Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Sanoma's first half 2023 results presentation. My name is Kaisa Uurasmaa. I'm heading Investor Relations and Sustainability at Sanoma. During the first half of the year, our net sales grew. Operational EBIT was supported by solid learning performance. We have the management here presenting the results: CEO Susan Duinhoven and CFO Alex Green. After the presentation, we will have a Q&A session. We will first take questions from the audience here at Sanoma House, and then hand over to the telephone line. As a third option, you can also use the chat function in the webcast platform. After the webcast and the presentation and the Q&A, we will close the session, and the recording of this event will be available on our website. With this, I would like to invite Susan on stage, please. Thank you very much, Kaisa, and also from my end, a warm welcome to this half-year results presentation. As Kaisa indicated, we had growing net sales and a solid EBIT supported by the learning performance, specifically in the second quarter. If we look at the first half of the year, we saw the group sales growing, and that was due to the learning business growth. That growth came from the acquisition of Italy and German business, but also a solid 4% organic growth. That more than compensated the lower net sales in Media Finland that we all expected coming from a decline in advertising sales. If we then look at the operational EBIT, that was then supported by that solid Q2 performance in learning and, impacted, of course, as well by the declining advertising sales and the cost inflation across all of our businesses. If we look at the free cash flow, there we had a very significant improvement. Of course, the cash flow in any learning-driven business is negative in the first half of the year. If you think that we also added an Italian and German business, that, of course, typically then takes up more cash, this better than last year performance is quite exceptional. That comes from a concerted effort in our learning business, to take operational actions that can also be repeated in the coming years, that saved us EUR 50 million in cash in that typical low point for us, the Q2. We pulled cash basically from the Q3 into the Q2 by a number of measures, and Alex will go into a bit more detail on that. Our leverage was about stable at 3.3, slightly above our long-term target of being below 3, and that is logical following the acquisition of the Italian and German business in the second half of last year. Overall, outlook for 2023, unchanged. We see positive developments on the learning side compared to the start of the year, specifically driven by Spain, but then offsetting also some of the more demanding advertising circumstances in Media Finland. All in all, guiding still very much for the mid of that range. If we then go into learning, Italian acquisition and the organic growth both made that business grow to EUR 264 million. The sale of Eduarte in the second half of last year took a little step down of EUR 4 million, but the Italian and German business added EUR 42 million in itself to that growth. The other businesses contributed 4% growth, and that was literally across all the businesses. Strong growth in Spain, and there, of course, it was against the weak comparable, because if you remember last year, the curriculum changed. The LOMLOE law had still to start and therefore caused a bit of delay in the second quarter. The comparable was low, but overall, we're still seeing that in Spain, good, solid growth. Also, for the full year, we're expecting 10% growth for that business due to the successful implementation of the LOMLOE curriculum renewal. If we then look at the growth in Finland and Belgium, that was mainly driven by the successful implementation of higher-than-usual price increases, and the start of that was, of course, already seen in then Q2 in those businesses. In the Netherlands, however, we saw that some of the deliveries out of our content business were a bit later. The orders are in. There is going to be a very solid year also in the Netherlands, but the deliveries shifted into Q3. In Poland, you still see in the first half of the year, equal to prior year, but that is because we're ahead of a minor curriculum renewal that will create an uplift as expected in the third quarter and fourth quarter of this year. All in all, learning, solid growth across all the businesses, supported, of course, by an acquisition. If we look at the earnings, we see, of course, that growth also supporting the earnings in the second quarter, second quarter being quite strong and stronger than last year. Of course, the first quarter was impacted by the typical annual seasonality of the business, but also the impact of inflation, and now, in the first half, for the first time, also personnel cost increases, in addition to the regular fixed cost inflationary impact. If we look at the growth, the growth in sales had a positive impact, but that was compensated by the typical cost for marketing and content creation in Poland ahead of that minor curriculum renewal. All in all, a solid second quarter, then for the full first half, EUR 15 million of EBIT, excluding PPA. If we then look at one of those elements that we have talked about quite a bit in the last year, is the price increases in the learning