Adevinta ASA

OSE:ADE

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q1

[Operator]

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Adevinta Q1 2021 Investor Presentation Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] And I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Rolv Erik Ryssdal, CEO of Adevinta. Please go ahead, sir.

[Rolv Erik Ryssdal, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone. Welcome, and thank you for joining today's presentation of our Q1 results. First of all, I hope that wherever you are, you and your close ones are healthy and safe. Although the vaccine rollout brings a lot of hope and relief, we still need to remain cautious as the pace of the vaccination differs from 1 region to another and as we see the emergence of new variants. Consequently, at Adevinta, we continue to comply with strict travel and gathering policies. So the management team today are connecting from different places. So I'm joined by Uvashni. On video, Renault and Gianpa in Barcelona, Antoine in Paris and Nicki in London. Nevertheless, we continue to run the business in a very close and collaborative manner, and I'm pleased that we are all here today to discuss the last quarter's development and performance. I will not go through the disclaimer, which I invite you to read, and I will start with an overview of the key highlights of the quarter before going into details and the business review, and Uvashni will do a review of the financials. It has now been a year that we've had to deal with the corona crisis. I'm proud of the way the teams have handled and are still handling it. We've kept our road map, continued to deliver best-in-class services to our users and clients, and to deliver solid financial performance. This is also true for this quarter as we have a solid start to 2021, with a strong financial performance both for revenue and EBITDA despite the restrictions we saw in our key markets. During this quarter, we continued to enhance our product offering. We made further progress on the regulatory front ahead of our proposed acquisition of eBay Classifieds Group, and we continue to collaborate with the relevant authorities to meet our target of closing the transaction during the second quarter. We also released a report on the Second Hand Effect for 2020, which illustrates our users' contribution to the circular economy when buying and selling second-hand items on our online platforms. So starting with quarterly performance. As I mentioned just before, it was a strong start of the year despite growing constraints in our key markets. Overall operational KPIs continued to develop positively with good traffic levels in France, Spain and Brazil. Organic revenues on a proportionate basis were up 7% year-on-year, mainly led by France, Brazil and Global Markets, while Spain was still impacted by lower volumes. Online classifieds revenues were up 8%, benefiting from the growing contribution from transactional solutions, while display advertising revenues were up 2%, for the first time back to positive territory since the beginning of the crisis. And display advertising represents now 16% of the group's proportionate revenues in this quarter. Proportionate EBITDA was up 33% year-on-year, reflecting top line growth, lower administrative and one-off costs, which represented EUR 2 million last year and were mainly related to reorganization. I would also like to point out that this quarter is characterized by a favorable phasing of marketing expenses, and that explains also the high EBITDA margin that reached 28.4%, which is, of course, an improvement both year-on-year and versus the last quarter. In this quarter, we continued to successfully deliver our product road map. We remained focused on transactions enablement, notably in France, Italy and Spain, where reusable components in multiple parts of the user journey, such as ad insertion, negotiation, deal closing, fraud protection and trust profiles. We added features like ratings and user [ use ] in Subito. Now transactional services are rolled out in all the consumer goods categories on the platform. Thanks to our image recognition model, we were able to automatically remove background in pictures in the fashion vertical and to automatically blur the numbers in plates in the motor vertical. These models are generic and hence are available for all the integrated marketplaces. We also deployed bundled products in multi-platform markets, which increases the ad visibility for our clients. Associated cross-selling and upselling opportunities are pretty significant, and this is a very good example of successful translation of products and tech investments into incremental revenues. We see very good tractions from these bundles in France, in Brazil and in Spain. Coming back to the ECG acquisition. We have progress in our integration planning process. We are mobilizing the integration team across functions to be ready for legal day 1. We are also working on the synergy action plan and prioritization. We are preparing for divestment of Gumtree & Shpock, which is part of a package of proposed remedies offered to the CMA to address the U.K. regulators' competition concerns. U.K. regulators' final approval is subject to and will follow the 15-day public consultation, which started last week. The approval process is also ongoing in Austria. We thus target the closing date in Q2. As I mentioned earlier, we released our report on the Second Hand Effect for 2020. The report listed how much CO2 and materials have potentially been saved through the secondhand trade on the 7 participating marketplaces that you can see on this slide. The calculations are based on the idea that keeping a secondhand item in use means avoiding the production of a new item and disposal of the old one, which translates into significant savings of carbon dioxide emissions and the amount of plastic, aluminum and steel. In 2020, [ since these ] purchases and sales in the marketplace, it potentially saved 19.