Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the presentation of our Q3 results from our headquarters in Oslo. As usual, Kristin, our CEO, and Ragnar, our CFO, will present the progress and results for the quarter. For the Q&A at the end of the presentation, also Christian, our EVP for Nordic Marketplaces, will join the team. If you have questions, please go to Slido and enter the event code, which you can see here on the first slide. With this, please let me hand over to Kristin.
Thank you, Jann-Boje , and good morning and welcome, everyone. I'll start with the highlights before we have a closer look at the development of the quarter. Despite the increased macroeconomic uncertainty, our businesses witnessed decent revenue trends, resulting in an underlying revenue growth of 6% for the group compared to the same quarter last year. Group EBITDA ended 15% below last year at NOK 655 million, mainly driven by a financially challenging quarter for our News Media division. Nordic Marketplaces delivered steady underlying revenue growth of 10% in Q3, with underlying revenue growth across all markets, while EBITDA ended at NOK 486 million. Once again, Marketplaces Norway was the main driver, delivering strong revenue growth of 17% and an EBITDA of NOK 388 million.
News Media ended the quarter with an EBITDA of NOK 101 million. That's 59% down from last year due to softer revenue trends and higher costs. Lendo continued to perform very well with an underlying revenue growth of 16%, showcasing the resilience of the business during this more volatile macro environment. Looking at our results for the third quarter, and not least the increased external uncertainty and risks which affect our input factor prices and potentially some of our revenue streams, it will be a key focus for me and my team going into 2023 to work on our cost base across the group and further tightening of our capital allocation with focus on our core and return on investment. Now, let's have a look at our ESG highlights in the quarter, starting with the environmental impact.
In the second quarter, Blocket removed ad insertion fees for private sellers in the generalist category, which boosted listings, a trend that has continued into the third quarter. Introducing a transactional model for FINN allows us to take further steps in this area, lowering barriers for circular consumption, as well as representing key growth opportunities. Internally, we have also taken steps to reduce the environmental impact of our use of IT equipment by increasing the minimum time of usage for devices, presenting employees with a footprint of alternative devices, and looking into options to repair devices and replace batteries. Moving on to the societal impact. During the recent Swedish elections, our Swedish newspapers, Svenska Dagbladet and Aftonbladet, delivered extensive efforts with very high numbers of unique visitors, page views, video streaming, podcasts, election compasses, and new subscribers.
Simultaneously, the newspaper were under constant hacker attacks, and we are proud of how we deliver on our important purpose through high quality and independent journalism based on facts and analysis, enabling readers to form their own opinions in these challenging times. We have implemented a group-wide learning management system and a systematic talent review process, including succession planning. These are milestones in our effort to retain and attract employees. I can also report that the latest employee engagement survey that came in just earlier this week gave us a score on total engagement above our target and in line with previous results. However, we do see that the increased uncertainty is reflected in some of the answers in the survey.
Moving to governance, we want to mention our current strategy work in Nordic Marketplaces, which fully takes into account digitalization and sustainability as key drivers for the business going forward. With a post-pandemic jump in digitalization and the steady increase in customer engagement in sustainability, we see the ongoing strategy work as an opportunity to grow both our business and our positive impact on society by making the sustainable alternative the obvious choice. Let me start with presenting the development of our businesses more in detail, and first up is Nordic Marketplaces. Looking at the financial results for Nordic Marketplaces, the segment as a whole delivered good revenue growth in the quarter, primarily driven by Marketplaces Norway, but revenues increased in all markets compared to last year.
Real estate was the main growth driver, and I'm happy to report that all markets are now back to growth within motors again. Denmark was included from first July 2021, which means that Q3 is the first quarter with comparable numbers to last year. On a foreign exchange neutral basis, total revenues increased 10% compared to Q3 last year. EBITDA margin for the segment ended at 40%. That's below last year due to investments in product technology and marketing to drive the new business models. If we then go to Marketplaces Norway, they yet again delivered a strong quarter with 17% revenue growth compared to Q3 last year. The growth was driven by all verticals, but primarily by higher ARPA and volumes in the real estate vertical, where we introduced a new product offering at the beginning of this year.
The job vertical had a solid quarter with 9% growth compared to Q3 last year. The volume growth has, however, slowed down somewhat compared to the previous quarter, which is in line with expectations since Q3 last year was a very strong quarter within jobs. In motors, revenues were up 15% in Q3. This was mainly due to Nettbil, but also traditional motors increased in the quarter driven by volume, where Cars for Sale has now turned a negative volume trend to positive during the course of the quarter. Within the generalist vertical, I'm happy to report that we are starting to see the potential for transactional services. In Q3, close to 0.27 million transactions were handled through FINN's new transactional offering, Fiks Ferdig. This means that we are progressing well towards the goal of 0.6 million transactions in this calendar year.
