TX Group AG (TXGN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Full-Year 2021 Results Analyst Conference Call. I am Sandra, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Ms. Ursula Notzli, Chief Communications and Sustainability Officer, Member of Executive Board. Please go ahead.

[Audio Gap] And explain you our annual results. It has been a very eventful year for us, and we are very happy to give you some more details. My name is Ursula Notzli, and I'm responsible for the communication and the sustainability. And followed by me, our President and Editor, Pietro Supino, will give you a short overview over last year. And then all members of the group management, as well as CEOs will explain their business a little bit more in detail. At the end, obviously, we are very open for your questions. So then I would like to hand over.

Good morning, everybody, and welcome from my side, and thank you to those who have come here to the Werdstrasse, and thank you for those who attend us through video. 2021 has been a good year for us, but it has still been heavily influenced by the corona crisis. And we didn't expect that when we were planning the year 2021 in autumn of 2020. So the year has been challenging for us. At the same time, the economy has been surprisingly resilient and, of course, has helped, although we are still far below our historic profitability and, Wolf, our CFO, will show that to you. We are happy with the recovery that we have seen in the last year, and we will submit to the general assembly to distribute an ordinary dividend of CHF3.20 per share, in addition to the extraordinary dividend of CHF4.20 per share that we have already announced in December of last year at the occasion of our Capital Markets Day. And that together makes up for a dividend of CHF7.40 per share that we submit to the general assembly in April. All activities of the group have progressed in 2021. Tamedia has achieved almost 150,000 digital subscribers. 20 minutes reached over 3 million users and readers per day. Goldbach has seen a comeback of the main TV business, and also has been able to win very important inventories in the out-of-home business. And then the merger of the platforms of TX Markets, Homegate, Ricardo, Tutti and Car For You with the Scout Group has been a historic event through, which we have already created a lot of value. But first of all, and looking into the future, we have created a very strong Swiss digital enterprise, for which, we foresee a really good future. Following the creation of the SMG, Swiss Marketplace Group, we have not waited but adapted the group structure and the group management, and I'm pleased that my colleagues will present to yourself to you themselves today so that you have a opportunity to get, know them in person. We are proud of these achievements, and we are proud of the dedication, the quality orientation and the reliability of our collaborators under the leadership of our management. With our popular platforms and our newspapers, we contribute the functioning of society, which was particularly important throughout the crisis and to the well-being of people. With an organic growth of 6%, we have recovered from the worst of the crisis. We have also had a good start into the new business year 2022, in which we want to concentrate on the establishment of SMG and on the further development of the group as well as of JobCloud, our second most valuable activity of the group. Tamedia, 20 Minutes and Goldbach, they are all going through a deep transformation. We are convinced that with creativity and innovation, this transformation offers us more opportunities than it poses challenges. And we have shown that in the past years, and it is our ambition to continue to show that in the future. Now the CEOs of our companies will present you in more depth what the developments are in their field. Also my colleague, Daniel Monch for Ventures. Before that, our CEO, Sandro Macciacchini, and our CFO, Wolf Benkendorff, will analyze the past financial year a little bit more precisely. And then finally, Ursula Notzli, my colleague from the Group Management Board will dive a moment into the increasingly important theme of sustainability and then open a Q&A session, where we are happy to answer any questions you might have. So thank you again for being here and looking forward to exchanging with you.

