7/24/2024

speaker
Kaisa Urasmaa
Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability at Sanoma

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Sanoma's first half 2024 results presentation. My name is Kaisa Urasmaa. I'm heading investor relations and sustainability at Sanoma. Our first half of the year was strong and earnings improved in both learning and media. And today, our president and CEO Rob Kolkman and CFO Alex Green will tell you more about that. After their presentation, we will have a Q&A session. We will first take questions from the audience here at Sanoma House. Please use the microphone. And then we will hand over to the telephone line if there is any audience there. You can also use the chat function in the webcast platform for questions. The full event, including the Q&A, is recorded and the recording will be available on our website shortly after the event. With this, I would like to invite Rob to start the presentation. Please.

speaker
Rob Kolkman
President and CEO

Thank you, Kajsa. And good morning, everyone. It's my pleasure to present the half-year results to you today. And we've had a good first six months of the year. And that's reflected in pretty much all of the metrics that you see here. And I will talk you through that and then, as usual, also go specifically into the two business areas. If you look at the sales side, that grew in learning, that was driven by the Netherlands and Spain in particular, and that was overall stable in media Finland. That helped, of course, with a strong operational EBIT improvement, where on top of what happened on the top line, we also saw lower operating expenses. And that flowed through as well to the free cash flow, which improved again by both the higher earnings, but also the lower investments. And I think all this really contributes to the core focus areas that we highlighted during the Capital Markets Day, and those are, of course, around improving the profitability in both learning and in media, improving also the organic growth, particularly in learning also together with in-market consolidations. And that third point I would like to highlight is, of course, the deleveraging of the balance sheet as the third key focus area. And if you purely look back now one year, then you see that also in action on our balance sheet with a reduction in the net debt and also our leverage improved to 2.9 below the 3.0 that we have as our target. And Alex later on will talk a bit more about that as well. Also pleased to report that the program solar or efficiency program within learning is on track. And I'll touch on that more specifically in a minute as well. So we're very happy with the results for the first half of the year, good results. It is always good to realise in our type of business that, of course, we have a very big H2 ahead of us. That is true very much in learning, when you think about the school start of the year, and also, of course, a lot, particularly on the advertising revenue in Media Finland. And that is also, in essence, and I'll touch on it in a bit more detail, why we are keeping the outlook unchanged. Let me now zoom in on both parts of the business, starting with learning and starting with the top line on the learning side. So the net sales grew 3% and actually organically we grew 5%, keeping in mind, of course, that we had the divestment of Stark now really impacting the numbers by about 5 million on the top line. So the learning content sales grew in the Netherlands, Spain and Poland, and that was partly offset by Finland and Belgium. And we see that as the sort of phasing effects that I also mentioned in the previous quarter that does happen. Particularly, of course, in Spain, good to realize that last year we were still in sort of finalizing some of the content, getting the books ready and then selling them in quarter three. What you now see is, of course, there is no change in books anymore. So we have more available to already deliver in quarter two. And that's partly why you still see Spain being ahead at the half-year point. But of course, as I also highlight here, for the full year, the Spanish lower curriculum will have a significant impact on lower revenues for the full year. And besides the lower curriculum taking effect in Spain in quarter three, there is also the discontinuation of the low value Dutch distribution contracts. Again, something we already highlighted before, but of course, that is also happening more in quarter three and not so far in the year. Clearly, the positive revenue growth flew through to our margins, which is highlighted here, with the net sales growth having a positive impact. But also, the first effects of solar, especially in Spain, you can start to see that also in lower personnel costs. Clearly, the majority, as we've mentioned, is actually happening initially as less investments, therefore on the balance sheet, and then ultimately lower depreciation. That is still true. But of course, there are also some impacts that you can already see in the P&L as well. And again, Alex will highlight a couple of points there too. And in learning, although less than in media at this point in time, we also see lower paper and printing costs. In learning, you will see more of that happening again in the second half of the year when, of course, we sell more of the books in quarter three. Keeping in mind the two key areas within learning with regard to the lower curriculum cycle in Spain and the discontinuation of the low value contracts, we still think that the margin, everything considered, will be relatively stable for the full year compared to the 18.7 that it was at the end of Q4 last year. Let me now say a few words about program SOLAR. So pleased