Vend Marketplaces ASA (VENDA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the presentation of our second quarter results. Due to construction works inside and outside the offices, we are not doing this in, in-person format today, but have decided to do it virtually. And as usual, Kristin, our CEO; and Ragnar, CFO, will present the results for the second quarter. At the end of the presentation, we will open for a Q&A session with a hard stop at quarter past 10. And if you want to ask questions, please go to slide deck with the event code on the first slide here of the presentation. And with this, please, let me hand over to Kristin.

Thank you, Jann-Boje, and good morning, and welcome to everyone. I'll start with the highlights before we have a closer look at the development for the quarter. Following similar trends as seen during the 2 previous quarters, revenues in Q2 continued to grow by an underlying 6% while EBITDA ended NOK 620 million, down 17% from a strong Q2 last year due to continued high investments across the group. And will these investments come with higher costs, we are confident that they will put us in a better position, securing future growth and increasing value in the longer term. Meanwhile, we are aware that there needs to be an improved balance between investments, costs and profitability going forward. And we have identified and started to implement cost measures having effect from Q3 and onwards. Nordic Marketplaces grew underlying revenues by 10% in Q2 compared to last year. I am particularly satisfied with the continued strong performance in marketplaces Norway, where revenues grew by 20% compared to last year, translating into a very strong EBITDA margin of 57% and a year-over-year EBITDA growth of 25%. News Media continued its good revenue trend with an underlying growth of 6%, thanks to a strong quarter for digital subscriptions and growth in digital advertising, while the EBITDA margin ended at 9%. And finally, I am happy to report that Lendo, which is currently under strategic review, continued its strong revenue performance seen during the last quarters with an underlying revenue growth of 25% in the second quarter. So now let's have a look at our ESG highlights in the second quarter, and we start with the environmental impact. At the end of May, Blocket removed ad insertion fees for private sellers in the Generalist categories. The results have greatly exceeded our expectations. In June, we saw an increase in the number of listings by around 130% compared to last year. And this has also led to an increased number of secondhand matches that again increases the positive impact on the environment. We definitely see a trend that sustainability is shaping the world around us, and this is also a crucial part of our ongoing strategy work in Nordic marketplaces. And on that note, we are happy to see that Finn is among the top 3 most sustainable companies in Norway seen from the customers' perspective. It's the Norwegian business school, BI, that has done this yearly perimeter. The customers were asked how they value the companies based on economical, environmental and societal impact? Finn got third place, up from ninth position last year. And we're also very pleased that our financial investment Tibber as a newcomer in this year's survey, got second place. Congratulations, that is a great achievement. And then moving on to the societal impact. Schibsted and the Tinius Trust are setting up a new experimental innovation lab aimed at understanding and engaging groups in today's society that rejects mainstream media. The goal is to provide wider access to independent journalism and promote democracy in the long term. And while media houses have a long tradition in measuring reach, engagement and users trust, less is done on exploring the groups that we don't reach. Those who have no trust in established media or who, for other reasons, do not consume fact-based independent journalism and rather consume news content from alternative sources that tend not to be as fact-based. The lab also has an explicit mandate to examine how through experiments, new technology can promote a more inclusive journalistic function in the future. And we have high hopes for this innovation lab as we consider this a key societal challenge. Looking at our employees who are crucial to our success, we have had a pilot project going on for some time, testing out the hybrid way of working. We have now concluded that this will continue in Schibsted, but based on the principle that the team comes first and decides what is the best way of work for them. The decision is supported by our employee surveys that have had very high engagement scores, both during the COVID period, but also during this post-COVID pilot period. This tells us that we are on the right track, and this is something that we will keep evaluating continuously. And then lastly, related to governance, we had a project in Q2 that ensured our compliance with the Transparency Act that came into force in Norway in July. Let's then start with presenting the development for our businesses more in detail and first off is Nordic Marketplaces. Looking at the financial results for Nordic Marketplaces. This segment as a whole delivered solid revenue growth and EBITDA continued to increase, driven by Marketplaces Norway. Following the closing, at the end of June '21, numbers for our Danish operations are included in the Q2 '22 numbers affecting the growth positively. Though the 10% revenue growth presented in the left graph shows the underlying revenue development, including pro forma figures for Denmark revenues on a constant currency basis for better comparability. EBITDA margin for the segment ended at 43% below last year, which was driven by lower margins in Sweden and Finland and the consolidation of Denmark, which has lower margins than Norway and Sweden. At our Capital Markets Day last year, we presented our growth agenda in Nordic Marketplaces, which builds on 3 main pillars: First, leverage our Nordic market positions, driven by the development of vector products and value-added services for our traditional online classifieds offering. Second, create new revenue streams from transactional services. And third, expand and consolidate in the Nordics. While the first pillar, where we still see ample room for product improvements and innovation remains important, the second pillar is increasingly important for our Motor and Generalist verticals. Nettbil is a good example for a transactional model within Motors, and we have now reached important milestones in Blocket and Finn for our Generalist C2C offering in this second quarter. In Blocket, we have finally removed ad insertion fees, which was a huge effort for the team as not only part of the platform needed to be changed, but also things like search, use verification and