Schibsted Sees Q4 ARPA Growth in Norway on the Eve of Two “Milestone” Deals

The Scandinavian marketplace operator and media company, Schibsted has released a report on its activities for the fourth quarter of 2023. Highlights include:

• Overall company revenue was stable year-on-year on both a quarterly and yearly basis.
• Overall company EBITDA grew 5% year-on-year on both a quarterly and yearly basis.
• Marketplaces revenue was up 13% for the quarter and 14% for the year while EBITDA shrunk 3% and 2% respectively.
• Real estate marketplace revenue was up 18% for the quarter and 28% for the year while EBITDA grew 8% and 26% respectively.

Although overall company revenue remained flat and the Marketpkaces segment's revenue suffered from a strong headwind in the jobs vertical, there was a notable uptick in performance for Schibsted's real estate businesses.

Revenues from Norwegian marketplace Finn.no account for around 80% of the company's real estate revenues and Q4 saw exceptionally strong ARPA growth on the back of price increases and upselling despite a "softer trend" in listings volumes.

Schibsted's real estate marketplace in Finland saw good progress on key metrics with continued healthy growth in volumes, and Sweden experienced solid growth in signing value on the transactional rental platform Qasa.

The fourth quarter was marked by two important decisions for the Oslo-based firm. Schibsted, along with other major shareholders, announced its support of a takeover bid for Adevinta led by American private equity giants Permira and Blackstone. The deal has hit a slight bump in the road and with today being the deadline for shares to be tendered, fresh news is expected soon.

The other Q4 "milestone" for Schibsted was the announcement in December of a deal for the company to sell off its news media business to its largest shareholder, the Tinius Trust.

"If finalised, this transaction sets the stage for a transformative restructuring of Schibsted into two, more focused, companies; a media company fully owned by the Tinius Trust, and a publicly listed marketplaces company. Pending a final agreement with the Tinius Trust and approval by the general meeting, we are confident that this move will strengthen the growth prospects and potential of these businesses." - Schibsted CEO, Kristen Skogen Lund.

Schibsted is the Oslo-based media company that spun off online classifieds operator Adevinta in 2019. It reports four business segments with the two most significant being News Media and Nordic Marketplaces, which houses its online classifieds assets.

Although the majority of Schibsted's online classifieds assets passed to Adevinta, the firm retained its classified assets in the Nordic countries.

Schibsted Nordic Classifieds Assets