Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the presentation of Schibsted's Q1 results. As usual, Kristin, our CEO, and Ragnar, our CFO, will present progress and results for the first quarter. At the end of the presentation, we will open for a Q&A session with a hard stop at 10:15 A.M. For those of you who want to send in written questions, please go to slido.com and enter the event code here, which you can see on the first slide. With that, please let me hand over to Kristin.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to the presentation of Schibsted's results for the first quarter. As usual, I will run you through the most important things from our operations before Ragnar will present our financials in more detail. Before I comment on the quarter, let me take a step back as I and my executive team acknowledge that Schibsted is heavily impacted by the increased uncertainty in the financial markets in general and the substantial repricing of the sector in particular. 2021 was an extraordinary year for us, both strategically and financially. Our financial results were record high, and we delivered both strong growth and profitability.
Looking back at our Q4 results that we presented in February, revenues continued to grow well, but EBITDA declined in the fourth quarter compared to the year before, and that is a trend which has continued into Q1. This decline is driven by higher investments, which is a clear and communicated choice as we expect that this will lead to more growth and value creation going forward. Objectives for these investments are to strengthen our positions and to secure growth as we outlined at our Capital Markets Day last year. Firstly, in Nordic Marketplaces, we focus on three factors: leverage our current positions, transform to transactional services, and expand and consolidate in the Nordics. In News Media, we focus on strengthening our digital news positions with a focus on subscription products.
In our other businesses, we work on strengthening our capabilities and market positions, so we can create new growth opportunities through organic and inorganic investment. Our Q1 results show that we have made good progress within several of these strategic key areas. Firstly, within Nordic Marketplaces, we have good progress leveraging our current position with focus on product offering and pricing with real estate package offering in Norway as the newest example. Progress on transactional has been a bit slower, but Nettbil's performance over the last two years is a clear example of the good potential here, and we're also making good progress both in Generalist and Motors. In News Media, we deliver continued good revenue growth. It's driven by digital advertising and growth in subscriptions, which is key in the continued transformation to fully digital media organizations.
In eCommerce & Distribution, this is an area that has seen impressive growth over the last three years, and the current slowdown was warranted given the COVID bump that we saw last year this time. Despite the current slowdown, we do expect good growth potential from 2023 and onwards, and we have high focus on the profitability of that business. I think it's also important to highlight that these investments also support our News Media business as the growth in eCommerce & Distribution enable us to operate our print media business in a more cost-efficient way. This is still an important source of revenues and profit. We have not built eCommerce & Distribution from scratch. We have built it on the back of our legacy newspaper distribution.
Within Financial Services and Ventures, we have and will continue our strategy to create new growth opportunities through organic and inorganic investments. Nettbil and Podme are two great examples of companies which were initiated by our venture team over the last few years. At the same time, we started last year to streamline our portfolio of companies, which once started as venture investments, but where we no longer consider us as the best owner going forward. An example for this is the sale of Let's Deal, Møteplassen, and Kundkraft, which we executed last year. In the same context, we have announced a strategic review of Prisjakt, and we will announce a strategic review of Lendo also later today.
While these investments come with higher costs, we are confident that they will put us in a better position, securing growth and increasing value in the longer term. Meanwhile, we are aware that there needs to be a balance between cost and profitability in the shorter term, and particularly in these uncertain times. Based on our progress in the first quarter, our plans and our current macroeconomic trends, we target a full year 2022 EBITDA for the group in line with last year. Lastly, but very importantly, I can assure you that we, and especially myself, spend a huge amount of time on Adevinta to make sure that we manage that asset in the best possible way.
Despite the temporary headwinds, particularly within motors, we remain confident that Adevinta is well-positioned as the largest pure-play classifieds business in the Western world. As I said last time, we built that company over a long period of time, and we remain as a committed owner focusing on shareholder value. Over time, however, we will seek to reduce our exposure to Adevinta as we acknowledge that Schibsted's market capitalization is too much exposed to Adevinta. In the shorter term, we have only limited possibility to reduce our share due to lockup restrictions that last until October next year.
Okay, moving to the first quarter and looking at the financial highlights, we see that revenues grew by an underlying 7%, compared to that same period last year, while EBITDA ended at NOK 480 million, and that is a decrease compared to a strong first quarter last year. One thing that clearly stands out is Marketplaces Norway, our biggest operation in Nordic Marketplaces, uniquely positioned with leadership positions in all key verticals. Marketplaces Norway delivered yet again exceptional performance with revenue growth of 35% compared to last year and an EBITDA increase of 46% to NOK 392 million in this quarter, this first quarter. This was driven by strong growth across all verticals, including real estate.
In News Media, revenues continued to perform well in the first quarter with an underlying revenue growth of 5%, and that is thanks to digital advertising and digital subscriptions. Lastly, I want to highlight Lendo, which delivered once more strong underlying revenue growth in the first quarter. If we then have a look at our ESG highlights, as in earlier years, we have calculated the environmental effect of secondhand trade on our marketplaces for 2021. By facilitating secondhand trade, we empower circular consumption, which is a necessary solution to reduce one of the biggest challenges for the planet being overconsumption. As an example of our Nordic Marketplaces, FINN, Blocket and Tori, we helped our users prolong the lifetime of 300,000 tons of steel in 2021, and that actually corresponds to 40 Eiffel Towers.
