Cint Group AB (publ)

STO:CINT

Earnings Call Analysis

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q3

[Operator]

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Cint Interim Report Q3 Call, and thank you for standing by. My name is Davy, and I'll be coordinating your call today. [Operator Instructions]I would now like to hand the call over to your host, Giles Palmer, the CEO of Cint to begin. So Giles, please go ahead.

[Giles Palmer, executive]

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to our Q3 results presentation.If you want to step through the deck, please, next slide, on to Slide 2. So this is a familiar slide basically outlining what we do, leading in connected consumer insights. Cint is in the middle between 300 million respondents and over 4,000 customers. We've put the customer number back in because I'm now pretty happy that that's a fair count or a good count. We're not double counting. We're not missing. So over 4,000 customers, around about 1,000 employees and 300 million respondents doing roughly 1 million surveys a day.Next slide, please, Slide 3. So Q3, getting on to Q3, we said here, lower demand from a few large clients. We're down year-on-year by 4% on a constant currency basis or 4.9% rather. And that's primarily driven by a smaller group of large customers who've had some significant decline in demand for various reasons, which we can come back to later. Although obviously, this is commercially sensitive information, so we'll be sharing enough to give a flavor on exactly what's going on here.The Media Measurement business is growing well. We've also, as discussed over the last 2 earnings calls, been working hard on what's called reversal rates or how I think of it is responses that are rejected by our customers. Therefore, the quality of those responses is not sufficient, and there's a bunch of reasons for that, bot traffic, poor survey design, some historical but now plugged security gaps. So we've worked hard on that and those rates are coming down.The big piece here, and this is really the thrust of my commentary today is that, yes, Q3 is important. But in the grand scheme of things, in the arc of the history of Cint, especially as we move forward, this is one quarter and the work that I and the rest of the organization have been doing over the last 6 months or 7 months since I got here is really about setting the company up for medium to long-term success. And that is about putting together a platform, a unified platform, which is robust, well-built, modern, has a new user experience and has allowed the company to be more efficient going forward so that we can then innovate on top of a unitary platform, a singular platform rather than the 4 platforms that we have right now that I inherited when I came into the role. So that has been the core -- the key focus for me over the last 7 months. Without that, the company is spinning too many plates. It's inefficient. It's not able to innovate in the way that it should be able to, given the quality of the staff that we have here.So, that product integration, which is risky, we've put an enormous amount of work and attention into and derisked it significantly. So we have, this month, I think this week actually, the first managed services customers. So these are customers who use our exchange, but we use it on their behalf. So they come to us with a survey typically. We program the survey into the exchange. And then they get the results back. So we are now using our new platform to do some of that managed services work specifically in the U.S.So this is the first evidence that we've -- that we're bringing to market that this integration plan is on track. And then as I said here, the new self-serve platform with the new user interface, which was started in May this year will be coming to market in Q1 next year. We are reasonably confident that we will have a beta -- a testing version of a release kind of a version in January, and we will be able to roll it out to different cohorts of customers over the course of Q1. So the core underlying strategy for this company's long-term growth and profitability is significantly derisked to where it was 3, 6 months ago, and I'm confident that we are on plan and on track.Next slide, please. So if we talk about Q3 for a second, obviously, that's what we're here to talk about. Constant currency sales declined 4.9%. Gross margin maintained at around 62%, it's down a tiny bit, but pretty much the same. And adjusted EBITDA margin and EBITDA margin both increased from Q2 at 18.1% and 12.9%. So it was a quarter where, as the reports have