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Scout24 Se
11/2/2023
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Scout24 third quarter and nine month 2023 earnings call. My name is Philipp Lindvall, and I'm vice president group strategy and investor relations at Scout24. With me on the call today are Tobias Hartmann, our CEO, and Dirk Schmelzer, our CFO. Toby will kick off the presentation and Dirk will dive deeper into our third quarter and nine-month 2023 performance. As always, we will conclude the call with a Q&A session. You can find today's presentation on our website under Financial Reports and Presentations. If you are using the web link we provided beforehand, you can follow today's presentation live. This session will be recorded and a replay will be made available as quickly as possible after the event. Please take note of the disclaimer on page two. Tobi, now over to you.
Thank you, Philipp, and welcome everyone. Let's go straight to page three of our presentation and let me summarize the key takeaways from the Q3 and nine month results. I am pleased to announce that our double digit growth trajectory continued in the third quarter as well as for the nine month period in 2023. Our strong results underline the consistent, successful execution of our strategy and prove the resilience of our business in a still challenging macro context and evolving real estate market. In addition, We have advanced the integration of Sprengnetter, which expands our digital ecosystem with the aim of simplifying real estate transactions, opening further areas of attractive growth. Specifically, for the third quarter, including Sprengnetter, revenue growth was 16% year-on-year. Organic revenue growth came in at 10%. The softer growth in the third quarter is due to the tough comparable from last year and is in line with the expectations we communicated during the second quarter earnings call. For the nine months reported, revenue growth was 13% year on year with organic growth at 11%. Growth in the third quarter was driven by continued strong demand for agent membership products and plus subscriptions. We are extremely pleased to continue growing our agent base to almost 22,000 by the end of September. In this challenging market, ImmoScout24 remains the number one go-to marketplace, and we are proud to partner with an ever-increasing agent base with the best products to enable real estate transactions. Growth of plus subscribers also re-accelerated nicely in the third quarter. The transactional market remains quite slow, and while we do believe the market has bottomed out, the recovery will be slow and protracted. Consequently, our leads and transactional assets continue to face soft demand. Growth in ordinary operating EBITDA continues to be very strong, driven by a favorable product mix and tight cost control. we generated 22% growth in ordinary operating EBITDA both for the third quarter and the nine-month period while delivering strong margin expansion. Adjusted EPS reached €1.90 for the first nine months, growing strongly at 36%. To conclude, I would like to provide an update on our fiscal year 2023 financial guidance. Based on the strong operating leverage we are seeing in the business and our communicated preference for profitability over revenue growth this year, we are adjusting our full-year guidance for fiscal year 2023 as follows. We now expect ordinary operating EBITDA growth in a range of 19% to 21% compared to 18% to 19% previously. we are marginally reducing our pace of revenue growth, steering for circa 14% versus the previously communicated guidance of circa 15%. I would like to point out that this has been a deliberate management decision to drive outsized profitability gains versus chasing incremental revenue growth. We are very pleased to upgrade our EBITDA guidance for the second time this year despite the challenging macro and real estate markets and the slower than expected transactional recovery. The upgrade highlights the strong level of operational execution our teams are delivering and the efficiency gains coming out of the organizational update we implemented earlier this year. Now, let's turn our attention to page four of the presentation to look at our third quarter metrics. On a group level, our revenue for the quarter reached 132.8 million euros, including Sprengnetter, representing 15.7% growth year on year. Organic growth was 9.8% for the quarter, driven by continued strong demand for our core products and growth in subscription revenues. Our strong