to say that SOLAR is very much on track. The key way we are currently measuring that is unchanged, which is around all the decisions that we are taking to get to those run rate savings for 2026. And by the end of the year, we will have taken 80%, so the vast majority of those decisions that will then flow through via the balance sheet and then also into the results fully into 2026. So we still slightly ahead there. And for the full year, we expect to at least be on schedule there with the 80%. And again, to bring that to life for you a bit, it is really across all these segments that you see here. I already mentioned Spain and the organizational optimization there post the curriculum having an impact. And that will continue to be the case. And we are also still taking more steps in that area. Same was true for Poland. And we're doing it in a couple of the other operating countries as well. but Spain being the main one there. We also continue to improve our publishing processes. That is partly also introducing new ways of working and benefiting really there from the scale, also some software that will help us further reduce and optimize, for example, inventory levels. You see that already happening now, but we expect that to continue and improve even further, which is important as well if you think about the next high seasons coming up in particularly also 26. And on the harmonization of the digital platforms, the key element there is unchanged, which is to focus on building and growing our tech hubs, particularly in Poland and also in Spain. And that will help us and our customers to deliver more features and functionalities and digital solutions, but also at a lower cost, because effectively it is moving very expensive development costs from some of our countries to lower cost countries like Poland and Spain. And then there is a wide range of other optimizations as well across the business also to make sure that we really benefit from our scale in HR, in finance and all those areas. So that's with regard to learning and solar. Very much on track and a very good first six months of the year for learning. Let me now switch to Media Finland. There you saw overall stable net sales, and I would characterize it as really a continuation of the core trends that we've seen for a while, which is on growth on the subscription side, very good development in Route 2+, and overall the subscription sales grew year on year by 6%. And that's also a continued solid performance there on the news driven by digital. The advertising sales still sees that growth on digital, also on TV, and the decline on the print advertising. So again, that is what makes up the 1% overall. And then this time of year, always a popular topic, of course, the events. So I think there's a few things to highlight here for events. So the event sales overall is slightly lower, and that is a combination of no Rockfest, which we, of course, did have in quarter two last year, and we now will organize again in 2025. but that was partly mitigated by two events that were last year in quarter three and are now in quarter two. So there is some phasing, particularly with an impact on the top line happening there. If you look through that and you look at the ticket sales, then overall the ticket sales are in line with expectations. And that also means more or less in line with last year. So no major changes there. Obviously, event by event, it can be different. But overall, that's what we see on the event side. And most of the events, of course, now have happened in the year. And also here, good to realize the impact of the portfolio changes in the quarter, 2 million, and for the half year, 5 million. If you then look at the earnings within Media Finland, there we saw good growth in the operational EBIT going to 14 million compared to 9 million last year. Same trends, of course, contributing here. Growth in digital advertising, subscription sales. Also the lower paper cost, still very significant here as well. And again, Alex will touch on it in a bit more detail. And the events phasing I also mentioned here as well. Then just to be very clear on where do we now see this go for the second half of the year. So what we expect for the full year is that the plus that we see year to date of roughly 8 million, that that is there to stay. And that for the second half of the year, the profit will be more or less similar to the second half of last year. So that's about an 8 million year on year improvement then on the results if you look at it from a full year perspective. And why is that the case? We do see continuation of a slightly declining overall advertising market. We also have stronger prior year comparables for both advertising subscription sales and the lower paper costs are still there, but less significant than they were in the first half of the year. And this is sort of the expectation of being similar to last year for the second half of the year. That does mean that it can still be different between quarter three and quarter four. And for example, if you take in quarter three, we have the Olympics that always leads to some slight changes in advertising spend, which you then see happening more, for example, again in quarter four. So overall, similar performance in the second half of the year expected. So all these points lead to an unchanged outlook for the key reasons I mentioned and also the same operating environment underlying expectations that we have set at the start of the year, which is the advertising market in Finland declining slightly and more or less stable economies in all of our operating countries. So with that said, I would like to hand over to Alex to talk us through some more of the financials.