Thank you, Pietro. Warm welcome also from my side. Sandro Macciacchini, former CFO and COO from hereon. I would like to start with an overlook over the most important financial key figures for the reporting year 2021. Starting from the left, with the turnover. As you can see, that our consolidated turnover grew by 2%. On the other hand, we were able, despite the high turnover to lower our cost by CHF 60 million, and this resulted in a positive development of the EBIT before PPA. That means before depreciation out of acquisitions of CHF 128 million. The net income, so-called EAT jumped to SEK 833 million due to extraordinary effects. These extraordinary effects resulted in a loss due to the merger of our classified activities into the Swiss Market place Group in the amount of [ CHF 780 million ]. In the previous period, as you might remember, we had an impairment loss on Tamedia in the amount of CHF 85 million. The free cash flow before acquisition, the so-called free cash flow before EAT and M&A also recorded very positive to CHF 130 million. And therefore, also the net liquidity improved significantly and stood at over CHF 300 million at the end of the year. In addition to the positive operating development, the fact that no dividend was paid to TX Group's shareholders for the fiscal year 2020 and the partial payment of CHF 135 million for the sale of 10% of the shares in SMG to general accounting also contributed to this figure. The next chart shows the development in the advertising market in Switzerland. These are gross figures. As you can see, the market recovered over the year and especially in the fourth quarter. And year-on-year, we had a positive growth of 12%. But compared with 2019, the year before COVID, we still have a lower market or are still below 6% from the market in 2020 -- 2019. This chart shows the organic growth. As Pietro already has mentioned, we had an organic growth of 6% in turnover in the reported period. This does not include the activities merged in the joint venture, SMG and the segment, TX Markets and the sold activities of Olmero in the segment group and ventures. Next chart shows you the digital share of revenue in our most important revenue categories from left to right. The share in advertising revenue grew to 57%. The share in revenue from classifieds and services up to 90% and the share in revenue from subscriptions and individual sales up to 11%. Here included are only the pure digital subscriptions. The others are in the remaining 80% -- 89%. This leads to an overall digital share in revenues of 54% compared to 51% in the previous year. This chart shows you the normalized income. As I've mentioned, we had an extraordinary effect of CHF 780 million due to the joint venture with the Scout Group. Another external effect are ordinary effects due to the settlement we had in Denmark, linked to our activities in Trendsales. And we also normalized the depreciation and amortization from business communications as in the previous years, and this leads to a normalized EAT of CHF 102 million, which compares with a normalized EAT in the previous period of CHF 66 million. And this shows the recovery in the last year. But however, compared to the 2019, you also see that we are not -- still not on pre-COVID levels. The normalized EAT of 2019 stood at CHF 126 million. Here, a deep dive into the share of net income of associated companies. As of November last year, as our activities in CAR, Immo and general classifieds are, as you know, reported on the associated companies. This is the column, SMG. And as you can see, in these 2 months, this unit contributed a negative EAT in the EBITDA of the group of CHF 1.5 million. And this is due to the amortization out of the business combinations we have on this unit. If you look at the EBIT before PPA, that's the third line from the top, this unit contributed to a positive EBIT before PPA of CHF 1 million for these 2 months. Next to SMG, you see the financials for Karriere.at, that is our top classified in Austria. And you see that this company or business activity contributed a positive EAT of CHF 16 million in the reported period. And as you also can see, the EBIT before PPA was CHF 22 million and the EBIT also 22 million. That is due to the fact that we don't have any amortization out of the business combination on this business unit in contrast to SMG. That's all from my side. I hand over to our CFO, Wolf Benkendorff. Thank you.

Thank you, Sandro. Good morning. Warm welcome from my side. My name is Wolf Benkendorff. I'm the CFO of the TX Group. And I will start off with revenue. Overall, the consolidated revenue increased by CHF 22 million to CHF 957 million. We see a significant recovery in advertising revenue of segments of the TX Group. We can report an increase compared to 2020 with the exemption of TX Markets because only 10 months of the deconsolidated TX Markets units are included in this revenue figure. We have a slight increase in classified and services revenue, although here, again, only 10 months of the deconsolidated TX Markets units are included and revenue from Olmero is not included anymore. The increase in commercialization revenue is due to the improved situation in the advertising market. Revenue from subscription and single sales remain stable. And the decrease of revenue from print and logistic operations is driven by negative effects from lower paper price and as well deconsolidation of Olmero in 2020. If we take a closer look at the operating expenses, I have to mention that the previous year comparison is not easy to read because we only have 10 months of the deconsolidated TX Markets units reflected. Costs of materials and services have been reduced mainly due to paper price reductions and change in scope of consolidation. That again is Olmero. Personnel expenses increased slightly compared to the previous year. Main effects behind this are less short time work in 2021 compared to 2020. This increased our personnel expense. Then Personnel expense for profit sharing in '21 is significantly higher due to the good financial performance of the group. And in contrast, pension costs from IAS 19 decreased by CHF 11 million compared to the previous period. Other operating expense was stable, if we adjust for changes in the scope of consolidation. We had more expenses on marketing compared to the previous year, but on the other hand, savings in IT and other OpEx like facility, office, mobility, consulting. The cash flow statement starts with the EAT that was already explained by Mr. Macciacchini. If we look at our net working capital, that's the small box on the left-hand side, we see that we have CHF 19 million more cash tied up in working capital due to increase in receivables caused by higher revenues, decrease in trade payables due to less material external services. And in addition, we have a one-time effect here due to the deconsolidation of the TX Markets units. Despite the increase of net working capital, operating cash flow has increased compared to 2020. The main reasons being better result in '21, the received payment of roughly CHF 12 million in the Trendsales settlement and less income tax paid. Cash flow from investing activities is positive with the main effect coming from the sale of the SMG shares to General Atlantic, half of which was paid in cash. Largest items in the cash flow from financing activities in 2021 are dividend payments to minority shareholders and repayment of lease liabilities. If we compare it to 2020, then the waiver of dividend payment to the TX Group shareholders for the financial year 2020, lower profit distribution to minority shareholders for the financial year 2020 and less cash out for the purchase of minority interest explains the difference. Overall, cash and cash equivalents increased by CHF 160 million, up to CHF 436 million at the end of the year. If we take a closer look at the free cash flow, the CHF 130 million of our free cash flow before M&A was already explained by Mr. Macciacchini. If we subtract the dividend payments to minority shareholders from this value, we arrive at this key figure, free cash flow before M&A, after dividends to minority shareholders. This is the cash generated from operations in the financial year 2021, that is attributable to the shareholders of the TX Group. This is also the basis for determining the dividend payout. Compared to the previous year, on the right-hand side, you can see that the balance sheet total increased roughly by CHF 1 billion, mainly due to changes in equity. The main reason for this is the book profit of roughly CHF 780 million from the contribution of 100% of the shares in TX Markets to the new joint venture, SMG. Another significant effect arises from the revaluation of the employee benefit plan in the amount of CHF 193 million that is recognized in the statement of comprehensive income. On the asset side position, participation in associates and pension assets increased accordingly. Look at the segment report, all companies were able to increase earnings, EBITDA and EBIT adjusted and the corresponding margins. I will explain the 2 segments, Group & Ventures and TX Markets in more detail on the next 2 slides. First, Group & Ventures. In the graph on the left-hand side, you'll find the information in our segment report. To give you more insights, we splitted the segments Group & Ventures on the right-hand side into Ventures and Group units. Ventures, on the top right, you see that third-party revenue in this segment is generated by the fully consolidated units, Zattoo and Doodle. The decrease compared to the previous year is due to the deconsolidation of Olmero in 2020. We see a negative effect on EBIT before PPA through the deconsolidation of Olmero and the increase in the share in neon that is now listed as an associated company. Overall, we have higher investments in product development, sales and marketing at Doodle and Zattoo. Personnel is almost at the same level as last year, although roughly 50 FTE from Olmero from 2020 are no longer included. On the bottom right of the page, you see the group units. Third-party revenue here is generated through rentals of properties and the provision of services to SMG. Intersegment revenue has been reduced due to a change in the internal charging concept. The main effect behind the decrease of EBIT before PPA from minus CHF 4 million to minus CHF 13 million are to the reduced service charges to the [ subgroups ] and an increase in personnel costs due to TX Services in Belgrade and the reduction of external services costs accordingly. On my last page, closer look at TX Markets. In the graph on the left-hand side, you find the information from our segment report. To give you more insights, we splitted the segment TX Markets on the right-hand side into JobCloud and other TX Markets units. JobCloud, on the top right, JobCloud, we see a significant increase in revenue, and it's important to note here that revenue only comprises JobCloud. We see an even stronger increase in EBIT before PPA, but this includes the profit share from Karriere.at as well, which distorts the margin of 69%. On the bottom right of the page, this comprises the other units of TX Markets. So, this includes 10 months of revenue from the deconsolidated TX Markets units, as well 10 months of results from these deconsolidated TX Markets units and important central costs of management and central functions of TX Markets are included in the results here as well. And of course, SMG's contribution for November and December with a negative effect of CHF 1.5 million due to the high depreciation and amortization from business combination. I will now hand over to Olivier Rihs for TX Markets. Thank you

