Adevinta Q4 Revenue Flat As Company Looks to Mergers and Transactional Models for 2021

The global classifieds operator Adevinta has released its Q4 performance report today and the numbers show a company whose assets are weathering the global pandemic rather than riding a surge in domestic housing markets like those of Zillow. Headline numbers from today's report include:

• Revenue for Q4 was flat year-on-year at €200 million, while revenue for the year was down -2% at €727 million.
• Quarterly revenue from classifieds was up 4% year-on-year while revenue from display advertising was down 6%.
• The company's EBITDA margin for the year was down slightly to 25.6%
• Net cash-flow from operating activities was down -22% year-on-year to €104 million

Aside from the obvious pandemic headwinds, the drop in EBITDA was chalked up by the report to increases in marketing spend and increased investment in more transactional models across the company's portfolio. These new models are though credited with an increased contribution to the Adevinta's revenues.

Adevinta splits its quarterly results into geographical segments which have traditionally seen the company's assets in France (Leboncoin and A Vendre A Louer) outperform other divisions. This was again the case for Q4 with operating revenues in France up 10% to €343 million while Spain, where Adevinta owns Habitaclia and Fotocasa, saw a drop of -9% (€167 million), Brazil saw a drop of -15% to €73 million and the rest of the company's global assets saw an overall drop of -11% to €145 million.

Aside from the financial figures, the report from the Schibsted spinoff company made reference to the integration of Grupo ZAP in Brazil after its October purchase by OLX Brazil which Adevinta owns in a joint venture with Prosus. The organizational and brand structures for the newly formed Brazilian property behemoth have been implemented and Adevinta CEO Rolv Erik Ryssdal said: "We have started to integrate the business with OLX Brasil, with synergies expected as early as 2021"

Aside from the Grupo ZAP deal, the company's 2020 financials were also tempered by the biggest deal in the history of the classifieds industry which was signed in July when Adevinta agreed to pay €8.7 billion for eBay's Classifieds division. Today's report indicated that Adevinta is looking to close the deal in Q1 of FY21. Despite a minor share price slump in December as regulatory authorities in the UK and elsewhere looked into the deal, Adevinta's Q4 report describes progress here as "good".

2020 also saw Adevinta sell off assets in Morocco, Tunisia and Colombia to Frontier Digital Ventures in October, a point alluded to by Ryssdal in his accompanying statement: "the optimisation of our Global Markets portfolio will allow for stronger focus and reduced complexity going forward."