Assuming this is the Caruso Conference Operator, welcome and thank you for joining the presentation of Moltiply Group, third quarter 2025 results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on the telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Marco Pescarmona, Chairman of Moltiply Group, and Mr. Alessandro Fracassi, CEO of Moltiply Group. Please go ahead.
Thank you. This is Marco Pescarmona. By the way, Francesco, our CFO, is traveling, so he is not able to participate today. We will rely, as usual, on the presentation that was published on our website. We will start from page 18 of the document. We will look at the results of the first nine months. In the first nine months, the results are quite strong, of course. Revenues are EUR 467.1 million, up 45.4% year-on-year. The EBITDA in the nine months is EUR 120.8 million, and that is up 42.4% year-on-year. It corresponds to an EBITDA margin of 25.9%, which compares to the 26.4% of the previous year. The EBIT is, in the nine months, EUR 75.5 million. That is up 54% year-on-year. Finally, net income is EUR 38.6 million, which is up 25.8% year-on-year.
Of course, these numbers exclude discontinued operations, which means that the small regulated entities that we used to have that are in the process of being sold, it's very tiny. If we move to page 19 with the Q3 highlights, we can see that the results are very much as we expected, the continuation of the performance of Q2. Revenues for Q3 2025 are EUR 165.4 million. That's up 55.3% year-on-year. EBITDA is EUR 43.5 million. That's up 52.2% year-on-year. By the way, with an EBITDA margin of 26.3%, which compares to 26.8% of Q3 of the last year. EBIT is EUR 26.8 million. That's up 60.9% year-on-year. Net income is EUR 16.3 million, which is up 64.2% year-on-year.
The important thing that you all already know, to point out, if we look at the quarter, is that the quarter, in a year-on-year comparison, benefits from the inclusion of Verivox in Germany in the consolidation area. There is not only, in the numbers, solid organic growth, but there is also this enlargement of the consolidation area, which started in Q2. That is the reason why we said this year, rather than focus on year-on-year growth, it is better to look sequentially at the evolution because the change of this enlargement of the consolidation area is really quite significant. If we want to go into more detail on the divisions, on page 20, we have some details of Mavriq, which is our broking division. Mavriq revenues are EUR 268.2 million. That is up 70.8% year-on-year in the nine months.
EBITDA is EUR 78.1 million, which is up 68.8% compared to the previous year. Here also, notice that EBITDA margin is 29.1%, which is not so far from the 29.5% of the previous year, despite the inclusion of Verivox in the consolidation area, which means that the EBITDA margin of the traditional perimeter improved in a significant way. The EBIT is EUR 54.5 million in the nine months. That's up 81% year-on-year. It's important to keep in mind, however, that the EBIT figures don't include for now any amortization of the intangible assets that will result from the purchase price allocation of Verivox. We still have provisional goodwill. Probably by the end of the year, we will allocate this goodwill, and some of it will be allocated to intangible assets such as software or trademarks that are subject to amortization.
You will see all that impact concentrated in the fourth quarter of the year. If we go to page 21, we have the Q3 financials of Mavriq. The effect is even stronger. Revenues almost doubled, so they are EUR 103.2 million, which is up 91.8% year-on-year. Again, Verivox is a very big object. This makes a significant impact, even if we still will also have here significant organic growth. EBITDA is EUR 30 million in Q3. That is up 78.9% year-on-year. The EBITDA margin is 29% in Q3. That compares to 31.1% in Q3 of the previous year. The EBIT is EUR 21.3 million. That is up 86.8% year-on-year. In terms of comments on the business, there are no particular news.
I mean, we did strongly, even from an organic point of view, in all different businesses, with the exception, notable exception of e-commerce price comparison, which continues to suffer from basically the competition of Google, which is still under investigation for non-compliance with the DMA. No decision has been issued yet. On top of the organic growth, there is the enlargement of the consolidation area, which again prompts us to look at things more or less sequential than on a year-to-year basis because the change is too big to change. For the coming months, we can expect some foreseeable evolutions, of course.
One is that there will be likely a slowdown in mortgage demand, especially foreign mortgages in Italy, because the mortgages tend to be, let's say, not seasonal, but concentrated in periods when interest rates go down and then may disappear or slow down a lot for a while and then come back again when interest rates move. We had a favorable environment for remortgages, and that's slowing. This is on the less favorable side, even if the real estate market remains strong. It's mostly a remortgage effect here. On the other end, we see a moderate recovery in energy demand in Germany, especially compared to the first part of the year. Savings available to consumers in Germany that decide to switch energy provider are better than they used to be a few months ago.
