Checkin.com Group AB

Checkin.com Group AB

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Q4 FY2025 · Earnings Call TranscriptFebruary 12, 2026

Moderator

Hello, and welcome to today's presentation with Checkin.com Group. Joining us today is CEO Martin Bäuml?]

. We will begin with the presentation, followed by a question-and-answer session.

With that said, I'll hand the floor to you. Please go ahead.

Martin Bäuml

Thank you. My name is Martin Bäuml?]

, and I'm the interim CEO and CFO, and today I will take you through our report for the fourth quarter of 2025. We've had two tough years behind us, and I would say the feeling in the company right now is one of a strong desire for revenge, with the focus on finding our way back to growth again.

As you see on the slide here, we end the quarter with a turnover of 15.5 million kronor, which is a decline of 11% versus the previous quarter. The decline in revenue was driven by a revenue loss from one of our largest customers during the autumn.

I will come back to this a little bit later. Despite the decreased revenue, we've had strong cost control in place, which means that EBITDA margin still doubled compared to last year.

In terms of cash flow, we had our best quarter in two years, with a positive cash flow even after investments in R&D. Organizationally, it feels a little bit like a fresh start since we have a new board in place since November and a new CEO coming in in May.

I'm just the interim CEO now for a few months, as as you might be aware of. Looking a little bit more on the on the revenue decline here in the quarter, it was primarily driven by reduced use of the software by one of our largest customers who are active in the aviation industry.

It's important to note that they have not terminated the contract, and they continue to use our software to a large extent. They are still one of our 10 largest customers, and we have no indication that they will reduce volumes further.

In fact, we've actually just recently added new functionality and new modules for this specific customer. However, the revenues from this from these initiatives are, unfortunately, quite small compared to the volume reduction we saw during the during the fall.

The result is also that we have not been able to offset this loss with growth from new or other existing customers, which meant then that revenues fell by 10% during Q4 versus Q4 last year and 11% versus Q3. This makes Q4 actually our worst quarter revenue-wise since the end of 2021, which we are, of course, not satisfied with.

Given our these developments lately, where we have not reached our expectations at all, combined with more cautious future outlooks, the board has made a strategic decision to write down all of the goodwill that we have in connection with the acquisitions of GetID and Datacorp. This impacts the quarter's results with 116 million kronor.

It's important to note that this is a pure accounting one one-off item that does not affect our cash flows. We don't need to pay this 116 million to anyone.

It's it's just an accounting impact. Still, it makes EBIT and and the net results deep in the negative.

The advantage of this is that our balance sheet now better reflects the current conditions of the business. With that said, we are still using the technology and resources from these two acquisitions, but through this through this write-down, we take a more conservative approach regarding the future values of these companies, so, and that that's the reason we've done it.

Looking a little bit more on the commercial side, since I since I took over the CEO role here, my focus has been to to focus to focus the resources to where we are the strongest, and historically, that has been within the iGaming sector, but also within fintech and travel. Given the the limited size of our company and the commercial organization, it's important to focus the right the the the resources the right way, we can't do everything everywhere.

Therefore, we we are now placing more focus on what we do best and where where we have the strongest product-market fit and market position, and that is primarily within iGaming, but also fintech. This this does not mean that we will abandon other segments, but we will focus fewer resources on, for example, global enterprises, US large companies, large global airlines, for example, as we have seen that we have significantly lower win rates in these segments and also longer it just takes longer to say to sell.

It it requires a much longer sales process as well. Looking specifically into the iGaming segment, I'm going to share some more details about this segment now.

This this market is characterized by by by the need to balance two two opposing sides here. You have, on the one side, you have the strict regulatory compliance, driven by regulators often, versus, on the other side, the the requirement or the need for for frictionless user experience.

This in this intersection is where our product works works the best. We help companies meet all sorts of regulations across the world related to identity verification, responsible gambling, age verification, age assurance, etc., while we at the same time have have the market's best user experience, ensuring speed and and high conversion.