business. This, of course, was the first moment for us. The first half of this year was the first moment to introduce price increases following the inflationary impact that already started at the mid of last year. We have seen now in our sales calls and impact on the market, that the price increases are well understood by customers. They are accepting those, and we will see, of course, a bit of volume impact as well. It will not translate one-on-one, but that is very much more in the auxiliary and the supplementary parts of the portfolio. Where in Q2, you only see a very small start of that positive impact of price increases, the majority of that impact, of course, will show in the third quarter. As said before, the full mitigation of the inflationary impact will take one to two years from the start, let's say, from July last year onwards. In some markets, of course, the inflation is a bit less. There, it's covered in one year, but in most markets, quite high inflation that cannot be covered in one year. That's still coming the next year, but that has also been part of those discussions. All in all, these price increases lead us also to believe that we will be on the high end of our typical, long-term growth target of 2%-5% organic growth. These price increases will bring us for this year on the high end of that. If we then go to Media business, there, the advertising sales decreased in line with our expectations. Net sales came to EUR 153 million, and the advertising sales decreased with 11%, and that development was basically across all media categories. We performed in line with the market in online and radio, but we're a bit below the market in performance in TV and in newsprint. TV, if you remember from the last years, TV in Q2 always suffers a little bit from the fact that this is the quarter with big sports events, like the ice hockey, where the competing channels have those rights. In newsprint, we were impacted a bit by the elections, that typically favor regional and local papers in their advertising. The uplift from the elections is typically not going that strongly to the national papers. In this second quarter, we also had an interesting launch. We were in Europe one of the first to introduce FAST channels. That stands for Free Ad-supported Streaming TV. The Pluto TV, which is an interesting phenomenon, I must say, that it is VOD, so you choose the channels, but in the channels, it is actually linear content that top-notch content like Frasier, like South Park, that is then ongoing run 24/7. It's a sort of an old-fashioned concept in a new world. We're connecting it to Ruutu. It had already 800,000 starts in the couple of weeks that it was active in June, and over 100,000 unique users, which is then, you know, a nice inflow channel also into our Ruutu service. Subscription sales declined only slightly, and most of the decline was from the impact of the divestment of the Supla audiobook business in March. A slight decrease in the other subscription businesses, the volume decreasing a little bit more than the price increases, could offset. That's the tight balance that we all the time, trigger for, that we, of course, stay on the, on the plus side there. This quarter, we were a little bit on the, on the minus side. The growth in events, very small business, but I know that you're probably going to ask about that, as always in the, in this summer season. The events, modest growth in visitors, stays around the same, revenues and, unfortunately, also around break-even business. A good position, with the 13 events that we had. Of course, only a very small part was in Q2. Given the fact that we're now end of July, we oversee the full year and are therefore quite happy with this first year with a more normal market, I would say. Lower earnings, as expected, due to decreasing advertising sales and inflation, decreased to EUR 9 million, advertising sales being a big part of that decline. Some positive earning impact from lower variable costs, specifically in this transformation from print to digital in news, is beneficial there, offset by higher personnel and other fixed cost. The first half, we see that the EBIT in Media Finland decreased with about half. There, it's important to realize that the first half of last year was a very strong comparable, because there, inflation did not yet impact. If you remember, the Q2 last year had still a very strong advertising market. A strong comparable, and therefore, a quite a significant step down in the earnings. All that in line with our expectations already at the start of the year. That then also makes that our outlook for 2023 is unchanged. We expect to have sales between EUR 1.35 billion-EUR 1.4 billion, and a group operational EBIT, excluding PPA, between EUR 150 million and EUR 180 million. We have soft guided you before towards that midpoint of that range, and we still reiterate that soft guidance. We see that on the media side, we might be performing a bit less than we originally soft guided, where we said one-third might be media might be lower. That might now be more towards the 40%, still better than the first half of the year because of the lower comparable. The learning business will absolutely compensate that strong start and good visibility now for the year. All in all, the outlook unchanged. Also, the assumptions underneath, we assume that there will