Scout24 SE

XETRA:G24

Earnings Call Transcript

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Scout24 Preliminary Full Year 2024 Results Conference Call. I am Vik, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast.

At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Filip Lindvall, Vice President, Group Strategy and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

[Filip Lindvall, executive]

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Scout24 Fourth quarter and Full Year 2024 Earnings Call. My name is Filip Lindvall, and I'm Vice President, Group Strategy and Investor Relations at Scout24. With me on the call today are Tobias Hartmann our Chief Executive Officer; and Dirk Schmelzer, our Chief Financial Officer. Tobi will start the presentation with key business highlights, and Dirk will provide a detailed overview of our financial results. As always we will conclude the call with a Q&A session. You can find today's presentation on our website under Financial Reports and Presentations.

This session will be recorded and a replay will be made available as quickly as possible after the event. Please take note of the disclaimer on Page 2. Tobi, now over to you.

[Tobias Hartmann, executive]

Thank you, Filip, and welcome, everyone. Let's go straight to Page 4 and start with the key highlights for 2024 and the fourth quarter. 2024 was another very successful year for Scout24 on all fronts. We ended the year at the top end of our guidance range with 11.2% revenue growth and 61.5%, ordinary operating EBITDA margin. These results build on the strong financial performance we delivered in 2023. 2024 also marks our fourth consecutive year of double-digit revenue growth. Revenue growth accelerated nicely in the fourth quarter, driven by continued strong demand for our core B2B and B2C subscription products as well as accelerating growth in our transaction enablement business.

Professional customer growth accelerated significantly in the fourth quarter compared to the previous quarters. Our customer base surpassed the impressive milestone of 25,000 as we continue to gain market share with our leading product suite and ImmoScout24 brand. Our private subscription business continued its mid-20s growth momentum in the fourth quarter driven by the strength across our product portfolio. Subscriber base grew strongly, increasing by 24.5% and reaching an average of 470,000 customers in the fourth quarter. Growth in our transaction enablement business saw a significant acceleration in the fourth quarter, driven by strong performance across our data and valuation, CRM software and ESG product lines. While demand for seller leads is recovering, demand for mortgage leads is still muted.

Our full year ordinary operating EBITDA margin expansion of 180 basis points is particularly impressive, driven by efficiency gains and the effective implementation of our interconnectivity strategy. As a reminder, in 2023, we already expanded ordinary operating EBITDA margin by 360 basis points. Adjusted EPS showed a strong increase of 15.0% on the back of a 32.1% growth in 2023. Free cash flow generation was particularly strong in 2024 reaching EUR 223.2 million, growing 34% year-on-year and representing an impressive 105% conversion of adjusted net income.

Turning to our financial guidance for 2025. Based on the strong Q4 revenue momentum and progress on our interconnectivity strategy, we expect revenue growth in 2025 to accelerate and to be in the range of 12% to 14%. We also anticipate continued EBITDA margin expansion of up to 50 basis points. Turning to Page 5 and our customer base. This slide is a very powerful depiction of how we manage to continue growing our B2B and B2C customer base quarter after quarter and setting new records. Starting with B2B. Our leading and increasingly interconnected product portfolio, combined with the strength of the ImmoScout24 platform and brand continues to drive strong customer demand. We grew our customer base throughout 2024 and even managed to accelerate growth in the fourth quarter to 4.0%.

For Germany, the growth rate was even higher at 4.7%. We scored customer wins from all angles, from smaller agents to larger [indiscernible] chains as well as market share gains from competitors. By the end of December, our customer base had grown even further now exceeding 25,200 customers. Our sales teams are performing exceptionally well, and our momentum remains strong. Our private subscription started off the year 2024 strongly with 20.8% growth but then even managed to accelerate in the second quarter to 27.1% and remain at mid-20s growth levels throughout 2024. All of our products experienced strong demand, TenantPlus, BuyerPlus and LivingPlus. In the fourth quarter, our customer base exceeded 470,000 subscribers.

In January and February of 2025, it has grown further and is now approaching the 500,000 mark. Both our subscription businesses are outperforming the targets we outlined at the Capital Markets Day in February 2024. Now let's turn to Page 6 for an update on the state of the German real estate market. As you all know, the availability of transaction data for the German market is very limited and official data comes with significant delay of up to 1 year.

Based on the strong set of data assets we now have available within the company, we have developed a new proprietary Scout24 German Transaction Index. The index shows that transactions are picking up and that we are in a slow recovery. However, it is also evident that we are still far off transaction levels seen before 2022 when interest rates were lower. The lower graph shows the trends we see for contact requests on the ImmoScout24 platform. The increased interest to buy has contributed to the increased number of transactions. For the residential market, we continue to be optimistic for 2025 and beyond as increasing demand to buy, coupled with lower interest rates provides a good basis for further recovery.

