Morning and welcome to Viaplay Group's Q2 results conference call. Today, also covering the news that we are teaming up with Allente. My name is Anna Hedenberg, and joining me here on the call today are our CEO, Jørgen Madsen Lindemann, our CFO, Johan Johansson, and today we also have Fredrik Gidrf and Carl Larsson from DNB Carnegie with us. Before we start, please note that today's call is being recorded. After the presentation, we will open up for Q&A. If you're listening via the web link, feel free to post your questions on the message board at any time, and I'll read them out during the Q&A. If you prefer to ask your question live, you can do so by using your phone's keypad. You can find all our results material, including the presentation deck, on the Investor Relations section of our website.
We won't be following the slides directly, but they contain all the key information for reference. With that, I'll hand over to you, Jørgen, to walk us through today's highlights.
Thank you, Anna, and good morning, everyone. As announced today, we have signed an agreement to acquire Telenor's 50% stake in Allente Group. The transaction represents a natural evolution of the successful long-term partnership between the companies. We are thankful and impressed by what has been accomplished together with Allente and Telenor over the past five years. I will shortly come back to this, but first, let me share some highlights from the second quarter. We are executing on our plan with clear priorities, financial discipline, and a strong focus on value over volume, fueled by commercially relevant storytelling. Formula One, once again, drove the strongest sports engagement across our core markets, supported by major events like the Ice Soccer World Championship, Premier League Finals, and Golf Majors.
On the non-sports side, local storytelling continues to deliver with strong performance from both long-term proven scripted favorite Wisting and the reality phenomenon Paradise Hotel, which continues to top the charts across multiple countries. Our free TV channels all increased our commercial share of viewing in the quarter, and our radio channels in Sweden and Norway increased our commercial share of listening. Viaplay's direct-to-consumer subscribers grew year-on-year, while B2B volume declined in line with what we have seen in previous quarters. Average revenue per subscriber improved both year-on-year and sequentially. Viaplay was down 1% year-on-year despite the lower B2B subscriber numbers, which reflects our focus on value over volume.
Linear subscriptions were down 3%, and the launch of Viaplay Sports in Sweden, together with strong partners two weeks ago, is a great example of how we can introduce more products to the market, just like the linear sports channel which was launched in Denmark. During the Sweden-Poland match in the UEFA Women's Euro, our new Viaplay Sports channels became the most watched channel in Sweden. Digital advertising and ads continued to grow, offsetting linear headwinds which resulted in a 1% organic growth. Sub-licensing revenues increased by 23%, driven by sports sub-licensing. Our exit from non-core markets is now complete, with a wind-down of Poland finalized. In short, we still have a lot of things to do and to improve, but we are making progress. Our strategy is progressing, and our teams remain focused on strong, relevant commercial content, monetization, and execution.
Now, let me say a few words about today's announcement regarding Allente. As we announced earlier this morning, Viaplay Group has signed an agreement to acquire Telenor's 50% ownership stake in Allente Group, subject to customary regulatory approvals. As I said in the beginning, this is a natural evolution of a strong and successful partnership between Telenor, Allente, and Viaplay. Since the creation of Allente in 2020, we have worked closely together and built a very well-managed, customer-focused business with deep local roots and a solid commercial position across the Nordics. We are both proud and grateful for what we have achieved together, and this step is about building on those strengths. Allente is the leading provider of television services delivered via satellite, IPTV, and OTT with approximately 844,000 subscribers across Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. In Sweden, Allente also offers standalone broadband solutions.
In 2024, Allente reported revenues of SEK 6.5 billion, EBITDA of SEK 996 million, and free cash flow of SEK 1 billion. 95% of Allente's revenue comes from other revenue streams than OTT, which clearly is our strength, so a very complementary partnership on the financial front as well. By joining forces, we can expand our direct-to-consumer footprint, make even better use of our combined content technology, and deliver a broader range of compelling products across DTH, IPTV, broadband, and advertising. We will also be in a better position to promote these offerings across platforms, including through our deals and channels, opening new opportunities to grow our customer base and drive customer satisfaction. This partnership is about the customers we serve, it's about innovation and value creation for both companies.