Thank you, Wolf. Hi, everyone. I'm Olivier Rihs, CEO of TX Markets and responsible for the participation in Swiss Marketplace Group and JobCloud. And let's start with JobCloud. 2021 was a very successful year. We grew double digits almost in every segment, above all in small and medium enterprises. Yes, we -- let's say, the market was recovered. So the job market recovered strongly in Switzerland. But this is not the only, let's say, reason why we grow so faster because we invested a lot in technology, in new product and services and also in our team. The team with the CEO, Davide Villa, and management did a great job also during uncertain times, COVID. And now we had a strong position on the market even stronger than before COVID, respect to and compared to our main competitors, LinkedIn and Indeed. If you look at, let's say, the 3 main topics on JobCloud, first of all, on the seekers side, we improved the whole process for the seekers to make them easy to applicate and find the right job. On the other side, we also managed to make the process easier for the company to find the people they need. And, well, the war of talent is definitely there. So it could be a lack of talent during the next years, and we want really to make the life easier for the company. This is the first, let's say, focus for us, and we will still invest more in technology and in professional tools for companies. Then the job advertising, our core business. With our strong brands, jobs.ch, jobup and then JobScout24, we have, let's say, a fantastic reach in Switzerland, but not only for Switzerland, it's also important that the company find also outside Switzerland, the talent they need. Our colleagues at Karriere.at in Austria had the same trend, the same growth also because also there, they invested in product services and talent. And we are very happy also there about the development of the company. And last but not least, the job business is also a technology business. So, we invested in a tool, jobcloud.ai. This is the tool where the small and medium enterprises can recruit the employees they need in a very easy way. And this is where we see a lot of potential also in the future and also they are in double-digit growth for small and medium enterprises in Switzerland. And this is where we are focusing on. Jobcloud.ai is a interface between our technology with the main systems, HR systems in Switzerland and in Europe to make, let's say, the whole process for medium and big companies easier. Joveo.com is where we distribute all the listings and all the job listings around in Switzerland, but not only also in Europe and where we source also the job seekers. And it will be also, let's say, they are also a big challenge to not only to have the active seekers, but also the passive seekers in the future that we bring, let's say, the right people to the companies together. And finally, JoinVision, is an extraction technology that's optimized and support machine learning and the matching. So overall, the ecosystem is stronger than before the pandemic in 2019. And we are -- we started now 2022 very strong too, and we see a lot of potential in front of us. Then Swiss Marketplace Group. It was a historical move to bring the Scout assets with the TX Markets. It was a lot of work. It's -- let's say, I'm very happy also that people were -- at TX Markets and Scout was very flexible and very open to this merger because this is very important to build a brand new company of over 1,000 people. So it's a fantastic opportunity here in Switzerland to have such a digital company. And -- but we build it from scratch. And that's why we have now to focus on organizing this new company together. We are #1 in real estate, in cars and in general classifieds, #2 in finance and insurance. And also there, we have a fantastic ecosystem where the users can make the choice really easy and fast if they have to choose a new home, a new car and things they need every day. The portfolio now has covered the whole Switzerland, all the regions perfectly and all the needs also from the business, the dealers, the real estate owners, et cetera, and of the users. And we see there a fantastic ecosystem also. And let's say, that the first 2 months, of course, they don't show the reality. We will now realize the synergy we see within the platform, technologically, also in terms of people and marketing. And we will now improve also the innovation and the products we will bring in the market together. Thank you very much. And now, I will -- over to Michi.