Looking at advertising revenues, we saw a decline of 14% in the quarter due to strong comparables and reduced spending in the banking and insurance segments in particular. EBITDA margin ended at 51%, which is a decline compared to last year, and that's due to higher marketing spend and personnel cost. Moving to Sweden, revenues ended in line with Q3 last year with all vertical except the generalist growing from last year. The main growth driver this quarter was the motor vertical, which was back to growth with an 8% year-on-year increase in the quarter. The growth was driven by higher ARPA from professionals due to price increases. Also, the job vertical delivered another strong quarter with 16% growth driven by volume. However, the growth rate in jobs has been moderated also in Sweden as we are meeting stronger last year numbers.
As in Q2, C2C generalist revenues declined compared to last year, primarily driven by the removal of ad insertion fees, which we did at the end of May. While this affects financial results negatively in the short term, it has strengthened our market position looking at traffic and not least listings, which grew by 126% in the quarter. This will enable the transition to a fully transactional model entailing good growth potential over time. EBITDA margin improved from last quarter but ended below last year, driven by product and technology investments. In Finland, we saw a revenue growth of 3% in the quarter. Jobs delivered good volume growth. However, due to volume mix and the current business model, revenue still declined somewhat compared to the same period last year.
We have also started to see effects from the general economic situation in Finland, where customers now are postponing or taking timeouts in their recruitment plans. Also within real estate, we saw volume increase in Q3, although the impact on revenues was limited as the current focus is on growing listings. The current focus on growing listings is leading to a lower ARPA. Advertising revenues improved quarter-on-quarter and increased 8% compared to last year as we have taken action towards strengthening advertising, and that's starting to pay off. Looking ahead, the macroeconomic conditions in Finland are a risk factor for advertising revenues for the remainder of the year.
Looking at non-financial KPIs, we continue to see good growth in visits and new ads in the generalist vertical, and this will give a good basis for the horizontal synergies, especially between our generalist and real estate vertical, which will help improve our market positions over time. The cross-traffic between Tori and Oikotie grew more than 25% from the last quarter, which is almost now 7 x more than last year. On the cost side, our investment in product and technology resources to further improve product development continued to affect the EBITDA, and the margin for the quarter improved from previous quarters and ended at 13%. Moving to Denmark, revenues were back to growth with a 4% year-on-year increase in the quarter after a revenue decline in the first half of 2022 due to the headwinds from market conditions.
The revenue increase is driven by both the motor and generalist verticals. Within motors, revenue increased 4% driven by the price increases in August, and the generalist vertical continues a positive trend compared to last quarter and is growing 7% year-on-year, driven by increased traffic and engagement on DBA with higher volumes in both traditional classifieds and transactional revenues. Advertising revenues declined compared to the same period last year, mainly due to lower impressions on our sites. EBITDA margin was down due to the marketing spend, which has been focused on DBA.
Like I mentioned in the last quarterly presentations, we are preparing for the transition from a country to a vertical-based operating model in Nordic Marketplaces to further strengthen the execution of our high growth ambitions. The new model will ensure that the verticals have the autonomy and strength to deliver the best solutions to the market, both to consumers and professional customers, just like the vertical specialists that we see around us. In this setup, we will also have a Nordic accelerator which will do the more radical innovations. We have been working on this change for over a year now, which means it's well planned and the progress has been good. So far, the focus has been on setting the right team and strategies and to communicate and anchor this important change internally.
During Q3, a solid management team was established, led by Christian, our well-known EVP for Nordic Marketplaces. His management team, both looking at the vertical leads and the support function leads, has deep industry knowledge. Many people on the team have been in Schibsted and in our marketplaces for a long time, while a few new joiners bring fresh perspectives to the table. Looking at the vertical dimension, Motors will be led by Robin, our current CEO of Blocket. Jobs will be led by Eddie, our current CEO for FINN. Generalist or Recommerce, as we will call it going forward, will be led by Cathrine, who was running our distribution business over the last years. Kjersti, coming from the role of Executive Vice President of Technology and Digital Channels in DNB, Norway's largest bank, will lead our real estate vertical.
She also has extensive experience from the real estate industry as a board member. Lastly, Jussi will lead the work for our Nordic Accelerator. He's coming from the role of CEO in Marketplaces Finland, and before he returned to Schibsted, he was Vice President of Ventures in Adevinta. Over the next few weeks, the rest of the organization will be put in place and new vertical strategies will be launched. Following the go live of the new organization in January 2023, we are planning to switch to a vertical-based financial reporting structure effective over the first quarter, and we're targeting an investor day for a deep dive around the end of March, which you can see on this timeline, and hopefully you will get much more information at that occasion. We will come back with an exact date for that and more details. Okay.
