Alma Media Oyj (ALMA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

July 21, 2021

Nasdaq Helsinki FI Communication Services Media earnings 55 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Elina Kukkonen

executive
#1

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to join this result presentation of the first half 2021 of Alma Media. My name is Elina Kukkonen. I'm responsible of the communications and brand of Alma. As usual, we begin with our CEO, Mr. Kai Telanne, presenting the overall results. After him, Mr. Juha Nuutinen, our CFO, will present the financial position of Alma Media today. And then Mr. Telanne returns and tells about the operating environment and our strategy going forward. And after the presentation, we welcome all the questions. We first take the questions from the conference call line and then from the online chat. So please feel free to ask questions. I think we are ready set here. And now I will hand it over to Mr. Telanne, our CEO of Alma Media. Once again, welcome to join us today.

Kai Telanne

executive
#2

Thank you, Elina, and good morning to everybody. As Elina told you, I will start with the highlights of the second quarter and the first half of the year and after me, CFO, Juha Nuutinen, will continue with the financials. So of course, with the balance sheet issues, which is now a little bit different than we used to have before after these acquisitions. As you perhaps had time to already look at the interim report. The big picture is that we had a fantastic first or the second quarter, really strong one. We were actually a little bit surprised how fast the recovery has started at the difficult last year. It's really nice that all the business segments performed really good, one can say that even better than we had expected. Our organic growth was nice 24%. And of course, after our heavy investments, our revenue and operating profit grew with these acquisitions. Nettix is now included in our figures since the April, and they are included now in all these figures. We took the 2019 figures here in -- on this slide, just to remind you how our record high year was, which was the 2019. Last year was, of course, quite an exceptional year, a difficult one. But as you can see from the slide, our revenues are higher than 2019 from last year's EUR 52.6 million to EUR 71.6 million, an increase of 36%. And of course, with the good revenue growth, our EBIT margin and EBIT grew from EUR 9.8 million to EUR 16.6 million, almost 70% up. We are after the second quarter at a record high profitability level of 23%. As I told you, and I want to just want to remind you, Juha will go deeper into this. Our financial position is totally different than it used to be in the beginning of the year after these transactions. Our gearing is 160% and equity ratio 29% plus. We have to take care of the balance sheet carefully now. But with this good profitability and nice cash flow, this leverage will decrease quite fast. So the situation is well in hand, and we are really, really happy with the current situation. I'm really happy that we had this kind of exceptional quarter while all business segments succeeded at the same time. As you can see from this slide, revenues in Alma Career, Talent and Consumer all went up nicely. And about half of the revenue growth flow to the bottom line, while our career profitability ended up to EUR 3 million or rose to EUR 3 million; Talent, EUR 2.3 million; and consumers profitability grew EUR 4.5 million. That's a nice situation for a CEO. I'm really happy with this again. And of course, most of the growth came from digital businesses, which is, in our case, the most important targeting long-term. This slide looks a bit awkward, of course, while it jump from last year's minus 17% on the right side of the slide to this year's second quarter, 57% growth. 76% of our revenues are now coming from different kind of digital sources, which ended up during the first half of the year to EUR 99 million. That's good. Now we can take a little bit deeper dive in different segments, but quite a short one then. Start with the career. This has, of course, been a question mark that how fast this recruitment business is going to recover after this difficult COVID-19 situation. We thought that it might take a little bit longer, but now it seems that all the markets are picking up rapidly, not only in Finland, but also in Eastern Central Europe. Our revenues in career went up 48%. And what is really important and nice in our case is that our customer invoicing is at record high level. 2019 was our record year. And we thought that it would take a couple of years to reach the record level again, but now it seems that we are already there. Of course, remains to be seen how the situation continues with the COVID-19. But at the moment, the demand is quite high. There's, of course, this kind of pent-up demand with increased activity. Our customers have saved the costs and now they put the money at work, and the demand is high at the moment. That is the big picture. In our case, the growth comes, of course, from the core career listing business. But in addition to that, our positive development is driven by added value services, for example, our Seduo, digital education platform, which is running nicely, especially in Czech Republic, and we are testing its international potential also elsewhere like in Slovakia and Finland. Of course, with the increased revenues, our expenses went up 7%, and especially on marketing and personnel costs with the increased invoicing. Operating profit nicely up 62%, and the EBIT percent 38.6%, which is more than we expected. So that's the broad view of Alma Career's second quarter, very good one. Alma Talent, we had also a very strong quarter, driven by nicely increased advertising, especially digital advertising and also the service is improving nicely. Revenue went up 13%. Advertising revenue -- comparable advertising revenue nicely 55% up. Digital content sales, which is one of the key elements in our strategy has been for a while, continue to be strong, again, growth of 24%. And that was the key reason for being able to mitigate the decrease of print subscription revenues. We are developing different kind of services inside the Talent group at the moment. They are mostly digital services like marketplaces, property information, company law-related services and so on. They are growing and developing as expected. Digital ratio already nearly 90% and increasing nicely. We have a very good expense cost control in the segment. Also, expenses on a par with last year's comparable period. Very good growth of profitability, 84% to EUR 5.1 million. And the profitability 20.2%, which is really good achievement for a media company, for a media segment. On the right side of this slide, you can now see the split by business unit or by businesses inside Talent segment. So the Media segment or the Media businesses inside Talent segment like Kauppalehti, Talouselämä and those, they make 50% -- 53% of the revenues, and quite a nice growth during the second quarter, 22.1% growth. And then the Services 32% and Direct Marketing, which is called the Mega, 14%. And the last one, not the least one, Alma Consumer, where we have had during the last year, the biggest changes. A significant step-up due to the very nice organic growth and of course, the Nettix acquisitions. Revenues went up almost 70%. The biggest demand from housing cars and mobility marketplace is as well, very good. Media, Digital Media, very, very strong growth as we've seen now, the Iltalehti's advertising revenue reached all-time high level. So there is, of course, this kind of pent-up demand in Finland where the lockdown has been quite strong for several areas. And now the customers are using their money. Market share gaining the SME sector where we are investing and organizing our businesses differently and adjusted operating profit 160% upto EUR 7.3 million, 27.5% margin, which is quite decent in these businesses. And on the right side of the slide, you can see the revenue split by verticals, Media and ad-finance services, about half of the revenues; mobility services, like Netello, Iltalehti and those, 27%; housing services, Etuovi.com and those 17%; and comparison share in economy services about 7%. So this is the brief overview of segment levels development on second quarter. Now I will hand over to Juha, Juha Nuutinen, and he will go through the financials and the balance sheet a little bit closer, and I'll come back later. Thank you.