What is driving opportunities in the iGaming market right now is regulation. Authorities and regulators world-wide worldwide are trying to eliminate the black market gambling, and we have seen many markets, many geographical markets become newly regulated or re- reregulated in recent years.

These types of of new regulations or reregulation is really beneficial to us, that often forces operators or customers that they need to acquire a solution like ours. We've been particularly successful in this, for example, in I think I think we've mentioned it through the years in this press in this in our reports and in our in our quarterly quarterly presentations.

We've been particularly successful in, for example, Holland and and and Brazil. The other positive aspect about regulations is that they are very fragmented.

There's no solution that works everywhere. Instead, there are different solutions that are required for different markets, and and that also helps our, global operators.

They they require a partner that that can help them solve this in every market, and that's where we come in. We can help them stitch together the solution and optimize for every geographical market so they don't have to do this themselves.

That we kind of become this one-stop shop. On the other hand, with regulations, too much regulation is not good either.

I think we mentioned this before as well, as we've seen in Germany, for example, where where iGaming companies find it difficult to make money and a lot of a lot of operators have left the market. Other outside outside regulation regulation itself, there is a lot of focus on fraud at the moment among our customers, and and that has also forced us to to to make that of the biggest priority.

Deepfake and synthetic identities are becoming increasingly common, and it's important to have a product that constantly remains at the forefront to catch this. I would say we work daily on new iterations and features that make it harder for fraudsters to succeed in tricking the systems.

This this is what our customers are requesting the most, and and and I would say our product suite is at the very forefront regarding this, and we have many interesting dialogues with potential and existing customers regarding our solution here. Moving on to the financial side of it, I take on my CFO hat now.

The the report is, of course, packed with with figures and details, in this financial part, I'm just going to go through the highlights. As already mentioned, net revenues decreased by 10% compared to the same quarter last year, to 15.5 million kronor.

Here, we lost some ground due to exchange rate changes, and at fixed exchange rate, the decline was instead -5%. The gross margin stood at 72% in the quarter, in line with what we have maintained over the over the past year.

EBITDA amounted to 3.5 million kronor, with a margin of 22%, which is a doubling of the margin compared to the same period last year. Cash flow from operating activities ended at at positive almost 6 million, which means that even after investments in R&D, we generated positive cash flow during the period, which is the first time in in two years that we we had a positive cash flow after investments.

We ended the we ended the quarter with a cash balance of almost 14 million and an equity ratio of 83%. Looking more specifically at the at the revenue, we've already mentioned that we lost some ground compared to last year, and the revenue landed at 15.5 million for the quarter, down 10%, as you can see in the chart.

As well discussed, during Q4, the decrease was primarily driven by the reduced revenue from this airline customer. If you look at the at the full-year 2025 figure, which where we landed at almost 70 million kronor, the the biggest impact came from from our old customer, RingCentral, which we which was a contract that we ended in in the middle of 2024.

I would say that that's the biggest contributor to the fall in revenue for the full year, because RingCentral contributed almost 7 million kronor in 2024, but nothing in 2025, so that that kind of closes that delta completely. Moving on to gross profit, gross profit for the quarter decreased to 11.2 million, driven by falling revenue, but the margin of 72 72% I would say is in line with where we have been during the last 12-month period, though a little bit lower than than what we've seen in previous years.

We were over 80% back in 2023. We have continued to work here with with cost optimizations, especially regarding server capacity, but other also other other costs other direct costs that impact the gross margin.

As we discussed previously in other in previous presentations, a large part of these costs are are of of relatively fixed nature, which means that the gross margin will go up once we get back to growth again. Moving on to sales and marketing costs, we have placed a strong focus here also on streamlining and optimizing the costs, and we spent two and 2.4 million kronor on these activities during the quarter, down from 3.7 during the same period last year.

This corresponds to about 16% of revenue during the quarter, and if you look at the chart to the right, about 19% of revenues for the full year of 2025. Moving to EBITDA, the the cost savings that we have put in place over the last year have taken effect, and EBITDA went up to 3.5 million kronor, with a margin of 22%, and as I said before, this is a doubling doubling of the margin compared to the same period last year.