Let me then go over to News Media. This quarter, one of the most exciting elections of all time in our markets dominated the headlines for a week, and of course, I'm talking about the elections in Sweden. It was covered in a remarkable way by both Svenska Dagbladet, Aftonbladet, and Omni. They all broke a number of records in unique users, page views, subscriptions, started streams of live TV coverage, podcast listening sessions, et cetera. It was especially interesting to see how the Swedes went absolutely crazy about the podcast and video content compared to past elections. A part of the explanation is probably that the content we offered was more extensive and of higher quality than we managed four years ago.
When our brands understand the user needs of modern media consumers and also deliver on them to the extent we saw during the Swedish election campaign, it's great to see that it really pays off. If we look at the financials, News Media delivered a somewhat slower revenue growth compared to previous quarters, with an underlying revenue growth of 2%. The growth was driven by strong growth in digital subscriptions and continued growth in digital advertising. However, we saw a softer quarter for advertising overall and print advertising in particular. Costs continued to increase compared to last year, but at a lower growth rate than previous quarters. The increase is mainly driven by our strategic content initiatives across our brands.
In addition, and similar to Q2, we had significantly higher costs for our print products as a result of higher paper, electricity, and input factor prices compared to last year. EBITDA margin was down and ended at a low 5%. Going forward, we will continue to work with reducing the cost base, especially within the print value chain. If we take a closer look at our main revenue streams in News Media, we see that in subscriptions, total underlying revenues grew by 8% compared to Q3 last year. Digital subscription revenues continued its strong growth and were up 21% on foreign exchange neutral basis. We are pleased to see continued double-digit growth for all our main news brands in addition to solid growth in Podme. The latter reached a new milestone of 200,000 subscribers in September.
The revenue growth was driven by both higher volumes and improved ARPU. Looking at our product offering, News Media has launched a new all-access subscription bundle, and we started marketing that in October, including access to all our Norwegian news destinations in addition to Podme and our magazines. We believe the breadth of content in this subscription is unique for the Norwegian context, and so far, sales have exceeded our initial expectations. If we move to advertising, digital advertising grew by 6% year-on-year on a foreign-exchange-neutral basis. Video and content marketing had a good development in both geographies in the quarter.
On the other side, the fall in print advertising revenues increased further in Q3 and was down 13% in the quarter, partly offsetting the growth within digital advertising revenues. So far, we have not seen meaningful negative revenue impacts from the increased macroeconomic risks. However, there is an element of insecurity in the market that could have an impact on News Media going forward. Next up is eCommerce and Distribution. Distribution consists of the legacy newspaper distribution and the new business, mainly Helthjem Netthandel and Morgenlevering. After several quarters of revenue decline due to the post-COVID slowdown in the eCommerce industry, total revenues ended in line with last year. New business declined by 4% compared to the same quarter last year. This is driven by Morgenlevering that saw a decline of 23% driven by lower volumes affected by the macroeconomic trends and inflation.
On the other hand, Helthjem Netthandel grew 6% in the quarter, mainly driven by higher C2C volumes related to FINN's transactional offering, Fiks Ferdig. EBITDA improved compared to last quarter, but was still negative and lower than last year due to higher costs related to higher fuel costs as well as the revenue mix. Okay, final one, is Financial Services and Venture, consisting of brands like Lendo and Prisjakt, in addition to digital services where we either have a majority or minority ownership. Overall, revenues for this segment were up 11% on a foreign exchange neutral basis when we adjust previous years for sold operations such as Let's Deal. The growth was driven by yet another strong quarter in Lendo, in addition to Prisjakt that returned to growth in the third quarter.
The revenues in Prisjakt were driven by higher earnings per click due to pricing, resulting in a 12% increase on a foreign exchange neutral basis compared to last year, despite the weak eCommerce market. EBITDA margin for the segment improved to 20%, driven by Prisjakt, Mittanbud, and 3byggetilbud, which is Denmark's largest online marketplace for skill trades that we acquired in March and which was hence not consolidated in Q3 last year. Lastly, our venture operations saw another quarter with lower activity. Finally, looking at Lendo, the good momentum continues. Underlying revenues ended 16% above Q3 last year, thanks to strong results in Sweden and Norway. Taking into account that Q3 last year was the best quarter in Lendo's history, this is a good result.
The growth was primarily driven by continued strong growth in inflow of applications in both countries and revenues from the improved credit card offering launched in Norway in the first quarter this year also helps the results. EBITDA margin was somewhat down due to increased marketing spend as well as development of new product verticals. The initiated strategic review with the aim to maximize the company's potential and value creation is ongoing with the support of external advisors. We expect to have more visibility on the outcome of the strategic review for Lendo around year-end. With that, I'm happy to hand it over to Ragnar to go through the financials.
