Karnov Group AB

Welcome to the Carnove Group Q4 2025 report presentation. For the first part of the presentation, participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions and answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key 5 on their telephone keypad. If you are listening to the presentation via webcast, you can ask written questions using the form below. Now, I will hand the conference over to CEO Pontus Bodelsson and CFO Magnus Hansen. Please go ahead.

Welcome everyone to Kano Group's earnings conference, where we will present the outcome of the fourth quarter and full year 2025. Please go to slide two. I'm Pontus Burusson, President and CEO of the company. With me I have our CFO, Magnus Hansson, and our Head of Investor Relations, Erik Berger. Magnus and I will present the outcome of the quarter using a few slides, and then we'll open up for questions. With that said, let's get started with the presentation. Please go to slide three. In Q4, the organic growth was 4%, driven by online sales growth, including AI uplifts. The legal businesses in Region Nord continues to have 10% organic online sales growth. The adjusted EBITDA margin improved to 26%, which is an improvement of two percentage points compared to Q4 previous year. Leverage was 1.3 times well below our financial target. In Q4, we achieved solid margins improvement with continued traction in AI sales. The number of AI users increased by five times in 2025, and the number grew every quarter. We are advancing our positions and we will in 2026 launch our AI-powered workflow tools with seamless integration of proprietary content. Please go to slide four. We ended 2025 on a high note with pleased customers and a successful renewal season in Region North. In Q4, our legal businesses in Region North had 10% organic online sales growth and 1,100 Danish prosecutors now use our AI assistance. Moreover, a majority of the judges in Sweden are now using our AI assistance. In Region South, we progressed with rationalization of unprofitable products and the synergy execution. In Q4, we reached an adjusted EBITDA margin of 17% in Region South. At the end of Q1, we will have a common AI platform across all local geographies, which will lower development expenses and generate more value for our customers. On December the 1st, we completed the divestment of EHS, the transaction generated proceeds of 1.1 billion SEK. Next slide, please. Let me take a minute to describe our value proposition. There is a fundamental difference between content-driven legal knowledge platforms with authored content and legal software providers without authored content. This is a slide which I believe is familiar to many, presenting our value to customers. To the left is our legal knowledge sources, both public sources and proprietary. Our authored content is written by our 7,000 local legal experts. The proprietary authored content is what makes Cannab a unique supplier of legal information solutions, helping our customers to make better decisions faster. This content is crucial also to develop and offer AI solutions. Next slide, please. Our core value proposition is local legal knowledge authored by our experts, trusted by more than 400,000 legal professionals across Europe. Our competitive moat is the proprietary authored content itself, solidly available via our solutions and mission critical for our customers. AI serves as the interaction platform that delivers our proprietary authored content in increasingly valuable ways. Customers are adopting our AI solutions at an accelerating pace. Usage is increasing every month and customers report significant productivity gains. In 2021, sorry, in 2025, the number of AI users increased by five times. Five times in 2025. Seamlessly integrating knowledge with workflow tools results in more precise and efficient work for legal professionals. Soon we will launch our content-driven workflow tools. Our ambition is to serve customers in all phases, from order intake to customer delivery, with our trusted content as the anchor in all phases. This broadens the scope of legal work we support and generates more value for our customers, while also creating new revenue streams on an expanding market. Next slide, please. In this slide, you can see our two cost efficiency initiatives running until the end of 2026, with the ambition of harvesting efficiencies of 20 million euro in total. At the end of Q4, we have achieved annual run rate synergies of approximately €20 million. We progress ahead of plan. Next slide, please. I will now present our segment performance, starting with Region North. Region North continues to perform exceptionally well, both in terms of organic growth and profitability. The organic growth of 6% is above our financial targets and driven by higher subscription-based online sales, including AI uplifts. The organic online sales growth in our legal businesses was 10% also in Q4. During the fourth quarter, the Danish Prosecutor Organization upgraded to our AI package. That means that 1,100 Danish prosecutors now have our AI assistance. At the end of September, we launched our AI solution for municipalities in both Denmark and Sweden. Since the launch, sales momentum has been strong and the customer feedback is positive. Margins are continuing to improve, primarily due to operational leverage from higher net sales. Next slide, please. We are pleased with the margin improvement in Region South in Q4 and we progress with rationalization of unprofitable products. In Q4, the adjusted EBITDA margin was 17%. The margin improvement in the quarter is thanks to synergy execution as well as positive impact from the divested trading business. The organic growth was 2% in the quarter, mainly thanks to solid online sales growth in France. the Spanish business was stable in Q4. I am confident in our medium term financial targets for Region South. From March, we will have Kanovs common AI platform across all local geographies. This will increase customer value, as well as improve scalability and shorten time to market for new features. Next slide, please. With that said, we have reached the point where I hand over the floor to our CFO, Magnus Hansson. He will tell us more about the financial results. Magnus, the floor is yours. Thank you, Pontus.