be a mild recession in Finland. That was true in the first half of the year, and that the advertising market will decline slightly and with the specific impact in the first half. In summary, I think solid performance in Learning, Media Finland, as expected, operating in a difficult operating environment, and the outlook unchanged for the full year. With that, I would like to hand over to Alex to go into a bit more detail on the financials. Thank you, Susan. Great to be with you here today and to see lots of people in person as well. Let's go into the financials, starting off with the operational EBIT for Q2 specifically, which was stable. You see here on the right-hand side, EUR 54 million of operational EBIT, which was helped by a strong learning performance with the growth in Spain, driven by the LOMLOE curriculum change. As you heard, you remember the last year, there was a significant delay, which meant that this year being on track gives us that upside. We also see the impact of the acquired Italian and German businesses in there, all this more than offsetting the challenge of the inflation coming in on paper, personnel coming in now in Q2, which we'll see more of in the second part of the year, and on the fixed costs. This was offsetting the lower advertising sales in Media Finland, which obviously flowed through to EBIT, with also with higher personnel and other fixed costs. Across both businesses, a lot of thoughtful cost management was in place to kind of mitigate these, and to optimize our position. That, those two things, the higher learning and the compensating for Media Finland, gave us a stable earnings Q2 at EUR 54 million. Looking at the cash, free cash flow situation, you see on the right-hand side with the uptick on the purple line, the impact of the successful operating measures we took in particularly in Q2 to improve the position. As Susan said, both with the increase in seasonality coming from the acquired business, particularly in Italy, so a lot more cash needed in the first half and coming in in the second, plus in an environment of high cost of capital, high interest rates, it's extremely important to us to try and mitigate this as much as we could. We put in place across the company, a number of measures to bring forward and improve the cash inflows in H1 rather than H2. A couple of examples of this: We put in place a mechanism to bring in prepayments from schools, as opposed to having full invoicing done, sort of around about now and later, and having the money in the second half of the year. We got a lot of prepayments in. This was well accommodated by the schools, and we got a lot of money in H1. We also invoiced our digital subscriptions slightly earlier than we otherwise would have. Normally, that comes in, sort of the beginning of Q3, and we brought the invoicing forward a month, and then were therefore able to chase the cash and get that in as well. As well as focusing on collections across the company, also looking at inventory levels, looking at timing of orders, and, you know, in a high cost of capital world, you can sometimes it makes more sense to make different decisions around those things to optimize our cash position. All that together gave us this significant significant upside, taking us to an improved position versus last year, even with the acquisition. An important factor here is that a lot of these measures are structurally in place and will happen again next year and in future years as well. We've brought forward permanently our sort of cash flow generation and sort of smoothed the position. Now, as I say, all I'm saying, it's timing, it's bringing forward from H2 to H1. For 2023 overall, our underlying cash flow is expected to remain relatively stable as we communicated before. As a reminder of our dividend, we've paid the first installment of EUR 0.13 a share in April, second installment September, and the third will be in November. The strong cash position in H1 has reduced the increase in net debt to just EUR 792 million, otherwise would have been clearly higher versus the end of March. Clearly it does increase with the seasonality of the learning business, but this took our net debt over adjusted EBITDA to a stable position of 3.3 versus 3.2 last year. Still slightly ahead of our long-term target of EUR 3. Expect to be around 3x by the end of the year. Equity ratio at 35.4% is within the long-term target of 35%-45%. Our net financial items have increased with the increased interest rates and also the slightly higher debt levels versus last year, with the average interest rate at around 3% versus 1% this time last year. As a reminder, the hybrid bond interest is not included in net financial items. As it's a hybrid bond, the accounting treatment means we take the... It's deducted directly from equity. They're my three financial slides. I also now want to announce we do have a capital markets day on the 22nd of November, 2023. We look forward to inviting you here for that. This is an in-person meeting. Yes, you can also join virtually. Important to us to have that in-person meeting. We very much look forward to seeing many of you there for that event. With that, I invite my colleagues back on stage for the Q&A. Thank you, Alex. Thank you, Susan. Now we would like to start the Q&A session from here at Sanoma House. We have several hands up, so let's. Please