Welcome to today's presentation where we have the pleasure to present Inderes, as we can see here, your first quarter results we are going to run through and a little bit maybe run into the expectations for the rest of the year in your guidance. As always, we are joined by you, CEO Mikael Rautanen from Inderes.

For full disclosure, we need of course to mention that we are working together with you, we are using your system, and you also have a 20% ownership in HC Andersen. Let's get that full disclosure away.

There's a box down below if someone wants to ask questions during the presentation. We will run through main part of the presentation, maybe make a few stops and see if there's any questions there.

For now, I will hand the call over to you, Mikael.

Thanks, Michael, and welcome, everyone watching online to the show. First quarter business review of of Inderes.

Let's dive in straight away. 4% revenue growth.

Within the growth, I would like to highlight that the growth came from the areas where we seek growth in our strategy. International revenue up by 15%, recurring revenue accelerated the growth to 8%, we're seeing some signs of pick up in the research contract portfolio, I'm going to touch upon later on, and good momentum continues in the software sales especially.

Big milestone in the first quarter: we delivered successfully a fully digital AGM for one of the largest and most widely owned companies in the Nordics. Extremely demanding and complex production that our team executed perfectly.

I'm super proud of the team. It was a huge R&D investment also for us to build this capability, and I think we have some quite unique capabilities now built and we're pretty well-positioned if the large companies start to shift towards digital AGMs in the upcoming years.

Quite excited about that that opportunity. Overall, the AGM season is going going really really well for for Inderes.

On the negative side, like last time we talked, we we mentioned there's some pick up in the in the market conditions, some IPO activity coming in. Right now, the war in Iran and the and the, well, the downturn or the bear market in small-cap companies that's putting a bit of a shadow on the on the IPO activity.

We did have one IPO successfully coming through in Finland, that's that's our customer as well now, and and we're seeing seeing still good activity in the in the IPO pipeline, but, of course, the the market uncertainty might affect on on will those IPOs will the companies decide to go go through or or or still wait. Regardless of that, we'll continue executing on our strategy like we we the external conditions are what they are, and and and we're pushing forward.

I think the new strategy we announced last year has brought a lot of good execution power and focus to the operations, now that we are more clearly structured into the three different business units: Event, Software, and Research, each of them having their own international growth strategy. Profitability: 9% at the previous year's level.

Diving into each business unit: on the Research business, contract portfolio up to 147 from 141 last year. We landed or we're landing the IPO companies, especially in Finland, with pretty pretty good hit rate, I would say.

That's driven by by the IPOs last year in Finland, and and then landing some some new clients in Sweden as well. This is a really resilient business.

What I'm proud of is that we continue, even though it's single-digit growth, we continue to grow in this market, in this business, in an in an environment where the market is declining and the and most of the research players in the commissioned research field are are cutting down on their or or shrinking portfolios. What makes this market condition right now with with the small-cap bear market in the Nordics, First North Helsinki, First North Stockholm down like over 60% from the from the 2021 heights, and and and they've continued to decline this year, of course, like many small-cap companies, they're seeing shrinking number of owners, they're seeing declining share price, they're seeing lower lower liquidity on the share.

Of course, the companies are like, "How should I approach my investor relations in this environment?" , which is a very relevant question.

One thing is that the must-have products, that those are actually selling pretty well at Inderes. Every company needs a press release system and and IR websites and and needs to run AGM.

That part is is is is is doing pretty well. Of course, research contract, it is not a must-have for a publicly listed company.

In our opinion, every every like decent listed company should have some research coverage, but it's not not a must-have. Of course, that makes new sales more challenging.

I think the silver lining is, and this is something we've seen in the history, that when a company becomes sufficiently frustrated that there's no liquidity on our share, no one in is understanding our company, the pricing of the stock is is whatever, and and and the number of owners is shrinking, usually the question comes at some point, like, "What should we do about it?" I think we have scientific proof that equity research is a good medicine to cure this this this pure problem.

That's something something I I think will eventually come. The activity on the Inderes community side remains remains good on a good good level.

Going to Events business: revenue stable, some timing effects on the on the AGMs this year slightly weighted towards April compared with March. That's that's that's that's small impact there.

