Viaplay Group AB (publ)

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to today's Q3 2026 results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. My name is Matthew Hooper, and I will be your host today. Joining me here on the call are our CEO, Jovan Lindemann, and our CFO, Johan Johansson. Our presentation will be followed by a Q&A session on the telephone dial-in line, and you can find our results materials, including the presentation deck and the detailed fact sheet, on the Investor Relations section of our website. As usual, the deck is for your information, and our remarks and our commentary will not follow it slide by slide. Please be advised that today's conference call is being recorded. I will now hand the call over to Juergen to walk through the results. So over to you, Juergen.

Thank you, Matthew, and good morning, everyone. So these results demonstrate that we are on track to deliver our full-year targets. as we continue to execute our strategic transformation plan and move towards our long-term objectives of healthy operating margins, restored cash flow generation, and lower borrowing levels. There's no change to our full-year targets or long-term ambitions. The combined sales of 16 billion for our corporations for the first nine months of this year were 30% higher than what we reported on a standalone basis for the same period of last year. and our combined EBDA before ACI and IAC of 871 million compares with a loss of 65 million for the first nine months of last year. The integration of a lender group is running according to plan and we have now taken the majority of the cost relating to the restructuring. The resulting cash cost synergies are already coming through and we expect to be at the full annual run rate, three to 400 million from the start of next year as planned. There will also be sales synergies which our teams are also working on already. We have now received Dutch Competition Authority clearance for the sale of our Dutch operations to the parent company of the Videoland Dutch streaming service and we expect to close the sales in the coming weeks. The sale of our Dutch operations will focus us operationally on our core Nordic markets where we have the greatest scale advantages and synergy potential. and we provide cash to reduce our debt position and strengthen our financial profile and provides our Dutch colleagues with a committed new fantastic owner who will be able to develop the operations further. More broadly, we are implementing a wide range of organic measures to strengthen our market positions, product offerings and partner agreements, reduce non-essential costs, invest in key areas and conserve cash. Looking at Q3 in more detail, subscription sales accounted for more than 80% of total sales and were up 1% on an organic basis. Our streaming subscription sales were up 4% on an organic basis with the total Viaplay subscriber base stable year on year and growing quarter on quarter in line with the usual seasonal patterns. The growth in our B2B streaming sales again reflected our focus on value over volume in our distribution partner agreements as well as the growth in the number of premium sports prescribers, while the rising G2C ARPO level again reflected positive mix effects and pricing dynamics. The 4% organic growth level is lower than in first half this year because the new distribution agreements and packaging structures that were implemented from the middle of last year were already having an impact in Q3 last year. Conversely, the decline in the non-streaming revenues line will lower this quarter, which sales down 1% on an organic basis. This line includes almost all of Alente's sales, as well as the sale of our linear TV channels through third-party distributors. Alente's sales were boosted in Q3 by making FIFA World Cup men's football matches available to pub and club subscribers. We have also continued to work with Alente and our partners to introduce new packaging and pricing initiatives to offset the ongoing structural decline in the linear TV channel subscriber basis. Alente's ARPU was up again, both year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter, with almost all GTX satellite subscriptions now bundled with Viaplay and also offering access to Apple TV, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, and Sky Showtime so that subscribers have the best of scheduled live and on-demand viewing options. Our total advertising sales were down less than 1% on a organic basis, which again reflected the combination of strong digital sales through our H-SWAT and H-SWAT offerings, almost offsetting the ongoing structural decline in linear TV advertising. Q3 is the seasonally weakest period of the year, and this year's audience and market shares were also impacted by coverage of the FIFA Men's World Cup football matches being shown by rival media outlets. In addition, our Q325 sales were boosted by our coverage of the UEFA Women European Football Championships. The high growth in our dis-advertising sales continued, with particularly strong growth in digital ad impression in all countries. Finally, the other sales line comprises of our sports sub-licensing business, where we sub-license our sports rights to third-party broadcasters and streamers in our core markets, and our scripted content sales business where we sell our portfolio of original scripted content to broadcasters and streamers around the world. Sales were down 14% year-on-year on an organic basis and reflected the volatility in this renewal line. Our existing new and pipeline agreements suggest an improved performance in Q4, but sales will continue to decline as the amount of content that we want to sell or supply diminishes over time. Overall, our corporation sales were slightly up year-on-year on an organic basis, which is in line with our short- and longer-term outlook for stable sales development on an organic basis. The breadth and depth in our highly relevant and compelling content offerings, including our high-quality and year-round sports coverage, remain consistent differentiators for us across the business. Our Q3 content lineup again featured the very best in premium sports, local storytelling, and international hits. The restart of the domestic and European football leagues and cup competitions have attracted large audiences and we have further enhanced our coverage of these hugely popular competitions. This includes becoming the first broadcasters in the world to show all 12 matches each week from the English Football League Championship. Our wire play premium Sunday show has not only delivered some of the best on-site coverage but also attracted a big following of English Premier League fans on social media. And our Formula One coverage has benefited from Max Verstappen returning to the podium and Kimi Antonelli's fight to become the first Italian world champion since Alberto Ascari in the 1950s. Our Q3 non-sport content offering included the successful launch of new titles as well as the new seasons of proven favourites. The premieres include Temptation Island in Denmark, as well as a new season of returning formats, including Paradise Hotels in Sweden, Svenska Falt in Sweden, Shard of Fever, and eventually Oppusning in Norway. The international content slate included Outlander, Blood of My Blood Season 2, and South Park, as well as hit movies like Hunting Season, Flight Risk, and Supernatural Thriller Obsession was also a hit in the Viaply store. Content accounts for approximately three quarters of our total cost and operating expenditure for our corporations was slightly up year-on-year, but less so than in previous quarters. A combination of synergies and savings from the Alenza Group integration, broader content and production savings, and positive currency effects almost offset Alenza's investment in the FIFA World Cup men's football matches and the inflation embedded in our legacy and multi-year content agreements. As we have prolonged these agreements on competitive market terms, let them go, all found alternatives level of inflation is decreasing in the second half of this year and will also decrease next year. But this is balanced by investment that we are making in other areas. Our Q3 EBDA before ACI and ISE was up year and year and again included a positive currency tailwind. We remain on track to deliver an EBDA result in the 1 to 1.4 billion SEG target range, and there's no change to our longer-term ambition to deliver a double-digit percentage point EVDA market for 2028 compared to the performer 5.3% that we delivered last year. We're making steady progress towards our goals, but still have much to do to ensure that we are as relevant and resilient as possible and are set up as commercially and competitively as possible. Our priority and focus is on delivering the transformation plan, including integration of the Alente Group and the divestment of the Dutch operation. This will strengthen our cash flow so that we can reduce debt levels and invest in markets where we have greatest advantage, opportunity and potential. That is for my comment for now. I will now hand the call over to you, Johan, for your comments on our financial performance and position before we take questions.