wait for the microphone before you start. Hi, it's Sanna Perälä from Nordea. I have a few questions regarding Media Finland. First, the advertising sales. How do you see the sales developing in H2? Yeah, the sales development, it's a bit difficult to indicate that because, of course, the comparable is quite different, H1 versus H2. We think that our advertising level stays at the same level, and therefore, compared to the comparable, the decrease will be less. We don't see the advertising market still already pulling, let's say, pulling much stronger. We do think that there will still be a decline also versus a weak comparable last year. Okay, thank you. On the group level, will the growth in fixed costs, for example, in personal and other fixed costs, continue in H2 as well? Yeah, they will. Indeed, well, if we think about the main areas, the paper and print costs, we see them sort of stabilizing, not increasing, having peaked. In the second half of the year, that will give us a little bit of benefit on the Media Finland side. On the learning side, with all the printing largely done, that will help us next year. On the people cost-related things, the salary increases, that started in Q2, 'cause they generally happen sort of March, April on average. We'll see more of that in H2, that's fully included in our estimates and our guidance, and the soft guidance to the midpoint of that guidance has all that in there. We don't expect surprises there. All right. Thank you. That's all. Thank you, Sanna. The next one, please. Yeah, it's Kimmo Stenvall from OP Markets. Couple of questions on the media business. First of all, on maybe this kind of long-term strategic business question on the media. We know that Viaplay is facing big troubles in the Nordic and in Europe, also Telia is announcing major restructuring in the media business. Does this give you any thoughts on the future of the media business in Finland, at least in the TV? Because Viaplay is sub-licensing some of the sports content. Though, is there any possibility for you to operate in that market? Yes, Viaplay is, of course, quite a different business, let's say, from our TV business. If I just highlight a couple of these differences, big part, as we understand, of the free-to-air TV business exposure in Viaplay is to the Swedish market. We're, of course, only in Finland, in free-to-air TV. Swedish market has had quite a boom in past years. Very high price level, and therefore, not surprising that with a little bit of recession, the dip there, the decline there, is much heavier than the decline in the Finnish market. I think that's one of those key comparables. The other thing is that we, the Viaplay has a B2C proposition with premium sports, as you indicate, and we have had the experience with premium sports a couple of years ago, and was not a happy one, in all honesty. I mean, that is a business that is very difficult to make profits on, and typically the winner of the auction is, you know, the one who is going to struggle to make a profit out of that. In that sense, we're not surprised that it is very difficult both for Telia and for Viaplay to make money out of those sports rights. I would not like to go back into that field unless it's, of course, at a very different price level. A price level where we could make a profit. We are absolutely open to it. You know, the price levels that have been paid for those rights, in my mind, have been exactly what is underneath the issue. That is an issue I would not like to take on my shoulders. We've had our share, let's say it that way. Okay, thank you. Maybe on the same topic, do you see that you can somehow make Nelonen or Ruutu more interesting to add some CapEx or add content investment there, or are you happy the levels that you are having at the moment? We are making a very conscious choice not to overspend in content. If the advertising market isn't there, and the price levels aren't there, we are quite hesitant to overspend, and we see in the Finnish market still significant overspending. I hope that all the talk about it will, at some point, create that the market players re-look at their investment levels. I would be keen not to follow, let's say, the wrong example there, and to go in that flow. There is always a little bit of that. We have now introduced Pluto TV, as I indicated, and I see that as a very interesting way to actually digital advertising. It's in a linear way, it is high-quality content, but we don't really pay for it. We do a little bit of a rev share on this, but we don't need to do the cash outlay. That is, for us, a creative way to still gain position. I mean, 800,000 video starts, it's quite a number of minutes that you create in the market, but you do it in a very cost-efficient and very pay-for-performance type of way. That is a bit the path we're choosing, and we hope that the rest of the market will follow. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Next one in the middle, please. Hello, Pia Rosqvist-Heinsalmi from Carnegie. A few questions on on the learning business. Reading your report, I'm trying to figure out now the shifts between quarters- Yes. ... in learning, and if Netherlands were a bit on the low side, then Belgium and Finland may be supported with some shifts. Would it be fair to say that we have a net effect, or do we see? Yeah. ... slight positive or negative? I think that if you look at the slide that we had in the presentation, where you see the pluses and the minuses, you're absolutely right that the Netherlands a bit in the minus. Keep in mind that the overall organic growth is +4%, it's not balancing each other out. The balance is net plus, and the shift element of that, not that big. The shift- Mm. ... in the Netherlands. I would say the shift in Spain was last year. When you now compare to last year, it's a bit difficult. The Belgium and Finland, I would say, as we indicated, that is truly because of higher-than-average prices, and they have a sales part and deliveries that are already a little bit earlier, where the other markets are typically only fully in Q3. But I'm Yeah. ... I'm I'm not envying. Yeah. your job to try to- Yeah. to figure this out between shift and... Yeah. All right, thank you. The learning price hikes, you said, you had seen some maybe volume impact in the supplementary part. What kind of, services, products are we talking about here? Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, the supplementary can be, you know, an extra workbook for students that are excelling. You know, so they are not must-haves, but if schools have the room in their budget, they typically like to spend a bit on that. Other things are some methods do not always require a full method. Take, for example, social sciences. Social sciences is typically a subject where some schools use a full method, others only take workbooks or some digital materials and some support, and others do it completely themselves with some newspaper articles and just an enthusiastic social sciences teacher. There is a bit of that mix, and what we expect, we don't know yet, because a lot of this, a little bit non-core, non-must-have, is often bought in Q3 and even in Q4. A school sees, "How many students do I have? What is my budget? What do I have left for the year?" I mean, if they have, for example, had a vacancy for 6 months, they have some budget left, and then they might spend it on these type of extras. The question now is: Have the price increases and their other cost increases taken up that budget, or will it still be there at the end of Q3? The good thing is that, as a core publisher, we are typically, you know, we are living off the must-have subjects. You know, the more auxiliary products are typically coming from small suppliers here and there, typically switching and those type of things. This is where it's also the question, "How much will we see of that in our sales versus what the market will see. Thank you. I'm well aware that you are not guiding or commenting on 2024, but now adding the pieces from the puzzle in your report, you talk about efficiency improvements. Given that there are changes in the curriculum in Spain next year, so you're looking for cost improvement measures, I believe, and then combining the price hikes. Can you give any color on the margin in learning for 2024? No, we're not going to do that. You expect that answer already, you're picking out elements out that are in place. The question is, you know, are there counterbalances to that? We also have curriculum. The reason why we reduce our staff, let's say, to build for new curriculum is also that the curriculum then is a little bit at its end. Take, for example, Poland, not a lot to be expected next year. In Spain, one province left to go onto a new curriculum, you know, that's much more limited than this year. The compensating effects of that we also still need to, you know, fully digest this year's trends and then extrapolate to next year. Thank you. Then, finally, do you have any plans regarding the EUR 200 million bond that is maturing early next year? That matures at the end of March, as you say, next year. We're working on that, and we'll come back and talk about the plans for that in the, like the, Q3 results presentation. Given the situation, given the cost of capital, given the world that we're in, we're looking at all the different options and getting at it very closely to make sure that we find the right solution, and we get the right funding. Thank you. We almost to say also, we have great relationships with a lot of our banks, or all our banks, in fact, have great relationships, and so not worried about the opportunities, just a question of picking the right path. Thank you. Thank you. Please? Yes, Maria Wikström from SEB. A little bit continue on Pia's question. Thinking about, I mean, more of the sales terms, for next year as given that the curriculum change renewal is over in Spain and Poland, and then, on the other hand, you have these pricing increases. If we look at on the sales line, so we don't even go to the more difficult part. How should we look at 2024? Yeah. I think that what we have been discussing in all the discussions where that was appropriate, we have been indicating also to schools and governments that it will be a two-step, that the fact that we cannot recover everything in year one means that there will be a second step. That is where we are targeting that next year there will be again an above market or above normal, let's say, price increase on the learning side. The question remains even for this year, what is then the volume impact of that? That of course, creates then your net growth, and there we need to take first the learnings of this year fully in which