This is positive, even if we still have to see the entire peak season. It is still a bit undecided. For the rest, the other markets are developing in continuity. There is nothing new to report. With this, I am done with the update on Mavriq, and I hand it over to Alessandro for BPO.
Yes, thanks, Marco. Good afternoon, everyone. Good morning for our friends in the States. We're on page 23. As you see, the nine-month financials for the Moltiply Group on Tech division are strong. We grew 21.2% year-on-year from EUR 164 million- EUR 198.8 million. EBITDA grew from EUR 38.5 million- EUR 42.6 million. That's a growth year-on-year of 10.7%. This different growth, which is also reflected in a change in the EBITDA margin, is basically connected to, as you all know, because I've explained it quite sometimes this year, the impact of the new law on notary fees. We have, obviously, in these results, a significant percentage of paranotary activities. As you know, we had an increase in prices for the services of notaries, which did not impact our absolute margin, but it did impact our percentage margin.
There is a lot of this dilution effect if you look at the EBITDA percentage relative to revenues. The growth, which is at least 70% of this growth, is organic. I think it is a significant good performance in the nine months, completely in line with what we expected and what we communicated. We keep this double-digit growth, which is obviously our long-term target. Looking at EBIT, also here, you see that now the trends of EBITDA and EBIT in terms of growth are very similar. We grew 11.2% year-on-year from EUR 18.9 million- EUR 21.0 million. The EBIT margin also here, obviously, you have the dilution effect, went down from 11.5%- 10.6%. If we go to the next page, we can see the third quarter results. The third quarter has actually been a little better than the second quarter.
In fact, the impact on the overall year and the nine-month performance has been a little improvement. The growth in revenues is 18.0% year-on-year. The growth in EBITDA margin, it's 14.3%. Basically, here you would have had also a double-digit growth, even if you just kept the organic piece of it. The EBITDA grew from EUR 11.8 million- EUR 13.5 million, again, a 14.3% year-on-year growth. EBITDA margin, again, we have the same dilution effect, 22.4% down to 21.7%. The EBITDA margin in the third quarter grew 4.8% from EUR 5.3 million- EUR 5.5 million. That is a growth of 4.8%. Basically, the comments, as always, when we're talking in the odd quarters, are reasonably short.
The reality is there is not a lot to comment, meaning that basically what we told you at the end of August, beginning of September, in terms of the trends, they're very similar. The growth is basically driven by mortgages, by the lease business line, and also wealth is doing well, although the growth of wealth is connected to a significant and important project on the IT part. That will not really be a significant repetition of that in the next year. We are seeing, obviously, a normalization, as we have mentioned a lot of times, of claims and real estate. We expect this growth to continue. Now, in the coming quarters, quarter four was exceptionally good last year. You might remember it kind of even turned the year around. We will see how we will compare just looking at Q4.
The trends that we discussed basically continue. What Marco said about the slowing down in remortgages will impact also the BPO division, specifically with the paranotary activities that I just finished mentioning. There will be a little bit of that, but the rest of the trends are, generally speaking, positive and in line with what we told you. We keep working, obviously, on the processing efficiency. As you all know, technology is playing a more and more significant role in increasing efficiency. Obviously, this will be the aim of the game looking forward in the next quarter and in the next years. I think this basically ends my comments. Obviously, I'm very happy to take questions. Before that, let me pass it back to Marco with comments on the net financial positions.
Thank you, Alessandro. Let's finish with a couple of words on net financial position on page 27. Here, the statutory net financial position is -EUR 465 million. That is an improvement to the - EUR 467 million of June 30 or the EUR 550 million of March 31st. Basically, this improvement is benefit from the cash generation of the business. Just a reminder, we spent some, we did two transactions in Q3, one which is neutral on net financial position, which is the acquisition of the large majority of the remaining stake of Lercarin. Basically, we bought the majority of that stake paying cash, plus we have a put and call on the residual portion, which I think is 12%. The amount of the cash outflow plus the new liability corresponds basically to, I mean, ballpark to the liability that we had already recognized.