Thank you Jörgen and good morning everyone. Year-on-year FX movements had significant impact again this quarter with a positive impact on the group reported on the core reported operation sales over 50 million SEK as the Norwegian krona in particular strengthened against our Swedish krona reported currency. Reported the core operation cost benefited from the net positive FX tailwind due to in which we have the vast majority of all the costs. The net result of this was approximately 75 million SEK positive year-on-year FX effect on our core operations EBTA. Depreciation and amortization amounted to 144 million SEK in the quarter and included the regular 100 million of PPA amortization charges arising from the consolidation of Alente Group The negative 48 million SEK of items affecting comparability in the Q3 primarily comprise 19 million of redundancy and restructuring costs related to the integration of a lengthy group, as well as 29 million of currency translation effects. We have previously guided for total integration cost of 270 to 330 million SEK, which are reported ISE. and we have taken 222 million so far this year. We have no associated company income or dividends now that we have fully consolidated Alente Group, as you know. When looking at our interest cost, please remember that the cost for the 646 million euro of balance sheet bankruptcy facility that was canceled in November last year were included in other financial items, not in the net interest. whereas now almost all of our borrowing costs are included in the net interest. So although our net interest costs were up year on year, other financial items were also significantly down. Moving on to the group cash flow, our cash flow from operations before changes in working capital improved to positive 195 million from negative 140 million in Q3 last year. We reported a negative working capital development of 190 million, which included the 90 million of payments for legacy content agreements in markets that we have exited. This non-corporation cash drag, which we have talked about previously, is included in working capital. The rest of the working capital development reflected the timing of payments and receivables between quarters. The substantially lower change in working capital compared to last year, reflects the smoother and more stable setup that we have now with less volatility between quarters. Our cash flow from operating activities totaled 5 million in Q3 and included 107 million of cash interest costs and 2 million of cash tax costs. We invested 36 million of capex in Q3 and reported negative free cash flow of 32 million of which positive 58 million was coming from the corporations and minus 90 million from the non-corporations. The 67 million cash flow from financing activities included the quarterly amortization of the Alente Group related borrowings which will total 420 million this year and next year and the minor changes in the usage of the 2.8 billion SEK revolving credit facility on which we had drawn 750 million at the end of the quarter compared to 700 million at the end of Q2. The net change in cash and cash equivalents therefore amounted to minus 99 million in Q3. For the year as a whole, when excluding the non-core operations cash drag, our ambition is for working capital to be neutral to positive given the positive 190 million change for the year to date. We are constantly working to improve the working capital profile as we also have discussed previously. We continue to expect the full year capex to be at or about the same 150 million level with cash tax payments approximately 200 million and our annual cash interest costs are now running at approximately 450 million. Our financial net debt when excluding leases were largely unchanged at 5.17 billion at the end of the period when compared to 5.12 billion at the end of Q2. and comprise 6.4 billion of borrowings and 1.2 billion of cash. You can see the usual debt maturity profile in the chart in the slide pack on the website. Aside from the scheduled repayments this year and next, all the rest of our debt facilities mature in 2028. Our net debt to trailing 12 months Proforma EBTA excluding associated company income and IEC was 4.4 times at the end of Q3 compared to 4.5 times at the end of Q2. The zone to close divestment of Dutch operations for 142 million euros on a cash and debt-free basis will enable us to reduce our net debt level further. The deleveraging of our balance sheet depends on strengthening our cash flows through the effective doubling of the EBITDA margin between 2025 and 2028 and the ending of our non-core operations cash drag in 2028. We are making steady progress and the cash flow improvement still requires a lot of work. We are focused on executing on all the various initiatives we have in place to deliver to deliver the transformation plan by making the required efficiency gains, carefully allocating capital, driving returns on our investments as we're doing, and ensuring that we have the best possible capital structure. And that concludes my remarks. Over to you, Matthew.