Welcome to Enento Group's Q3 2026 results webcast. My name is Virva Vesanen, and I am Head of Investor Relations and Strategy. I am joined today by our CEO, Teppo Paavola, and our CFO, Elina Stråhlman. Teppo will start with the quarter's highlights and reviewing the business segments. Elina will then take us through the financial results. After the presentation, we will open the session for your questions. You are welcome to send them at any time using the webcast tool. With that, I will hand over to Teppo.
Thank you, Virva. Let's start with the highlights from the third quarter. Consumer credit grew in both Finland and Sweden. In Finland, unsecured lending and increased market penetration supported volumes. In Sweden, we saw higher volumes in both unsecured lending and housing transactions. Adjusted EBITDA improved significantly, and our strong cash position provides opportunities for capital allocation. Elina will discuss the financial position in more detail later. We are also testing new ways for customers to access our data. Our customers are piloting our AI connectors, which bring Enento's trusted data into the customer's own AI workflows. I will explain this shortly in more detail. We are transforming increasingly into a technology-focused company, and therefore, we have announced the recruitment for a Chief Technology Officer in the executive management team. This will support our AI enablement in the company's product development and internal operations.
Let's now look at the quarter's key figures. In Q3, net sales reached EUR 38.8 million, an increase of 3.4% at comparable exchange rates compared with the same quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 11% to EUR 15.1 million. Our adjusted EBITDA margin reached 38.8%, an improvement of 2.7 percentage points. Cash generation also improved. Free cash flow amounted to EUR 11.4 million, up 60%. Cash conversion, on the other hand, reached 75.9%, an increase of 20.6 percentage points. The main message is that growth continued, and profitability and cash generation improved faster than sales during the quarter. Before turning to the segments, I would like to explain the role of our unique data and how we are making it available through AI tools.
AI changes how data is consumed, but AI models need trusted data to bring truly valuable insights to the user. Of Enento's data, around 60% is unique.
This means that approximately 60% of the group's revenue comes from unique data and services which only we hold. If we look at this in terms of country, Sweden's share of unique data revenue is the largest, followed by Finland, and with a smaller contribution from Norway and Denmark. The product view shows that analytics, monitoring, and decisioning have a larger amount of unique data compared to data and reports. This highlights the importance of building unique data features and services on top of commodity data. We aim to increase the share of unique data going forward. The next slide shows one way we are bringing that information into customers' everyday workflows. During Q3, we have started piloting AI connectors in all our markets. AI connectors give customers access to Enento's trusted data directly through AI assistants, such as Microsoft Copilot, Claude, and ChatGPT.
The connector links these assistants to approved capabilities, currently including company information and search, risk information, group structures, and financial statements and ratios. For customers, the aim is to make search easier and support faster, better-informed decisions. They can access business information within the AI tools they use rather than move between separate workflows. For Enento, this provides a new way to make our trusted data available directly within customers' AI workflows. Customers are currently testing the beta version. Our next steps are to broaden beta access and use customer feedback to validate and refine the service. Let's now turn to performance in our business segments. Finland delivered good growth and strong profitability in Q3. Net sales increased by 5.3% to EUR 18.7 million. Excluding divested Emaileri's effect on the comparison figures, underlying growth was 6.4%. Consumer credit information volumes grew, supported by unsecured lending and increased market penetration.
Business information also continued to grow despite the weak real estate market. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 11.6% to EUR 8.7 million. The adjusted EBITDA margin reached 46.5% compared with 43.9% a year earlier, an improvement of 2.6 percentage points. The macroeconomic situation offers some encouragement but remains uncertain and volatile. To support further growth, we have opened several sales roles in the Hunter team, focusing on new customers and strategic cross-selling. Let's move on to Sweden. Sweden delivered moderate sales growth and improved profitability in Q3. Net sales increased by 2.4% at comparable exchange rates to EUR 17.3 million. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 5.4% to EUR 6.3 million. This increase was lower due to higher IT maintenance upgrades. Consumer information continued to perform strongly, supported by higher credit volumes in both unsecured lending and housing transactions. Business information faced pressure from the SME transformation, which affected new Premium sales.
We continue to monitor the situation and have taken action to steer sales towards recurring products. Despite weaker Premium revenue, the transformation's net earnings effect remains positive because lower sales commissions offset the impact. We have signed the first deals with buy now, pay later customers related to the CCD2 opportunity. This is a positive start, and we expect more deals to follow. These deals will show in 2027 revenue. The first customers are also live on the new UC credit API, supporting our transition to modern APIs, which improves our customer experience. Finally, let's look at Norway and Denmark. Norway and Denmark showed mixed sales development alongside a strong improvement in profitability. Net sales increased by 0.2% at comparable exchange rates to EUR 2.9 million. In Norway, visibility and data-driven Premium services for SMEs grew at double-digit rates.