we don't have yet. As I indicated, a lot of these auxiliary sales are done in Q3, Q4. Once we have seen that, we can also estimate more closely what will happen next year. In that sense, even on the more simple top line, I need to stay, you know, with, but also operationally, it's not something that I don't want to say it, but this is something that we will experience with the market, but that we're looking at it quite positively. I think you can pick up from the, from the note. Thank you. Well, you now indicate that the free cash flow should be more or less the same as last year, and I think you referred to the EUR 65 million in free cash flow. If you look at the dividend payout from last year, I think that was totally EUR 60 million. My question is that as you are now above your own long-term target, that I mean, where, when does the deleveraging come? The leverage target, we're at 3.2 at the moment. Expect to be pretty much 3.3, sorry. Expect to be pretty much on or close to the 3 at the end of the year. Yeah, I mean, when we have an acquisition, it sort of lifts up, generally the normal operations, with the, you know, the cash flow and with improving margins, it'll generally start. We expect to still stay within that long-term margin, get close to it and stay within it until the next acquisition sort of gives us that lift again. Maybe a continuation of that, though- Yeah given that, I mean, the dividend payout equals the free cash flow that you guide for, the last year's dividend payout equals the free cash flow you are guiding from this year. That, I mean, the strategy before, I mean, this year was, I mean, growing the learning business with acquisitions. Even at the end of the year, you will be at the high end of your own leverage target. That, when should we expect you to be able to basically get back to like, the strategy that you have had before? I think our strategy is still in place, and it's the same. We always knew that, you know, you do an acquisition, and then you build down. The building down, and I just remind you, on the multiple that we paid for that Italian and German business, that was quite low. At that moment, it always creates quite a bit enthusiasm, but already at that point, we indicated that there is a very significant integration separation and integration project. You should actually, and we did that also when we communicated the multiple, you should actually take that as almost acquisition cost. The unfortunate thing is that it looks, of course, as if it is coming out of operational cashflow. Your free cashflow is impacted by that. You therefore, the fact that we don't deleverage this year is expected and foreseen because we are actually, part of the acquisition money is the integration project that we're running. That's a sizable sums. We are at the tail end of the Spanish one, and we're now at the height of the Italian project. That is also explaining a little bit why there is so little left over, I would say, free cashflow. That is part of that, still that historic acquisition. To your point of when do we come back? We assume that if there are attractive opportunities, we can go to the market. That market, equity market, depends, of course, a bit, but that if there are attractive opportunities for consolidation in K-12, with strong synergies, with a good case, that there is the ability to then pull the money in. That, you know, that is the strategy. We always knew that we could not do large acquisition after large acquisition because we, of course, knew that the balance sheet has its limitations. Maybe finally on the acquisition market, that, I mean, what you are seeing there today, that has, the, prices of the targets come down, and is there more or less targets, currently available? There is, at this moment, in the learning space, not a lot of activity. There is quite a bit of activity in companies that are, you know, the edtech companies that are struggling, that are loss-making, you know, that have started up and now, you know, that the cost of capital goes up, you know, can't support those losses anymore. Those are companies that we always will look, but we're not that keen on. We are focusing our view at this moment at, as we indicated before, in-market acquisitions with high synergies. We see some of these targets coming to market, but not a large quantity. Larger acquisitions, we have not seen. We have seen, of course, in France, Editis, that was part of a much bigger group, let's say, which had to be sold as one package, that was not for us. There are things coming to market, the price level of which too few and far between, let's say, to really talk about the trend. Very different business propositions, you know, than that you could really say, "Has the price now come down?" That I would not say. We are always judging on DCF, for us, you know, the acquisition is always the same, of course, now the depreciation has, the WACC has seriously gone up, the prices will be lower that we can offer. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. Petri Gostowski from Inderes. Just a few more questions on the subscription business in Media Finland. What are your thoughts on your pricing level? Do you see room to hike prices still? Just thinking about what we've seen on the market. I think we are in Media Finland, as I showed in the result, we are doing very good work. I think the team is doing excellent work on the research on this, on the price elasticity, to determine exactly the packaging that you need to choose. Straight price hikes, you know, just sort of same product upping significantly in price, I think the whole of the market, not only the media market, but just the exposure consumers have had to price increases, puts it a bit at the max. Where our team has been quite clever and good at is in packaging things in a different way, and therefore giving people an option to actually pay a bit less if they really need, but stay within the product, and then buy add-ons. We know that even if you, at the moment that you take the decision, you go a bit down, if two months later, an interesting offer comes, you know, you might up and up, and you choose a couple of things, because it's only EUR 1 or 2 EUR a month extra. In the end, you might still, you know, go with a higher price. That attractive way of pricing, instead of straight price hikes, I think we have, in the market now, seen a bit of saturation with the straight, you know, "This product costed this, and now it costs 20% more." Yeah, there is a limit to that. Can you give some comments on the number of subscriptions development going forward? Have we seen the worst in H1, or what do you expect in the second half of the year? I expect this to be a little bit of a trend that is not yet at the end. Unless consumers really have more disposable income, you know, I think this will be a bit under pressure. What we see, of course, the good thing is that people can still switch from a more expensive, for example, a print subscription, to a less expensive digital subscription or a digital plus weekend, so that they have a bit of the mix, and in that sense, economize without costing us, let's say, in the, in the bottom line. That's why you also see the variable cost decrease. I think therefore, the volume trends that we see, we expect and have included in our guidance, we expect that to continue definitely for 2023. Great. Thank you. Thank you, all. If at the moment, no further questions from Sanoma House, I would like to hand over to the operator, please. If you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial star five again on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Sami Sarkamies from Danske Bank. Please go ahead. Hi. I still have a couple of questions left. Starting from the outlook for this year, what are the main reservations that you have for the second half of the year, as you chose not to narrow your wide guidance range after the first half of the year? Yeah. Go, go ahead, go ahead. I'll start, and then you can jump in. Yeah. I think, I mean, the obvious one is that we are just right now in the high season of the learning business, which is a substantial part of our business. As we get through that period and see where the lie of the land is, then we'll be in a position to think about doing that. I think doing it before that period is somewhat premature, given the size of, you know, the skewing of our business there. And just to add to that, you know, the advertising market still has very low visibility. And you know that the advertising market very strongly reflects into the profitability. I mean, that goes down in a 80% level into your margin. Small variations in the advertising market development can make a bit of a difference. As Alex says, it felt not logical to now in Q2, and we had also indicated that we would only narrow the range by Q3. Okay. Continuing on the full year outlook, I think you talked about guidance midpoint being the most likely outcome at this point, even though Media Finland seems to do weaker than previously anticipated. What a surprise to you during Q2 when it comes to Media Finland? Why do you think this can be made up by learning? Yeah, it's not as much an individual surprise, but I think that where we were initially thinking that the first half might be really already at the end, seeing it sort of bottoming out, we don't see that yet. If we then assuming that it is more at this level, you know, which is not dramatic in the first half, but if it doesn't recover in the second half, second half is for the media business also a sizable half of the business. This is where we say, you know, we guided towards a third, and now we're more towards the 40%. The feeling of comfort on the learning side is, of course, that we see the two uncertainties that we had at the start of the year was, on the one hand, how would the LOMLOE in Spain go in its second phase? That has gone well. The second uncertainty was the price increases. What would the pushback and the response from the market be? There we see an acceptance. Of course, no one likes it. Let's be fair about that, but we see an understanding and also a working with the educational publishers to make this in a good way and to make sure that we can recover our cost. Those two uncertainties are now taken away, and that's why we feel comfortable that what we see as a slight, lower end on the Media can be recovered on the Learning. Okay, that's very helpful. Moving on to the learning business, we talked about the timing shifts earlier, but maybe sort of asking it in a different way. I think you estimated about 10% sales growth in Spain for the full year. What do you assume as far as growth rates are concerned for the Dutch business and for