So let's start with an overview, switching to slide 11. In Q4, we achieved net sales of 665 million SEK. The organic growth was 3.8%, offset by currency effects of 3.8%, and acquired growth was negative 3.7% due to the divestment of EHS and the Spanish training business. We have separated EHS from all numbers, and the slides present the financial result for the current Carnot Group. Net sales excluding EHS was 648 million SEK. The organic growth in Q4 is driven by increased online sales, including selling more licenses to existing customers, higher tier packages, AI updates, and attracting new customers. The online sales growth was 5% in local currencies. Next slide, please. Breaking down net sales on segment level, we see continued strong organic growth in region north and modest growth in region south in the quarter. Region North had organic growth of 6% thanks to strong online sales performance, while Region South grew by 2% thanks to good sales performance in France. The legal businesses in Region North, excluding the acquired Carvoud Schultz business, had an organic online sales growth of 10%. Revenues from AI sales are increasing quarter by quarter as the subscription revenues are recognized over the contract period. Next slide, please. On slide 13, you see the net sales development within online and offline, split into segments. In Region North, the online sales increased by 4% compared to Q4 of last year and accounted for 94% of the net sales in the quarter. Please note the divestment of EHS and the fairly large FX effect. In Region South, the online sales declined by 3% compared to Q4 of last year due to currency effects and accounted for approximately 79% of net sales in the quarter. Organic online sales grew by 1% in Region South. Next slide, please. Subscription-based sales increased during Q4 and represent 88% of sales in the quarter. The negative development in subscription-based sales in region south is related to negative currency effects. The online subscription sales in local currency grew by 1% in region south. Next slide, please. The adjusted EBITDA amounted to 172 million SEC in the fourth quarter. This corresponds to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 26%, which is an improvement of 2 percentage points. Excluding EHS, the adjusted EBITDA amounted to 167 million SEK. The full year adjusted EBITDA increased by 119 million SEK and reached 25% excluding EHS. Synergies are coming through as expected, meaning personal expenses are decreasing. Items affecting comparability related to restructuring and integration amounted to 25 million SEK during Q4. At the end of Q4, we have achieved synergies within the group of 19.6 million euros on an annual run rate basis. The effect in the quarter compared to the baseline amounted to 4.5 million euros. We are ahead of plan to achieve synergies of 20 million euros with full effect on an annual run rate basis by the end of 2026. Next slide, please. In Q4, net sales amounted to 318 million SEK in region north, excluding EHS. Organic growth was 6.2%. The growth is driven by online sales. We continue to strengthen our market position and attract new customers, especially in the public sector in Sweden. Adjusted EBITDA was 135 million SEK, excluding EHS. This is an increase of 11 million SEK compared to last year. The adjusted EBITDA margin amounted to 43%. The improvement is due to operational leverage from higher net sales. We completed the Schultz integration six months early and have terminated the transitional service agreement at the end of 2025. This will have a positive impact on margins from Q1 of 2026. Next slide, please. During 2025, Carnoveb achieved accelerating organic growth in region north. This has been driven by the legal business uplifting customers to our AI package. In Q4, the organic online sales growth was 10%. Our tax and accounting business, Dibkurskap, has a stable performance along with the Schultz business. Dib has now launched their AI assistant with positive feedback. The Schultz business included customers not in Carno's core area, and the portfolio value is 9 million, sec lower going into 2026. The business case presented in connection with the acquisition still holds true. Next slide, please. Which is the Region South segment? Net sales in Region South declined by 28 million SEC compared to Q4 of last year. Currency effects had a negative impact of 17 million SEC in the quarter, and the divested Spanish training business another 17 million SEC. Our French businesses had solid growth in subscription-based online sales, while the Spanish business had a stable performance in the quarter. The adjusted beta margin was 17% in the fourth quarter. The margin expansion is thanks to synergies coming according to plan and positive impact from the divested training business. Compared to the baseline, the cost base has decreased by 25 million SEC in Q4. Next slide, please. Which presents the segment group functions. Expenses in Q4 were 26 million SEC. Next slide, please. Q4 is typically a cash generative quarter for Carnot, reflecting the timing of the group's online contract renewals and invoicing cycle. The renewal season has been in line with our expectations and the adjusted free cash flow was 239 million SEK. The leverage was 1.3 times EVTA last 12 months at the end of the year, well below our financial target. The proceeds from the divested EHS division has strengthened our balance sheet. The board has resolved to allocate SEK 500 million to buyback shares. The board will propose a mandate to buyback up to 10% of the shares on May 7, 2026. To increase flexibility for the ongoing buyback program, the board intends to summon an EGM in March to increase the current buyback program from 5% to 10%. I'm now handing over to Pontus again, who will present our last slides.

