Talenom Oyj ($TNOM)

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to join this financial statement release 2025 of Talenom. My name is Juho Ahosola, and I'm the CEO of Talenom. And I have started in my position in the beginning of this month, after this demerge with Easor. And with me here is today our new CFO, Matti Sakkinen, who started in his position as well at the same time with me.

Hello, everyone, and welcome also from my behalf.

Thank you. Okay. Let's roll out. Here's the agenda for this review. So we start from demerge, short recap on the history with demerge and then also purpose. Then a couple of words on this post-demerge Talenom, what we are, what we do, then a couple of thoughts on market and strategy as well. And then I will comment briefly on this review period. And after me, Matti will open a bit more detailed our financial performance and will comment our outlook and guidance for this year 2026. But let's start with this demerge or separation. So as we know, company started this review of the potential separation of the Easor software business into an independent public listed company. And after a couple of stages, we are here that there are 2 independent companies, Talenom and Easor. And as we know, there are, on both sides, independent strategies, own management, own boards and no any cross ownerships or that kind of structure. So 2 completely independent cases, independent companies operating in the future. And this was basically the big thing of 2025, and we are, as a company, super happy that this is now finalized. Our personnel worked super hard around this, and we are really looking forward in the future as an independent Talenom. And I wish to our -- my former Easor colleagues all the best for the future, and I'm sure they will make it a really great, great story. And then if we comment briefly on these reasons behind these demerge and what was like the ratio behind this separation. So basically, there are 2 main points. First of all, both companies can operate from a software perspective more flexibly and grow faster. Easor, on their side, they can acquire clients through other accounting firms and whatever channels they found working in the future. And then we -- Talenom, we are not anymore dependent on any single software provider, and we can use best solutions, best available solutions in all our customers' cases and to support those needs. So much more flexibility and much more opportunities in growth for both companies in the future. Then secondly, focus is super important in business always. And we -- here at Talenom, we can focus only on this service business, one clear business area, and I'm sure that will generate good results in the future. But yes, better growth opportunities, more flexibility and then also focus in our side. And to be clear with our software strategy, so we -- our strategy is to always use best available solutions, best available tools, sometimes it's Easor or sometimes it might be some other software, but always starting from client needs and also what supports our growth. We want to grow in the future. But that's demerge. And now we are super happy that this is done and we can start this new era of Talenom. And let's then comment on this post-demerge Talenom briefly. So what we are? Talenom is a service company, first of all. And the main idea remains the same that it has been more than 50 years. So we want to help entrepreneurs succeed. And we do it by different kind of accounting payroll and consulting services as well. And we operate in 3 countries: Finland, Sweden and Spain. And we combine in our growth 2 pillars, organic growth and then the selective acquisitions. And how we work, how we do it? We combine strong local ownership and expertise with this our scalable ONE Talenom concept. So first of all, we want to be super local in all countries and those locations, cities, areas that we are working. And then on the other hand, we have this ONE Talenom concept that is scalable, what truly works and creates results in these 3 different areas: customer experience, employee experience and profitability as well. And as I commented, our software strategy, the plan is to use best available tools and technologies to support our growth in the future. And we believe that this setup will provide a good foundation for sustainable and well-managed growth in the future. So we are a service company. Then if we have a short look in our operating areas and also organizational structure. So we operate in 3 countries, as I said earlier. In Finland, we started our operation in 1972. So more than 50 years history, we have strong brands, strong organization in Finland and really great history behind, and I'm sure that in -- ahead of us as well. In Sweden, we started our operations 2019 with first acquisition and in Spain 2021 with first acquisition as well. And we have roughly 1,200 full-time employees in 72 offices. And on the right-hand side, you can see how those are divided between different countries and how many offices we have as well. And to be clear, we are not now looking to expand to new countries. So we believe that we have enough market to win in these -- our current countries and operating areas. And I will a bit later open more that market and explain why we truly believe that we have enough room for growth in these countries. Then when it comes to organizational structure, year 2025, it was -- we had a lot of focus in this demerge -- Easor demerge, and it took a lot of energy and focus from management, but also from basically all levels in the organization. And we built during previous year management teams for both Easor and Talenom and then also we were building these management teams in countries as well. So a lot of work with this demerge and organizing ourselves during 2025. And as said a couple of times, we are really happy and excited that this is now done, and we can focus into the future. Then I would like to comment briefly on our revenue. So now as we are a service company, our revenue comes from different kind of services, starting from our core services. Those are accounting services, payroll services and accounts receivable services. And these services are highly recurring. So our revenue is mostly recurring. And that's, of course, good for investor perspective. Then in addition to these core services, we have also different kind of value-added services, as an example, CFO services, HR services, legal services. And these services, we see that we can grow with these services, and it could be really like even more important revenue stream for us in the future. But then on the other hand, those are also supporting our customer experience and the clients that are buying the most services from us, they