Thank you, Kristin. I start with a consolidated result for the group, where revenues still show solid growth despite the increased macroeconomic uncertainty that characterizes the market. Also a reduction in EBITDA, which can mainly be attributed to developments in News Media. Revenues ended at NOK 3.76 billion, an underlying growth of 6% compared to Q3 last year, and in line with the previous growth in the last two quarters this year. The growth was driven by Nordic Marketplaces and Marketplaces Norway in particular, digital subscriptions in News Media, as well as Lendo and Prisjakt. EBITDA was NOK 605 million, down 15% from a strong NOK 769 million last year, leading to an EBITDA margin of 17%.
If you take a high-level perspective on the EBITDA development from Q3 last year, this shows a relatively stable development in Nordic Marketplaces, Financial Services, and eCommerce and Distribution, while it is primarily the development in News Media that drags the results down. EBITDA in Nordic Marketplaces ended NOK 14 million below last year, net roughly corresponding to the effect of the removed listing fees in Sweden from Q2 this year. While Norway increased with NOK 37 million, there was a somewhat weaker development in the other markets, driven among others by increased product development and marketing costs to drive new business models. News Media saw a sharp decline in EBITDA of NOK 145 million compared to a strong Q3 last year.
This is due to increased content investments and a broadly higher activity level, but also a weaker revenue new development and a significantly higher cost for our print products as a result of higher paper, electricity, and other input factors. Approximately NOK 100 million of the weakening EBITDA in News Media is attributable to the print value chain. EBITDA for eCommerce and distribution improved, compared to last quarter, but was still negative and lower than last year due to high costs related to higher fuel prices as well as revenue mix. In financial services and venture, EBITDA increased year-on-year by around NOK 9 million, driven by Prisjakt, Mittanbud, and 3byggetilbud, which was not consolidated in Q3 last year.
Other and headquarters had an EBITDA of -NOK 25 million, this in the third quarter, against -NOK 63 million in the same period last year. EBITDA losses decreased substantially compared to last year, and not least Q2 this year. The variations between quarters are primarily driven by phasing effect caused by our invoicing model for central product and technology services to other business areas. The average of the last three quarters give a fair representation of the underlying run rate level in this area. When looking closer at our income statement for Q3, operating profit for the quarter ended at NOK 342 million, down from NOK 583 million last year. The reduction is mainly explained by the lower EBITDA this quarter and NOK 100 million gain related to the sale of Kundkraft in Q3 last year.
Other expenses include costs related to the integration of of operations in Marketplaces Denmark and costs related to the transition to a vertical operating model in Nordic Marketplaces. Share of profit and loss from joint ventures and associates includes Schibsted's share of Adevinta's result for the second quarter this year, adjusted for amortization of excess values and gains and losses on disposals, net -NOK 150 million. This quarter, though, is also negatively affected by a NOK 3 billion impairment loss recognized to reflect the decline in share price in Adevinta during the quarter and the corresponding market value decline in our holding of the company. Operating cash flow from continuing operations is somewhat lower than for Q3 last year, mainly due to the lower EBITDA and increased interest expenses, partly offset by changes in working capital.
Capital expenditures are slightly down compared to Q2, but up 40% compared to Q3 last year, primarily due to next-generation marketplace initiatives, investments into a new group-wide ERP accounting system, and the new printing plant facility in News Media. Some comments to our debt situation and financial position. Schibsted has a solid financial position, even though our financial gearing is currently above the target range. Leverage has increased due to M&A activity over the last 2.5 years, but will be brought back to within the target range over time through planned sale of assets. This is also reflected in the debt maturity profile, where our short-term debt is higher than normal.
We have extension options on the bridge loan, the term loan, and for the revolving credit facility, and these are not included in the maturity profile shown here and will hence, when exercised, increase the duration of the loan portfolio. The revolving credit facility of EUR 300 million is undrawn and represents a significant liquidity buffer. Schibsted has also currently a temporary waiver of the financial covenant, and this will last until the final part of the bridge loan is fully repaid, which will take place in July 2023 at the latest. With over 33% ownership stake in Adevinta, we have the opportunity to sell a portion of these shares to improve our financial capacity and to reduce leverage.
This reflects the strong balance sheet of ours beyond our net interest-bearing debt and gives us substantial flexibility if needed. I will then end my presentation with some comments on our financial targets and the outlook for 2022 and 2023. We have put behind us a quarter with a continued good growth momentum within most of our businesses and solid financial results for Nordic Marketplaces. However, as also Kristin mentioned, we have started to see softening volume developments within some of our core revenue streams and expect the unfavorable macroeconomic development to potentially have a larger impact on our revenue and cost development in the quarters to come. There is, though, little visibility on the timing and magnitude of this effect.