Thank you, Magnus. Please switch to slide 21. 2025 was a formative year for Kano Group, marked by value creation and strong results. We accelerated organic growth thanks to sales and adoption of our accurate and reliable AI solutions, captured synergies that strengthened our profitability, and optimized our portfolio through value accretive divestments. Our strategic focus is to uplift customers to our AI solutions and continue to evolve customer value. At the end of Q1, all business units will operate on Canop's common AI platform curated with trusted local content. Thanks to the common platform, we improve the scalability and shorten time to market. Supported by long-standing customer relationships and reputable proprietary legal content, we are well positioned to expand into the market for AI-based legal workflows in 2026. This will expand the scope of legal work we support, increase customer value and open new, scalable revenue streams. Please go to slide 22. And by this, I'll end our presentation and we are now ready to take questions. So, I'll hand over the conference again to our host.

If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad. To enter the queue, if you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 6 on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Predrag Savinovic from Carnegie. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, guys. Thank you for taking my questions. I have a few. But let's start with the growth in the north. If you could discuss what the database growth would have been excluding Schultz, because you say 10%, but then Schultz didn't grow. So underlyingly, is it even higher than what you have written in the report?

Yeah, excluding the Schultz, the underlying growth is 10%. So same as the last quarter and the quarter before that. So excluding Schultz, the online organic growth is 10%.

Okay, thank you. And then Q4 is an important selling season and we are in mid-February. you should have some good visibility for the renewal season. You even mentioned it, Magnus, on the call that it's in line with your expectations. What does this mean for the start of 26? Is it above the closing rate for 2025?

yeah uh as you know we don't give uh give those numbers but we are pleased with the renewal season uh it follows uh it follows our expectations and and the previous trends we can see continued uh transition into ai packages uh we we we follow the the the trends from last year's in terms of renewals and and uh and churn and so on so so Follows trends that we've seen throughout the year.

All right. And then considering the failure of EHS, are there other non-core assets that are for sale to focus even more on the core? I'm thinking primarily, for example, of Dibkunskap and other smaller assets.

Well, I mean, we continuously look at the portfolio we have. For now, we believe that we have a good core of businesses for the future. But we will continue, of course, to look at smaller assets, and we will continue to look at product rationalizations in both Spain and France, but they are typically of a smaller size and not as significant as, for example, the training business we divested in Spain.

Okay. And then you have been in the AI debate now for the last weeks. I mean, what's mostly debated is AI platforms launching their versions of workflow tools. If you can discuss a little bit about the strategy around yours, a little bit in more depth, pros and cons, compared to what's been discussed in the media, your strategy to grow in this market.

Thank you for the question. It's definitely an interesting topic and it gives me an opportunity to really point out what we are doing versus the others, so to say. I mean, the discussions we've had around Anthropic is very much about creating workflow tools to make judges, lawyers more efficient in their ways of working. So that's clearly workflow tools. That's one part. The other part is what we are adding to this industry, and that is the knowledge. I mean, we use those partners of ours, those 7,000 legal experts all around Europe to create knowledge that we deliver in order for judges, the lawyers, legal councils, et cetera, et cetera, to make better decisions. On top of that, we use AI to really make it smart, to deliver conclusions instead of just knowledge. That's something totally different from what has been discussed the recent week, because that is workflow tools. That is a way to make people more efficient in terms of how they handle a specific matter whereas again we are adding knowledge so it's um it's a local proprietary content meaning that the national legislation for example in spain is something far from creating a workflow tool in california that's that's an easy thing for me to say working at khanov seeing this every day but i i guess we'll have to come back to this because people seem to have a difficult um time to to see the difference so i can promise you we will come back to this over and over again because it's so important that we that we see this industry in in from different angles so we are not software company we are a knowledge company that's the major difference thank you very much and just one final if you have any view on partnerships

For example, with someone like Legora or Harvey, where you offer the data, the research, the knowledge, and they offer their workflow tools. Is that something you have considered?

On a very general level, we will of course be open to partnerships. But when it comes to the local proprietary content, we have no plans to license that to anyone else. That is our gold mine. And it goes back to your other question. I mean, this is where we create value for our customers. This is where we create value for our shareholders. And we will hold on to that gold mine. We will utilize that and build on that gold mine. partnerships in other circumstances we will of course open to discuss but when it comes to the gold mine well it's something we we share within the company and with our shareholders very good thank you so much the next question comes from simon johnson from berenberg please go ahead

Good morning, Gant. I would like to follow up on the organic growth in region north. Could you explain in more detail why the growth declined compared to Q3?

