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Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the presentation of results for Omda for the first quarter of 2024. The report and a copy of this presentation will be found on NewsWeb and on omda.com. This webcast will last approximately 30 minutes presentation, and it will be followed by a live Q&A session. You can type in your questions at any time, and we will attend to them immediately after the presentation. A recording of this webcast will be published on our website shortly after the presentation ends. And as soon as possible, also a transcript will be published. As always, I am here together with my longtime partner Sverre, the stage is yours.
Thank you very much, Einar, and welcome, everyone. Before we dive into the highlights of the quarters, the number, we will just talk a bit about the fundamentals of the company. And first of all, our vision and mission are important to understand the fundamentals. The reason behind our success is because we have focused on highly specialized software for specialized health care and emergency. And doing that, the smart way has been our recipe and has brought us to become the leading player here in the Nordics when it comes to highly specialized components. And also, with a nice growth outside Nordics as well. And I think when you read our numbers and follow us, it's important to understand how the business is created. And as you remember, some of you that have followed those for years, we decentralized in 2023. And now we have 6 business areas. And these business areas have an important role internally in the organization as a separate business entities, but to society and to users of software and also in the end to citizens, millions of citizens actually that are dependent on the quality of these systems. Without going into all of these business areas, I think the common thing which is important to understand when you look at our numbers, is how these businesses are operating. First of all, all of them have some kind of specialized set of components that are in use tied to specialized processes in hospitals or in emergency units. And that brings us to the business model and how that works. And if you look at our income side, which is primarily 3 areas that our core income, which is the recurring revenues, the license sales and other income. And to explain those, recurring revenue is the most important one that is sometimes over decades, repeated because these systems are there over time. And then you have license sales, which is more a onetime-sales, but still a software income. So the combination of those 2, 1 and 2 is the software income, which is comprises 83% of our sales in the first quarter 2024. And the third one is professional services, which is also not a generic consulting service but it is related to our own software. That means this is also partly a recurring revenue because we have many customers in many countries, and there's always something, some need for new integrations for training, et cetera. So that means 1, 2 and 3 here is-- gives us the possibility to look at our future with extremely high predictability. Actually, around 90% of our business will repeat, which gives us the flexibility and predictability looking at further growth also on the inorganic side. So this is important when you read our numbers to understand this composition. We have a fourth here other income, which is not most relevant. It might be hardware and some other things, but we are measuring 1, 2 and 3 here. So why are these recurring revenue streams there for decades. The fact is that our customer types, these highly renowned structures in Europe. They have important roles in their societies and these solid counterparties are really the fundamental thing with our recurring revenue. And then again, the number of those to the upper right here, more than 600 contracts, meaning the diversification is extremely high. So that combo has given us the next thing, the high stickiness and the low churn in the bottom part of the slide. And why is that? Well, stickiness might sound a negative word, but it's more or less the fact that these complex processes need that type of complex software and the combo of those is what makes it viable over time. And it's valuable for the customer to keep the software over time and for us to add new quality components on top and that collaboration between our customers and Omda is highly valuable. And that creates the box number 4 down to the right. The fact that the churn is very low, like the last 5 to 10 years, below 2%, and we expect it's going to be the same the next decade as well. That is important when you read our numbers. So let's go into the highlights this quarter. First of all, we had NOK 106 million in sales in the first quarter versus NOK 102 million in the same quarter in '23. And then organic growth, 5% organic growth measured in local currency compared to the first quarter last year. As I mentioned, 83% is the quality of income or the software part of the income. 