Good morning, everyone, and welcome to join Talenom's H1 release webcast. My name is Juho Ahosola, and I work as the Chief Executive Officer of the company. And with me here today, as usually, is our Chief Financial Officer, Matti Säkkinen.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome on my behalf.
Okay, let's start then. Once again, welcome from my behalf as well. Here's the agenda for this review. I will start with a short brief about Talenom if we have some new investors online. Then, I will comment Q2 highlights, as well as our development during the review period. And then Matti will comment after me our financial performance in a bit more detailed level, as well as outlook and guidance. And at the end of this review, there's time for questions as well, which you can ask throughout the review with the chat feature. But let's roll out. So a short brief about Talenom. What do we do, and what kind of company is Talenom? Talenom is a service company. First of all, we help entrepreneurs succeed with different kind of services, accounting services, payroll services, and different kind of consulting services as well.
And we operate in three operating countries, Finland, Sweden, and Spain. And we combine our growth, two elements, organic growth and then selective acquisitions. And our approach is to combine strong local expertise and ownership with our scalable ONE Talenom concept, which creates better business outcomes in different ways. And software wise, we work with best-in-class solutions and software in all our operating countries. And this creates the way of sustainable growth for us, and we help our clients grow as well. But that's Talenom at a glance. When it comes to our services and revenue streams as well, we have core services, accounting services, payroll services, and account receivable services. And these are highly recurring, and that's of course, positive. But in addition to these core services, we have also different kind of value-added services, such as HR services or legal services or, let's say, business intelligence services.
And we see these value-added services important in basically a couple of ways. First of all, they are important source of growth for us now and in the future as well. Secondly, they are important in terms of customer retention. That is why we are focusing on this in addition to, of course, this our core. We have also industry-focused solutions for different selected industries. That is our service portfolio. Revenue comes from services, and the type of revenue is highly recurring. Last point when it comes to these, our markets where we operate. We have three operating areas, Finland, Sweden and Spain. We are not looking to expand into new areas or countries during near future.
Basically, here is the reason when we are looking markets, we have a lot of room for growth in all our operating countries, and we believe that we can grow remarkably in all these countries, during upcoming years. Market-wise, the structure of accounting market is pretty similar in all countries, Finland, Sweden and Spain. We can recognize this fragmentation and then also this consolidation trend in all countries. But the main point is that we operate in these three countries, and we see great growth opportunities in all our operating countries. That was a short summary about Talenom, and let us then move into the Q2. Here are some highlights, and then I will comment our strategic development as well. Starting from the summary, this Q2 was the first full reporting period for the new Talenom after the split with Easor.
Overall, I would like to say that it was positive in many ways, and we made good progress in multiple areas and in our main KPIs during the start of this year and Q2 as well. Many things are going and many KPIs into a right direction, and we are super happy on that, and I am thankful for all our personnel of that hard work around this. During the review period, we continued the implementation of ONE Talenom concept, which is really central part of our strategy as we have communicated. We also worked around these country-specific growth strategies a lot. When it comes to software strategy, I would like to say that good progress around that, and we believe that this new software neutral approach for this new Talenom, it is opening significant growth potential for the future.
Overall, I would like to say that positive quarter and I am super thankful for our personnel all the hard work around Q2. Here are our three main priority areas for this year, 2026, and I will now open how it is going in terms of these three areas. First of all, implementation of the new strategy in all countries as we have just started this new chapter of Talenom. Then improving profitability in Sweden and Spain, important as well. Then implementing growth strategies in all operating countries. But let us start from the first one. What it comes to strategy implementation during Q2, we continued systematic work with ONE Talenom concept in all our operating countries, and I would like to say that this implementation of new strategy is going as planned.
During Q2, we measured One Talenom index, which describes for us the degree of implementation of the ONE Talenom concept. We measure customer experience, customer satisfaction, and these both metrics are developing into the right direction, which we are super happy about. What it comes to this new software strategy, extremely important part of our strategy, also growth-wise. We made multiple collaboration agreements with several new system providers and as said, we believe that in long run, this will open up significant potential for us and initial experiences around this new software strategy are positive in the organization. Secondly, improving profitability in Sweden and Spain, starting from Sweden. In Sweden, we can see a positive profitability trend. I would like to say that Swedish management has done really hard and amazing work around profitability.
