Sanoma Oyj (SANOMA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

This morning, Sanoma announced to acquire Alma Media regional newspapers. We think this is a very important deal to secure the sustainable future of independent domestic journalism in Finland. The benefits of this deal will improve the investment level into digital platforms and digital content. And with that, we will be able to grow the subscriber base, and most importantly, attract the younger audiences that are more demanding. How will we do this? We will do this by combining the independent, successful news brands into one portfolio, but they stay completely independent with our own editorial independent editors-in-chief. This is important to sustain the diversity of the media landscape in Finland. The integration benefits then come from combining the technology platforms and combining the support functions into one, and that synergy can then be invested into digital platforms and digital content. It's good to put this deal into perspective because there will be a lot of discussion and talk about it the coming days and weeks. But if we look at this on an international scale, we see that similar deals have happened in most European company -- countries already years and years ago. So all in all, we are happy to do this deal and welcome close to 400 new employees to Sanoma, and with that, support the sustainable future of independent domestic journalism in Finland.