5%, we have always said guided on 5% to 10%. It's in the lower end. Is that a problem? Well, it fluctuates always and has done so for 10 years, and it's going to do so in the next 10 years. And if you see in our report published today, you will see on the table there that these business areas have completely different numbers each quarter. for instance, on even over 80% organic growth while others even have negative growth. So the average is between 5% and 10% and at this point in time in the first quarter, it's 5%. And that's how it is. And then the EBITDA margin, 14%, meaning 9 percentage points better than the first quarter in '23, still below our target margin, but that is activities going on in the business areas to focus on margin expansion. And then the COGS, which is going down, has come down all the quarters before and also going to go down further. So this is according to plan. A reduction of COGS in our business is related to-- partly to hardware, but also partly third-party software, which we will replace with our own software to increase the margin as well. So that is planned and good development. The salary cost is also much better compared to the first quarter in '23. However, slightly high compared to the sales in the isolated in the first quarter '24. And then other costs develops as planned is 14.8%. We have expected around 15%. So all in all, that is how we expected it to be. So before I'm not going go into the more detailed part of the financials, I would like to reflect on the report, the P&L, and this is just a cut and paste from the report published today and to focus on the simple things that is good and bad, to put it that way, in this quarter. On the income side, the 3 major income items I mentioned. We would say license sales and recurring software revenue, which are the critical ones are okay. And professional services, however, is weaker than expected. And if you look at the 3 primary cost items, the cost of goods sold, COGS are developing the right way are okay, and also other costs. But then again, the salary costs compared to the sales and the combo of these 2 things is actually the major thing that drags the EBITDA margin for this isolated the first quarter down. And there are many ways to look at that. Of course, we would hope to have a higher professional service income, but that also fluctuates with the different projects in different business areas. And on the resource side, these are experts and people that has a high-income potential. So it was not going to be a good idea to reduce a number of heads in the company, but rather focus on the income side. So the primary approach to the margin expansion activities will be to focus on the income side on professional services, but also deliveries on other items to increase license sales and recurring revenue at the same time. So all in all, this is our overall-- when we look at the performance, the EBITDA that these 2 areas, the professional services on the income side and the salary and personnel on the cost side is the major elements. That means the business in the first quarter is running well and have activities planned to continue the margin expansion. And then we will focus here on our business model and our value creation. And as I mentioned before, the 1, 2 and 3 at the bottom here is derived of our strategy, focusing only on health care and emergency. These highly specialized solutions stay in the next decades with a recurring revenue and a growth of 5% to 10% going forward as well. These profitable organic growth is the fundamental part of the business. And the first quarter shows that the recurring revenue is growing, and we are profitable. So that leaves us with how can we accelerate on the M&A side. And we are a serial acquirer, but we don't want to acquire just to acquire and just to grow. It is important for us to acquire companies that actually have the same characteristics as 1, 2 and 3 in the bottom here and that we also acquire those companies to the right price at the right time. So we are working hard with M&A, and we have a lot of interesting activities, but we will take action when it's relevant and where we see the right return on investments. And also, just to reflect on for those who think that we have been drawing out to put it that way for a couple of years. We have a history of merger and acquisitions, and we know how to do it, and we have a database with a lot of interesting companies all over the world, and we have several dialogues going on, and we will continue to do that. So in our history here from-- we were a startup, started exporting and then became the #1 here in the Nordics. We had this period, as you remember, '22-'23, designing a decentralized organization. And now it's performing as expected, slightly low professional services this quarter. But anyhow, we will continue now to focus on the organic growth, the profitability, the cash discipline and the acquisitions. And those 4 down to the right here is the management priorities and is now, I think, based on the first quarter and the performance there is what we're going to do going forward. And we see a very nice future with growth and profitability. And now since we've gone through the highlights, my colleague, Einar, you will go through more details in the financials.