As Christian said at the beginning of this presentation, we have started to take precautionary measures to address both the potential revenue and cost development, as well as our CapEx and investment levels. This also includes a thorough look at our opportunities to increase prices as a response to increased inflation. Our overall mid- to long-term financial targets for Nordic Marketplaces and News Media remain unchanged. For Nordic Marketplaces, we remain confident in the growth potential and our medium- to long-term target to grow annual revenues by 8%-12% for this segment. While we target low single-digit revenue growth and an EBITDA margin of 10%-12% for News Media in the medium term, we expect that the margin will be below that range in 2022 and in 2023, influenced by also potentially weakening revenue trends given the increased macroeconomic risks.
To come back into the target margin range over time, reducing News Media's cost base, where costs related to our print business will make up a significant part, will be a key task in 2023. Given the present financial performance in News Media and the unfavorable macroeconomic development, we currently deem it as most likely that we end 2022 with a full-year EBITDA for the group below the previously communicated range of around NOK 2.5 billion-NOK 2.7 billion. With that, we go over to the Q&A.
Yes. We'll just start with some questions from the slide from the web. If there are also questions here in the room, Carsten has a microphone that can go around. Just like indicate if you want to ask a question. First question from the web is from Avi at Morgan Stanley. What are the practical changes which we should expect from the change to the vertical model in Nordic Marketplaces? And what will also change then for the B2B and end customers for that business?
Yes. We will obviously come back with more detail about this at the Capital Markets Day in Q1, as we have announced. Broadly speaking, you can say that what we have seen over time is that we develop solutions that cover more and more of our customers' transaction journey, not only the ad, but more and more of the solution space. I mean, that means that the way you sell a T-shirt is very different from the way you sell a car, so they require different solutions. With this new setup, what we are doing is that we are consolidating our resources within each vertical to develop more similar solutions within each vertical across the countries.
By then, consolidating the resources, we think we can create stronger value propositions to customers. The simple answer to the question is more similar solutions to the customers across the countries.
If we just stay a little bit with Nordic Marketplaces, also another question from PV at Morgan Stanley. How will Blocket respond to Vinted entering the Swedish market, which was public, a couple of weeks ago?
Yes. This was not unexpected to us. We had expected this for some time. It goes in the general trend of more and more services coming in with a transactional model. Vinted is one such service, and we've seen them enter many countries. What we have usually seen is that the entry of Vinted grows the entire fashion segment in a country. If you look at Blocket today and also historically, that has not been a strong segment for Blocket. We have mostly considered this to be an upside for us, and we still consider it to be an upside.
Of course, this also gives us more confidence that the decision we took before summer to go free in Blocket to strengthen the position in volume was the right one. That has proven to be successful, growing more than 100%, and then also gives us the opportunity to become transactional in this segment. Continued focus on becoming transactional in Blocket in Sweden.
If we look a little bit at Marketplaces Norway, we can see that operating expenses increased in Q3 and it was mentioned that was driven by marketing expenses but also hiring more people. Can you expand a little bit, like, what are the reasons for these investments? Are these investments permanent, or will they go down going forward again?
Yes. I think the question was about Norway, right?
Yes.
Yes. Of course, we have invested quite a lot in the transactional services for the generalist category in Norway, the what we call Recommerce now. A lot of resources has gone into that, but also in transactional services in general. Things like Nettbil, for example, have also taken quite a bit of investments. When it comes to marketing, it's also a bit of a normalization of the levels that we have had before because there was a lower marketing level during the pandemic.
Maybe think a bit more long-term Nordic Marketplaces. I mean, going into 2023, here Silvia from Deutsche Bank and Will from Exane is question like, what do you expect for Q4 and also 2023? Will it be possible to be in the range of 8%-12%, especially that some of the countries in the Nordics as well are about to enter a recession? How should we think about this and coming into next year?
Well, to comment a bit on the different verticals, we have seen in Q3 for jobs that the growth has declined somewhat as we meet stronger numbers from the past year. I think that's the trend we will continue to see also in Q4. In motors, the supply chain issues remain in the industry, but they seem to be somewhat softened, so making it a bit easier for us. I think they will also remain for some time. We do see an improvement as a result of that. Then we have a very good development in real estate. In Norway, volumes are normalizing, coming back. The average revenue per ad is increasing.
We have also a very strong development in the Qasa model in Sweden. Yeah. I think we remain with our guidance on 8%-12% growth in Nordic Marketplaces.
Moving on to News Media. A couple of questions from Carnegie, UBS and Barclays. First, like could you break down a little bit the cost increase which you've seen in the third quarter for News Media? Like what is like the mix between like content, print, electricity and so forth? Then also going into next year, like what is your thinking about the cost base? Is it possible to be flat next year? What kind of a, let's say, cost savings you're targeting for that segment going forward, given like the current results?
Yes. Let's say external factors like paper and energy means a price or cost increase in the range of NOK 110 or something on an annual basis. I think for Q3 it was around 30 while the overall cost increase was NOK 138. Is that right, Jann-Boje ? Yeah.