In Sweden, we did some restructuring last year to get us back on a sustainable growth path. Some positive signs there.

We're building the capability to deliver larger scale event productions and also sales capability towards the large-cap segment. Something where we are a strategy and tactic we've freely successfully implemented in in in Finland, and and and something where we're we're seeking seeking for growth in the future.

On the AGM side, should the large companies and the AGM industry shift into more digital AGMs, that might negatively affect our revenue, but, on the other side, we're expecting it to contribute positively to our margins longer term because the digital AGMs do represent a higher margin business opportunity for us. In particular, the large large-cap AGMs, I think we have pretty unique offering within that sector that gives us gives us a good competitive advantage in the in in that product specifically.

Then something to mention like I I think I think the Events business is pretty well-positioned to the to the to the AI age because like this is this is like actual authentic personal communications. This is this is me speaking in a live event for for the for the audience.

This is real time. I I think like this type of content is something I believe investors will value also in the future when there's more and more like impersonal and and AI-generated content floating to the to the market.

Software business: good momentum across all products. In the AGM part, we've landed some some really really good big logos as as new customers, despite already having extremely strong market position.

We're growing there, that's that's good. Also on other other software products and the IR Suite, bringing the full software offering together, great feedback, and and and the portfolio is developing really, really fast, and they and today, I I think it's it's important to have great products, but how fast your portfolio is developing and getting better and better every day with the AI, how fast we can develop this portfolio, it's just I think it's fantastic time to to be building a software business in a challenger position, even though like, well, the the word "software" is not a not a trendy trendy term in the in the investor community right now.

I need to say that we're we're actually quite excited about this. Maybe we should I was half joking that we should change the name of this business to some AI something so that it would be more more

AI Agents, you decide.

Yeah. For us, kind of I want to remind that the philosophy here is that we're solving customer problems.

For example, an AGM is not a software product. What the customer is buying is to run their legal process in a efficient and trusted way through, and software is just one part of the equation.

In a way this is solving customer pain points with the combination of AI software, and, of course, there's some advisory part related to it as well.

I guess a lot of your product is highly regulated, right? The messages sent, you need approval by the stock exchange to kind of deliver those messaging and so on.

I guess, if I should feel from my side, you don't want to make any mistakes, meaning probability as AI is running on might not be enough to satisfy that. Should maybe be more deterministic with software is.

I guess looking from the outside, I would also say not one of the areas that is maybe mostly competed or how do you see it?

We can also use AI to make this less prone to errors and more trustworthy. We can make the IR processes more efficient, but practical example: if a customer uses our release distribution system and uploads Finnish or Swedish or Danish release to the system and then the English version of the same release, we have an AI checking that there's no discrepancies between the languages.

It's pretty simple feature that solves extremely relevant problem for the customer. You can also use these technologies to reduce the number of errors, which is extremely important for the IR work.

I guess the suite here, if we should just take a question here regarding this suite, I guess one of the selling points to this is, yes, of course, it's nice for customers to have a full overview, but it should also make you potentially sell them more, right? Now you have a full overview, someone will be blocked because they haven't bought that product from you.

"Oh, I really want to have that overview and my total system integrated." Have you seen anything from customers implementing the IR Suite and therefore also wishing to have maybe the full product pallet from you?

Have you started to see that or is that your expectations maybe that this could drive some growth?

Yes, we're seeing it's still early days, but yeah, of course, there's the convenience of having one supplier, there's the convenience of having everything under one platform, and then there's the convenience of these different solutions interacting with each other. Through that, we can reduce a lot of manual processes related to the investor relations work.

You will also be an API? You will not close out if they have some other competitive system, they can also be integrated into your IR Suite.

Should I understand it like that?

Yeah. We're open to different partners and in some areas, we're actually partnering with a lot of players in the industry.

For example, in terms of bringing in compliance products to the suite and different data feeds that are relevant for the clients. Yeah.

Going to the numbers a bit bit more deep: on the P&L, no surprises here. Pretty pretty small changes on on each of the each of the lines.

Revenue up 4%, EBITDA up by 8%, roughly on on last year's last year's level, and cost structure on a on a fairly fairly stable basis. Guidance for this year unchanged: revenue to increase from last year, relative profitability EBITDA margin, excluding non-recurring items, 10% to 13%.