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, 1.1 million tonnes of plastic, 7.4 million tonnes of steel and 0.7 million tonnes of aluminum. So to give you a concrete sense of what it represents, that is equivalent of the yearly CO2 emissions of 2.1 million Europeans and more than 20 million plastic bottles. The COVID pandemic has proven the value of stay-at-home shopping. We also observed an accelerated shift towards more sustainable consumption, amplifying the role of online marketplaces and increasing the potential for environmental savings. Moving on to the business review now. Uvashni will come back to the financial performance in more detail later, but I would like to go through the operational development in each of our segments. In France, we have to face a new partial lockdown in Q1, started in March and will progressively be lifted in the coming weeks. Nevertheless, the impact on our business and our clients' business is getting less significant, demonstrating increasing adoption and transformation. We see positive market dynamics in used cars and, to a lesser extent, in real estate. Jobs and holiday rentals are unsurprisingly still affected due to ongoing restrictions. Traffic continued to show strong growth, more than 30% year-on-year, driven by all categories except Jobs. New adds remained on a very positive trend with the strong growth in almost all categories, except in real estate, due to the structural trend and holidays rental, as mentioned. As I was explaining before, the regulatory and business environment remain challenging in display advertising. I'd like to point out that we are fully compliant with the new regulations in France, and we can also rely on our contextual audience, providing more and more contextual and geographic targeting strategy. We're also accelerating mobile advertising with integration of more adaptive [ format and insight ] offer, and the programmatic works well on the Google Stack that we migrated into last year. We saw very good traction in classifieds products and new solutions such as Smartbump and mandate acquisition in real estate. And as mentioned, the L’Argus/Leboncoin bundle in motor. In the first quarter, we continued to enhance our P2P transactional solution, improving the user experience with new functionalities such as item status. We improved further our algorithms on the lead generation offer in real estate, and we simplified the application journey in Jobs. We continue to automate processes with the application of machine learning to our ads and message auto [ moderation ] tool, for example. Now over to Spain where some regional mobility restrictions were imposed during the quarter. Although underlying market transactions are not back to pre-COVID levels, we show encouraging recovery signs. As expected, the main gap remains in Job. We saw traffic growth up 2% year-on-year, driven by our motor and real estate marketplace. Leads were also up 5% with all sites showing positive growth year-on-year. In the quarter, we developed multiple improvements in user experiment -- experience in real estate, such as the app design, machine learning recommenders and alert content categorization. In motor, we launched a pilot for consumer-to-business car sale and new gallery in apps with contact options. In Jobs, we improved employer branding homepage with company profile and added additional matching tools on candidates screening page. We implemented a new navigation bar in our generalist Milanuncios and improved the user profile with photo and location together with the enhancement of the transactional flow of our Payment & Delivery solution. Now moving on to Brazil. There, the rising COVID daily cases and slow vaccine rollout led to a technical recession in Q1 that is expected to last until the end of H1. Local increased restrictions were implemented with night curfew and limited nonessential businesses. We did see a recovery in the motor market with the stabilization of the number of dealers after they hit that was due to lack of stock. However, the production is not at full capacity yet. In the real estate market, the momentum continued with low interest rates driving demand for home construction and financing. In that context, operational KPIs continued to perform well, with strong growth in traffic, leads and demand, while we observe the boost in supply. In Q1, we increased penetration in real estate with the double bundle ZAP / Vivareal and we launched the triple bundle ZAP / Vivareal / OLX as a minimum viable product for existing clients. That's a good result of the acquisition we did of ZAP / Vivareal last year. In motor, we launched the first bundles for professional sellers, increasing the number of products offered, and we tested the new vehicle history solution. We improved Payment & Delivery with better flows for ad insertion, filtering and findability, leading to a consistent growth in the main transactional KPIs. Now in the Global Markets segment. We see encouraging developments across the major markets. So in Italy, we saw an excellent performance for the operational KPIs, with both traffic and content growing at double-digit rates. Transactional, which was launched in December, continued to ramp up with P2P payments and escrow services offered. In motor, we continue to gain share in content and dealers despite minor weakness in private revenues. Advertising performed well in Italy, with a good uplift in programmatic, whilst Jobs remained below prior year levels due to the ongoing market uncertainty. And also in Austria, we saw a continuation of the positive evolution in Q4 2020, with year-on-year growth in traffic and content, in particular new private content, and the strong performance in advertising. Paylivery, the peer-to-peer payment and delivery services, continued to gain traction and scale with growth in both average order value and seller conversion rates. Jobs remain below prior year levels, however, showing encouraging signs towards the end of the quarter with a record number of self-service ads. In Ireland, we also saw year-on-year growth in traffic and content in both verticals despite continued local lockdown measures with an increase of dealer market share and a surge and private content in motor. In the real estate sector, we saw a continued growth of multiunit rentals and successful implementation of price optimizations for private clients. In Hungary, we saw a resilient performance in advertising and encouraging signs towards the end of the quarter, with strong delivery figures and some recovery in generalist content. Jobs remained below prior year levels due to the unfavorable market environment. Shpock continued to show accelerated growth in the transactional model during Q1. So that's it for the business section, and I will now hand over to you, Uvashni, for the financial section.