For customers involved in commercial development or new homebuilding sectors, the market remains more challenging. Though there are early signs that these markets may be approaching a turning point, it is still too early to call out a steady recovery. Overall, the current market environment is favorable for Scout24. The decline of the gray market, the increasing complexity of selling property, the growing importance of buyer leads and the clear move towards increasing digitization in Germany are trends we expect to continue in 2025 and beyond. Scout24 will benefit from these developments. Let me wrap up my part of the presentation by recapping 2024. One year after the Capital Markets Day, we are pleased to state that we have delivered an exceptional financial performance.

2024 marks our fourth consecutive year of double-digit revenue growth. And with 2025, we are targeting our fifth year. We continue to deliver strong operating leverage, which has become a key part of our operating model centered around interconnectivity. With the current growth rates in our B2B and B2C subscriptions, we are on track to outperform the CMD targets set for those businesses. On the topic of interconnectivity and innovation, 2024 was also a great year of success.

A key focus has been the launch of our new professional memberships offering a new level of interconnected products and enhanced value to our agents. Agents are consuming more of our product universe than ever, such as our valuation products, energy certificates or modernization calculator. [indiscernible], our digital currency digital currency for the Scout24 ecosystem is fostering deeper engagement and loyalty across our agent base. The introduction of LivingPlus has enhanced our market position by offering a versatile membership for private customers who have already found their dream home. This seamlessly transitions our customers in Scout24 from the search phase into the living phase. We have enhanced property data transparency for seekers by adding a fair price label, which compares listing prices with valuation data from the Sprengnetter API. And by integrating AI filters on listings, we have positioned us as one of the first classifieds globally to offer this feature.

With bulwiengesa and neubau kompass, we added 2 expert companies to the Scout24 Group, enhancing our B2B offering and expanding further into commercial real estate data and valuation. 2024 demonstrates that we yet again have raised the bar for this business after an already strong 2023. And based on our guidance for 2025, we are again raising the bar as we will accelerate revenue growth while continuing to expand margins. Since this is my 25th and final earnings call as CEO of Scout24. I would like to provide a couple of thoughts and perspectives for our investors, analysts and shareholders. First of all, it has been an absolute privilege to lead this company for over 6 years.

I am very grateful for the remarkable accomplishments our teams have achieved since the end of 2018, reshaping and repositioning Scout24 from a simple listings marketplace into the interconnected 3-sided ecosystem we have today. The transition of Scout24 has created a much improved company for our customers, shareholders and employees with a significantly strengthened competitive mode. The proof is in the numbers. Since 2018, we have grown B2B customers from 20,000 to 25,000 as of today. We have grown B2C subscribers from 47,000 and to 470,000 as of today. We have accelerated Scout24's revenue growth trajectory from single digit to double digits. We have added a number of companies to this Scout24 ecosystem through selective and well-targeted M&A mainly to strengthen our data, product and tech assets.

We have achieved double-digit financial track record across the board. Revenue CAGR of 10.2%, ordinary operating EBITDA CAGR of 10.7% and adjusted EPS CAGR of 10.4%. This financial track record has created substantial value for our shareholders as measured by total shareholder return, which amounts to around 180% since the end of 2018. The interconnectivity of B2B customers with seekers and increasingly also with homeowners is something that is unique for Scout24. No other classifieds business in the world has achieved this. As the company continues to execute on the interconnectivity and data strategy, the competitive mode should compound from here. The company is in excellent shape, and our 2025 guidance reflects this strong momentum. I truly believe Scout24's best days lie ahead. We all say that, but based on the unique 3-sided marketplace ecosystem, growing collection of data assets, the momentum in the business, the long-term growth potential of the German market, the leadership teams and the deep talent bench in place. This is really true for Scout24.

To all Scout24 team members, I want to thank wholeheartedly, everyone for the tremendous support and commitment, helping us driving innovation, growth and value for our customers during this time.

Thank you all for the incredible OneScout Spirit which helped us navigate many challenges together. You are a very special team, and you have successfully demonstrated what it takes to constantly raise the bar. I have absolute confidence that under Ralf's leadership, Scout24 will continue to thrive. I look forward to witnessing its continued success from the sidelines.

Finally, I would like to say goodbye to you for now, and thank you all for the professional exchanges we have had over the past years. It helped us to become better. And with that, I will hand it over to Dirk.

