Talenom Oyj (TNOM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

My name is Otto-Pekka Huhtala. I'm as the CEO. And today, here are some other people who are explaining our wins. Matti Eilonen, our Chief Financial Officer will open up our financial figures. And after that, Juho Ahosola, our new Deputy CEO will tell more about accounting business strategy. He has just nominated for this role. And this means that I can as the CEO, focus more about separating our Software business and leading that one. And then Lourdes Santisteban, who is our Director here in Spain will open more about accounting business opportunities. And then after that, Anxo Barreiro will speak about our Software business opportunities here in Spain market. Some highlights from Q3. Our comparable net sales increased 2.4% and our cash flow improved significantly to improved EBITDA and lower investment level. Matti will open more about this later on. Customer base in Software business increased 4.7% annually. And as we have told, a strategic review of the potential separation of the Easor Software business into an independent public listed company was initiated. And here, you can see also figures and how this really cash flow after investments has improved. But Matti will open more about that later on. Some strategic review. We released it 1 year ago in October that we are going to start selling our software also for another accounting firms. And the beginning of this year, we started to -- we separated the Software business as own business, and we started to invoice our own clients directly. And in February, we separated our management team that we have just Juho's led accounting business management team, and I have led this Software business after that. And then, of course, we have the group management team. We had a good pilot sales project in Finland in spring. And the end of spring, we launched our brand, Easor. And we -- our Board made the decision in summer of finalized strategy for both businesses. And in September, Talenom initiated a strategic review of the potential separation of the Easor Software businesses in an independent publicly listed company. This is a short strategic review, and now I will give Juho. It's your time to go. Thank you.

Thanks, Otto, and good morning, everyone, also from my behalf. My name is Juho Ahosola. As Otto said, I'm the one who is leading this Accounting business. And I'm going to now give a short presentation overview of this Accounting business. And when I'm talking about Talenom, I mean accounting business to be specific. Our agenda for this short overview, let's start look at Talenom in general. After that, couple of points of strategy, our strengths after this potential carve-out. After that, let's cover this market, what kind of market potential do we see and what kind of sources of growth we have identified. After that, as a last section, a couple of points of Accounting business, our Accounting business as an investment. But let's move on. So about Talenom, who we are, what we do. So Talenom is an accounting company and long-term partner for our clients, which are mostly SMEs. We have same customer segment in basically in all our countries, operating countries. And we help our customers with accounting services, payroll services and different kind of advisory services as well, including, for example, HR services. We have been operating in Finland, as you know, for quite some time since 1972, more than 50 years history from this industry. In Sweden, we started our operations in 2019 and here in Spain, 2021. Our mission in the Accounting business side is to help entrepreneurs succeed, quite simple but powerful mission. That's why we exist. And as a vision, what we want to be, we want to be the most recommended financial partner by the people we serve and the people we work with. And that covers both our employees, which are super important to us and our clients as well. And there on the right-hand side, you can see the main figures in terms of revenue and in terms of number of personnel right now after Q3. But that's Talenom in brief. Let's then have a look at our strength after this potential carve-out. So first of all, we have a long history as an accounting company. As an accounting firm, we're established '72. We have operated in this industry more than 50 years. And that means that we have quite some knowledge -- knowledge about how to run accounting office, how to run Accounting business. So this is basically not anything that's new to us. Then something I would like to point out what's important and not already mentioned. We have established management teams in all countries. We have management structures on place. And in addition to that, we have now this global management team and Accounting business, which I'm leading. Second point is super crucial when it comes to our strategy. So during a couple of last years, we have clarified our operating model, which we call ONE Talenom. And it covers our main processes, practices, ways of doing things. As an example, our leadership promise to our employees. And of course, we have also tested how this our concept works and does it make sense. And there on the right-hand side, you can see correlations between ONE Talenom index, as we call it, and customer experience, employee experience and profitability as well. And one dot there represents one team. And it means that when we apply these processes, these practices, we follow this ONE Talenom thing, so to say, our employee experience is higher, our customer experience is higher, and we are also more profitable. So this concept truly works. We also can see from this visualization that we have a lot of work to do, and we are working super hard in all countries with these processes and practices. Then third point I would like to talk about is the strong commercial capabilities. So we have been doing new customer acquisition quite a long time in Talenom. We have a lot of knowledge in terms of sales, in terms of marketing, how to acquire and attract new clients. And this is not that common in this industry, and we strongly believe in this and are willing also to further develop it. So to summarize, long experience from this industry. We have a concept that truly works and then the strong commercial capabilities. These are strengths that we are seeing. Of course, in addition to this, we have many other things as well, but these are the ones that I would like to point out. Let's move on to market potential. So accounting market, as we have previously explained, it's sort of fragmented. We can also recognize that trend of consolidation in this industry. And let's look at different markets that we are currently operating. So in Finland, market size is roughly EUR 1.4 billion, and we have a relatively strong market share of almost 5%. And that's quite natural since we've been operating in Finland for quite some time. In Sweden, market is a bit bigger, EUR 2 billion and our market share is roughly 1%. And here in Spain, as we can see, market is quite massive, EUR 12 billion, and our market share is super small. So a lot of potential here. But I would like to say that we have a lot of room for growth in basically in all our countries, and we definitely want to grow in Finland, in Sweden over time and in Spain as well. Then how we are planning to leverage this market potential and how we are planning to grow. So we have identified 3 sources of growth. So first of all, organic growth. So as I explained, we have a long history in selling new clients in this industry, and that's what we are going to do in the future as well, focusing on new customer acquisition in all countries. It's the hardest way of growth, but it's super important to us. Then second point, acquisitions. As we know, we have conducted multiple acquisitions during the last years in all of our operating countries. And in the future, we are going to do acquisitions, selective acquisitions as well. I also would like to say that we have learned a lot during past years, and we have good learnings how to identify good companies where our values are aligned and what truly works with us. But acquisitions, selective acquisitions, they play a crucial role in our strategy indeed. And then last but not least, we have a strong customer base, our current customers, and we want to grow with them as well, different kind of services, upselling, cross-selling, helping our clients in different kind of situations that they are facing. That's important and source for growth for us as well. So to summarize, organic growth, selective acquisitions and then also our current clients. Then last slide from my behalf. So Talenom Accounting business as an investment. So a couple of points how this Accounting business could look from an investor perspective. So first of all, our business model is quite defensive. So to say revenues are largely recurring and these services, payroll services, accounting services are mandatory in a way to our clients. So our business is quite defensive. Also, our profitability in this business is solid. We have a good cash flow, positive cash flow. And in the future, that enables both dividend and investments in growth as well. And when thinking about the investment is my last point is something I would like to point out is that when we are investing, we're investing especially in growth. So sales, organic growth and these M&A activities as well. And important thing is that these investments generate quite rapidly new cash flow to us. And this might be an important thing from investor perspective. And our target midterm goal is plus 10% growth by those elements that we covered in previous slides. That was all from my behalf. Thank you very much. And next, Lourdes.