Hi, everybody. My name is Michi Frank. I am in charge for Goldbach. Goldbach, the sales organization from TX. I have also 2 charts for you. When we look back to the last 2 years, that was really not a easy stuff with corona, what we had, and especially in the last 4 months, one year ago, what we had there in Switzerland, a lockdown. And from this point, we are really happy for the results in '21 from Goldbach. Special -- we had a good performance in the TV business, the TV advertising business. And also, we have a strong increase in the third-party business in print and also in digital stuff. It means we have now, I think, exactly 150 external publishers who works with us here in Switzerland and in other countries. And that's the thing what we are looking forward. One face to the customer, that's the story, what the people want from our side. Also, we have a very good year in '21 in Germany and in Austria. That means our DACH region; Germany, Austria and Switzerland. We work there also in the digital out-of-home special with this performance data, also in the TV business and there also in the mobile and online business. What we see for '21 -- from '22, we see a growth for us with the new inventory. Later, I will come to them. And I think that's the situation. What we have also here now in Switzerland. The market is stable, but this new inventory what we have, we see that, that we have a good chance for the growing story. One of the biggest important points for us is the 360-degree. It means we follow to the customer, with the client, with our inventory. And that's really important for our business for the future, also with the structure from Goldbach. In the cross-media campaigns, we have a lot of success stories in '21. And the people want -- and the agencies and customers want really the stories from our side. We built a new company, a new start in our business. It's named Content & Sponsoring. What's the meaning on Content & Sponsoring? We bring 3 parts together. First, the events in culture or sports. Just example, in the Skiing Live Stream in Wengen, together with our image story what we have, and then we find some clients who work together with us. That's a new business. Also starting '21 for us, it was really, really important. And that's the story, obviously. On the right side, you see the out-of-home business from us, especially here in Switzerland. That's our company, neo. There, we are in the digital out-of-home and out-of-home business once more. We are also in the digital out-of-home business in Germany and in Austria. Moving there, the pitch for VBZ, the public transportation system here in Zurich. It was for a really great stuff. And now we start with this inventory, which is new inventory and also, we should take this digitization. In this part, that means it goes from the old out-of-home business, in the new digital out-of-home business, also with the content, especially, this 20 Minutes, the content, the combination what we have for the ID and that's our ID and also our answer in this out-of-home business for the future. And also, we win new contents by Coop and also Migros Aare. And that's what we see, what I told you with corona. The transportation business comes back, and that's our business who comes back also for '21 and now especially for '22. I have one more chart for you. In the last 2 years, we have listened to our customers what they really want from our side. One face to the customer, one more, strictly falters about 360. That's one of the importance what we have. There is SME business in German [indiscernible] business. It's the business what we want to bring back to our business. It means that our -- that's now the story what the GAFAs said. They were special in this business, and you see there a good opportunity for the future for us. Like also Oli tells you, we invest also in our part in technology and also in people because we have listened to the customers and we have listened to the agencies and other guys would tell us what is really important for us. Now we -- in the phase, we start with the programming for this platform. It's a new platform. And that means the key thoughts for that are, it must be a booking tool, easy to handle, really easy to handle like the GAFAs have and also over all our media what we have. And I think that's a special what we have when we look to our content, what we have. We are in 360. We are not just like the big players from America in the special moves like in digital. We are also in print. We are also in radio. We're also in digital outperform. And this combination with the technology is our answer to the GAFAs. And we are totally sure, this is the one-stop shop to go easy to the customers and to the clients. The last sentence from my side to bring the words after to Marcel is really, we believe, in our really great local content. That's the story what we really have in our company and with our network. And this transportation together with the technology, we are thinking for that, that's the right answer for us to '22 for our business. Thank you so much. And later, I'm here for questions. Marcel, please?