top line growth was partially offset by soft transactional revenues, as well as smaller growth contribution from PPA. The ordinary operating EBITDA of the group came in at 78.1 million euros, up 22.1% year on year. The ordinary operating EBITDA margin for the quarter was 58.8%, a strong increase by 3.1 percentage points. Excluding Sprengnetter, the ordinary operating EBITDA margin would have been even stronger at 60.5%. In the professional segment, subscription revenues increased by 14.1% to 75.6 million euros, driven by continued strong membership growth and the consolidation of Sprengnetter. the continuously growing significance of the ImmoScout24 platform for the German real estate market continues to manifest itself through ongoing customer wins. The number of customers grew by 3.3%, bringing the total number to 21,937. Professional ARPU increased by 10.5% to 1,149 euros. In the private segment, Subscription revenue growth accelerated compared to the second quarter and grew by 19.7% year on year, in line with the expectations we communicated during the Q2 earnings call. The changed subscription tiering, which we implemented in the second quarter, has resonated well, and we feel good about the momentum in the business. We ended the quarter with more than 369,000 subscribers. Turning to page five, let me elaborate briefly on our nine-month results. Group revenues for the first nine months amounted to 376.6 million euros, representing growth of 13.3% year-on-year on a reported basis and 11.3% organic. The ordinary operating EBITDA of the group came in at 224.5 million euros, reflecting a margin of 59.6% and significant OOEBDA growth of 21.6%. Excluding Sprengnetter, the margin would have been even higher at 60.2%. Within the professional segment, subscription revenues grew strongly by 11.8%, totaling 216.6 million euros, driven by membership products and consolidation of Sprengnetter for the third quarter. In the private segment, subscription revenues grew by 20.0% compared to the previous year, reaching 52.7 million euros. This growth was a result of a strong performance in the first and third quarters and a slightly softer second quarter as we implemented the changed subscription tiering. Turning to page six now, which shows an overview of how our value drivers performed for the first nine months of the year. Our professional membership revenue continues to grow well into double digits driven by pricing and new customer wins. I would like to call out how pleased we are with the continued standout performance in our core business, despite the challenging macro and real estate market. Our seller leads business continues to be impacted by the soft transactional market. As we mentioned in a second quarter earnings call, we do believe the market has bottomed out, but at the same time, it is clear that the recovery remains quite slow. Therefore, we do expect the seller leads business to remain under pressure for the rest of the year. And as we have stated previously, we run the business for profitability. Inclusion of parts of Sprengnetter's revenues drives the improved negative growth rate of minus 5.5% for the first nine months. Within other revenues, the trends affecting our mortgage business are similar to our seller leads business. Also here, please note that parts of the Sprengnetter revenues have been included in this line, which is driving the 8.8% growth for the first nine months. Our unique private subscription business continues to exhibit robust growth, and we are well ahead of CAGR targets as communicated during our Capital Markets Day in 2021. Before I hand it over to Dirk for the financial part, I would like to conclude as follows. As you can take away from the strong results and the upgraded EBITDA guidance, we are very pleased how the company is performing. While the transactional market clearly is challenging for agents, we believe the market will gradually improve in 2024. While it's too early to talk in detail about 2024, we feel good about the competitive positioning of the company and the multiple growth levers going into 2024. Our growing customer base, leading product portfolio, and increased relevance of the IS24 platform for all stakeholders provide a very good basis for continued growth. And with our updated organizational model, we have become more agile and efficient. The tight cost control we have demonstrated so far this year will not be a one-off. You can expect this to become a hallmark of Scout24 going forward. And with that, I hand it over to Dirk.