customer service were adopted to secure an efficient marketplace. While the change will affect financial results negatively in the short term, it has strengthened our market position with listings growing by around 130% in June, and it will enable the transition to a fully transactional model, entailing good growth potential over time. In Finn, where such listing fees were removed already back in 2014, the transactional offering with the name Fiks ferdig is now live across all categories. In the current phase, the team is focusing on scaling the service and latest improvements like default opt-in, labels on ads and improved search are showing good initial results. In the future, our businesses in Finland and Denmark will also launch a transactional C2C offering. And like I mentioned last time at the Q1 presentation, going forward, we will, in general, start to work more along the vertical dimension across our 4 countries to unleash the full potential of our Nordic Marketplace business. As a first step in this journey, we are currently establishing common Nordic vertical strategies. Over time, this will likely lead to changes in how we organize and run our Nordic Marketplaces. Let's then start with Marketplaces Norway going through the different countries, who yet again delivered a strong quarter measured in both revenues and EBITDA. Top line increased by 20%, translating into a very strong EBITDA margin of 57% and a year-on-year EBITDA growth of 55%. All key verticals in advertising delivered year-on-year growth in Norway. Jobs continue to be the most important driver, however, easing off at the end of the quarter. Real estate delivered 25% revenue growth, driven by higher ARPA due to the new product offering, which was introduced in the beginning of this year. While volumes were down year-on-year, and the volume decline was driven by the new regulations relating to the sale of houses, which require more extensive check of houses before sale and also a market environment with increasing interest rates and high inflation. In Motors, revenues were up 10% in Q2. This was due to Nettbil, which almost doubled revenues compared to Q2 last year while the traditional motors decreased as a result of lower volumes compared to a strong year last year. The travel vertical continued to trend from last quarter with a solid bounce back compared to the COVID ridden last year, with revenue growth of DKK 19 million. Advertising revenues were up 4% compared to the same period last year, while growth slowed down throughout the quarter. Costs increased compared to the second quarter last year, primarily driven by higher marketing spend and personnel costs. And the very strong EBITDA margin was mainly driven by a revenue mix with high contributions from jobs. Moving over to Sweden, where revenues ended in line with Q2 last year with strong growth in the job vertical, while Motors and Generalists were down year-on-year. The continued strong growth of 25% in the Job vertical was driven by strong market with higher volumes and increased ARPA. Motors was still affected by the global market conditions with car supply shortage, both new car registrations and used car volumes were down from last year, affecting volumes for both private and professional customers and improved ARPA offset the decline in volumes somewhat, and Motors revenues ended 2% below the same period last year. C2C Generalist revenues declined by 48% or SEK 12 million compared to the same period last year, primarily driven by the already mentioned removal of ad insertion fees at the end of May. And looking at costs, marketing spend as well as product and technology costs increased in Q2, mainly related to the change of our C2C Generalist offering. EBITDA margin ended in line with last quarter, but declined year-on-year to 35% in the second quarter. In Finland, we saw a flat revenue development in the quarter. Jobs delivered good volume growth. However, due to volume mix and the current business model, revenues ended flat compared to the same period last year. And we're working on improving the business model and expect to see effects of that in 2023. Volumes in real estate continued to increase in Q2, although the impact on revenues was limited as the current focus on growing listings leads to a lower ARPA. Motor revenues, even though a smaller part of the total revenues in Finland, showed good growth during the quarter due to new products and price increases that we implemented in June. Advertising revenues improved quarter-on-quarter, but were down year-on-year. And looking ahead, the macroeconomic conditions in Finland are a risk factor for advertising revenues for the remainder of the year. Our investments in product and technology resources to further improve product development continued to affect margins. However, we have started to see some leverage from these investments. One example of this is the organic cross-traffic development between Tori and Oikotie where we saw an increase of more than 125% in weekly unique users moving from Tori to Oikotie's real estate site compared to January this year. And this is a good example of the so-called horizontal synergies between our Generalist and Real Estate vertical, which will improve our market position over time. Margin for the quarter ended at 6%, which is an improvement from Q1. Moving then to Denmark. The presented number on this slide show a like-for-like comparison, including pro forma numbers for 2020 and '21 before Schibsted took over the ownership. Similar to Q1, revenues declined due to continued headwinds from market conditions and went down 6% compared to the second quarter last year -- sorry, in Motors, the revenue decline was yet again driven by lower volumes due to the temporary car supply shortage. The Generalist vertical saw an improved trend compared to last year, but revenues were still down year-on-year due to lower shipping revenues following the COVID-related bump that we had last year. Advertising revenues declined compared to the same period last year due to lower traffic on [ DBA ], driven by the reopening of the Danish society. But despite this traffic decline, we don't see any indications that our strong market position has weakened. EBITDA margin ended on the same level as last quarter at 17%, down year-on-year, and that's driven by the lower revenues. Okay. Let's go over to News Media. This picture here shows the chaotic situation in air travel and at the European airports that has covered -- been covered by all our Norwegian media houses in the recent weeks. VG realized that thousands of Norwegians would experience delays, cancellations and long queues in airports this summer, so they decided to help by empowering our users. Fleet fix [indiscernible] a service providing updated flight information is an example of modern journalism. And VG uses data from different