[Uvashni Raman, Chief Financial Officer]

Thanks, Rolv Erik, and good morning, everyone. As Rolv stated earlier, it was a strong start to the year. Our financial performance continued to show progressive improvement quarter-on-quarter, building on the Q4 performance and compared to Q1 2020. Proportionate revenues, including JVs, were up 6% in quarter 1 compared to Q1 last year, or up 7% excluding the impact of disposals, acquisitions and forex, demonstrating further improvement of the performance despite the challenging environment. I would also like to highlight that this performance is against a Q1 2020, where we had a very strong start to the year until mid-March when the world was suddenly hit by COVID. Online classified revenues improved 8%, 5% was attributable to transactional services compared to Q1 2020. Display advertising revenues increased 2% year-on-year, encouragingly back to positive territory for the first time since the crisis. Disposals in Global Markets and the Grupo ZAP acquisition had a net 1 point positive impact on revenue growth, while changes in exchange rate contributed negatively with 1.7 points. EBITDA, including JVs, increased 30% year-on-year. Revenue growth in the verticals, lower level of one-off costs and favorable phasing of marketing expenses offset the ramp-up in personnel costs and transactional services-related costs. I will now run through the financial performance by segment, starting with France. Despite the continued difficult context with COVID restrictions and further lockdowns in the quarter, revenues in France grew by 15% in the first quarter, a standout. Total classified revenue grew 17% compared to last year, of which 8% was attributable to transactional services. Solid growth in the motor and real estate verticals were primarily driven by ARPU increase. This more than offset the weakness in jobs and holiday rentals. Display advertising returned to positive growth in the quarter. EBITDA margin improved 1.3 percentage points, led by revenue growth and favorable marketing phasing. The increased share of transactional services contributing positively to gross profit, albeit at lower relative margin. The promotional campaigns and delivery fees and the expected increase in personnel costs reduced partially the improvement led by the increased revenue. In Spain, revenues decreased by 6% year-on-year, still impacted by the tough macro environment due to COVID, but demonstrating a steady recovery over the last 4 quarters. Classified revenues were down 8% compared to Q1 2020, where we have seen a very strong performance until mid-March. Both real estate and jobs revenues were down year-on-year. Jobs is generally more impacted in the current macro environment. On the other hand, car revenues grew due to the combination of both higher ARPU and also benefiting from the successful migration of customers to the new product offering. We also saw an increased penetration in both larger clients through our generalist brand, Milanuncios. Display advertising grew 6% year-on-year with strong pickup in direct sales and continued growth in programmatic revenues. The EBITDA margin in Q1 was broadly stable year-on-year at 29.5%, as the decline in revenues and the evolution of the business mix was offset by some delayed marketing investment and lower admin costs. We continue to invest in talent acquisition in the quarter in order to boost our market position. In Brazil, the strong depreciation of the Brazilian real against the euro compared to Q1 2020 continued to impact total revenue growth. However, operational revenue in the Brazil segment, including InfoJobs, increased by 87% in local currency driven by the acquisition of Grupo ZAP in Q4 2020. OLX Brazil, including Grupo ZAP, increased revenue by 94% year-on-year in local currency. On a comparable basis, revenues grew 15%, with classified performance up 9% and compared to Q1 2020. Strong growth in real estate due to the cross-selling strategy with Grupo ZAP as well as consumer goods were the main drivers. We also observed a steady recovery in car revenues, benefiting from the higher conversion rate in the private segment and price optimization in the professional sales offering. Display advertising grew 18% compared to Q1 2020 on a comparable basis driven by solid performance in indirect advertising fueled by new formats and traffic growth. Transactional model started to scale in both volume and revenue. Cumulative EBITDA increased by EUR 2 million when compared to Q1 2020, positively impacted by the acquisition. On a comparable basis, EBITDA decreased compared to Q1 2020 as a result of continued investment in talent and product and tech resources, and the unfavorable phasing of some marketing expenses. In our Global Markets segment, we saw negative reported growth of minus 4%. Excluding disposals, it was up 6% year-on-year with a strong performance in our main markets through the quarter, led by Austria and Ireland. Excluding disposals, classifieds were up 5% year-on-year and revenues in advertising were also up at 7%. Q1 2021 EBITDA was up 4% year-on-year, landing at EUR 3 million, mainly driven by the positive impact of asset disposal and more importantly, by the good performance we delivered in Ireland and Austria. Both were increasing EBITDA compared to Q1 2020. And in Italy, we accelerated the investment of marketing product and tech to support the ramp-up of transactional services and product improvement. I will now move on to other P&L items. The HQ and Other costs improved around EUR 4 million year-on-year due to the reduction in administration costs in the COVID context. We saw increased investment in product and tech resources and corporate functions. However, on a comparable basis, we saw some one-off costs related to reorganization in Q1 2020. Below EBITDA, other expenses increased by EUR 25 million due to transaction and integration costs of about EUR 40 million, mainly related to the upcoming acquisition of eBay and also due to the loss of Yapo of EUR 11 million. This was mainly as a result of the foreign exchange cancellation reserve write-down with respect to this asset. We also booked a EUR 25 million impairment charge related to the Shpock asset write-down. This is in light of the pending sale of the Shpock asset. Moving on to our financial position, and I will conclude with this section. At the end of the quarter, we had cash and cash equivalent of EUR 145 million and had drawn down EUR 65 million of the EUR 400 million RCF to fund part of the Grupo ZAP acquisition. Net debt-to-EBITDA was 1.85x at the end of March. As a reminder, the October refinancing will become effective at the close of the ECG acquisition. Our leverage, of course, will increase as a result of the acquisition. But given the high cash-generative profile of our business, our target is to get back to 2 to 3x range in the medium term. This concludes my section on the financials. I'll now hand over to Rolv Erik to round up with the outlook.