said this morning, a small miss on expectations when it comes to the top line, but a beat on adjusted EBITDA margin and EBITDA margin, showing that we are on top of our costs. So not much else to say on this slide.Next slide, please. This is referring back to what I was saying earlier on around quality. The reversal number is down quarter-on-quarter. I just want to say that this is not a financial metric. So I don't want to confuse it with kind of core financial metrics. And it's obviously been a thing that the market, that investors and analysts have been focused on over the last 9 months, the February earnings report or the 2022 end report, which we did in February. Our target here is to get this number to 8% and below. And when we do get it to 8% and below, we're not going to continue to kind of talk about it in such a visible way because, as I said, it's not a financial number. And so we will sort of declare victory, if you like, at that point and sort of deprioritize this as a reporting number. It's not something that was ever reported on before until this year when it spiked and now we're getting it back under control.Now if it does spike again, of course, we will talk about it, but I just wanted to kind of call that out that if we get -- if and when we get this down to our target of 8%, it's something that we will deprioritize in our reporting. But the work that the -- primarily the technology team have done to get this under control. is significant, and I want to thank them for that work, and it's continuing to go in the right direction. So I'm very pleased to see that.Next slide, please. I've mentioned this already, but my mantra coming into this role was we need to consolidate. We need to consolidate our platforms. I've done this before in a previous role that I've had. It's not easy. It takes time. It takes meticulous planning. It's risky, but we -- myself and the team jumped into it and made a very clear product integration plan and customer migration plan. And of course, at the beginning, that plan was risky and now that plan is a lot less risky as we're starting to see delivery against that plan, and we're hitting our milestones. So what I can say is I'm looking at the future technology road map with a significantly higher level of confidence than I was 6 months ago, which is fantastic. And it is not just the sort of plugging things together. It is a genuine upgrade on what we have right now, which is going to be exciting for our customers and I think very strong in the market.Next slide, please. So again, I want to keep today's message quite simple and quite straightforward because that's the internal, that's how we're thinking about this phase of the company's growth or the phase of the company's history internally, which is consolidate, standardize and optimize. So we're consolidating our platforms, we're migrating our customers. We're going to standardize our operating model to make ourselves more efficient, and then we'll optimize that model and make sure that we are deleting steps which are not relevant, we are delivering things to our customers in a more timely, more efficient, more cost-effective way, which will help both profitability and longer-term growth. So I've said, to get to route to higher profitability is this consolidate, standardize and optimize.So we're already profitable as of Q3 and Q4 has historically been our strongest quarter, and I don't see that being any different this year. So the profitability and our ability to generate cash is moving in the right direction, but it's going to move even further in the right direction as we consolidate, standardize and optimize over the course of the next, let's say, 12 months, but in particular, the next 9 months. So -- and that buys us the opportunity to invest in innovation and accelerate or recharge the growth engine of this business. Now we are investing, as I said earlier on, in the Media Measurement business and some other initiatives. But until we have done the bulk of this consolidation work over the next 6 to 9 months, we won't be able to put our full force of focus into innovation. And therefore, our growth will really kick in after that period. So this is my strategy. It is a strategy that the rest of the company is totally on board with and we are moving very, very quickly, and we're very aligned.That is it for me, quite a simple one today because that's -- as I said, that's how we're thinking about the business. That's our focus. So I wanted to keep it very clear and very focused on this call.I'll hand over to Olivier for the financial update on the next slide, please.