sources to provide users with a service that really simplifies their everyday life and in this case, at some critical moments. Let me also mention the strong footprint of our Norwegian media houses under the most prestigious award Norwegian journalists can resume for critical and investigative journalism, the Scoop awards. For the first time since 2005, Aftenposten won the main Scoop award for their stories concerning our politicians, commuter homes. Bergens Tidende our regional newspaper Won Scoop Diploma for their coverage of the sale of Bergen engines, while VG's investigative project, Boundless Therapy, also was awarded a Diploma. And with that, 3 out of 4 awards during Scoop, including the main price, went to media houses in Schibsted. And this is really a remarkable achievement for our news division. And in addition to that, Aftenposten also shared another high-profile award, The Great Journalist Award or the Stora Journalistpriset for those of you knowing Scandinavian. So if we then look at the financial results, News Media continued its good revenue trend with an underlying revenue growth of 6%. The growth was driven by strong growth in digital subscriptions and continued growth in digital advertising due to high fill rates, high volumes and high prices. Costs increased compared to Q2 last year, driven by high investments in new strategic initiatives across our brands with focus on content to unleash more of News Media's revenue potential over time. In addition, and similar to the first quarter, paper prices increased significantly compared to last year. An increasing inflation in combination with a significantly higher cost for paper has contributed to the decision to implement extraordinary price increases in Q2 for several of our print subscription products, which will curb the effect of related cost -- of the related cost increase. EBITDA margin increased compared to last quarter, but declined compared to a strong second quarter last year. Looking at the second half, it is expected that the cost increase seen over the last quarters will decelerate. This will be supported by cost measures, which we have started to implement across News Media given the elevated macroeconomic risks. Let's then take a closer look at our main revenue streams in News Media. First, subscriptions, where total underlying revenues grew by 10% compared to Q2 last year. Digital subscription revenues continued its strong growth and were up 24%, and Q2 is the first quarter with pure digital subscription revenue surpassed print subscription revenues. And we're pleased to see double-digit growth for all our main news brands, in addition to continued solid growth in PodMe. The revenue growth was driven by both higher volumes and improved ARPA. Moving to advertising. We continue to see growth in digital advertising revenues on a foreign exchange neutral basis, total advertising revenues were the highest in the second quarter since 2018. And the European championships in June last year affected the year-on-year growth in Sweden, negatively, worth noting. So far, we have not seen meaningful negative impacts from the increased macroeconomic risks. But the month of June showed signs of a softer development within digital advertising in both Norway and Sweden. All right, next up is e-commerce and distribution. Distribution consists of the legacy newspaper distribution and then the new business, mainly Helthjem Netthandel and Morgenlevering. Due to lower volumes, e-commerce and distribution had a weak quarter with revenues for new business declining 25% compared to the same quarter last year. In Helthjem Netthandel, revenues were down 15%, driven by lower e-commerce parcel volumes in the B2C market after the COVID related bump we saw last year. Morgenlevering saw a decline of 42% driven by lower volumes due to the reopening of the Norwegian society. EBITDA decreased compared to Q2 last year, driven by the revenue decline and higher cost related to capacity expansion and high fuel costs as well. Next up then is Financial Services and Ventures that consists of brands like Lendo and Prisjakt in addition to other digital services where we either have a majority or a minority ownership. And within this segment, Lendo had yet another strong quarter with 25% underlying revenue growth driven by Sweden and Norway. Overall, revenues for the segment were up 14% on a foreign exchange neutral basis. And when we adjust previous years for sold operations such as less steel. Looking at Prisjakt revenues declined 8% on a foreign exchange neutral basis compared to last year, driven by lower traffic and click revenues well, somewhat offset by price adjustments. But this trend is better than the general decline in the e-commerce space in both in Sweden and in our other markets. As an example, according to Svens [indiscernible] the Swedish e-commerce market for home electronics, Prisjakt's largest category fell by 24% in the first half of '22. And concerning the strategic review of Prisjakt that we have announced, the challenging market conditions have led to a lower likelihood of an attractive exit at this moment, and we will now use the second half of '22 to balance our short and long-term options, and we will provide an update once we have concluded this. Overall, EBITDA margin for the segment ended lower than last year, and that's driven by lower revenues in Prisjakt. And then lastly, our venture operations saw lower activity in the second quarter, driven by the overall market environment and our financial gearing. Then finally, looking at Lendo, specifically, the good momentum seen during the second half of '21 and first quarter of '22 continued. Underlying revenues ended 25% above Q2 last year, and again, thanks to strong results in Sweden and Norway. In both these markets, there was a continued strong growth in inflow of applications. And in addition, Norway saw meaningful revenue from the improved credit card offering that we launched in the first quarter. EBITDA margin was down compared to the same quarter last year, primarily driven by marketing in Norway, where marketing prices were higher, and we're also -- where we also increased our marketing spend related to this improved credit card offering. In addition, investments in geographical expansion and increased investments in product and tech reflecting new product offerings as well as investments into the existing consumer loans offering affected the EBITDA margin. The initiated strategic review with the aim to maximize Lendo's potential and value creation is ongoing with the support of external advisers. No decision has been made yet at this stage and an update on the outcome of the strategic review will be made once we have completed it. We expect to have more visibility on the outcome of this around year-end. And with that, Ragnar, I will hand it over to you.