[Dirk Schmelzer, executive]

Thank you, Tobi. Moving to Page 9 to a dashboard of our most important financial metrics for the 2024 financial year and the fourth quarter. For the full year, group revenue reached EUR 566.3 million, reflecting an 11.2% increase. The ordinary operating EBITDA of the group came in at EUR 348.1 million up 14.5%, representing a margin of 61.5%. These results demonstrate another year of sustained profitable growth, bringing us to the upper end of our guidance range. Revenue for the fourth quarter reached EUR 146.7 million, reflecting a 10.7% growth year-on-year and acceleration compared to previous quarter.

Ordinary operating EBITDA came in strong at EUR 91 million, an increase of 14.6% year-on-year, representing a margin of 62%. Adjusted EPS grew by 15% for the full year and 21% for the fourth quarter. Operating cash flow increased strongly by a 28% year-on-year growth to EUR 257 million, highlighting the company's ability to convert revenues to cash flows. Let's turn to Page 10 for a closer look at the Professional segment. In Q4, revenue in the Professional segment grew by 9.6%, totaling EUR 106.2 million. This growth was primarily driven by strong performance in our core subscription products, with revenue up 10.9% for the quarter and 9.8% for the full year. Growth acceleration in Q4 was driven by continued strong expansion in our agent customer base, which grew strongly by 4% year-on-year in Q4.

ARPU in the Professional segment rose by 7% in 2024 from EUR 935 to EUR 1,001, slightly trailing subscription revenue growth. This was largely due to new customers entering at a lower ARPU and a more challenging market environment for our commercial customers. Transaction enablement revenues grew by 9.8% in the fourth quarter, accelerating nicely compared to the third quarter. This was fueled by the strong performance of our data and valuation business. CRM software and ESG products. Ordinary operating EBITDA in the Professional segment saw a strong 10.5% improvement in Q4. As a result, the ordinary operating EBITDA margin expanded by 0.5 percentage points, reaching 62.2%.

This positive performance reflects the successful execution of our interconnectivity strategy, which drove an improved gross margin and enhanced internal productivity. Turning to the Private segment on Page 11. Let's review the results for the fourth quarter. The Private segment accelerated its growth rate further in the fourth quarter, achieving a 13.7% revenue growth reaching EUR 40.5 million. Growth was driven by continued high demand for our Plus subscription portfolio, which grew revenues by 25.2% for the full year. All products contributed to this growth in 2024, TenantPlus, BuyerPlus and LivingPlus. Total subscriber stock increased by 24.5% in the fourth quarter bringing the total to 470,000 customers in Q4.

Subscription revenues for the full year 2024 grew by 25.2%, reaching EUR 90.3 million. Ordinary operating EBITDA increased by 27.1% in Q4 and 26.2% for the year, reflecting the strong scalability of our subscription-based business model. As a result, the private segment's ordinary operating EBITDA margin expanded substantially to 61.5% in Q4, marking an increase of 6.5 percentage points. Turning to Page 12. Let's take a closer look at the main ordinary operating items. Our own work capitalized decreased by 1.3% year-on-year to EUR 22.5 million. This is due to the completion of various development and integration projects.

As a percentage of revenue, we stood at around 4% for the quarter and the full year. We expect the ratio to decline further in 2025. Operating expenses for the 2024 financial year increased by 5.6% compared to the previous year, growing at a moderate pace relative to revenue. This reflects the positive impact of Scout24's interconnectivity strategy and the productivity gains achieved over the year. The year-on-year rise in operating expenses was primarily driven by an increase in personnel cost of 8%. Due to the first half consolidation impact of Sprengnetter. For the fourth quarter, which is fully like-for-like, personnel expenses increased only by 4.7%.

The Marketing expenses continued to decline as interconnectivity leads to more leads sourced from our ecosystem. Other operating expenses rose by 24.5% driven by temporary higher use on external service providers. IT costs increased by 31.4% in operating expenses for Q4, primarily driven by the integration of AI features into our core search platform. Despite this, the overall development of IT cost remains within single-digit growth. On ordinary operating EBITDA, we saw a solid increase of 14.6% in Q4, building on the momentum from earlier in the year. This resulted in a 2.1 percentage point improvement in the ordinary operating EBITDA margin for Q4 with a 1.8 percentage point increase for the full year.

These strong margin gains were driven by robust revenue growth from our higher-margin products alongside favorable cost management trends. Overall, we feel good about how we are controlling our cost structure. Looking ahead, we remain focused on accelerating top line growth while continuing to enhance profitability in the upcoming quarters.