We are pleased that people in the Nordics have realized that our marketplaces are part of the solution for the planet, and we are thrilled that FINN was ranked number one overall in Norway in the Sustainable Brand Index for 2022. This is Europe's largest brand study on sustainability and measures the perception of stakeholders on a brand's sustainability across industries. Our Finnish site, Tori, ranked number one in one of the industries in Finland as well. If we then move to the societal impact and continue to brag about our achievements, we can tell you that our Norwegian newspapers won three out of four possible SKUP awards for their high-quality journalism recently. The SKUP Award is the most prestigious award Norwegian journalists can receive for investigative journalism, and this year's result is one of the best ever for our media houses.
Makes me very proud, actually. Journalism plays an important role in supporting democracy by sharing knowledge, creating awareness, and uncovering the truth. You can read about two of the stories in our sustainability report. Some of our newspapers, as we speak, have journalists and photographers out there reporting, and risking their lives, in Ukraine, shedding light on the atrocities taking place there. In this terrible situation, we're also offering Ukrainian job seekers, especially IT professionals, a fast-track recruitment with a relocation package to get them started. If they want to move back after the war is over, they will be able to continue to work remotely for us. The response for this initiative has been overwhelming. We have received 105 open applications so far. We are working on matching them with open positions.
15 people have been through the process so far, and we have already hired two candidates. It is a pleasure to welcome new employees to Schibsted, where we once again have great results in our quarterly employer engagement survey, where we continue to deliver above our ambitious goals. We are delighted to see that employees are happy with us as an employer because we can never be better than the sum of our people. We are especially pleased that we have an attrition rate for data and tech employees that are at the low end if we compare to what we see in the market. Moving to governance, our Sustainability Report '21 is published in both a long and a short version, where you'll find disclosure on the EU taxonomy and a separate TCFD report.
You'll find it on schibsted.com under Sustainability, and I recommend reading all about how we did in 2021 and the new ambitious targets we have set for ourselves for this year. Finally, on governance, we have renewed our code of conduct, and that will very soon be published. Okay, let me start with presenting the development of our business in more detail, and we start with Nordic Marketplaces. Looking at the financial results for Nordic Marketplaces, Q1 was another strong quarter, driven by this exceptional performance in Norway. Following the closing at the end of June last year, the numbers for our Danish operations are included in the Q1 2022 numbers, and that affects the growth positively.
Though the 19% revenue growth, which is presented in the left graph, shows the underlying revenue development, including pro forma figures for Denmark revenues, so that is on a constant currency basis and gives you better comparability. EBITDA margin for the segment ended at 38%. It's below last year, driven by lower margins in Sweden and Finland and the consolidation of Denmark, which has lower margins than Norway and Sweden. Despite strong performance in Nordic Marketplaces over the last quarters, we are now looking into possibilities to further accelerate our execution and growth. Marketplace industry trends show increased verticals specialization and potential. In Schibsted, we have increased scale now following the integration of the Finnish and Danish assets, and we are uniquely positioned with strong vertical positions across the Nordic markets.
To unleash our full vertical potential, we have decided to strengthen cross Nordic collaboration and to start working more along this vertical dimension. As a start, we're now taking two immediate steps. We are establishing one common unit to focus on new and disruptive initiatives across the Nordics, like Nettbil or car subscriptions. Secondly, we establish common Nordic vertical strategies, and this work will be led by the current leadership team, where they will have a responsibility for a Nordic vertical in addition to their country dimension. Looking at the quarterly performance, Norway stands out, as I said, delivering an exceptionally strong quarter, both in terms of revenue and EBITDA. Top line increased by 35%, EBITDA increased by 46% to NOK 392 million.
While Jobb was yet again the main driver for the strong performance, all key verticals and advertising revenues continued to grow well in Norway. Motors continued to show strong growth, 29%. It's driven by Nettbil, but also by higher car volumes on Finn, especially at the beginning of the quarter. Real estate continued to show decreasing volumes. This is due to new regulations related to the sale of houses, where they now require more extensive checks of houses before you can sell. However, thanks to an increase in ARPA as a result of our new product offering that was launched in January, revenues grew by 13%. The travel vertical saw a solid bounce back with a year-on-year revenue growth of NOK 14 million and advertising revenues were up 21%, certainly with the travel industry as a good contributor.
Costs increased, driven by higher marketing spend and also personnel costs compared to last year, and the latter will continue to increase as we now have high focus on hiring tech resources to drive the necessary product developments. The EBITDA margin ended at a very strong 54%, again, driven by revenue mix with high contributions. Okay, let me spend a bit of time on Nettbil, which is the leading C2B player for used car sales in Norway. Since we acquired this asset in December 2019, we have not given many updates, and that's due to the fact that we've been having this court case with the Norwegian Competition Authority. The appeal court ruled in our favor at the end of March, and this week we will know if the Norwegian Competition Authority will appeal this case further to the Supreme Court of Norway.