Juha Nuutinen

executive
#3

Yes. Thank you, Kai. Yes, in my financial position review, we will focus on the effects of Nettix acquisition and especially its effect on balance sheet and our leverage. So like Kai mentioned, we have a total different kind of picture in our balance sheet now when compared to last year. We have EUR 222 million interest-bearing net debt at the moment. And the gearing is 160%. Our equity ratio is 29%. So totally different balance sheet than last year. But like I said, we have pretty strong cash flow at the moment, and the leverage will be decreasing quite fast during the following quarters. Our cash flow in the second quarter was from operating activities, it was a strong one. It was EUR 16 million. And compared to last year, it was a pretty big increase there. Naturally, it came from the improved profitability, but also there were other items as well like lower taxes, for example. Like you see from the right-hand graph, we have quite stable cash flow at the moment. Earlier, our cash flow was mostly focused on first quarter or fourth quarter. Now it's more even during the year. And like you see from the last 3 quarters have been pretty much the same cash flow around EUR 50 million, EUR 60 million per quarter. And this comes from the fact that we are more and more having marketplace kind of business, also our Media business is more digital, and these all facts make the cash flow more even during the year than previously. Of course, then we have Nettix acquisition. And so that's why our cash flow from investment activities was minus EUR 173 million. There was also a redemption of minority shares in Etua shares included in that investment cash flow. But like you can see on the left side, we have had a pretty strong year from acquisitions point of view, EUR 241 million acquisitions totally during the first 6 months, and that's the huge investment amount and of course, naturally affecting our balance sheet. We have discussed earlier about our invoicing and revenue relationship in Alma Career recruitment business, and that's why we are following also here the same graph. This was pretty surprising the reinvoicing increase in April, May and June in this year. And like you can see, the invoicing amounts have exceeded actually 2019 levels already, and that was one of the surprises, which came also in our positive profit warning in couple of weeks ago. And this is some kind of rebound from last year and let's see how it continues. And -- but in any case, our revenue expectations in Alma Career is quite positive during the second half this year because of the strong invoicing trend during the last 3 months. Earnings per share was also improved. It's $0.12 in this last quarter. And there is a couple of issues behind that. It was improved, of course, naturally because of better results. There's also this effect of our redemption of minority shares in Alma Career in March, and also Alma Media Partners shares in December. Those effect is around $0.02, which are improving our earnings per share in this quarter and also in the future. We had adjusted items, EUR 3.6 million in this quarter, and they all came from Nettix acquisition. We already earlier told about EUR 1.2 million advisory costs related to Nettix acquisition. And the other part, EUR 2.4 million is related to transfer tax because of this Nettix share acquisition. So the whole EUR 3.6 million is coming from Nettix acquisition. Long-term financial targets, naturally has exceeded now. Our digital business growth from the first half year is 28%, and it's clearly above the 12% target. Naturally, there are also organic growth, but also because of these acquisitions. Our return -- ROI figure is 12% from the first half year, and our target is 17%. And this -- concerning this target, we have difficulties to get this target in the coming years because we have invested EUR 300 million, and it's naturally affecting a lot to our invested capital, and it takes a couple of years to come back with the levels what we have in the target at 17%. And then dividend payout ratio, we have not changed this. And in the second quarter, there is no reason to discuss this target at this point. So that was the financial review and take hand to Kai also. And Kai take some comments about our strategic issues in future. Thank you.

Kai Telanne

executive
#4