are the happiest ones. And also, we have industry-focused solutions for selected industries. And the idea there is that we can provide even deeper service and more detailed services in these areas. So we are a service company, highly recurring revenue. Those are the main points. Then if we have a look into market and our strategy next. And let's start from the market and a couple of interesting points from here. First of all, if we think all our countries and markets, so to say, those are, in a way, quite similar. Markets are really fragmented, a lot of small companies. We can also recognize this consolidation trend basically in all our operating countries. So bigger companies are buying those smaller ones and also this like rising regulation is driving towards this consolidation. And then the interesting case when it comes to these markets, and I'm also here answering the question why we are not looking to expand to new countries. So let's start from Finland. We have roughly EUR 1.5 billion market in Finland, and our market share is roughly 5%. As I said, we are really established strong company, strong brand in Finland with a long and successful history. And -- but then when we look at that 5% market share, we can see that there's still a lot of room for growth in Finland as well. So my message is that we see a lot of potential in Finland in the future as well. Then looking at Sweden, there's even more potential. So roughly EUR 2 billion market size and our market share is roughly about 1%. So a lot of room for growth, a lot of opportunities in the long run. And then the biggest market, this size of this pie is illustrating the size of the market. So as we can see, EUR 12 billion market size and our market share is roughly 0.1%. And so super small slice from that market and a lot of opportunities. And when we are looking these 3 pies together, we can definitely see that market size is not going to be a problem for us in the future. And now we are going to focus purely in these 3 countries. That's our decision as a company. So a lot of focus in these countries. We are not looking to expand to new ones. Then if we look at these markets from productivity perspective, and this is our internal data, and we are here comparing Swedish and Spanish accountant invoicing with Finnish colleague. And what we can see here is that there's roughly 40% productivity gap between Finland and Sweden and more than 50% between Finland and Spain. And of course, price levels vary a bit, but I would say that in the big picture, price level in Finland and Sweden is roughly the same. Spain, a bit cheaper, but that doesn't explain this gap in productivity. So my message here is clear that we have a lot of room for improvement in these 2 other countries as well. Of course, in Finland, we want to improve as well, but a lot of potential in these big, massive markets. And we believe that with this ONE Talenom approach, we can achieve good results in the future. Then I would like to -- as a last point, when it comes to market, I would like to comment how this new era is changing the market from our perspective. So as I told earlier, we can use now those softwares that we want and we can build our software strategies from different perspective than prior this demerge. So we believe that when we can use other softwares than Easor, we can attract 2 different segments. So first of all, we have recognized that, that kind of customer segment that simply for some reason, do not want to change the software that they are using and they are operating with in the financial management, and they want to stay in that current system. And it's been a bit hard in the past to sell for these kind of clients because they have been forced to change both like software that they are using and then also service provider. So I think we'll have more flexibility in that side in the future, and we can like inside these markets attract more clients. Then on the other hand, we want to focus more on larger and more complex clients. And those clients, usually, they have more complex software needs. And with this flexibility, we can attract those clients more as well. So the message is that within the same market, we can have like larger reach, so to say. But that's about our markets and our opportunities in these markets. Then I would like to comment some key elements of our strategy briefly. And let's start from this ONE Talenom concept. So this is definitely the core of our strategy in the future. So this ONE Talenom, it's our concept. It covers our best practices, processes, ways of doing things. And we have been building this together with all countries and found those processes, practices, ways of doing things that are scalable. And then we have tested this, of course, in all countries. And what we have learned is that there's -- in all our operating countries, we can find the correlation between ONE Talenom Index, which measures how much we use these ONE Talenom processes and practices. And then these are most important KPIs like NPS, which is measuring customer experience, then employee experience and profitability as well. And we can make a conclusion that more we use ONE Talenom concept, the better the results are. So it definitely makes sense to focus on implementing this ONE Talenom concept in the future. And that's something where our strategy is focusing heavily in the future. Then secondly, I would like to comment on our M&A strategy. So as we know, we have conducted multiple acquisitions during previous years in all our operating countries basically. And we are going to do acquisitions in the future, super selective acquisitions. And during past years, we have learned, first of all, a lot, and we have found our way of doing acquisitions. And we want to acquire that kind of companies that truly believe in this ONE Talenom approach and this our approach and are willing to integrate with Talenom. They see that this truly makes value and sense for them. Then secondly, we are super selective. And what means selective in practice, it means that we say no more than yes. And it's really good that during the process, if we, at some point, find that we don't have future together. So then saying no, it's really right thing to do. But then one thing is this like that we see the future in the same way and this ONE Talenom concept and willing to integrate. But then in addition to that, it's important that we acquire only growth-minded companies because we want to grow in -- with organic growth in the future. It's super essential that regardless of history of the office, we have a super strong growth mindset in all our offices. And then to be clear, we are not doing this kind of like volume acquisitions, just in that purpose to get some