Good afternoon, and welcome to an additional Inderes Press Conference here in Stockholm, Sweden. My name is Eero Alasuutari, and I will serve as your host for this event. We have an exciting program ahead, taking us through today's press release regarding the acquisition of Financial Hearings and Streamfabriken. In this broadcast, we will hear presentations from Inderes CEO Mikael Rautanen and Inderes Sweden COO Peter Sergel, as well as a word from former Financial Hearings owner Per-Erik Holmström. After the presentations, we will host a Q&A session where you have a chance to ask your questions from the management. You can post your questions and comments on the viewing page chat functionality. Now, without further ado, allow me to introduce and welcome to the stage Inderes CEO Mikael Rautanen.
Thanks, Eero. Really excited to be here in Stockholm with our new colleagues. There's a few of them behind the cameras. I can see some smiling faces here. A big day for us. This will be the day when Inderes starts the journey on a Nordic level. Financial Hearings and Streamfabriken, two great companies. We have learned they have great people, great customers, very loyal customers, and obviously that of course leads into them being great businesses. First, before we go in more detail into these two companies and our next steps in Sweden, I wanna walk you through how this plays into our vision and our long-term strategy. For those of you who are new to Inderes, our business model is pretty simple. We are democratizing financial information for all investors.
We are the link between listed companies and the investor community. For listed companies, we build solutions with which they can serve their owners and the investor community better. We build investor relations solutions. It's a great offering that has been really, really successful in Finland. On the investor side, for investors, we built a platform through which they can get access to really high-quality content about listed companies, content through which the investors can learn to become better investors and more informed investors, make better decisions. We have 190 listed companies before this day on our platform, so basically almost all Finnish companies are our customers. We have a great community of 75,000 active investors, mainly in Finland. Inderes has been a hugely successful company in Finland. We have established our position in Finland.
We have built a great product portfolio for the listed companies. Of course, then for us it was obvious that we want to replicate this success also outside Finland. Looking at the Inderes flywheel, the momentum here is that the more listed companies we get as our clients, the better content and better service we can provide for our investor community. The bigger and more engaged investor community we have, the better services we can provide for the listed companies. That's the flywheel. Of course, this has been really local business in Finland, and going into new markets, taking this to a Nordic level, we have the chicken egg problem. Where should we start? How can we get the flywheel spinning on a new market? With this acquisition, this really strengthens the listed company side of our platform.
Together, we will have over 400 listed companies as our clients. In addition, earlier this year, we announced a strategic partnership and an investment to HC Andersen Capital in Denmark, which further strengthens our platform on a Nordic level. The good thing to start pushing the flywheel to start spinning on the listed company side is that once we have the customers, that of course gives us. That's where Inderes makes most of the revenue. That gives us cash flow. Our customers also provide really good investor relations content, and those two things help us to build better services and better content for the investor community. That's the logic here, taking the Inderes flywheel from Finland, the next stage, to a Nordic level.
We will be having also more than 110 professionals in our team. On a strategic level, why an acquisition is a natural path for us? Well, we have learned that in Finland, many investors they want to also look outside their home market. They've been coming to ask us, "Can you provide information about other Nordic companies?" Our Finnish customers have been coming for us. Inderes, you are the place to go when we want to reach Finnish investors. You are great in that. We would also like to reach investors outside Finland. This really helps us to serve our existing community better and our existing customers. On a Nordic level, we can show that it really benefits both the investor community and the IR community.
There are significant network effects in our business model. That's what we have proven in Finland. With an M&A, in our early days, we were quite clever in Finland how we solved the chicken and egg problem and got the flywheel spinning. Now going into a new market as a public company, with balance sheet and strength to do M&A, this is a very natural path for us to start scaling, on a new market. With the client base, we can start building better services for the investors. We built this company in the long run for the investors, and once we have the investor community and they trust us, then winning the hearts of listed company IRs is much easier.
The value creation recipe we use here is actually pretty similar to what we've done already in Finland three years ago with the acquisition of Flik. I would like to tell a small story from the days that I used to be an equity analyst. Ten years ago, as an analyst, when one of the companies that I covered had an earnings announcement, it was usually the company inviting the analyst and a few portfolio managers to a hotel meeting room, and it was a closed room, and I have the exclusive access to talk to the management of the company. That was fun for me as an analyst to have this exclusive information access.
What we did together with Flik is that we brought in cameras, and suddenly what used to be the exclusive hotel room, all the investors had access through webcast to the same room. That was really what we do, democratize information for the benefit for all investors. That proved to be really successful for both the investors and both the listed companies. We did a really similar acquisition three years ago. Flik has been an excellent company, great team. The business has more than doubled after the acquisition. We have proven that it's been really good for Flik people, the community, the customers, and also for our business. Here we apply the same recipe. For our people, of course, Inderes becoming a more international company creates new career opportunities.