Background: we're still expecting slight pick up in the in the in the market, despite the recent uncertainty. Profitability affected by by increasing investments in the in the software part, that's where we're putting putting more resources into.

We've just strengthened the sales capabilities in that that area. The full-year full-year earnings and growth slightly is expected to be weighted on the on the second half of the year.

We have a seasonally strong Q3 usually, and and as the recurring revenue base grows, that's that's more reflected on the second half. Then zooming out a bit to the to the bigger picture, what's up, what's next: first of all, AGM, we had last week we we we had our AGM that was hybrid, you could join online, of course, and and then the AGM venue was was one of the most iconic rock clubs in Helsinki called Tavastia.

We had some 150 Inderes community members and shareholders joining. Was a was a good good joy, good good good show and and a good good good spirit.

Dividend

I'm voting that it should only be digital.

We're promoting democratic investor relations.

What the people wants.

You can join to our AGM also digitally or you can come. I think there's still value in face-to-face interaction with your shareholders and investors.

Whether that happens in AGM or some other context, capital markets days, other investor events, of course, there's so many different contexts where you can also have the face-to-face interaction. We're promoting digital, but kind of we do understand that there's actually increasing value in face-to-face interaction.

On the dividend, that's first part, 22 cents, second part to be paid in the second half, 23 cents. As a reminder, we roughly cut our dividend to half compared to last year, and the other half we're spending on share buyback program.

That's how we approach the sour small-cap sentiment that we are not immune to ourselves either. On the strategic development of the company, this is the big picture how we're building the company, where we're heading, starting with the Research, that's where we came from.

What I want to say about the Research, I'm proud that we've been able to grow the past years, even though it's been single-digit growth, we're still able to grow in a shrinking market. Then on top of the Research business, since 2020, we've been building the Investor Relations product offering with IR Events and the software offering.

I think we have some interesting possibilities within that market in the international context. What has changed since last year is that now these are all three quite different business models with quite different market dynamics as well, we're split into three different business units, each of them having their own international expansion strategy that has brought a lot of clarity into the execution of this strategy.

Thanks to the IPO, we've been able to keep building this and invest in growth, even though the Nordic markets have not been the easiest the past couple of years.

That's mildly said.

Yeah. Well, It's

a free comedy

here. From a Danish perspective, that's mildly said,

but

also in Denmark, HCA has been able to kind of grow even in these years, I think it's really actually really well done because it's been such a horrible market in Denmark. I hope there's some IPO activity right in Denmark as well,

and There have, but that's been postponed,

I

think. Awaiting more clarity on the market, yeah.

Yeah. It's an interesting market.

Investor Relations product market is a young market that in international context is evolving and changing, which I think is good for us, and AI is changing the market, accelerating the change, it's changing how investors pick their companies, and that, of course, at least that is changing how companies need to do investor communications. I'm quite excited because it's pretty deep in our culture that leveraging new technologies to disrupt and challenge the status quo is something that is in the core of this company.

We're curious and experimental, but, at the same time, the team is very down-to-earth on building new things, we don't go after shiny new things just to build new fancy tools that don't solve any real problem. Everyone is super focused on what problem are we solving either for the investor or the company.

I think that's great part of the culture, and through this we have a lot of AI-based applications and features already out in the market that help both the IR and the investor side of the Inderes ecosystem. Of course, internal productivity, that's a given, just to stay in the game, you need to get these tools in use and improve your operations productivity.

Short term, it is kind of a challenge because you need to run your existing processes and ways of working while learning new and investing into new, kind of short term getting significant productivity gains is challenging, even though we do have a lot of areas where we're already seeing significant increases in productivity. Face-to-face communications that I already touched upon, and yeah, Inderes as a trusted brand, trusted information source in the capital markets by the investors, I think we're quite well-positioned because investors always have the question, "Yeah, I have these AI tools, but where's the data coming from?

Can I trust the data?" For that, I think, for example, this MCP server that we launched this week is something I'm actually pretty excited about.

We're basically opening up the whole research database of Inderes for the AI tools that investors are using. You can plug your Claude to the Inderes data and you can start building whatever you want on top of it.