I will indeed. All right. Let's have a look at the financials and take a deep dive. And the first one, the recurring revenues that is really our main focus, and they are growing and continue to grow steadily. 11% increase year-over-year, quite nice, an annual run rate of more than NOK 330 million. So this is really one of the big, big pleasure and the good news in this report. All right. Also, the diversified business, we are still a very diversified business. So still emergency being the #1 and comprising almost half of the sales, then the Connected Imaging, which is the combined businesses of Connected health care and medical imaging, this is second largest business area. And then LIMS, you see also women and child and also Medication Management increasing its presence a little from the last time. On the right, you see the geographical distribution we are still very much a Swedish company, almost half of the sales in Sweden, then Norway and then the rest of the world. The rest of the world, slightly down in percentage-wise from the Q4 report, but that is because the other areas have grown more than the rest of the world. We are present in 27 countries around the world, so Nordic is champion but increasingly also present in the rest of the world. The revenue mix, although the top line could have been higher, the income composition is good, and we have almost 80% of the revenue is recurring and 83% represented by license sales and recurring revenue. And that is good. The professional services is definitely lower than expected. And as Sverre mentioned, and that will be a focus area going forward also. Some of it is due to really natural variations, some projects ending and not starting up and some is mainly on focus on how to use to spend time. So that is an area where we can and will improve in the quarters to come. Significant cost improvement from Q1 last year. You see down from the total of NOK 97 million in Q1, '23 down to NOK 91 million in Q1 this year. COGS almost where we wanted to be and also other costs where we want it to be. We see that the salary and personnel is still too high. But keep in mind also that we live in a high inflationary environment, just adding, say, 4% to the numbers last year, we take it from NOK 97 million to NOK 101 million. So the cost improvement is actually underlying a little better than it appears at first glance. The salary and personnel, I also like to highlight, it seems like we have increased the number of employees, we haven't. Although it says NOK 283 million compared to in the last quarter last year and NOK 291 million now is merely a definition of employment and FTEs part-time consultants that are-- have a loser connection to us. They are now counted as FTEs, but they've been there all the time. There is absolutely no significant-- no cost increase at all related to this. It's just merely how your definition on FTE. So rest easy. We haven't been crazy. We haven't been shopping around. The EBITDA development is a good development from 5% to almost 15% stark and good development. But that said, we had higher ambitions for this quarter, and it's very much down to the missing sales on professional services. But thank God it's not on license sales and not on recurring revenue. But also keep in mind, if you look at the CapEx in the first quarter compared to the fourth quarter last year, fourth quarter last year, we had CapEx of 12% and the first quarter this year is 8%. So that's a 4% difference. So if you look at the EBITDA or cash EBITDA if alike, you see that they are on par. So this is a quarter very much in line with fourth quarter last year. Lackluster, I agree, but that's what Cormac Mc Carthy described as bleak beyond bleak. All right. Speaking of CapEx, you see that it's really coming down. And the total CapEx, most of it for all practical purposes is investment in R&D, capitalized R&D and then a very small part of PP&E, but that's very, very minor. And you see it's actually a little lower this year in Krona compared to last year. So no surprises here. And we maintain the rule of the assume around 10% per annum, but there will be variations from quarter-to-quarter. Speaking of variations. This is the development in net working capital. The good news, it's going and moving in the right direction. Our target is that it should be minus 10% or better. It's minus 14% this quarter. So with those glasses on your on your head, it is okay. But compared to first quarter this year to first quarter say, last year or the year before, we are not satisfied completely with the development. I think that's safe to say. The main reason is that some of the accounts receivable that should have been-- they were due in the first quarter. They weren't paid in the first quarter. They were paid a few days into April, not the end of the world as we know it, but still, it disturbs this net working capital picture a little. But most of it is explained by payments a few days later. So no catastrophe, but a little irritating, I must admit. So that said, cash is a priority, cash flow, cash earnings, cash conversion, net working capital, everything that has to do with cash is a priority and a high focus area for us. All right. Going back to this one, we are still very, very much focused on this model. We will continue to be in the market of e-Health and Emergency. We specialized software for health care. We will try to grow as fast as we can organically this quarter, 5%. But again, don't look too much on the scoreboard, Keep your eyes on the playing field. We maintain our target 5% to 10% in the long run. And then we have always said that acquisitions is a part of our business model and our strategy. And we will definitely step up the game and focus even more on that going forward. All right. So our priorities for the next quarter and this year, yes, we will maintain focus on organic growth, 5% to 10%, as I just said. That is a target, and we will definitely search and find every possible way to increase the organic growth. We will continue to improve margin and look for ways to do that. I mean, we have increased now to 15%-20% depending on the CapEx normalized more or less. But we're still not there where we want to be. And so, we will, but from here on, continuous improvement, Kaizen, if you like, that will be a key word. And as I said, cash discipline, everything to do with cash. Net working capital, cash conversion, we will definitely focus on the cash side of the business. We'll be playing from cash in the background until we're there. And yes, M&A merchants and acquisitions, we have increased activity, and we'll continue to focus on M&A to see where we can find good opportunities. But again, it's until we do, we will remain disciplined, but when we have an opportunity to strike, we will. All right. Before we dive into the Q&A, remember, if you don't already subscribe to our newsletter and you will be the first to get all the juicy news directly into your mailbox.
And now it's time for Q&A. Let me see where we are. We have a few questions here. And the first one is from Henrik. And I think this could go to you Sverre. It's related to professional services. And the question is how much higher would you have wanted Professional Services to be?