Good morning. Thank you. I'm Lourdes Santisteban, the Country Director of Spain since 2022, so 3 years for now. I'm really happy to have this presentation from Spain today as we have seen already, there are huge opportunities in the market, and I'm going to talk a bit about market size, accounting market, digital maturity level that we are here now in as a country and also the M&A opportunities in Talenom in Spain as a summary. So first of all, let's start with the market size. Here, we can see the number of companies that are in the country and also the distribution of the size of the companies around Spain and also aligned with our strategy, as Juho mentioned before, our target market is the midsized customers, and we can see that it's almost 70% of the market already. So when we see also the figures and the numbers of the total addressable market that we have in Spain, we can see there's huge opportunities we have been mentioning up to now. Together with the number of customers or potential customers, we have and we are constantly analyzing the Accounting business itself. And we can see with these numbers in the screen that it is really automated nowadays. And there is still a lot of concentration in the companies with really low revenue. It means headcount of 1 to 3 people more or less, and it's starting to be a concentration in the market, but slowly. So there is a large number of companies addressing this market, but huge opportunities, especially because with the changes that the country is addressing with the digital changes also and the groups as Talenom coming to the country to change the industry, the opportunities are more on the bigger and higher accounting firm, especially for searching for good quality services, digitalization, the level of investment of smaller companies is really limited, and we will see a change on the tendency here soon. Together with this, we would like just to have a few comments on the digital maturity of the customer. This is one of the reasons that Talenom decided 4 years ago to come to the country, knowing that the digitalization of the customers is still really low, as we can see from a barometer from the industry. The level of digitalization of these companies is still in the medium or even low site and only 6% of the customers considered to be on a high level of digitalization. There are opportunities here also from our point of view because we can gain efficiency once the customers start to apply and use many often the tools them that they will find in the market. So regarding the Talenom Spain time lines, just a short recap of our short history here in Spain. It's just 4 years that Talenom decided to come, as mentioned. It was in 2021 that we had the first acquisition, August, in fact, and it was 1 year later that we started to grow inorganically, as we are mentioning here, but also our strategy here as a part of the learning of Talenom of going abroad was starting by establishing the pillars or the core pillars of the company. It was in 2022 that we created the areas regarding HR, for example, IT products, marketing sales. And with these pillars, we -- the following year in 2023 started to split around the country and put layers of services on top of that because we were prepared to handle this fast growth, in fact, in a year. 2024, it was our year of consolidation, as we mentioned here. We needed to consolidate the integration of this amount of companies and also starting to organize the whole Spanish organization in the Talenom way, also appointing the managers, training the managers, focusing on maintaining. It was very important for us to focus on maintaining the organic growth of these companies that we have selected to join Talenom while having before, and our goal was to keep that level and also to strengthen the organic growth through establishing a potent marketing and sales team in Spain. 2025, it's aligned with the strategy of Talenom of the ONE Talenom concept, meaning to implementing in our offices the way of working together with the culture of the company also for the engagement of our employees and pushing on the same direction, all of us. Organic growth is a main driver always for us and inorganic growth, that it's still continuing in Spain and it's planned to continue as the country as we have seen, and we will see also now is really big, and there are many opportunities. These are the numbers for Spain out now. So we can see the split of the country in terms of revenue and in terms of number of employees in 2025, the figures up to Q3. So that's why the revenue line is still not there. Where are we now in Talenom in Spain? So as a summary, we have presence in 7 out of 17 regions. So still a lot of place for us in the country, 16 acquisitions up to now, 330 people, 300 FITs, 6,500 customers and the local management as commented in the history time line, a structure and established. So there is a strong organization already in place in Spain. This is a map of the Spain to see the potentiality also and a small summary of where we are with our offices. But as we can see, there are still many spaces for Talenom to be present in the main cities and main provinces of the country. And the last point of my presentation is about the ONE Talenom in Spain, aligned with Juho's presentation or a short summary of what it doesn't mean for us in Spain, the ONE Talenom concept. So we summarize that in like 3, 4 points, sorry, the way of working. So as mentioned, how we are as a company, what is important for us for this integration concept that we have in Talenom, which is really important and different in the market, I have to say. So we have clear objectives for the organization through the whole organization, a culture which is present in the teamwork in every day of our accountants and our specialists. Of course, we put a lot of focus in the excellent customer experience. It's basic for us always, not to forget that it is through our customers that we grow, and it's the best way of growing, demonstrating that we have strong capacities on the customer experience and quality of our services. Processes and practices, we have a lot of experience as a company, 50 years of experience in making efficiency processes and working constantly on how to do our work best. And finally, but not least important, the strong commercial capabilities, as mentioned before, we have focused our growth, inorganic growth also on these companies that were growth driven already, and we are here to maintain that this is our focus. So now, we have Otto.