[Olivier Lefranc, executive]

Thank you very much, Giles. So let's move to Slide 9, please. So on Slide 9, what you can see are our 3 key financial indicators, so net sales, gross margin and adjusted EBITDA.So let's start on the left with the net sales numbers in the last 5 quarters. So as you all know, I believe there is some seasonality in our business. Q1 is the lowest quarter and Q4 is the highest quarter. So it's always better to compare a similar quarter. So net sales in the quarter were EUR 66.6 million, which compares to EUR 74.3 million last year. So that's 10.4% reduction in reported numbers versus Q3 2022 and 4.9% on a constant currency basis. And the difference between the two is being the weakening of the U.S. dollar versus the euro compared to the same period of last year. And as you have seen earlier, we have 60% of our revenue coming from Americas, which is mainly the U.S., so fluctuations between euro and dollar are impacting us. And overall, I mean, the decline is due to a weaker demand.In the middle, you have the gross profit and the gross margin ratios over the last 5 quarters. You will see that for Q3 this year, it is at 62.2%, which is a little lower than what we had in Q3 last year, but in the average of what we see since the acquisition of Lucid, I would say that our gross margin always remains between 60% and 63% every quarter depending on the product mix. So nothing -- not much more to say here in terms of the gross margin.On the right, you can see our adjusted EBITDA. By far and large, OpEx are very steady on large net sales, which is the reason why we see some significant fluctuations in terms of quarterly adjusted EBITDA. So again, the best is to compare with Q3 last year. So our adjusted EBITDA is at EUR 12 million versus EUR 14.1 million last year, which represents a margin of 18.1% versus 19% last year. And there are -- what I would say is that net sales have reduced by EUR 7.7 million, and adjusted EBITDA has reduced by -- [indiscernible] only EUR 1.9 million. So we've seen some very strong mitigation on the cost side, which is coming from, one, the ongoing integration synergies; two, the continuous cost control; and three, lower cost of LTIP programs. So in Q3 last year, we had cost of LTIP program of EUR 1 million, and we have readjusted the cost of our LTIP program in Q3 this year, giving us a credit of EUR 0.9 million in the quarter.So next slide, please, #10. So now, let's have a closer look at net sales. So -- and we can look at this net sales of EUR 66.6 million in the quarter from 3 different angles. So on the left, led by business segments, in the middle by region and on the right, by customer types as we do usually.So starting on the left, Marketplace, our core product saw an erosion of 13% in the quarter, mainly due to lower demand from existing customers. On the other hand, Media Measurement, which is a business that was launched by Lucid a few years ago, continues to grow at high speed with higher volumes from existing clients and continued client gains and the 49% constant currency growth in the quarter is quite spectacular.In the middle, looking at the breakdown of the EUR 66.6 million by geography, America, which is our largest geography, saw an erosion of 5% in constant currency. EMEA, after a good Q2, is down again in Q3 by 7%. And Asia Pacific, our smallest region, break down between tech-enabled and established. So when the macro economics were better, tech-enabled companies were outperforming established insights in the downturn economy. So what we've seen in the last quarter is the opposite, is that we are doing better with established insights companies than we are with tech-enabled companies. So it's consistent with what we've seen in the last quarters.Next slide, please. So if we have a closer look at the adjusted EBITDA number. So on the left, again, EUR 66.6 million of net sales, EUR 41.4 million of gross profit, 62.2% of gross margin. So the OpEx for the quarter are at EUR 37.5 million versus EUR 42.7 million last year, which is a reduction of 12%. If you look at the adjusted OpEx, so including the capitalization of development cost and excluding the integration cost, you get to a number of EUR 29.3 million versus EUR 33 million in the same quarter last year, which is a reduction of 11%. So again, we have -- we are doing quite well in terms of OpEx. And this is coming from the integration synergies, it's coming from cost control, and it's coming from the lower cost of the LTIP programs in the quarter as well.I would like to say a few words about integration costs. What you can see here is that our integration costs are at EUR 3.4 million in the quarter versus EUR 5.9 million in the same quarter last year. So that started to significantly reduce and they will continue to reduce until the middle of 2024 when there will no longer be any integration cost. And we are -- as we've said consistently in the last quarter, we are not forecasting to spend more than EUR 40 million in total.Slide 12, please, next slide. So cash position at the end of the quarter was at EUR 42.1 million. It has been negatively impacted by a net working capital increase in the quarter of EUR 3.8 million, an interest charge of EUR 2.8 million versus [ EUR 1.3 million ] last year in the same quarter, NRI of EUR 3.5 million that are lower than what they were last year, but still impacting us negatively in the quarter. Covenants were met in Q3, and we are expecting to continue to meet the covenants in the coming quarters. We also expect to see some improvement in terms of cash flow from improved collection. I will come back to that in the next slide, but there are some ongoing joint effort from commercial and finance and also the reduction of -- the ongoing reduction of the nonrecurring integration costs will also help. In terms of interest, we are expecting this to remain steady in the coming quarters as interest rates in the U.S. are not forecasted to reduce in the coming quarters.Next and final slide for me about net working capital. So what you will see is that our net working capital is at EUR 27.5 million at the end of Q3. I think we need to focus on what matters most, which is accounts receivable. Accounts receivable at the end of Q3 were at EUR 95.8 million, which is higher than the EUR 87.7 million that we had at the end of Q2 and lower than the EUR 100.7 million that we had at the end of Q3 2022. I mean compared to last year, our reported net sales are down 10%. So it's quite logic that we see a reduction from EUR 100.7 million to EUR 95.7 million, it should have been like a higher reduction even, and it's not good that our accounts receivable are increasing compared to the end of June or to the end of Q2.So we have seen some headwinds in the last months in terms of collection, most likely due to higher interest rates. So it's across the board, it's not like due to a specific client or very specific issues. I think it's just [ accrued ] interest with increase in interest rates. It is more attractive for many of our clients to keep their cash for as long as they can. So our response to that is that we are redoubling our efforts in terms of debt collection. I mean, debt collection is not rocket science. It needs focus, it needs follow-up. So we are launching a lot of joint actions between the commercial and finance. And I would say that so far in October, we are seeing some good results in terms of collection. So the objective is to present improved AR in Q4 at our next quarterly presentation.And on that, I'm handing over to Giles.