[Rolv Erik Ryssdal, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you. So we see an acceleration of the trends that support the development of the digital economy and the emergence of the new business model. We see that professionals are rethinking the way they operate and will increasingly need trusted and efficient partners. As we will continue to invest in products and technology to improve our offerings and expand on the value chain, we are in a very good position to accompany our users and clients through their digitalization journey and to benefit from this ongoing transformation. We had a strong and encouraging start to the year. The comparison base for revenues will turn favorable as from the second quarter of 2021, and we expect positive momentum to continue through the rest of 2021, barring stricter lockdown situations. Unlike in 2020, we will not benefit from government subsidies in the second quarter, which amounted to approximately EUR 3 million last year. While we will continue to adapt our cost base to the business environment, we'll accelerate investments as needed and where we believe we have opportunity to strengthen our position. I already mentioned the marketing expenses that were low in the first quarter and will be at a higher level the rest of the year. Following the acquisition of eBay Classifieds Group, we will become the world's leading online classifieds pure player with unprecedented scale. We'll benefit from leading positions in 16 countries, covering 1 billion people. We expect the combination with Adevinta to drive substantial and sustainable revenue and cost synergies with an estimated run rate EBITDA impact of EUR 130 million to EUR 165 million in the third year based on the current portfolio. Our combined group strategic and financial objectives will be communicated in the Capital Markets Day, which we anticipate holding in Q4. In the meantime, we will continue to update you with the developments and results as we've always done. We remain excited about the long-term growth potential of our business, and we are approaching this short-term uncertainty with even more confidence after a full year of managing through the crisis. I will now open the Q&A session. My colleagues from the executive committee and myself are available to answer your questions. So operator, please go ahead.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes to the line of Adam Berlin from UBS.

[Adam Ian Berlin, Director and Equity Research Analyst]

Three from me. First question is, can you help us understand in a bit more detail the drivers of the ARPU growth in France? Is it mainly just uptake of these new products that you mentioned and the bundling? Or have you put prices up as well on a per listing basis? Second question is, can you provide guidance for central costs for FY '21? I noticed it was a bit of a beat versus consensus in the first quarter. Is that just because of phasing issues? Or is EUR 15 million a quarter a good run rate to think about for the full year? And thirdly, can you disclose what the losses were in Shpock and the profits in Gumtree in FY '20 or FY '19, so that we can put those through in numbers correctly?

[Rolv Erik Ryssdal, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you, Adam. So I think the first question is about the ARPU in France goes to Antoine. And then concerning the central costs and the third question, I think that's for -- those 2 are for you, Uvashni. So Antoine, please go ahead.

[Antoine Jouteau, Chief Executive Officer of Adevinta France]

So regarding your question on the ARPU growth in France, on the car market, we have a different driver. One is we have launched a bundle with L’Argus, and we have launched it in January. So the expansion of the ARPU is partly based on that. Secondly, we are increasing the...

