TX Group AG (TXGN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

A very warm welcome to our analyst conference regarding the Annual Results 2024. We are very pleased that you found the way to our nice headquarter here in Zurich, and we also like to welcome the participants via Zoom. First of all, I would like to point out at the end of the presentation, you will have the possibility to ask your questions either here in the room or in the chat of the Zoom meeting, and I will then read it to the respective person. To start with, I'd like to introduce our speakers for today. First of all, Pietro Supino, our Chairman and Publisher, will give a short review of the year. Then we have the financial reporting, which will be done by our Chief Financial Officer, Wolf Benkendorff. Then we have newly responsible for the portfolio as Chief Portfolio Officer, Daniel Monch. And last but not least, we have Tanja zu Waldeck, who is our new Chief Operation Officer and responsible for the media activities of our group. Okay. Then let me hand over to Pietro.

Thank you, Ursula. Welcome also from my side, and thank you for your interest. And I thought that for the sake of efficiency, I will not repeat what is written in the press release and also not what I have written in my editorial to the annual report. I guess if you are interested, you have already read it or you might read it afterwards. So that way, we have more time also for Q&As at the end. Maybe just a word to the simplified organization of the group. As you know, we have started to decentralize the group 5 years ago by creating independent companies below the roof of the group. That, I think, has been a good move. And we think that we now can go one step further and, at the same time, further simplify the structure because in the first step, we had also introduced Board of Directors for each of the companies of the group, which in itself was a good idea. They were valuable, but they complicated processes quite a lot. So we have changed the organization in the way that the single companies of the group have not any longer their own Board of Directors. They have their own management. And we have created 2 perimeters of the group, if you want to say so. One is media consisting of Tamedia, 20 Minuten and Goldbach, and the group services, which basically serve the media companies. And the other is the portfolio where the 2 most valuable assets of the group, our participation in the Swiss Marketplace Group and in JobCloud are, but also our real estate holdings, so Zattoo, Doodle and our fintech fund under the leadership of Daniel. And that also explains why it is this group of colleagues that will present the year 2024 to you today. The most important person today is our Group CFO, Wolf Benkendorff, who has also been appointed as a member of the executive team in the last meeting of the Board of Directors. And he, with his colleagues, he consolidates the financials of this decentralized group for internal purposes, but also for the communication with the capital markets with you. As you know, we look at the value of the group as the sum of the parts. The stock price performance has been positive, probably to a large extent, driven by the fantasy of the envisaged IPO of the Swiss Marketplace Group. Financial results for '24 are mixed, and they are definitely below our ambitions. And Tanja will explain various major initiatives how we think that we can restore the profitability of the media businesses, and Daniel will explain the positive situation in the portfolio. First now, Wolf will run us through the financials.

