Adevinta ASA (ADE) - Adevinta reports further recovery in Q2, presents the new Group structure

• Total revenues up 36% yoy at €213m
• Organic revenue growth of 36% vs Q2 2020 (+15% vs Q2 2019)
• EBITDA¹ up 24% year-on-year to €52m
• Acquisition of eBay Classifieds Group completed
• Disposal of Shpock completed and sale process for remaining UK assets ongoing
• Management to present some key assets and market opportunities 

Oslo, 15 July 2021 - Adevinta ASA (ADE) ("Adevinta" or "the Company") reported total revenues¹ of €213 million, up 36% in Q2 compared to the same period last year. Organic revenue growth² stood at 36% year-on-year, and at 15% compared to Q2 2019, demonstrating further recovery across the board. 

Online classifieds revenues improved by 39% (of which 6% is attributable to transactional services) compared to Q2 2020, which was strongly impacted by the Covid-19 crisis. Display advertising revenues increased 35% year-on-year. 

Disposals in Global Markets and the Grupo Zap acquisition had a 0.6 point positive impact on revenue growth, whilst changes in exchange rate contributed negatively with 0.4 points.

Gross operating profit (EBITDA) including JVs increased 24% compared to Q2 2020 (+5% compared to Q2 2019). Revenue growth and benefit from divestments were partially offset by the negative one-off of ESOP costs in Brazil, as well as by strong marketing investment in France, increase in personnel costs in the absence of government subsidies, and ramp-up of transactional services. 

Rolv Erik Ryssdal, CEO, commented: 
"Our strong sales performance in Q2, with 36% organic revenue growth, confirms the recovery momentum observed over the past quarters, as we also benefited from the gradual lifting of restrictions in all of our key markets. In the quarter, we have increased our EBITDA margin, excluding one-off in Brazil, despite the significant acceleration in marketing and talent acquisition investments. We will continue to ramp up these investments in the second half of the year to reinforce our positions and seize market opportunities.

"On 25 June, we completed the acquisition of eBay Classifieds Group, a game-changing transaction for Adevinta, making us the world's leading online classifieds group with a diversified and complementary portfolio of assets and brands. We are now starting an incredibly exciting new chapter for our business, supported by our talented people, a new Executive team and a committed Board of Directors.

"We have already initiated our strategic review and, following the positive conversations we have had thus far, we are confident about the opportunities that we see in combining the strengths and expertise of both groups. We will unveil the strategy and the financial objectives for the New Adevinta during our next Capital Markets Day, to be held on 30 November 2021."

Q2 2021 Highlights

Further recovery in revenues

• Total revenues up 36% yoy at €213m
• Organic growth of 36% yoy (+15% vs Q2 2019)
• Online classifieds revenues¹ up 39% yoy (of which 6% from transactional services)
• Display advertising revenues¹ up 35% yoy 

EBITDA¹ up 24% yoy to €52m

• Top line growth
• Benefit from divestments
• Partially offset by strong marketing investment which more than doubled vs Q2 2020 
• Increase in personnel costs (one-off benefits in Q2 2020 related to Covid-19 temporary redundancy support and expected ramp-up in hirings)
• Increase in transactional costs due to the ramp-up of the service
• One-off impact of ESOP in Brazil

Acquisition of eBay Classifieds Group completed on 25 June 2021

• Creation of a globally scaled, pure-play online classifieds leader with a diversified and complementary portfolio of assets and brands
• New Executive team to drive forward Adevinta's long term strategy and ambitions

Disposal of Shpock completed and sale process for remaining UK assets ongoing

• Sale of Shpock completed on 2 June 2021
• Active engagement on the Gumtree UK and Motors.co.uk sales process

Q2 2021 trading update

Commentary and financial numbers in the following section of this document refers to proportionate numbers including JVs. 

Adevinta Overview

Operating revenues incl. JVs by category

*Classifieds revenues include transactional revenues for €11 million in Q2 2021 and €4 million in Q2 2020.   

France

Revenues in France grew by 36% in the second quarter and 32% compared to the second quarter of 2019 (including contribution from L'Argus) demonstrating rapid recovery as Covid-19 restrictions eased progressively in the quarter. Total classifieds revenues grew 35% compared to last year (of which 9% attributable to transactional services) and 41% compared to Q2 2019 (including contribution from l'Argus). We continued to see solid growth throughout the second quarter especially in the motor and real estate verticals, primarily driven by positive ARPA development. Holidays rental vertical improved significantly as a consequence of the relaxation of mobility restrictions. Advertising revenue grew 46% year-on-year and is now nearly in line with 2019 figures. 