This is neutral on the net financial position. What is not neutral is the fact that we acquired also the entire minority in our company. We have a company with a third-party shareholder that was providing paranotary services. We reached an agreement to acquire that for a consideration of EUR 15 million, of which EUR 8 million were immediately paid. This affected the net financial position. That is the first point. The second point is the kind of adjustment, net financial position, including the value of the Money shares. That is basically stable year-on-year because the stock price of Money went down. This is not so relevant because for the majority of the banks now, we have a custom-made definition, which does not take this into account. Still, from our point of view, it is an interesting parameter to look at.
We still have a couple of legacy loans that look at net financial position, including Money. With this, again, we are at EUR 355 million. Clearly, if you do the multiples, our net financial position already is below three times EBITDA, the statutory one. The adjusted one would be a bit more than two times EBITDA. We are in a comfortable situation. We are also benefiting from reduced rates thanks to this lower net financial position, more favorable rates on our financing. With this, we are finished with the comments, and we can open it to comments. Operator, please, you can open the floor to questions.
Thank you. This is the conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchstone telephone. If you change your mind and wish to remove yourself from the question queue, then you may press star and two. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. We will pause for a moment as participants are joining the queue. First question is from Gabriele Venturi, Banca Akros.
Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Three questions on my side. First one, we have seen recent rulings awarding significant claims to other price comparison platforms in Germany against Google. Do you see any positive reductions or increased visibility for your case against Google? Second one, following last week's news on Azimut New Banking Project, could you share your view on any potential implication for the wealth segment within your BPO division? And last one, could you provide more color on the margin evolution within the Mavriq Division and how Fairbox profitability is progressing post-consolidation? Thank you.
Okay. I will take the first and the third question. And Alessandro, of course, will handle the second. Regarding the news from Germany, just as a refresher, basically, idealo plus a smaller price comparison website has scored a success in a German court being awarded. The image is exactly for the same thing that we are pursuing against Google. So basically, the court in Germany, from what we know, confirmed that, of course, the abuse of dominant position is proven. This court confirmed not only relied on the proven abuse, but also confirmed that the abuse continued after 2017. At least this is how we understand it. In terms of the fact that there were damages and in particular that the abuse continued, it was very favorable to the claimants.
In terms of the award, the amount is nice, but it is significantly lower than the original claim. The original claim was for more than EUR 3 billion, and the award was to idealo, something below EUR 500 million. I think this is a bit disappointing. On the other side, in Germany today, they just explained to me that the largest claim ever awarded in Germany for a similar situation was EUR 60 million. This time, they awarded eight times the largest claim ever awarded in Germany. It was also a big departure from past very conservative approach by German judges on the quantification of the claims, this concept of prudence and so on. I do not know. I think it is done to be favorable to companies in general.
I think the very good news is the general win on the infringement and the continuation of the infringement. On the amounts, we hope that we do not get 14% of our ask. We get significantly more. It is also important to point out that there are other cases that are being ruled these days. So far, the rulings have been confirming the infringement and the fact that damages are due. I think it is, again, good news. This will reinforce the conviction of judges that the quantum will depend on the work of the local experts. Again, we hope to get more than the percentage that they got. The other question about the margins of the Mavriq Division, the margins were slightly down year-on-year, especially if you look at the single quarter.
You have to keep in mind that we are now consolidating Fairbox, which is a very large entity that has lower EBITDA margin than our other businesses. The way you should read the margin evolution is there is a significant margin expansion in everything. I mean, not everything because the price comparison goes down in terms of margins, but in almost everything, plus a big dilution from a large object like Fairbox, where the EBITDA margin is significantly lower than the rest of the division. This is how to read it. With this and done.
Okay. Relative to the TNB project, obviously, here I have to be a little careful as we're talking about the client in a delicate situation. I mentioned this project last when we were in September discussing the outfit result as I was looking forward. I mentioned that as something that I still didn't know which way it would go because, obviously, this means the project is basically splitting Azimut in two. I know and like the status quo as of today as we are providing significant services to Azimut. Obviously, that could be an opportunity given the fact that the scope of the new bank becoming a bank, it will increase the number of services that they need. Still, I am not in the position to say that it will necessarily continue to be offering services to them.
The way to look as a Moltiply shareholder, the way to look at the news of delays in the launch of TNB kind of connected to what's going on in Azimut right now, it is conceptually neutral looking at the status quo. I mean, we will continue to provide the services if the company remains with a current perimeter, if it will split, and when it will split. Some months ahead, I'll know how it will work. Obviously, I'll be explaining to our shareholders and to the market in general what the expectations are. Today, basically the news is that this thing is being pushed forward. Actually, things about remediation of the things that need to be done, they were not, if you look, there were not many comments of Bank of Italy relative to the operating model.