speaker
Alex Green
Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Rob. Thank you and welcome here for me as well to this H1 presentation. So with the financials, let's start with our operational EBIT for Q2 with good development in both businesses going from 54 to 61 million operation EBIT for Q2. On the learning side, an increase of two coming from some sales mix impacts, but also then lower operating costs, particularly in paper, where we have a full year in paper for learning, about a five million drop, of which the bulk of that will come in Q3, but there's about two million for the first half of the year and about one million in here. But as I said, adding to a two million increase. In Media Finland, as we've just seen, a five million increase year on year in operational EBIT with the growth in digital subscriptions and advertising sales. Again, lower paper costs for Media Finland, a 10 million year impact with about six million year to date, three in Q1, three in Q2, and then the rest evenly spread. So in H2, less of an impact because the paper prices were already coming down in H2 last year. In addition to that, the events change with more in Q2 than Q3 improved the profitability. And then we also had some lower external printing sales, which tends to happen when the price comes down automatically as well. But that all led to a five million increase year on year. The other in elimination line is relatively stable. And for that line, the full year estimate is it to be similar levels to 2023. Moving to our relatively new slide on income statement items. Now, we showed this for the first time in Q1. Here in Q2, we're putting both Q2 and H1 in the table here. I'm going to focus on the Q2 numbers for the comments. So in terms of Q2 IACs, 8 million booked in Q2, 2 million of which come from a program, Solar, and then the others coming from the coming towards the end of the Pearson integration costs and also other strategic development costs throughout the business. You'll notice, and as a reminder, in Q2 2023, there's a large amount there, which is the VAT claim booked at Media Finland, for which we have an appeal out still, so that not yet concluded, but booked in 2023. In terms of net financial items, that did grow from 8 till 10.7 in Q2. This is mainly due to the repayment of the low coupon rate, 200 million bond at the beginning of this year. That was obviously done three years ago at a very low interest rate. And so refinancing that with our term loan and with other funding sources is at a sort of more contemporary interest rate, so higher. So the average interest rates did go up from 4 to 5.3 in Q2. And then similarly for H1, it goes up in the same way. If we look at free cash flow, so free cash flow is always negative in the first half of the year because of the learning business cycle. We did improve it from the minus 84 last year to minus 54 with the higher operating results and also lower investments at this part of the year. And also some acting work in capital management, which included significantly lowering our inventory levels due to the higher cost of capital. We are reducing those to be more exactly what's needed in the following months, therefore improving the working capital. That was offset a little by the higher interest paid, but also the lower prepayments in the Dutch distribution business, which is one of the changes from last year. So obviously, as we talked about, when we discontinue low-value contracts, last year they would have been a prepayment associated. Given we don't have the contract, therefore, less prepayments, so that does impact the number here as well. With regards to those timing impacts and all that, so overall net-net, as you look at the full year, we still expect the free cash flow to be relatively similar to 2023. And here we state also the installments, the dividends, so the second half installments, the second one will be in September and the third one will be in November. As you remember, we do it in three installments. So the free cash flow has contributed to improving our leverage position and bringing us to 2.9 below our long-term target of three. And we expect that to, given the nature of the flow of cash in the second half of the year, that will come down towards the year end. So net debt reduced by 62 million year on year, obviously slightly up from March due to the seasonal patterns of our spending. And the equity ratio at 37.4 is inside the long-term target range that we have of 35 to 45. That concludes the finance section, so I'll invite my colleagues back on stage for the Q&A session.

speaker
Kaisa Urasmaa
Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability at Sanoma

Thank you, Alex. Thank you, Rob. And we are happy to start the Q&A session from here at Sanoma House. And the microphone is on its way. Nikko, please.

speaker
Nikko
Analyst at SCB

Yes, thank you, from SCB. I have a couple of questions. So first of all, starting with the guidance and maybe how did the quarter go compared to your estimates before the quarter? So given that you have now improved your profitability in H1, So what should happen that you should land at the upper end of the guidance and what is something you are still cautious about, given that you are keeping the guidance?