Yes.
It is a substantial share. The rest of the cost is due to general inflation, still some post-COVID normalization and of course investments in our new growth initiatives. I think we should say that we have actually already cut cost with a second half year effect of NOK 100 million in the News Media division. Annualized those costs or those cuts corresponds to NOK 200 million. With such a large increase in external price factors, those two sort of you know, already more or less even each other out. We will continue to focus on the cost.
We believe we will not be able to meet the targeted margin range of 10%-12%, neither in 2022 nor 2023, but the objective is to be back in that range from 2024.
Moving on to more like strategic topics. First, like what can you comment on the strategic review in Lendo and Prisjakt? The current market seems a bit tougher than maybe at the Q2 presentation. One update on this. Second question from . What is our current thinking about the Adevinta stake, looking at the lockup which will expire roughly in one year's time, in the second half next year?
Yeah. Do you wanna start with Lendo and Prisjakt, Ragnar? I can do Adevinta.
Yeah, I can do that. The process, the strategic review of Lendo is still ongoing and progressing. We expect the final results to come towards the end of the fourth quarter. I think it's also fair to say that we also observed then that the development within the financial market also is sort of has become rather negative over, let's say, the past quarters as well. It partly influenced the process, but we are still sort of looking into the opportunities and are fairly positive that we will find a solution, but it's still a question mark on that, fair to say.
Yeah, on Adevinta, I think it's fair to say that we don't have that much more news from what we've said previously, but what we have said previously still holds. We have a team working on that and maybe not or not really anything new I could say at this moment in time.
There may be a question for you, Ragnar. HQ and other had like significantly lower losses now in Q3. I think you touched on it like but what is a good runway to think about Q4, and also coming into 2023 for that segment?
Yeah. It's, I think, you can say that the average of the year-to-date numbers is a fairly good representation of the, let's say, the run rate for the time being, meaning that we are in the, in the -NOK 65 million-ish, so let's say, level into Q4 on the Q4 numbers.
Looking at the bond structure here, question, like there are two bonds expiring towards year-end. Will you refinance those or pay those back?
We are constantly monitoring the opportunities to, let's say, refinance through, let's say, utilizing the let's say open windows in the bond market. That is something that we are doing on a continuous basis. Exactly what option we end up with is a little bit early to say.
as we refinance debt going forward, there's a question like from Adam, like how much is the impact on finance costs? Also like given that most of our debt is floating. I mean, if I recall correctly Q3 was impacted by NOK 20 million higher interest expenses, but how should we think about this line going forward?
I think in the longer term, or medium to longer term, it's clearly an ambition for us to bring down the debt leverage, meaning that we would sort of use proceeds from potential sales of assets to reduce the debt. When we sort of look at the debt and let's say the debt profile and also whether we go for fixed or floating interest, that is sort of something we bear in mind. Yeah. I think that is sort of the sort of what we are targeting when we are looking at that. Of course, it's important for us to have a healthy maturity profile on the portfolio as such.
Coming to eCommerce and distribution with EBITDA losses over the last quarters, like, how should we think about next year? Do we think it will be possible to be breakeven?
That is the ambition, and we believe that revenues will come back and be positive in 2023. Sorry. We have a very strict cost focus in News Media. No, sorry, there too, but also in eCommerce and distribution. That's the goal, yes.
Coming back to you, Christian. Looking at the change in Nordic Marketplaces, are you planning any changes when it comes to the revenue model when you go into this new, like, vertical-based model? Can you already comment a little bit on the investment level which will be required coming into next year?
Well, I think when it comes to the revenue model question, I think there are two things maybe to bear in mind. One is that we are on a general transition to transactional models and performance-based models. That is clearly true in Generalist and also in Motors, but more and more that will be the case. As we transition to this vertical model, and as I mentioned before, we then foresee that it will be more similar products across the markets. That also means that we have to align the business models across the markets much more. That will be a big topic within Motors as an example. I forgot the last part of the question.
No, I think it was. I think you covered it.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, sorry.
Just to follow up again, like, on next year Nordic Marketplaces. In the event of a recession in the geos in the Nordics, do you still think it's realistic to be in that range, or how should we think about this?
I think with the trend that we're seeing right now, we uphold that guidance. Yeah.
Going to CapEx, question from Avi at Morgan Stanley. You're on track to roughly end with NOK 1 billion of CapEx in 2022. Can you please indicate roughly how much of this is, like, growth CapEx and how much of this is, like, permanent and how much will go down going forward when it comes to the CapEx level?
I think if you look at the over the CapEx level, the very sort of significant part of the growth that we have seen over the last sort of year or two is representing, let's say, growth CapEx. Of course, going into 2023, we will also look at, let's say, the sort of the ambition level on further growth investments that also relates to CapEx. Of course, it's going to be more and more important for us also to sort of make sure that, sort of we put CapEx and investments into those areas that has the highest return on investment and potentially also then look at the, let's say, the payback time on those investment, meaning that you potentially will continue to see rather high investments CapEx in Nordic Marketplaces, for that reason.
