BoligPortal's FY21 Growth Stunted by Tech Problems and Sluggish Market

North Media, the parent of Danish specialist rentals portal BoligPortal, has released its figures for FY21. While profits (EBIT) were up by 2% on a company level, BoligPortal saw profits decrease by -1% as tech migration issues and a lack of fresh listings affected the bottom line.

North Media owns and operates several diverse businesses in Denmark including a last-mile delivery company (FK Distribution), a smart lock company (Bekey) and a jobs portal (Offir) as well as the country's leading rentals portal.

BoligPortal's revenue over the year (DKK 84m) accounted for around 8% of the company's overall FY21 revenue of DKK 1,033m ($ 158 million). Although BoligPortal's revenue was up 3% year-on-year, its profit (given as EBIT) decreased by -1% from last year to DKK 26.8m ($4.1 million). Both figures were within the latest guidance from November but were below what the company had expected at the beginning of 2021.

Like many portal operators, North Media is attempting to transform its rentals portal from a marketplace into "a comprehensive home rentals platform" including landlord SaaS tools. To do so, BoligPortal had to be transferred to a new tech platform with the company's report citing technical issues around the migration along with a decline in the market supply of rental units for the lacklustre performance in FY21.

In terms of positives, BoligPortal reported growth in traffic with a monthly average of 729,000 monthly visitors for the flagship Danish portal and 186,000 for its sister portal in Sweden (Bostadsportal.se). The company also agreed a DKK 12 million ($1.8 million) deal to acquire property management platform Boligmanager to help it transition out of a pure marketplace business model. The acquisition is expected to reduce BoligPortal’s 2022 EBIT by DKK 8m.

North Media's guidance for 2022 is for revenue to be largely the same as 2021 and for EBIT to be slightly lower at (DKK 190-220m) as the company looks to invest in its digital services according to Group Executive Director & CFO, Kåre Wigh:

"...we’ve decided to spend more on strengthening our growth platform in Digital Services. It will impact on this year’s earnings, but it‘s the right move in our efforts to accelerate the strong momentum in BoligPortal and Ofir. Our consolidated earnings this year will not be at the level we’ve become used to but at an attractive level nonetheless,”