[Adam Ian Berlin, Director and Equity Research Analyst]

Sorry, Antoine. I lost you.

[Rolv Erik Ryssdal, Chief Executive Officer]

Antoine, I think you need to start again, Antoine. I think you kind of fell out there.

[Antoine Jouteau, Chief Executive Officer of Adevinta France]

Okay. Do you hear me now, yes?

[Adam Ian Berlin, Director and Equity Research Analyst]

Yes, better.

[Antoine Jouteau, Chief Executive Officer of Adevinta France]

So what I said is the ARPU growth is based on the several things. First, on the car market, we have launched a bundle with L’Argus in January. So it was a way [indiscernible] and also, we have increased our prices. Secondly, on real estate, we have developed new different offers. One is the mandate generation offer. So we are bringing leads to our real estate [indiscernible], which is very important during this period. And the second thing is we are -- we have increased our prices in September, so it's helping us to increase our ARPU. So mainly the growth of this ARPU is...

[Rolv Erik Ryssdal, Chief Executive Officer]

I think you fell out again there.

[Adam Ian Berlin, Director and Equity Research Analyst]

On the cliffhanger.

[Rolv Erik Ryssdal, Chief Executive Officer]

Yes. But I think that was just a summary of what he'd already said, right? So Antoine, perhaps you should go off and see if you can find a better connection or line or something, because I'm sure there will be more questions for you. In the meantime, I think we'll turn to question 2 and 3 from Adam, and that's for you, Uvashni.

[Uvashni Raman, Chief Financial Officer]

Yes. Sure, Rolv Erik. On the HQ costs then, without providing guidance, we probably anticipated going back to the normalized levels. And remember, a large portion of that HQ cost was the timing around effectively some admin costs and travel costs that we won't have. Should the -- as it opens up again, we would anticipate that going up. And then there's some ramp-up in terms of personnel costs within product and tech as well.

[Rolv Erik Ryssdal, Chief Executive Officer]

Yes. And then I think there was a question that's hard for us to comment on, on the Shpock and Gumtree.

[Uvashni Raman, Chief Financial Officer]

Yes. So we haven't disclosed that separately, and we can't comment on Gumtree at all. So it will be hard for us to give you that detail.

[Operator]

Next question from the line of Marcus Diebel from JPMorgan.

[Marcus Diebel, Research Analyst]

It's Marcus here. Just some high-level questions. I think that the results were very, very solid, but I guess we're waiting for eBay now. Uvashni, could you let us know what the timing is post eBay? What we have -- I mean you were still guiding for the second half -- for the second quarter for the deal to close. You in the past commented that there will be a Capital Markets Day straight after. So is it fair to assume that this will happen in Q3? Is that the plan? That would be quite interesting. And then also a question on the potential listing outside of Norway. We've discussed this in the past. Is there anything in the pipeline that we should expect going forward? And then one question on the business is on France for Antoine. I don't know if he's back. If he can just talk about kind of like the good margins, in particular, also in France. Is that the function of kind of like marketing and some delays in this regard? Or is it really the drop-through of new products? Yes, that would be interesting.

[Rolv Erik Ryssdal, Chief Executive Officer]

Okay. So let me start. I think -- so we said that we're still targeting Q2. That's right. And then we have said to the markets that the Capital Markets Day will take place in Q4. But we also said that we will provide sufficient information in the meantime, if any. So if we close now in Q2, then we want to work through a strategy that we're ready to present fully on the Capital Markets Day, and if necessary -- in Q4, and if necessary, we'll provide more operation about the eCG business in the meantime. And currently, there are no plans for other listings, but we'll certainly look into what is what's the best solution for this going forward.

[Marcus Diebel, Research Analyst]

Okay. Just on -- just a follow-up. So we will get basically pro forma numbers once the deal closed, because obviously, it's interesting from an accounting perspective as well, yes, with the move from U.S. GAAP to IFRS. That will be given relatively soon, yes, you said?

[Uvashni Raman, Chief Financial Officer]

Marcus, the main issue we have there is access to information. So there'll be -- depending on when the timing of the closing happens, we need to have a cutover period. So yes, you'll get information, but there may be a delay in terms of our reporting lines normally. But you will get it ahead of the Q3 for sure.

[Rolv Erik Ryssdal, Chief Executive Officer]

And Antoine, I don't know if you're back on the phone to comment on the margins in France. But I think you did comment on it in the first question from Adam about the ARPU growth in real estate and cars, and also with the delayed phasing of marketing, which kind of together resulted in the strong margins. But are you back, Antoine?

