Sanoma Corp Unsp/Adr

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Sanoma's full year 2024 results presentation. My name is Kaisa Urasma. I'm heading investor relations and sustainability at Sanoma. Our operational EBIT increased and free cash flow improved strongly in 24. And today we have the president and CEO Rob Kolkman and CFO Alex Green to tell you more about the results. After their presentation, we will have a Q&A session. First, we will take questions from here at Sanoma House. Please wait for the microphone. Then we will hand over to the telephone line. And then you can also use the chat function in the webcast for questions. The presentation, including the Q&A session, will be available as a recording on our website after the event. With this, I would like to invite Rob on stage, please.

Thank you very much, Kaisa. And good morning, everybody. It's my pleasure to present the full year 24 results to you. And as Kaisa already mentioned, it is really characterized by increased operational EBIT and also that strong free cash flow improvement. And before... I go into all that. I thought it might be good to have a look at what we said at the time of the Capital Markets Day back at the end of 23 on the sort of mid-term targets that we highlighted there. And I'm very pleased to see that we are making continued good progress towards them. Obviously, that is around the increasing profitability for both learning and media, particularly because in a year like 24 on the margin side, but also the improving cash flow generation, which of course has helped a lot as well with the third point, which is strengthening our balance sheet, where we are now well within our range on the net debt over adjusted EBITDA of below three. And I'll touch later on what that also of course means for our continued ambitions to grow also on the M&A side. So I thought it was good to give this perspective a bit, looking back at what we said at the time and the good progress we are making in those key areas. We now look at the... full year results, then the sales side is very much a continuation of what we've been saying throughout the year. And also, of course, at the end of the quarter three already indicated that the top line would decline slightly, mainly due to the planned discontinuation of those low value learning material contracts in the Netherlands and Belgium. And there is also the element of the divestment in both media and learning. Operational EBIT improved, and also higher margins, both in learning and in media Finland. I touched on the stronger free cash flow. That is really driven, and Alex will talk about that later, by the higher results, the EBITDA, and also lower investments. So really fundamental improvement there on our free cash flow. Also pleased to say that program SOLAR, the core actions, have now been materially completed. We already indicated that at the end of quarter three, and that has now happened, and I'll touch on a couple of the key points in a minute as well. The balance sheet deleveraging continued, now improved to 2.2, and again, Alex will give some more highlights on those elements. The board proposes everything considered a dividend of 39 cents, which is two cents above last year, to be paid in the usual three equal now installments. And the outlook for 25, it's mentioned here already. I will touch on that more in depth in a minute, but that is an expected net sales of between 1.28 and 1.33 and an operational EBIT between 170 to 190, with of course this year's results, 24 results, being really in the middle of that. But I'll come back to that in a minute. Let's now zoom in on learning and media separately, starting with learning. And there, because learning, of course, has the main quarter three, is the big one. Quarter four is, of course, very much a continuation of what we highlighted. The impact of the distribution contracts is about 28 million in 2024. And it's also good to see that Spain, if anything, ended up slightly better in quarter four with the returns than we thought. But overall, the Spain decline because of the lower LOMLOI was more than offset by the growth in our other learning content markets. So that underlying growth is there in 24, particularly driven, as we already highlighted, by Poland and the Netherlands. And also 24 was still a year of above price, average price increases, which you also see reflected in the numbers. Good also to be aware that the divestment of stock has now had its full year impact of 14 million, of which 5 million was in quarter form. Pleased to say as well that we did a small acquisition here in Finland. The secondary education methods from Edita we acquired was very small, but it fits very nicely into our highly synergetic kind of acquisitions we want to do in our markets. You then go to the profitability side. There you saw stable operational EBIT. And if you actually take into account the divestment of stock, the numbers would be slightly positive, but limited. So let's say overall stable. Trends there, very much the same as what we highlighted before. The net sales decrease in Spain, that was, of course, profitable, very profitable sales coming down. But we at the same time saw the lower paper and personnel cost decrease. the price increases and also the slight growth in the other learning content markets, supporting very much the earnings there. And as a result of that slightly lower top line and stable overall operational earnings, we saw the margins improve to 19.2%. Let's now zoom in on Programme Solar. As I mentioned, we have materially completed Programme Solar with regards to the actions. So this is also the last time we will show it in this format because we are now really above 80% with all the actions taken. That puts us in a really good position to deliver those efficiencies in 2026 of 55 million, which