Schibsted ASA

OSE:SCHA

Earnings Call Transcript

[Malin Langtvet]

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the presentation of Schibsted's Q2 results. My name is Malin, and I'm Investor Relations Officer at Schibsted and substituting for Jann-Boje when he's on paternity leave.Similar to last time, we will stream the presentation fully remotely from different locations. As usual, Kristin, our CEO, and Ragnar, our CFO, will present our results and progress for the second quarter. At the end of the presentation, we will open for a Q&A session. And here, we will also be joined by Christian, our Head of Nordic Marketplaces. [Operator Instructions] So with that, let me hand over to you, Kristin. Please go ahead.

[Kristin Skogen Lund, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you so much, Malin, and welcome, everyone. And after a very strong first quarter, we are happy to see an even stronger development through the second quarter, driven by a solid market recovery.The revenues did not just grow compared to last year, which was the quarter that was the most negatively affected by COVID, but we also saw a 9% underlying growth compared to pre-COVID levels in 2019. Driven by this accelerated revenue growth, we achieved a strong EBITDA of NOK 743 million, which in absolute amount is the strongest quarterly EBITDA seen in Schibsted ex Adevinta. And it is a 49% increase from the same period last year and 33% above pre-COVID numbers in 2019.On June 25, Adevinta finally completed the acquisition of eBay Classified Group, creating the world's largest online classifieds platform. And as a result of the transaction, Schibsted's ownership share has been reduced to 33% of Adevinta's total outstanding share capital. Since Schibsted no longer has a controlling ownership position in the company, the ownership interest at the time of the transaction is remeasured at fair value in our balance sheet, calculated based on Adevinta's share price at the date of closing. And this has led to a significant accounting gain amounting to NOK 60 billion. And I'm afraid I cannot promise to repeat such figures going forward, but I want to say that this is such a testament to the significant value creation to shareholders coming out of Schibsted's long-term strategic focus on shaping the global classifieds industry and especially considering that this figure only reflects around 60% of that value, given the sell-down and handout of 40% back in 2019.And then the closing of the eBay transaction also means that we can finally welcome our Danish colleagues to the Schibsted family. We've been looking forward to that since last summer. And together, we will be very well equipped to develop and grow the next generation of online classified businesses in the Nordic region.And then as you might have seen, we have implemented a new organizational model from July 1, which links marketplaces with distribution, sharpens focus on venture investments and financial services and paves the way for an even more ambitious company-wide growth agenda. This means that distribution and e-commerce are now reporting to EVP Nordic Marketplaces and that Christian has stepped down as CEO of Finn to fully commit to his expanded responsibility as EVP Nordic Marketplaces.We have also created a new business area, financial services and venture, headed up by EVP Dan Ouchterlony, who has now joined the group executive management team. And lastly, we have created a new focus area with a dedicated EVP in the executive management team to shape and execute a holistic investment strategy and to drive transformational growth. And we're very happy today to introduce this new addition to our team. In Q3, Andrew Kvålseth will join as our new Chief Investment Officer. And Andrew brings over 20 years of leadership experience across a range of investment, digital and commercial leadership roles. This includes extensive experience from leading VC investments, internal corporate ventures and corporate M&A teams. And he also brings significant commercial leadership experience from founding and growing an e-commerce company as CEO to leading an online payment company to his current role as Group Chief Commercial Officer in Ooredoo, the Qatar-based global telecom and media company. And Andrew also has a very broad international perspective, having lived and worked across the U.S., Europe, Middle East and Asia.So this new organizational model is all about matching businesses that can make each other better while at the same time giving all our businesses the focus and direction they need to grow. And in addition, the aim is to identify further opportunities for investments, potentially broadening Schibsted's portfolio.Now let's have a look at our ESG achievements in the second quarter. The finalizing of the acquisition of eBay's Danish marketplaces will contribute not only to increased financial values, but also to our positive impact on the environment. As the rest of our marketplaces, they facilitate circular consumption for the users, helping to save greenhouse gases and materials. Our Danish marketplaces will be part of our calculations of the secondhand effect for this year.And we have also signed up and committed ourselves to perform and publish a task force for climate-related financial disclosure analysis in 2021.On