Thank you, Kristin. Let me then give you some more details on the financials in the second quarter. I will start with the consolidated results for the group. Revenues ended at NOK 3.88 billion and underlying growth of 6% compared to Q2 last year and 24% higher compared to the second quarter in 2020. The EBITDA was NOK 620 million, down 17% from a strong NOK 743 million last year, leading to an EBITDA margin of 16%. In the graph to the right, you can see the EBITDA split per segment. The Nordic Marketplaces increased by NOK 60 million compared to last year, despite increased costs into marketing, product and tech developments and the renewal of adding certain fees for the C2C Generalist offering in Blocket. The EBITDA increase was driven by Finn, which increased EBITDA year-on-year by NOK 91 million, while Sweden, Finland and Nordic Marketplaces headquarters saw a decrease in EBITDA compared to last year. Denmark contributed NOK 19 million, but what was not part of the group in last year's numbers. News Media saw a decrease in EBITDA of NOK 94 million compared to a strong second quarter last year, driven by higher paper prices and higher growth costs to fuel the strong revenue growth momentum in the quarter. The EBITDA loss of NOK 28 million in the second quarter in e-commerce and distribution was driven by lower revenues as a result of lower partial volumes compared to last year after reopening of the society from the pandemic. In Financial Services and Ventures, EBITDA ended NOK 5 million below last year, driven by the revenue decline in Prisjakt. Other and headquarters had an EBITDA of minus NOK 107 million in the second quarter against minus NOK 60 million in the same period last year. The increased EBITDA loss was due to a higher level of activity within the group's common product and technology team, projects within the group's chief investment officer function and certain one-offs. When looking closer at our income statement for the second quarter. Operating profit for the quarter ended up NOK 289 million, down from NOK 432 million last year. The increase in depreciation and amortization compared to last year was mainly due to the acquisitions from Marketplaces Denmark and PodMe accelerated amortization of our printing facility in Oslo and a new office lease agreement in Stockholm. Our expenses include costs related to the integration of the operations in Marketplace Denmark as well as early retirement costs and transaction costs. General profit and loss from joint ventures and our associates include Schibsted's share of other results for the first quarter of 2022, adjusted amortization of excess values and gains and losses on responses net NOK 64 million. This quarter was also negatively affected by NOK 6.5 billion impairment loss recognized to reflect the decline in share price, other intubating the end of March and end of June on the corresponding market value decline of our holding in the company. Operating cash flow from continuing operations decreased by 41% compared to last year. The decrease was primarily related to lower EBITDA, increased working capital as a result of the revenue growth in Nordic Marketplaces and Lendo, offset by somewhat lower tax payments. Capital expenditures were flat compared to Q1, but up 68% compared to Q2 last year, mainly due to increased investments within product and tech in Nordic Marketplaces as the main driver. We are in solid financial position, even though our financial gearing moved above our upper target range by the end of the quarter. The main drivers for the increase in leverage during the quarter is the ordinary dividend of tax payments falling due in Q2 and a somewhat weaker 12-month rolling EBITDA development. As communicated in connection with our Q1 results in May, several of the financing activities took place during April and May. A new 3 plus 1-year term loan of NOK 2 billion was used to repay most of the bridge loan. The bridge loan now has a remaining balance of NOK 300 million and has been extended by 6 months from July. The consent from other banks were a temporary waiver of the financial covenants still stands until the bridge loan is fully repaid. The bridge loan may be extended by another 6 months from January 2023. The undrawn revolving to this credit facility of EUR 300 million secures a strong liquidity position going forward. This facility has been extended by 1 year to 2027, and there is still an extension option of 1 year left. Schibsted also have a public rating of BBB stable from Scope Ratings, which was affirmed in mid-June. Looking ahead, proceeds from a possible sale of Lendo Prisjakt, which are both and the strategic reviews. And shares will primarily be used to repay debt as part of a strict capital allocation practice going forward. And I will then end my presentation with some comments on our financial targets and the outlook for 2022. Our overall financial targets for Nordic Marketplaces and News Media remain unchanged. The Nordic Marketplaces, we remain confident in the growth potential in our medium- to long-term target to grow annual revenues by 8% to 10% for this segment. In News Media, we expect annual low single-digit revenue growth in the medium term and medium-term EBITDA margin in the range of 10% to 12%. For 2022, we expect that the EBITDA margin will be in the lower end of that range with increased paper prices and higher costs from investments, which will dilute margins with around 2% points. In e-commercial and distribution, we have witnessed a slowdown in the e-commerce industry in the first half of 2022 after a long period of strong growth and the COVID-19 related lockdown last year. Nevertheless, we expect continued revenue growth from 2023 and onwards. However, given the weak development in the first half of 2022, we have identified cost measures to adjusted EBITDA losses in this segment and these measures will be implemented in the -- in Q3. Then macroeconomic developments have been more negative during the quarter than we had anticipated at the beginning of Q2. Inflation growth is higher than assumed among most public institutions and banks than previously forecasted. And this in turn has led to larger interest rate hikes from the respective national banks [indiscernible]. With increased macroeconomic risk uncertainties associated with volume and revenue development in other core businesses in the second half of 2022 have increased. So far, we have not seen any significant negative effects on our performance, but the underlying growth trends in jobs and digital advertising weakened somewhat throughout the second quarter. In this context, and including our ongoing efforts to address cost increases across the group to achieve a better balance between short and long-term profitability, we see it as less likely that we will reach our full year EBITDA for the group in line with 2021, as previously targeted. Provided that the macroeconomic development will not substantially deteriorate for the rest of the year, we expect that Schibsted's EBITDA for the full year will be a single-digit percentage point lower than in 2021. And with that, let's go over to our Q&A session.