We are now definitely going in the right direction as well as in multiple other metrics such as customer experience, employee experience and One Talenom as well. As we know, we have adjusted our cost base in Sweden remarkably during this year. Now we can see effect on our figures and of course we are here building the base for future profitability for upcoming years as well. What it comes to Spain, comparable EBITDA was weighed down by acquisition integration costs and particularly this EUR 1.2 million impairment of trade receivables. It is worth emphasizing that profitability was in line with comparison period if we exclude this one time item, this impairment of trade receivables.
What it comes to these integration costs in Spain, we have a really, I would like to say, solid plan in place to improve profitability and cut these integration costs in the future. Maybe this profitability trend and our development in Sweden is something that is really positive for us. Thirdly, implementation of growth strategies in all operating countries. We continued work around these growth strategies in all our operating countries and we really believe, and we have good indicators that this product software offering will open over time, really good and significant growth potential for us. Also, what it comes to growth, something we want to communicate and emphasize that the market conditions in Finland, they have been really challenging and they weigh on our growth towards the end of the year.
In any case, we continue systematic work to support our long-term growth and our sales team in Finland has done really good work in these challenging market conditions and we want to focus where we can and we can focus on our actions and we believe that over time market will support our growth as well as this new software strategy. What it comes to second part of our growth, acquisitions. We executed two acquisitions during review period in Spain for this second quarter. That about strategy implementation and these three main areas for this year. Here is the summary of our financial figures. Comparable net sales, it grew a bit, 2.8%. That is EUR 30.6 million. EBITDA, it is important to emphasize that comparable EBITDA declined slightly due this impairment of trade receivables in Spain and was EUR 5.8 million.
Operating profit you can see from the right-hand side. Matti will comment on open figures now next in a bit more detailed level. Thank you at this point.
Thanks, Juho. Let's jump to the financial key figures and in my slides, I will focus to our continuing operations and comparable financial figures. Let's start from group's comparable net sales. Our growth was 2.8% in Q2, and net sales was EUR 30.6 million. This growth came from Finland and Spain. In Sweden, our growth was negative. Group's comparable EBITDA was EUR 5.8 million in Q2 and 18.9% of revenue. The profitability development in Finland and Sweden was positive and was impacting positively to our profitability. On the other hand, this non-recurring impairment in Spain was impacting negatively to our profitability. Group's operating profit was EUR 2.3 million and 7.7% of net sales. This development is in line with our EBITDA development. Depreciations were approximately at the same level with the comparison period. Let's jump to the country-specific key figures.
In Finland, our growth was 1.4% and net sales was EUR 18.7 million in Q2. This growth was entirely organic, and we still see in Finland that this economical situation is challenging our growth actions. Related to these challenges, we see that customer churn is a little bit higher than normally, and also we see markdowns due the lower level of activities in our customer companies. It's great to see these positive signs from the Finland's economic growth, and it's meaning that in our business, the impacts will be happened with a delay. So that's of course positive for the future. The profitability in Finland was strong. Comparable EBITDA in Q2 was EUR 5.7 million and 30.2% of net sales. The business performed very well. On the other hand, we have adjusted our resources and costs to meet this challenging growth environment.
There were also some timing differences of expenses between the quarters, and that was also impacting positively to this development in EBITDA. In Sweden, we see that our growth was -9.9%, and net sales was EUR 5.9 million. We had high customer churn in Sweden in 2025, and this is still impacting to our net sales development. On the other hand, we all the time see that this trend from the new customers and customer churn is going to the right trend, and we expect that it will also impact to our net sales development in the later phase. Comparable EBITDA in Sweden was EUR 0.7 million and 11.6% of net sales. We have continued these cost adjustments and profitability actions in Sweden, and we are very happy to see this positive trend in terms of profitability.