Yes. Thank you, Juho, Lourdes. And I will go through the Easor software business strategy. Easor in brief, what is it? So it's a platform management company, and we have now over 15,000 end clients and our annual revenue is over EUR 20 million recurring revenue, and we have over 60,000 end users. We handle over 10 million transactions annually. We have more than 140 full-time employees, and there is around 200,000 log-ins in a month. So it's very maturity software. And today, we have over 65 partner offices in Finland and Spain. Here is the one pager. And by that way, I want to explain that how Easor business model really works. We are a financial management platform. In left down corner, you see the entrepreneur. They will face many challenges in their businesses like how to handle this paperwork, where do -- can I find adviser to help me. And the right corner, opposite of that, you see the service providers who will face some challenges, how to find the new clients, how to handle all compliance issues, how to make this work more efficiently, how to earn more money and so on. And both of them are happy around in the middle of the picture around the Easor, we connect them. We offer for entrepreneurs easy-to-use management tools for their daily businesses. On the other hand, we help them to find new advisers for them. And for accountant, we offer, of course, the most efficient tools in the world to handle the daily businesses from the professional accounting side. And we help our accounting partner offices to grow even faster. Our values are the same as the Talenom has been because we have the same history. Left up corner is our purpose. We want entrepreneurs to succeed by taking care of their paperwork so they can focus on what they love most. Our strategic focus areas in the right up corner. The first one is Easor offers the easiest space to be an entrepreneur. Our growth target is over 20% growth rate. And the third one is the most attractive ecosystem for providing business-to-business services. As we have our partners offer banking services, reconciliation collection services, funding services. We have more than 400 ERP systems connected to our systems and so on. This is roughly our one pager, what does Easor really mean. Okay. What is the offering today? Left-hand side, you will see the entrepreneur, and we offer them Easor routines, easy-to-use Easor app for their daily businesses and broad selection of accountants. We have 2 marketplaces where they can find good account offices for them. Additional services, integration and support for them. And the right-hand side is that from the account office point of view, we offer efficient business for them. We have a very good track record of that in our own service business in Finland, and you can see this later on when you look at the figures. Compared to market, we have double-sized higher comparable EBIT than other accounting offices. And we want to offer this kind of efficiency tools for the other partner offices as well. One big thing is also that we have the channels to boost our partner offices, businesses. So we acquire new customers for them today. And the speed is in Finland around 30 to 50 clients where we are helping them to find new clients. We have very good support and education and community systems. We really help them to onboard clients to onboard them to help using our systems and help them to like fill all requirements which come from the compliance and so on and other additional services we offer for them. This is today offering what we have. And of course, it has started from the Finland, now we have just launched our brand also in Spain. Anxo will tell more about Spain situation. In Sweden, we are going to start selling our services to partner offices next year. And in Italy, we are localizing phase just now. Our growth will come from new customer acquisition. In left picture, you can see the dark pillar is the customer base what we are charging today directly from Easor side. And this light pillar means that those are the clients who are also Talenom service clients who are using our systems, but we don't invoice those clients separately. Those clients comes from the Spain and Sweden, mostly from Spain. And we are going to start charging most of them beginning of next year. But one notice is that price level is totally different in different markets. The highest price annual revenue per user is in Finland, then Sweden and Spain. So let's see later on what does this really mean. And in the right-hand side, you can see our amount of partner offices. We are ahead of our target, and this is increasing very fast just now. Of course, we launched our brand 1 week ago in Spain. So this will be so much faster in the future. What are our growth drivers in our businesses. The first one is the legislation and market trends, which are driving digitalization, especially e-invoicing Directive, PSD2, PSD3 is coming. And the second one is customer behavior is changing to our digital platform. Entrepreneurs are more and more ready to buy via digital way. And the third one is digitalization is happening just now. And good example comes from next presentation when Anxo is explaining the Spain situation. Why to invest Easor as a software business? And first one, we are a frontrunner in financial management digitalization. We have a very good track record in Nordics, how we have implemented new technology in our businesses. We have like over 20 years experience to develop our software. And there -- there are some maturity, and we also see that we have like very high automated systems. And we see that the same kind of history, the same kind of future, what we have seen in history -- in Finland is going to happen. And the second one is readiness for scalable growth. We have businesses in 4 countries today and big investments are [ in ] architectural renewal are behind. So we are ready. Third one, high recurring revenue creates stable cash flow, reduces the risk level of the business. And targeting for fund, we aim to have over 20% annual revenue growth rate. Thank you. And now it's now Anxo time.