Thank you, Ragnar. Let me then go over to slide over. We already have a couple of questions. First 1 is from Lisa Yang Goldman Sachs and at Exane. So you issued a new guidance for EBITDA. Last time you said it, you expect like targeted flat EBITDA. Now you reverse that and say it will be lower. So what has changed? If you can comment on that? And then also a follow-up question on that. You gave a range being down like by a single percentage point, which means between 1% to 9%. What kind of assumptions do you have to land in that range? Like what is more likely based on your current picture?

I can start by giving some comments on that. I think what has changed is, as I mentioned, that we see that the macroeconomic development has, let's say, has worsened somewhat during the second quarter compared to both what we and others anticipated, meaning a high inflation rate and also higher interest rates following that. So it's actually an increased uncertainty on how that will influence our these revenue streams in the second half, that is the main reasoning behind our more cautious guidance for the year. Also, somewhat influenced by the fact that we have somewhat lower EBITDA in the second quarter for than anticipated.

Maybe then you can also comment a little bit on like, okay, do you have any likelihood between like where we end in that range? Or what kind of conditions depend on where we land?

I think the reason why we have given this range is that I think we really sort of see that there is a difficult territory that we are moving into with respect to the interest hike environment. So it's difficult to see whether we will get sort of closer to the 1% or closer to the 9%. And I would say that -- so yes, it's very much dependent on how the markets develop and on how that will influence our core segment.

Then maybe a follow-up question from Lisa at Goldman. Can you talk about the moving parts driving the improvement in EBITDA in the second half? Because looking at your guidance, EBITDA has to improve in the second half. So what is driving the improvement?

As I said, we are working to correct the cost development and to secure that we have a better balance between the profitability in the, let's say, in the short and the longer term. So what we're doing in them that they have are done identifying and also start implementing various cost measures to address the cost development. And I think is, of course, a close follow-up of -- and the need for new hires and also very much focusing on prioritizing internal hires for positions. We are holding back postponing new projects and growth initiatives and also are revisiting the ambition level on ongoing development projects going through shorter-term profitability. We are also looking through our marketing spend and also on the reducing, let's say, the level of travel in general the internal activity level going into the second half of this year.