Looking at the service, consumers simply register on the website and afterwards, Nettbil does the bulk of the work, including testing of the car with external test centers. They create an ad, and then they let dealers all over Norway bid on its platform to give the seller the best possible price. This whole process is normally conducted within a working day. Over the last two years, Nettbil has delivered a very strong performance. Volumes have tripled. Revenues increased from NOK 67 million in 2020 to NOK 128 million in 2021, and we see that customer satisfaction remains high. The gross margin for Nettbil is around 50%, and EBITDA was slightly positive in 2021. We have also seen that Nettbil share of ownership changes has increased from around 1.6% in Q1 2021 to around 2.6% in Q1 2022.
This is good progress, but also shows that there should be good potential to grow this further. Moving to Sweden, similar to previous quarters, we see that Jobs saw good trends, growing volumes by 56% year-on-year. That's driven by strong markets with higher volumes, but also increased ARPA. As most other markets globally, Motors continue to be affected by the car supply shortage. Both new car registrations and used car volumes dropped heavily from last year, affecting volumes for both private and professional customers. However, the ARPA growth offset this volume decline, leading to a 1% increase in Motors revenues compared to the same period last year. Similar to Q4, the Generalist business was affected by lower volumes and lower simplified listing fees across categories in preparation for the transition to a transactional model.
That full transition is planned for this quarter and is one reason for higher cost as we have increased the number of dedicated resources working on upgrading our platform to allow for that move. In Q1 this year, we also increased marketing spend compared to last year in which it was unusually low. As a result of this, EBITDA margin declined year on year, ended at 35% in the first quarter. Let's move to Finland, where we saw a 5% revenue growth in the first quarter, primarily driven by increased volumes in jobs, but also real estate and motors show good growth considering the economic uncertainty that we have in Finland. Advertising revenues were down year on year, but showed improvements at the end of the quarter, and we expect advertising revenues to pick up this second quarter.
Other revenues continued to be affected by COVID restrictions in Q1, and it was too early to run physical events, which has been part of the business there. On the cost side, we have ramped up product and tech resources to further improve our product development, and in addition, we continue to invest in marketing. Actually, in order to take advantage of low marketing activity in the market, we have front-loaded some marketing spend within real estate from the second half of this year to the first quarter. Due to lower advertising revenues and this deliberate phasing of marketing, the margin ended at minus 7% this quarter, but we expect positive double-digit margin for the full year based on the current trends and the plans that we have.
Moving finally to Denmark, the presented numbers on this slide show a like-for-like comparison, including pro forma numbers for 2020 and 2021 before Schibsted took over the ownership. Total revenues declined by 7% compared to Q1 last year, and that's due to the headwinds from market conditions affecting the business. Motors, the biggest revenue source, decreased year-on-year by 7% due to lower volumes as the car supply challenges continued to impact dealer supply. The volume decline was somewhat mitigated by growth in our ARPA. The revenue decline in the Generalist vertical was 16% in the first quarter, and this is driven by lower shipping revenues. The first quarter last year was an exceptionally strong quarter, though, due to the COVID lockdowns that we had.
Then traffic and listings have seen a correction this quarter, also affecting advertising as inventory levels declined, driving the overall decline in traffic on DBA. The EBITDA margin ended at 70%. That's down year-over-year and driven by these headwinds that we see from market conditions. It's a lot of talk. I am coming to News Media. From the morning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, most of our media houses saw an increase in traffic to an extent that we have really never been close to seeing before. I think this serves as a reminder of the importance of News Media in general and the objective, faithful, and occasionally dangerous reporting that our media operations provide at this time of crisis.
Especially in the absence of a free and independent press in the country perpetrating the atrocities currently being carried out in Ukraine, our news brands play a more vital role in our society than ever. Looking at the financials, News Media continued its good revenue trend with an underlying revenue growth of 5%, which was driven by continued growth in digital advertising due to higher inventory and prices and a continued strong growth in our digital subscriptions. As expected, cost increased compared to Q1 last year. This is driven by continued investments in new strategic initiatives across our brands with a focus on content to unleash more of News Media's revenue potential. Of course, we had paper prices, which increased significantly compared to last year.
As a result, EBITDA margin declined compared to first quarter last year, which was exceptionally strong. If we then have a closer look at the main revenue streams in News Media, first, subscriptions. Total underlying revenues grew by 6% year-on-year in the first quarter. Digital subscription revenues continued to have the good growth at 16%. Our podcast subscription service, Podme, contributed with solid growth, along with a healthy growth in our news brands, where revenue growth was driven by growth in both volumes and ARPU. Advertising had a solid start to the year and continued to see substantial growth in digital advertising revenues in both Norway and Sweden. Thus, that is despite facing very strong comparable figures from March last year.
On a constant currency basis, total advertising revenues in the first quarter were the highest since the first quarter in 2018. A reason for the strong performance was the mentioned strong traffic increase in February, leading to inventory growth, and our fill rates continue to be high. This benefits particularly Aftonbladet and VG, as they have the largest volume of inventory. Let's have a look at Podme. I know many are interested in this. As we outlined at our Capital Markets Day last year, we consider podcasts as an important and promising strategic initiative within the subscriptions for news media. We are pleased to see that Podme, our premium audio subscription product, is progressing well both in volumes and revenues. Podme was initially a venture investment, and we took control and integrated the company into our news media division in June last year.
