Lackluster First Quarters for Scandinavian Classifieds Operators Schibsted and North Media

Profits slide at North Media despite 11% revenue growth of rental portal

North Media, the parent company of Danish rentals marketplace Boligportal, has released its financials for Q1 of FY22. On a company wide-basis, North Media saw revenue rise by just 2% to $35.2 million while earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) was down a full -25% at $6.81 million compared to 2021.

The company's flagship classifieds title, the rental portal Boligportal, saw a similar trend with revenue increasing 11% to $3.2 million and EBIT dropping -8.8% to $0.7m.

According to the company's quarterly report, Boligportal's revenue boost was attributable to increased sales of partner products and data insights subscriptions over the period. The drop in profitability was largely chalked up to the deal to acquire the property management platform Boligmanager agreed in January.

The sluggish profits for Boligportal in the first quarter of 2022 follow on from a lacklustre FY21 in which BoligPortal saw profits decrease by -1% as tech migration issues and a lack of fresh listings affected the portal's 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.

Schibsted's EBITDA falls and impairment loss bites as share price languishes

The Norwegian classifieds operator and publisher Schibsted has released the results of its Q1 activities. The company, which retains a 33% stake in international classifieds operator Adevinta, saw underlying revenue growth of 7% and revenue growth of 33% in its key Nordic marketplace businesses.

That is where the positive news dried up for Schibsted in an uninspiring set of quarterly results which also saw revenues of the company's Financial Services and eCommerce & Distribution segments fall -8% and -9% respectively.

The fall in profitability was put down to a deliberate increase in investment by company CEO Kristin Skogen Lund:

"This decline is mainly driven by higher investments this year which is a clear choice as we are confident that this will put us in even better positions, securing growth and increasing value over time."

The quarter saw an impairment loss of $1.4 billion from its holding in Adevinta whose share price has dropped around 25% over the last few months. There are rumours that Schibsted is looking to divest from its holding in Adevinta when the lock-up period ends in October.

Schibsted owns and operates horizontal classifieds sites in Norway (Finn.no), Sweden (Blocket.se), Finland (Oikotie.fi) and Denmark (dba.dk) as well as the Danish autos vertical site Bilbasen.dk. Of these, Norway's Finn.no is the leading light in the company's portfolio and a clear market leader in many categories including real estate.

Finn.no was a bright spot in Schibsted's missive to the market reporting revenue growth of 35% ($76.7m) at an EBITDA margin of 54% for Q1. The real estate category was particularly profitable over the quarter with a new product offering seeing increased ARPA and revenues. The only caveat for the performance of Finn's real estate section is the looming threat of intervention from the Norwegian competition authorities who were recently called upon to investigate the company at the behest of the country's real estate agents.