of course is a key supporter for reaching our long-term target of 23% in 2026 as well. The first impacts were visible already in 2024 on the free cash flow and also on elements of the cost base that we'll touch on as well. The streams have very much stayed the same on Programme Solar. So a big part that we highlighted at the end of quarter three was, of course, that we were in the middle of doing a reorganisation, the second phase of the reorganisation in Spain, a very tough one, but a very necessary one as well, which already at the time was reflected in the IACs, but not yet in the percentage. So a big part of the increase in percentage now is due to that. Of course, there's still things to be done in that remaining 18 or so percent, and they are across the different parts here. For example, the continuing growth of our nearshoring in Poland and Spain, but also some of the other optimizations in the support functions, they will continue. But materially, this is done, and from now on, the focus very much is on showing that that is reflected in the cash flow And particularly from 26, when also our curriculum increases, you will see that fully reflected in our operation EBIT as well. Let's now zoom in on Media Finland. The net sales there ended up for the full year at 581. The trends there are very much the same that we've been highlighting for some time, which is there is good growth on the digital side, both in subscriptions as well as in advertising. But at the same time, we see the decline, of course, happening with regard to mainly also in the advertising sales in newsprint and TV. and that was also visible in quarter four which as you all have seen on the total market was also a weaker advertising market in in finland on the subscription sales the growth there of three percent really good development of rutu plus throughout the year but also the digital new subscriptions continue to show a good growth the other lower other sales events and external printing sales nothing new there that was already reflected previously in the numbers as well And also here, good to be aware of the portfolio changes of about 10 million for the full year on the top line. On the Operational earnings and margin, we saw there for the full year the improvement to 8.2%. Again, driven by the same, similar kind of trends, the growth in digital subscription, offsetting, more than offsetting, the decline in print, growth in digital advertising sales, which, of course, offsetting the decline in print there as well. We still see lower paper cost, declining prices, and volume have an impact there, of course. And then very pleased to see how Pia Calsta and the team are constantly working on further improving the operational efficiency. And that in 24 also again had a positive impact, especially on the personnel cost. So with all that considered, comes back down to the board proposal for the dividend on the 39 cents, that increase of two cents with equal installments now proposed of 13 cents in three installments. And that represents about 64 million in cash and about 44% of our free cash flow. So the increasing part and it being between the 40 to 60% makes that firmly within the dividend policy that we have. So that's around 24 and sort of the key elements, very much, as I say, a continuation of what we saw, of course, already in quarter three. Let me now give a bit more context to the outlook for 25. And similar setup to what we did for 24, let's look at both businesses separately and look at the key elements there. So 25 is the last year where we still see the net sales on the learning side somewhat declining, and there are two factors at play there. The first one is around the ongoing discontinuation of the low value distribution contracts. We already indicated at the end of quarter three that we would expect that to be in the similar range that we saw in 24, so between 25 and 30 million. That is reconfirmed here. And we see the last phase of the lower cycle in Spain, but that is actually more than offset by the growth in the other learning market. And here we will also see some elements of the cost base. which is largely, of course, driven by solar, leading to that slightly improving margin in the year before the larger curriculum renewals. So this 25 is that last year before you will see the organic growth really step up as a result also of the curriculum renewals and, of course, all the hard work around growth organically in our business. So that leads for the learning part to slightly lower net sales, the stable operational earnings and therefore logically slightly improving margin for the full year. On the Media Finland side, we expect a continued modest growth in subscription sales, again driven by digital and also by considered price increases. And the second part is slightly lower B2B advertising sales. The trend will continue there of growth in digital, but lower print and TV. And good, of course, for TV to be aware of the fact that there we have ended the deal with Disney on the reselling of their advertising. That's, of course, at a much lower profitability, but it has an impact on the top line, which we factored in to the forecast as well. And also here, we will continue to see efficiency improvements driving that stable operational earnings expectation. And again, logically speaking, a slightly improved margin as a result. So overall, also on the Finland side, media Finland side, slightly lower net sales, stable operational earnings in absolute terms expected, slightly improving margin as a result. And that's reflected here then in the overall outlook that we published today with that revenue being between 1.28 and 1.33. And the profitability, EBIT excluding PPA, between 170 and 190. The assumptions we have summarized as follows. On the learning side, that the demand will be relatively