[Giles Palmer, executive]

Thank you, Olivier. That is -- there was nothing else that I really wanted to say. So let's open up to questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from Predrag Savinovic from Carnegie.

[Predrag Savinovic, analyst]

Thanks for the good presentation. You answered some of them. I think one question I have is still on the covenants. So you said you meet them and you expect to meet them going forward as well. I think that's calming. Could you give us some more details on these in terms of what are your covenants that you're tracking? And if you can say -- if you can give some supportive commentary around them in terms of, say, how much you expect cash flow to reverse in Q4 and so on?

[Olivier Lefranc, executive]

Yes. So I think there are 2 questions. So in terms of covenants, we renegotiated and I think you see public information, so I can talk about it. So we've renegotiated the covenants in Q1 this year. And we have some covenants that we need to meet on a monthly basis and on a quarterly basis. So we need to have like a certain level of cash. And also, we need to have a certain level of profitability. And what I would say is that in terms of level of profitability, this is perfectly fine. And in terms of cash, it is fine as well, and we are above the threshold. We are above the limit. And we expect that to remain above the limit in the coming quarters and especially because we will have the tailwind of stronger sales in Q4 as we always have. So our Q4 sales are going to be higher, which will sustain the cash flows in the beginning of next year. So I would say, for the coming quarters, I'm not anticipating any issue in terms of covenants. We don't need to do any renegotiation or anything like that for the coming quarters.And you had another question about cash flow moving forward?

[Predrag Savinovic, analyst]

Yes, please.

[Olivier Lefranc, executive]

Yes. So I think what is going to help a lot is that, I mean, our integration costs have started to reduce. I mean, we're like at 3.4% in the quarter versus 5.9% in the same quarter last year, and they will continue to gradually reduce until they come to an end at the end of H1 2024. And this will help a lot as, on average, we spend close to EUR 20 million a year in terms of integration costs. So not having that will help a lot. In terms of integration costs -- sorry, in terms of interest, we are not anticipating any change. So we'll continue to have some substantial interest cost until the end of 2024 probably because I don't think that the interest rates in the U.S. are going to decrease any time soon. And as Giles mentioned, we are taking a lot of actions in terms of consolidation, standardization and optimization that will start to bear fruits in 2024, but mainly in 2025 because we are working on the integration, but the integration will not complete fully before the second half of next year. And it is only then that we'll be able to fully realize the synergies that we are targeting.