Good afternoon. My name is Wolf Benkendorff, and I am the CFO of the TX Group. I will give you a brief overview of TX Group's financial performance and its individual segments on the following slides. Overview shows a mixed picture. Revenues, earnings, margins were clearly down compared to the previous year. By contrast, cash flow, net liquidity increased significantly. I will outline the reasons for the differing developments on the next slides. If we start on the left, you can see that TX Group's revenue fell by 4%. The job market and the traditional advertising market in which 20 Minuten and Tamedia are active were particularly challenging in the second half of 2024. Lower paper prices and lower print volumes also had a negative impact on revenue. Lower revenue is one reason for lower earnings. In addition to that, EBITDA was burdened by one-off costs of almost CHF 60 million. In particularly noteworthy are higher restructuring costs at Tamedia, provisions for reclaims for short-time working compensation and IAS 19. As a result, EBIT adjusted also decreased considerably. Of the one-off costs just mentioned, only the costs related to the closure of the 2 printing centers amounting to CHF 20 million were adjusted. Due to the acquisition of Clear Channel Switzerland, the share of advertising revenues in total revenues increased further, although advertising revenues at Tamedia and 20 Minuten declined at the same time. The share of digital revenue has not changed overall. In the small stacked column, in the green box, it can be seen that only the share of digital advertising revenue fell slightly due to the negative development of Tamedia at 20 Minuten. Some comments on the income statement. Cost of material and services is below previous year. This is mainly due to lower paper consumption and lower paper costs. Despite clearly lower wages and salaries of CHF 21 million, personnel expenses have grown. One-off costs and restructuring expenses are over CHF 40 million higher than in the previous year. The strong increase in the financial result should also be emphasized. This is driven by gains from the sale of dreifive and heute.at, the profit participation from the sale of Trendsales and the revaluation of the purchase price liability for the acquisition of the minority shares in Neo. As the lower revenue and high one-off costs could not be offset by cost savings, earnings after tax was considerably below previous year. All costs related to the closing of the printing centers were adjusted. These are costs for social plans, retention and project costs. The other adjustments mainly correct for the amortization from business combinations from SMG and the fully consolidated companies. In the financial result, the result from the divestments and the previously mentioned profit participation from the sale of Trendsales and the Neo purchase price liability revaluation were adjusted. In 2024, profit improving adjustments totaled CHF 64 million, as can be seen in the second column. This is slightly less than in 2023, where adjustments of CHF 65 million were made. The operating cash flow has improved significantly. This is mainly due to SMG's extraordinary dividend of CHF 71 million, which is included in the other changes line. Unlike last year, cash flow from investing is positive at CHF 4 million despite investments in PP&E and intangible assets roughly at the same level as the previous year. The reason for this positive cash flow from investing are divestments and the repayments of loans granted. At CHF 232 million, the free cash flow before M&A, which is a key factor in determining the dividend is clearly higher than in the previous year. In total, cash and cash equivalents increased by more than CHF 90 million to CHF 380 million. TX Group's distribution policy is based on free cash flow. Starting from the aforementioned free cash flow before M&A of CHF 232 million, as the middle green column, the repayment of lease liabilities, which are part of the operating business and dividend payments to minority shareholders are deducted. This results in a free cash flow before M&A to TX shareholders of CHF 119 million, which is higher than the amount of CHF 57 million from 2023. The main driver was SMG's extraordinary dividend, which was fully included in the free cash flow. With 76% equity, balance sheet is extremely solid. The strong increase in cash and cash equivalents also results in a higher net liquidity. I will briefly address the financial development of the segments in the following section. This slide shows the main investments in the TX Markets segment on a 100% basis. Due to the challenging job market, both JobCloud and karriere.at experienced a decline in revenue and earnings. The margins in both companies remain very attractive at more than 50%. SMG is continuing its positive development with sales growth of 13% and a significant increase in earnings. In the Goldbach segment, sales rose 4% overall. If you first look at the out-of-home business on the right-hand side, the strong 17% sales increase is notable. However, the comparison with the previous year is slightly distorted as Clear Channel Switzerland was only included for 9 months in 2023. Earnings development in the out-of-home business, which is now clearly positive, is also worth highlighting. Goldbach, excluding out-of-home, has to cope with a decline in revenue, which is partly attributable to the sale of dreifive. In addition to the lower sales, the sharp decline in earnings is mainly due to the one-off effects of provisions amounting to just under CHF 10 million. 20 Minuten had to cope with a very difficult advertising market, especially in the second half of the year. While revenue was only down 5% in the first half of the year, at the end of the year, it was minus 14%. In addition, extra costs were incurred for the setup of in-house sales, which started at the beginning of 2025. Thanks to intense cost management, 20 Minuten was able to compensate for the majority of the loss of revenue. Tamedia recorded a sharp decline in revenues, which was mainly attributable to the advertising market and the printing business. The substantial drop in EBITDA is driven by one-off cost of CHF 29 million for the closure of the printing centers, restructuring measures and the implementation of the new strategy that was announced last summer. A further CHF 6 million had to be set aside for reclaims for short-time work compensation. As CHF 20 million were adjusted for the closure of the printing centers, the full effect of the one-off cost is not reflected in EBIT adjusted. Sales in the Ventures segment increased slightly. The result was unchanged from the previous year. In the Group division, despite lower sales, this means fewer services invoiced. The Group's negative contribution to earnings was reduced by CHF 1.5 million. This is mainly due to savings in group services. This graph shows the contribution of the individual segments of TX Group to free cash flow before M&A to TX shareholders. The gray shaded areas show the share of cash flow attributable to minority interests. The large contribution of TX Markets to free cash flow seen on the left side is striking with the main driver being the extraordinary dividend from SMG. However, it becomes also clear that Goldbach, 20 Minuten and Tamedia all generated positive free cash flow in 2024. In the coming years, however, Tamedia's free cash flow will be negatively impacted by the payments for social plans for which provisions were recognized in 2024. With this, I hand over to Daniel.