Thank you, Otto. I'm Anxo Barreiro. I have been working in Talenom for 2.5 years, and I have been recently appointed as Country Director for Easor in Spain. And I would like to explain and to highlight how bright the future for Easor looks in Spain in the next few slides. The market size in Spain following what my colleagues have said is huge, and it's highly fragmented. There are more than 95% of the companies, of the SMEs and the freelancers that we have in Spain have less than 10 employees. This is -- even though that we can target higher companies or more mature companies, this is our sweet spot. So it's where e-Source or work works perfectly for the routines of these companies. But there is an important detail to explain regarding Spain is that these kind of companies are not used yet to pay for software, especially for accounting software for bureaucracy on their own. They are used to rely upon the accounting offices for all of their financial routines and the tax affairs. So the number of accounting offices is key in our strategy in Spain, Easor strategy in Spain because we are aiming to sell our software from the accountants and from the routines that their clients and their accountants will automate from that perspective. And that makes sense from the point of view of the size and structure that the accounting offices have in Spain. The sector is highly fragmented and only a handful of accounting offices have a medium size right now. And the average, as my colleague Lourdes was explaining, the average on the sector is that only 2 accountants per accounting office are working there. And more than 80% of the accounting offices have less than 10 accountants. That explains why it's very difficult to work on digitalization, on processes, on automation. It's very difficult for an accounting office with such a structure to invest and to think from the perspective of changing the routines and the softwares, especially without the perspective of a broader view of a bigger company, and that's where Easor can help because that transformation, it's not only based on digitalization, it takes much more. According to the latest studies, only 30% of the accounting offices use some cloud-based applications, cloud-based software. So mostly, they rely on on-premise accounting software that makes it very difficult to work on automation and on new routines. And only 4% of those accounting offices have any kind of reporting tools or business intelligence reports. So the opportunity is huge to go to that market. But digitalization is not enough, changing from the perspective of old fashion business and old way of working to a modern tool to a new routines, it takes also education and trainings. And it takes education and trainings not only for the accountants, but also for the end client. They need to understand how to work on the new environment, how -- what value can their adviser or their accountant take from the service, from the fee that they are paying, and it's a change of mindset. So the software -- the change of software is not enough, and we can help there. So once we have there the trainings and the education for both of the sides, we can move on to the integrations and to the partnerships. Our focus is not only on the software, that is mandatory for sure, and it's needed, but also for the distribution and how the partnerships may work in the future in Spain. As we rely mostly on on-premise accounting software, integration is not coming in Spain yet. It's not widely demanded. But the shift is coming, and we are seeing that the clients start demanding it more and more every day. So we are prepared for the upcoming shift. And when the clients demand more integrations, we will be there before the rest of the market, especially, obviously, depending on the accounting firms that are depending on on-premise accounting software. And this connects with the delivery channels that we have created. We have sales processes and sales teams. We have marketing and we have support teams to help on all of this that we need to change for succeeding in the future of the accounting software on the upcoming shift of the accounting fields. And we need this to capitalize on the tailwind that we have because there is something very huge in Spain right now that it's the momentum that we have in front of us. The structural shifts are creating this momentum and the government is helping with the change of laws and the mandatory digitalization for the companies. The first important moment that we had in Spain was Ticket Buy. Ticket Buy was implemented in 2022 in Basque Country that's in the North of Spain, and it requires freelancers and companies to include a QR code in their invoices and at the same time, submit them to the tax office. This simplifies tax filling and it had a very strong adoption. More than 80% of the SMEs and the freelancers from the Basque Country complied within the first year because they didn't want to wait any longer. Right now, we have Verifactu in front of us. Verifactu is the nationwide evolution of Ticket Buy. It's starting in 2026 for SMEs and freelancers. But actually, the early adoption happened in '25 for software companies. And all of our clients, all of Easor users in Spain are already complying with Verifactu. The current studies show that over 70% of SMEs will need to adapt. And in order to explain, paper invoices will remain valid, but they must be generated -- the invoices must be generated through authorized platforms such as Easor. And after that, we will have the electronic invoice. We don't have an exact date yet, but it's expected in '27, it is the evolution of Verifactu and it will eliminate paper invoices entirely. It streamlines tax filling and inspections and helps with the payment control and the reconciliation between the payments and the payments with SMEs. So it will boost our automation and help us sell Easor in the