Thank you, Juha. As Juha told you, the long-term financial targets are a little bit strange at the moment. So we have actually decided to come out with the new targets around the CMD that we have in September, actually. So you will -- we will concentrate more on this issue late this year. If you thought about the operating environment, then the big question is, of course, that is this recovery going to continue with the speed that as it started or not? Or is the COVID-19 going to continue with the kind of delta or other variants, which might affect the recovery in different countries? The present view is still like this, this is from the summer forecast. The underlying economies are expected to grow quite nicely, even in Finland, close to 3% GDP growth, and in other countries, between 3% and 6% growth. So this is the big picture. If this happens, our basis for good growth still stands there for recruitment businesses and different kind of digital advertising and services businesses. So the broad view is that the underlying market is going to be quite okay for us. The Finnish advertising which is, of course, the question mark, as it's been always. The rebound has been quite strong during the last months as we've seen from the market and from Alma's revenues. It's -- in short term, it seems that the rebound continues. So there is this kind of pent-up demand in almost every sector of our customers, and we expect this good development to continue in short term. But then the big question is, of course, that how is the Finnish economy really going to develop in long term? Do we have the growth that is needed or not. On the right side of the slide, you can see the market shares and the development of the online advertising by media companies in Finland. As you can see, our market has grown that comes from, of course, from the Nettix operations and then from a nice digital revenue organic growth. That is as expected and according to our plans. Then I just want to remind you of our strategy. We are not changing the core strategy at the moment. We have a -- we have 3 main parts. First of all, we will continue to transform the core business to still accelerate the digitalization of the Print Media. At the moment, we have 76% of Print business, we will continue until we reach the full 100% Digital business. We are organizing all the time our businesses -- core businesses, so that we can reach the full synergies of the company, which means a tighter cooperation within group and business units. And of course, we are doing this kind of financial engineering to divest or discontinue unprofitable or low profitable businesses, which we actually did also the second quarter. I will come to that later. And of course, the second part of the strategy is to grow in digital businesses, in digital media, mostly advertising and subscription business, marketplaces and digital services. All these are in our focus, and we are doing heavily our homework around this. Of course, mainly concentrating on the businesses with synergy benefits, which is, of course, the key of the cooperation or cooperative strategy. And then, of course, certainly, we will continue to internationalize the business of Alma Media. We have had a quite a successful journey in this. We will expand to new geographies, if possible, and then expand our businesses in current geographical areas, like I said or other service businesses around the core business. Here, we took just a few examples of our operation inside the strategy, during the second quarter. Of course, the Nettix integration process is the most intensive one at the moment. We've been concentrating heavily on that. We are in good speed. We will take over the -- all the services by the end of August. We have a new organization there. Management, key personnel in place and now we are concentrating to harmonize the operation models and company culture. Second example is the redemption of the minority stake in Etua.fi, which is one of our comparison services. And then we divested Talosofta, which didn't actually fit in our strategy. We didn't -- or we couldn't integrate the business into our Etuovi or all those housing businesses probably. And then Alma Talent Services invested in Suomen Tunnistetieto, which is kind of Know Your Customer service part of the Talent services or services in the future. New Monster.fi recruitment platform launched in Finland. It's in the launch phase at the moment. It will be very, very good. And then Kauppalehti, just an example of the Media business. Kauppalehti started to offer Sustainalytics' ESG risk ratings to our subscribers, which is a tool for responsible investing. So these are kind of practical examples of our operational strategy that we are doing and did during the second quarter, and more will follow. Bring it. And then finally, I will just remind you for the outlook that we will repeat after the positive profit volume that we did. So we are expecting our full year revenue and adjusted operating profit from continuing operations to increase significantly from last year's level. And here, you can see the figures that we had last year. But of course, there are question marks, and they are coming, of course, from the pandemic. It's really difficult to estimate how the market and the demand is going to continue, especially in mid-term. In short term, it looks like quite okay. But in mid-term, it remains to be seen. So there is this kind of uncertainty, of course, in the market in -- every market that we have. So that was my part of the -- and Juha's part of the presentation. Now we are happy to answer your questions that you might have a lot. Thank you very much.