Yes. Good morning, everybody. My name is Marcel Kohler. I'm responsible for 20 Minutes. As you saw in the presentation from my colleague, Wolf Benkendorff, the result from 20 Minutes is clear better than last year. But it is also clear, still quite far away from the profitability in the years before the COVID pandemic. Against this background, it may be astonishing that we invest substantially in new people. There were different reasons why we made that. One reason was offensive in French part of Switzerland. And another key reason was the fact that we stopped the collaboration with Keystone-SDA and build up our own agency and invested more in our news desk. It was curated. And as we can say after the first full year, a very good decision. With a lower cost base, we offer to our readership a content more specific, as we say, in the sound of 20 Minutes. And that with good results. Our video growth was crazy, more than 30% last year. And our total audience in print and online is more than 3 million readers per day, an all-time high. Still a part of these figures comes from the multi-language app you see here in the middle of this chart, which we launched in November. Now we have 4 languages. Others will come. We see this app as an innovation booster, and we are very happy about the positive feedback also from the political side. There are some ambassadors. They write us, wouldn't you do that, for example, for Bosnian and other countries. Next, please. Thank you, Olivier. Social media first is the way we will work in the future. We got green light from our Board to invest substantially in this for 20 Minutes, so important transformation. We are at the beginning. But we can see, it is a promising way. On the chart you see here, that was a story we published first in TikTok and Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and in our own media at the end, also in print. It was a good example of a soft story. More and more, we produce videos first for TikTok. That's our main channel, and we reach unbelievable results. We had videos last week in the French part with 1.6 million views. This week, we have a video which reaches more than 4 million readers on TikTok only. And we do that with soft and hard release. We see more and more that young people -- young people, that's the target group of 20 Minutes is probably more than ever interested in our content, but they consume it in the social media. Our challenge is to adapt to this development. It's a challenge, but we will do that. Thank you very much. And I hand over to Marco and Andreas.

Good morning from our side. My name is Marco Boselli. I'm one of the 2 Co-CEOs of Tamedia. Andreas Schaffner will talk to you later on. So as Pietro told you, everyone is in the middle of a digital transformation. That's, of course, also true for Tamedia. So -- and our main goal is to increase the number of digital subscriptions, and we were able to increase them by 17% from '20 to '21. To be perfectly honest, our goal was a little bit more ambitious, but there are reasons why we didn't reach that. But at the end, the good news is all those 147,000 new digital subscribers are new subscribers. So, we're not cannibalizing our print subscribers. We're building up new subscribers to our content. And I think that's the most important thing that we have to do in the next years. One of the reasons why we didn't have the full firepower at the end of last year was we introduced a new marketing engine, Piano, which is used a lot around publishing houses, which helps us to create new offers for specific customers. And we see. Now it's operating since end of December, and we are really happy how it works. In January and February, we had really a good growth now on our digital subscriptions. And another really complicated technological approach is the introduction of Onelog. Maybe you heard about that -- this initiative on all the publishers in Switzerland. The idea is to have some counterbalance to the offers, where you have to log in to the media companies. And at the end, you're able to use all the media outlets with one log-in. And that's technologically really -- it's a heavy project, but we were able to already migrate 150,000 readers toward this new technology. And you know that 2 years ago, we announced a quite intensive cost-cutting program of CHF 70 million. One of the projects around that was that we said that our journalists have to find new ways of cooperating. We introduced new collaboration models in Zurich and in Berne, where journalists now have to cover together the region where they're working. Especially in Berne, there were a lot of discussions. Is it really possible to put together the editorial staff of Zurich and Berne? And I can today say that it was really successful. They worked really great together. And at the end, we have more firepower in leveraging those synergies than we had before. We launched also a media partnership in Riviera Chablais. That was a region where there was a newspaper that's tied with Le journal, and we were able to go in that market with our -- with a partner and build up a new media brand. And then for Andreas Schaffner -- I can also say that our -- we are the biggest printer in Switzerland. There are 3 printing facilities in Zurich, Berne and was almost fully booked, and we were able to extend the various third-party contracts. Last but not least, Diversity at Tamedia. It's a really, really important topic. We knew that on an employee base, we have a good percentage of women we have employed. It's about 40% female employees and 60% male employees. But we saw that on leading roles, we had not enough women. So, we're really working on that, and we want to really increase the amount of women in leadership roles. And we are not doing that just because we think it's modern to have that, but because it's really important for our output. Because only with a more diverse leadership, we can also have a more diverse output, which means we can address better diverse readership and that's really important today also for the growth that we are looking forward.

