Scout24 AG: Scout24 AG publishes preliminary figures for 2019: An eventful year with record results

Scout24 AG publishes preliminary figures for 2019:
An eventful year with record results

• The Group fully achieves its targets for the 2019 financial year
• Group revenue increases by 15.4% to EUR 613.6 million
• Group ordinary operating EBITDA margin stands at 52.5%
• Future focus will be on high-margin business ImmoScout24

Munich / Berlin, 19 February 2020
 

Business development

The Group fully achieves its targets for the 2019 financial year

The Scout24 Group has brought an eventful financial year 2019 to an excellent close. The preliminary figures indicate that the Group revenue increased by 15.4% year on year to EUR 613.6 million (2018: EUR 531.7 million). Adjusted for consolidation effects (i.e. including FINANZCHECK.de for the full 2018 financial year, excluding classmarkets, excluding AutoScout24 Spain), the growth rate came to 11.8% (2018 adjusted revenue: EUR 548.6 million). The revenue development is thus fully in line with the forecast for the year (reported growth between 15.0% and 17.0% or adjusted revenue growth ranging between low to mid-teens.).

The ordinary operating EBITDA for the 2019 financial year is expected to reach EUR 321.9 million, a year-on-year increase of 10.4% (2018: EUR 291.5 million). The adjusted growth rate came to 13.2%, thus outpacing the comparable revenue growth rate. The ordinary operating EBITDA margin came to 52.5%, thus likewise exceeding the comparable (adjusted) figure for the previous year (2018 adjusted: 51.8%; 2018 reported: 54.8%). This figure also lies within the target corridor of the forecast for the year (between 52.0% and 54.0%).

In accordance with the strategic roadmap, and with the sale of AutoScout24, the Company is now turning its attention to the operating segment with the highest margins: ImmoScout24. In future, this segment will include the real estate-related products and solutions of Scout24 Consumer Services.

With a revenue growth of 8.1% (adjusted for consolidation effects: 9.0%) and an ordinary operating EBITDA margin of 69.6%, the ImmoScout24 segment fully met management expectations and once again demonstrated its strong growth and earnings power. Including the real estate-related Consumer Services activities, revenue growth would even have come to 9.9% according to preliminary figures (2019: EUR 349.8 million; 2018: EUR 318.1 million). The ordinary operating EBITDA margin would have been 62.2%, up from 61.3% in 2018.

With a revenue growth of 12.3% (adjusted for consolidation effects: 16.3%) and an ordinary operating EBITDA margin of 57.3%, the AutoScout24 segment also developed exceedingly well in the financial year 2019 and even managed to significantly surpass its ambitious growth forecast.

Revenues in the Scout24 Consumer Services segment, which will be integrated into AutoScout24 and ImmoScout24 in the future, increased by 35.7% to EUR 156.5 million in the financial year 2019. The adjusted revenue growth was 11.9%. The ordinary operating EBITDA margin was 23.9%.

Fourth quarter of 2019

Based on preliminary data, Scout24 generated Group revenues of EUR 157.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2019, up 7.7% compared with the same period of the previous year (EUR 145.9 million). The comparatively weaker revenue growth is mainly due to cyclical effects at FINANZCHECK.de and a market-related decline in display revenue. Both effects are reflected in the Consumer Services segment, whose revenues increased by 6.8% from EUR 37.3 million to EUR 39.8 million in the fourth quarter. The ImmoScout24 segment recorded slightly above-average revenue growth of 8.2% to EUR 69.4 million, with an impressive ordinary operating EBITDA margin of 71.6%. In the AutoScout24 segment, growth decelerated slightly in the fourth quarter. Revenue stood at EUR 48.0 million, an increase of 8.0% compared to the previous year's quarter. The ordinary operating EBITDA margin in this segment reached 55.7%, significantly exceeding expectations.

Preliminary ordinary operating EBITDA for the Group totalled EUR 85.5 million, up 10.2% compared with the fourth quarter of 2018 (EUR 77.6 million). The Group's ordinary operating EBITDA margin is expected to reach 54.4%, compared with 53.2% in the fourth quarter of 2018.