I won't give any sort of concrete comments on the actual levels into 2023. We have to come back to that.
Coming back a little bit to Lendo and Prisjakt, a question from Eirik at Carnegie. Deleveraging seems a clear priority for us if we or when we sell Lendo and Prisjakt. How should we think about the trade-off between, like, deleveraging our balance sheet in comparison to doing buybacks?
I mean, I think we will give priority to reducing our debt levels, but of course we understand the attractiveness of doing a share buyback in the current environment and at the current price level. Depending a bit upon the amounts available, that will also be a priority, but we will reduce our leverage first.
Coming back a little bit to News Media, Christian from Arctic Securities. How much would print or paper costs have to increase before you would make changes to your current print business? Are you doing anything with sales prices to mitigate the impact of higher prices?
Yeah, to the latter, we put a surcharge on our print subscriptions in Q2, and that has an annual run rate of about NOK 40 million positive revenue effect. That's the right number, right? Yeah.
Yes.
When it comes to more long-term effects, I think it's fair to say now there is a strong pressure on the paper economy, both from the increased cost, but also from the acceleration of decline in print revenues from advertising. This is part of what we are assessing in our plans for News Media going forward. If we will need to, you know, we have a specific focus on the print value chain. We will make all the efficiencies we can. Moving to a new printing plant next year is one measure that will help. Then we will need to see if the situation prolongs and will require some more structural measures than that.
Staying with the print business, do you expect that print cost will further increase in Q4? Here Arctic's referring to the German paper prices increased again in October by 15% on a year-on-year basis.
Yeah. I mean, normally we have better visibility on paper prices than we have at the moment. I think we need to account for that prices will remain high for a while longer, and that's what we base our actions and plans on. If we see a relief in the price, that will be good news and might help us going forward.
Staying a little bit with News Media. Basically two questions. If you can be a bit more specific on potential savings, cost savings going into 2023. And then also what is your thoughts on the print product? Like, how much is the upside from higher prices, and, would you also consider, for example, to close some print editions going forward?
Yeah. Look, I mean, it's not a good time to be very specific because, as I said, we have already implemented annual running cuts of about NOK 200 million, and we are planning to do further measures with effect from next year. We are in the middle of detailing that out, so it's difficult to be very specific at this time. We are working very, very hard on nailing those and become concrete and be able to communicate that. When it comes to the paper, yes, we will. As I said, we're working on the print value chain. We will see if there's room for further price adjustments also to alleviate the situation for the printed editions.
Some measures could, for example, be looking at scarcely populated geographies, et cetera. That's what I refer to when I mean more structural changes that we might need to consider the offering on certain parameters if it's too expensive to serve certain populations, for example.
Coming back to Lendo, which is under strategic review, it seems like you don't put a question mark on the sale itself, as Lisa at Goldman saying. Can you please, like, clarify? Is it more like a risk related to the valuation for the asset, or for the timing of the process going forward?
I don't think I would give any sort of concrete comment on that. Sort of my previous comment is more that the process is ongoing. But also I think it's fair of us to sort of just also point to the fact that there are significant uncertainty around, let's say, around transactions in today's market, very much driven by the, let's say, the more expensive debt market, and also to some extent, the availability of the debt market. But we are in dialogues, so that's why I said we are still too early to conclude on the process.
A question from Marcus at Kepler Cheuvreux. If you can elaborate a little bit on the advertising trends so far in October, if we're expecting like really broad cuts across the board or if it's rather stable for the time being.
Yeah, like I said, we don't really see any dramatic effects of the macroeconomic situation. So far it looks like Q4 will be more or less on par with last year. We have to remember that we are comparing to very strong numbers from last year. We see still growth in digital in Norway. We see the decline in print, like I said, and Sweden is somewhat weaker. Overall, advertising looks to be fairly flat, at least for now in the quarter.
Coming back to the guidance for 2022, Lisa at Goldman Sachs is saying consensus EBITDA for 2022 implies that EBITDA is flat in Q4. Do you think that's achievable? And if so, what will improve that EBITDA will be flat? Is it like revenue trends or cost cutting, or how should we think about that improvement?
As I said, we didn't give any sort of exact guidance to the, let's say, on the EBITDA for the fourth quarter. If you look at the month of October, we see still a fairly positive development for advertising for News Media in Norway, for instance, whereby we see a softer market in Sweden. There are coming in some signals around sort of the giving uncertainty and very sort of low visibility on the development for particularly then advertising in News Media going to this quarter. It's also so that both eCommerce and distribution and Prisjakt is, let's say, very seasonally very much dependent on a strong fourth quarter driven by Black Week and Black Friday.