[Antoine Jouteau, Chief Executive Officer of Adevinta France]

Yes. Yes, I do. Sorry, my connection was bad. So yes, I think the strong Q1 and the strong EBITDA was based on that. We are growing on classified. And at the same time, we have prepared our 15th anniversary. So the phasing of this spending is during Q2, so -- as maybe you may be noticing on the TV. So you're right, Q1 was strong, but it also faces a phenomena.

[Operator]

Your next question is from the line of William Packer from Exane.

[William Henry Packer, Executive Director of Media Equity Research]

Will from Exane BNP Paribas. Three for me, please. Firstly, thanks for sharing the disclosure around transaction revenue. Being a sales analysts, just hoping for a bit more, if that's okay? What percentage of your generalist adverts are generating transactional revenue today? And is there some kind of GMV number you could share with us so we can think about the long-term opportunity? That's the first question. Secondly, a huge amount of capital has been raised by online car dealers in recent months. Post eCG, you'll be the biggest auto classified player in Europe by a wide margin. Could you share some initial comments on your early relations with these players and how you think about the opportunity and risk going forward? And then finally, the comps get a lot easier in Q2, although the margins were somewhat defensive because of pretty healthy cost cutting. Could you share any comments on the Q2 outlook? How we should think margin should evolve from here like you did last quarter? Anything would be helpful.

[Rolv Erik Ryssdal, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you, Will. Let me start. We have provided in the Q4 presentation more detail on the transactional. And also now, where you see which part of the growth came from transactions. I can tell you that it's a trend that's going well for us, as you can see. I don't think at this stage, we're prepared to show -- at this stage, we're not prepared to publish the GMV. We'll get back to that and the percentage number you asked for. But I think we'll look at an increasing disclosure at a later stage. When it comes to the players you're mentioning, [indiscernible] and Auto1, et cetera. Of course, we're watching them very closely. Yes, they are spending a lot of capital and -- or are expected to do that in building up digital dealership. I think if you look at the -- at our position, you will see that there will be reliant on well-functioning marketplaces, and they could also come to spend money with us. I think also that many other current customers, car dealers, will want to be more digital. And there, I think we can play an important role in helping that -- helping them on that journey. And then on the general note, yes, you said the -- it's not only those players, but also other players coming into the market. Hence, what I referred to earlier, that is a top priority for us to continue to invest in product and tech, and that we will spend more money in the marketing in the rest of the year that we've done so far. But generally, on that note, we feel in a comfortable position. I think, Uvashni, the margin outlook for Q2 and the rest of the year. Do you want to comment on that?

[Uvashni Raman, Chief Financial Officer]

Yes, sure, Rolv Erik. I mean we don't provide specific guidance as always, Will. But I guess for us, if you think about it, on a comparative basis for Q2, really on the EBITDA will be tough because we really pulled back quite a bit on marketing last year, almost 30% of what we normally spend when we spent in Q2 last year. So if anything, we will see a progressive improvement on the revenue line and then, of course, marketing will impact on your EBITDA margins. And that's for the rest of the year. I think you're going to say progressive improvement on revenue, with then marketing [ getting ] to normalized spend going forward.

[Operator]

Next one from Andrew Ross.

[Andrew Geoffrey Ross, Research Analyst]

It's Andrew here from Barclays. I've got 3 as well. The first one is on Austria, which I think is the other market where you're still waiting for competition clearance. Could you just give us an update there, and I guess any other hurdles to closing beyond the Shpock deal actually being done and approved by the CMA? The first question. The second question is on your expectations on full year margins. I hear what you're saying on Q1 being helped by some timing effects, Q2 having a tough comp. But at the full year results, you were cautious on the full year margin for '21 against '20? Has anything changed in your thinking on the full year in terms of how to think about margins? And then the third question is to follow up on Will's question on transactions. You've called out 5 points of group growth, which is helpful, which is about EUR 10 million of revenues, I think, in Q1. Should we think about that as being EUR 10 million this year and 0 a year ago? And could you give us what that number was for Q4 to help us understand how that's trending sequentially? And if you can give us just to how to think about that through the remaining quarters would be very helpful to kind of get a sense as to how much transactions might contribute for F '21.