Let's turn to Page 13, where we highlight the items below ordinary operating EBITDA. Nonoperating effects saw a strong increase in 2024 due to our strong share price and Sprengnetter business performance. I will comment on these positions on the next page. 2024 reported EBITDA grew by 8.1%, impacted by the above-mentioned increase in nonoperating effects. Now turning to the items below reported EBITDA. D&A amounted to EUR 47.1 million, reflecting an increase of 29.6% in 2024. This increase was driven by higher amortization related to internally completed projects and D&A from the purchase price allocation associated with the Sprengnetter acquisition.

As we communicated in our last earnings call, D&A stabilized in Q4 at EUR 12.1 million. The financial result decreased compared to the previous year. This was mainly due to increased expenses from the subsequent measurement of purchase price liabilities as a result of the strong revenue and EBITDA performance of Sprengnetter. The increase in income tax rate for 2024 was primarily due to differences between German commercial code and IFRS related to the revaluation of purchase price liabilities from the Sprengnetter acquisition. Taking these effects into consideration, reported net income for the fourth quarter decreased by 26.7% and for the full year, it decreased by 9.3%. Basic EPS for Q4 amounted to EUR 0.53, reflecting a year-on-year decrease of 25.7%. This resulted in a decrease of 8.6% for 2024.

Adjusted net income, which normalizes for all these effects, continued to grow strongly by 14.1% in 2024 and 19.4% in Q4, growing over proportionately to ordinary operating EBITDA. Let's turn to Page 14 for the bridge from reported net income to adjusted net income for full year 2024. I would like to highlight several important elements that affected the numbers. Nonoperating effects, excluding share-based compensation included a EUR 6.4 million provision related to Sprengnetter 2024 milestone payment as the company has outperformed targets.

In addition, higher level of M&A activity and implementation of a new ERP system drove the increase. Expenses for share-based compensation amounted to EUR 28 million for the full year. Provisions had to be increased further in Q4 as the share price continued to climb. For 2025, we do expect a more normalized level of expenses in the range of EUR 15 million. Financial result was impacted by EUR 12.1 million due to subsequent measures of purchase price liabilities related to the remaining 25% stake in Sprengnetter, which we acquired beginning of 2026. Purchase price liability had to be increased as the company has significantly outperformed. We would expect any additional increase in 2025 to be smaller.

The majority of these nonoperating effects had no cash impact in 2024. Turning to Page 15 and cash flow. Cash generation in 2024 was very strong, driven by our operating performance and positive working capital impact as the majority of nonoperating effects were noncash. Accordingly, cash flow from operating activities for the financial year 2024 amounted to EUR 257 million, up 27.9% year-on-year. Free cash flow reached EUR 223.2 million and grew by 34% year-on-year. Our free cash flow conversion as a percentage of adjusted net income and ordinary operating EBITDA stood at 105% and 64%, respectively, underlining our focus and capability of turning revenues into cash flows.

Turning to Page 16 to leverage and capital allocation. In Q4, we saw a slight increase of leverage to 0.47x after consuming the acquisition of neubau kompass. We utilized our free cash flow to execute share buybacks to deploy capital for our shareholders. We bought back shares for a total of EUR 24.4 million which is a meaningful increase compared to the previous quarters in 2024.

Before turning to our guidance for the 2025 financial year, let me wrap up with some key takeaways. In 2024, we achieved double-digit revenue growth for the fourth consecutive year. Ordinary operating EBITDA margin expanded by 180 basis points while adjusted EPS continued growing with a plus of 15% and free cash flow increasing by an impressive 34%. These results demonstrate our ability to drive significant shareholder value while we continue to execute our interconnectivity strategy and innovate for customers. After 2 strong years of margin expansion, we were now increasingly focused on accelerating revenue growth while keeping the margin expansion promise.

Moving to the guidance on Page 17, with strong momentum in our core business, a steady recovery in the German real estate market and continued improvements in organizational efficiency, we are confident for 2025. We expect positive revenue trends from the fourth quarter 2024 to continue in 2025. In terms of guidance for full year 2025, we expect the following: revenue growth in the range of 12% to 14%. We expect our recent acquisitions to contribute around 2 percentage points of growth. In terms of ordinary operating EBITDA margin, we expect margin expansion of up to 50 basis points. This includes offsetting over 100 basis points margin dilution from our recent acquisitions. So on a pro forma basis, full year 2025 margin expansion would be even higher. With this guidance, we are targeting our fifth consecutive year of double-digit growth and third consecutive year with expanding ordinary operating EBITDA margin.