Thank you, Tobi, and welcome, everyone. On slide 7, you see the nine-month 2023 year-on-year revenue growth and ordinary operating EBITDA margins for our three business segments. We are pleased that all segments continue to grow at healthy rates with increasing profitability. On a group level, we deliver a margin of 59.6% for the first nine months while absorbing the dilution from Sprengnetter. This margin step-up highlights the significant efficiency gains we generated earlier this year. The professional segment grew revenues by 11.1% year-on-year, driven by strong performance in core memberships and inclusion of Sprengnetter. Organic growth stood at 8%. The ordinary operating EBITDA margin improved significantly by 5 percentage points to 65.3%. This improvement is due to our favorable product mix and continuous efficiency improvements in our seller leads and mortgage business. In the private segment, we continued to witness strong demand for plus products driven by the rental market conditions. This resulted in a 20.3% increase in revenues. Ordinary operating EBITDA margin for the private segment increased by 0.9 percentage points to 51.2%. Margin expansion in the third quarter was lower as we decided to invest into marketing campaigns to drive growth. The media and other segment experienced a 7.5% increase in revenues. This growth was driven by all three verticals. Our Austrian business, CRM portfolio and third-party advertising. The ordinary operating EBITDA margin for the media and other segment displayed a significant improvement of 9.5 percentage points, reaching 42.2%, linked to the completion of our investment phase in our CRM portfolio. Let's turn to page eight for a closer look at the professional segment. In quarter three, revenue in the professional segment grew by 15.6% year on year, including Sprengnetter. Our organic growth was 6.5%. Organic growth in quarter three was driven by continued double digit growth from our core membership products, which grew by 12.9% year on year in the third quarter. We also managed to continue expanding our agent customer base with year-on-year growth of 3.3%. We are very pleased with the compelling operational execution of our sales force. Demand for seller leads and mortgage remains soft, and the business continued to shrink organically in Q3 2023, although there was an improvement compared to the second quarter this year. As Sprengnetter revenues have been allocated to these business lines, the reported revenues increased by 21.7% and 72.2% respectively. Organic growth for seller leads was minus 11.1% and minus 17.4% for mortgage. In the third quarter, the professional APU increased at an attractive rate of 10.5%, rising from 1,040 to 1,149 euros. The growth rate of the professional pay-per-add revenues turned negative in the third quarter, with a 15.6% decline year-on-year. This is in line with the callout I made during the second quarter earnings call, where we expected revenues to contract as we successfully migrated customers into our core membership products. The impact of the decline on an absolute level is however small. The ordinary operating EBITDA margin improved to 63.7% in the third quarter, up 3.5 percentage points year on year, despite absorbing the dilution from Sprengnetter. the margin excluding Sprengnetter would have been 67%. On page 9, let's take a closer look at the private segment. Overall, in the third quarter, the segment grew by 17.4% year on year, reaching 37.1 million euros, which represents a slight deceleration compared to the second quarter, driven by slower growth in PPA revenues. The gradual normalization of PPA growth rates is something we have flagged in earlier conference calls, and we expect growth rates to continue to normalize in the fourth quarter. Subscription revenues grew by 19.7% in the third quarter, a significant acceleration compared to the second quarter. This growth was driven by an increase in new customer acquisitions. The average number of customers for the third quarter exceeded 369,000, representing a 17% year-on-year increase. The private APU increased slightly by 2.4% in the third quarter. PPA revenues increased by 12.5% in the third quarter, which was an expected slowdown compared to the growth rates in the first half as we began to lap the listing increase that started to build in 2022 and leveled out in the third quarter of 2023. Other revenue grew strongly by 22% in the third quarter driven by demand for credit checks and relocation leads. Our ordinary operating EBITDA margin expanded to 52.1% in the third quarter, up by 0.8 percentage points driven by scale in our subscription business, offset by continued investments to drive growth. Now let's turn to page 10 to review the main ordinary operating items. Our own work capitalized decreased by 27.1% year on year in the third quarter. to 5.3 million euros as we continue to complete various development and integration projects. As a percentage of revenue, we were at 4% in the third quarter and 4.6% for the nine-month period. Operating cost increased by 3.3% in the third quarter, driven by continued operating efficiency, offset by the consolidation of Sprengnetter. For the nine-month period, operating cost remained flat year on year, despite the consolidation of Sprengnetter, including around 200 FTEs. Personal cost increased by 3.2% in Q3 2023. Due to the inclusion of Sprengnetter, pro forma excluding Sprengnetter, personal costs