Display advertising sales, on the other hand, continued to face temporary resourcing constraints. We have strengthened resourcing, which we expect to support the segment's development going forward. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 24.5% at comparable exchange rates to EUR 0.9 million. Improved sales efficiency was the main driver of the profitability improvement. That concludes the business segment update. I'll now hand over to Elina for the CFO highlights.
Thank you, Teppo. Let's continue by repeating the overview of our net sales development in our segments. We had year-over-year growth in all segments, while quarter-over-quarter decline is explained by normal seasonality and summer holiday season. What we can be very happy about is that year-over-year development in Finland was very strong, with over 5% growth, and in Sweden, consumer information growth also exceeded 5%. In Sweden, SME business continued to, however, decline, and same applied to Norwegian advertisement business that turned Norway, Denmark development flat. Good to highlight, though, that also in Norway, Denmark, we saw strong growth in both visibility services and data business. Lots of good growth taking place in all our segments. Then moving on to adjusted EBITDA. That also developed strongly thanks to both net sales performance and efficiency actions.
Adjusted EBITDA improved clearly faster than revenue by 11% and amounted to EUR 15.1 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin was also very strong and improved to 38.8%. Q3 is seasonally, profitability-wise, the strongest quarter of the year due to lower personnel costs in the holiday season. Going through the line-by-line development, materials and services, meaning our data acquisition costs, decreased year on year, and the development continued to be supported by savings actions. Personnel expenses remained flat and impact of lower FTE levels were offset by higher incentives. The incentives in the comparison period were very low. Other operating expenses, the decrease of EUR 200,000 was driven by lower sales commissions thanks to improved sales efficiency but also due to the sales mix impact on lower SME sales in Sweden.
This was partially offset by higher IT costs, and this is because we carried out a fair amount of maintenance work related to mandatory upgrades to our systems and data, especially in Sweden. This also impacted the production for own use, which decreased due to the same reasons. Then moving on to cash flow. I am also very pleased to report that our cash flow performance remains strong. Free cash flow increased by EUR 4.3 million and amounted to EUR 11.4 million. The improvement was driven by strong operating results and timing of payments, and also development investments were lower than last year. Cash conversion was strong at 75%. Adjusted free cash flow improved even more than free cash flow due to one-off payments being around EUR 2 million higher this year than last year.
These payments related to earlier restructurings in the first half. Adjusted cash conversion was also very strong at 100%.
Then lastly, key indicators. Adjusted EPS increased to EUR 0.36 in Q3 per share and was supported by strong operating results. Year-to-date adjusted EPS was slightly above EUR 1. Our cash position stood at EUR 24.5 million and our committed EUR 30 million facility remained fully undrawn. Net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 2.3x , so clearly below our maximum target range of 3x . During the quarter, we also successfully refinanced our long-term loan facility with a three plus two-year term. Overall, our strong cash generation and solid financial position give us the flexibility to allocate capital effectively. Then finally, gross investments. Those were EUR 1.3 million and slightly below last year's level. And share of new services from net sales was 9.2%, remaining close to our target range of 10%.
With that, I will hand back to Teppo, who will take you through our capital allocation outlook and guidance.
Thank you, Elina. Before turning to our outlook, I would like to cover our capital allocation. Our strong free cash flow supports dividend distribution, and the board of directors has today resolved to pay the second dividend installment of EUR 0.50 per share. The dividend will be paid on November 9th. This brings the total dividend for 2026 to EUR 1 per share. The board has also resolved today to start the program to purchase the company's own shares. The program covers a maximum of 120,000 shares, representing approximately 0.50% of all shares, and runs from October 30th, 2026 to February 12th, 2027. The maximum amount used for share buybacks is EUR 2 million. We will use the shares to either optimize Enento's capital structure through a reduction of capital or for payments under our long-term incentive programs if incentives realize.
Let us now turn to our outlook and guidance for the full year. Our outlook and guidance for 2026 remain unchanged from July 17. Macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties remain. Regulatory changes in the Swedish lending market continue to affect the operating environment, although we expect the impact on Enento to be modest. In Finland, the macroeconomic outlook is more subdued, but we anticipate stable demand for our services. Stabilizing market activity and improving conditions in Sweden support our expectation of net sales growth in 2026 at comparable exchange rates. We remain focused on improving adjusted EBITDA and strengthening free cash flow through disciplined cost control. At the same time, we continue to invest in our future competitiveness and growth opportunities. To reiterate our guidance, Enento Group expects net sales to grow by 0%- 5% in 2026 at comparable exchange rates.
We expect adjusted EBITDA to increase compared with 2025, with adjusted EBITDA growth exceeding net sales growth at comparable exchange rates. Thank you. All right, time for Q&A.
Thank you, Teppo and Elina, for your presentations. Let us move on to Q&A. First, let us start with questions from the studio.
Yes. Roni Peuranheimo from Inderes. If you could go through still the AI connectors pricing model, basically, so effects on revenue and profitability if customers move more towards using this type of model.