While the service started in Sweden, it's now also rolled out to Norway and Finland and has passed more than 170,000 paying subscribers in May. We see that podcast and content investments are driving high levels of conversions and increasing subscriber engagement, and this results in steady growth and high retention. Let's move to eCommerce and distribution, which consists of the legacy newspaper distribution and the new business operations, mainly being Helthjem Netthandel and Morgenlevering. Compared to strong Q1 numbers last year, we did see an overall revenue decline for the segment, mainly driven by lower parcel volumes in the market. The whole eCommerce space in which Helthjem and Morgenlevering operate experienced strong growth last year, which was accelerated by COVID-related restrictions. A correction, which we see as temporary, was warranted.
Looking at average quarterly growth from Q1 2019 to Q1 this year, revenues increased by an impressive 58% on average, and we expect continued good revenue growth again from 2023 and onwards. EBITDA ended lower compared to Q1 last year with a negative margin of 3%. That's driven by the decline in revenue and also the fact that we have higher costs due to our capacity expansion. Let's finally move to Financial Services & Ventures, consisting of brands like Lendo and Prisjakt, in addition to other digital services where we either have a majority or minority ownership. In the Financial Services & Ventures segment, Lendo had yet another strong quarter with 19% underlying revenue growth, driven by Sweden and Norway with increased application volumes.
Overall, revenues in this segment were up 4% on a foreign exchange neutral basis when we adjust previous years for sold operations such as Let's Deal. If you look at Prisjakt, revenues declined 11% on a foreign exchange neutral basis compared to last year. This is driven by the lower traffic and click revenues. However, this is somewhat better than the general decline in the eCommerce space seen in both Sweden and in other markets. If we look at numbers from Svensk Handel, the Swedish eCommerce market declined 13% in the first quarter, and the home electronics category, which is Prisjakt's largest category, it fell by 25% in that same period. The strategic review of Prisjakt is well on track, and it should be finalized in the second half of this year.
We have the SMB group operating Mitt Anbud in Norway and Servicefinder in Sweden. These are marketplace platforms for home improvement services. They strengthened their Nordic position in the first quarter by expanding into Denmark with the acquisition of 3byggetilbud.dk. Our venture activities, which are not consolidated in the segment's results, completed three new and six follow-on investments in the first quarter. Looking a bit more deeply into Lendo, good momentum, the same that we saw in the second half of last year, and we had this revenue growth of 19%. The growth in Sweden was mainly driven by continued strong growth in inflow, whereas in Norway, it was mainly driven by higher approval rates. The EBITDA margin somewhat down compared to the same quarter last year as investments in new products and expansion markets has been increased.
These expansion costs are expected to be on a similar level in 2022 as in 2021 and will be a combination of new and improved products in our existing market as well as geographical expansion. Looking at operations outside of the Nordics, we did shut down Austria permanently in the first quarter. Here is my final slide before I hand it over. We are gonna look at venture. We did a total of nine investments in the first quarter, six being follow-ons. Some highlights are that we participated in additional investment in the energy company Tibber. This should rather be seen as a financial investment though, not so much a venture investment. We did a follow-on investment in FundingPartner, which is Norway's largest crowd lending platform.
While uncertainty has lately not only increased in the stock market, it has also increased in the venture industry. We will continue to execute on our strategy to create new growth opportunities through inorganic investments as we are confident that they will put us in a better position and increase value in the longer term. The geographical focus for such investments will continue to be the Nordics. We will build on our strong marketplace and news operations as well as other categories close to our core, where we have competitive advantages from our capabilities, insights, and market reach.
However, as I mentioned at the beginning of my presentation, we are aware that there needs to be a balance between investments and profitability in the shorter term, particularly in these uncertain times, and we do take that into account when we look into our activity level going forward. With that, Ragnar, finally, I'm happy to hand it over to you so you can go through the financials for the quarter.
Thank you, Kristin. Let me give you some more details on our financials in the first quarter. I start with the consolidated results for the group. Revenue ended at NOK 3.65 billion, an underlying growth of 7% compared to Q1 last year, and 16% higher compared to the first quarter in 2021. The EBITDA was NOK 480 million, down 19% from a strong NOK 594 million last year, leading to an EBITDA margin of 13%. As described by Kristin at the start of the presentation, the reduced EBITDA is driven by higher investments across our businesses, which is a clear choice, as we expect that this will lead to more growth and value creation going forward.
This is also combined with temporarily lower costs in cost levels in the first quarter last year. In the graph to the right, you can see the EBITDA split per segment, where the Nordic Marketplaces increased by NOK 83 million compared to last year, despite the increased cost into marketing and product and tech developments. The EBITDA increase is driven by FINN, which increased the EBITDA year-on-year by NOK 163 million, while Sweden, Finland, and the Nordic Marketplaces headquarters saw a decrease in EBITDA compared to last year. Denmark contributed with NOK 14 million, but was not part of the group in Q1 last year. As expected, News Media saw a decrease in EBITDA compared to a strong Q1 last year, driven by higher paper prices and investment in strategic initiatives to secure the longer-term growth.