It gives us more tools, more optionality, and a smarter platform for delivering what viewers expect: high quality, relevant, and engaging content experiences in formats that fit their needs. From a financial perspective, which Johan will come back to in a moment, the transaction is structured in a responsible way and is strongly supported by our major stakeholders, including our lending banks, bondholders, Canal+, PPF, SEK, and EKN. Combined with our renegotiated credit arrangement, this supports our efforts to improve cash flow, reduce leverage over time, and in the longer term, prepare the group for full refinancing. The transaction has not yet closed, meaning we are now entering a regulatory approval process, and until completion, Allente will continue to operate independently as it does today.
Once the transaction is finalized, we look forward to sitting down together with the Allente team to explore what the future should look like and how we together can build that future in the smartest and most value-creating way. To summarize on Allente, since there's not much more we can say until the deal has closed, we are very excited about what lies ahead, and this is a natural next step. It reflects our sharpened strategy, the trust we have in Allente and its people, and the belief that we are more relevant for more customers together. The transaction we have announced today would not have been possible without the support of key stakeholders. I want to thank Telenor for their long-standing partnership and the entire Allente team for their dedication and impressive work over the years. Together, they have built Allente into a strong company as it is today.
Also, a warm thank you to our lending banks: Nordea, SEB, Danske Bank, Swedbank, and DNB, and to SEK and EKN, our bondholders, our two largest shareholders, PPF and Canal+, for all their support. I'm also grateful to our advisors, DNB Carnegie and Gerhard Danielsen, for their commitment and professionalism. Finally, a big thank you to our real and strong supporting commercial content partners. You know who you are. Thank you so much. Thank you to all the Viaplay staff for very good progress and super hard work also in the first half of 2025. With these words, I hand over to you, Johan.
Thank you, Jørgen, and good morning, everyone. As you heard from Jørgen just now, we've entered into an agreement to acquire Allente, a transaction that will accelerate our transformation. I will go deeper into the financial effects of this transaction in a little bit, but let me start with going through this past second quarter first. As we enter into the second half of the year, our priorities remain unchanged: financial discipline, cost efficiency, and strengthening our cash flow. Our core operating income before associate company income and ISCs improved to SEK 89 million compared to -SEK 72 million last year. Group free cash flow was SEK 823 million, with core free cash flow of SEK 1.042 billion. Reported group sales amounted to SEK 4.313 billion, with organic sales growth for core operations down 0.1%. Currency remains a key factor this year.
In Q2, FX movements affected earnings positively due to stronger Swedish krona compared to Q2 last year. The stronger Swedish krona had a negative effect on revenues in the quarter as revenues are denominated in Norwegian krona, euros, and DKK, were translated at less favorable rates, while on the cost had a positive effect mainly from content-related payments denominated in euro and dollar. We actively work with managing our risk with tools available to us, but FX volatility will continue to impact our reported results. The net FX impact on core EBIT in the quarter was +SEK 37 million. We remain in line with our previous full-year expectations of SEK 100 million-SEK 150 million headwind, excluding unrealized revaluation effects booked as ISCs. For the quarter, items affecting comparability amounted to -SEK 42 million and were primarily related to redundancy costs and the revaluation of U.S.
dollar-denominated liabilities and legacy content provisions. These revaluation effects are non-cash and will continue to be reported as ISCs until sustainable hedging is in place. Our share of income from Allente amounted to SEK 46 million in the quarter, up from SEK 28 million last year. No dividend was received during the period. Group free cash flow improved to SEK 823 million, up from SEK 627 million in Q2 2023. The improvement in working capital was driven by seasonality effects and focused on working capital management with a net contribution of SEK 859 million. This reflects seasonally low sports payments during the quarter, lower scripted content payments as most of the remaining commissions were paid by the end of last year, and continued optimization of supplier terms. On a trailing basis, core operations have now generated SEK 1.7 billion in free cash flow for the first half of 2025.