A warm welcome also from my side. Happy to give you an overview of the portfolio as it stands since October 1. Okay. Our portfolio has evolved significantly in the recent years, and we continue to see strong potential for further development. Our goal is to drive sustainable growth, both by investing in our existing portfolio and by increasing the presence in the classified space beyond the existing portfolio. Over the next few minutes, I'll guide you through the development of the portfolio in 2024, starting with JobCloud. As Wolf has mentioned, JobCloud has been facing a challenging environment. This is not unique to JobCloud. I think this is the case for almost every job classifieds worldwide. That being said, as you can see on the chart on the right-hand side, which shows the monthly web visits of JobCloud, and this is not only visible by the monthly web visits, but only by KPIs on applications and registrations, JobCloud could strengthen its position in the market. This was the fact that they could strengthen the position by maintaining the high margin that Wolf had already outlined. The focus is now on being well prepared for future growth once markets recovers. We want to be on top of the curve when markets are getting better, and that's why we're alongside strict cost discipline, keep on continuing to invest into product and technology. All what I have said regarding JobCloud is also true for our activity in Austria, karriere.at. It also shows lower revenue compared to the previous year, but strong profitability with a margin of above 50%. Coming to SMG. As Wolf already outlined, SMG had a really great year, and I think we can all be proud of the achievements made at SMG. As you can see on the slide, all verticals have contributed to the strong growth of SMG this year and have shown a growth compared to the previous year. Key focus of SMG is to bring product innovation and value-add to the market, and '24 has given us some great examples on that. For example, Ricardo could celebrate its 25th anniversary this year and bringing product development by introducing MoneyGuard and Ricardo AI. Automotive launched the electric vehicles hub and completely relaunched its website and its app. And real estate, last but not least, helped to accelerate the digitization of the rental process by integrating the Flatfox features into its ecosystem. In addition to that, SMG Real Estate rolled out a brand-new listing process for property professional and, alone, this change helped the professionals to save 14 minutes per listing in average. These innovations, I just named a few, didn't just happen in isolation, as you can see in the numbers. These product innovations come alongside with improved margins, and that was possible to the cost-cutting program that was already outlined in previous meetings. This cost-cutting program helped us, a, to save costs; and b, gave us the potential to reinvest some of the cost savings into innovation and into growth. To ensure that SMG is on a path to capital market readiness, talks with institutional investors and banks have taken place in the last few weeks and months. That said, no decision has been made yet on the timing of a potential IPO, as Pietro has mentioned. Coming to Group and Ventures, as mentioned in previous meetings, our real estate holds significant potential. With the closing of the printing facilities, the dates now defined and announced, we had the possibility to develop a tailored property strategy for each location. This strategy differs from location to location. For example, we will carry out the construction of the new office building next door to our headquarters here in Zurich ourselves. The building, which is constructed for external use only, will span 10,000 square meters and comes with an investment volume of around CHF 80 million. However, for our properties in Zurich Bloomberg and in Bussigny, we may explore partnerships to fully realize the value and to make it successful. Last but not least, a short glance on Doodle and Zattoo. Both are facing challenges, but at the same time, there are also some positive developments. Doodle is seeing strong growth in subscription and Zattoo had the possibility to secure some promising new B2B deals and to recently welcome a new management. The management team under the leadership of Roger Elsener is at the moment working on a holistic strategy process that will bring the company to the next level. Overall, I think for the portfolio, as I mentioned in my introduction, we see that a lot of potential is within the portfolio. And I think we are on the right track to step-by-step unlock this potential for the group. And with that, I hand over to Tanja.