Maybe slightly related to this one. When it comes to like this balancing act to improve like the balance between costs, investments going forward? Is it like a specific segment, which you address here? And is this also impacting your venture strategy going forward?

As we have already said and we are taking very clear measures to reduce costs within our eCommerce and Distribution business as 1 area that was mentioned. We are also looking carefully through the cost development at the headquarters as part of this. And then, of course, News Media is working also to go to careful to the cost side of their business. Within Nordic Marketplaces, we still see strong growth momentum, particularly in Norway, but of course, I mean we are also within that part of the business talking to a set of profitability development, particularly in the businesses outside of Norway.

And then maybe following up on HQ costs here. So a question from Adam Berlin at UBS. If you can provide like a guidance on HQ costs for the full year, given like the increase in the second quarter? And if you can comment a little bit on the one-offs in the HQ, which you commented on in the report?

Yes, I can start with the one-offs. I think one-off is due to a couple of things. We have had some sort of specific projects. We didn't obviously buy all function during the second quarter, but will -- a cost specific for this quarter. We have had a high number of events and gatherings after 2 years of pandemic, which is booked on headquarter, but has been done across the whole group. And we also had a change in the coming treatment or that is not recurring. So these are the one-off events. I think looking at the areas at total, we expect roughly the cost to come in slightly below around NOK 300 million. So that was for the costs.

Maybe staying a bit more on the cost side. I mean we also saw an increase in CapEx in the second quarter year-on-year, what should we expect like for the second half? And will this increase also continue into next year? If you can comment on that? And maybe -- and what is driving the increase in CapEx in the second quarter?

The CapEx is very much driven by the, let's say, the high activity levels within product and tech across the group, that is driver in addition to certain projects, IT project that we also have incurred. And I think we are now focusing on also driving the cost side of ours. We are also looking into the CapEx level. And of course, it is, to some extent, linked or related to the overall activity level within product intake. So we are working also to serving the CapEx development. For the year, we expect that we will end somewhat lower than the first half trend might indicate. So that is where the [indiscernible] and also then going into Q -- into next year, of course, and we expect a somewhat lower level than we've seen this year.

Maybe moving on to kind of more strategic questions. I mean, first, on Prisjakt. So you said it's less likely to get an attractive asset in the shorter term. What is like your plan if you don't exit the asset in the shorter term? And are you ruling out the sale completely at that stage?

I can maybe answer that. No, we're not ruling out a sale and we will be willing to reconsider that if the terms are a bit more attractive than what we have seen. But Prisjakt is actually a very good asset and has potentially very good value for our ecosystem in terms of the really valuable purchase intent data, for example, that it generates. So we will look at how we can better, let's say, use Prisjakt for the asset it is within our own efforts. And we continue, of course, to work with Prisjakt to optimize their performance. And I think it's important then to repeat what I said in my presentation that relatively to a quite depressed e-commerce market, Prisjakt is actually performing quite well. So it's a good asset.

And then maybe moving on to another important topic, Adevinta. If you can just give an update on your Adevinta stake? And if there are any like short-term options you have for that share? And if you have been in discussions to set on this stake lately?

Well, as you know, we are bound by lock-up agreements, et cetera, so I don't have to repeat that. We have an opportunity of selling a small percentage. We do not that is attractive at the current market prices as we believe they are and that the value of Adevinta is way too low at the moment. So if we were to do something, it would be -- need to be part of a larger structural change. If that was to happen, we would obviously be open to discuss and evaluate that. But I think, quite obviously not something I can comment on whether that's happening or not. But I think I can say that if the terms were right, we are willing to consider that, given that this is a financial investment.

Then moving on to Nordic Marketplaces, but staying on a strategic level. So a question from PV at Morgan Stanley, what will you do when it comes to Nordic Marketplace? You said there will be like a closer cooperation across the countries going forward. So how should we think about this going forward?

Yes. Well, this is something that we will come back to, and we will give you a lot more information about it when we have it concluded a bit better because now we are in the middle of this and we are creating these vertical strategies that I mentioned. But we do see that there is a good potential in taking out more synergies across the verticals, across the Nordic markets. And by that, avoiding duplications create better scale, but precisely how we're going to do that and the consequences of it I would like to come back to.

And then looking into -- to the quarter in Nordic Marketplaces. I think we have seen a slowdown in job listings, which we can also see in the appendix of the presentation. So I think in the start of the quarter was plus 20%, 26% and plus 1% in June. Do you have any explanation what has driven that decline? And what kind of trends have you seen into -- coming into Q3 so far?

I mean I think it's important to realize that we're now comparing with very, very strong numbers already. So it is at a high level. We -- it's true that we saw some slowdown in volume growth, particularly in June. The way we see it, the job market in -- particularly here in Norway, but also in the other markets, it's still strong from a macro perspective, but there is a lot of uncertainty out there now, and we just need to -- we just want to signal that we're being cautious, and we want to be prepared that there could be an easing off in the quite massive growth that we have seen over the past 15 months.