Of course, we continue these actions, and we expect that we are on track to achieve positive EBITDA in Sweden in this year. We jump to Spain figures. The growth was 26.2% in Spain, and net sales EUR 5.9 million. We have made four acquisitions in Spain after Q2 2025, and most of the quarter's growth come via these acquisitions. We also continued steady performance with our new customer acquisition, and it's meaning that it's also supporting our growth during this year and in the future. Comparable EBITDA in Spain was -EUR 0.6 million and -9.4% of net sales. We have integration costs and also increase in fixed software-related costs, which are impacting negatively to our profitability development. In additional for that, this non-recurring impairment of trade receivables is impacting significantly to our profitability development in Q2. Next, we jump to outlook and guidance.
We expect that our net sales will be from EUR 110 million- EUR 120 million and comparable EBITDA from EUR 18million- EUR 22 million. Our guidance is unchanged. Now we jump to the questions.
Hi, all. We have some questions online. Let's get started. Is there any of that Spanish EUR 1.2 million write-down still collected? Can it still be collected or is it all gone?
Yeah, of course, it's possible that there is some opportunities to collect them, but there is high risk for them, and that's the reason that we have made this write-down.
Yeah. So what is included in the EUR 2.4 million software and digital investments now when we are a service company? What is those?
Yeah. We are still continuing our investments related to our automation processes and also different AI improvements, for example.
It is also worth mentioning that during this review period, we finalized this final report for our clients, like AI packed report. So that is one
Yeah
item there where we have invested in the future as well. We are going to develop digital solutions such as AI solutions too, in line with our strategy.
Yeah. Do we have any results seen now from bringing the Fortnox back? Is it bringing any results?
Well, I think we are now talking about Sweden here. We don't have this kind of projects bringing some software back or so. We always want to find what is the best solution for our clients, and sometimes it might be Easor, sometimes it might be Fortnox. Sometimes it might be some other solution. We always start from a client perspective. That's our strategy and it's true that Fortnox, it's really good and important software for us in Sweden.
Yes. When do you expect the international acquisitions to improve margins?
Well, if we start from Sweden, I think we have been quite clear with that. We are now looking this positive EBITDA and working hard around that target. When it comes to Spain, I think there where we have done our recent acquisitions, there's a lot of different kind of integration costs and it's not only one thing. It includes software costs and broker costs and different kind of personal costs from HR and other support functions. Of course, we have a plan in place how to reduce that cost over time. In Spain as well, our target is that positive EBITDA for this year.
Yeah. Do we have any more acquisitions coming from this year?
Well, as said, in our growth strategy, we have two components.
Organic growth and acquisitions. Maybe that's something I would like to highlight, that we are never doing acquisitions only because of growth. We are super selective, and we want them to fit well and create long-term value for owners.
Yeah. Next one, did you transfer price any Finland profits to Sweden, or was this just local improvement?
Yeah, good question. These improvements are, of course, local. The Swedish management has done very great work there, and we have made many local improvements in our costs and also this financial performance as well.
Something I would like to highlight from Sweden, this great work that local management has done, and it is not only this profitability. It is of course super positive that now we can see it in financial figures, but also around customer experience, employee experience, and this new strategy and ONE Talenom. Great work from Team Sweden.
Yeah. One more in Sweden. Revenue is still down about 10%, so has new customer acquisitions already exceeded our churn? Or what is the realistic timeline for revenue to come to growth?
Yeah. As we have communicated, it is like this net growth. It is going the right direction. There are differences between months. Trend is still positive. It is definitely going the right direction. We had previous year really high churn, and now when thinking about different growth elements, churn-wise, we are really progressing as planned, and we are really happy with that development. Now, we are focusing more on accelerating sales and improving sales levels. We have made, during the spring, some assessment in the organization as well to support our, accelerate our growth and sales in the future. But all in all, we do not promise any specific date for this, but we are going to right direction, as Matti also said.
Yeah. One more question. Has Finland and Sweden's recent economic recovery been visible in your monthly results?
Well, when it comes to volumes, which is quite a concrete way to measure this activity, we don't yet see that positive trend. But we are super happy to hear this news now from multiple different sources of this economical situation in Finland and Sweden as well. And we really believe that that will boost our sales and growth. To me, it seems that as we have now been working around this new software strategy and our sales teams in both countries have been working super hard, we are more ready when we get a bit boost from the market as well. So quite confident with that.
Yes. Thank you, guys. That's all for the online questions, so
Okay. Thanks everyone for joining this review. Thank you.
Thank you very much.