[Rolv Erik Ryssdal, Chief Executive Officer]

Okay. Thank you, Andrew. So I'll take the first question. And then I think Uvashni will take the next. I don't think we can give you all the detail you want on transactions, but there will be a question 2 and 3 for Uvashni. On the first question, you know that we are preparing for the divestments in the U.K. of both Gumtree and Shpock, and that's part of the package remedies offered to the CMA. And then what happened last week was that a proposed buyer, which was Russmedia Equity Partners, was presented for a market test in the U.K. by the CMA. And the final approval there is subject to and will follow that 15-day public consultation that started 1 week ago. So that's the process there. And then on the -- in Austria, I cannot go into any more details except saying that we have a positive dialogue with the authorities in Austria as we have in the U.K. based on what we know, with them targeting a closing date in Q2. And then on the full year margin, back to that question and any -- and also the question on transactions, Uvashni, do you want to comment on these?

[Uvashni Raman, Chief Financial Officer]

Yes. Andrew, I mean, we don't provide full year guidance on margins. But to give you a view, yes, we are still cautious in the sense that there is going to be a change in mix in terms of our revenue. Although on the top line, we're seeing more positive momentum than we had anticipated. I think from a transactional perspective, last year, we -- our transactional revenue was around EUR 23 million. So effectively, year-on-year, we expect a positive momentum in growth, almost doubling that, if anything, if you go on the current run rate, that is, of course.

[Operator]

Your next question is from the line of [ Aditya Ben ] from Goldman Sachs.

[Lisa Yang, Equity Analyst]

It's Lisa Yang from Goldman. The first question is on the U.K. remedies. I mean you mentioned that the 15-day public consultation has started for Shpock. So does it mean you might need to find a buyer first or need to agree on the sale of Gumtree and motors for the deal to close? I'm just wondering if there's any conditions on the other assets that you're proposing to sell for the deal to be able to close in the U.K., whether there will be other public consultations that will have to begin on those other assets as well if you were to find a buyer. That's the first question. The second one is on transactional. I'm just wondering if you could maybe give us a bit of a sense of where do you think the margins of transactions are today? Where do you think that could go to? I think last time you said your take rate in France was about 4%. But also wondering whether there's any -- you have any thoughts on the change at take rate sort of going forward? And the third question is on Brazil. Obviously, the margins were up year-on-year despite the -- from the Grupo ZAP, which I think could potentially be margin dilutive. So can you maybe give us a bit of a feel of what are the drivers of the margin improvement there? What should we expect for the full year? And have you already started to benefit from the synergies from the Grupo ZAP acquisition?

[Rolv Erik Ryssdal, Chief Executive Officer]

Okay. I'll handle the first question, and I think we'll turn to Gianpa to talk about Brazil. And then I don't know, Uvashni, if there's more to say about the transactional. But to start with the situation in the U.K., so we've offered this package to the U.K. regulator. And as part of that, we have found, Lisa, the buyer for Shpock. And we're awaiting then the market test that will end next week on that. And there is no requirement at this stage to find a buyer for Gumtree, but there's an ongoing sales process. That's the question on the U.K. Then on Brazil, Gianpa, do you want to comment on developments there?

[Gianpaolo Santorsola]

Yes. In general, I think that we're very satisfied with the development that we see in Brazil, and we are pretty optimistic about the opportunity that we see ahead of us. In general, I think that when commenting and when looking at the results that we present today, I think we should keep 2 background information into account. First of all, due to the COVID crisis, the country is in technical recession. So we are growing in a very difficult market at this point in time. And second, also, these results are affected by the significant change in the exchange rate. It was below BRL 5 1 year ago and is now above BRL 6.5 during last quarter. We are very satisfied on how the OLX traditional business is going. We are happy with how the OLX Pay is ramping up. It's still in testing phase, but we see good trends there, both in terms of conversions and GMV and funnel optimization. And then we are very satisfied with what we see in the integration between Grupo ZAP and OLX. We have, on one side, already deploying the double bundle between Vivareal and Grupo ZAP, and we are testing now successfully the trial bundle. So offering to real estate agencies in Brazil, a one-stop shop that allows them to reach at the same time, users from OLX, Vivareal and Grupo ZAP. And the first results are very positive. Also in terms of integration and cost synergies, we are happy with what we see. The development is according to our plans. When it comes to in general EBITDA, we don't comment on how margins will develop [ far ahead ]. I think that's not -- to be fair, it will be a bit fluctuating quarter-by-quarter, mostly depending also on the phasing of our marketing costs that might be different, and also will be linked to how the economy recovers over time. So we expect an exit from the technical recession in H2. And then if the markets pick up, well, for sure, we'll also invest to grasp that growth opportunity. But we will be cautious with our costs and as we always are.