The decline in eCommerce & Distribution was driven by lower revenues as a result of lower parcel volumes in the B2C market, in combination with higher costs related to increased capacity and cost for exploring various eCommerce initiatives. In Financial Services & Ventures, EBITDA ended below last year, driven by increased marketing and development costs in Lendo and the revenue decline in Prisjakt. Other and Headquarters had a negative EBITDA of NOK 59 million in Q1, an increased loss of NOK 16 million compared to the same period last year, primarily related to the establishment of an ongoing project within the group's CIO function. Looking closer at our income statement for the first quarter. Operating profit for the quarter ended at NOK 184 million. Other expenses mainly relate to the integration of the acquired operation in Marketplaces Denmark.
Effective Q1 2022, P&L effects related to investments in joint ventures and associated companies is presented below operating profit. The updated presentation enables Schibsted to report an operating profit which better reflects the results of our business activities and is also gathering the presentation of our financial investments together with our investments whose changes in fair value is reported as financial items. Comparable information was restated accordingly, which means that the presented numbers provide a like-for-like comparison. Q1 is affected by a NOK 13.5 billion impairment loss recognized to reflect the decline in share price in Adevinta between the end of December and March, and the corresponding market value decline in our holding in the company. Operating cash flow from continuing operations decreased by 55% compared to the same quarter last year.
The decrease is primarily related to the reduced EBITDA and increased working capital, partly offset by reduced tax payments. The negative development in working capital is largely attributable to temporary effects related to implementation of a new group-wide ERP system. Capital expenditures were up 67% in Q1 compared to last year, mainly due to the increased investments in Nordic Marketplaces as the main driver. During the first quarter, we successfully issued new bonds of in total NOK 1 billion, a 5.5-year bond of NOK 600 million, and a 7-year bond of NOK 400 million. However, as we have the bridge loan and bonds falling due within the next 18 months, we have completed more refinancing activities during April and the beginning of May. In April, Schibsted partly repaid the bridge loan from NOK 2.8 billion down to NOK 2.3 billion.
On third May, meaning yesterday, Schibsted signed a new 2+1-year term loan agreement of NOK 2 billion with our core bank group. The new loan will be used to repay most of those outstanding bridge loan, and the remaining balance of up to NOK 300 million will be extended by 6 months. The consent from our banks of a temporary waiver of our financial covenants still stands until the bridge loan is fully repaid. The revolving credit facility is extended by one year to July 2027, and we may extend the same facility by one more year, meaning a final maturity in July 2028. I will say that the changes secures a well-diversified loan portfolio, both in terms of maturity profile and lenders.
Our financial gearing is temporarily somewhat higher due to M&A activities during the first quarter, but still within the target range of 1-3. The undrawn credit facility secures a strong liquidity buffer for the group going forward. I will end the presentation with our financial targets and policies and some comments on the outlook for 2022. Our overall financial targets remain unchanged. For Nordic Marketplaces, we remain confident that the growth potential and our medium to long term target to grow annual revenues by 8%-12% for this segment. Based on our progress in the first quarter, our plans and current macroeconomic trends, revenue growth in 2022 is expected to be in the upper range of this 8%-12%.
The high growth ambitions and transformation towards transactional marketplaces will require investments, as Kristin also elaborated on, mainly related to product and technology as well as marketing spend. As these costs occur, this will temporarily lead to limited operational leverage across our marketplaces. This is clearly visible in the Q1 numbers in Sweden, and as already mentioned in the Q4 presentation in February, we expect to see margin decline in 2022 compared to the 42% full year EBITDA margin in Sweden, driven by the combined investments mentioned and also the transformation to a fully transactional model in Sweden, leading to a removal of listing fees. In Finland, despite a weak EBITDA in Q1, we target a positive double-digit margin for the full year based on current trends and plans.
In News Media, we expect an annual low single-digit revenue growth in the medium term and a medium-term EBITDA margin in the range of 10%-12%. Shorter term, the strategic content investments made to strengthen News Media's positions and revenue potential will be dilutive to News Media's EBITDA margin over the next 1-3 years with around 2 percentage points based on current plans. This is resulting in an EBITDA margin in the lower end of our margin range for 2022. Within Financial Services & Ventures, the strategic review of Prisjakt, which was announced in February, is on track and should be finalized in the second half of the year. Our biggest operation in this segment, Lendo, has built leading positions in the Nordics as a leading digital marketplace for financial products.
Over the last years, Lendo has started to expand outside of the Nordics while still delivering strong financial results. While the company is well-positioned for further growth on the back of significant investments made over the last years, we see interesting opportunities in further international expansion and the ongoing industry consolidation. In this context, we have decided to initiate a strategic review of the business in line with the Prisjakt process, with the aim to maximize the company's potential and value creation. Finally, looking at the group in total, repeating what Kristin mentioned in the beginning, we target a full year 2022 EBITDA for the group in line with 2021 based on the progress in the first quarter, our plans and current macroeconomic trends. With that, let's go over to the Q&A.
Okay. We'll start with a few questions on the web from Slido. If anyone here in the room has questions, we have a microphone, so please raise your hand, and then we can also take questions here today. If we start with the first questions here on Adevinta, there is a question like. What are the conditions you consider when evaluating a potential sale of Adevinta shares? And at which valuation would you consider to sell shares? And if you would sell shares, how much of these proceeds will be used for dividends or returns to shareholders?