EBITDA margin softened to 46.0% despite revenue growth mainly due to strong marketing investment done in the second quarter, which doubled compared to low levels in Q2 2020, as a result of extensive campaigns to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Leboncoin and to promote transactional services. The increasing share of transactional services (contributing to gross profits, albeit at lower relative margin) as well as the expected increase in personnel costs due to the ramp-up in hiring and the non recurring benefit from Covid-19 temporary redundancy support measures in 2020, also impacted negatively the margin performance.

Traffic continued to show good growth (+16% year-on-year) especially during the first half of the quarter while a slight deceleration was noticed in June mainly driven by external factors such as the end of third lockdown. New ads and leads experienced a similar trend.

In Q2 we continued to accelerate the P2P transactional solution with pricing strategy on shipping and a new scoring ranking test on listing. Our payment solution for cars continued to scale with an automated payment for used cars sellers. We reinforced security and trust introducing authentication (sms) and we continued to improve the user experience. We remained focused on our market verticalization strategy in Real Estate (new listing, land surface indication, local information on maps...), Motors (new listings for cars, criterias..) and Holiday Rentals (sms booking approval for hosts, improved calendar…).

Spain

Revenues in Spain grew by 45% compared to Q2 2020 and by 4% compared to Q2 2019, now above pre-covid levels and hitting an all time high quarterly level. Classifieds revenues were up 45% compared to Q2 2020 and 5% compared to Q2 2019 demonstrating a strong recovery in the verticals. We observed significant growth in cars revenue, also growing at double digit compared to Q2 2019, fueled by the combination of higher dealer penetration in both large clients and through Milanuncios, and higher ARPD. The real estate market continued to recover in terms of the number of house transactions, very close to 2019 levels at the end of May. We saw significant recovery in jobs revenue despite the still weak underlying market, benefiting from the digitalisation of Small Medium Businesses in Spain.

Display advertising grew 45% year-on-year led by the increase in direct sales and was broadly in line with Q2 2019.

The EBITDA margin in Q2 was slightly above Q2 2020 at 33.0%, as the revenues increase was partly offset by the reactivation of marketing spending and the increase in personnel costs, no longer benefiting from the temporary redundancy in the context of covid-19, in order to support and boost our market positions. We expect investment to further increase in the second half as a result of the increasingly competitive environment

We saw traffic down by 3% year-on-year in Q2, negatively impacted by the new way of measuring following the implementation of the new cookie policies and by strong competition in our generalist brand. This was partially offset by traffic growth in our motor and real estate marketplaces. On the other hand, leads were up 15% and private content grew by 2% in Q2 with all sites showing positive growth.

In Q2, in Fotocasa we launched the express visit feature that enables users to have a 3D video call with the agencies, the Google one tap log-in and the Geo advisor, which will bring traffic growth. In Jobs we developed a multi publishing product between InfoJobs and Milanuncios, we launched the salary calculator and enabled the curriculum vitae multi format upload. In Motor, we launched the price drop notification, unified categories in app and web and started the migration of our professional clients to the new responsive site. We improved content sharing between Milanuncios and Coches.net and developed a car photo autocomplete using machine learning in Milanuncios. Besides, we continued improving our Payment & Delivery solution by the buy button in the price list and by opening transactional to big items.

Brazil

OLX Brazil revenues and EBITDA are included on a 100% basis for both periods.

We continued to observe depreciation of brazilian real against euro compared to Q2 2020 impacting revenue growth, but to a lesser extent than in previous quarters. Operational revenue in the Brazil segment increased by 141% in local currency driven by the acquisition of Grupo ZAP in Q4 2020.

OLX.com.br in Brazil, which is a 50% owned joint venture, increased revenue by 148% year-on-year in local currency, including the contribution from Grupo Zap. On a comparable basis, revenues grew 47% year-on-year and by 32% compared to Q2 2019. Classified revenues were up 44% compared to Q2 2020 led by core motor and real estate verticals, as well as by high conversion in Consumer Goods. We saw strong performance in cars revenues driven by price optimizations in the professional sales offering and significant growth in paying listers in the private segment. We continued to observe strong growth in real estate due to the cross-selling strategy with Grupo ZAP and the gradual roll-out of the triple bundle ZAP / Vivareal / OLX, strengthening our position in the brokers segment. Display advertising grew 41% compared to Q2 2020 on a comparable basis, driven by solid performance in indirect advertising. Transactional revenues continued to grow at double digit quarter-on-quarter.