were down year on year. Marketing costs increased by 2.4% in the third quarter as we invested in brand and offline marketing campaigns to drive brand awareness and also celebrate ImmoScout's 25th birthday with our customers. On a nine-month basis, marketing costs are still down 10.3% year-on-year. IT costs decreased by 2.9% year-on-year, remaining at a comparatively low level in the third quarter. Selling costs increased by 23.4% in the third quarter due to continued growth in the private segment and the consolidation of Sprengnetter. The mortgage appraisal business of Sprengnetter primarily operates with freelancers. From a contractual perspective, Sprengnetzer is the main contract partner and passes on the majority of the revenues to freelancers, resulting in a cost of goods sold. Other operating expenses declined by 10.8% in the third quarter as we continue to reduce spending on external vendors and resources. Due to the continued strong revenue momentum, a favorable product mix, and the operating efficiencies I just outlined, ordinary operating EBITDA increased strongly by 22.1% in the third quarter and 21.6% for the first nine months. The ordinary operating EBITDA margin for the third quarter reached 58.8% and 59.6% for the first nine months. As Tobi mentioned earlier, excluding Sprengnetter, the ordinary operating EBITDA margin would have been even stronger at 60.5% for the third quarter and 60.2% for the first nine months. Let's turn to page 11, where you see the items below ordinary operating EBITDA. In the third quarter, non-operating effects amounted to 5.1 million euros, a significant reduction of 50% year-on-year, driven by lower share-based compensation and lower M&A expenses. For the nine months, non-operating effects are still up 31.1% compared to last year due to increased share-based compensation and higher reorganization costs. DNA charges in the third quarter were €9.2 million, increasing by 10.8% compared to the third quarter 2022. The increase in the third quarter is due to purchase price allocation as a part of the acquisition of Sprengnetter. Basic EPS rose by 70.3% to €1.72 for the first nine months and adjusted EPS grew by 35.5% to €1.90. Adjusted EPS for the third quarter was at 67 Eurocent, representing a growth of 31.8%. The number of shares outstanding increased slightly due to the Sprengnetter purchase price, which was partially settled in Scout 24 shares. Turning to page 12, Guidance. To further expand on what Tobi outlined at the beginning of the call, we are pleased to adjust our financial guidance for the full year 2023 to reflect the continued successful execution of the strategy we have previously communicated in our earnings call. To give you some more context, we continue to see healthy operating leverage in our business driving EBITDA outperformance. We continue to prioritize profitability over revenue growth when running our transactional assets. In terms of the macroeconomic environment, we are experiencing a slower transactional recovery in the second half of 2023 than we previously expected and are adjusting our capital allocation accordingly. Based on these points, we are delighted to update our financial guidance for the full year 2023 as follows. Updating consolidated revenue growth from circa 15% to circa 14%, with Sprengnetzer contributing roughly three percentage points. upgrading consolidated ordinary operating EBITDA growth from the range of 18% to 19% to 19% to 21%, with Sprengnetzer contributing roughly one percentage point. I would like to provide you with some further color on the updated guidance and our assumptions for the remainder of the year. The adjusted revenue guidance reflects our deliberate management decisions to drive profitability in a slower than expected transactional market. Our core business continues to perform very well and according to our plans. We are very pleased to be able to deliver a second EBITDA upgrade for this year. As you can imply from the EBITDA growth rates, we expect to lend at around 59% ordinary operating EBITDA margin for financial year 2023, representing a significant margin expansion of circa 3 percentage points, even while accounting for the dilution from Sprengnetter. In terms of key developments for the fourth quarter of 2023, we assume the following. Continued high demand for memberships and private subscriptions. PPA private growth to normalize further compared to the third quarter. PPA professional remains a headwind. Demand for seller and mortgage lead remains soft. In conclusion, as evident from our strong third quarter results and the upgraded EBITDA guidance, We are maintaining a strong level of execution and are confident about the remainder of this year. While it's too early to officially talk about 2024, I would like to reiterate Tobi's comments that we feel good about the momentum we are seeing in the core business and the increased relevance of the ImmoScout24 platform. Based on this, we see continuous scope for healthy revenue growth in 2024 and beyond. Combined with our updated organizational model and tight cost control, we feel good about continuing to expand our profitability. I look forward to provide further updates as part of our Capital Markets Day end of February 2024. With that, let's open the line for questions. We would appreciate if you could limit your questions to two per speaker. Operator, over to you.
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