Non-core operations had a cash flow of negative SEK 219 million in Q2, which is in line with expectations and consistent with the full year previously communicated effect of negative SEK 500 m illion for the non-core business. Capital expenditure remained low at SEK 12 million in the quarter with continued tight control of both tangible and intangible investments. At the end of the quarter, financial net debt was SEK 787 million. We had SEK 927 million in cash and SEK 1.88 billion in borrowings. We have maintained a conservative liquidity buffer, which gives us flexibility heading into the second half. The wind-down of our direct-to-consumer footprint in Poland was completed on June 30th. This marks the final step in our exit from the non-core markets and allows us to fully focus capital and resources on our core operations going forward.
We make no changes to the expected cash drag for the coming years, and previous phasing remains unchanged. The acquisition of Allente Group announced today is expected to strengthen Viaplay 's financial profile. Once completed, Allente will be consolidated into our financial reporting. For reference, Allente generated SEK 6.5 billion in revenue and SEK 1 billion in EBITDA in 2024. This is a cash-generating business with stable performance, and we expect it to contribute positively to our earnings and cash flow going forward. Furthermore, Allente's existing revenue mix with a large share of DTH, IPTV, and broadband is highly complementary to Viaplay 's existing products, and the longevity and loyalty of the customer base has been proven over time. We are taking this opportunity to reshape our balance sheet, and as our cash flow profile improves, we're canceling our existing EUR 646 million guarantee facility.
This cancellation enables us to finance the acquisition of Allente through a new debt package, including a SEK 1.7 billion term loan, and at the same time, reduce the total commitment materially. Concurrently, we're also establishing a SEK 2.5 billion working capital facility to reflect a reprofiling of payment terms under our commercial agreements. As part of our ongoing working capital management and to limit intra-year cash flow seasonality, we are making changes to payment terms under certain commercial agreements. This results in a one-off working capital effect of approximately SEK 2.5 billion in 2025, funded by the aforementioned facility, which will naturally unwind as a consequence of this revised profile. As a result of these changes, working capital movements will be more stable and less volatile for the coming periods, benefiting the financial position and liquidity of the group.
The sizing of all facilities is based on the current and future needs of the group, and as we are exiting the current guarantee regime and will have both improved cash flow generation and smaller working capital movements, the needs of our business have changed, and we have adapted our financing package and available facilities to reflect this. As a result, we will reduce our RCF by SEK 575 million. Simplifying our financial arrangements also means that we're taking a very meaningful step towards refinancing our recapitalization facilities. In conjunction with the acquisition and the procurement of the new facilities, we have also taken the opportunity to renegotiate our financial covenants.
As our previous regime was entered into during the recapitalization, and we are now on a pro forma basis, materially EBITDA positive and cash flow generating company, we wanted to make sure that our financial covenants reflect this and that they give us required flexibility to execute and accelerate on the strategy with the required headroom. Based on the acquisition, we're replacing our previous full year 2025 guidance for Viaplay Group as standalone. We now provide an updated guidance which includes pro forma core net sales of SEK 21 million-SEK 22 billion, pro forma core EBITDA before associated company income and ISCs between SEK 0.8 and 1.1 billion, and pro forma adjusted group operating free cash flow of SEK 500,000 million-SEK 755,000 million, adjusted for cost-related acquisitions, interest, dividend, and extraordinary one-off working capital effects, the latter which I mentioned earlier.
This guidance reflects the expected financial impact of consolidating Allente and supports our long-term transformation. We are very excited about the potential for the combined company and the ability to enhance our product and services offering to bring even more engaging products to consumers across the Nordics. More detail will be provided post-closing and subject to regulatory approval when we have the opportunity to sit down with the Allente team to explore future possibilities. We are updating also the long-term ambitions to reflect the potential of the new combined group. We expect core organic net sales growth to on average be flat over the period of 2025 to 2028 and target double-digit core EBITDA margins before ISCs and associated company income by 2028, with a change from our past long-term guidance on EBIT materially attributed to the exclusion now of non-cash PPA effects.