the social side, we are pleased to inform you that we have hired a head of diversity, inclusion and belonging. And we are really looking forward to announcing that after the summer. And this hiring process has actually been quite unique, ensuring that the person really got the diversity competence needed to make an impact on this agenda in Schibsted.And I continue to be impressed by how our employees have achieved great results in this period, still having to handle it all working from home. And it's great that we have a continued high employee satisfaction score above our target, meaning our employees are not only performing brilliantly, they're also good leaders and colleagues.And as I have mentioned before, we have a sustainable investment policy for our businesses previously known as Next. And the policy ensures that we put on our sustainability glasses when we are looking into new investments. And the recent investment in PodMe gave an opportunity to test this framework at the group level. And I'm confident that we have a good tool for sustainable investments now for the entire group.So I will move to the business areas, and I will start with Nordic Marketplaces. And here, I would like to highlight the recent listing development in the job vertical, which is the main driver for the accelerated revenue growth in Nordic Marketplaces in the second quarter. As you see from the graph on this slide, all countries showed a tremendous growth within jobs in Q2, and all countries are now back to or growing versus 2019 levels. Norway followed an all-time high in Q1 with yet another all-time high in Q2. And as you can see, there is a slight difference as to when the turning point for each country came, but we're pleased to see that the positive development since those turning points follow the same trend for all the countries. And I will not elaborate further now on the listing developments in our other main verticals, but they are to be found in the appendix.So if we then move to the next slide and we look at the financial results in Nordic Marketplaces. Q2 has been an exceptional quarter, both on the revenue and the EBITDA side. Underlying revenues grew 32% in the quarter, primarily driven by the improvement in the job vertical. In addition, all verticals, except for generalists, contribute positively to the development as well as advertising. And as you'll see in the graph to the left, we also see a strong underlying revenue growth compared to 2019, and this is the first time Nordic Marketplaces as a segment passes NOK 1 billion in revenue in 1 quarter. And the strong top line led to a 2 percentage point increase in margin, even though total costs are increasing somewhat as holdbacks in marketing and investments have been released.The acquisition of Oikotie is included in the 2021 numbers and is affecting the growth positively. However, the 32% revenue growth presented in the left graph, that's the underlying revenue development, including pro forma Oikotie revenues in Q2 '20 and excluding currency effects. And the acquisition of Denmark was closed on 25 June and will be included in our numbers with full effect from Q3.Looking at the graph to the right, you'll see that jobs and motor are equal in size in Q2. Finn is the biggest contributor within jobs as 22% of total revenues in Nordic Marketplaces are coming from jobs in Norway. Hence, the recovery in Norway has a significant impact on the overall top line development.If we then move to Marketplaces Norway. Revenue growth accelerated compared to last quarter, delivering 43% growth compared to Q2 last year. The growth is primarily driven by the previously mentioned improvement in the job vertical. Volume is the main driver, but growth is also supported by a strong and growing ARPA, driven by Finn's new self-serve portal in addition to a more data-driven sales department. And in numbers, the job vertical grew NOK 130 million year-on-year in Q2, and that equals 124% growth. And motor is also delivering a strong performance in Q2 with increasing volumes after a period of imbalance between supply and demand. And this is further supported by strong growth in Nettbil. But unfortunately, the Competition Tribunal's conclusion received end of May was negative, and we're currently considering how we want to proceed with this, including whether we want to try this case in the court.Real estate also sees a slight increase in listing volumes, but the level of republishments are still below last year due to continued high demand. And the travel vertical has finally started an upward trend in line with reduced travel restrictions in Norway, resulting in a year-on-year growth of NOK 5 million in the quarter. And advertising also adds to the positive side of the story this quarter, not only increasing from 2020, but also from pre-COVID numbers in '19, ending Q2 with a year-on-year growth of 30%. On the cost side, investments in the transactional journey is of high priority. However, a demanding job market for tech talents result in unfilled demand in the shorter term. And going forward, we have a clear ambition to increase recruitment and investments to secure our growth ambitions.If we then move to Blocket in Sweden, we also see solid revenue growth in the quarter, though not at the same levels as Finn. And let me remind you