We ended the quarter, or or sorry, we ended the full year with a margin of 21%, also that is up compared to to last year. Important to note here that the goodwill write-down that we discussed earlier, it's not it does not impact EBITDA by definition, since EBITDA is before goodwill amortization or write-downs.

If you look at the EBIT numbers or the operate operating profit in in the report, that figure becomes significantly negative after the the write-down of of about 116 million kronor in the quarter. Again, you should we should remember that this is a pure pure accounting expense that does not affect our cash cash or cash flows.

Looking at the at the cash position and equity ratio here, we ended the we ended the quarter with a cash position of of almost 14 million, and if we adjust for for the loans that we have, the net cash was 9.8 million kronor at at the end of December. The equity ratio at the end of the quarter stood at 83%, and the decline in the equity ratio is primarily driven by the goodwill write-down.

To summarize the the quarter, revenues decreased by 10% compared to the same period last year, driven by revenue loss from one of our major customers, as we discussed. Cost savings meant that EBITDA margin still doubled compared to last year.

A more conservative approach to the future has led us to write down all the goodwill linked to GetID and Datacorp, with an impact of about 116 million kronor in the quarter. We had a positive cash flow even after investments in R&D for the first quarter in two years.

We really had a fresh start with a new board in place and a new CEO starting in in Q2. I would say despite the poor poor growth of the past two years, I'm I'm very positive about the company's future prospects.

We are at the position with a with the with a cost base that it that it only takes one or one or a few dialogues or or a few customers that will that will kind of impact and and and drive drive growth, and that will that will trickle down to improved margins as well, and and and pretty quickly get us back to growth and stronger margins, given given our cost structure. With that, I hand over to Finwire, who will handle the Q&A session.

Moderator

Thank you for the presentation, Martin. Now we open up for questions.

First question is: Why do you choose to write off the entire value of the goodwill all at once? Do you have so little faith in being able to generate revenue with your current products?

Martin Bäuml

That's a good question, and it's always a little bit of a gray area when you're valuing companies, especially long-term into the future. It's a little bit like the question how long is a piece of string?

With that said, it is no news that we have not lived up to our high goals or high expectations, and when we've had declining revenues without meaningful profits for two years, it becomes harder to justify the value of the underlying asset. This is just pure mathematics, or, given that the DCF in the Excel model doesn't really work.

We could, of course, chosen to write down only a part of this and still kind of make the models work, but the board chose to take a more conservative approach about the future expectations here and write off everything at once to make it a little bit cleaner. By doing this, we get a cleaner balance sheet that better reflects the current conditions of the business.

Moderator

You mentioned that the revenue loss in Q4 is driven by a major European airline. Is that contract still in place, and what is the risk that they will stop using you entirely?

Martin Bäuml

Yes, that is correct, and it's obviously very unfortunate that we got this decline in revenue and that it was so large now during Q4. However, as mentioned in the presentation here, the contract is definitely still in place, and we continue to work closely with this customer.

We have just recently added new modules and new functionality in collaboration with this customer, I don't expect any further declines from here. However, the revenue from these additions are small in comparison to the decrease in usage that we experienced during the quarter, unfortunately.

Moderator

Can you tell us more about what you expect the new CEO to bring to the company?

Martin Bäuml

It's a tough question for me to answer given that he will be my boss, but from my perspective, I believe Aris is his name, he will bring some new experiences and new perspectives since he will be the company's first external CEO. He's very experienced from a variety of leading roles in different tech companies, so that's really good.

Then from a personal point, I really like that he's trained in the old Kinnevik school, we call it in Sweden, with everything that entails in terms of analysis, work ethic, and commercial training. I'm really looking forward to him joining.

Moderator

Why are your largest customers choosing to terminate or reduce their cooperation with you?

Martin Bäuml

There are different answers to this. Sometimes it's because they leave a geographical market.

Sometimes it's because they are shutting down a specific use case. Sometimes it's driven by the customer being acquired by another company that has a competing solution.