speaker
Rob Kolkman
President and CEO

Yes, so maybe a couple of points indeed on that. First of all, we are pleased with the results, very pleased with the results in the first half of the year. We also try to be quite specific on how we see it for both businesses. And if you look at the media side, that's where we are saying that the improvement in profitability that we saw in the first half of the year is there to stick, right? It's there to stay. For the second half of the year, the key uncertainty, of course, remains as always around the advertising market. And that's why we are saying we expect more similar result there. On learning, We are pleased, very pleased with the results we've seen so far. There, I think the main caveat is simply that it is still a relatively small part of the full year, right? So that's why we are saying for quarter three, which is such an important one, that's where so much needs to come in, that that is not enough reason to change our forecasting there. And there is always a bit of phasing between the quarters as well.

speaker
Nikko
Analyst at SCB

Yeah, I understand. Then on free cash flow, it's also improved in H1. So what is your expectation for the full year? Has that changed since the year started?

speaker
Alex Green
Chief Financial Officer

So a lot of the impacts we see are timing related and specifically looking to improve the free cash flow, working capital in the middle part of the year. When I take a step back and look at the longer term, and we talked about it before in terms of 2025 and 2026, we do see strong improvement in free cash flow coming with the absence of the IECs related to solar and also as the margin improves. So relative to that, 2024, we still see it as being relatively similar to last year. And yes, very pleased with the good performance in the first half. But however, the timing impacts still keep us to that conclusion.

speaker
Nikko
Analyst at SCB

All right, so that you expect a more negative or weaker free cash flow in H2 convert to last year then?

speaker
Alex Green
Chief Financial Officer

Well, we see there's still a lot of cash to come in and come out. We did improve a lot our collections in the first half of the year, which obviously just impacts the other side of the quarter. But yes, indeed, we see the full year to be relatively similar to 2023.

speaker
Nikko
Analyst at SCB

Yeah, alright, thanks. Then a last one. What was the year on year impact of order phasing in learning in Q2?

speaker
Rob Kolkman
President and CEO

Yeah, so. I would like to make two comments on that specifically. If you purely look at it from a customer by customer basis, the impact was very limited. So yes, some customers, schools or bookshops ordered earlier, some later. That's only a very minor impact on the quarter. I think the key thing to highlight is if you look at the growth in the first half of the year, Spain is still growing in that one. And that's to do with the point I tried to highlight around. We have more books already available to sell because there is no change in curriculum. Of course, for the full year, we're expecting Spain to go down quite significantly because of the long rise. So call it phasing, call it slightly different way of looking at it. So not so much on the customer by customer level, but on the Spanish point, you will see that flip the other way in quarter three.

speaker
Nikko
Analyst at SCB

Yeah, I understand. That clarifies. Thanks. That's all from me.

speaker
Kaisa Urasmaa
Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability at Sanoma

Thank you, Nikko. If you hand over to Sami, please.

speaker
Sami
Analyst

I have three questions. Starting from learning, it seems that the year may pave out somewhat stronger than anticipated with top line headwind coming from just discontinued distribution deals with low margin. Why are you not seeing margin improvement on full year level as you will benefit from mixed improvement and the solar program?

speaker
Rob Kolkman
President and CEO

I think from my perspective, the key point there to keep in mind is that the declining quarter three for Spain is in a part of the market that is also from a profitability point of view, one of the more profitable parts, which is the primary education in Spain. So that is, I think, where we see the headwinds also in the profitability side.

speaker
Sami
Analyst

Okay, thanks. And then regarding Media Finland, you achieved a 7 million euro profit improvement during the first half. I think previously you have expected also improvements during the second half, as you will still benefit from cost tailwinds. Why are you now so cautious regarding second half? You did well on the advertising front in the second quarter.

speaker
Rob Kolkman
President and CEO

I think the key thing for me there is around... if you look at the Finnish advertising market itself and also the Finnish economy, there are no signs for us there at the moment that that is actually improving. So for example, a quarter four to be better, you would also expect that to become slightly better than currently the forecasts are. So that's why we are saying we now, the way we currently see it, see more of a similar performance in the second half of the year.

speaker
Sami
Analyst

Okay, and finally, can you maybe elaborate a bit on the advertising success you had in the second quarter? What were some of the reasons for that? I mean, you're still heavy on print media, but you were able to grow faster than the market.