[Predrag Savinovic, analyst]

Okay. Perfect. Then moving on to costs. So price control is good. It shows that you have cost discipline. It's down year-over-year and in Q-over-Q terms. Looking at the spending then ahead, do you think that the absolute number we have in Q3 is representative if we look into Q4 and Q1 and so on? Or is there any seasonal effects on the cost side? I think you mentioned some in the presentation, but I might have missed the detail there.

[Olivier Lefranc, executive]

I would say, I mean, in terms of operating expenses, we are -- I mean our business is pretty steady. So there is not much seasonality if any, in terms of OpEX. That's #1. Now, we can always have some ups and down. What I've mentioned in 2 occasions in the presentation is the fact that we have readjusted the cost of our LTIP program, which is like a noncash item for sure. And we had a credit of [ 0.9% ] in Q3 this year. So you can have a few things like this. But broadly speaking, our operating expenses are pretty steady. And as I said earlier, I think we will continue. We are not forecasting to increase our OpEx and it's the opposite. We are forecasting to continue to reduce our OpEx, but it is not only -- it is not before we fully consolidate, standardize and optimize that we'll be able to generate the cost savings that we are targeting. So we are more like in cost avoidance and cost control than really in cost-cutting at this stage.

[Predrag Savinovic, analyst]

Right, super. And then Giles, you, on growth. In like-for-like terms, it's quite unchanged from Q2. And I believe you've always spoken about demand and macro before. I think you're a bit more clear on weakness in core customers. So just want to get some flavor here as well if this demand with core customers, is this worse or unchanged or better in Q3 than in Q2?

[Giles Palmer, executive]

It's a little bit worse, which is why we called it out, and it's a small group, and it's a bunch of different reasons. Some of our customers have bought some of our suppliers. So [indiscernible] bought Branded Research about a year ago. Toluna acquired MetrixLab, now they're not a supplier of ours but [ they're actually one ] of the customer. But these sorts of market movements and market activities have had a negative impact on the demand from those specific customers. So -- and then there's the -- I think the market research industry in general tends to be more influenced by macro uncertainty than some other industries from my somewhat limited experience. So I think certainly the Board have reflected that to me, but they were a fair view and I have no reason to doubt that. So these things are sort of the combination of temporary depending how you look at sort of macroeconomic sort of shifts and maybe one-offs but not trends, shall we say.So that's the sort of reason why we called it out. And I want to be as sort of transparent as possible with the market and why things happen. But obviously, we stop short of trying to release information which could be damaging to the company. So there's an interesting and somewhat challenging sort of narrative or at least [ management along ] with an interesting challenge on how -- where we draw the line in terms of detail, I guess, that's the best way of putting it. But overall, like I said in the last earnings report, I think my words were, return to growth in the foreseeable future. So about 3 months later, we're not there yet, but I stand by that statement that I made 3 months ago.

[Operator]

Our next question is from [ Jesper Stugemai ] from Handelsbanken.

[Unidentified Analyst, analyst]

[ Jesper Stugemai ] here. My question is related to the reversals and the AI-driven fraud prevention that you have. You mentioned that you have seen some good results here, and we saw the reversals coming down from 12% to 10% this quarter. But could you say anything? Do you have any visibility into this, how good your fraud prevention is? And is it mainly related to the improvements you have done here? Or is it more like a macro trend that saw this decline?

[Giles Palmer, executive]

It's entirely related to the work that we've done. If we were to do nothing, it would get worse over time. So this is, again, kudos to the team internally for reversing a trend that was going in the wrong direction for the last 6 or 9 months or so. So -- and it's -- the plan is to bring it down from here. So it's entirely sort of in our control in that respect. And sorry, what was the other piece of your question, [ Jesper ]?