that Blocket was not as affected by COVID last year and actually managed to deliver revenues on par with 2019 for the full year of 2020. The growth in Blocket is broad-based, and it comes from both motor, jobs and advertising. Motor, professional grew both in terms of listing volumes and up-sell products like Bump. And the positive job volumes as well as the new price and packaging model continued to affect revenues for job positively. And advertising grew by 17%, but it's still not quite back to pre-COVID levels, partly as motor and bank and insurance industries, which are very important advertisers for Blocket, are still somewhat cautious.And looking at EBITDA, the margin is slightly above last year, driven by revenues, but partly offset by investments in marketing and next-generation initiatives. And last but not least, I'm very happy to announce that Robin Suwe, former SVP Business Development, Nordic Marketplaces, has taken on the CEO role. With his strategic competence and solid experience, 12 years with Schibsted and Blocket, I'm convinced that Blocket is in the best possible hands going forward.Let's then move to Finland, where the merger of Oikotie and Tori was completed last quarter, and we have good traction into the growth phase. For example, we have now integrated Oikotie real estate with Tori to capture synergies, and early results prove that this integration has contributed to an uplift in the traffic and leads to the Oikotie sites. Oikotie will stay as our #1 real estate brand going forward. However, Tori will play an important role in generating high frequent usage through its reach to more than 60% of the Finnish Internet population every month.And looking at the financials. This graph represents the new combined company, including Oikotie, in the 2021 numbers, driving the growth compared to last year. If we focus on the underlying development, including pro forma Oikotie revenues in 2020 and on a foreign exchange neutral basis, revenues increased double digit in all main verticals, including advertising, leading to a total underlying revenue growth of 31%. On the cost side, we continue to invest in marketing, primarily within real estate in Oikotie, and we have also ramped up product and staffing to improve products and platforms in order to enable mid- to long-term growth. And this is affecting the margin, leading to a flat underlying EBITDA margin year-on-year in the second quarter.And then let's move to Denmark, which, as I mentioned earlier, we're very happy to finally welcome to the Schibsted family. Denmark will be included in our results from July 1 and are thus not included in these Q2 results. However, we want to share an overview of how the operations in Denmark developed during 2020 and so far in '21. But please note that these numbers are local numbers, and they might be subject to some changes when adopting to IFRS and the Schibsted accounting standards.If we then start with 2020, Marketplaces Denmark had a robust development despite the pandemic, primarily driven by the generalist platform, DBA, that experienced increased revenues from the shipping product in combination with high traffic numbers. The motor vertical, BilBasen, had a solid start of the year with increasing volumes, but was negatively affected by inventory shortages, combined with high demand in the third and fourth quarter. And I want to point out that the Danish business model is monetizing ad's time on site, meaning that this high demand had a direct impact on revenues.If we then look at the '21 development so far, the generalist site continued healthy growth with further gains in traffic and shipping adoption. While for Motor, the declining volumes have continued in the first half of '21, partly offset by increased ARPA, driven by continued sales efforts by the team there.Looking at advertising, we see a slight decline driven by motor advertising holding back their spend in addition to a slowdown in the overall market development. And now that we have our Danish operations on board, the focus ahead will be on building on the strong leading positions that DBA and BilBasen have and accelerate the growth seen by the company in the past. In addition, to be able to learn from Denmark for the benefit of users in Norway, Sweden and Finland, entering Denmark will also give Schibsted more scale to develop and roll out next-generation marketplaces across the Nordics, where we now provide a combined digitally advanced target market of 26 million people with similar cultures and market structures. And finally, entering Denmark will potentially open up for further investment opportunities in this market. With that, we'll leave the Marketplaces, and we will move to News Media. In June, we announced that Schibsted to control PodMe. And to succeed with continued growth in subscription revenues, investing in quality content is key, and the premium paid podcast product is one of the initiatives that we are launching to cater for consumers' needs and to drive subscription revenues going forward. And we see PodMe as a perfect fit with our News Media organization, and we're very excited to bring PodMe into the Schibsted family as part of our core business. We're also very pleased that the founders of PodMe will remain central in the further development and that we're recruiting