speaker
Rob Kolkman
President and CEO

Yeah, there's a few things to mention there. One is it is driven by our focus on the digital, in particular, of course, TV as well. We also see with some of our customers that we are leading the way towards digital, which means, yes, they are going faster down on print, but we're actually working with those customers very well to have their overall spend even move more forward. to us. And that is also good to keep in mind, there was a small acquisition as well in the comparable numbers, which I think had roughly half a million or so impact on the numbers.

speaker
Sami
Analyst

Maybe a final one for Alex. You were a bit downplaying the free cash flow improvement during first half. How much of that 26 million euro improvement is driven by pure timing?

speaker
Alex Green
Chief Financial Officer

Look, always very hard to get that exactly right. I'd say a large part of it is to do with the reduction in inventory levels, which kind of, you know, is a timing impact. And also the very strong cash collections we got at the back end of June. And so we were, as by last year, we targeted H1 point to try and do as well as we can to reduce interest payments and to get our debt down. And we got the... And I'll say we got the whole team mobilized last year and again this year to try and optimize our working capital. And we were very pleased with the results we did. It's almost a slightly separate exercise to think about full year cash flow, where we're at a different cycle at that point. But we're pleased with where we are at the moment and still focused on having similar levels of cash at the end of this year and then improving it in 2025 and 2026. OK, thanks.

speaker
Pia Rosvist
Analyst at Carnegie

It's Pia Rosvist from Carnegie. I'm interested in understanding, do you see any evidence of you taking market share? I'm now interested in both segments. In learning, I think you explained that on a customer by customer basis, it's too early to draw that conclusion. But how about in media Finland? Are you taking market shares?

speaker
Rob Kolkman
President and CEO

Yes, so we saw in quarter one a bit of regaining of market share that we had lost in the previous year. And I think I highlighted that in the quarter one results that is there to stay. So we saw that being still the case also for the half year. But that was more stable in the market share perspective, looking through all the kind of changes.

speaker
Pia Rosvist
Analyst at Carnegie

And just to clarify, so in learning, you're not seeing or it's too early to draw the conclusion that you would take market shares?

speaker
Rob Kolkman
President and CEO

In learning, the cycle is as such that we have now indications on, indeed, ordering. And of course, the Nordics is a good example where most of the orders are actually in. But we do not know. how our competitors perform. We only see that when we see the full year numbers, which normally is even not until January, February, and only then you can really draw more firm conclusions on market shares.

speaker
Pia Rosvist
Analyst at Carnegie

Thank you. And then a question regarding the in-market acquisitions you mentioned. We haven't seen much of those yet, but what is your ambition level? Should we expect to see them towards the end of the year?

speaker
Rob Kolkman
President and CEO

We never comment specifically on that, of course, but it's very firmly in our focus, right? Because we strongly believe in some of our markets, there is a real benefit from in-market consolidation, making the scale work even more. So we're very focused on that, but that's, of course, happening all behind the scenes until we can say anything about it.

speaker
Kaisa Urasmaa
Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability at Sanoma

Thank you. Thank you, Pia. And Sanna, please go ahead.

speaker
Sanna Berla
Analyst at Nordea

Hi, Sanna Berla from Nordea. I have a couple of questions first regarding the personal costs which were down year on year. Could you elaborate more on what's the mix between still personal cost inflation, salary inflation versus lower headcount you had?

speaker
Alex Green
Chief Financial Officer

Right, so we are seeing, as we said, some of the solar impacts coming through, and it was 2 to 3 million in H1. If I think about full year, there's sort of three things, and you mentioned three things really, well, two of them you mentioned happening. We have the salary inflation coming in, we have the solar impacts coming in, and we also have the divestments, which sort of reduce headcount slightly. So net-net, those things we're seeing being slightly low in H1, The salary inflation will come in more in H2, but net net overall, I expect us to be at a similar or slightly lower level at a full year.

speaker
Sanna Berla
Analyst at Nordea

Right. Thanks. That's very clear. Then a couple of questions regarding Q3 in media Finland. So if I understood correctly, you will have less events in Q3 versus last year.

speaker
Rob Kolkman
President and CEO

That's correct. The two that moves. Yeah.

speaker
Sanna Berla
Analyst at Nordea

Right, thanks. And then those subscription sales. So you mentioned the trend is still there from Q1. Do you expect that to continue in H2 as well?