Well, I would say many millions more would be a natural average. But then again, you never control professional services, the booking of that income. Because as Einar mentioned, for instance, with cash, that something happens in April instead of March. The same thing happens with booked income. Because if you haven't reached a milestone having a lot of activities going on in different business areas, then it will be not booked in that quarter. But we had expected that some of the projects would give us at least many millions more than what is shown in this quarter.
Okay. And then a question, which I think is for me from Oliver. And the question is, do you think there is any element of negative Easter effect in the Q1 growth or in the cash flow numbers?And I can answer the last part of your question, Oliver. And the cash flow, I think, as I said, some yes, absolutely in the cash flow numbers. If it's the Easter effect or if it's something else. But it is a matter of fact that, as I said, a couple of invoices, large invoices that were sent out, they were due late March, and they weren't paid in March. And that was because it was the-- yes, partly we're heading into Easter and they were paid 3rd or 4th of April. Had we had a cut off, say, 15th of April, the net working capital would have been significantly higher. So yes, there is Easter effect there. And when it comes to MDR, the cost relating to MDR is also a question from Emily here that pertains to the same thing. We haven't disclosed the cost related to MDR. But Sverre maybe you can spend 2 minutes just to describe what is MDR? Why have you done it? How long has-- for how long has it been going on? And are we speaking of thousands or millions?
Yes. So I think what is important here is that the whole business, especially here in Europe, has changed over the last years. And we have used more than 2 years to prepare some of our products already have the CE marking from earlier on. And earlier on, we had the Medical Device Directive, which was a directive, which was quite loose. But for the last 2 years, we have the Medical Device Regulation coming up, which is completely different. It gives you much more disciplined. It has to be completing all over the company, all processes, all documentation and everything needs to be different. That means it has been a huge turnaround for the company for the last 2 years and including also the fourth quarter and the first quarter this year. But now we are closing into a point where we will get the certificate soon. And I think it's impossible, as Einar mentioned, to find a specific number. But it's definitely many millions because the fact, one thing is auditors and all the consulting needed internally to make sure we have the competence to do it. That's one thing over these 2 years, but also the fact that our internal people had to train and had to document all these procedures and also take part of the auditing procedures. And some of those auditing activities comes as a surprise because it's not up to us. It's the notified body coming from the outside and directly into us, and we had to disrupt current work and to make sure to participate in investigations, which they have to have to make sure that we can have the certificate. So when we get this certificate, it's also-- one thing is the investment and cost back in time in the last 2 years. But then again, it gives us a very strong position with current customers that wants to stick to important vendors that are MDR certified. But also, as I have mentioned in the report that we see from the dialogue with the new acquisition targets that they struggle, obviously, with such a high cost to handle and become MDR certified. So that also gives us a bit more power in the dialogue with the merchant acquisition of MDR as well. So in summary, it has been a huge investment in many ways, but also many of our operational costs related to this and also partly why the external or the consulting service, the professional services is lower. So I think the potential is high when it comes to increased professional services and also the potential is high to increase the business with current customers with the certificates that we will receive in the first half year of this year.
Okay. And a follow-up, Sverre, on the MDR from Oliver is okay, what can we expect in Q2 and maybe beyond Q2 going forward?
Well, I think what we can expect that to be MDR certified will not be as much work as it has been to develop the processes. So now when the processes are running, they are standardized. So we see the potential here to be much more efficient when it comes to our development and delivery processes because there's one negative side of having all these structures that might seem like bureaucracy. On the good side, it will also make us more efficient and standardized but also give the software and the deliveries higher quality, which is a good thing for both the company and the customers. So in many ways, to me, it is a highly welcome milestone this half year and will be easier for us, I think, to focus more on the income side rather than on the inside of the company.