near future. And just to finalize what Easor situation in Spain and to explain our history until today date in 2021, Talenom's business in Spain. In 2022, Talenom buys e-invoicing software from Bank Sabadell. In 2023, Talenom evolves this invoicing software to do pre-accounting for SMEs to go to bigger companies. In 2024, we already have more than 2,500 Talenom clients using the software to create their invoices and control their businesses. And right now, in 2025, we have more than 4,000 Talenom active clients. In addition to those clients, we have more than 400 end clients that are using the software on their own without Talenom service. One of the things that we will do in the next few weeks is to go over the accounting offices of these 400 end clients to -- for those accounting offices to use the software for all of their clients. These brand launch happened a couple of weeks ago. And in this couple of weeks, we already have 5 partner offices in piloting phase where they are testing the environment with real clients. And we have more than 2,000 expected paying customers in the first quarter of '26 only for these -- from these 5 accounting offices that have already piloting our software.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to follow this Q3 review from my behalf also. My name is Matti Eilonen, and I'm CFO of Talenom. Let's start with the group figures. Our growth was 2.4%, ending up to EUR 30 million on the last quarter. And it came mainly from the successful sales in new customers in Finland and in Spain. Also, we made a small acquisition in Spain in April, and that boosted a little bit this growth. On the other hand, the development in Sweden in net sales has slowed down our growth pace. EBITDA ended up to EUR 8.6 million and the EBITDA growth was EUR 700 million. The EBITDA growth came this time mainly from Finland and Sweden, while the Spain was remaining on the comparison level. Operating profit EBIT went up a little bit, but it was slower -- the increase was slowed down because increased depreciation. And that comes from the past when we had higher investment level. And now we have lowered down our investment level by EUR 2.7 million from January to September, and that will have an impact on our depreciation level in the future, but not for this year. Then moving to country-specific figures. Finland grew by 3.5%, and it came from the new sales, getting new customers and so on. Finland has suffered quite a bit about the recession and the customers' transactions volumes have been declining. But now this declining has stopped and stabilized on the certain level. We think that in Finland, this growth, even that it was quite low, but anyway, it was a strong performance in very challenging accounting market. According to the latest research, the accounting market hasn't grown in Finland lately. Finland EBITDA level was really high, EUR 8.7 million and relative profitability really high. And its growth by EUR 400,000. Then moving to Sweden. Sweden net sales declined by 13% on the last quarter, and that came mainly from the customer churn. We continue our hard work to avoid the churn in the future and also to get new clients. That's our main focus area right now. We are focusing on really basic things in Sweden so that we can keep our revenue there. On the profitability side, we went up in EBITDA by EUR 200,000. That's a good direction. Also on the relative profitability went up. And we were scaling down our costs in Sweden, but we didn't want to do it too fast because our aim is a long-term growth and long-term opportunities on growth. So we don't want to scale the cost too heavily down in order to achieve a short-term profitability. Then to Spain, Spain grew by 17% and the organic growth strengthened in Spain. It was about 5% the organic growth. And the rest came from the acquisition. We believe that we have good capabilities to grow in Spain as we have very good function in getting new customers and also what Anxo and others told about the e-invoicing possibilities. And we have the tools and we have the products for that, and it's a good growing possibility. The EBITDA in Spain was pretty much on the same level and relative profitability declined a little bit. There was some items, nonrecurring expenses and a little bit different seasonality, which affected on EBITDA level in Spain. But overall, in big picture, it is steadily growing the profitability in Spain. And we are focusing on our processes and of course, that we are investing or we are trying to get only profitable customers and so on. Then a little bit about our cash flow. Even that we don't report cash flow on Q3, I would like to point out a few things because this is something that really matters. First thing is our EBITDA growth on comparable EBITDA. It was almost EUR 1 million better and also that we don't have to invest so must anymore. We lowered our investment level by EUR 2.7 million. If we add these together, our cash flow after investments grew by EUR 3.6 million, which is 45% more than last year. This is really a significant part. Of course, there are some other items in the cash flow as well, but they are pretty much on the same level as last year, and these are the things that really, really matters. And this really is super good when we are developing ahead this company. Then the business areas. Net sales in Software business was EUR 5.2 million. And in accounting business, it was EUR 24.5 million. And the EBITDA level was EUR 3.8 million in Software and EUR 5 million in Accounting business. There is not so much seasonable variation in Software business, but some during the summer time. Then the last slide about our guidance. The guidance remains the same. We are expecting to have revenue between EUR 130 million and EUR 140 million and EBITDA between EUR 36 million and EUR 42 million. Thank you. That was all. And now we can move to questions.