[Unidentified Analyst, analyst]

I think you answered it. It was -- if you have any visibility, the decline in the reversals of -- if this was mainly internal or if it was macro and the [ fraud ] was on a general basis coming down. But I have a follow-up here as well. And if you could give some more color on the short-term feedback loop of fraud and fraud quality service going forward and if we should expect the reversals to come down even further in Q4.

[Giles Palmer, executive]

So I can, and I'll try to, but it's quite a long-winded answer. So I'm kind of cautious not to sort of bore everybody. But the way that it works is that a client will put a survey into the marketplace and decide who they want to answer that and they come through to our platform and make their selection. And let's say they want a 1,000 people of a specific type, maybe women who are golfers that own a specific type of car or something like this. So they fulfill that 1,000, they get the 1,000 surveys back, and then they go through the results and either kind of accept or reject the results based on things like fields that have not been filled out or response which just has the same answers in every sort of free text bot, which is obviously potentially a bot, not necessarily but potentially. So they reject these things. And they have to the end of the following months to do that and then they build.Now that can be quite a long time between the survey being filled out and us understanding what's been rejected and what's not. So we have started to do testing ourselves in a more real-time basis. So we will -- so our managed services teams and other internal quality teams are looking at responses in a much more real-time basis. So we might release some technology, which is based on some deep learning algorithm that looks at patterns of behaviors of respondents and identifies that this sort of pattern of behavior looks more like a bot than a real person, and we'll release this and then we'll look at the results in real time and see what's happened and whether the quality has improved or declined. And that feedback loop is critical, the speed of that feedback loop and the iterations are critical to be able to get on top of this problem. So that's kind of a short-ish answer to your question. I hope that was somewhat helpful.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Victor Holberg from Danske Bank.

[Viktor Högberg, analyst]

So maybe, thought we could talk a bit about Media Measurement. Strong growth in that one. Is that driving working capital and receivables? Is that part of the buildup in accounts receivables in the past couple of quarters? Or is that not due to that? And also if you could talk a bit about the growth drivers in Media Measurement. Level of profitability, is it in line with the group or above and also the kind of investments you're talking about making here in terms of magnitude, timing and so forth? That would be helpful.

[Giles Palmer, executive]

All right. I'll take the last bit and then Olivier can talk about the AR piece. So the gross profit is very similar to our Marketplace self-serve gross profit. So it's -- these are good margins. The second piece was like what are we actually doing? We're investing in sales and marketing. We're basically strengthening the demand side teams all the way from top of the funnel through to client management. So it's very much a go-to-market investment. We are also adding a few more engineers to the team to build out the solution, but the majority of the investment is going to go-to-market function.And then, Olivier, do you want to answer the AR piece?

[Olivier Lefranc, executive]

Yes. So in terms of AR, so a lot of the Media Measurement clients are media agencies and they are not known for being very good payers, but I don't think that this is explaining the increase that we see in terms of accounts receivable in the last quarter. I mean, it's not -- that's not the reason behind the increase. And in terms of profitability, as you can -- I mean, it's a profitable business as all our business are. And yes, I mean the business is growing and profit -- and the contribution of the business is growing as well.

[Giles Palmer, executive]

Did that answer your question, Victor?

[Viktor Högberg, analyst]

Yes. Sorry, I was muted. Yes, very good. And would you expect some scaling in this business as revenues increase with the gross margin at that level? And OpEx, of course, you're investing now, but above-group profitability, is that to be expected in the coming years in this segment?