I don't think I should go into very much detail about that, but I think it's important to consider our very long-term perspective at Adevinta. We built this company up over many, many years, and we are fully aware of the true value of that company. Let me just maybe say those remarks, and that will be important to us when we consider how to handle and value maximize a potential future exit of Adevinta. I think it will also depend a bit on the timing and the conditions when this happened, how we will distribute a potential proceed from such a sale. I think we will have to come back to that. It's impossible at this time to be very specific about it.
Of course, we will have a good dialogue with our main shareholders and make sure that we are musical and in tune with their expectations.
Maybe like a follow-up question related to this. It seems like valuation for Schibsted is rather low. Share price also down 5%, as we speak. Are you considering to do more aggressive buybacks going forward in comparison to allocating capital to, for example, venture investments or organic investments? Or would you even consider, for example, to divest non-core assets to buybacks going forward?
We agree that it's an attractive time to do share buybacks.
Before we move on Slido, are there any questions here, in the room? I think we have plenty of questions on Slido, so we'll just continue here. Could you please help us understand what kinds of costs will come down in the rest of the year to make us more confident about the flat year-on-year development on EBITDA for 2022, which you highlight in your presentation?
I can say a little bit on that. I think if you look at the, let's say, the cost development and also the EBITDA through normal quarters, there are seasonal effects sort of in our EBITDA result, particularly News Media. Q1 last year was an exceptionally strong quarter, important to mention that. When we guide on the overall EBITDA, the target EBITDA for the year, then we still sort of maintain then that, as I said, that we will sort of be within the 10%-12% range for News Media.
We also expect increased profitability and performance in the marketplaces in Finland, and also we'll expect to see somewhat better performance in Sweden due to the sort of heavy front-loading of the cost due to the changes that are done there. Then in general, we are taking measures to adjust, let's say, the activity level somewhat to curb the cost development to support the EBITDA target for the year.
Moving on to News Media. There's a question on how much paper price increased in Q1 in comparison to last year, and also when you guide on the lower end 10%-12% margin range for News Media and for the EBITDA target for the group for the full year, if this kind of increase is factored in here.
Yeah, I don't have the exact figure for Q1 for paper, but it's estimated to be an effect of about NOK 55-NOK 60 million for the full year, and then you can more or less get the range that increase is in. What was the second part?
Like if we factor the higher paper prices in, if we think about the margin for News Media for our expected years.
Yes.
Yeah. Looking at Q1, the impact was roughly NOK 17 million. Like Kristin said, that's in line with the NOK 60 million for the full year. Moving on to Nordic Marketplaces for Kristin. Nettbil, the question is like, is that factored in the FINN numbers which we present? And then can you comment on like how much is the revenue impact or increase here in Nettbil for FINN numbers?
Yes, the Nettbil numbers are factored into the FINN numbers, and I think Kristin showed the gross margins for Nettbil. I think you can probably calculate it out of that.
I think also if you look at the revenues, I think what we presented today, the full year was NOK 128 million for 2021, then Q1 was roughly NOK 44 million in revenues from Nettbil. And there is also like a follow-up question here on Slido, like, okay, the increase in Motors is in Finn. How much is it related to the good performance in Nettbil, and how much is it related to like the more like classical Motors revenues in Finn? It's similar to last quarter, roughly like two-thirds of the increase in Motors in Finn is related to Nettbil, with roughly NOK 20 million increase year-on-year, and like one-third is like the more classical Finn Motors revenues in Q1. Moving on to jobs in Finn.
How should we think about the growth going forward? You really had like good performance over the last quarters, and now you're meeting like stronger comparables on the volume side. Is there any tailwind on pricing or mix, or how should we think for the rest of the year here?
Yes. Is it working?
Yes.
Yeah. We have seen a great growth in Jobs due to the bounce back. During last year and also into Q1 this year, a lot of the growth came from the bounce back after the pandemic. But we are meeting tougher comparables, but those started already in March because that's when this started last year. We are continuing the growth, but the volume growth is naturally going to taper off somewhat going forward.
Moving a bit on to Lendo. Today we announced a strategic review for that business. Can you provide some more color on the timeline? What is really the path which you would prefer? And if there would be proceeds from a sale, if you have any comment how we should think around that?
Yeah. Starting with the timeline, I think, the ambition is that we will sort of be able to, let's say, carry out the process through sort of by the end of this year, more or less, within 8-9 months. It's important to say that sort of that process might have sort of more than one outcome, even though, of course, one of them, those might be that we end up selling Lendo. It's then sort of, as Kristin also mentioned, a little bit too early to say exactly sort of what we will then use the proceeds for.
Of course, in the present situation, the natural start would be to strengthen our balance sheet somewhat and also then repay debt, referring to what I also elaborated on our financials earlier in the presentation.
Maybe continuing with strategic reviews. Kristin, you mentioned as the process for Prisjakt is on track. Would you like to comment on what is here also the thinking? Is it more like a asset sale which you would prefer or an internal strategic change for the business going forward?