It was more about the overall governance. Let's say we are not part of the problem. Possibly in the next weeks and months, we will be part of the solution. Relatively speaking, this is, as I said, a delicate moment for Azimut. I do not think there should be any read across to us. Definitely not something negative on us because of this.
Thank you.
Next question is from Aleksandra Arsova, Equita.
Hi. Good afternoon. Thank you for the presentation and for taking my questions. A couple on my end. The first one is maybe a little bit early, but just the sentiment you have on 2026 or how you will enter the year, considering what you already told us about overall trends. A little bit accelerating mortgages, overall positive trends for most of the other divisions. I was wondering, is it reasonable to assume a sort of normalized growth rates for the BPO in mid-single-digit range for revenues and maybe high single-digit range for the Mavriq Broking Division? This is the first one. The second one is a follow-up on, let's say, the Google issue. Maybe do you have any clue, any idea of what could be the timing of the Italian courts to go on with the case?
It is just to understand whether we have a timeframe for this issue and also connected to what you were mentioning before on your expectation to get maybe even more than the amount got from idealo. If I remember correctly, both you and idealo are requesting for roughly EUR 3 billion in damages. Maybe idealo a little bit more, but probably EUR 3 billion. Just to understand better the underlying. As far as you know, the period covering these damages is the same for you and that is for idealo. If you can maybe remind us of how you calculated or estimated these EUR 3 billion damages. Thank you.
Okay. In terms of sentiment, I mean, it's a bit too early to tell. We are now a very diversified business. We have grown pretty well in recent years. I mean, it's really hard to comment on whether the specific figures you quoted are appropriate or not because we don't give guidance. In general, I would say we tend to have analyst estimates that tend to be a bit on the conservative side for the future. We tend to do a bit better. I would look at, to the extent that it's possible, to the past to have an idea of what happened in the last couple of years. That's easier for BPO, for broking. There is the issue of Fairbox. If we do well, we will be able to deliver performance by being more effective with Fairbox. This will be an important driver.
Of course, the jury is out to see if we are able to deliver or not. That is potentially for the next couple of years for broking, a very relevant source of performance. Again, even in terms of even giving some vague indications, we are not ready for that. We will try to do it with the full year results.
Yeah. Marco, if I can just add one thing on the BPO. Aleksandra, correctly, you were referring to something like normalized. I really want to stress out it will also be clear when you will see the different divisions, the impact of the different business lines when we give the full picture with the full year results. It is true that we have a very strong, we had a very, very strong performance on mortgages. I think you should not discount that there was really a very significant drawback on claims and on real estate because of, on one side, the normalization, the statistical normalization of what had happened in 2023 and 2024.
When you look at 2026, obviously, there will not be any more of this normalization because the whole of 2025 has been without a co-bonus, and the whole of 2025 has been with basically normal weather events. As you know, one of the things that at a certain point we should start seeing some impact instead is the new law on natural catastrophes. As you know, the full impact of the law is basically at the end of the year, meaning that everybody has to take on the insurance. I think that the first year where we will start seeing some impact for BPO, for our claim BPO, is 2026. Keeping still our qualitative comments, I just wanted to make sure that this is what you're looking at.
As Marco said, probably looking at the past is the best way to see what we can be doing in 2026.
In terms of the timing of the Italian court for the claim, Italian courts normally take two to three years to reach decisions. We have no visibility of the exact timing. I do not think we will be able to provide updates throughout the process. I think before hearing anything from us about outcomes, you will hear a lot of decisions in other jurisdictions. Anyway, all these decisions, if they continue to be favorable to the claimants, will just, I think, reinforce the conviction of our judges. I mean, do not expect anything in terms of amounts, decisions, or anything, at least for all of 2026. We might have some of our own feelings, but until we have a judgment, it is all up in the air. We do not know. It could be nothing. It could be a lot of money.
Until we have a decision, we are in the dark, let's say.
Okay. Thank you. Maybe the last one on how you calculated the EUR 3 billion and the number of years it covers.
Yes. It's difficult to, in fact, to make comparisons between the claims of different countries or different players for a number of reasons. One is exactly how the claim is structured for what you are claiming damages, if it's for a certain period, for a longer period, and so on. Also, these damages, the conducts that we are discussing, the abusive conducts that have been observed, also have permanent effects. If I don't know, if I crush your hand, then maybe you don't lose the hand, but you'll not be able to manipulate things in the future. That's a permanent damage. This is the same. Once a player at a very strong market position in a market with tipping and network effects becomes a number two, they will not be a little bit crippled compared to how they were before.
