increased emergency travel assistance and continued progress in the US ambulance business. However, the European ambulance business remains challenged, which underlines the importance of our strategic endeavours to establish another business line to closely support the ambulance business,"

says Jakob Riis, CEO of Falck.

The Falck Group achieved an organic growth rate of 1.6% for the quarter. In the European region, Falck achieved significant progress in Sweden by further capturing market shares within occupational healthcare services. On the home market, demand for private healthcare subscriptions surged and the subscription base reached 130,000.

Falck's US business continued to deliver stable operations and growth with many ambulance trips and several price adjustments. Falck is also in the process of building a new business line within healthcare at home and has enrolled the first patients to its solution in the US. In the Colombian business, the number of healthcare subscriptions delivered continued to increase.

Falck maintains its expectations for organic growth at a low, single-digit level and an EBITA margin of 4-5% for the financial year 2024.

Financial highlights

• Revenue amounted to DKK 3,016 million compared to DKK 2,926 million in the same period last year
• Operating profit before special items etc. (EBITA) was DKK 89 million compared to DKK 106 million last year due to significant investments in digitalisation
• EBITA margin declined to 3.0% from 3.6% in the same period last year
• Profit for the period was DKK 4 million compared to DKK 48 million last year
• Free cash flow after tax amounted to DKK 86 million compared to an outflow DKK 10 million last year

Falck's quarterly report can be found on www.falck.com.