A successful year - now launching our Acceleration Initiative
Financial highlights fourth quarter
- Organic growth (constant currency) was 3.8% in the quarter. The organic growth was 6.4% adjusted for the divested training business and one-off sales of school publications in Region North in Q4 2022.
-
The Group's net sales increased by 72.2% to
SEK 634 m (actual 368 proforma* 600). Acquired growth contributed with 66.5%. Currency effect was 1.8%. -
The Group's adjusted EBITA amounted to
SEK 122 m (actual 93, proforma* 106) with adjusted EBITA margin of 19.2% (actual 25.1%, proforma 17.7%). -
Net result amounted to
SEK 24 m (-13). -
Earnings per share before and after dilution amounted to
SEK 0.22 (-0.12). -
Adjusted operating cash flow amounted to
SEK 237 m (261).
Comment from CEO
2023 was a successful and transformative year, with solid net sales growth and robust margins. We achieved an organic growth of 4% and the adjusted EBITA margin was 20%. The Region South integration progressed ahead of plan with harvested synergies. We now launch an Acceleration Initiative across the Group to enhance our mission-critical solutions for our customers and improve profitability.
Profitable growth within the Group
The Group net sales grew by 8% in the quarter compared to proforma figures, excluding the divested legal training business and the one-off sales of school publications in the comparing quarter the previous year. We have achieved strong growth in online sales, generating a solid adjusted operating cash flow in the quarter. Our solutions are mission-critical for our customers, and we prove ourselves resilient in a turbulent macro-economy.
The organic growth in Region North was 8%, adjusted for the items mentioned above. Growth is driven by strong performance within the public sector. During the quarter, we have onboarded new municipalities in
The net sales development in Region South is stable and in line with our expectations. During the quarter, we had non-subscription legal training sales in
The Group adjusted EBITA margin reached 19% in the fourth quarter. Region North was in line with the corresponding quarter, while the Region South margin was significantly stronger due to a combination of harvested synergies, lower depreciations as well as good cost control.
Thanks to our cash flow generation, our leverage is now 2.8x, below the financial target.
Region South integration ahead of plan
We progress ahead of plan in the Region South integration. We are ahead of plan in terms of content migration as well as IT carve-out. More than 50% of the Aranzadi content is now migrated onto the common content platform, and the first Aranzadi product, Siapol, is now live on the platform. Decoupling of IT structure from one of the sellers has also been completed. During the quarter, we consolidated offices in Region South, which will generate additional annual run-rate synergies of
Acceleration Initiative for further customer value and profitable growth
2023 was a successful and transformative year for
2024 is the year we launch our Acceleration Initiative. We are encouraged by the successful merger in
In parallel, the Region South integration, with the ambition of achieving cost-efficiencies of
In total, we thereby plan to achieve cost-efficiencies within the Group of
conference call on 14 February
A webcasted telephone conference will be held at
You can follow the presentation via webcast and ask questions in written form on the following page:
https://ir.financialhearings.com/karnov-group-q4-report-2023
If you wish to participate via telephone, and thereby be able to ask questions verbally, please register on the link below. After registration you will be provided phone numbers and a conference ID to access the conference. You can ask questions verbally via the teleconference.
https://conference.financialhearings.com/teleconference/?id=5006184
The presentation material and the report will be available before the conference starts at www.karnovgroup.com. An on-demand version will also be available after the presentation. The presentation will also be available on www.financialhearings.com.
For more information, please contact:
Pontus Bodelsson, President and CEO
Telephone: +46 709 957 002
Email: pontus.bodelsson@karnovgroup.com
Telephone: +46 708 555 540
Email: magnus.hansson@karnovgroup.com
Telephone: +46 707 597 668
Email: erik.berggren@karnovgroup.com
This press release contains inside information that
*The proforma figures have been included for comparability. The numbers have not been audited by the company's auditor.
https://news.cision.com/karnov-group/r/karnov-group-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-results-2023,c3928142
https://mb.cision.com/Main/4658/3928142/2602612.pdf
https://mb.cision.com/Public/4658/3928142/b782e559712bad13.pdf
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