Elina Kukkonen

executive
#5

Thank you, Kai. Thank you, Juha. And operator, we will be ready for the questions.

Operator

operator
#6

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Pete Kujala from SEB.

Pete-Veikko Kujala

analyst
#7

This is Pete-Veikko Kujala calling from SEB. Couple of questions. If we start with Career. You mentioned record-high invoicing. So just to be clear, is this in Q2 specifically? Or are you talking about year-to-date as a whole?

Kai Telanne

executive
#8

Juha might remember, so Q2 was at record-high level. I'm not sure did we already reach the 2019 level for the first part -- half of the year, I doubt that. Juha, you can answer to that, if you know. You had the figures.

Juha Nuutinen

executive
#9

Yes. You are right. It was second quarter all-time high figures. First quarter, we didn't. It was -- March was already very good month, but still the first quarter was -- we were slightly behind the 2019 levels.

Pete-Veikko Kujala

analyst
#10

Yes. All right. And how should -- is this invoicing that comes in the summer months? Is this like shorter-term invoicing? Or does this provide you like good visibility into the second half as well?

Kai Telanne

executive
#11

So especially in LMC, which is the biggest business. This is this kind of long-term commitments like we are selling this kind of credits, which have their effect on revenues on long term. And of course, a good start or the good second quarter. And if it continues like we expect during the third quarter, it will give us a good start also for the next year. So for the biggest carrier business, this is a sign of a good long-term development. In other businesses, the commitments are shorter. If that was the question that you...

Pete-Veikko Kujala

analyst
#12

All right. Understood. Yes. Yes. It was. I understand you don't want to give any kind of specific figures. But from what I kind of calculate, you could be pretty close to 2019 levels already in 2021. Is this really the case? Or is there something that I'm not following here?

Kai Telanne

executive
#13

So in Career business?

Pete-Veikko Kujala

analyst
#14

Right. Yes.

Kai Telanne

executive
#15

Yes. Well, it depends, of course, very much on the pandemic situation. But like the demand at the moment is over 2019 levels. And if that continues or continued, we are quite closed or even on 2019 level. But then there is this if -- and it's heavily dependent on the pandemic situation. But for now, it looks like you said it's quite good.