As CapEx remains low and we are stabilizing our working capital movements, EBITDA is the preferred proxy for our underlying cash flow generation. Allente has over recent years operated with an EBITDA margin in the range between 10% and 15%. Hence, the acquisition will be aligned with the long-term margin guidance. Furthermore, we target to gradually increase the year-on-year adjusted group operating free cash flow on a pro forma basis with the baseline in 2025. Following the acquisition, we will have a long-term financial indebtedness, including the working capital facility, as I already have explained, will unwind on its own accord towards the end of the life of the facility of approximately SEK 6.1 billion, corresponding to a gross leverage ratio of about 5.5x based on the top end of our guidance range.
Excluding this working capital element deriving from the new payment terms and looking at our core indebtedness, it's approximately SEK 3.6 billion or 3.3x based on the top end of the pro forma EBITDA range. As we are targeting EBITDA margin expansion as well as increasing operating free cash flow in the coming years, the implication is naturally that we will deleverage over the medium term. We will prioritize reducing debt in order to strengthen our long-term competitiveness. In line with this ambition, we have agreed to a structure where part of the new facilities is being amortized over the coming years. Execution remains our priority. We are seeing the impact of the changes we have made in content strategy, cost base, working capital, and financial position. There is more to do.
We will continue to manage the business with discipline, focus on profitability, liquidity, and capital efficiency while supporting the investments that will drive the long-term value creation. That concludes my remarks. Thank you.
Thank you, Johan. We are now ready to take your questions. Operator, please go ahead.
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Let's start with a question here on the message board, and this one is for you, Jørgen. Today you announced the sub-licensing agreement in Norway together with Tele2. What effect do you expect from that agreement?
The newly, I reckon, is TV2 Norway, yeah?
Yeah.
It is a very interesting partnership in all fairness as well, which we are building on since we also are partners when it comes to other products. It is, of course, with the ambition to give even stronger offerings to our customers. We are excited about this opportunity to be fair and hopefully more to come.
Thank you. One more for you, Jørgen. How do you plan to grow your streaming revenues in the second half? Do you plan for more price adjustments or higher subscriber volumes?
Yeah, we are constantly looking at whether we are priced competitively. That is very important. As we see right now, it is a combination of where we are getting more customers in. At the same time, we are getting customers in on product, which has a good output as well. That is, of course, a journey that we will continue to embark to make sure that our products are relevant and they are priced fairly.
Thank you. Here's one for you, Johan. It seems like the previous financial targets for core operations, excluding Allente, have been reduced. Are the previous 2025 financial targets for core operations, excluding Allente, still realistic and achievable? If not, when do you expect core operations, excluding Allente, to reach positive growth and positive free cash flow?
We are not indicating that we are deviating from the previous forecast. What we have done is we've taken the opportunity to look at the combined pro forma group and set out new targets for that. The targets that we have had, I mean, we have not guided specifically updated guidance for the standalone business, but rather included new guidance for the combined entity.
Thank you. One more for you, Jørgen. Are you looking to make more sub-licensing agreements in your core markets in the coming months? Do you have a limit for sub-licensing of sports rights, or are all your rights up for negotiation?
No, it is clear that the ambition is, of course, that we continue to have a very competitive product. It's also not a secret that we have a lot of content and a lot of events, to be fair. That can easily happen that we will find strong partnership with others. Of course, the ambition is, of course, with the revenue that you get for those sub-licenses, to invest in other areas of the business as well to the benefit of the customers. It is also about capital allocation. We are definitely interested in making sure that we have the right set and right volume of rights. Still, so far, we have too much.
Thank you. There are no more questions on the message board. I can also say that we have no one waiting in line. I know it's a very busy day today. Thank you for your time and your questions. We really appreciate your interest. If you'd like to schedule a follow-up or have any further questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at investors@viaplaygroup.com. That's it for today. Thanks again. Goodbye and see you soon.