Hello. Now it's your time to ask.

We will start with audio questions. [Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Juha Kinnunen from Inderes.

This is Juha from Inderes. I will start a question from Spain. So could you just -- begin with the current studies -- kind of where is software currently used? How many -- what percentage of your clients are currently using it? And how do you see this developing before we go to the future and talk about sales?

Yes, Anxo can answer it.

Sure. Thank you for the question. Right now, we have closed at 70% of our customer base using this Easor software.

Excellent. Maybe you can continue also how many are actually already invoiced, they are paying for it.

In Spain doesn't exist yet as an independent company. So it's not invoiced separately. It will happen next year.

And is this -- does it mean that the revenue will grow directly because you will have the Software invoice? Or does it mean that you will also lose some revenue from services where it's currently included?

Yes. Today, it's included in service prices, yes.

All right. So basically, the clients are paying for it, but just not separately.

Yes, that's true.

Excellent. Then if I understood your go-to-market strategy correctly, you are aiming for the 52,000 accounting offices in spain, and these are very small on average. So could you just tell like how can you reach these offices? And what is your advantage to get them on board?

The advantage is that a software like Easor is mandatory for the clients, so they need to find for a solution. So the way of selling right now is let's say, easy because it's mandatory. And then we have to test the distribution. We'll start with 2-tier distribution where the accounting offices sell our software to their clients. And then we can move on after a few months, let's say, let's see how it evolves to a 3-tier distribution with a strategy where the distributors of software that are already established in Spain and sell our software to accounting offices and then those accounting offices sell to their clients.

Yes. Understood. Of course, it's a huge market opportunity. And normally, you need to have a really sharp focus when you try to enter this kind of market. Could you just elaborate a little bit like what are you looking for. Are the biggest offices the main clients? Or how are you aiming to reach your goals.

The idea of how to start is to look for accounting offices, not such as small as 1 or 2 accountants, more close to 8 or 10 because obviously, the number of clients is higher in those accounting offices and to reach them directly and sell our software to them. The thing that we are looking for in those accounting offices is to have alignment with their goals. To start, it shouldn't be something that it's mandatory, but they don't see the benefit in using Easor. The alignment should be that basically they see clearly the benefits in the automation and where we help them. That's -- let's say that it's not as easy as it seems, but we have a way of reaching those through accounting groups in groups such as LinkedIn and so on, where we are aiming for automation features. We will reach those and analyze if the alignment between Easor and the local accounting offices is good enough to implement our software there.

Fair enough. And maybe you could also open up a competitive situation currently. Who are the main competitors who are aiming for this market currently?

We have several competitors, but also the aiming and the features are different. Each one has their own way of reaching the clients. For instance, we have competitors that go after the complete routines, meaning that you don't need anything else in your accounting offices. From our point of view, we have been talking about this largely. And we think that the way of selling those is much difficult. Right now, we are aiming for specific accounting offices where our pre-accounting software, where Easor connects to their regular software that they have been using for, let's say, 20 years or so. So the challenge for them, it's not as big as to change everything and that your day-to-day operations rely on a new company that you don't know about or you didn't know until a few weeks ago. And after that, we can start upselling inside the accounting office. And then we have another kind of competitors that go after only 1 or 2 features. Our aiming is invoicing, expense management and financial analytic reporting. So it's not to change completely from scratch the routines from the accounting offices, but it's not also to aim for only invoicing because that's where most of our competitors go after, only change the invoicing and not additional features that actually -- the invoicing is on Verifactu, but doesn't help in the automation of the accounting office.

All right. I think I understood most of it. Just one last question about sales and it's about resources. I'm just wondering like how many people do you have going after this? How many millions are you going to invest in marketing and you're not creating a brand and everything else like this?

Yes. For now -- as I was explaining, we have launched the brand 2 weeks ago. So we are just starting, but we have open positions for the sales team, and we will invest heavily in the next year or a few years as the opportunity is there. The window of opportunities next year with Verifactu and in a couple of years with the electronic invoice. So we have to capitalize on the momentum that we have right now and not waiting 2, 3 or 4 years to invest.