Thank you, and good afternoon, everybody. On the media side of the business, the year 2024 was marked by significant restructurings and reorganizations of the 3 media companies. The primary objective of these efforts is to strengthen their profitability and margins, of course, for the coming years, while also ensuring that they remain more focused on their core businesses. Looking ahead to 2025, the teams of the 3 companies will need to maintain their focus on the continued execution of these restructurings and reorganizations. During 2025, we will gradually shift our attention towards our growth and digital strategies with the clear objective of reaching the set EBIT margins. With that, I'd like to turn to the individual media companies, starting off with Goldbach. To achieve its margins in 2026, Goldbach is working on reducing their cost base and improving their focus on their core businesses. To do so, they implemented 3 important steps in 2024. First of all, Goldbach has undergone a restructuring program of the Goldbach Group at the end of 2024 to reduce costs on an overhead level. Second, the team has decided to exit nonstrategic businesses. In 2024, it sold its agency business, dreifive and its Austrian activities. More activities are currently under evaluation. And third, they have agreed with 20 Minuten and Tamedia to hand over their advertising sales to them to the benefit of all 3 parties. Goldbach, therefore, has no print sales activities anymore and can concentrate much better on their strong positions in their core markets. But Goldbach will continue, of course, to work with 20 Minuten and Tamedia for the digital audience products and on technologies. The team of Christoph Marty will continue to clean up its portfolio of activities and its cost base in 2025. As a consequence, Goldbach is focusing on 3 core businesses in which it has a very strong market position. Goldbach Neo gained a leading position in the out-of-home market in Switzerland through the acquisition of Clear Channel. As you can see on the right side, Goldbach Neo has now a very strong coverage in all the major Swiss cities. Goldbach Media continues to have a very strong position in the Swiss TV market and has strengthened that with new partnerships. And Goldbach Digital, a newly founded area focuses on the growing digital advertising sales business with its strong drivers, for instance, in programmatic and video. So let's turn to 20 Minuten. 20 Minuten has successfully expanded its leading position as the top online news brand in the market, even gaining additional market share in terms of traffic. And in my more than 10 years in the European news industry, I can confidently say that 20 Minuten is really one of the strongest online news brands I've ever seen. In 2024, the team of Bernhard Brechbühl decided to build on its strong position by taking over its advertising sales activities from Goldbach. This strategic move allows 20 Minuten to better integrate its advertising into the product, making it more technologically advanced and offering greater creativity and closer relationship with advertising clients. In a similar move to Goldbach, 20 Minuten also sold its Austrian operations to focus more closely on growth opportunities within Switzerland. And last but not least, as you've probably seen in the media, the Tamedia team led by Jessica Peppel-Schulz has embarked on a significant transformation program. We have already communicated that Tamedia will close 2 of its 3 printing facilities, Bussigny in March and Zurich at the end of 2026. Additionally, the editorial teams have been restructured to significantly reduce the company's cost base and to focus on quality journalism via content pooling. To better focus on our digital strengths, Tamedia has decided to concentrate investments on 4 core brands for the future. While the other brands will continue to be printed, they will be integrated into the digital offerings of the 4 primary products. In terms of our advertising activities, Tamedia has taken over the advertising sales from Goldbach. This move strengthens our direct sales efforts and will help to optimize ad revenues. However, Tamedia will continue to collaborate with Goldbach on the digital and technological aspects. Looking ahead to 2025, Tamedia will focus on further executing its restructuring plans while driving growth through our advertising and digital teams. Tamedia is committed to expanding the digital business by increasing our subscription base and growing the overall reach of our digital news products. So overall, I can say that in 2024, it was dominated by gaining focus and restructuring, and we will shift our focus in 2025 to the future digital and growth strategies. Thank you very much.

So with that, we would open up the Q&A. I would ask you to wait for the mic and introduce yourself. So Daniel, let me -- Sara...

Yes, Daniel Bürki from Zürcher Kantonalbank. I would have a question on JobCloud. It had 2 difficult years, I believe. Can we expect it to be another difficult year in '25? Or do you see any signs that this market is picking up?

Yes. Thanks for the question. I think at the moment, it's quite tough to talk about market environment and global environment as we can have seen in the last few weeks, it changed from morning to morning, so to say. So we see a lot of uncertainty in the market at the moment. We see some positive developments. But on the other hand, we also see some challenging things. So at the moment, it's quite tough to say if '25 will be significantly better than '24.

And maybe a second one, if I may, a question for Wolf. So you had about CHF 60 million of extraordinary costs you mentioned. Which of these costs might come back in '25 and which one are really settled?

Most of it is provisions. So we have it in the profit and loss statement for 2024. The parts of it will hurt us in the cash flow statement in the next coming years, but this, especially for Tamedia, which is the largest part, these provisions are the major cost of the transformation at Tamedia. There will be, of course, cost in the future to come, but the major part for the strategic decisions that were communicated last summer have been already recognized in the profit and loss statement for 2024.