Our ability to accelerate revenue growth and continue to expand margins while integrating acquisitions with lower profitability highlights the strength of our operating model and ability to generate scale benefits. Based on our current visibility, we expect revenue growth to be slightly higher in the first half compared to the second half. We will provide the next update during our Q1, 2025 earnings call on May 6, 2025.

And with that, let's open the line for questions. We would appreciate if you could limit your questions to 2 per speaker. Operator, over to you.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The first question from Andrew Ross, Barclays.

[Andrew Ross, analyst]

Let me start by offering my congratulations to you, Tobi, on the last few years and wish you all the best going forward. I've got 2 questions, if that's okay. The first one is to ask about the price increase that has gone through to your professional customers in 2025. Can you give us a flavor as what kind of price increase has gone through, if not an exact number, at least relative to kind of 2023 and 2024? And then the second question is an extension of that. Can you give us an update as to how many of your customers have now migrated to the new membership tiers that you unveiled at last year's CMD and kind of talk to us about forcing those remaining customers to migrate as you annualize the launch of those tiers. And how all this kind of feeds into your thinking on ARPU growth for 2025?

[Dirk Schmelzer, executive]

Andrew, it's me Dirk. Unfortunately, I have to answer the question. First of all, relating to the price increases that went through in December '24 and now are going through in January '25. We feel pretty pleased about it. It's once again a mid- to high single-digit number that we managed to get through, and we are very pleased with what we see from the market and the responses we see from our professional customer base on that.

We have migrated roughly half of our -- little bit less than half of our customer base into the new membership tiers. And let me clearly point out, Andrew, we are not forcing anyone into our new membership tiers. We are convincing the agents that it's the best product that they can buy. And we're pretty successful with that. So we're making good progress on that.

[Operator]

The next question from Will Packer, BNP Paribas.

[William Packer, analyst]

Let me sort of join Andrew, in congratulating you, Tobias, on a very impressive stink as CEO. My first question is slightly long winded. So I'll keep the second one very brief. So what we're seeing in a number of European property markets is some encouraging leading indicators around mortgage approvals, which look like they'll flow through to transactions in due course. And investors are increasingly hopeful that this will benefit earnings for classifieds in due course. There's a complexity of Scout that your business model is a bit more diverse and some of your business units are actually arguably countercyclical.

So for your core agent subscription business, your transaction enablement business, your PPA business and for your private subscriptions business, could you just give us a feel for how we should think improving transactions will flow through to your business? I realize that's very long winded to say my second very quick question is, could you just talk through why agent information is so strong? Is it cyclical? Is it structural? Is it temporary? Thanks very much.

[Dirk Schmelzer, executive]

Well, let me start with your first question, and then Tobi will chime in on the second question. A good one and a long one. I would start off with implications of a return of the market on our core business. As you can imagine, we have increased functionalities and product depth in our core membership editions. So agents are not only looking for buyer leads with our products. They are also looking at other market information that is necessary for them to do business, market data, market analytics, ESG certificates and so on. So we are profiting from returning transactions on the one hand, increased buyer leads on the other hand, and increased usage of our core memberships on that end. On the transaction enablement, you're pointing exactly to the right reason why we formed this unit because in that unit, we have combined everything that we believe will help us to sort of serve the line and the wave of returning market and returning transactions in the German market.

So we established and we think we established that unit, and we think there will be a tailwind from that unit for our transaction enablement business being more active. And -- and then you were pointing to PPA, and I would answer PPA both in the context of private and professional PPA. As you know, we are more and more using professional PPA to sort of migrate agents into our membership lines, and we are using private PPA to migrate more and more private sellers and landlords to help us monetize our Rental Plus customer base. So that's going to be a positive impact, but you will not see too much changes in those 2 revenue lines specifically, but it's going to be a positive impact on the subscription business, transaction enablement business for professionals and on the MieterPlus/TenantPlus business on the private side. I think that should give you a flavor that we are, like any other classified pretty happy if financing rates come down, mortgages improve. And in general, we believe this will help our business. For the agent dynamics, I will hand over to Tobi.

[Tobias Hartmann, executive]

Will, it's Tobi. Thank you very much for your question. With regards to the agent wins and what we are seeing is really across the board. So we are, in fact, winning customers on all fronts. Why is this the case? We do believe, one, the agent's business and the agent's role has become more important than ever as a function to act between a potential buyer and the seller. And this is why you need a trusted partner. So it's actually a pretty lucrative business if you do it the right way, which means if you are fully digitized. This leads us to the point of 2. We are the most digitized suite that we offer agents, kind of a one-stop shop or as a single menu where you can choose and pick your meals, whether it's energy certificates, whether it's valuation services, whether it's expert opinions and data and valuation pools that we are enriching as we speak.