Well, again, for Prisjakt, there are several options, and we have had great interest, which is good news. You know, that could be anything from divestment to some sort of asset swap or partnering to strengthen positions in that field. It's a bit too early to say what directions. We are open for several solutions.
Going back to Nordic Marketplaces a little bit. We presented Nettbil today. How should we think about the motor strategy or the auto strategy for Norway with both having FINN and Nettbil? How do you think this can work together going forward? Do you think about a tight integration here and also bringing in, for example, car subscriptions or if you have any comments here?
Yes, I think Motors area is very exciting. There are many things going on in the Motors space, and we actually see a lot of new opportunities in this market. We still believe that the, let's say, the classic classifieds model is strong, and we can continue to grow that. You also then have new models like Nettbil, like car subscriptions, and we're also exploring models within more digital car buying and so on. There are going to be many exciting things happening going forward.
Maybe just staying with this, with transactions a little bit. There are people asking about, like, can you give, like, an update on the transformation to transactional when it comes to initiatives in Nordic Marketplaces? Also a question here, like, how should we think about, like, competition in the Generalist space? For example, Vinted has gained market share in France. If you can just, yeah, share your thinking on Nordic Marketplaces here.
Yes. We are investing quite a lot in transactional services because we believe that area is going to both increase our total addressable market and our take rate in the long run. We are making progress. We wish it could have gone a little bit faster than it's doing, but we are making positive progress in several areas. Just to give a couple of examples, I mean, Nettbil we've already talked about, of course. If we talk about C2C transactions for cars in Norway as an example, we're making progress there.
Through our service now, we have on a monthly basis around 3.5-4,000 cars signing digital contracts, about 1,200-1,400 cars through the ownership change, and maybe 600-800 actually doing the payment on our platform. There's progress there. In transactional in Generalist, we have now rolled it out to 100% of the volume in FINN. We are working to optimize the opt-in rate and also the seller, no, the buyer acceptance of this. Very good progress, I would say.
Um, and then-
With regards to competition, we don't see Vinted or any of those being active in the Nordics. There are, of course, local competition from things like Tise and so on in the fashion segment. But we have also done this investment in Plick, which is a fashion service for younger users. That's also quite exciting.
Maybe a follow-up on Sweden here. So today you announced, like, the full transition to a transactional model in Blocket. It seems like you plan to remove listing fees, if you can confirm this, and how you're planning to advertise that change in Blocket. How is the go-to-market strategy for that change? If you can comment on that already, or is it a bit too early?
Yes, I can comment on that. Sweden is the only asset in our portfolio that has had listing fees on the generalist, and I would say one of the few in the world that has continued to have that. We think that the transactional model is the future, and we think that by removing listing fees and replacing that with transactional fees, we will have a much better offer to users in the market, and we can increase volume in that way and just get a stronger position. I think the question was having the right assumptions in many ways.
Moving maybe back a little bit to venture investments. If you can share a little bit how do you think about these investments when it comes to competition for capital internally when it comes to hurdle rate? How do you make a decision to do buybacks in comparison to do venture investments?
Yeah. I mean, we're not spending that much on venture investments and over time it has given very good returns actually. Those have turned out in some to be very good investments. I do get the point now that given the current valuation of our share, that it is an attractive time to do share buybacks, and let me just say that we will take that with us going forward when we plan for our capital allocation.
Maybe I can one comment on that as well. I think it's important to also mention that sort of when you are into the, let's say, the venture business as we are, that is not a sort of an activity that you can sort of turn on and off exactly as you want. Sort of when you have entered into it and you have sort of you need to be part of the, let's say, a little bit of the continuing deal flow. Also we will have certain commitments, potential commitments to the company you already have invested in. Yes, of course it is possible to just sum up, and there will be a, let's say, a base investment within venture sort of as long as we sort of see the strategic importance of being there.
It's also a fact that, you know, being countercyclical, there could also be more attractive opportunities going forward. I think it's a fact that in an industry like ours where things develop so quickly, and although we have so many smart people working in Schibsted, not all the smart people work in Schibsted. You need to have a very good relation to the smartest entrepreneurs out there because they are very often at the forefront of what's happening, what's being developed. When we can have a strong and good relation with them and be a trusted partner with them, that in addition to providing good investments, it also gives us a very important inflow of ideas and market information that helps strengthen our core business. It's very important to state that.
Maybe just one follow-up on ventures here. Like, at the CMD last year, you said roughly NOK 300 million will be allocated on a yearly basis. Is it still the ballpark of investments which you plan for 2022? Would you be able to disclose how much you invested in Q1?
I can say that let's say we work to sort of keep the venture investments within the NOK 300 million sort of range, and that will also be the case for 2022. That is correct that we also have sort of, let's say, on a more case by case basis done sort of additional investments like Tibber is an example of. Then I but will also say that Tibber is more for us, more of a financial investment than sort of a classic venture investment. Of course, given the present sort of market situation and so on, we'll be quite careful with doing sort of the further such kind of investments sort of in 2022 until we see a sort of a different development on that side.
Quite a lot of questions today. Maybe going back to News Media. Can you comment a little bit like how much of the cost increase is related to like new investment initiatives and how much are like other cost increases?
Mm-hmm.