And then maybe staying with the trends a little bit in the second quarter, like when it comes to the advertising across the group, like what kind of slowdown have you actually seen in June? And maybe also comment like how does Q3 look so far? And also, if there is a different development between the different countries? I mean looking at Q2 Norway was still up in News Media in Finn, while, for example, Sweden in general was more flattish, and we saw a decline in Finland and Denmark. So both commenting on the trends a little bit and also maybe try to explain why is there such a difference between the current markets here?

Yes. I think Finland, given what's happening with Russia, is more macroeconomically exposed than the other markets. So I think that would be a reasonable explanation for that. I think in Denmark, we basically had lower inventory given that we have seen reduced traffic on the Generalist site in particular and also that the advertisers within Motors are being cautious given the supply situation. So I think those are different reasons. When it comes to Sweden, like I said, we had an exceptionally high June last year because of the European Championship where Sweden participated and Norway didn't, so I guess it had more interest over there in Sweden. And -- but -- and in Norway, the market is actually still looking quite strong, and our advertising people are optimistic going into Q3. But I would like to highlight also that we don't have very long-term visibility in advertising, as you know. And things are a bit uncertain now. So again, we would like to be cautious, but we haven't seen yet any negative effects or lack of demand as of now. But we just want to signal that we are following it carefully, and we want to be a bit cautious.

Then if you look at Finn, I think Real Estate had really a good quarter, driven by like new products and a change also in the pricing model. Do you have anything comparable in the pipeline for other verticals and markets going forward? And if yes, when do you think to launch it?

So I think all the work we're doing now with the vertical strategies across the Nordic, that is an excellent opportunity to optimize our business models and also streamline our business models across the market. So I would be very happy to come back and answer that question when we give more information about that general work we're doing.

And then maybe staying a little bit with Nordic Marketplaces here. Looking at Sweden, while you made the change now in Blocket to go to a more transactional model and removing listing fees at the end of May, can you give an update on how do you think the performance has been so far? And when do you think we will see an impact on revenues going forward due to the change?

Right. Yes. So I mean like I said in the presentation, we have been extremely happy with the results so far. First of all, the transition was super smooth, all done on time, on budget, everything. So I think I mentioned this in my Q1 presentation that I'm very happy with the development in Sweden and the work that the team there is doing. And the increase in listing of 130% in June really exceeded our expectations. We also see that we have really gained market shares in Sweden in the Generalist segment. So this is a very good starting point. We will introduce a commission-based model in the second half. And then we hope that revenues will start to build quite quickly, having such a strong growth in listings is, of course, a good starting point for that. We're working very hard to make sure we have good liquidity in the marketplace as well with such a huge increase. And then this will tick off on and exactly how quickly and when we have meaningful numbers is a bit hard to predict. But I mean, we should start seeing results of this already in '23, and hopefully, by '24, it should be really meaningful.

Maybe going a bit more back to the cost measures, which you mentioned in this start, like can it be already be more explicit like how many cost savings you have planned for? And will there be like other costs be associated with a reduction in costs?

Well, we're actually working with this from sort of a scenario methodology. So we are looking at different scenarios, and we want to be prepared and we want to have done all the analysis in advance. So if the macro swings either way, we sort of know what buttons to push. So therefore, it's a bit of a hypothetical question in a way because we want to be prepared for different types of scenarios. The way things are now, if we don't get any further macro shocks in the second half, I would say that we have in place plans for the cost measures that are efficient, but probably not dramatic in the sense that they will mean a huge shift in the way we operate or have huge consequences for the people working and things like that. So that's the current scenario, but we are prepared to implement tougher measures if we see the macro change.

I mean currently, the holding discount in Schibsted is on a record high, if you strike out the Adevinta stake. So I think Schibsted is just trading at [ 6 billion ] saying. So what is management planning to do to address that issue here? And the person said also like HQ costs actually have increased significantly in Q2. So instead of like cutting costs and focusing on this, you increased headquarter costs, which will probably not help. So if you can just help on the rationale, how you plan to address the discount issue?