more revenue. It doesn't make any sense, and it doesn't support company value neither. So no volume acquisitions, only these selective ones. If we move on to this third point here in the strategy slides, so organic growth. And we have strong more than 50 years history in this organic growth, and we want to focus it heavily in the future as well. We have already dedicated sales marketing teams in all countries. We are doing a lot of digital marketing, active sales work. By the way, it's worth mentioning that in Spain, as an example, it's not normal at all to sell actively accounting services. So we see a lot of potential there as well as in all our operating countries with this active sales work. And this is super important to us. So to be clear, we want to sell more clients and acquire new clients and serve them super well that they are willing to recommend us in the future for other entrepreneurs as well. Then -- so that's one pillar of organic growth. Then second one is to grow with our existing customers. So as I told earlier, we have different kind of consulting services like HR services, CFO services, legal services. And we see this important source of growth in the long run, and we are willing to be better in this area in the future. And then we can also see that more clients are buying from us, happier they are. So it's definitely crucial in terms of customer experience to succeed with this like upselling or how we want to call it. But 2 pillars in this organic growth, and I want to be clear, we want to be an organization that is growing with organic growth. Then that was more about this like long term and future and what we are as a new Talenom. But here's our priorities for this year 2026, and I would like to comment this briefly. So 3 priorities that we are going to follow in these reviews in the future as well. Starting from first one. So implementing the new strategy in all operating countries. And as we know, we have started as an independent company, so to say, in the beginning of this month, and we don't have that long history yet. So really implementing this our ONE Talenom strategy well and working with the basics and focus. So implementation of strategy, that's one pillar. And this ONE Talenom, I would like to emphasize the importance of it. Then secondly, improving our profitability in Sweden and Spain. We are not happy with results in the past, especially we know that we have had challenges in Sweden with profitability in long term. And we have done some adjustments in Sweden, especially, and there's much less employees in Sweden than previous year this time. And to be clear, we are not now planning any heavy restructures in neither Sweden, Spain or Finland. We don't have that kind of plans, but we have adjusted resources. And of course, in the future, we are following that they are adjusted related to our business operations. But that's not everything about profitability. It comes from this ONE Talenom practices, processes from this concept. And we are working heavily implementing it, and we will -- we truly believe that we will see that in the results during this year. And when it comes to Sweden, our goal and our purpose is to be profitability EBITDA-wise during this year '26. And then third point, implementing growth strategies in all operating countries. And we believe in all our countries, we want to grow in all our operating countries. And now we are, of course, focusing on the software strategies during this like new era of Talenom. And then secondly, we are planning to grow with the selective acquisitions as well. But those 3 priorities, we are -- we will follow in the future in this -- use during this year. Then Talenom as an investment. So I would like to summarize how this new Talenom looks like an investment case. So first of all, we have quite a defensive business model. Revenue, as told, it's mostly recurring. And also, these services, accounting services, payroll services are quite essential for SMEs. They truly need someone to do that accounting and payroll as well. Then we have solid profitability and strong cash flow, and it enables in the long run, both dividends and growth investments. And when it comes to these growth investments, this third bullet point, low capital intensity, I mean that when we invest, we are investing in that kind of elements like M&A and so acquisitions and then this organic growth. And usually, these kind of investments, they generate quite rapidly cash flow as well. And so like the type of investments that we are doing, we don't invest that much in that kind of like developing something that will generate cash flow in the -- like far in the future. So that's important when it also comes to this cash flow. And we are targeting in the long run, more than 10% growth combining these 2 elements of organic growth and these selective acquisitions. Then as a last part of this -- my presentation before Matti, I will comment briefly on year 2025. So starting from here, 3 points. First of all, this year 2025, it was a year of massive changes in terms of strategy. So this demerge -- Easor demerge was a massive thing for us. And as I said, we are now happy and excited that it's finalized, and we are really looking forward into the future as an independent company. And it took a lot of effort from us, from management, but basically all layers in the organization, and I want to thank all our personnel for that hard work around this. Then secondly, when it comes to our financial targets, we didn't achieve them. And our comparable net sales and EBITDA both grew a bit slightly during 2025 when it comes to this continuing operations. But when we didn't reach our targets, we are not happy with this situation, and we want to improve in the future, of course. So we are disappointed with the results, but now we are really looking towards future. So when it comes to future, I would like to say that we have a clear service business case here as Talenom. We believe that this is -- like from management behalf and from company behalf, this is -- there's much more clarity. And what it comes also into investor perspective, it's much more clear case than previously. And we believe that we can grow solidly and create long-term value with this case in the future. And the organization is super excited to get started. Here's from my behalf, short comments on Q4 financial results. So when it comes to comparable net sales, it grew a bit driven by Finland and Spain, 1.9%, and it was EUR 24.4 million, and then our comparable EBITDA as well as our operating profit was developing slightly or almost at the same level than previous year. But now Matti will take over and currently ask those questions in chat, we will answer those a bit later. Thank you.