[Giles Palmer, executive]

The gross margin, no. The gross margin will stay where it is, which is still very, very healthy. The reason why that is, is because we use our own exchange. So the way that the Media Measurement business works is that we are able to ask questions of individuals who had seen adverts before, during and after the time that they've seen those adverts and can get a really good read on brand uplift. This is one of -- I think it's -- I mean, I'm not -- I don't know the entire market here, but from my experience, this is a very innovative and very interesting solution to brand uplift surveys, where you can actually ask the people that have seen the adverts. So we use our own exchange. That's the sort of the beauty of this business unit. It sits on top of -- it's a use case on top of the core exchange, which is in terms of TAM expansion, very interesting.But having said that, the ability for us to deliver this service through operational efficiencies definitely can be improved over time. It's a reasonably young business. There's more people involved in the delivery of the data and the plugging in of different sort of APIs than there would be over time as we scale it and optimize it. So the operating profit of this business can definitely go up as a percentage, depending on how much we invest in the go-to-market function, obviously, but the gross profit is likely to stay the same.

[Viktor Högberg, analyst]

Yes, sure. And also on the cost side, of course, it's a balance, but how long do you think you can be prudent on costs for not affecting the opportunities that might be out there in the next year and beyond and also not jeopardizing the migration here? Can you remain very cost conscious and not sacrificing anything on the business side? And also in Q2, you said that you expected free cash flow to be at least neutral in the second half. Given what we see now in Q3, would you still stand by that statement?

[Giles Palmer, executive]

I'll answer the first piece and then Olivier can answer the second one. This is a transformational agenda that we're on here. We're transforming 4 companies into 1. We're transforming 4 [ bits ] of technology into 1. We're transforming lots of different back-end systems into one and integrating workflows and workforces and so on and so forth. So are we finished with that? Not even close. So the opportunity is still there to make this business more efficient and more optimized. I said that very clearly in the presentation. Are we on target? Absolutely. Have we derisked it? Absolutely. So I see this as a transformational period during the course of which we'll move resources from integrating to growing innovating -- from integrating to innovating, I guess, is the right way to think about it, both on the R&D side and on the go-to-market side. So -- and that will really start to happen in 2024.Olivier, do you want to answer the cash piece?

[Olivier Lefranc, executive]

Yes. So I stand by to the statement that we made at Q2 that in terms of cash and really, my expectation is to actually stabilize the situation in Q4. And so far, what I am seeing in October is pretty encouraging. So I mean, we have been caught, I would say, a little bit by surprise because, I mean, in terms of collections, it became harder in the last months. But now we have reacted. Now we have put some strong actions in place and joint efforts between commercial and sales that are starting to bear fruit. So yes, the expectation is to be at least cash-neutral in Q4.

[Viktor Högberg, analyst]

Okay. Cash-neutral in Q4 or cash-neutral for the second half? Some kind of difference?

[Olivier Lefranc, executive]

I mean, in Q1, we should benefit from the Q4 sale seasonality because, I mean, sales are going to peak in Q4 as they do like every year, absent any black swan. So we should have some strong cash inflows in Q1. Yes. So I mean it's difficult to say more than that after -- and this will depend on the level of gross profit that we generate as well in the coming quarters.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Daniel Thorsson from ABG.

[Daniel Thorsson, analyst]

First one on growth here. Q4 is obviously seasonally strong, but is it reasonable to assume that you will reach positive organic growth already in Q4? And please also, what's your base assumptions for that? What needs to practically happen in the market? Is it market returning? Or are you doing something else?

[Giles Palmer, executive]

So is it reasonable to assume? I think it's reasonable, but we're not giving guidance. So we never have and we're not saying that today. What needs to happen is that the market is asked, I tend to only focus on what we can do. So we are very much focused on our go-to-market side of the business in the course of the next 6 months as well as, obviously, the integration, which I've talked about. So yes, I mean, it's hard for me to say any more than that, to be honest.

[Daniel Thorsson, analyst]

Yes. Fair enough. A follow-up to Olivier here on the last question. What did you actually mean by cash-neutral in Q4? Is that operating cash flow after working capital? Is it free cash flow? Or what line of the cash flow statement, please?

[Olivier Lefranc, executive]

It's cash balance.

[Daniel Thorsson, analyst]

Okay. So that should be pretty much in line with what we had here in Q3. That's what you're saying.