several of the most popular podcast creators to be part of the product.If we then look at the financials, News Media delivered another strong quarter, driven by both revenue growth and cost savings. Digital subscriptions continued to show strong growth despite high numbers last year. In the second quarter, it is primarily the rebounds in advertising that is driving the extraordinary growth. For News Media as a whole, we have reached our stated ambition of being digitally sustainable 2 quarters in a row now. And the solid top line is combined with significant effect from the cost-reduction program. The execution of the program is progressing well, with estimated effect per the second quarter of around NOK 330 million. Please note, though, that in the second quarter last year we also saw some significant cost reductions due to COVID, such as remote work and lower employee taxes temporarily, and that these have diminishing effect from Q2 and onwards.If we then look at our main revenue streams in News Media, we can first look at subscriptions, where total underlying revenue grew by 6% year-on-year in Q2. And as in previous quarters, digital subscription revenues continued to grow well, still at 20% despite facing very strong comparable figures from last year. That was driven by COVID. And as in previous quarters, both strong volumes and growth in ARPU are contributing to this. And as I just said, to succeed with continued growth in subscription revenues, investing in content and services is key. And we will continue to experiment with different types of paid content and bundles to secure the further growth.If we then move to advertising, I am very pleased to say that we continue to see substantial growth in digital advertising revenues in both Norway and Sweden and that digital advertising revenues in the second quarter are not only showing a bounce-back, but a healthy growth from 2019 levels. And there is a positive sentiment in both markets. The focus on first-party data across the whole advertising value chain is becoming more evident, and Schibsted is well positioned for further growth in the advertising market as we have access to first-party data through the whole Schibsted ecosystem.Video content and premium display are contributing to the strong growth in both markets, and our fill rates are higher than normal in Q2. And that benefits particularly Aftonbladet and VG as they have the largest volume of inventory. And in addition, the UEFA EuroCup is also contributing to the strong growth in digital advertising revenues in Sweden. And I have previously mentioned to you the focus in Sweden on FMCG and Godare, the foodservice there is performing really well. And the bundle with Aftonbladet and Godare is also proving a success in the advertising market.With that, we will move to the next business area. Last time, we call it Next, and we will start with Lendo, the biggest asset in financial services. In Lendo, Q2 underlying revenues ended up 20% above last year. Q2 last year was affected by the pandemic. But as you can see, Lendo grew well also compared to the second quarter of '19. And most geographical markets contribute to this growth. And notably, it's primarily driven by the demand side. Lendo continues to attract more and more customers who want to find the best loan offers. On the bank side of the platform, we see that applications convert a little better into loans in Q2 this year than last, but we are still quite far below the pre-pandemic conversion levels.Margins are affected by high unit costs in performance marketing in Sweden throughout the quarter. But in total, the margins are still around the same level as last year, benefiting from underlying efficiency improvements and reduced investments in international expansion. And if we look at 2021 as a whole, we maintain our target on EBITDA investments for the geographical expansion.And then finally, our growth portfolio. We see that it's Schibsted distribution that drives the year-on-year growth, driven by new businesses such as Helthjem and Morgenlevering, both seeing positive effects from increased e-commerce volumes. Helthjem, the main part of new business, transitions into a new terminal at Visby outside of Oslo from June 1, and this will increase peak -- sorry, increase peak capacity to around 150,000 parcels per day. And Helthjem has delivered approximately 3.4 million parcels during the second quarter, and that is an increase of 82% year-on-year. Also, Morgenlevering continued to deliver strong revenue growth with 45% increase compared to the second quarter last year despite strong comparables for both these businesses.Looking at Prisjakt. Revenues declined slightly compared to last year due to significant stockpiling of home office equipment during last year's lockdown, which is a main vertical for Prisjakt. And on the cost side, Prisjakt is in the midst of a product development phase, affecting EBITDA and margin in the growth portfolio negatively in the second quarter.And then finally, we haven't spoken much about our venture portfolio in these presentations, but several exciting developments are taking place there and, notably, 2 planned IPOs for the second quarter -- for the second half, sorry.So with that, Ragnar, I am pleased to hand it over to you to take us through the financials.