Okay. Thank you. And then a question from Emilie and that is on the organic growth in the first quarter. The question is how much is related to consumer price indices or other price escalators? And how much is new contracts or real growth? We haven't done an exact calculation, but maybe roughly half of it, you see, for instance, the new licenses that is sold a very high-- sales of new licenses in this first quarter. It's higher than it's been for many quarters, as a matter of fact. That is typically everything related to that is real growth, if you like. And but again, we have price escalators, but it's also safe to say that not all the potential there has been taken out, but it will during the second and the coming quarters. So rest you'll see, Emilie, there's more to come, and we will maintain our growth ambitions of 5% to 10%. All right. And we have currently 2 questions pending. If you have any more questions, just type them in, and we have time to address them. So just type them in as we addressed the previous ones. Next question is to you Sverre is from [ Math ] and it pertains to M&A and the multiples, you can say something and I can say something. But the question is M&A activity and multiples seem quite high in your sector. Can you comment on the market dynamics and provide some insights and how can Omda benefit from it? And part of the reason why I'm asking you to kick off of this one Sverre because you are now engaging more and more in M&A yourself. So what are your views?
Well, I think the good thing is that the activity is higher. And as mentioned, one trigger would be the MDR for those type of companies that we are looking for. Because one thing is the statistics you see in the market, which are normally slightly bigger targets than we look for, although we have both big and small in our discussions now. So in my head, the development has been-- it was difficult a year ago and with higher expectations on the multiple side. But as I see it, we have more a growing number of dialogues coming up. And I see for those we discussed with are more in a rational area of what would be a good investment case for us. So I think the trend in my head with the dialogues going on is very positive. And we will take action as soon as a good one appears with the right business case. So I think the acquired growth we see, we will continue to get back to where we were a couple of years ago and focus on doing that based on the fact that the new targets we have dialogue with now is more in our area of ability to acquire with multiples. And I guess you also agree, Einar, with the trend that it has been-- the expectations has slightly come down.
Expectations have been coming down, and I mean, we see that ourselves in dialogue with potential candidates. And we also see it from the statistics published by PitchBook and whoever that the multiples are becoming more attractive. With that said, the multiples is one thing. I mean EV sales, EBITDA, but there's still just a proxy for the NPV calculation. It has to make sense. I mean speaking of cash and cash discipline, it all comes down to try to understand and analyze the cash flows from the business you are buying. What is the cash flow on the current business? How can we improve it on the cost side or on the income side or both? And what is the new cash flow that we can look at and discounted with our weighted average cost of capital is really as simple as that and then, of course, add some terminal value. But again, financial calculations aren't that difficult they're quite easy. What is difficult is to remain disciplined, and that is what we try to do. And a lot of times, we see things that aren't-- maybe they're not as a good strategic fit, maybe it's not a good financial fit, maybe the quality of earnings isn't good enough. So we say the thing is when we haven't announced anything. What we don't publish is all the times that we have said, no, no thanks, no way. So that is-- so no news on the acquisition side, doesn't mean no activity. Maybe refrain from doing something wrong is better than is also an activity. But I think we can benefit from it to be direct [ Math ]. I think we can benefit from this by increasing our focus, increasing and building a large number of list of candidates and contacting more and having more dialogues and then just be active. Okay. That was that. And then it's from Karl [indiscernible], and that is, to me, I think it relates to interest cost and intangibles. And the question is, how do you think about interest costs and intangibles amortization? Do you aim for net profitability at some point? Yes, I guess we do. But the net interest, currently, we have, as you know, a bond loan of NOK 500 million outstanding. It runs at 3-month [indiscernible] plus 600 bps. So currently, that is around 10%, a good 10%. And so that is NOK 12 million per quarter or something like that. And so that is what it is. When it comes to amortization, we tend to focus more on the net profit, yes. But again, we have more cash focused than accounting focused on that part. So cash EBITDA minus interest costs or net financials is really more of a focus than net profitability. The other side of that is that you see we have a limited tax exposure in number, and we think that will continue for a good while. We've changed the amortization schedule last year after a thorough research and a report from made by BDO. And we increased the amortization schedule and linked to mortality to the real-life span of the assets. We have no plans now to change or modify that. We think that will serve us well. So that will remain. Okay. There's one last question from Emilie. And while we attended that one, you can type in more questions if you have them. And the last question from you is, you mentioned in report that the EBITDA margin is impacted by part-time consultants. And are they related to LIMS? So that was the first part of the question. And no, they are not primarily related to LIMS, Emilie. They are related to emergency.
Emergency, yes. We mentioned the AI project last quarter, which is a very important strategic action to deliver software that actually helps operators do their work quicker, which is there might be a difference between life and death for a patient. So that is still going on, and that's partly with external people from the University of Barcelona. So that is partly the increased personnel that we have hired and after this first half year, will not be there anymore. So it's not LIMS anymore. And as you see, LIMS, since you mentioned LIMS, you will see that you will partly see from the organic growth there that LIMS are gradually getting paid for all their efforts over the last couple of years. So the trend there is good as well.