All right. Thank you very much. I will let someone else have the floor for a while.

Thank you for questions, Juha.

Maybe there's some...

There are no questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for chat questions.

So Yani is asking about is Easor now sold in Spain as fully integrated package, not just normal plus interfaced third-party software?

Yes. The solution is today that it's based for the normal software. As Anxo said, we have continued to develop it as a pre-accounting software also. And there is also commercial software after that. So our solution is the customer interface, I mean, the entrepreneurs tools. And also there is the panel where our accountant can make reconciliation work. And most of their time will be joined in our platform, and they move -- change, move the data to the A3 or Sage or some other commercial solutions and finalize the bookkeeping there. That's the situation just now. And our strategy in long term is to integrate our Easor accounting solutions step-by-step to SaaS platform.

Okay. Then Emil is asking about what are the main root causes in the high customer churn in Sweden? How much revenue has been lost in practice so far. And when will the churn turn into net growth?

Yes, we are not happy with the current churn rate, and we are seeing that the situation is stabilizing, and we are working hard to get new clients all the time. And we see what is happening, but we trust that we are going to better solution all the time. As Matti explained before, so we have decreased our personnel costs. And we see, as we have told that our EBITDA margin is increasing compared to last year, and this development will continue as well. But of course, the main focus in the future is also in customer churn and the getting new ones.

All right. Then Emil continues about Sweden. How far along is the implementation of ONE Talenom processes and Software in Sweden in terms of customer base and teams? What measurable benefits have you achieved so far?

It takes time to adapt whole ONE Talenom concept because everything starts from the leadership, leadership promises, after that are the processes, then digitalization, automation and premium services. This is the story what we are, where we are working there. And it takes some years to achieve all of those goals what we are targeted.

Then Emil continues about Spain. What exactly did the onetime cost in Spain consists of? I can answer that. It was related to cost cuttings, which we did on Q3. And yes, that was the reason. And then Emil Immonen asks how do shareholders in Talenom benefit from the separate listing of Easor?

I can take that one. It's totally different lead to different businesses like Software businesses and Service businesses. And now when we are separating the businesses, then there is more potential for Easor Software for new clients when it has been only in -- for Talenom service clients, so it has limited our growth opportunities in Software side. Today, we can say that if we calculate like net cumulative growth in Finland, so we see that 70% to 80% of net cumulative customer volumes comes from the partner offices and 20% from Talenom offices. So we see that there is a huge potential, and we are just started. So it looks like very good. On the other hand, in Service business, they can really focus only for the services. If you look at from the management group point of view, there isn't so many issues on the table at the same time. So they didn't need to handle those Software businesses issues. They can focus only for the customer experiences and personal experience.

And Emil Immonen asks, why do you want to separate the software now? Why not wait 1 year or 2 to see how well the rollout going in Spain?

Why not? I'm -- so that when we have made the decision, then it's time to go forward.

Then Emil Immonen asks, are Talenom current costs associated to functioning as a listed company? What will be they in for Easor? Also, does Easor need new HR, finance, marketing, other support functions, which are not included in the Easor current cost base?

Yes, I can answer that. We haven't announced these costs related to the listing or maintaining the listing, but it's rather relative small to the size of the companies. And also, Easor will need to do some recruits related to HR, finance and marketing and those, but that's relatively small as well and we are going to outsource many things. I personally know one good accounting company where we can outsource, for example, some accounting services.

Yes. Then, Daniel Lepisto from Danske is asking about what do you think about the currently very high software CapEx level compared to the Software revenues? How much do you think you can decrease the Software investments now that the product is separated.

I can answer for that. So yes, that's true that our investment level for current revenue is too high. It should be lower. And as we have told, we have decreased our investment level and why we have done this and why this decrease will continue in next year is the -- the reason behind that is there -- in architectural renewal. We have made big, big investments for our software platform to export it to other countries, and this is the behind. And we are just now slowing down the latest old part of software what we are using in Finland. And after that, we have not like duplicated maintenance issues, et cetera. And so in future, it looks like that it will -- investment level will continue to decrease a little bit, but we are going to focus for getting more revenue, invest all or most of the cash flow to the getting new clients in Software businesses. So when the revenue increase and the investment little bit decrease, so this will be in normal in some years.

Okay. Then Massimo is asking this. There's quite a lot of questions. I tried to put them in pieces. Question number one is congratulations on the progress with Easor separation. As the Board conducts its strategic reviews, could you elaborate on the key criteria you are using to evaluate the different options such as IPO versus a potential sale to ensure the final solution delivers the absolute maximum value of Talenom shareholders.

I can take this. Of course, the Board has evaluated many, many things. And the -- this progress is ongoing just now. And the main focus is there in IPO.