speaker
Rob Kolkman
President and CEO

As far as growth is, yes, because of course there's positive momentum there. It will, of course, increasingly be at higher comparable numbers, right? So from that point of view, the percentages might change a bit, but the underlying growth is definitely there.

speaker
Kaisa Urasmaa
Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability at Sanoma

Right, thank you. That's all from me. Thank you, Sanna. Any further questions from the audience? Petri, please.

speaker
Nikko
Analyst at SCB

One additional question. I recall you mentioned that Stark divestment impact was one million in Q2.

speaker
Alex Green
Chief Financial Officer

So can you clarify how Q3 weighted the business was?

speaker
Rob Kolkman
President and CEO

Yeah, so I think in total it will go to, is it 14 million? So it's an exam preparation material, it was, right? So it follows a cycle in the German market. And that's why it was so low in quarter two. And then you will see the remaining part of the 14 million happening mostly, if I remember correctly, in both quarter three and quarter four.

speaker
Kaisa Urasmaa
Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability at Sanoma

Yeah, quarter four is also large because the end exams of the first semester basically take place then.

speaker
Nikko
Analyst at SCB

Got it, thanks.

speaker
Kaisa Urasmaa
Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability at Sanoma

Okay, if no further questions from the audience, we actually move to the chat. I understand that there are no questions at the moment from the telephone line either. We can come back to that if there are further later on. From the chat, so the first question is about Spain and the Dutch distribution business impact in learning for this year. Could you please recap that once more, that how do we see the status of that now for the full year?

speaker
Rob Kolkman
President and CEO

Yes, so I think that view is unchanged for both. So that means in Spain we will see the lower curriculum and on the low distribution contracts that we stop, that's in the order of magnitude of 20 to 30 million.

speaker
Kaisa Urasmaa
Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability at Sanoma

Thank you. And then considering the solid H1, we keep our guidance for the full year unchanged. So again, a recap maybe on the key factors that are kind of impacting us now too. to do anything on the guidance based on this.

speaker
Rob Kolkman
President and CEO

So let's start with the point that we are happy with the good first six months, right? That is encouraging to see in both of our businesses. If you then look at learning, there is the core element in quarter three around the reduction in spain and the exact impact of course there is always difficult to to to predict but that's one and on the media side it is around the advertising and also what we touched on earlier with regard to the fact that the finnish market we still continue to see a slight decline

speaker
Kaisa Urasmaa
Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability at Sanoma

Thank you. And then the next one is about working capital. Alex, why were you not able to replicate the solid working capital management seen H1 last year? And how should we think about the phasing in Q3, Q4?

speaker
Alex Green
Chief Financial Officer

Well, I'm very happy with the free cash results we did do in H1. And a lot of the efforts we made last year in terms of lowering inventory, in terms of collections, were replicated this year. The one thing that was different, and we highlight it, was the prepayments from the Dutch distribution business. And that's because we came out of a lot of loss making. Contracts and therefore without those contracts. There is no prepayment clearly and so that that's the one thing that was different year-on-year So I think aside from that I'm pretty happy with our working cash management so far in the year There is obviously timing impacts, you know If you are successful in the first half that in things like collections, you know, it does have the opposite impact in in q3 so there will be a difference in Q3, but when we represent Q3 year to date, I still expect it to be sort of on track to where we're guiding.

speaker
Kaisa Urasmaa
Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability at Sanoma

Thank you. And then there was a question about the significant business risks impacting Q3, Q4 results. I think you just went through those impacts. And there was a question on M&A that we have also already covered. Then the next one is about price increases. Any early... comment on the upcoming price increases for 25 and this doesn't now specify segments so I think it applies to both of them yes yes

speaker
Rob Kolkman
President and CEO

Maybe start with media. There, it is an ongoing process to see and very carefully consider product by product what we can do. And we have seen, of course, modest price increases there over the last few years, and we will continue to focus on that. But it's very difficult to pinpoint a percentage on that. In learning, of course, we have seen last year the 5% to 6% on average, which again, if it changes for this year, we have already indicated it's more around the 4% to 5%, which is still above inflation in our markets and therefore also helping with over the period of two years increasing, getting back to the margins we had before. It is too early to say what that will be for 2025, other than, of course, that some of it is a flow through from the prices we now have put in. And that is also to do with the fact that you see in some of our markets, governments making decisions around VAT and all those kind of things we also need to carefully take into consideration.