Pete-Veikko Kujala

analyst
#16

Yes. All right. And on Alma Consumer, the Nettix acquisition was included and you mentioned the revenue contribution from that. But could you give some kind of indication on how much EBIT contribution that gave in Q2? And basically, what does the margin profile look like without the acquisition?

Kai Telanne

executive
#17

We are not giving service-specific revenue or profitability figures out.

Operator

operator
#18

Our next question comes from the line of Sami Sarkamies from Nordea.

Sami Sarkamies

analyst
#19

Okay. I have 3 questions. Firstly, continuing on Alma Career. You did have quite high operating leverage in Q2 despite material savings last year. Do you anticipate a smaller operating leverage in the second half of the year when you may again start making normal growth investments?

Kai Telanne

executive
#20

Could you repeat the question? So what is the question, I didn't understand.

Sami Sarkamies

analyst
#21

Yes. So I think in the presentation, you noted that at Alma Career, about 50% of the revenue growth drop through to EBIT line. So there was good operating leverage despite you having done material savings last year. So cost comparable was quite tough against that in that sense. So going in the second half of the year, do you expect similar high operating leverage to prevail? Or should we be sort of prepared for cost inflation?

Kai Telanne

executive
#22

There's some problem with the lines, difficult to hear. But if I understood correctly, you're asking that are we going to continue with the same profitability level that we had during the second quarter after having a heavy cost cuts last year during the comparable period or -- was that the question?

Sami Sarkamies

analyst
#23

Yes.

Kai Telanne

executive
#24

So in total, we had last year at -- during the second quarter, EUR 8.4 million cost cuts that came from the whole company. But of course, quite a lot from the Career. I don't remember the exact cost cut of the Career group, Juha might remember and have the figure there. But the total was EUR 8.4 million during the second quarter for Alma Media. And now we don't have that at all. So we are in a normal situation. No different kind of cost measures at the moment where we are running the business with the full speed with all the costs. As you noticed the costs have increased. But then the question is -- your question is that is this the normal profitability, like the new normal profitability level of Alma Career? I doubt that. There's this kind of pent-up demand that bursted out right now. So we -- my personal view is that this will normalize a little bit during the last part of the year, even though the demand is -- in short term, it's high. So I'm not expecting over 50% profitability for the entire group. So that will -- the development of a slowdown in that sense. And then of course, we want to invest in the new businesses. But the idea is, of course, to increase the profitability step by step from last year's level, and we try to reach the 2019 record-high level or even go further. So that is the big picture and the plan, of course.

Sami Sarkamies

analyst
#25

Okay. And then I would have a broader question on pent-up demand. So if we look at the strong development in Q2 across the segments, how much of an element of pent-up demand was there, in your view? I mean, should we assume that we are now back to like the pre-pandemic demand levels and it's business usual from now on? Or could it be that there was just tepid pent-up demand in Q2, but we might still be in for weakness in the coming quarters when that demand is not there?

Kai Telanne

executive
#26

Yes. Sami, your line is really poor. It's difficult for the listeners to listen or hear your question. But if I understood right, you were asking that is -- how far we are from the from the normalized demand level of advertising, for example, in Finland or how much of the good development of the second quarter of the advertising gain from this kind of pent-up demand. Was that the question?

Sami Sarkamies

analyst
#27

Yes. So basically, what I was asking is that if we look at, for example, the advertising media markets now in the month of June, they had recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Do you think that will prevail? Or was it just a good quarter with plenty of pent-up demand from earlier quarters?

Kai Telanne

executive
#28

Our estimate is that in those businesses that are not affected by the lockdowns anymore, we will reach the 2019 level. So the expectation is that every business is -- every customer wants to normalize the situation and come to the normal investment -- marketing investment levels. So that is the broad view. But then, of course, there are still these kind of businesses that are lacking of their own demand, and they are not able to invest in marketing. But the big picture is that, yes, we expect the situation to normalize and come back to the 2019 level as soon as possible. So that is the view. And that is happening right now. That is happening right now. There's just kind of pent-up demand, so this kind of jump -- short-term jump and then we will come to a normal -- more or like normalized situation, which is close or on the 2019 level. So it's good to look at the 2019, which was a normal year. It was a record high level in our case, but it was a like normal year without the pandemic. So that is the idea and the view.