stable across the market. So that is reflecting my comment around some decline still in Spain, growth in other ones, more or less seeing that stability in demand. And the advertising market in Finland, we expect for the full year to be relatively stable. If I look at where we stand today with the advertising market, then that is still slightly declining. So our expectation is that that throughout the year will improve and therefore for the full year be relatively stable. So I think that's with regard to, let's say, the numbers. And then I would like to end with talking a bit about our ambitious strategy for growth that is firmly in place. And actually, I'm very encouraged by what we have seen this year in also the improvement in the deleveraging of our balance sheet and therefore creating space for further growth. So we will stay very firmly focused on increasing our profitability and free cash flow in both learning and media, of course. growing organically in learning, which of course will mainly happen from 26 onwards. You will then really see it in our numbers underlying. There's already, of course, a bit going on there, as I mentioned earlier. If anything, the digital transformation in Media Finland, we remain focused on accelerating that further and also successfully, of course. And a core message as well is around M&A. I think with the steps we've taken in 24, we are really in the position to continue to focus on the in-market consolidations, but also firmly, if bigger acquisitions, value-creating ones come up, we are very firmly focused on those as well. And we would love to continue to grow the business going forward with that M&A in mind as well. And of course, all that with meeting the leverage and equity ratio targets and also the dividend policy firmly in mind. So that's it for now. I'm sure we'll come back to some of the key elements in our Q&A. And let me now hand over to Alex to talk you through the financials.

Thank you, Rob. Thank you. Good to see you all here again. So let's go through the financials and start as usual with the operational EBIT for Q4 specifically. And as you can see here, a very consistent year with the last year with minus 27 in both years. And there are some offsets in both of the main businesses with in the learning side, a favorable business mix as we have the discontinuation of low value contracts in the Netherlands and Belgium. with some lower variable costs offset by that investment of Stark. Now, Stark had its profitability in 23 very skewed to Q4, so it did have an impact here offsetting that positivity. And on the media, Finland, as we've heard, the growth in digital subscription sales that we're very pleased with, plus the lower paper cost and the personnel offset by the weaker advertising sales that we saw at the back end of the year. And then the other in elimination is relatively stable and we expect that cost base to continue to be similar going forward. If we look at the key income statement table, you can see here a significantly improved EBIT. If you look at the last two columns, which are full year, so the EBIT going up by 30 million, impacted by the operational EBIT up by five, and then also lower IACs of 20 million lower in 2024. And you see on the left-hand side the two main items within there that we've talked about through the year, the solar restructuring costs, and also the impairment of 29 million, which is linked to the discontinuation of the low-value contracts. Net financing items, the interest costs within that went up slightly now. Overall, the average interest rates went up because we repaid a very low interest bond at the beginning of the year and replaced it with a very competitive but slightly higher rate of 4% social bond in September. The overall debt level has come down, as you'll see, but net-net that increased the financial items, which took us to a result for the period significantly better than 2023. But focus in on then the strong free cash flow improvement. And as you can see on the table on the top right, we went from 105 to 145. The big impacts coming from the higher result, the EBITDA, and also the lower investments. In terms of the investments, lower and more efficient investments, you can see in the, particularly in the prepub, costs in learning, which is partly driven by our solar initiatives, and then also lower investments in TV program rights within the media Finland business. We also had lower taxes paid, partly offset by the higher financing costs that I talked about. And as we look forward, so 1.4.5 in 2024, we expect that to further increase in 2025 with some further working capital improvements there as well. Rob talked about the progress we had in the leverage and net debt. So net debt came down to 5.69% at the end of the year from 6.40% last year, and that with the improved EBITDA produced our leverage to 2.2%, well below the three target that we have. Equity ratio up at the top end of our target range at 45%, thus continuing to progress in what we said at the capital markets day and deleverage in the balance sheet. And as Rob was saying before, putting us in a great position for M&A, where we are increasing the capacity as we go forward. And finally, just to show again the maturity profile of external debt here, which is much improved due to the actions we've taken during the year. So we extended the maturity of the revolving credit facility of 300 million to another further year, to November 2027. And also, as mentioned, the 150 million social bond, which has a three year maturity, therefore matures in 2027, helps that profile. that together with a solid performance in our ESG ratings during the year and our leverage that we talked about puts us in a great position going forward. So there's the financial slides and I'll welcome my colleagues back to the stage and we will go to the Q&A.