Financials by segments

The following table provides an overview of the preliminary financial indicators of the Group and the individual operating segments for the fourth quarter and the full financial year 2019 (compared to the previous year):

On 19 July 2019, Scout24 announced its intention to strengthen its two core verticals ImmoScout24 and AutoScout24 and integrate the products and solutions of the third operating segment, Scout24 Consumer Services, into these core segments respectively after the end of the 2019 financial year. On 17 December 2019, Scout24 concluded an agreement for the sale of 100% of the shares in AutoScout24, FinanceScout24 and FINANZCHECK.de. The transaction also comprises the operations from the Consumer Services segment which will be integrated into AutoScout24. The sale is expected to be completed in the first half of 2020.

Once the transaction is completed, the Scout24 Group will concentrate exclusively on its continuing operations. These comprise the ImmoScout24 segment as well as the operations of Consumer Services allocated to this segment. The latter encompass transactions with financial partners (e.g. savings banks with estate agency activities), banks, financing consultants, loan brokers, insurance companies and insurance intermediaries, removal companies, advertisers (for advertising space on the IS24 marketplace) and consumers (e.g. credit checks and premium memberships for consumers).

As presented at the Capital Markets Day on 26 November 2019, the focus of continuing operations is on the development of a comprehensive ecosystem for real estate in Germany. ImmoScout24 intends to develop into a fully connected digital marketplace for the main user groups - real estate agents, home sellers and consumers. The goal is to process a real estate transaction for all concerned parties in the most digital and efficient way, in order to provide the best user experience and a maximum degree of transparency. New products and services are constantly being developed to this end. These will not only allow existing processes to be simplified and improved, but also significantly expand Scout24's market reach and growth potential.

Next events
On 26 March 2020 Scout24 will publish the final annual report 2019 and the sustainability report 2019 simultaneously. To this end, Scout24 has launched a website: report.scout24.com. From today on, weekly stories related to the reports will be published there under the theme "Make it happen".

About Scout24
With our leading digital marketplaces ImmoScout24 in Germany and Austria and AutoScout24 across Europe, we are creating a networked marketplace for living and mobility. With more than 1,500 employees we empower our users to find their new home or their new car quickly and easily. Besides, we offer additional services, such as the brokerage of relocation services or housing and car financing. Scout24 AG is a publicly listed stock corporation and member of the MDAX. For further information, please visit www.scout24.com, our Corporate Blog and Tech Blog or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Investor Relations
Ursula Querette
Head of Investor Relations
Tel.: +49 89 44456 3278
E-Mail: [email protected]

Media Relations
Jan Flaskamp
Vice President Communications & Marketing
Tel.: +49 30 24301 0721
E-Mail: [email protected]

Disclaimer
All information contained in this document has been carefully prepared. However, no reliance may be placed for any purposes whatsoever on the information contained in this document or on its completeness. No representation or warranty, express or implied, is given by or on behalf of the Company or any of its directors, officers or employees or any other person as to the accuracy and/or completeness of the information contained in this document and no liability whatsoever is accepted by the Company or any of its directors, officers or employees nor any other person for any loss howsoever arising, directly or indirectly, from any use of such information or opinions or otherwise arising in connection therewith.

The information contained in this release is subject to amendment, revision and updating. Certain statements, beliefs and opinions in this document are forward-looking, which reflect the Company's or, as appropriate, senior management's current expectations and projections about future events. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that could cause actual results, including but not limited to the Company's financial position or profitability, to differ materially, also adversely, from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Statements contained in this document regarding past trends or activities should not be taken as a representation that such trends or activities will continue in the future. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any information contained in this document (including forward-looking statements), whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release.

Scout24 also uses alternative performance measures, not defined by IFRS, to describe the Scout24 Group's results of operations. These should not be viewed in isolation, but treated as supplementary information. The special items used to calculate some alternative performance measures arise from the integration of acquired businesses, restructuring measures, impairments, gains or losses resulting from divestitures and sales of shareholdings, and other expenses and income that generally do not arise in conjunction with Scout24's ordinary business activities. Alternative performance measures used by Scout24 are defined in the "Glossary" section of Scout24's Group Interim Report 2019 which is available at www.scout24.com/finanzberichte.

Due to rounding, numbers presented throughout this statement may not add up precisely to the totals indicated, and percentages may not precisely reflect the absolute figures for the same reason. Information on the quarterly financials has not been subject to audit and is thus preliminary.