It has access to all the research reports, event transcripts, forecasts, estimate historical data, insider trading, the forum discussions that are quite rich at the Inderes forum, and people have been building already really advanced stock-picking screeners on top of the data, and someone has built a stock-picking retro game with Claude, kind of just to give you an idea, users are already going crazy with this. I think this is something super interesting.

We're kind of changing the way investors are consuming research, and kind of from our client perspective, it's, of course, super critical that Inderes is producing quality, trustworthy research about the listed companies and then making that research available in the channels and in the tools that the investors are using, whether it's social media, whether it's Bloomberg terminal, or AI tools, or your local broker, or local financial media. We need to be on those channels, and this is exactly at the core of it, driving innovation and change in this industry.

I guess that's keeping you ahead of the normal bank system with the analysts because that's still a closed wall, I guess, for the agents and the AI models. I guess that's keeping you still ahead of banks, right?

The normal analyst departments, the need for actually feeding in information that's always has been behind the wall, I guess that is still true in this world.

Equity research being a PDF report sending over via email feels quite outdated nowadays. I know.

Yes.

Yeah.

Perfect.

All right, just as an update on our strategy, we're here to democratize investor information by connecting investors and listed companies, bridging the gap between the two. There's all sorts of danger on the path between the listed companies and investors, and Inderes is the guide between the two, helping them to reach each other.

All right.

Perfect. Shall we jump into some questions?

What is the biggest risk to your business right now? Is it technology changes or the stock market?

Two big

Which would I pick? Kind of you need to be always a bit paranoid, you need to be optimistic, but you also need to be a bit paranoid on the technology change because things can change so fast overnight.

How can you stay ahead of the curve, make sure that your business is not being disrupted? If I would have to pick on those, it would be the technology side.

I think that risk is quite diversified because our business is actually quite diversified. It's not only based on a strong recurring base, but Research, Events, and Software, they're all quite different business models and different markets and different dynamics.

Even if you call it challenging Nordic market, it must be the technology side that poses maybe the biggest risk. Been in the market as you for 20 years, we know bad times will be followed by good times, I guess that's also that you can never know in technology.

Yeah. Yes, has there been any changes to the competitive situation, something new arriving, AI trying to disrupt things in a more efficient manner that is always a threat to a large company?

Now I don't call you a small-cap, but in your certain field, you are dominant player. Has there been any changes there?

Are you seeing anything popping up?

In terms of AI, nothing kind of within the markets where we operate particularly, nothing significant. In terms of competition, I think the kind of Events business in Sweden is highly competed and continues to be highly competed, even though it's been a declining market since COVID, but otherwise, no major changes in the competitive landscape.

A final question, just to align, you're indicating that your margins will not move because you're investing primarily in the software business, but you're also talking about margins improving in the software business. Is that the gross margins and then it's the EBITDA margins, just so we understand a little bit better when you say software margins is improving, but you're still investing heavily and therefore overall margins in the company is still expected not to show a massive improvement?

That's right. In the first quarter, software margins, yeah, did improve, but on a EBIT level, and as it improves, that gives us more confidence and capability to invest.

To invest further, I agree.

We're more looking for continuing the strong growth and momentum over improving margins within the software in the short term.

You're still indicating that you will be back-end loaded because looking at your guidance, we can calculate that you actually have delivered maybe 22% to 25% of current guidance, that is in one quarter, you are saying it's back-end loaded. I am talking about the mid-range of guidance.

Are you still expecting to be back-end loaded, facing income being higher in the coming quarters, and will that so be used for investments since it's on my own behalf this calculation, I'm not asking you to go after it,

but

are you still expecting earnings to kind of go up in the back end of the year?

We stick to our guidance, which states so, I think that's all I can say.

I didn't expect anything. Good.

Mikael, I think that was that. Thank you for taking us through your results and giving I think a nice overview on what is developing in our industry, the IR industry, and so on, what is happening on the technology side and thoughts about how AI can be used and how it could, yeah, affect this industry.

Thank you to you, Mikael. Thank you for the audience listening in.

May everybody have a nice weekend.

Bye-bye, thanks.