The trend on LIMS is good. You see that on Page 15 in the report that is published, you will see the breakdown on the business areas. And you will see that LIMS is actually enjoying quite a high growth this quarter. But we also added a new column, as you may have noticed, the last 4 quarters to even out the quarterly variations. The next part of your question, Emilie, was the certification project, I think we addressed that one. But maybe we're coming to an end of that project aren't we, Sverre?
Yes. We are coming to an end. And also, I think it's more of a competitive situation, a good milestone past than a problem going forward. But it has been complicated. As you would know, all of our business areas, they have a lot of type of products and all the processes around these products has been affected by this, meaning that a lot of our internal processes has been focused internally that we now can start focusing more on the customer side and be more customer-centric focused and also deliver products that actually are MDR certified, which also, if you think about it, might have a better price, which is also accepted by many of our customers. That's the real fact the historic cost we have had and the quality of the products is meaning the value is higher for the customer. And the discussion with price is also easier than we actually have the certificate at hand.
The last part of your question, Emilie, was related to the OpEx level. Can you please share some details around the elevated OpEx level and expectations for the 2024 margins?First, the OpEx level isn't elevated. If you look at the other costs, you see that it's actually down from both the first quarter last year and from the fourth quarter. So it's actually not elevated. On the contrary, and also if you take inflation into your equation is actually more reduced than it seems. So it isn't elevated. And on the salary and personnel that isn't elevated either. It's actually on the same level as it was in Q4 if you adjust for OpEx and as I said, related to Q1 last year and also add the inflation or salary adjustments on average, 4%. You see that it's actually not elevated either. It's actually decreased. And total cost is decreased by in current constant NOK or dollars actually down NOK 10 million. So it isn't elevated, but we still think there are things we've done. On the '24 margins, we haven't made any, and we will not make any more specific guidance than we have. We have our target of 30%. That target remains. All right. It's from Jonas, a similar question. So what are your expectations for 2024 since you were confident to reach 30% EBITDA margin on the Q4 call?Thanks to Jonas, same thing there. Our target remains, but we think that the cost structure is more or less there's other things to do there is, first and foremost, related to the income side. I think we will see more increase in recurring revenue and new contracts kicking in, new streams will come. And also, as Sverre mentioned, we have higher ambitions for professional services. That is where the big disappointment was this quarter was the professional services. We have higher ambitions. I'll be fair with you. We have higher ambitions on that. That said, maybe we have guided on a proxy on COGS, salary and personnel and other costs, NOK 550 million, NOK 15 million. Maybe there will be some changes between these groups. So maybe COGS and other costs will be 2%-3% less and maybe salary and personnel a little more. So maybe there will be some internal distribution there. But the 30% target margin absolutely remains. Okay. And there's one more question from Karl and [indiscernible]. Again, if you have any more questions, type them in, we'll attend to them. This question from Karl and [indiscernible] is really one easy one. Are the buyback plans still in place?And yes, they are. We had a general meeting a couple of weeks ago, and it was decided by the general meeting to buyback more shares. And what we can do also related to the bond we had the bondholder agreement, we can have a total of NOK 50 million of our own shares at any one point in time is a revolving facility. And so, if we spend some of it on acquisitions, most partly settlement for an acquisition, we can do a refill. We currently have NOK 20 million of our own shares bought back, which means that we can buy up to NOK 30 million in worth of shares. And so yes, the plans are still there, so we can execute on that. All right. That was the last question. Let me just give it 10 seconds to see if anything more pops up. But again, while we wait, just remind us all that there will always, in a business like there's be some quarterly variations, but the good things like license sales and not to forget the recurring revenue and the annual run rate. We like to focus more on the run rate than the actual number for 1 quarter. More than NOK 300 million in the annual run rate is very good. But again, there will be some quarterly variations don't lose too much sleep about it. Okay. There seems to be no more questions. We hope you have enjoyed this presentation, tune in again on August 23 when we will present the results for the second quarter of this year. And until we meet again, take care, enjoy summer days are getting longer. And as always, stay safe.