Good morning, everybody. Andreas Schaffner, Co-CEO, Tamedia. Let's talk more about Piano and our digital subscription. Growth in digital subscription is key for the transformation of paid media. At the heart of this, ability to offer interesting content, relevant content and to market it is key. As Marco already mentioned, we have made a big step forward with the introduction of a new subscription management system called Piano, a well-known platform used in many publishing houses in the world. This technology allows us to offer new products and offers to customers more quickly through refined concepts with AV testing to identify quickly successful models and to optimize them. Thanks to this technology and the experience we have with this, we already developed our subscription base for every requirements and have now a large diversification of offer. We are proud of the achieved growth. This shows us that we are on the right track. And we are convinced that this will allow us to achieve our medium-term goal of 200,000 subscription digital by the end of the first quarter 2023. Now I can hand over to my colleagues, Daniel and Ursula.

Good morning also from my side. Daniel Monch, Chief Strategy Officer of TX Group, and I'm pleased to give you some insights on the Ventures development in 2021. First, looking at our fully consolidated company, Doodle showed a very great year. Doodle could increase in monthly active free organizers by 15%. And what's even more impressive is the growth in subscription revenue, which was over 50% year-over-year. Subscription revenue, mainly caused by professional users, which means enterprises that are using Doodle in their daily life. The focus of Doodle is to further increase the visibility of the platform and to really strengthen that software-as-a-service business in which we are really believing. The other fully consolidated company is Zattoo. Zattoo could show a double-digit growth caused by 2 reasons. One is the really nice growth we see in B2C subscribers in Switzerland and in Germany. And the other is the new implemented price strategy that we introduced in '21. And that really helped to accelerate the growth of Zattoo. TX Company -- at TX Group, we could increase our stake in the company to 58.9%. And we're really proud that Zattoo is not only a profitable company, but also a climate-neutral company. And that's something which is of great relevance not only for Zattoo, but also for TX Group as Ursula will explain later. The focus for 2022 is to really expand the B2B business -- and the B2B business at Zattoo. It's a white label solution in the fields of IPTV and OTT. We're really looking forward to gain new customers and to bring them on the Zattoo platform. When we look at the fintech cluster, where we understand ourselves as active investors with focus on value creation and only holding a minority stake. Our existing portfolio really showed a nice development this year. Neon could reach the milestone of 100,000 customers in fall this year and is rapidly growing also since then. Selma could triple its assets under management last year, which is really, really impressive. And also other companies like Lend and Monito have shown a reasonable growth, which makes us very happy. The other thing that makes us happy besides the development of the existing portfolio is that we were able to make 2 new investments into our fintech ecosystem. One was PriceHubble, which is a real estate evaluation platform based on big data and analytics. And the other one is Helvengo, which we just communicated a couple of weeks ago. Helvengo is an insurance provider for SMEs, and we're really happy that we could make those great investments in the last year, and we are looking forward that we -- to work together with those companies. We also did an exit lately. It's not part of the fiscal year '21, but we're also happy that we could do a successful exit in MoneyPark that was -- that was the business in venturing, investing in -- debt investing. And we're really happy that we could successfully exit MoneyPark. So, we are optimistic for 2022 to further develop the fintech ecosystem on the B2B side, but also on the B2C side and to further develop our major companies, Doodle and Zattoo. Thanks for your attention. And now, I'm handing over to Ursula now.

In concluding, I would like to mention the sustainability. Sustainability, obviously, is an increasingly important topic for the society, for the financial community, but also for our company. The last few weeks, few months, we did kind of an audit in our company and found that there were several initiatives, several topics that are connected to sustainability and are already part of the TX Group since a long time. Obviously, there are other topics, which needs to catch up, which we need to initiate in the upcoming months or even years. For the annual report, which we have published today, we have decided to dedicate a chapter to sustainability, thereby, we are focusing on 4, for us, very relevant topics. Firstly, there is ecology. Secondly, there is diversity and inclusion. And you already have heard from Marco earlier, this was really a big topic during the last year in our company. And there are 2 topics in the publishing part, in the journalism part. One of it is the quality monitoring initiative we are doing almost for 5 years now and which we all -- every year, actually report on. Today, we also have published a quality report on the new sectors from Tamedia. And the last topic I'd like to mention is the so-called Social Responsibility Board. This is an initiative of 20 Minutes. And they are there really intensively discussing about what should be -- how to rise, how to -- which imagery is appropriate and which not. This actually is an initiative that has already been awarded by different ATOs and different publications. So, I think this has been the main part from our side. I heard that there has been quite some problems with our stream. But I hope that people who are not here were able to listen in by phone. And, obviously, we'll also have the possibility to ask their questions by phone. But let's start with the ones who are present. So, I would like to open for questions.

[Operator Instructions]

First question would be...

Sorry. Could you introduce yourself?

Yes. For sure. Andy Schnyder, zCapital. First question would be for Olivier. On Slide 20, where you split up the TX Markets business, gives us a better idea. I'm not sure if the slide is correct.