speaker
Kaisa Urasmaa
Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability at Sanoma

Thank you. And then coming back to the salary inflation and the personal costs, will the salary inflation put a pressure on the profitability for this year?

speaker
Alex Green
Chief Financial Officer

So, as I said, the three factors I talked about, so we have salary inflation coming in, which clearly is in the P&L. We also have the early stages of the actions we've taken on solar, which give us an advantage as we go forward, and more so in 2025 and 2026, as, if you remember, some of the actions we take are to do with people whose costs go on the balance sheet for a while and then get depreciated. And then the third factor is the...

speaker
Kaisa Urasmaa
Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability at Sanoma

the divestments which sort of bring down our headcount and have an impact as well and net net overall i see us having relatively similar to slightly lower people costs in in total for the year thank you and then there there are two questions about the prioritization between profitability and growth uh so rob would you like to kind of maybe recap the 24 26 focus areas and if you have any comment on the kind of balance between the different three different

speaker
Rob Kolkman
President and CEO

We want both is the short answer to that one. And it's also important if you think about it. So clearly with everything we are doing both in media and learning around improving the profitability, those are very big and important steps. Solar in learning, but the ongoing cost management that we are taking in media is also very important and the team has been successful in that for years. So that will continue. Clearly, the longer-term success is dependent on also the organic growth and improving that organic growth. And acquisitions that we just touched on earlier, and particularly in-market acquisitions, can help with that. So we are, as management, focusing on both. And that, of course, will also help with the third point, which is the deleveraging of our balance sheets, of which you, if you purely look year on year at this point, have seen some good first steps as well.

speaker
Kaisa Urasmaa
Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability at Sanoma

Very good. And a question on digital innovations. How big role do innovations have in both businesses basically and is there anything exciting in the pipeline?

speaker
Rob Kolkman
President and CEO

I think there's a lot of exciting things happening around digital innovation. If you think AI, for example, in our learning part, the sort of early tests that we do around personalised learning and also working with the teachers on that, it's all very important, but it takes time to do that because, of course, it doesn't change overnight the way a teacher in primary education works with that. In media, you see the same happening when you think about how do you in journalism also use, for example, AI. And if you look at our core websites, you see constant improvements there on the audience interaction as well. So a lot of different things happening. And particularly AI over time, generative AI really is a great opportunity for us to also further support, particularly in learning also the teachers and the students.

speaker
Kaisa Urasmaa
Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability at Sanoma

Very good. Thank you. Then the question that we often got is that are you happy with the current capital structure of the group or should we expect that to significantly change?

speaker
Rob Kolkman
President and CEO

No, we're very much happy with that. And also the way the chairman focused on that in the AGM is very much the case. We focused on both our businesses with clear strategies and that is what we continue to do.

speaker
Kaisa Urasmaa
Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability at Sanoma

Okay, and then the final question. Any new ESG initiatives planned for the near future?

speaker
Rob Kolkman
President and CEO

Well, the thing that immediately comes to mind is that there's a lot of reporting happening, but actually underneath it, if you think about inclusive learning, if you think about all the elements of ESG, I think there's a lot going on within the business. Ultimately, you see that also reflected in new products, new solutions, both in learning and in media. But I know you are very much involved in that. There's a lot happening as well on the new regulations as well.

speaker
Kaisa Urasmaa
Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability at Sanoma

Yeah, true. And we, of course, have clear targets for ESG topics and are working small steps towards those targets, so that takes place all the time, basically. I'm scrolling through once more if there was anything that I missed. And do we have anyone in the telephone line at the moment? No. Yeah, I think that we have concluded the questions from the chat. Anything from the audience here at Sanamo House? If not, we start to conclude the presentation. Just a reminder of the next report that will be published in the last day of October. So thank you for participating today. And we, of course, at AIA, we are happy to continue the discussions afterwards and wishing you everyone a good day. Thank you.

Disclaimer

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