No name. Recording has started.
All right. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Enento's Q1 pre-silent call. I will start by walking through the recent company development, and as usual, Elina will then walk through the macro and performance for the quarter. After this, we'll open for questions. Let's start with recent company development. In March, we announced that we will transition to a country-based organizational model. This change will replace our current business area-driven structure, and its aim is to strengthen commercial accountability, clarify end-to-end profit responsibility, and increase customer proximity across the group's markets. In the new model, commercial and financial responsibility will be anchored at the country level. Finland and Sweden will operate as separate country units, while Norway and Denmark will form one combined country unit. Starting from the first quarter of 2026, we will also harmonize our financial reporting in line with the new model.
Going forward, we will report the three segments: Finland, Sweden, and the combined Norway-Denmark segment. Results will be published separately for each segment, improving transparency and enabling more targeted performance management. The transition to a country-based organization is a natural next step in strengthening our execution capability and accountability. By bringing profit responsibility closer to our markets and customers, we increase focus, speed, and performance across the group. I would also like to note that this organizational change does not affect Enento Group's 2026 guidance. Another highlight I want to raise is the compliance area. In Sweden, our compliance offering continues to develop in the right direction. We're gradually expanding our capabilities and are seeing commercial traction, including lots of smaller deals being closed during the first quarter.
While still at an early stage, this provides encouragement that the market opportunity is real and that our efforts are beginning to resonate with customers. Thirdly, the SME transformation in Sweden is progressing according to plan. We're now renewing subscription contracts fully digitally, and early indications show churn at an acceptable level, starting to gradually support the profitability development. New sales, however, continue to be impacted by the transition and the restructuring of our sales partner. However, order intake is improving, and we're expecting also new sales to stabilize in the coming quarters. Let's move to macroeconomic environment and our business performance. Elina, please.
Thank you. The macro environment remains largely unchanged from Q4, and obviously, the latest geopolitical tensions increase the uncertainty in all our markets. Also, our consumer confidence has stayed low in both of our main markets. In Finland, consumer confidence continued to decline in February, while in Sweden, it remains stable but low. What this then means for our performance and volumes is that we have continued to see rather stable volume development in both countries. In Finland, volumes have continued to be impacted by the macro development, while in Sweden, consumer credit business has specifically been impacted by low level of housing transactions. Overall volumes, however, have remained stable. However, in Sweden, we have seen some early signs of improving volumes now in March, but it is definitely too early to take any conclusions of that yet.
As Teppo mentioned, the Swedish SME transformation has continued to impact the net sales. As said, we are seeing also good development in order intake in that area. The performance in Norway and Denmark that has continued on good level. Profitability development continues to be impacted by the sales development, but also continues to be supported by savings and changes in sales mix. Costs are well in control and overall close to flattish development when cost inflation is largely offset by savings activities. Also production for owners is improving as expected when our own staff is able to focus more on development activities after finalization of the IT infrastructure consolidation project. Finally, full-year guidance on net sales and adjusted EBITDA remains intact.
As Teppo mentioned, we continue to expect that we will grow 0%-5% and increase adjusted EBITDA in 2026 compared to prior year with comparable FX rates. Now this concludes our summary of the situation, and we are happy to open the line for questions. Thank you. Roni, please.
Yeah. I could start maybe about the current geopolitical situation. Have you any data from the first weeks of March yet? How has that affected consumer behavior or volumes?
We haven't seen any sort of like major you know hiccups or negative impacts as such, but obviously we haven't seen volumes picking up too much either. No major reaction. Of course, what this creates is more uncertainty and then the improved consumer confidence is of course something that we definitely hope to support our business volumes going forward. Increased uncertainties is the sort of like the biggest impact, but no major sort of like volume impact as such.
Yeah. Maybe about the organizational change. Will there be some major one-off costs for Q1 due to that?
Well, we of course, as usual, we treat the restructuring impacts as one-off costs. So far those mainly only relate to the changes in the management.
Yeah. By the way, will you give some historical comparable numbers for those results of the new segments?
Sorry.
Not?
Could you repeat, Ronnie? Will we give what?
Sorry, can you hear me?
Yes.
Will you give some historical comparable numbers for the new segments for the full year 2025?
Yes, we will give restated 2025 quarterly comparisons.
to each segment. Those will be published then in connection with Q1 results.
All right. No further questions now.
All right. Sandra?
Yes. Thank you. I also have a couple of questions regarding a new organizational structure. Firstly, can you name some concrete things that will be more efficient under this new, country-based organization versus the previous segment structure?
The high level challenge in terms of what we have so far solved is that the P&L responsibilities was shared by four people across the company. Just having clarity on that and having clearer accountability, that's kind of the number one topic. This is the organizational change otherwise outside the management team that is still in design stage. There's not much more to say there yet.
All right.
That's just by design because you as you know, when you change management team structure, you need to announce it right away. It's kind of by design that you have to announce things that are unfinished.