Infojobs.com.br in Brazil increased its operational revenues by +50% in local currency and by 16% compared to Q2 2019 mainly led by classifieds revenue and to a lesser extent by advertising. We continued to see steady growth in the main operational KPIs during the second quarter of the year.

In Q2, cumulative EBITDA decreased by €8 million when compared to Q2 2020, negatively impacted by the €14 million increase of the management long-term incentive in OLX Brazil. On a comparable basis, excluding Grupo ZAP and this one-off impact, EBITDA margin would have seen an increase of 8 percentage points compared to Q2 2020, as a result of the classified revenues performance. We continued to invest in talent and reactivated the marketing spending. 

We observed a soft performance in traffic and leads when compared to Q2 2020, impacted by the strong rise in both metrics after the full lockdown last year. On the other hand, we saw a significant boost in supply in all verticals, benefiting from new initiatives to increase paying listers.

In Q2 we gradually rolled-out the triple bundle ZAP / Vivareal / OLX for existing clients. In motor, we continued the digitalization of the car journey with the launch of the vehicle history feature and improved car financing and insurance services. We improved scalability, automation and fraud in our Payment & Delivery solution.

Global Markets

Willhaben revenues and EBITDA are included on a 100% basis for both periods. Shpock operations included until divestment on June 2, 2021.

The Global Markets portfolio saw positive reported revenue growth of 19% compared to Q2 2020. Excluding disposals, revenue grew 34% with strong performance in the main markets throughout the quarter led by Ireland, Italy and Willhaben. Classified revenues (including transactional revenues) were up 29% year-on-year excluding disposals. Revenues in advertising were also up 44% excluding disposals.

Q2 2021 EBITDA was up +0.9pp year-on-year landing at €2 million benefiting from the divestment of assets. Total revenue of disposed assets amounted to €0.9 million in Q2 2021 (€4.3 million in Q2 2020) and EBITDA totalled €(3.2) million (€(3.6) million in Q2 2020). 

Q2 2021 EBITDA margin excluding disposals would be 14.5% showing a decrease of 4 percentage points year-on-year driven by Italy, due to the acceleration of marketing and P&T investments, and Willhaben, due to higher personnel costs, no longer benefiting from the government grants received last year and by unfavourable phasing of marketing. This was partly offset by EBITDA increase in Ireland when compared to Q2 2020 fuelled by revenues outperformance.

In Italy, we saw a continuation of the operational KPIs good trends in the last quarters. Traffic and content have grown double digit compared to last year for the whole quarter, with a slight deceleration in the last part of the quarter in line with market trends as restrictions were lifted. In Motor we continue to gain market share in content and dealers. Jobs has experienced a nice recovery growing double digit compared to last year. Advertising performed well with a good uplift in programmatic driven by strong traffic development and improvements in our Tech stack. We have continued evolving the transactional experience adding the missing pieces: shipping, one-click buy, user ratings, etc.

Willhaben continued its solid development in all operational metrics and the strong performance in all revenue streams. Paylivery, the peer-to-peer payment and delivery service, continued to gain traction and scale with optimizations in the funnel to improve conversion rates. Encouraging development in the Jobs vertical confirmed the positive signs already observed at the end of Q1.

In Ireland we saw good traction in our mortgage business together with a continuous strong growth in Multi Unit Rental in Daft. In motors, DoneDeal has significantly improved its average revenue per dealership driven by upselling and product improvements. We also experienced solid performance in Advertising partly as a result of traffic numbers increasing in all categories.

In Hungary, our product and tech improvements are starting to deliver results as we saw a significant increase in the penetration and the use of our apps. We also noted a strong recovery in the Jobs category which was heavily impacted by Covid last year. Private motor content and revenues, on the other hand, are still suffering from the effects of the pandemic while we continue to grow well on the professional side in Hasznaltauto.

During Q2 we finalised the divestment of Shpock, which was sold to Russ Media on June 2nd, 2021 to address the UK regulator's competition requirements in the context of Adevinta's acquisition of eBay Classifieds Group.