Yes, completely right. The slide is correct, but not -- what's the...

The numbers.

Okay. But we just realized it before. It was correct before, but you should always check your slides. So if you go to Slide 20, yes, what you see here is JobCloud. And what you see here are other. So, this headline should belong to second graph.

And was it also switched on Slide 19?

Yes.

Okay. That makes more sense. And Olivier, the CHF 12.4 million in sales and CHF 1.7 million in EBITDA for these 2 months for SMG, is that representative of what SMG can do at this point in time? Or is it distorted by a lot of other factors? What can you tell us about that? What should we expect for this business to do in '22?

You can imagine if you merge 2 companies together, it's absolutely not, let's say, what we expect. And the indices [indiscernible] until you have some effects like cost for the merger, bringing the organization together, et cetera, et cetera. So it's not representative for the future, what we can expect of this company.

So the 14% margin in reality of the underlying ongoing business should be much higher?

Of course. This is absolutely the goal and has to be high again.

But probably not as high as [indiscernible].

No. But if you look at the performance of all the classified business around the world, you have exactly the same picture. And for us, starting '22 and '23, it's not the first, let's say, the highest topics we have. It's more top line than bottom line. So, we have a company to run together. First of all, we have synergies. We are, let's say, building them at the moment and looking that we can really optimize the organization. And after that, all we want -- we want to grow. We want to grow in all the segments in all the -- in cars, real estate, et cetera, and we will focus more on top line than on the bottom line.

So, this CHF 6 million a month or CHF 75 million sales, this is the current number and you try to bring this up?

Yes. Exactly.

Okay. Any other questions in the room? Okay. And then on the question -- yes, sorry. One more.

At the Investor Day [indiscernible]. At the Investor Day in December, I thought, to understand you in the way that Doodle was not a strategic investment long term. That is correct, right? So if there will be the right offer, you would sell it. Is that still the case? And what kind of magnitude will be the right offer for them?

Right offer, we will sell almost everything. But it is true. Doodle is definitely not core and it is also not where we believe to have a deepest knowledge. It is very, very well managed by our management team. But our ideal case would be to partner with somebody who brings in more knowledge in the software-as-a-service business, maybe also a more global approach because Doodle is one of the few activities we have that have a global dimension. And ideally, we would not want to divest, but to be part of an accelerated growth together with a dedicated partner.

Okay. And about the SMG, Swiss Marketplace Group, you expressed the opinion that a potential IPO is rather a long-term project, 3 years to 4 years, if I understood you correctly? There is -- of course, there are trade-offs all the time. I mean, we are in a very dynamic world. Interest rates -- inflation might get out of control. Interest rates might go up. Markets -- stock markets might go down. I mean, who knows. So sometimes, it's -- I mean it is quite dependent on the market conditions. So, you might be in the position in 3 years to 4 years where an IPO is not recommendable as well due to the market conditions. What would you do then?

So, I would say it's a medium-term goal, the IPO. But in the short term, we now, first, have to build the company, as Oli has explained. And as long as we have not built the company, we don't need to spend time thinking about the IPO. It's not a priority for us now. It's a medium-term goal, and we'll cross the bridge when we get to the river.

Other questions? Then we would open the phone first, if there are questions from the phone.

We have a question from Daniel Burki from Zurcher Kantonalbank.

I would ask several questions. First one, regarding the dividend. So, you have CHF 100 million free cash flow. You paid dividend -- a regular dividend of about CHF 30 million. So it's a payout ratio of 30%. Is this also a reasonable payout ratio for the future? That's my first one. And then a second one. You didn't give any guidance for '22. How optimistic are you? Of course, I'm aware that the sales of SMG fall out of the calculation. So, your sales most probably will go down in '22, but you could still give some flavor on your expectations for '22.

So regarding the dividend, the payout ratio is 35% to 45% as has been in the past, but as has been explained. We have changed the way we calculate the base for the payout of the dividend. It's free cash flow before M&A, after dividend payments to minorities. That is slightly more conservative than what we had in the past. But we remain at the corridor of 35% to 45%. This year, we are at the lower end of the corridor with what we submit to the general assembly. Bearing in mind that for this year and the following 2 years, we have also announced to submit an extraordinary dividend of CHF4.20 per share, which together brings it to a dividend of CHF7.40 per share, which we believe is very attractive. And then guidance. We don't give guidance. We have told you that we think that we have had a good start into the year, but we don't give guidance for the whole year.

Can I ask an add-on question?

Yes.

Maybe on SMG. I realize you just started, but could you give maybe a framework or a timing plan, when you can outline, let's say, the potential of this joint venture, possible sales, synergies or growth? Will you do this in '22? Or is it may be coming later?

