North Media A/S

F:3S8

Good afternoon. Thank you for tuning in, and welcome to the presentation of the North Media financial results for Q1 2024. My name is Kare Wigh. I'm the Group CFO, and I will be your host today.

As usual, we will begin with a few highlights from our businesses. In the first quarter of the year, we have focused on welcoming our new Swedish colleagues in SDR and on starting the integration of business into the North Media Group. The integration is progressing as planned, and one of the main decisions we have taken is to use the FK production systems in both distribution and SDR. This means that current and planned SDR IT systems will cease. I will provide more details on that later.

I'm also pleased that already before the summer holidays, we will be able to run the first tests of automated packing for the Swedish market. This speed is due to use of in-house expertise and a unique effort from our colleagues in FK Distribution.

The second business highlight is the contract that BoligPortal signed with Nykredit/Totalkredit in March. BoligPortal is deemed to have the most comprehensive and precise rental housing data in Denmark and on one platform called Data Insights. Nykredit will use the data from BoligPortal in its assessment of property values and analysis of the Danish rental housing market. Let's now turn to our financial performance.

Overall, the Q1 financial development was as expected. For the first time, SDR is included in our reporting and therefore, comparison to Q1 2023 numbers is difficult. Revenue increased by 36%, positively impacted by SDR. And adjusted for their contribution, revenue came in 3% lower compared to last year.

EBITDA was DKK 31.2 million for a margin of 11.9%. The decrease was expected and mainly driven by FK Distribution and to a smaller extent, Digital Services. Free cash flow decreased to minus DKK 8 million, as cash flow from operations was impacted by higher working capital, mainly due to payment of COVID-19 debts in SDR.

Lastly, we had a positive return on our securities of DKK 156 million with capital resources amounting to DKK 951 million. Now let's look at the development in each of the businesses.

In FK Distribution, the financial development was as expected. Revenue was down 3% compared to last year, mainly due to lower revenue from distribution of local newspaper. In early 2023, 2 supermarket chains were closed. And adjusted for this effect, the Q1 2024 leaflet volume was on par with the same period last year. In addition, this trend was supported by more customers increasing their volumes.

This quarter, we also integrated the technology acquired from Aviou, as well as more employees in the digital platform, minetilbud. Combined with lower revenue costs related to this Aviou acquisition impacted EBITDA negatively. Let's go to SDR.

As already mentioned, integration of SDR is progressing to plan and revenue came in at DKK 94 million. Overall, operations were as expected and to a smaller extent, impacted by integration costs. I have already covered that we have decided to use FK Distribution's production systems for the Swedish market and that we expect to run the first tests of automated packing in the end of Q2 2024. In the quarter, we booked a nonrecurring write-down of IT systems in SDR, as I mentioned in the beginning of the call.

Let's look at BoligPortal. And here, we saw a flat revenue development against a record high level in Q1 last year 2023. As expected, higher revenue from tenants balanced a lowering of income from advertising fees.

Bostadsportal.se reported a minor revenue decrease. A key highlight in the quarter was the contract with Nykredit/Totalkredit. Data Insight still comprises a smaller proportion of revenue on BoligPortal. But we entered a number of agreements with both larger and smaller customers, and we continue to see market interest with both light and larger modules of the solution.

As expected, EBITDA was slowly down from last year, impacted by costs relating to the ongoing transformation of the business towards creating an integrated universe of rental house services. Let's turn to Ofir.

In Ofir, performance was impacted by a slightly decreasing number of new job adds and an early Easter compared to last year. The trend from 2023 with the private sector buying smaller advertising packages continued. The development in EBITDA was mainly driven by the lower revenue. And I will end the business heights with taking a brief look at Bekey.

And Bekey revenue came in 3% lower compared to Q1 2023. Their Homecare Denmark remained the main contributor with continuously increasing revenue share from recurring license and service fees. It's also worth mentioning that the number of door entries increased. EBITDA decreased due to lower revenue and higher fixed costs related to the continued standardization and automization of internal processes.

With this, I conclude the business highlights. And before covering the full year guidance, I would like to provide a status of one of our ESG targets. One of our environmental targets is to run our offices and production facilities on 100% renewable energy by 2030. In 2023, we achieved 24% of the target.

The first part of achieving our target is the 2 solar systems we have installed in Taastrup and Tilst. While the system in Taastrup has been operational since 2022, the one in Tilst is now ready to be connected to the public grid as soon as we have the final permits.

Since the system in Taastrup came into operation, we have acquired larger batteries for storage. General updates of the system and setting up the batteries is progressing. Both -- once both solar systems are fully commissioned, we expect that they can generate approximately 40% of the power we need.

In addition, we are testing more electricity reduction initiatives on both sides, including turning off all production lines when not in use. And with this short ESG update, I will end this presentation with the full year outlook.

For the full year, we narrowed the ranges of our 2 primary KPIs, revenue and EBITDA. We now expect to realize revenue of DKK 1.310 billion to DKK 1.355 billion, and the narrowing is primarily due to further insight into the SDR business and its adjustment to using last-mile forecasting models, combined with slightly lower growth in BoligPortal.

With regards to EBITDA, we now expect to deliver between DKK 170 million and DKK 200 million due to the narrowed revenue range and higher costs related to the SDR integration. In addition, we lowered the EBIT range due to the DKK 13.7 million nonrecurring and noncash write-down of the IT systems in SDR.

Other assumption presented in the annual report 2023 are unchanged. Here on the slide, you can see the underlying changes mainly in last mile. In Digital Services, only the revenue range has been narrowed. And with this, I will hand over to the operator to take questions. Operator, please go ahead.

And I'm just reading a question. How is the Swedish market for BoligPortal? Yes, the Bostadsportal.se, we've been there for a number of years. And last year in 2023, we decided to put feet on the ground, so to speak, in order to speed up the process. The market share in Bostadsportal in Sweden is still on the low side. But we are, and that's also why costs are increasing in BoligPortal, we are aiming at increasing that further. And that's why we have, actually, as I said, put people in Sweden to be more present and to understand the market better. Any other questions written or on the phone?

With that, I will thank you for listening in today. I wish you a nice day. And as always, if you have any further questions, you are always welcome to reach out, write me an e-mail or call me, and we will be happy to answer any questions popping up. Thank you.