The people of Financial Hearings and Streamfabriken get to work with a broader portfolio of investor relations services and solutions. For our community, well, this gives us a good foundation to start building the distribution channels to Swedish investors and start building Swedish community. For customers, the trick is to get bigger audiences for the broadcasts of the customers and also to have a wider offering to serve the investor relations needs. For shareholders, we see a lot of potential to upgrade the existing clients to higher-end productions like we have done in Finland. We are opening up a new studio in Stockholm, for example. We have our own software team developing the virtual event platform through which you are at the moment watching this webcast.
On top of that, we have some additional software functions and features that make those productions and processes more efficient. There's a lot of potential for us to improve our processes and save outside costs with our software team being in-house. Also introducing additional services for our clients. This is on a high level, the logic of this acquisition. Super excited. Next, I wanna welcome to the stage my friend and our Sweden COO, Peter Sergel.
Thank you, Mikael. Of course, it's difficult to hide the excitement of what is happening and going on in Sweden right now. We are looking at two great companies that have done a lot of services for the Swedish market during a long period of time. How this fits into our service portfolio is that these are actually two core components of what we offer to the IR market. It's the webcast of the interim reports, and it's the hybrid and online events. That complements our more extensive services, ranging from commissioned research to annual general meeting services and investor websites and outsourced IR functions.
If we look at these two companies, Financial Hearings and Streamfabriken, they have been on the market for 30 years and done over 10,000 events. The core asset here is the access that they do have to more than 200 listed companies. It's a very impressive customer portfolio. These customers keep coming back every quarter. Quarter by quarter, 200 companies are doing the live transmissions of their webcasts. With the Streamfabriken producing high quality online events, and often in close cooperation with Financial Hearings. They have over time been using software created by Inderes, the Videosync platform that you are streaming the service over right now.
We see great potential here in cooperation around new features and functionality. Streamfabriken also have some additional clients that are both listed and non-listed, customers that are very interesting. On this slide, you see one picture from the Videosync platform, but also a sneak preview of how our studio in the center of Stockholm will look like from February. The excellent track record we need to be very careful with that these companies have, and how to do that is actually to take care of the customers. The core focus for us right now is to maintain the customer contacts, keep the good quality and service delivery to keep these customers coming back.
It also will give the customers access to new features and functions, and possibilities to move to higher end productions, for instance to the studio, but also move from audio cast to video cast, and then over to the studio. Adding to this customer value, as Mikael explained, we have the Inderes Nordic community, an ever-growing community of members following our transmissions. The core asset is also the employees. And according to our organizational model, we truly believe that growing people will be growing the customer service as well. We will let all these people the opportunity to grow and expand as individuals, but also combining the extensive knowledge of the Swedish operation with the Finnish operations to develop even better services for our customers.
Of course, we have the ability now to share productions between the Nordic countries in a very interesting way. New services. As mentioned in the beginning of this presentation, we are highly focused on independent equity research. We see also a great opportunity to slowly grow into the Swedish market by targeting a few customers at a time with this type of services for the Swedish market. Also the IR web page service where we have the platform to build websites and IR communications tools for the IR managers. We're also launching services around online annual general meetings. This will be a careful selection by customer going forward.
With that, I think I will leave back to Mikael for a quick summary.
Thank you, Peter.
Thank you.
Yeah. I would like to go back one year and one month. That was when we IPO'd. We've been ourselves a public company, eating our own dog food, using all our own services for one year, except for the equity research. That's that we buy from SEB. Please go and read SEB's reports. Yeah. I would like to walk back 13 months what we said in our IPO when we raised capital and went public. We said that we're gonna make gradual and controlled expansion in growth investments where we already have demonstrated a good track record in our history. Number one, expansion into new services that expand our target markets. We have strengthened our product portfolio, especially with R&D and software capabilities this year a lot. Check.
Acquisitions, that's why we are here today. This is why we are here today, it's been a really long process. We've been working for this deal of basically almost a whole year, getting to know the people and finding a structure that was good for all parties. Third, development of our own technology platforms. Fourth, services for the investor community. While the first year has been in some aspects a tough year as the market went into a bear market, I'm happy to say that we have continued on our march going forward with the plans we had when we went public. I like to say, Inderes, we are not on a sprint, neither are we on a marathon. We like to say that we are on a march.