We are seeing agent wins from very small agents. We're seeing agent wins from independent agents. We're also seeing aging wins from agents stepping into the market and becoming first-time agents and hopping on to the ImmoScout24 ecosystem. The last point why do you believe the strategy works, and we're winning agents is because we made it easier to consume those services. And there's a push also from homeowners and people engaged on the platform being better informed than before and pushing the potential agent to do business with and asking, "Hey, why are you not on ImmoScout? Why am I not on ImmoScout. So there's a push also content wise from the party that's sitting on top of the asset, i.e., the homeowners. And then last thing to close out, our sales teams have done a phenomenal job. We've centralized a lot and we've really gotten down to the details of steering segments, township levels and so forth to win back, to win firsthand or to migrate agents that we've seen listing somewhere else.

[William Packer, analyst]

Just a quick follow-up in terms of the margin profile of the transaction enablement revenue, which is going to rebound. I suppose when the market was last a bit stronger with a move [indiscernible] et cetera, it became a little bit of margin headwind. How has that business evolved from a margin perspective as we think about the potential rebound?

[Dirk Schmelzer, executive]

I think as we noted at the Capital Markets Day and later on in communications with you, the core of our strategy is implementing interconnectivity. So as a side effect or an effect that we wanted to have. This helps us to gain more and more organic leads for the transaction enablement business, which in turn improves margin. So when we are talking about growth of the transaction enablement segment, we are looking at a much, much more favorable margin profile than we did 2 years ago, 3 years ago. So margin has been continuing improving on that business. And therefore, you can expect us to continue to improve the margin going forward in line with what we outlined at the Capital Markets Day.

[Operator]

The next question from Doyinsola Sanyaolu Citi.

[Doyinsola Sanyaolu, analyst]

Thanks for today's presentation and wishing you all the best, Tobi. For my question, I have 2. The first one was on the margin expansion guidance. Would it be possible to get more color on the guidance and how to think about it in 2025 and 2026 in light of the 63% margin target from the CMD because that suggests at least 100 bps to deliver in 2026. And it would be just great to get some color on that and what levers you still have to pull there? And then my second question is on M&A. Your 2 new acquisitions kind of enhance your offering on the commercial real estate data valuation side. Could you maybe talk a bit about what you're excited about with these 2 businesses? And are you interested in any small bolt-ons in any other areas of the business?

[Dirk Schmelzer, executive]

Thank you very much for both questions. I will start off with the first part, and I think that likely hands over to the second part of the question regarding M&A because that's going to be answered by Tobi. So looking at the margin profile and our guidance. One thing I would like to point out is that we are on a very good path to reach our profitability target that we gave at the Capital Markets Day of 63% in 2026. We are also on a great path, as you can see that in 2024, we improved our margin to 61.5% and 62% in Q4 respectively.

So these are all signs pointing in the right direction. What makes us even more optimistic is our ability to improve the margin on assets that we acquired. You saw that same communication when we acquired Sprengnetter in 2023, where we told you that we will digest Sprengnetter and help [indiscernible] in the business to improve their operational performance, which we did and we acquire Sprengnetter and stayed in line with our margin guidance. The same can be assumed for the acquisitions that we did neubau kompass, bulwiengesa and the ones we are now taking on our balance sheet. And those assets come in with an underproportionate margin profile, it's diluting -- but we're pretty confident to leverage up those companies over the next few quarters in order to, at minimum, reach our 2026 EBITDA margin target. I hope that gave you enough color.

[Tobias Hartmann, executive]

Thank you for your question on our recent M&A moves. As Dirk pointed out, and as we had stated during the Capital Markets Day, we are trying to use the platform, the 3-sided ecosystem and push harder with regards to data, to valuation and the interconnectivity between the different stakeholders. And that's where both bulwiengesa and also neubau kompass perfectly fit our schedule. We have developed with bulwiengesa, a blueprint for prepping up our game with regards to data and the rather intransparent commercial real estate segment. .

And with neubau kompass, we are leveraging our audience and our go-to-market capabilities so that we have more power to support the developer segment. Now what's important is that we've built the engine and the platform over the past couple of years to really know exactly when we can take on those companies and integrate them pretty -- pretty seamless into our platform audience into our platform subscriber services and then also, obviously, in our memberships, which will help us further drive ARPU and bring more content and more horsepower to our users.