Yeah. Thanks. My next question is kinda touch that topic a little. As such, how much of your sales or how much did you have kinda cross-border sales or efficiencies already, or has your organization been basically country-based already? Or how should I say it? Is the business has the business already been like more on a country level, even though you had those product segments?
Yes. The sales teams were already local before m arketing actually was changed to local rather recently. Most of the operations activity and customer support also had local teams. In that sense, it is maybe smaller change than you know that it sounds like in that sense.
Yeah. Thank you. That was a perfect answer to my confusing question. Regarding new product development, you recently hired a new CPO to speed up that area. Will that in the future be also like more local, or will new product development be or are the new products easily deployable across borders, if one should say that way?
Well, the historical technology setup, the architecture is quite local. Our data source is usually local, and then of course regulation is actually also somewhat differing between countries. On the other hand, a lot of the customer needs are similar, so building from the, you know, on different base and from different sources, products that are more similar across countries is what we're trying to do here. So it's kind of you're going to have for quite some time a combination of local products and then the newer products being more across the company. This had actually already started, for example, in compliance.
We were organized a little bit differently even though there are some local specificities there as well. That has been the target for some time that new activities will be more group wide and in that way avoid building the same thing too many times.
Thanks. That was a great answer. I had no more questions.
Thanks. We have Kimmo.
Yes, thanks. About this consumer confidence in Sweden and overall the market environment there. You say that the confidence is low. When you look at the historical data, we see that it's been hovering around, I think it's 100 points or how do you call it, this index figure that I'm looking at the Bloomberg at the moment? It was in 2022 it went to 66, but now it has come up quite nicely to 96 and almost 100. What are your thoughts? You say that it is low. Of course, it's a little bit lower than in the good years. In my thinking it's not so low. Or how do you see it?
Yeah, I mean, like, it's lower than compared to the good years. Definitely. Also, what has then been visible is that Swedish GDP overall hasn't developed, you know, on positive note, as well. That has clearly impacted the consumer activity in Sweden. That is at least what we see constantly from our volumes and based on the discussions that we're having with our customers. Definitely we refer them to, you know, what we have seen in the couple years back where the confidence was.
Okay. Thank you.
Antti.
Yeah. Hi. One question to Elina now regarding this reporting structure change. Did you say that you are going to give the comparison numbers in the report and not before?
Currently the plan.
Okay. Will you give kind of comparable subsegments within the country reporting so that we can basically use our existing data of, let's say, Consumer Insight business Sweden and Finland? Or will that division be not available anymore?
Plan is that we continue to release the country revenue by Business Insight and Consumer Insight. You will continue to get that information going forward as well. On top of that, you will actually get the country profitability adjusted EBITDA reported.
Okay, that's good. It will be fully comparable to historical numbers based on Consumer Insight, in Sweden and Finland.
Yes. Of course, as Teppo mentioned, we have a new Chief Product Officer, and we are, you know, designing also how we look at the product because that BI/CI division has been based on product. So far, at least in Q1, we will continue to report according to that structure.
All right. That's good because if that wasn't the case, then you would destroy all comparability to history.
Mm-hmm.
That would be very, very, very bad.
No.
I'm happy to hear that.
Yes. We will get everything you got before and a bit more or quite a lot more.
Okay. Good. Of course, before the report would be even better. Yeah. The second question goes to Teppo. Why only now? I mean, you have had this structure for years, and I think it has always confused a lot of analysts and investors. Why only now? Why not earlier?
Well, of course, mostly I can just speculate. I think there's always a challenge of trying to get synergies across the group, then on the other hand, being close to, you know, close to the customer. Now we chose the model where we prioritize being close to the customer, but at the same time are still working on ways to get the synergies as well. I think we probably didn't get the synergies in the past model, so it was a little bit of an overlay on top of the local organization. Yes. As said, I can just speculate on that.
Yeah. I have an understanding that your country organizations have been fairly independent even since UC was acquired. Naturally that from the outside it looks that it has been a major hurdle in getting those efficiency gains and cooperation to work. Probably this is going to improve things.
Yeah, we believe so.
Good. Finally to the SME market model change in Sweden. Could you just give a bit more clarity on what has been working so far well, and what are the challenges? You said that new sales has been a bit of a struggle, so what needs to happen that it would be basically coming back towards your plan so that it would work as you wished? What do you need to achieve there?
Yes. Firstly, of course, you know what has been successful is the digitalized automated renewal of our subscription. Previously, the model worked in a way that the sales guys called the customer and made a manual renewal, and that meant that we paid commission on every revenue euro. That renewal process so far, what we have seen now, has been successful in a way that we haven't been churning, meaning like losing customers more than we did before compared to, you know, the previous model. Which automatically means that it starts, you know, decreasing our sales commissions and improving profitability gradually then. That has been, you know, positive.