Yes, we are a growth company. We are a growth company that wants to maintain healthy profitability. How we grow step by step, we are in no rush anywhere. Our long-term target is to have the combined growth and profitability of 30%-50%, regardless of whether we are in bear market or bull market. To build a business model that is really sustainable despite the cyclicality of our industry. What is great here is with us and with these two companies, there's a lot of recurring elements in these business models, a lot of stickiness and customer loyalty. To reach those targets, we have our infinite targets. As a company, we will always choose to be great instead of big.
We are a company that wants to be known that we are good in what we do. I see very much the same with Financial Hearings and Streamfabriken. We wanna be known that we are great, not known for being the biggest or growing the fastest. We want our customers and the investors to know that through us we get high quality services and information. We'd rather lose business than slip from our values. We're a really value-driven company and third, help our people to grow as professionals and individuals. The logic here is that if we are successful in sticking to these infinite targets, then the business will of course follow, and that's what's happened in the history so far.
With this, a little bit of Nokia flavor here, connecting investors and companies from Finland. With this, I would like to thank you all for watching the webcast so far. Please keep your questions coming for the Q&A, and next I would like to welcome to the stage the founder of Financial Hearings, Mr. Per-Erik Holmström. Perka.
Thank you, Mikael. Calling Perka. I think everyone knows me as Perka in the market. It has been long trip, 30 years, starting at the Opera House. First, thanks to Mikael and Inderes team to give me and give the Financial Hearings a chance, and I think it's, we are in a position now where the standardization of these events has to be done. It's. I still think it's a little bit odd that financial presentation, which is the most important thing for the valuation on stocks up and down, that type of presentations, that fly around like drones. I think Inderes have done a lot with that process, and they give me now a chance to move that process in a more global scale where I worked many years.
With that, I think it's an optimal, and I think if I have two quotes here to tell me and all of you a little bit of the story, I think we started with the presentation business in the beginning, and then we added the virtual tool. I think getting up Marcus Wallenberg in the beginning of the 2020s and the family was an epic thing, and it told all the market where we were on the way. The information officer said, "Per-Erik, you helped us with the thing now in one hour that took us two years before." I think that's a strong statement. Another statement that I had back before I thank everyone, I'm not gonna disappear. I'm gonna do the ranking and the award. Don't worry.
Another great statement come from Carl-Henric Svanberg, who I work with Assa Abloy, and you know him as the chairman of Volvo. He once said about merger and acquisition, "You should not buy a company just for the synergies. You should buy a company because it's great, and then the synergies will come on the way." I think Inderes is a very great company on their market, and I think we have been a very great company on our market. Together, this will be a stronger flywheel, and they give me the support to work more with the democratization of the market and openness. So I will thank you finally for that.
To the staff in Financial Hearings, I will just add that it's a lot of people have done a lot of good job, and without Johan Wallinder, this has not been the service it has been. He has done a great job. Not to forget the people who have been long here like Peter Johansson and also Einar Brekkan, and we have a new generation on the way as well. Finally, to all CEOs, all investors, and all analysts, and also to the Opera House, I've been really spoiled to be with you in 30 years. With that, Mikael, I hand over to Eero. Is it set?
It's set.
Be ready for questions.
Thank you, Per-Erik, Peter, and Mikael. Now, I think next up is time for the Q&A, the question and answer session, and I would like to remind and urge you to post your questions through the viewing page chat functionality. We already have a good list of really good questions here, so shall we just go ahead and start plowing through them? First of all, I wanna say congratulations to all parties. A great day.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Let's start with a question by Mr. Stonkman.
Hi, Stonkman.
Finnish flavor there as well. Financial Hearings and Streamfabriken have been large customers to Videosync. How large has the yearly license sale been of them combined?
We are not disclosing that figure, but on our scale and revenue level, it's not kind of like a significant number that, for example, analysts would need to adjust in the model. I will leave it there.
Good. Next question is from our analyst from SEB, Jaakko Tyrväinen.
Hi, Jaakko.
Hello. Do you expect the transaction to support the ramp up of your analysis services in Sweden? Also, could you elaborate on the AGM market situation in Sweden from Inderes' offerings perspective? Do you see potential to expand to Sweden with your holistic AGM service?
Yes, if I start with the equity research. Yes, of course, having the client portfolio, having a bigger team, having the trust of the clients, and so on, it helps in sales so that we don't need to kind of like go cold calling as an unknown name to the potential customers. With the equity research, I always want to remind that it's a really long game. Recruiting analysts take time. Ramping up new companies take time a lot, that is a really 10-year game that we are playing there. This will of course help that in the long run. With the AGM solution, the AGM package we have in Finland has been really successful. We've
We're running around 100 AGMs, so 50% market share there. Financial Hearings and Streamfabriken can already do the webcasts of some AGMs in Sweden. From there, of course, it's a natural point to start taking potentially a bigger share of the AGM package, not doing only the
May I just add one comment there? Because there's local legislation in every country that regulates on how you can perform these AGMs, so we of course need to investigate what this temporary law in Sweden, how that is prolonged or not prolonged and what happens with that one before we know exactly how we will launch the services.