[Ragnar Kårhus, Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you, Kristin, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to give you some more details on our strong financials in the second quarter. I would start off by highlighting the effects that the closing of the eBay-Adevinta transaction has on Schibsted P&L and balance sheet. The transaction closed on the 25th of June this year. And for accounting purposes, the closing of the transaction will be reflected as from the end of June. We will, hence, from that date no longer consolidate Adevinta and Schibsted results as we no longer are majority shareholders.At closing, our retained interest in Adevinta of 33% was recognized at fair market value based on the Adevinta share price on June 25 of NOK 170. This implied recognition of the net gain of NOK 60 billion in our P&L in the second quarter, as described by Kristin, reported as profit from discontinued operations.Our retained interest in the Adevinta going forward will be accounted for as an associate using the equity method of accounting. The share of profit or loss of Adevinta will be reported with a 1-quarter lag going forward due to different time schedules for reporting to the market by the 2 companies. In effect, the recognition of share of profit of Adevinta will commence in the fourth quarter with the amounts for Q3 2021. Then I will continue by commenting on the consolidated result for the Schibsted Group. With our Q2 results, we continued the strong both revenue and EBITDA growth development from the first quarter. Revenues ended at NOK 3.6 billion this quarter, a growth of 18% compared to the second quarter last year, but also 9% compared to the second quarter in 2019. The strong revenue growth in Nordic Marketplaces and in News Media, as described by Kristin earlier, translates into strong growth in the consolidated EBITDA as well.And when looking at the EBITDA, this was an exceptional quarter with NOK 245 million or 49% increase compared to last year, bringing the EBITDA up to NOK 743 million, resulting in an EBITDA margin of 21%. In the graph on the right, you can see that the main contributors to the improved EBITDA were Nordic Marketplaces and News Media, contributing with an improvement of NOK 148 million and NOK 128 million, respectively. Financial Services experienced a slight EBITDA increase, driven by higher revenues, but also influenced negatively by higher marketing costs in Sweden. The decline in EBITDA in the growth segment is due to the top line development, combined with increased product development costs in Prisjakt and also increased product development costs in Mittanbud compared to last year. And finally, the year-over-year increased negative EBITDA at our other and HQ segment is primarily driven by somewhat increased activity levels and normalized bonus accruals and level of employer taxes compared to the second quarter last year. Looking closer at our income statement. Our operating profit for the quarter ended at NOK 415 million, an increase of NOK 130 million from last year. Operating profit was impacted by an impairment of around NOK 90 million of Compricer and net other income of approximately NOK 20 million. Other income includes a gain from remeasurement of a previous ownership interest in PodMe in connection with increasing ownership to 91% in the second quarter. And other expenses consist mainly of transaction costs in connection with the acquisition of eBay Denmark and costs related to head count reductions.The reported tax rate in the second quarter is somewhat lower than the average nominal tax rates, positively affected by nontaxable gains and deductible losses from hedging on the acquisition of eBay Denmark.Profit from discontinued operations are figures reported by Adevinta, adjusted for the effect of not recognizing depreciation, amortization and impairment of assets in Adevinta. And in addition, of course, it includes the NOK 60 billion gain related to the reduced ownership and has loss of control of Adevinta. Adevinta presented a trading update for Q2 yesterday, so please refer to their presentation for more details on Adevinta's results.Our operating cash flow more than doubled compared to Q2 last year, driven by the increased EBITDA, but also a positive change in working capital and reduced tax payments. Capital expenditures were stable or slightly lower in Q2 compared to last year.Taking a look at our financial gearing. Following the closing of the acquisition in Denmark, our leverage account -- our leverage, which is accounted for as net interest-bearing debt divided by EBITDA, also including effects of IFRS 16, increased from 1.3 to 2.3 by the end of June. And with a strong EBITDA and cash flow in the second quarter, the financial gearing is well within the target range, including the acquisition.A bond of NOK 600 million was repaid at maturity 6th of May and the bridge facility was drawn by NOK 3.3 billion at the closing of the acquisition in Denmark.Schibsted has successfully refinanced the EUR 300 million loan facility expiring in July 2022 with a new EUR 300 million multicurrency revolving credit facility. The new facility are signed 9th of July and has a term of 5 years with two 1-year extension options. The new facility is not drawn and secures a strong liquidity buffer going forward. The consent from our banks for a temporary waiver of financial covenants still stands until the bridge facility is repaid.I will end my presentation by giving you an update on our financial targets and policies. Our mid- and long-term financial targets are unchanged from the first quarter, and we raised our margin target in News Media to 10% to 12% and also added a target on top line to grow revenues low single digit in the medium term. Please note, however, that depending on the further development in the advertising market, in particular, both revenues and margins in News Media in 2021 may end up in the upper part or slightly above our midterm guidance.Looking at Nordic Marketplaces. We keep our medium- to long-term target to grow annual revenues by 8% to 12%. But also here, looking at the shorter term, in 2021, growth will be at the high end of this range or potentially even above due to the strong rebound effects we are observing, especially in the job vertical. The society now seems to return to a more normal situation again. Medium term, though, the high-growth ambitions and the transformation towards the next generation of marketplaces will require increased investments in product and technology. The costs within these functional areas will therefore increase going forward. This will potentially have a negative effect on margins in Nordic Marketplaces as the costs occur as will the effect from lower margins in some of the new transactional services that will be launched. The increased investments will be important to secure the targeted top line growth and with that also a healthy growth in actual profits going forward.In connection with the communication of the latest changes in our organizational structure, we also emphasize that we will increase our efforts to further shape and execute our holistic investment strategy. The aim is to identify additional opportunities for investments, growth and transformation, potentially broadening Schibsted's portfolio of business and brands. This might alter our capital allocation and M&A strategy somewhat going forward. And we will, of course, come back to this when the strategy has been more substantiated. And with that, I hand over to you, Malin, for the Q&A.