Other questions?

Andy Schnyder, zCapital. Some add-on questions on jobs. I see that we don't have 2022 anymore where a lot of jobs have been created here in Switzerland and a lot of shortages in the labor market were quite apparent in all sectors. But to me, it seems the economy is still fairly stable. So what are the main reasons for the downturn? Is it just a normalization? Or what are some other reasons there for the flat development or slightly downward development?

Yes, we see. Also looking at our competitors in the European field, it's quite a cyclical business. And as long as there's uncertainty in the market, companies are not willing to really push recruiting, and that's something we perceive in the market at the moment. So I think it's not a new level we are having after 2022 that you mentioned, but I think we're at the bottom of the curve at the moment, and we're convinced that this curve will go up again, and then we will be ready for future growth. And as I said, that's why we also continue to invest into product and into innovation because we strongly believe that this growth will pick up again and that then the business can even be more successful at it is at the moment because as I also outlined, we're still talking about margins of above 50%. So it's still a very healthy business, but we are convinced that it can do better when markets recover.

Maybe regarding JobCloud, I would like to add that we really remain fundamentally positive on the digital recruiting business. We have to accept that it is a cyclical business. That's a fact. But the position of our holdings, both in Switzerland and Austria is extremely strong. It has even been further developed in this downturn. And all the fundamental reasons why digital recruiting can be expected to have a very good outlook remain the same, namely the labor shortage in Europe, the aging population, et cetera. So the value that is offered to customers has been increased. The position of the platforms was increased. And if we accept that it is a cyclical business, we can have, for the same reasons as before, a very positive outlook for digital recruiting. And that's also the reason why we could imagine if the right opportunity comes up to further invest in that field.

So with right opportunity, you mean an acquisition, technology acquisition or outside Switzerland?

Yes. So I mean, as Daniel has said, in any event, we invest organically in the development of the businesses that we have been doing and we continue to do, but we could also imagine inorganic acquisitions. And the most logical would be if we could increase our stake in karriere.at Austria in some way or the other or theoretically, but that's not an option for the moment, if we could increase our stake in JobCloud itself.

And for the business itself, sort of a midterm vision, I think the market position you have is great. But as we see with -- in the real estate business, it's still possible to grow your business by adding new services, by increasing prices. Is that also what is envisioned for JobCloud? And just by doing that and having better economic environment, does it mean that this business can double? Or where are the physical limits here in Switzerland?

Regarding JobCloud, yes, I think there's still room for potential growth. It's not unlimited as the market position is already very strong, as you have outlined. You mentioned some of the possible ways to go is by integrating other services as technology as services that are not digitized yet. So we see a lot of potential not only in the core business of JobCloud, but also in the environment of JobCloud is not digital yet. But that's a discussion we are also having within the strategy process at the moment and that we're having with our JV partner, Ringier.

Great. And the last question for you, Mr. Supino probably. In the press release this morning, there was a lot of talk also about the progress you made or the plans you're making with the real estate business. Maybe you can give us an update on that, too, and your musings about what we should expect over the next few years?

Maybe Daniel is even better placed to...

Yes. As I mentioned, we're working now on a property strategy for each location. We are quite advanced with the location here in Zurich, Werdstrasse, where I outlined the new office building that we're constructing. This will be finished by approximately 2028. And as I said, it's 10,000 square meters that we're creating for external use. That's the first step. That is maybe the location where we advanced at the moment, and we will continue to also develop such a strategy for Bussigny, for Zurich Bloomberg, most probably together with partners because it's a different level than the level we're talking here about Zurich, Werdstrasse. But we're not just so advanced as with Zurich Werdstrasse that we can give you a clear guidance on what the plans are, what we will continue to do that, and we'll be back with news, I think, in the next meetings.

And just an add-on on that. We discussed it before, and we got the NAV on the ventures. Maybe we can get an NAV on the real estate part at some point. If you could consider that, that would be highly appreciated.

I'm looking at the CFO. He's...

He's happy to do that. He's [indiscernible] So he can do that.

Okay. Thank you. I have one question here from the stream. Could we get an indication of the EBITDA margin of Goldbach Neo?

Let's see. Okay. So the question is if it -- what it is right now or how it will develop?