Thank you, Juho. Yes. And as Juho said earlier, we have now completed our demerger process. And it's meaning that in this presentation, I will totally focus on our continuing operations and also comparable key figures. And let's start with our group's comparable net sales. It was EUR 107.6 million, and our growth was 1.8%. In the last quarter, our growth was 1.9% and net sales was EUR 24.4 million. This growth came from Finland and Spain. And on the other hand, in Sweden, our growth was negative, and it was impacting negatively to our group level net sales. Group's comparable EBITDA was EUR 19 million, and it was also improvement to our profitability about 4.4%. And if you look at this Q4 EBITDA, it was EUR 2.3 million. And it was at least almost the same level than in the comparison period. And Finland impacted positively to our profitability. And Spain, we had a negative impact and Sweden was at the same level. Group's comparable operating profit, it was EUR 5.3 million, and this improvement is in line with our EBITDA development also. So a change from the previous year was 17.4%. In the last quarter, our net operating profit was minus EUR 1.2 million, and it was almost at the same level with comparison period. And now we jump to the country-specific comparable key figures, and let's start with Finland. And here, we see that our growth was over 4% and our net sales was almost EUR 70 million in 2025. And in the last quarter, our growth was 2.6% and net sales was EUR 16 million. And this is totally organic growth, and it was driven by successful new customer acquisition. We still want to note that the general economic situation is challenging, and it's also challenging our growth activities. We see a high level of bankruptcies and also companies are closing down the businesses. Finland's comparable EBITDA, it was EUR 20 million, and we had about EUR 1 million improvement there compared to the previous year. In the last quarter, our EBITDA was EUR 4.2 million. And also in quarter 4, we had improvement in our profitability level. And this came via higher level of net sales and also we make our operations with increased efficiency. Now jump to Sweden, and we see the comparable net sales development here. And in 2025, our net sales was EUR 21.4 million and decline was almost minus 12%. In the last quarter, our net sales was EUR 4.5 million, and the decline was almost minus 11%. And as we have reported earlier, we have had a little bit higher customer churn in Sweden, and this is impacting to our net sales development also. So we are continuing and also continued our actions to reduce churn and also acquire new customers. Sweden's EBITDA, it was minus EUR 1 million in 2025, and there was a slight improvement for the previous year. And if you look at this Q4, it was minus EUR 900,000, and almost there was a slight improvement. But yes, we are not happy with this profitability level, and we are continuing our cost adjustments. And as we have said earlier, we expect that we will achieve positive EBITDA in 2026. Spain, comparable net sales, it was EUR 16.5 million. And here, we see that this is the highest growth in the company. So growth was almost 14% in 2025. And in the last quarter, our growth was even higher. It was 18%. So we are in good trend with this growth in Spain. We made 2 acquisitions during the previous year in April and in November. So 2/3 of this growth came from these acquisitions and also 1/3 came organically. And Spain comparable EBITDA in 2025, it was minus EUR 100,000. And this last quarter, it was disappointing for us. It was minus EUR 900,000. In this quarter 4, there was some nonrecurring expenses, and we had also higher level of sales costs there. And impact of this was approximately EUR 0.5 million. And then our investments and depreciations. Here, we see that our investment level, it was EUR 8.8 million in 2025. And we made the highest investment to new customer contracts and also to acquisitions. And our depreciations were EUR 13.7 million. It was in the same level than in the previous year. And we have also separated this our depreciation structure that there is separated this IFRS 16-based depreciations. So it's meaning that this EUR 9.9 million depreciation is coming from these investments, what we see in the slide. Then dividend proposal and our dividend policy. Our continuing operations earnings per share were EUR 0.06, and the Board of Directors proposal for a dividend of a maximum of EUR 0.05 per share, of which EUR 0.03 per share would be paid after the Annual General Meeting and maximum of EUR 0.02 per share at a later date at the discretion of the Board of Directors. And our Annual General Meeting is scheduled to be held on 23 April 2026. And dividend policy, the company's goal is to enable sustainable and growing dividend distribution. Any potential dividend distribution will be planned so as not to jeopardize the achievement of the company's strategic goals or its financial position. And at the end, let's look at our outlook and guidance. So we published our guidance for 2026 in December. And we expect that our net sales will be from EUR 110 million to EUR 120 million and comparable EBITDA from EUR 18 million to EUR 22 million. In the next week, we will have a webcast event where we tell more about our strategy. So welcome to this event then. Thanks from my behalf.

Okay. Thanks. Thank you, Matti. It seems that we are not having any questions. Okay. So then I would like to thank you all for attending this event. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Bye-bye.