[Malin Langtvet]

Thank you, Ragnar. Let's start with a question for Kristin. Could you talk about the new organizational model? What impact do you expect this to have on the business segments over the next 12 months and on capital allocation?

[Kristin Skogen Lund, Chief Executive Officer]

Right. Well, I think the first thing that Andrew will need to do is to make a thorough strategy for our investments going forward. So that is going to take a while. So maybe for the next 12 months, you will not see that many concrete effects of it. But hopefully, we will have a good strategy, and we will be well prepared for a future where we potentially will have the opportunity to invest more funds into diversification of our portfolio.

[Malin Langtvet]

Thank you. And with regards to the new Head of Diversification, can you develop what you want to achieve here? What kind of characteristics you aim at and if those are more important than merit?

[Kristin Skogen Lund, Chief Executive Officer]

Right. Yes. Well, the thing is that the diversity is not opposed to merit. On the contrary, I believe that the whole point of being better at diversity is to make the talent that feel diverse and who need to feel extra included that they can actually be well included and be -- that we can be an attractive employer to that employee base. That's the whole point. It's not about hiring people with visible diversity that do not meet merit criteria. On the contrary, it's making those who do feel welcome and part of us. And as I mentioned earlier, there is such a tough war for especially tech talent out there, and we just need to be super excellent at this to make sure that the best talent will want to work for us.

[Malin Langtvet]

Thank you. And regarding the new management teams homogeneity or the gender balance, do we have any targets here set for diversity among leadership? And what effects are expected from the new Head of Diversity?