the Polish business this year? Yeah, that is very specific, to be honest. And that's a level of detail that I would not like to go into. But I can say that, you know, the Dutch business is, if I'm correct now, showing something like a minus 10, and it will be definitely on the, on the plus side, and on a good plus side. Quite a difference, eh? That's why I'm saying that specifically for the Dutch market. For the Polish market, we're also saying there will be good growth, where the first half is only showing flat. I'll leave it at that. Recall that the Dutch business, as we report it externally, it includes the content business, but also the distribution business, which we expect to decline this year. The externally reported Dutch organic growth is some of these. Okay. any color regarding the sales level for Italy during the full year? Yeah, the Italian business is doing well, not having a significant curriculum change or anything there. Rather flattish versus last year. Can you remind us, of the sales figure last year? Now I'm going to do something on top of my head. Let us come back to you on that, unless you know it by heart. Uh, a hundred, a hundred and nineteen- Around 100 EUR. Yeah. Yeah, EUR 120 million for the Italian and German business. Business together. in total. In total, yes. On an annual level. That's Italian and German together. Yeah. Yeah. The reason why you see Okay ... why you see us asking is, we have in the Italian business, we have a business that we run as a content business ourselves, and we're doing the distribution still for Pearson English Language Learning. That's always in the numbers, you know, how you represent that, so that's where it's a little bit in the details to answer that specifically. Okay. Finally, regarding Media Finland, can you provide any color regarding the advertising media market outlook for the third quarter? Yeah. The visibility is, of course, still extremely short, so two, three weeks out, is sort of the max. What we're indicating is that we still expect slight decline in the advertising market for the whole of the second half, and therefore, also for the Q3. Okay, thank you. I don't have any further questions. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad. There are no more questions at this time. I hand the conference back to the speakers. Yes, thank you. If no further questions from the Sanoma house, I will have a few from the chat. There was one on Viaplay, and I think that was already covered. Coming still back to the Spanish LOMLOE renewal, how much do we expect that is left for 2024? For 2024? We have one province left, that is Andalusia, and that is a big province, that is the one province that still needs to convert. And, you know, what is our expectation? I can see a connecting question to that is the Spanish elections that have taken place last week and might be redone later this year. That might also impact that. We keep Andalusia still as something that we want to learn more about, you know, now with the political changes in the Spanish market. All in all, because also when no curriculum change takes place, you still sell, and you still sell a lot in Andalusia, it is not sort of a dramatic yay or nay. This is why, you know, there is not yet a full answer from our end on what will be left in 2024. The next question relates to, a bit to what Sammy already asked on our view on the outlook: Has something changed or not? This is, in particular, are we now more optimistic when it comes to the pricing coming through and the Spanish learning performance, or are we kind of similar compared to how we were earlier in the year? I always get more optimistic when the clarity becomes greater. I think that is what we see. I think the fact that it comes in at or slightly above what we expected, that makes me quite optimistic and positive. That's maybe the tone that is picked up. Is it dramatically different than we said before? No, not dramatically so, but it is now in place, and that's always quite different from having the concept. Yes. Sorry, No, no, I was just saying, yeah, exactly. Six months done is gonna give us more information than before. Yeah ... and feel good about where we are, both on the pricing, sort of acceptance and understanding, and on where we are in Spain. Yeah particularly versus last year. We feel very good. Good. Thank you. Then the at the moment, the final question is on the restructurings that we are planning in Spain and Poland. What kind of expenses are to be expected, and what are the plans exactly? Yeah, yeah. We will come back to that in Q3. We wanted not to keep that from you because it is out in the, in the public, but this is very much dependent on how now the exact negotiations go with unions, with works councils. In some of the territories, that is already a little bit more advanced than in others. The legal circumstances are different, but be sure that it is taken into this guidance. You can also see that 2023 will hardly be impacted by this, because this will only kick in with a slight delay. No impact on 2023 from what we're guiding here. It's more, you know, a preview, and then we will come back on the specifics in Q3. Okay. Thank you. If no further questions, we will now conclude the event. Thank you for all participants. It was an active discussion. We wish you a nice continuation of the day. Thank you. Thank you.