Sami Sarkamies

analyst
#29

Okay. And then my final question would be on the full year guidance. Why are you guiding for only higher adjusted EBIT for the full year and not clearly higher as you seem to be doing pretty well? And I mean if we look at the consensus estimates, these are assuming about 25% EBIT growth for the full year.

Kai Telanne

executive
#30

So we are guiding adjusted revenue and adjusted operating profit from continuing operations to increase significantly from the 2020 level. That's our guidance. We don't have any other wording to use in our case.

Operator

operator
#31

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Pia Rosqvist from Carnegie.

Pia Rosqvist-Heinsalmi

analyst
#32

It's Pia Rosqvist from Carnegie. I have a few questions. One regarding the increase in sales. Can you discuss and open up a bit, how much of the sales -- organic sales increase do you assess is driven by possible price increases?

Kai Telanne

executive
#33

Not really, no significant price increases. So we are actually continuing with the normal pricing strategy, which is following the volume increases of our services normally like if you have more viewers or spectators or visitors, you're able to increase the prices. And that is the -- that is always the reason for price increases on top of normal inflation rate. So I would say that this revenue increased came from volume increase.

Pia Rosqvist-Heinsalmi

analyst
#34

All right. Then still on Alma Career and the Digital Educational Training services, Seduo. Is the strength, if I understood you correctly, the strength still coming from Central Europe and not so much from rolling out the services in Finland?

Kai Telanne

executive
#35

Yes, you're absolutely right. So it's developed in Czech Republic and the service is running nicely there. We are launching it in Slovakia as well, which is the pretty much the same language. And we are testing it and trying it in Finland. And then, of course, investigating the international potential in other places, probably it's in an early phase, still.

Pia Rosqvist-Heinsalmi

analyst
#36

Okay. Then Alma Talent, the -- your expense level was on par with last year. Why is that? I'm trying to understand, does it imply that you don't see this current revenue level as sustainable? Or can you discuss the cost level in Alma Talent?

Kai Telanne

executive
#37

Can you repeat it? I didn't hear it correctly, sorry. What was you asking?

Pia Rosqvist-Heinsalmi

analyst
#38

Sorry. So in -- yes, in Alma Talent, your expenses were on par with last year. Why is that? I mean I'm trying to understand if it implies that you don't see growth in the current business or why?

Kai Telanne

executive
#39

I didn't hear it. Juha, Elina, could you repeat? I didn't hear the question correctly. Something wrong with the line. What was the question? Alma Talent -- I heard that Alma Talent was the segment.

Juha Nuutinen

executive
#40

Yes. It was really difficult to hear. Yes. We didn't hear it.

Elina Kukkonen

executive
#41

Could we try again, Pia?

Pia Rosqvist-Heinsalmi

analyst
#42

Yes. Sorry, I'm really sorry if my line is bad. I tried to ask why the Alma Talent expenses were on par with the...

Elina Kukkonen

executive
#43

The line is -- sorry, Pia, the line is really bad.

Kai Telanne

executive
#44

Very bad line. Very bad line, I don't hear anything about your question.

Elina Kukkonen

executive
#45

Is there any possibility Pia for you to write your question on the online chat, so we can read it out loud here. Would it be okay?

Pia Rosqvist-Heinsalmi

analyst
#46

Yes, I will. Yes. Yes. Sorry.

Operator

operator
#47

Okay. So we have no more questions from the line. I will hand it back to our speakers.

Elina Kukkonen

executive
#48

Okay. Thank you, operator. We have one online chat question here at the moment. It's from Petri Gostowski from Inderes. It's a two-part question, and it has been actually partly answered, but no worries, we had such a bad line that maybe the repeat is good for all of us. So considering the record invoicing levels, do you expect current marketplace revenue growth to continue from the second quarter level on the third quarter level -- on the third quarter, sorry? So revenue growth to continue from the second quarter to third quarter? And the other part is that was there any exceptional items in the Shared Services EBIT on the second quarter, minus EUR 3 million adjusted EBIT in crackers. Or is this the level which we should expect going forward?