[Kristin Skogen Lund, Chief Executive Officer]

Right. So our objective is that we shall have a gender balance of between 40% and 60% in all teams, and we now have 44% females in the top 3 layers of management, which is good. So we are within that target. We -- with the new management team, we will have 3 out of 8 females. Ideally, Andrew should have been a woman, but he isn't, but 3 out of 8 is still close to 40%. So I believe that's acceptable, especially since I'm a woman. And also, Andrew brings the international aspect. He's not a Scandinavian speaker, so we will truly be forced to use English as a corporate language and speak English among ourselves, which we haven't within the team up until now. So I think, also, he really brings that diversity element of making us a lot more international. So I think he is a good addition also from a diversity point of view.

[Malin Langtvet]

Thank you. So then we have some guidance questions for you, Ragnar. How should we think about margins in Finn over the coming 1 to 2 quarters? It looks like at least some of the improvement year-over-year is temporary.

[Ragnar Kårhus, Chief Financial Officer]

Yes, normally, we don't give any sort of clear guidance on the margins on -- with the new Nordic Marketplaces. What we can say, though, is that there is the positive momentum that we have seen in the market in the second quarter continues into July. So at least it's a good start in the third quarter. But then also, as we have seen, the main driver for the uplift in revenues and profit, this sort of quarter has been the development within the job vertical. And of course, its visibility and all that will develop throughout the rest of the year is not that big. So we will a little bit depend on the, let's say, how the economy will move on now as, hopefully, things are getting back to a little bit more of a normal situation after the COVID. But all in all, it points in the direction of a strong second half also for Finn in the short term.But as I said in our presentation, I think it's important also to note that we are working to, let's say, increase our efforts within product and development to sort of cater for our ambitions on the new transaction -- on the transaction models and so on. So we must expect to see sort of this added cost coming with that, sort of some of it will come also in the second quarter, but probably more entering into the next year.

[Malin Langtvet]

And how should we think about margins in Finland going forward? It's been a bit choppy in the past 3 to 4 quarters. So any color would be helpful.

[Ragnar Kårhus, Chief Financial Officer]

Yes. The second quarter in Finland, there we also sort of saw quite some significant rebound effects in the economy from the pandemic and saw very strong effects, particularly in jobs. I think our main focus in Finland is to, let's say, to build the market -- the stronger market position, particularly within real estate. And we will sort of put necessary efforts into that. So that probably have -- it's more important for us to do what is needed within product development and also sort of take the -- really grab the #1 market position in real estate. And so it's a little bit difficult to sort of see exactly how that will spill into the margin picture in the short term at least.

[Malin Langtvet]

And another one on guiding. Can you provide more color regarding the EBITDA development of Next and e-commerce distribution moving forward?

[Ragnar Kårhus, Chief Financial Officer]

I don't think we'll give any sort of clear guidance on the margins on those, particularly for distribution. It's the same as for some of the other businesses that we -- it's important for us to continue the strong growth momentum that we have within the new business on distribution. And that goes both for Helthjem and for Morgenlevering. So it's the growth that actually have the preference compared to margins, at least in the short term. But of course, over time, this should also materialize into growth in EBITDA. And we see that also this year. But the distribution business, in particular, is, of course, not that high margin kind of business. But as for in the shorter term, the growth is the priority for these businesses.

[Malin Langtvet]

Okay. Then we have a couple of questions on Denmark to you, Christian. Could you share some color on the pricing model in Den Bla Avis and how far have you come on the transactional journey here?

[Christian Printzell Halvorsen, Executive Vice President of Nordic Marketplaces]

Yes. In DBA, they have a freemium model in most categories. And they have focused quite a bit on the transactional efforts also in Denmark lately, but they have been mostly focused on the shipping part of the transaction journey. And they've been quite successful actually in that area. So a lot of the growth that has -- that we have seen in DBA is actually coming from the sales of shipping labels. And they reached almost 900,000 shipping labels last year. So that's the part that they have focused on so far.

[Malin Langtvet]

And can you talk a bit more about the business model in BilBasen and monetization of duration, the time on site? And will you likely change this?