Yes. I mean, obviously, it's deeply frustrating. But let me also explain that as late as September-October last year, we were in a very, very strong growth sentiment, right? And there is a war for talent out there. We had quite an aggressive talent acquisition program in place, et cetera. So -- and April is just 6 months after that. And it takes time. I mean you don't turn around a full sentiment in business in a matter of weeks, that's not how it works. So I think what you see now in the second quarter is sort of the, let's say, the aftermath effect of the whole sentiment and growth momentum that we had last year. And of course, we realized already at the end of Q4 that this was changing, and we have been working with a different mindset already since the beginning of the year, but it just takes time before that manifests itself in the numbers. And then I also want to emphasize that from, let's say, a leadership and management point of view, we are coming out of 2 years of COVID where people have not seen each other and basically not had a chance to socialize, to where we build culture, excitement, et cetera. So we have prioritized, for example, to have gatherings, to let people travel again and we came from very suppressed cost levels due to COVID. So part of the cost increase that you see is a consequence of normalization, it's a consequence of a bit of a boost because we are post COVID. And some of it is more technicalities that Ragnar mentioned. But let me just emphasize that we are acutely aware that we need to control our cost development. We are working very hard and consciously on that. And at the same time, we're trying to strike a balance with not killing off some of the good growth momentum that we have in our company. And you see that despite the tougher times, we keep growing our revenues at a good rate. And that is really important as well. So it's a balancing act, and we are acutely aware of the need to improve our profitability going forward.

And like you just said, I mean, some of the costs are more like coming back as people are back in the office. Some costs are probably coming from a high inflation when it comes to wages, for example, but do you want to comment on how much of these costs are in a strategic matter in a way? How much of a strategic and how much is like a normal increase? Do you want to comment on that?

Yes, I don't know, maybe you're better at quantifying that precisely than I am, Jann-Boje, but some of it is the normalization, but some of it is certainly a result of strategic choices in terms of growth. I mean we've spoken a lot about how we want to grow our -- the base for building further our digital subscription business in News Media, for example. We have been very clear that it takes out about 2 percentage points of our margin, and we believe it's the right thing to do. We -- I mean, you see now the fantastic growth momentum that we have in digital subscriptions, and you don't get that unless you keep investing, right? So we feel it's worth it, and we are confident that we will manage to double our digital revenues by '25, which we have stated as a target. As 1 example, within marketplaces, it's also been necessary to employ people within product and tech. We are in the middle of quite a large project of working with this Nordic verticalization that we have alluded to and that you will be more introduced to down the road. And that also requires things of us, but it will give us a very -- a much stronger basis for grasping future growth in the more modern setup. We will be more robust towards competition coming from verticalized specialists, et cetera. So we're very convinced that this is the right thing to do.

And then going to eCommerce and Distribution, which had like a weak quarter. You mentioned here that you will implement measures in Q3 to curb or address the EBITDA losses going forward. How should we think about like the second half for that business? And how much do revenues need to be increased again that we're breakeven given like the flat OpEx reduction going forward?

Yes. So I mean, first of all, this is, I would say, a very operationally savvy part of our group, and they are very good at adjusting. And it's also important to remember that our entire distribution e-commerce business rests on our legacy business of newspaper distribution that we have in place anyway. And it's something we do at the margin. And then as you know, we've seen extreme growth over the past, let's say, 3 years, so it's all -- it's just -- up until now, it's been all about just handling a massive growth. I think this now is a good opportunity to really reset a bit and make sure we operate in a more automated and efficient way than what we have been able to do with a very, very rapid growth that we had up until now. So we are doing that. We are building -- we've built this new facility in [indiscernible] where we will also later move our newspaper printing business. And over time, this will be a more efficient operation than we have had. And then when it comes to volumes, it's hard to predict when they come back. I mean e-commerce is not dead. It's certainly going to be with us, and we will see growth here going forward, but we come from comparisons now with extreme COVID growth in the last year, and it's -- we see a normalization. And then I'm sure or I'm not sure, but I'm quite confident that e-commerce volumes will pick up at least from next year. It's hard to say how quickly it will happen. So it's hard to predict second half.

And then maybe finishing up with Nordic Marketplaces a little bit. I mean you mentioned in the report that historically, Real Estate and the Motor vertical was more resilient in an environment with high market uncertainty, like how resilient do you think these revenues will be going forward? Will there be like top line growth once volumes recover in Motors and how should we think around this?

Yes, I think so. And also for real estate, as you know, is almost an advantage for us when it's a bit slower in the market because then you need to advertise more, right, to sell your property. And also for cars, I mean, we will -- we think that we will have a bounce back and see a renewed increase in the sale of used cars and also in cars, as you know, there's a lot of opportunity in new models. So -- and the good thing about both our news portfolio and our marketplace portfolio is that we have -- it counters each other out a little bit in cyclicality, while well job and advertising are very exposed to the macro, Motors and Real Estate, they have different properties like you just said. And within News Media, also the subscription business is much more stable than what advertising is. So that's at least a good thing that we have different types of businesses that even each other out a bit when we have these macroeconomic uncertainties.

Okay. Just checking my inbox, if there's a question here right now. No, but I think that we can conclude the Q&A for today. So thank you so much for listening in. And from my side, have a good summer.