Other and Headquarters

Other and Headquarters costs comprise Adevinta's shareholder and central functions including central product and technology development.

The Other and Headquarters segment's EBITDA decreased by 4.5 million euros year-on-year, to (16.1) million euros in Q2 2021 but remained at similar levels than Q1 2021. The variation compared to Q2 2020 is mainly due to higher personnel-related costs as a consequence of the run rate impact due to the increasing number of employees as we continue to set-up corporate functions. The increase is also impacted by last year's one-off positive contribution through the recognition of government grants as R&D credits as well as some H1 2020 one-off costs reallocated into transition costs in Q2 2020.

Alternative performance measures (APM) used in this press release wil be described and presented in the Definitions and Reconciliations section at the end of the Q2 2021 interim report, to be published on 30 August 2021. 

Outlook 

We see an acceleration of the trends that support the development of the digital economy and the emergence of new business models. Strong secular shifts in online behavior and changing consumption patterns are driving expectations for more convenient user digital journeys. Professionals are rethinking the way they operate and are in demand for more efficient and digital content advertising solutions. The new Adevinta enjoys unequalled positions in vertical and horizontal classifieds marketplaces, with highly complementary skills and expertise and unique global scale to accelerate innovation. We are in an ideal position to continue to lead in the sector, to facilitate and enhance our user and customer experience in their digitalization journey and to benefit from the ongoing industry transformation. Sustainable growth opportunities will stem from further monetization in our existing markets, driving inherent operational leverage. In addition, our expansion throughout the transactional value chain will continue to enlarge our addressable market and represents a substantial incremental growth opportunity.

We saw further recovery across the board in the second quarter and we expect positive momentum to continue through the rest of 2021 albeit that volumes remain soft and uncertain in some of our markets in the short term. Now that the eCG acquisition is completed, we have entered the execution phase. Our key priority will be to deliver on the synergy target that we announced in July 2020. At the same time we will keep a strong focus on our operations. As the vaccine roll-out progresses, we see restrictions reducing, therefore we expect work conditions to progressively normalise in the second half. We will continue to invest in the business to reinforce our positions and seize market opportunities in classifieds. We will even accelerate in markets where we face increasing competition. Our combined group strategic and financial objectives will be communicated in a Capital Markets Day which will be held on November 30, 2021.

Presentation of the Q2 2021 trading update

Time: 15 July 2021 2021 at 14:00 CEST

The company will conduct the presentation as a live audio webcast and conference call. This will also be the opportunity to comment further on the recently-closed eBay Classifieds Group transaction. The whole new Adevinta Executive team will participate in the event. 

The webcast will be available on www.adevinta.com/ir and on this link: https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/enpou7ao. Participants are also invited to ask questions using the dial-in numbers below. 

Dial-in details:
Norway: +47 23 96 0 264
UK: +44 (0) 207 192 8000 
USA: +1 631 510 74 95

Confirmation code: 2540506

A recording of the presentation will be available on our website shortly after the live webcast has ended.

-End-

Media contacts
Mélodie Laroche
Corporate Communications
T: +33 (0) 6 84 30 52 76
melodie.laroche@adevinta.com

Edelman Smithfield
Adevinta@edelman.com

IR contact
Marie de Scobiac
Head of Investor Relations
ir@adevinta.com

Anne-Sophie Jugean
Investor Relations Manager
+33 6 74 19 22 81
ir@adevinta.com


About Adevinta

Adevinta is a global online classifieds specialist, operating digital marketplaces in 16 countries. The company provides technology-based services to connect buyers with sellers and to facilitate transactions, from job offers to real estate, cars, consumer goods and more. Adevinta's portfolio spans more than 40 digital brands, covering one billion people and attracting approximately three billion average monthly visits. Leading brands include top-ranked leboncoin in France, Germany's leading classifieds sites mobile.de and eBay Kleinanzeigen, Marktplaats in the Netherlands, Kijiji in Canada, fotocasa and InfoJobs in Spain, and 50% of fast-growing OLX Brasil. Adevinta spun off from Schibsted ASA and publicly listed in Oslo, Norway in 2019. Adevinta employs almost 7,000 people committed to supporting users and customers daily. Find out more at Adevinta.com.

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This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to Section 5-12 the Norwegian Securities Trading Act

Attachments

• Q2 2021 Trading Update Press Release
• Q2 2021 Trading Update Presentation