Yeah.
Right.
With AGM, it's really good to remember that it's a very localized product, so going to Sweden, well, like with equity research, that's also a really a long game because you need to tailor it to the needs of the local legislation, local tradition, local practices and so on.
Good.
However, you can add one thing, the corona has really helped this market.
Yeah.
Indeed.
Indeed.
Indeed. One thing that's good coming out of it, at least. Question from Owner: How do you see your balance sheet? How's your increasing capital return to shareholders? Are holding on 2023?
Our balance sheet remains strong after this acquisition. Yeah, we took a EUR 2 million bank loan in addition. With regards to our payout policy, if that was the question, yeah, we have the payout policy and that's unchanged.
Good. Eki is asking, how do you see this acquisition will support or accelerate selling commissioned analysis to listed Swedish companies? It's essentially the same question, but let's go through it.
Yeah. Of course, it's much easier to go in through open doors than to go through closed doors. With the great customer contacts that Financial Hearings has, it's much easier to introduce a new type of services, and thereby, this effort will probably be faster than if we were not doing it. It will help that definitely.
Great. Nickname Stonks Only Go Sideways. How do you view the FH slash SF present offering and split between audio casts and web casts, and do you try to move companies more to web casts like in Finland? Based on the FH slash SF profitability, audio casts look quite efficient and profitable.
It is a lot of audio casts and a lot of teleconferences, and like we did announce in the Q3, for the teleconference part, we have now developed our own internal software component to do that task, so that will create a lot of efficiencies for the teleconference side. Switching from audio to video is one thing, and then switching from video to studio is another thing. Moving up because we have shown in Finland that companies coming to a studio that is representing their brand and they look good and they can feel comfortable in giving out the presentation, and it's kind of like the whole service concept around the studio.
It's been really successful in Finland, so I'm positive that we can do that kind of like upgrade in Sweden as well. I think it's pretty cool that in Finland, even a small-cap company, their quarterly webcast looks super professional and cool. Then when you go to the United States, a big tech company earnings call is with the telephone line and poor quality and so I think we can be really proud of what we have done together with Flik in Finland in the quality and professionalism of these productions.
Great. A couple of more questions. It seems our participants are on an absolute roll with the nicknames. The next question is from nickname Capitalist Vermin. Could you elaborate on the competitive landscape in the webcast business in Sweden? Financial Hearings and Streamfabriken are market leaders, but for how long?
For a long time going forward.
Good.
Yeah, definitely, a clear market leader.
If I say something about why we did this deal, I think we both share also a Nordic vision, but it's also important with the, like, investor and Nils-Ingvar Lundin said, the things they have in their investor base took two years to cover, that we can cover in one hour. The market today is not just Finnish or Nordic, it's also global, and it's a very much faster track to do this with the modern technology and the virtuality. That's pretty simple.
Yeah.
Of course, there is and there will be competition on the market. Especially on the high-end part of the market, there is competition. Thinking of what Inderes is doing with democratizing information and building the community, there's not so many that give access to an entire Nordic investor community by doing the webcasts with this company. The combined effect there, we think is extremely strong even over time.
Good. I think one more question left, unless you have a few more up your sleeve, which you are more than welcome to post still. We have a few minutes left. Eki is asking, "Is the current personnel of both acquisition targets handcuffed to stay on board and not going to the beach?
We don't handcuff any of our staff, so it's not sustainable. We want people to stay with us because of their own will because we are a good place for them to grow as professionals. That's the philosophy. I'm really happy that the key employees of Financial Hearings and Streamfabriken will continue with us and of course, through this deal, they will also be shareholders of Inderes.
Great. One more question left, from Scandinavian Capitalist. First was Denmark, next was Sweden. Question is, "When is Norway's turn?
Well, now with this deal, we have a small seat in Oslo, so Streamfabriken has really recently started an operation with one employee in Oslo, Heidi Jyrki. You're really important for us, so that's, I think, a starting point. Of course, we have a lot to do in Sweden and Denmark, and also in Finland as well, so we are in no rush at the same time.
Okay. Fantastic. Now, finally, I'd like to once again thank you, gentlemen. Thank you, Per-Erik. Thank you, Mikael. Thank you, Peter.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
As all the questions have been handled and answered, this is it for our today's broadcast. Hope you enjoyed the news and the webcast, and I'll see you-