We will certainly report again with the half year results in August of this year. But personally, I think that we'll have to have the patience of one year to build that company. And that in a year from now, we'll be in a position to show you the revenues of that company to give you an indication on the ambition looking forward or looking ahead. And in regards of profitability, definitely, that we can say already now, this company will be among the top performers in the world. So, you can assume similar margins for SMG as for the best peers in the world active in the same field of business.

Any questions from the phone?

So far, there are no other questions.

Andy Schnyder, zCapital. On the guidance, which has discussed and at the Investor Day, you also -- or we discussed that it would be great to have a mid-term guidance also for the other businesses? And what can you tell us about that? What is -- where is your thinking process regarding a mid-term guidance?

It is that we don't give guidance with -- not with regard to the traditional business and not with regard to the new business. SMG might be a bit different. But there, we are also not alone. We are in a partnership. And we have to act in concert with our core shareholders. But we have decided, for the time being, not to give guidance on the outlook of our business.

But -- and that is not to change or why can you -- why do you think it's not good to give mid- or long-term guidances for the business? What is your thinking behind that?

Well, it has been our philosophy to first deliver and then talk. And that's what, for the time being, we think is still right. For us, it would also be kind of [ cover us ] to a large extent because our business is also driven a lot by external factors that we don't control. And when it comes to elements that we do control, like the cost of Tamedia, then we give guidance with regard to that specific question. But to give an overall guidance would really be making assumptions about the development of the outside world that we don't feel we are in a position to credibly do. And again, we prefer to first deliver and then explain rather than giving you our fantasies.

Okay. I understand. Makes sense. It still would be great for a lot of these businesses, which are really hard to understand, probably less SMG because there are a lot of peers out there and you have numbers and you know how this business develop. But for the other businesses, the media Goldbach, there are many peers out there and the results have been erratic, of course, because of all these changes. And it would still be great to get more insight in what is feasible in these businesses in the long run for us to add [indiscernible] businesses that have worsened.

Well, it's a good -- I mean, we are discussing it ourselves. So it's not that we have set for -- once for all that in the future, we will not give guidance. But -- so what do you think would be helpful to you without us kind of becoming less serious because we don't really want to make assumptions that we don't feel we can do that then. And let's take Goldbach as an example. And so who could have foreseen the development of the advertising business in the last year. I don't -- I really don't think that it was possible to see the recovery of the advertising business as we have experienced it in the second half of the last year. And also in the running year, it is partly even counterintuitive what is happening on the market. And it is, of course, having a very big influence on our results. So let's take the advertising market as one main driver. How -- what would be useful for you than other elements like -- I go back to Tamedia, the digital subscriptions. We give a guidance. We have set a goal and you can take that as a guidance that we want to achieve the 200,000 paid subscriptions per first quarter of next year. So maybe in a way, it's also not correct if I say we don't give guidance. We give guidance on elements where we feel comfortable that we can tell you where we are moving to. But on others, like the advertising markets, we just don't feel comfortable that we can give this year.

Understandably so. And look, we, for sure, don't ask for a guidance about the development of the advertising market or general economy. It's more about to know what over the cycle or in the long run, for example, for Tamedia, is a margin that you see in a good year and in bad years. So the range you are seeing yourself navigating. For example, an industrial company or automotive company, the market is erratic too, and nobody knows what happens tomorrow. But we know, okay, in a bad year, they are a 3% margin in good years, say, or a 7% margin and cash flow looks like that, stuff like that for the underlying business, that will be helpful.

Okay. That's a good input. I think we should take it. And as we do, for example, in the marketplace business, we can make reference to international standards and translate them into ambitions. And that is possible for the publishing business, too. I think we can take up that.

[indiscernible]. Would you consider to introduce a return on capital employed as a KPI? Because you are an asset-heavy company or group and even before the high book gain, you had probably a capital employed of around CHF 1.9 billion. Now it's even high. And your buildings are too cheap in the balance sheet because you write them off. So, you should generate a NOPAT, net operating profit after tax in order to get to 8% return of around CHF 145 million, CHF 150 million, and you're not there yet. So, you're not creating value yet. So that would be a very important measurement. So, I see your heads going -- I just want to say we do create value if you look also at the value creation, for example, through the combinations that we are doing. But operatively, we are not at the level we want to be in.

Yes. We are considering to report. You mentioned, it's not that easy to such discussion regarding the EBIT before PPA, which I regard as a very important KPI. It's also very close to the free cash flow before M&A. And there are still profits to make them understandable. And the same is true for the ROCE because we won't build any printing plant anymore what we have in our balance sheet. And we won't buy any press and [ express ] media anymore on the [indiscernible] and in the balance sheet. So, we really have to see what you're going to compare. And therefore, it's also not true that we have -- looking back, we are asset-heavy. Looking forward, we are not so asset-heavy. And what you want is a looking ahead is a perspective. But we are thinking.

You are working on it.

Yes. We are working on it.

Some other questions? If not, we will close the conference. And, obviously, we are still here and happy to answer your questions individually. Thank you.

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