[Christian Printzell Halvorsen, Executive Vice President of Nordic Marketplaces]

Yes. So they have a model where you actually pay per day for the car being listed on your site. So that means that in times of, let's say, low supply and high demand, where the cars are sold quickly, the cars usually stay less on the site, and then they get paid less. So that's the model that they have.And I mean, we have only owned this company a couple of weeks now. So we are still in the kind of period where we are looking into getting to know everything about it. So it's way too early to say anything about any changes that we will make here.

[Malin Langtvet]

And one last question on Denmark here. How has the revenue trend been from Q1 to Q2 in '21? Any signs of an improved trend here?

[Christian Printzell Halvorsen, Executive Vice President of Nordic Marketplaces]

Yes. So I think on this I can just say that we will come back in more details when it comes to Denmark. So it's too soon to comment on that, yes.

[Malin Langtvet]

Yes. On marketplaces in general, do you expect jobs to continue as the main growth driver in Q3?

[Christian Printzell Halvorsen, Executive Vice President of Nordic Marketplaces]

I think that's a fair assumption, yes.

[Malin Langtvet]

Yes. Can you shed some light on your initiatives for next-generation marketplaces? And what will be the cost associated with the move to transactional marketplaces?

[Christian Printzell Halvorsen, Executive Vice President of Nordic Marketplaces]

Yes. So in -- when it comes to next-generation marketplaces, we actually have a portfolio of initiatives. And it covers most of the verticals, except jobs. So in motors, we have initiatives both within C2C, B2C and C2B. So if you have C2C, we have the transaction already on our site. So when you go as a consumer on Finn or Blocket and so on, you can actually transact your car on the site. Then in Sweden, we have an initiative where you can also transact with dealer cars. And then we have the net bill case, which is the consumer to business model, which we have rolled out, both in Norway and also in Sweden. Then in the Generalist area, we have -- we're working on solutions on consumer-to-consumer solutions, which we have rolled out in Sweden and that we are working on also in Norway.And then we have Casa which is the real estate rental initiative as the initiative we have in real estate. So quite a few initiatives. And of course, a major area for us, an area where we think a lot of growth will come in the coming years. So of course, this is also an area that we are investing quite heavily.

[Malin Langtvet]

Yes. Thank you. Moving to Nettbil. What are your plans for Nettbil?

[Christian Printzell Halvorsen, Executive Vice President of Nordic Marketplaces]

I actually think Kris did answer this, but let me just quickly repeat. So our appeal to the Competition Tribunal was rejected. So right now, we're in the process of deciding what to do, whether we should bring it to the courts. And we are so far undecided on this issue. So we will have to come back when we have made a decision on this.

[Malin Langtvet]

Okay. You're exploring IPOs for [ Rokhti and Albert ]? How large ownership do you expect to retain post listing?

[Ragnar Kårhus, Chief Financial Officer]

Maybe I should try to answer to that one. What I can say then is that it's a little bit too early to give you any sort of clear answer to that. The size of the accruals have sort of been set yet and so we are looking into sort of to what extent we will participate or sell-down in this or also known as part of these IPOs. So we come back to that closer to the actual IPO, the timing of that goes.

[Malin Langtvet]

Thank you. So one last question here is about Denmark to you, Christian. Are you looking mainly to solidify existing market position in Denmark? Or will there be new product development or other verticals in the near term?

[Christian Printzell Halvorsen, Executive Vice President of Nordic Marketplaces]

Yes. So let's just keep in mind here that the reason for acquiring Denmark was very different than for our reason for acquiring Oikotie in Finland. In Finland, we saw an underdeveloped and undermonetized market, while the Danish business is -- it's not undermonetized. So the opportunity here is about expanding, of course, to new areas. It could be further M&A in Denmark. It could also be bringing other ships and services to Denmark. And we also think that there is a good opportunity to collaborate across Nordic Marketplaces to create scale when it comes to these initiatives within next-generation marketplaces. So I guess, the simple answer to the question here is, yes, I think you can see -- expect new product development or new verticals in the future.

[Malin Langtvet]

Thank you. So this was all the questions that we received. So thank you, everyone, for listening, and happy summer to everyone.