[Rolv Erik Ryssdal, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you, Gianpa. Now on transactional, Lisa, what we've said all the time is it's very important for us to be at the forefront of development of our industry. And we know that, that is -- the user expectation is that we can handle transactional services. And we're doing it with great success in funds, and we're starting to see very interesting developments also in our other markets. And what we've said is, yes, of course, this is positive and generates a positive cash flow and positive value for the company, but we have not published specific margin targets for that business.

[Uvashni Raman, Chief Financial Officer]

And then just to add, Rolv Erik, I mean in terms of take rate, yes, of course, you can increase. But right now, all our efforts are around making sure we're getting volumes, so increasing volumes rather than trying to take up -- increase the take rate Once you get to a certain level of volume, of course, then -- and product, of course, then you can think about the increase in take rate.

[Lisa Yang, Equity Analyst]

And maybe just a quick follow up. Did you have any intention at some point to also roll out hedge features for autos? I mean you were talking about the helping car dealers sell online. There's a massive opportunity there. Is that a positive plan at some point?

[Rolv Erik Ryssdal, Chief Executive Officer]

Sorry, could you repeat that -- sorry, could you repeat that please?

[Lisa Yang, Equity Analyst]

Potentially, if at some point you might be thinking of also rolling out the pay and ship functionality for car dealers?

[Rolv Erik Ryssdal, Chief Executive Officer]

Yes. I think we already have a pay solution in place for consumers to consumers. And going back to what we commented on earlier, I think definitely, we will work with the car dealers to make them -- to enable them also to be digital dealers. I think many will still want to come to the [ car ], look at the car, test the car, et cetera. But we -- but I think we are in a very good position to work with car dealers that don't have those digital tools to enable them to do that. So that's absolutely an opportunity we see that we can do a good job for our customers and that we can provide a good and value-added service to them. That's definitely something we'll do.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Next question from the line of Sarah Simon from Berenberg.

[Sarah Simon, Analyst]

I just got a few. Back to transactional revenues, you talked about it being in France. Is it right to assume that the vast, vast majority of those transactional revenues occurred within France? That's the first question. Second one. Can you just explain what the difference is, as a consumer, you've got the Vivareal brand, you've got the ZAP brand and you've got OLX? Do you intend to maintain 3 separate brands? Or does it make sense at some point to reduce the number? Because obviously, there must be some marketing inefficiency there. And then the final question was just on Spain in terms of Jobs. Can you give us an idea of the magnitude of the organic decline in the Spanish Jobs revenues, please?

[Rolv Erik Ryssdal, Chief Executive Officer]

So thank you, Sarah. So the short answer to your first question is yes, the vast majority of the revenues you're seeing in transactions comes from France. Then there was a question on Brazil and also one in Jobs in Spain. So I'll hand it over to you, Gianpa.

[Gianpaolo Santorsola]

Yes. So starting from Brazil. Today, we play with 3 brands. We believe that there are still a lot of synergies that we can extract from capturing users that are broadly different between the 3 platforms. So the user profile of OLX and Vivareal and ZAP is different. Also in terms of how the brand is positioned is different. OLX is typical for typical generalist position. Not a lot of detail on the ads, more easy, easier search experience, lower filters. Vivareal is very strong, very, very strong in SEO, and we don't want to miss that. We need to grasp most of the power of the Viva Real platform in terms of SEO. So we'll keep doing that. And ZAP is more high level, a bit less content, but higher level, more vertical, better filters, better experience. So for the time being, we play with the 3 brands, but I think it's fair to say that over time, Grupo ZAP and OLX will be the leading brands going forward. So we will have all access to generics for all verticals and then Grupo ZAP will be the one that, in terms of brand investment, will gather most of the investments. When it comes to Jobs, the question is, I think on one side, InfoJobs is a clear leader in the market. So what we see in our P&L, what we see in our traffic is more or less what we see in the market. And the market is still not recovered. When I look at number of contracts signed in Q4 last year was minus 24%. And in Q1 was minus 25%, in January and February. And then there was a good recovery, so that we closed at the market, Q1, at minus 15% in terms of number of contracts signed. I cannot disclose specific numbers on InfoJobs. I think it's fair to say that most of the decrease that you see in our top line compared to last quarter is linked to Jobs, and our 3 main verticals are pretty balanced among themselves. So yes, most of the impact is in Jobs and Jobs is -- follows the market pretty closely.

[Operator]

There are no further questions at this time. Please continue.

[Rolv Erik Ryssdal, Chief Executive Officer]

Well, in that case, I would like to say thank you all very much for listening, for attending, and thank you so much for all your questions. So in closing, I just want to wish you all the very, very best and stay well. Stay healthy and keep in touch with us. Thank you a lot for your time, and have a great day.

[Operator]

Thank you. That does conclude our call for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.