Kai Telanne

executive
#49

Okay. Very good. Juha can answer the last one, the Shared Services part, it's clear. It looks like the demand of the Career will continue during the third quarter. So there's -- all signs are telling us as that. But then for the full year, very difficult to say. There is this kind of -- it looks like during the second quarter, there is also the Career segment, this kind of pent-up demand that bursted and started very well, but still -- I'm quite confident that during the third quarter that the good development continues. Is it that at that high level, difficult to see, but the invoicing is quite good at the moment. So we are quite confident in that sense. But in advertising, like in broad sense, in Finland, very difficult to see yet how the last quarter will look like. But Juha, you can answer the Shared Services minus EUR 3 million.

Juha Nuutinen

executive
#50

Yes. Thank you. Yes, Shared Services, we booked EUR 3 million more costs or losses compared to last year, and there are a couple of reasons behind that. One reason is what we have discussed earlier already, it's concerned regional media sales last year, and we have some fixed cost in support functions going on. And we are not going to decrease those costs for short term, and we are suffering for that this year, and we estimated that the support functions, fixed cost -- the effect there is around EUR 3 million per year. And that's one thing why our costs are at higher level compared to last year or EBIT loss. The other reason is bonus reservations. We weighed quite a significant long-term incentive bonus reservations in second quarter in our results because of our higher expectations and higher results. And last year, on the contrary, the reservations were pretty low level because of last year's decrease in results. So that's one thing. And the third thing is that we also, last year, made quite significant cost-saving measures and which was around EUR 1 million in Shared Services and now they are not existing anymore. So they are coming from last year's cost saving operations this year, higher board reservations and then the support functions, fixed cost related to regional media sales.

Kai Telanne

executive
#51

Very good. That was clear. And now I can see, now I understand what Pia was -- put on the table so that is clear. So the -- Pia's question was that on Alma Talent where expenses on par with last year, why is that, does it imply and so on. So they are -- the short answer is that, in Alma Talent, we have divested print businesses. And of course, the Print -- and the Print business in all has declined. And we are, of course, getting rid of the print-related businesses like the printing and delivery costs hand-in-hand with the revenue decline in Print business. And of course, the -- that affects to the total cost and we were able to like transforming the business, Talent business from Print to online, we are able to stabilize the cost development. So not at all like we are not expecting the current revenue level to be sustainable vice versa. And the Service business where we are investing, the growth is expected to continue nicely. So that is the question. So transformation from Print to Digital makes the cost base lighter in that sense. But it's stable while we are, at the same time, investing in new Digital businesses. So that is actually the same that we did in the former regional media. So we were doing this kind of cost-effective measures initiatives that were going to mitigate the declining revenue effect. The other question, the other part is that Alma Consumers investment in regional advertising sales strengthen the consumers' market position in the SME customer segment. So what do we do? So we have invested in the regional sales organization, which is running nicely. So we have invested in personnel and organized our businesses in that sense, and that works as expected or even better. So we are selling the Alma network like all our services and Iltalehti and Talent Media's advertising in that part. And then, of course, it's content marketing and so on. So that is the question. So we are strengthening our organization way of doing the business and doing the cooperation inside the group on Finland's level. So that is the answer.

Elina Kukkonen

executive
#52

Okay. And there is one more question from [indiscernible]. You are guiding significant increase in both revenue and operating profit from 2020 basis. But how would that compare to 2019 levels?

Kai Telanne

executive
#53

No, we are not guiding anything compared to 2019. So we will, of course, guide only compared to 2020. You had to calculate these or do your own guidance in that relation.

Elina Kukkonen

executive
#54

Okay. Thank you. At the moment, there is no other questions. So if we don't have any other questions, I think then it's time for the final words.

Kai Telanne

executive
#55

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. We will meet again on 16th September, where we have our Capital Markets Day and then Q3 interim report on 21st of October. Thank you very much. Have a nice summer.

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