We have actually not decided on the pricing model yet, as this is still in beta. There is really not much more to say on that yet.
Okay. We will return to that later. Then about a detailed question about the personnel cost. They were basically flat even though you made FTE reductions due to higher incentive costs. Should we expect incentives to increase basically the personnel cost going forward as well, or did it affect only this quarter?
We can expect to see similar impacts also in Q4, and this is due to the fact that the incentives in previous year were on very low level following the performance. Basically now we start seeing normalized incentive levels, and that is why the difference is so big.
Yeah. Then one question about the Finnish consumer credit information. There was a strong growth there. How do you see the trend continuing now that the basically consumer sentiment has just recently dipped again?
Yes, that's why we still have the words uncertain and volatile there. It does seem to be a little bit different story, different months. It's very difficult to forecast the volumes because of that.
I can comment that so far, we have continued to see good volume levels, but as you also mentioned, the consumer confidence has again started to decline. Of course, we've monitored the situation closely.
Yes. Then about the percentage of unique data. Of course, 40% is not unique. Maybe if you could go through a little bit about your strategy regarding these businesses going forward. Do you see increased price pressure here?
First of all, on the 60%, we would like the 60% to go up over time. When it comes to the part that is not unique data, in many situations, actually, the customers already have an opportunity to get the data in other ways as well. They can do it themselves, or they can buy from competition. Probably you can expect over time that there will be more competition in that space. On the other hand, it has already been the choice of customers to prefer to take it through us. We do add some value, even if it is commodity. We have the whole machinery for serving the data. We take care of things like regulatory compliance, et cetera. Even though the data would not be unique, there is still added value in the service.
All right. No further questions from me.
Okay. Thank you, Roni. Let us move on to questions at the chat. We have questions from Daniel from Danske Bank, our analyst, about the SME transformation. Can you give any percent that how much was the impact on growth in Sweden?
Well, if you look at the business information business decline, that is mainly driven by the SME business in Sweden. So that was the percent.
High level impact.
Yes.
Yes. Going forward, do you think it will continue, or when will the transformation be done? Is there any changes in the churn numbers?
Well, churn has remained on expected level. In that sense, the SME transformation has produced positive net results. We have taken actions to strengthen our in-house sales team in this area to support the new sales going forward. We are constantly taking and planning new actions to support the new sales going forward as well. We continue to have challenges with our sales partner performance, and our aim is, of course, to offset that one way or another.
Okay. Another question about Sweden. How do you see the market recovering there?
Well, overall, the Swedish market development has been positive when we look at macro indicators, and consumer confidence has remained on better level compared to Finland, where we now have seen the dip. But of course, the Swedish Central Bank is expected to put some interest rate increases. So of course, it is a question that how will those impact if those may come. So we continue also to follow that situation, but so far, the situation remains good. And also, if we look at our current trading, we see good continuing development in consumer information volumes.
Can we state that growth will be better in the next quarter? Because now it was a bit moderate.
We cannot state that because we continue to be impacted by the macro and also the SME transformation. We do not expect that things change overnight there.
But we are taking actions.
Yes. Then there was a question about the IT expenses in Q3. Is that something which was now only for Q3, or are we expecting that to continue in the next quarter?
Somewhat the activities will still impact Q4 as well. But the highest peak most likely was now in Q3.
Yes. Then let's move on to Finland. Is it possible to say, did the growth come from the market or from our own actions and how much from each?
Well, it certainly is both.
There has been growth in unsecured lending, but at the same time, we also have signed new business.
So both it is. Yes. Then a question about the AI connectors. You already commented the monetization model, but have we already received some customer feedback, or can we say something about that?
Well, yes. It is early days. I think the general feedback is that people like the experience. That's good, and that was also to be expected. We all live in that world ourselves, so that's good. Exactly how much is that going to drive volume is difficult to say. But there are then some cases where somebody has really used clearly more, and maybe it's because it's a nicer experience. But too anecdotal to give a forecast on it.
Okay. Then one question about our new service growth, which was quite high. The number of new services, what is driving that at the moment?
We have, of course, the new services KPI includes new services launched within past three years. For example, as Teppo mentioned, the Finnish growth, we have successfully signed new customers and contracts with our new scoring models. We have been talking also here about our positive credit register scores and some other scoring models. Those are a great example where we have seen good traction lately.
Okay, good. Still one more question from Sanna Perälä from Nordea. Could you still elaborate on the strong EBITDA growth in Finland? Was this driven by sales or something else?
Of course, the sales was on good level, over 5%, while at the same time we have been taking various efficiency actions. The storyline is similar as for the whole group, that it's both sales growth and at the same time efficiency supporting or offsetting the cost pressures.
Okay, good. Thank you. There's no more questions left at the chat. If you still have something, you can always send them to us by email. The address is ir@enento.com. We will thank you all for watching, and have a nice day, and until next time.
Thank you.
Thank you.