Your question whether we will continue doing that absolutely. Unfortunately, there's not too many assets out there, but we would like to be the first ones if they're out there, especially around the corner in our home markets. So yes, with regards to data, with regards to platform extensions with regards to audience extensions with regards to further digitization opportunities the team will be on the hunt for other feasible M&A opportunities. Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question from Craig Abbott, Kepler Cheuvreux.

[Craig Abbott, analyst]

Tobi also from my side, all the best in your future endeavors, and congratulations on the company's performance during your tenure. Yes, most of my questions have now been answered, but -- so I guess I just have a couple of small technical ones. One, just for the math regarding the scope effects this year -- for this year, I realize you plan to ramp up scale up these businesses that you've just acquired, as you just said over the next quarters and going into next year. But for this year, if I did the math correctly, you were looking for revenues around EUR 13 million. And on that revenue basis, it looks like you're implying an EBITDA loss, I guess, high single digits or so this year. I just want to make sure that correct?

And my second question is really just to get back to -- if you could maybe just give us an update on how significant your commercial activities overall are today and kind of like how you see that business evolving over the next couple of years?

[Dirk Schmelzer, executive]

Craig. Thanks. First of all, with regards to your technical question on margin. The top line number you mentioned is ballpark, right? Yes, the assets we acquired are not loss-making, but they come in at a margin profile, which is around 20%. And you can assume us to ramp up the operating leverage on those assets. So if you do the math and if you look at sort of our targets for this year's margin as well as 2026 margin, you can assume that we will add around 70 to 100 basis points for those assets in total over the course of the next 2 years to come in order to improve margin here. If we just look at our pro forma margin expansion for 2025, so not taking into account those assets, you would look at a margin expansion of roughly 120 basis points. So on top of the 50, another 70.

[Craig Abbott, analyst]

Thank you.

[Dirk Schmelzer, executive]

Perfect. Second part of the question, the commercial business, it's doing well, and it's doing especially with regards, I know that we are also looking at neubau kompass and other assets that are contributing there. The commercial business is doing surprisingly well as we speak in '24 and coming into '25, which has to do with the fact that we've been launching a number of products for that customer base over the past quarters. It has to do with the fact that valuation services came in from our recent acquisitions like Sprengnetter and all the others and it has to do with the fact that on top of that, we improved our sales efforts in those areas. So in total, I would think we are -- okay and quite happy with the performance we're seeing in the commercial segment. And when I say, okay, this is an answer you would expect from a CFO and not a CEO, would say would be phenomenous.

[Operator]

The next question is from Christopher Johnen, HSBC.

[Christopher Johnen, analyst]

And I'll voice the other guys comments about appreciating to having worked with you, Tobi, all the best. Looking forward to running into in some shape or form in the future. Two quick ones from my side. First, maybe you could touch a little bit about the drivers of growth within the guidance on the organic side for 2025 between segments. I mean you've talked about, I think, a bit of an uptick on the transaction enablement side. You've talked about the TOS price increase already. But is there anything else that you would maybe highlight about the organic part of the guidance and sort of what would be required to reach the low or the top end of that?

And then another housekeeping question on -- specifically on neubau kompass. Is there any color you can give us because if I'm -- correct me if I'm wrong, but it should be part of the subscription business. Is there any sort of color you can give on the ARPU and maybe agent count? Has there maybe also been a slight like a 1-month contribution in 2024 already in December or something? Just a bit of color there would be great.

[Dirk Schmelzer, executive]

Yes, Chris, let me start off with your later question on neubau kompass. Agent overlap has been around roughly 100%. So we're not getting any new significant amount of agents on board with that. But what we have done, and I'm pretty pleased with that. We closed the transaction, I think, December, last year, and we're only 2 months into our [indiscernible] with the guys from neubau kompass but we already launched joint products. So the product depth and what we can offer to the market of developers in Germany now and real estate developers is really, really making us happy and making the customers happy. So we are pretty optimistic with neubau kompass going forward and enhancing our -- one of our top products here.

As per your first question, you can assume that we are leaving the area of high single-digit organic growth and are stepping into a low double-digit organic growth on our business in 2025. So assume that around 200 basis points of growth comes from the new entities and the rest will be added by our organic growth initiatives. Some of them you mentioned already, which is terms and condition, price increases, good momentum on our private business that we're seeing with TenantPlus, we see PPA business developing. We see the core business in agents developing quite well. And we see, of course, transaction enablement with a tailwind especially since we added Sprengnetter 1.5, 2 years ago, that is a unit which is able to really help us grow in a slightly better transaction environment, which we are expecting for the next 2 years.