I guess the question may be a little bit linked to the decline now in Q4 that we saw with the big customer. More specifically on that in that scenario, that customer had two different big ID verification flows through us for slightly different use cases, and where they chose during the fall to completely shut down one of them.

Again, as I mentioned already now, they are still using the other one, and they are still quite a big customer for us still.

Moderator

How has the cooperation with WestJet and Ooredoo developed in terms of revenue?

Martin Bäuml

We've talked about these customers before, and they are still customers of ours, but the rollout has not gone as quickly as we've hoped. They are still relatively small, but given the size of these companies, there is potential to grow here, but nothing we've seen yet.

Moderator

What does churn look like within the iGaming vertical compared to the group as a whole, and how do you perceive the competitive situation there?

Martin Bäuml

Churn is hard to avoid when working with SaaS and software, but as I mentioned in the presentation, iGaming is where we are clearly the strongest. It is where we have had the most and broadest success historically.

Despite the industry having its challenges, we see ourselves as a natural provider in this segment. As I mentioned, given the strong focus about balancing both regulatory compliance and optimal customer experience and conversion.

That's really all I can comment on. I can't go into specific churn rates for specific segments, but iGaming is our strongest segment.

Moderator

Thank you. Another question is: How likely is it that the company will need to raise new capital?

Martin Bäuml

It's a difficult question for me to answer, as it's more a question for the board and the major owners, but there are no such plans in place right now. We have reduced costs significantly over the last 12 to 18 months, and we have a cash balance of close to 14 million at the end of December.

Then, of course, the board could choose to raise money anyway, but in that case, it wouldn't really be to sort of save the company, but rather to more actively invest in growth initiatives.

Moderator

What is required for you to find profitable growth again now?

Martin Bäuml

Actually, very little. We are a slim organization with very close to being breakeven.

Just one or two slightly larger customers would lead us direct to substantial growth, and given our efficient cost structure, most of those revenues will also drop down to the bottom line. We already have a number of companies with great potential that are already signed and live, and we also have some in the pipeline as well.

We just need to ensure that these companies roll out the usage broadly across all their geographies and offerings. As I said in the presentation, I think we are in a very good position as long as we can find the growth.

Moderator

Next question is: Is there any status update regarding the contract with Visma?

Martin Bäuml

Yes. The product is live, and Visma's customers can activate it.

There are a number of interested customers already, but I believe this one will take a little bit more time because it requires us to educate both Visma and their organization, but also their customers about what we offer and how it can help them. There is clearly big potential in this partnership, but unfortunately, I don't think it's going to be something that explodes overnight and suddenly becomes really big, but it will definitely grow more slowly over a longer period of time.

Moderator

The gross margin has declined over the last 1-2 years, but turned upward again now. What is the reason for this?

Martin Bäuml

Actually, I think even this quarter is fairly in line with the level we have seen during the past year, even if we're up a couple of percent compared to last year. As I mentioned in the presentation, this is driven by further cost focus, primarily on the server side.

I think the most important takeaway regarding our gross margin is that many of these costs are of a fixed nature, or semi-fixed nature, which means that the gross margin will go up again once we get back to growth.

Moderator

The last question is: Concretely, what suggests that 2026 will be a better year regarding growth?

Martin Bäuml

Together with the new board, we've decided to be even more focused on the areas where we are the best. I would say laser-focus on things that work.

Beyond that, I think the cost savings that we have taken during 2025 has given us more room to invest in growth, with more focus and more people in the commercial team. I would also maybe say that we have the new CEO coming in with good and long experiences, who I think can contribute also to the growth and with some new perspectives.

I believe our product is better than our competitors'. We constantly hear that from customers that are comparing, and especially after the investments made during the past year, especially in fraud and similar things.

Then as you alluded to in the previous question here in the Q&A, we have some super interesting companies that we have already signed which hasn't really gotten started yet. There are a lot of underlying potential also in some of the customers we already have in the customer base.

I would say a few different things that will make 2026 better than 20- '24 and '25.

Moderator

There are no more questions at this time. Thank you for listening.