In the present environment, it's challenging to give a precise number of where we think that will end for the time being. That is the main uncertainties on the result for the fourth quarter, I would say.
Looking at 2023, consensus currently thinking that News Media will be below the 10%-12% range, but you also commented today for the time being, consensus at 8% or 9% margin for News Media. Do you think that's achievable for next year? And then also on group level, EBITDA is expected to improve from NOK 2.4 billion to NOK 2.7 billion next year, translating into a higher margin. Do you think that's achievable? If so, is it like a question of cost cutting, or how will this improve going forward?
I don't think we will give any sort of further comment on the guidance around sort of either fourth quarter or next year. I think we will come back with further comments when we, let's say, have our fourth quarter results in February next year.
Coming back to CapEx, here also is a question again, like how should we think about organic CapEx going forward, which increased to a run rate of NOK 1 billion. Will it stay at that level going forward, or do you have ambition to bring that down?
Looking at the, let's say, as part of the precautionary measures that we are looking into due to the macroeconomic development and the potential effects then that might have on our core revenue streams, we will also look into the level of capital expenditures going into next year. We aim also to see whether we can sort of reduce that somewhat.
Just checking if there's questions in the audience. No? Then I can just continue here. Looking at Q3, financial services and ventures had like a strong quarter driven by Prisjakt, Mittanbud, and 3byggetilbud. I think you commented slightly on it, but can you give some color on the current trends and also in the-
Lendo.
Um-
Should have.
Lendo, yeah. The question like but how do we think about these services here when it comes to a tougher macro environment?
I think for Lendo, at least for the time being, they are sort of showing very strong and positive development, let's say also going into the start of the fourth quarter. For Lendo there is also a little bit of a balance there and it's depending sort of on a more tough, let's say in a tougher macroeconomic environment, Lendo will normally sort of, let's say, it might be that it's beneficial from a, let's say, from a demand perspective, but also of course then the banks normally are sort of holding back somewhat more on this kind of lending in tough times. It's difficult to say exactly how that will impact Lendo going into 2023.
Of course also for Mittanbud and sort of craftsmanship and so on that people sort of normally use for the housing and so on, if you need to cut costs, you probably will sort of cut down on that also in tougher times. Of course, we are looking a little bit into and are also prepared that will have some negative impact also on that market going into next year.
When the market is tougher, there is a larger need to advertise for the craftsmen.
It is.
And-
The availability of craftsmen is higher, but yes.
...works a bit both ways. For Prisjakt, I think they have now shown that they have a larger pricing power than maybe we were aware of, and I think that's a positive sign. They have also vastly increased their SEO, search engine optimization performance. Their visibility has gone up by 60%, which is actually quite remarkable. I think they're doing some really good things in Prisjakt now. Those are good signs. Like Ragnar said, we are a bit uncertain how eCommerce in general is gonna be in the important fourth quarter, especially around the Black Week. Prisjakt is quite exposed to the electronics vertical, so we'll also have to see how, you know, how those volumes will evolve. Some very good positive signs, but market uncertainty, I would say.
Going back to Nordic Marketplaces, maybe a question both for you, Ragnar, and then Christian. First one, based on your comments that investments will be required for that business, do you expect margins to go down next year? Then the second question may be for you, Christian. On Finland, when do you plan to start monetizing in a more significant way, and how do you think about this opportunity over the next two to three years?
Okay, I can take Finland first. I think we have said very clearly that our main ambition in Finland is to strengthen the position in real estate and become the clear number one there. That is a marathon. It's going to take some time, but we are making progress on that. We are holding back on the monetization efforts and instead optimizing for position and volume growth for the time being. Over time, of course, the ambition is clearly to monetize that market better. Yeah.
On the margin, sorry, I don't comment directly on the margin. Of course, you saw that when you do a transition like this, that adds some costs in, let's say, particularly in the transition period. On the other hand, when you sort of go from and are consolidating and go from having, let's say, costs in four countries trying to do the same, there is some synergy potential also in sort of combining it and doing it once. So I think those will work a little bit sort of different directions and sort of on the results for next year.
Coming back to CapEx, trying one more time. I think there is understanding that we don't guide on 2023 specific, but like long term, what do you expect as like maintenance CapEx level, not looking into growing the business or growing products?
Sorry, I can't give a clear comment on that now. I think what we will do now is that as part of the present, as due to the present situation, we will sort of, I say, go deeper into also the CapEx levels to see what we can do to reduce both, let's say, the at least adjust on the size of the growth CapEx, but also see what we can do to be, let's say, potentially a little bit tougher on the maintenance CapEx. In that sense, we are not in a position now to give a clear number on that.
I think so far no questions on the web, so I try another time if there's a question in the audience. Doesn't seem like it. Okay. We're okay for today.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.