Part of the damages is also that. Depending on how you phrase it and so on, it could be done in a way or another. I would say from what I read, the idealo claim possibly does not have a terminal value, stops at a certain point in time. I do not know what kind of assessment they did on permanent effects or if they reserved the right to do a further claim. I mean, it is really hard to do a comparison. idealo is significantly bigger than Trovaprezzi. This is important to know. Again, this does not mean much. There is a company in Sweden that made a claim just a couple of weeks ago of EUR 7 billion. I mean, our claim is well grounded. It is based on econometric models. It is based on all these things that are done with counterfactual scenarios.
The way it works, this is very general in terms of concept. When you have these abusive conducts, the way you determine the damages is by finding a counterfactual scenario. Normally, there can only be one counterfactual scenario. This is something that typically the court has to decide. Exactly what is the counterfactual scenario? In this counterfactual scenario, you have to estimate the economic performance that reasonably you could have achieved. The damage is the difference between your actual economic performance and the economic performance in the counterfactual. Of course, there is this issue of the permanent component that also has to be determined. It is a bit like a concept of terminal value. This makes sense only if there are externalities and so on, which in our case, we think are very strong. These are the generic concepts.
It's very difficult to make comparisons.
Okay. Very clear. Thank you.
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. Next question is a follow-up from Aleksandra Arsova, Equita.
Hi again. Since we have a little bit of time, maybe a more general one on the businesses in France and Spain and the Netherlands. In past occasions, you mentioned the work you were doing apart from the operating margins, also on the top line and on marketing costs on the supply side. Maybe an update on these aspects on the lans Rastreator and Pricewise. Thank you.
I think we are, in general, very happy of the work that we have done, especially in Spain and France. The Netherlands is a more recent acquisition. It is a bit more work in progress. I think the key aspect is the fact that we have put in place strong management teams with more and more autonomy. The new teams are part new people, part existing people because we also have strong people in several cases from the original teams. Basically, thanks to the management teams, these companies are delivering strong performance and with a good level of autonomy now. In the Netherlands, we just appointed a new CEO. We are a couple of years behind in terms of this process. This is a very important process because it accelerates any knowledge transfer that we might be doing because it improves the execution.
First, this improves the execution, basically. Initially, the execution is more like us asking them to do things that we think could be beneficial. After these things are done, the execution will be local innovations or doing things that have to do more with partners or other things that are inherently local. With good teams, we are in very safe hands. This also allows our core leadership team from Alessio to his closest team to concentrate more attention on Germany because in Germany, we have a very big opportunity. Of course, it is a big organization. We want to do a good job, let's say. The strong teams in the different countries are delivering. Also, they are freeing up resources so that we can focus more on Germany. We are very happy with the overall situation.
Okay. Thank you.
For any further questions, please press star and one on your telephone. Gentlemen, there are no more questions registered at this time.
Okay. Let us make two final comments. One, I understand some of the questions you are asking. I mean, we will be thinking about how to represent the business in a possibly slightly different way from next year in terms of giving maybe more visibility on the international part and maybe aggregating things in Italy because it no longer makes sense on the Mavriq side, possibly given the relative sizes of the different things to talk about mortgage broking in Italy, insurance broking in Italy. Then one big object, which is international markets. This is with two-thirds of the stuff coming from international, not exactly representative. We will have to think about it. Maybe also on BPO, now we aggregate things, we will think a little bit exactly the design of our business lines. This is the first comment.
The second comment, which is a bit stupid, but you saw the stock price on Friday going down like 5%, etc. We got feedback from a couple of people that maybe it was because we had moved the call to another day. What could this imply, etc.? Basically, this implied that I was going to the seaside and Alessandro at the tennis match, and we could not match the two things together. I mean, in our case, we suggest you do not read too much into the fact that we move a call or anything. Here, it is really everything for the long term. The normal explanation is normally the easiest, let us say, just to clarify that because we found it very funny that because we had moved the call, the stock price should go down because maybe what could this mean?
It meant, again, we had other things to do, and we just couldn't make it work. With this comment, I think we are finished.
Excellent.
Thank you for participating in our call. As always, we are available for one-on-ones. Otherwise, we will talk to you at the next call. Thank you.
Thank you, everyone.
Thank you.
Good seeing you. Bye.
Bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect your telephones.