Where we have struggled already in Q4, and we talked about it then as well, is that we have been dependent on the sales partner in sales, whether it's the renewals or the new sales. They have undergone a major restructuring and major reductions in the number of people, and that has then impacted their capabilities to sell to new customers. So of course, the revenue is a function of the ongoing subscriptions and how good we are able to keep the retention there, and then how much we're able to sell to new customers. The new customers, that has suffered somewhat from the transition. However, what we now see is from the order intake, which doesn't necessarily come directly to revenue, but we have orders in.
Now the situation has clearly stabilized and improved and the sales partner starts to be back on sort of like track, so to say. That's what we mean by it. Then of course, that then impacts the total revenue. Then on the other hand, profitability is developing good.
All right. The issue was with the previous sole partner that you had who needed to downscale, and now they are having kind of internal difficulties into where to focus in sales. How is the progress with other partners? Is it kind of? Do they have a different approach?
Well, yeah. Well, we have been—I mean, like in this area, we have been fully dependent on one large partner that used to be part of Säljtid. When we talk about credit type of products, it's quite, you know, it takes time to introduce new partners. We do have that ongoing, and we are also introducing new partners, but to get the speed and competencies in place there also takes time, so.
In the current areas, how you split the customer responsibilities? You still have the one existing partner.
Now they are purely focusing on new sales in this SME area.
Right. Because that's where they get the commissions.
Yes, but now they get it only when they are able to sell to new customers, not by just, you know, renewing contracts that exist. That's the big change.
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Good. Thank you.
Thank you. We have Jaakko.
Yes. Good afternoon, everyone. Just a couple of details on the introduction that you said, Elina, you mentioned that the new sales in the compliance service in Sweden is doing pretty good. Could you give us some color or remind us what you have said earlier regarding the size of the business, just to get the magnitude here?
You know, we haven't been, you know, too much talking about the market opportunity or sizing to that matter. One needs to also consider that the opportunity lies largely in banks' manual processes. If you calculate how many people banks have in their compliance departments and how much time is used for manual, for example, search and fill the ownership data, for instance. There you can, you know, think somewhat, you know, what kind of opportunity we may overall, you know, think, but it's something that is sort of like developing all the time as well.
Okay. Good. Thanks. Elina, you referred to some early signs of rising volumes or picking up demand in Sweden. Which business line or product line you were referring to?
It has been mainly visible now in consumer credit, Sweden. After very, you know, slow volume months, January, February, we have seen, you know, clearly some picking up in the volumes now. Of course, it is, you know, too early to conclude anything based on that, and we are not even, you know. We haven't yet closed March even, but nevertheless, at least, you know, we are seeing some positive movement there now.
Okay. Very good. Thanks. That's all from my side.
Thank you. We have Daniel.
Yeah, thanks. Just a couple of questions from me regarding the outlook. There is this disclaimer on the Swedish regulatory changes in your outlook, you know, this which affect the loan brokers. I guess in Q4 you already said that you expect all these major brokers to apply for this banking license. The question is, when is this certain, and when is this uncertainty fading away?
The process is ongoing and one thing is that when they apply for a license and another one, will they get one, of course, and that is up to FSA. Everyone should have a license in place by end of June. That is when we know for sure that then they continue the operations as planned. As said, we know that all the large players are very much, you know, in this process and applying for a license.
Okay. There isn't any risk of, you know, relevant players dropping out at this point, at least how far you can see it?
Now we can see it and, based on the discussions we are having, no major risk in that. Only to smaller players s maller players in the market.
That's clear. The final question, can you motivate this 0%-5% sales growth this year? How are you sort of applying this, you know, GDP growth macroeconomic forecast to this range? Obviously there has been some, you know, uncertainty around on how this GDP forecast will develop this year. What are your underlying assumptions, so we can understand it? What forecasts are you personally using to motivate the guidance?
Well, when we have given the guidance, the underlying forecast has been, you know, pretty much the consensus of various economists' expectations for our main markets at that time. At that time, you know, for Finland, the expectation was, you know, rather muted development, basically growing or basically being close to zero level development. Then for Sweden, economists were expecting Swedish GDP to return to growth by, you know, 2%-3% even. That growth should be driven by increased consumer activity and consumption. Of course, we know that Swedish government has and will take actions to support the consumer activity.
We have also taken into account for Sweden that we do expect these smallest broker players to leave the market, which will then you know somewhat partially offset the positive impact from the GDP growth. That is the basis for our sort of like volume expectations. No, we didn't see this war coming, so that was not embedded into that at that time. We are of course on top of that. We continue to you know drive growth from new services, debt management and compliance, and we also have very good traction, for example, in real estate area in Finland, where there is more data available for the services from government, and that creates a natural opportunity.
Then we are taking and have been taking pricing actions. Of course, you know, we continue to target new sales as well. That it's a combination of these factors that the guidance is based on.
That is crystal clear. That's all from me. Thank you.
Good. Thank you. If no further questions, then we close this pre-silent call for now. Thank you.
Thank you.
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Thank you for attending.
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