[Operator]

Next question from Nizla Naizer, Deutsche Bank.

[Fathima-Nizla Naizer, analyst]

Sorry. Let me also start off by wishing you all the best, Tobi, and it's been a pleasure working with you, and we hope to work with the team going forward now. I have a couple of more questions remaining. Firstly, on the change in the government set up in Germany, could you maybe remind us if there are any implications that you are sort of looking at or anything that we need to be mindful of with the new government in place? Some color there would be great. And secondly, we just spoke about the organic growth drivers, but the pace of subscriber growth in the private segment. Could you give us some color as to how you think that would go from this high level of 470,000 nearly subscribers that you do have?

What are the initiatives there? Would you maybe step up some marketing to get more subscribers in place there? Some color on the direction of growth in the private segment would be great.

[Tobias Hartmann, executive]

Thank you very much for your kind words. I'll try to take these questions. Your first question with regards to the recent elections. We obviously observed and we also skimmed the various proposals they had going into these elections and we definitely don't see anything that's at least written or talked about so far, that could be a negative for the current environment and for our business model. We actually think there's a better understanding of the desperate situation that there's not enough living units and not enough new living units put on the market. So somehow, they will need to think about improving the framework and regulatory environment to attract more capital to help the real estate plans in Germany.

So that's, I would say, rather positive development. On your question with regards to the private segment. Obviously, we have not laid out a new number. We've just recognized that we are in a very healthy track to surpass probably the CMD target. Further growth will continue to come from our existing measures. There's a lot of organic acquisition and there's healthy traffic and high-quality traffic return traffic into subscribers. And then let's not forget about the initiatives we've done and undertaken on the product side. So we've launched other things like the Immo Club and so forth. And obviously, there is interdependencies and interconnectivity between the various initiatives so that we can also acquire new customers from there. So in a nutshell, nothing meaningful. We have not planned on any abnormal marketing spend or anything. We know what we are doing.

The team is doing a really, really good job. And it's getting easier from here because we understand what drives growth, churn, pricing function and engagement on the platform. Thank you.

[Operator]

Last question from Giles Thorne, Jefferies.

[Giles Thorne, analyst]

I'd like to pick up on the third piece of strategic M&A that was done in Germany in the past 3 months, specifically the DIMBEG acquisition by Immowelt. I think Sprengnetter is the answer to the question, but is there anything in that asset that you weren't interested in or you didn't feel you couldn't do already? And then the second question is press coverage suggests that there's a huge amount of change being pushed through Adevinta and it's subsidiaries. Are you seeing any change in behavior in property from Kleinanzeigen.

[Tobias Hartmann, executive]

It's Tobi. Thank you. With regards to your first question, yes, as you pointed out correctly, we've covered that through Sprengnetter already, which is the counter piece to, I think it's a [indiscernible] what you're referring to. So we're already offering that, and we have everything in store that we need to have a really great solution out there. So that's why we were not really interested in participating in that process. I'd rather say it confirms that what we are doing seems to be at least be picked up by a competitor, and so they're trying to catch up. And on the other piece with regards to competitive environment, whether we're seeing any change in behavior. We're not seeing anything that's significantly different. But again, we've learned to be on the front foot. We are pretty well connected. A bunch of the players are all located in Berlin.

So, we pick up a lot of stuff, what's happening, what's not happening, and we're on the front foot. And so we keep doing what we're doing. So short answer, no, we've not seen anything significantly changing. But we are prepared in case something would change.

[Giles Thorne, analyst]

And just a follow up on that. And as a parting shot Tobi, especially since I'm the last question on your last call, do you want to on Ralf's behalf, rule Scout out from being interested in any of the Adevinta assets in property coming out of, I guess, it will be Spain?

[Tobias Hartmann, executive]

Yes. Great question. But as you can imagine, I'm not speaking on behalf of the future CEO. So as Ralf is super familiar not only with the industry but also the players and peer and everything that's going on. We're not here to rule out anything. I think we'll keep doing what we're doing, which is if it makes sense for our shareholders, we'll take a look at it. And if not, we keep doing what we're doing organically. But thanks for the question, and always enjoy the dialogue with you. Thank you.

[Giles Thorne, analyst]

I'm not finished yet. I don't have a question for Tobi. Thanks for answering even the last question in a very great way as you always did. I just want to make it short on behalf of the team. Tobi, it was a pleasure and a privilege to work with you. Thanks for the ride.

[Tobias Hartmann, executive]

Thank you so much -- thank you so much, team, and thanks to you all.

[Dirk Schmelzer, executive]

So now we can close. Thanks, everybody.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.