Yeah, so the organic growth was 6% in the quarter. And in that number, we also have, of course, the offline business. But if you look at the online business, And if we exclude the Schultz business and we exclude DIB, then we are at the same level, those 10% I mentioned, as we've seen in Q2 and Q3. So the growth level in the sort of core legal business is stable. Then we've had a stable performance by DIB, not reaching those 10%. And of course, we've talked about Schultz, We've been focusing on bringing the Schultz customers into Karnav and not focused on growth in the short term. Now we've moved them into Karnav. We've ended the transition agreement and we can start working to get those customers onto a growth journey as well.

All right, thank you for that. I'm talking about Dib. I mean, it's a business that's been growing really well for a number of years, but now slowed down. Why is that, and what do you expect from Dib going into 2026?

Yeah, it's been growing really nice and growing in parts in 2025 as well. We've expanded into Denmark and Sweden, and that has dampened the growth a bit. We have launched the AI services in Dib during 2025. And we now have a sort of a brighter outlook for 2026 than we've had for the last couple of quarters.

Okay, very good. And then finally, from my end, would it be a little bit more, would it be possible to be a bit more precise when you will launch the workflow layer in Region North?

Yeah, I can expand a bit on that. It's important to describe the service, I would say, as a starting point, because then you see the logic in why we have timed the different launches the way we have. At the end of March, there will be a launch in Spain and France of the Common AI platform, meaning that for the first time in the market in Spain and France, they will have the same level of customer benefits as we've had in Denmark and Sweden. So from last week of March, there is a great opportunity. That is a stepping stone in itself to be able to launch the next part, and that is content-driven workflow tools. And by saying that, it's important that it's content-driven, because we help people become more efficient, but we add in, of course, our gold mine, the parts that we call the knowledge, because then there is a seamless way of working, for example, for a lawyer, not switching between different systems, but having the way they work and having the content in one place. So that is the main thing. And the plan for that is to do that in late June. That is the plan. But it depends on, of course, that we launch the AI platform according to the plan, and that is the last week of March, and then adding on in late June with content-driven workflow parts. So that is the logic. So now we get on the same AI platform, and that makes it possible for us to really expand, build it once, and launch on all our markets within a short period of time. So that's the logic behind it.

Excellent. Thank you so much. That was all from my end.

The next question comes from Thomas Nielsen from Nordia. Please go ahead.

Thank you for taking my question. I also have an AI-related question. How do you at Karna view the risk for seed compression going forward? That is, if legal professionals were to become more efficient, then perhaps there will be fewer hires. And since you're to a large extent charged by the seat, do you envision a future where you would raise prices per seat more to account for this possible scenario?

Thanks for the question. I think it's an interesting one. We can make it into a sort of a historic story around this, because the same discussion was brought up 20 years ago when internet make our industry much more efficient. Looking in hindsight, we can see that, for example, in France, there are twice as many lawyers today as 20 years ago. It's the exact same number in Sweden, twice as many lawyers today compared to 20 years ago, and four times as many paralegals. So, yeah, we discussed that 20 years ago, but it turned out that the Internet, as a matter of fact, instead demanded even more lawyers, even more employees in this industry. Why? Well, the discussion goes, of course, around the fact that we also created new legal fields by starting to work with Internet. Will it be the same with AI? No one knows, of course, but you could say that we will definitely also create new legal fields. Thanks. Well, because of thanks or because of AI. So it's difficult to predict. Coming back more specifically to your question, if we are able to make our customers more efficient, And thereby, as you said, alluded to less licenses. Well, as long as we are making our customers more efficient, there will definitely be an opportunity for us also to have a fair share of that efficiency gain. That is the plan. So the short answer from us is yes.

Okay, thank you very much.

As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad. There are no more phone questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions or closing comments.

Okay, so a question from the audience to Pontus. Can you comment a bit on the monetization plan for the workflow tools that are to be launched in 2026? Is it seat-based with manual subscription?

Thank you for that question as well. I mean, this is a deeply interesting opportunity for us. We can see that that part of the industry is growing faster than the traditional legal information solution industry. part of our business. We are currently working with leading international experts how to price and package this. It wouldn't be a surprise to me if we were ending up with Perseat. But let me come back to that because we are currently analyzing that with the best of experts. So it's a deeply interesting question and we see such a great opportunity in that.

Thank you Pontus. Another question to Magnus from the audience. You mentioned that you have completed the integration of Schultz six months ahead of plan. How will this affect your quarterly costs in regional going forward?

We ended the TSA by the end of 2025. And the business case that we presented at the time of the acquisition still holds true. And then we talked about 80 million SEC in revenues and about 50 million SEC in EBTA. And that business plan now can sort of materialize in 2026.

Thank you. No more questions from the audience.

Okay. Thank you, Erik. So thank you, everyone, for listening and for your questions. We will disclose our Q1 report on the 6th of May. And we hope to hear from you then, of course, if not earlier. Thank you. Have a nice day.