Maybe then also like a follow-up question, like the costs have increased in News Media due to like this content and investments. Is there a risk that these investments will lead to a new higher cost base, or this just like a more temporary effect for that business?
Yeah. No, I understand that question really well. Let me say, we said the NOK 17 million, that was the paper price. The bulk of the increase in cost is due to new initiatives. We have acquired a company called Fri Flyt, which is a vertical for extreme sports. We have the Podme investments. We have ramped up our investments in E24, the financial site. And we also have some other specifics, certainly, such as, for example, Aftenposten strengthening their efforts in covering the Oslo area. That is the bulk of it. Then some of it is more of a general cost increase because we were at artificially low numbers last year because of COVID. Like, no one met, no one took a taxi, no one flew anywhere.
I mean, just as when we have, you know, quite a large base of employees in News Media, just the sum of those small increases actually also add up a little bit. I would say it's more that that is now at the normal level. I have a very strong confidence in our management in News Media. They have shown amazing ability in having good operational control up until now, and there is no reason they shouldn't continue to have that. I think, delivering on those targeted results are in the best hands.
Going back to Nordic Marketplaces, if you can share a little bit like what are the current trends which you've seen in the start of Q2 a little bit, both looking at jobs because you have like strong comparables, but maybe also on real estate and motors.
Yes. I can say that the Jobs is continuing on a solid and strong trend still into this quarter.
Real estate is showing solid progress as well in Norway. In Norway, we also continue to do well in motors. Maybe somewhat softer volumes on the classifieds model, but Nettbil is continuing strongly. In Sweden and Denmark, there is still headwinds in the motors area due to the supply chain issues that is related to the new car sales. Yeah, I think that's sufficient. Good growth also in travel, I want to add as society is opening.
Two more Nordic Marketplaces. First one is from Denmark. Person here saying it seems like the acquisition has so far been disappointing. Do you have any plans for turnaround to bring the business back to growth? Second question on Blocket when it comes to transition for C2C, can you comment on the potential revenue impact that change to remove listing fees might have on 2022? Yes.
It's clear when it comes to Denmark that the current macro environment was not something we could foresee when we did that acquisition. Of course, in light of that, the numbers are a bit disappointing. We still believe that this is a very interesting market that we can grow in the future. I think already when we made the acquisition, we said quite clearly that it is an area where we have to do investments going forward. Over time, we think this will turn into a positive investment. In Sweden, yes, the transition from listing fees to transactional model will have a revenue impact. I think for this year we are estimating that the impact will be around SEK 50 million.
Going back to Prisjakt and maybe e-commerce in general. Q4 but also Q1 was impacted by negative development here. How confident are you that the e-commerce space will return to growth in 2023?
Yeah. I mean, I think you have to see through some of these, you know. I think the very high, let's say, unnaturally high growth and then now a bit of a down correction from COVID, that is more of a cyclical thing. The fundamental shift that we see happening is that there is a shift towards more commerce taking place online, and that's not gonna go away. It's very important that you're able to see through these short-term swings, not get over-optimistic when it goes up and not get too distraught when it goes down, but have an eye on the long-term trend. The long-term trend for e-commerce is that it's gonna grow.
We believe that with the assets we have and with a strong last mile strategic position, there are exciting opportunities to work our way up the value chain into more profitable positions. As we know, distribution will probably always be like a low-margin business. If we can use that to position ourselves further up the value chain, then that is an interesting opportunity. Let me also add this, I know there is a bit of a nervousness around this, that it's you know, having that business on top of our newspaper distribution is actually very good economics. It takes down the unit cost for our newspapers, and it means we don't have an entirely new network. We build, you know, we do it marginally on top of the existing infrastructure.
I do believe this is a sound thing for us to be doing.
Coming back to more like on a group question for EBITDA, can you please highlight how much EBITDA was negatively impacted by high investments in Q1, and how should we think about the rest of the year?
Yeah. We don't have sort of a concrete comment on exactly how much is sort of, let's say, growth investments and other investment. What we generally have said that a significant part of the increased costs is due to investments into very much on product and tech across all our businesses. Like in News Media, we had sort of a quite low activity level and hence also lower cost in the first quarter last year. The comparable is low. With respect to the level of investments, I think we are on the level now whereby we don't foresee any, let's say, further increased investment.
It's more that we have an activity level that we need to sort of potentially will maintain or partially sort of adjust to make sure then that we are supporting the overall EBITDA target for the year.
Two more questions currently. One is on the Nordic Marketplaces, if the midterm range for revenue growth 8%-12% also stands for 2022. The second question is on paper prices for News Media. You mentioned impact of NOK 60 million for 2022. How should we think about 2023 then?
I can comment on the Nordic Marketplaces. As I said, we sort of foresee an average over time and a growth of between 8% and 12%. Based on the, let's say, the performance in the first quarter and the current plans and market trends, we expect to be close to the upper part of the range in 2022. On the paper prices, I must admit I'm not so exactly sure of, sort of on the timing of the renegotiations. Of course, we are to some extent, like, let's say, exposed in 2022 to the, let's say, the current market prices on paper that will be there on for paper.
Okay. I don't see more questions in my inbox or on Slido. Just last try if there are any question here in the room. Otherwise, I think we can conclude the presentation for today.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.