The M&A market for software companies currently appears exceptionally strong with the strategical and private equity investors paying premium prices and high quality profitable companies like Easor. In contrast, the IPO market remains quite selective. How is the Board weighting the certainty and the potential valuation premium or offered by a strategic sale against the market timing risks and costs associated with the high IPO process.

Of course, this is on the Board table, and they have evaluated the prices and the value of the company. And the best view today is that via IPO, we can get the best benefits for all shareholders in midterm.

Massimo continues. The Verifactu legislation in Spain creates a phenomenal and time-sensitive growth opportunities for Easor. A large strategic partner could likely accelerate the market capture there significantly. As you prepare Easor for independent, how do you access the unique strategical value to a potential acquired aiming to win the Spanish market. And how is this strategical premium being factored into your reviews?

Maybe I would like to reply with many things what we have told, but we see that the market is huge and the potential that the officer is saying that you have to start using some software. We really believe that this will like increase demand of these kind of platforms as Easor is. And all software companies are full of hands the job the onboarding the clients that everybody can fill the requirements, which come from the officers. So maybe shortly that.

Then Massimo's final question is the European accounting software market is strongly on consolidating phase with large players like Visma actively acquiring local market leaders. Given this clear industry trend, have you received any preliminary inquiries regarding Easor, and how does the Board view Easor potential role as a part of larger strategic ecosystem as a way to accelerate the growth and mitigate future risks.

I can comment that this is the good potential questions, but this is on the Board table, and I can't comment at it.

All right. Then, Daniel Lepisto is asking, how are you planning to stop the revenue decline in Sweden? Do you need to walk back from that introduction of Easor in the country and opt the use Fortnox.

The current situation that we are using both Fortnox and Easor and because of this high churn, as we have told, we stopped to onboard new clients in Easor systems, and we want to stabilize the current business. And after that, we will continue to implementing our solutions there.

Then Daniel Lepisto from Danske continues. How many other authorized Verifactu platforms or competing softwares there are in Spain currently?

We can say that many, yes.

Daniel Lepisto, final question. How much is the Software annual recurring revenue in Spain currently?

We are going to tell this later on.

Massimo is asking growth in Spain has been strong. How do we plan to maintain this momentum? And what are the next steps for expansion in Spanish market?

Yes, we have good and strong growth rate just now. And we have ongoing in our M&A funnel, we have ongoing many, many discussions, and we are going to continue those acquisitions, selective acquisitions. We have been many, many discussions this year, but Lourdes will take care of the acquisition and going to hire those offices which are -- which have a good fit with Talenom culture, and we can then well implement those acquired offices to our businesses. So there in M&A funnel, we are going to increase the volume what we have been in this year, for next year and also what comes to digital phase, so many accounting offices, they faced the challenges because of the new legislation, and that's why they are ready to jump to our businesses. And also one good to know is that in Spain, I don't know why, but many people think about so that when something comes from the Nordic or Finland, so it's a happy thing. And so they see that we can really help them in this digital phase.

And Oli Salo is commenting, great answers. Oli Salo, thank you. Amer is asking, you have previously mentioned that the potential for organic growth in Sweden is very significant, and you have initiated results that they were positive. What is your view on this matter now?

Yes, as we thought. So we are working hard with keeping the current ones, clients and getting new ones. And one thing that I will notice is that we got a new Country Director in the beginning of August there, who comes from the -- from inside of the company, and she has also good expertise from the practice level, how to do the bookkeeping, how to lead the team, how to lead the units. And she has been also an area director before being as a Country Director. So we are very happy of the current situation, and we see now that many, many things which comes to the ONE Talenom is going to implement it well. But of course, it takes time, but it looks like good just now.

Okay. Then Iris is continuing. You repeatedly used the word distribution when telling about selling Easor software. This sounds rather passive as you are mainly waiting for customers to contact you. What is the level of Talenom's own sale aggressiveness and ambition for Easor in the coming quarters?

Yes, we are not only waiting for getting new clients. We will be happy to have this kind of situation. But if I start from the Finland, so we have 2 guys who are focused only acquiring new partner offices, and there is 2 other guys who has focused for getting new end clients to the partner offices. And these kind of systems we will have also in Spain. We are just now hiring new people who can focus to acquire new partner offices and -- sorry, in Spain. And here, we will like sell more or less via -- accounting offices more. And later on, we will also help them -- those accounting offices to find new clients. But today, the situation is that the problem is to find the invoicing solutions in accounting offices for existing clients. So we are resolving that to focusing to hire people to sell for potential partner offices, our solutions. So that's the -- we are not waiting. We are actively doing.

Yes. Then the final question from Matti. What about the second dividend. When we can anticipate a decision regarding it?

I can't comment it just now, but it's on the Board table. Okay. There is only some positive feedback less. So we will have a nice weekend here. It's [Foreign Language] Thank you for everyone to following our report release and see you soon. Thank you. Bye.

Thank you. Bye-bye.