[Giles Palmer, executive]

No, Q3 was a reduction in cash balance, right? Or are you talking about...

[Daniel Thorsson, analyst]

Q4.

[Giles Palmer, executive]

Yes.

[Daniel Thorsson, analyst]

Okay. Okay. That's fair. And then the last one, what was the basis for the EUR 19 million write-down here in the quarter? And do you see risks for further write-downs ahead?

[Olivier Lefranc, executive]

Yes. I mean, we've written down to a platform that we are no longer using or that we'd like to discard such as [indiscernible] and things like this. So I mean, it's all in the report.

[Daniel Thorsson, analyst]

Okay. And you don't see any further risks here ahead? Or can you say something...

[Olivier Lefranc, executive]

I mean, we will have -- I mean as we have to do, like every year, so we will need to do an impairment test in Q4. But this is like noncash, but we'll have to do an impairment test in Q4.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Fredrik Lithell from Handelsbanken.

[Fredrik Lithell, analyst]

I just wanted to have a little bit of a follow-up on the reversals discussion and your actions and your new tools. I was of the impression that your systems are monitoring the responses coming back more or less in real time and judging if a response is of good or bad quality, for example, if it has been answered in a too short period of time or if it has been answered in [ 1,1,1,1 ] on all the answer -- on all the questions and so on. So do you mean that the system in itself has not looked at those kind of details and taken out bad quality responses beforehand, that it goes to the customer? Just wanted to clarify there.

[Giles Palmer, executive]

Yes. So good question and it's good to clarify this stuff. It's complicated, right, which is why I could spend half an hour talking about this. We don't see the answers to the questions. But we see...

[Fredrik Lithell, analyst]

I know that. I know that. Yes.

[Giles Palmer, executive]

So when you said the answers are [ 1,1,1,1 ], we don't see that. So that was a sort of misunderstanding or whatever. But we do see the way that responses are routed through. But once we pass that respondent through to the survey, that respondent is answering a survey, let's say, on SurveyMonkey. And we don't see that transaction, if you see what I mean, that set of transaction. Is that helpful?

[Fredrik Lithell, analyst]

Yes, yes, absolutely.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from [ Joachim Asket from Deeper Endeavor ].

[Unidentified Analyst, analyst]

Some topics keep coming up when I look into the market research industry and kind of look at what common problems people are talking about. And it'd be interesting to hear kind of, first, how relevant they are for Cint's long-term welfare and also what your kind of plans/goals are for short term and long term. So the 3 topics are panelists burnouts, abusive surveys as seen from the panel owners and panelists, and then data quality and secondarily, sample participant prices or CPIs.

[Giles Palmer, executive]

Okay. There's a lot in there, Joachim. Let's do one at a time. What was the first one?

[Unidentified Analyst, analyst]

Sure. Panelist burnouts.

[Giles Palmer, executive]

Yes. Critical, it's not new. It's -- managing a panel is not a straightforward job. It's a transaction. You're paying people for their time and for them to answer questions. So you've got to be respectful. You've got to make that transaction worthwhile for them. And this isn't just in -- on the panelists -- on the panel side, panel management side. I personally think it's more on the survey side. So where we see surveys of like 20 minutes or something like that and just like those are -- you're going to get a low completion rate there or a high dropout rate because nobody really likes [ spending their day spending on ] surveys. So I think there's a lot of psychology in this. And personally, I think that the respondent needs to be at the center of this entire value chain because that's where the value is coming from. So my view is that, long-term, if that -- if more panel providers or others in the market research industry are very respectful of the respondents and their time and make that experience as good as possible, then dropout or burnout will be manageable.

[Unidentified Analyst, analyst]

All right. And can I -- what -- as a marketplace, you kind of should have ability to do -- influence this. And kind of what are you thinking on what you can do to kind of force best behavior?

[Giles Palmer, executive]

Yes. Yes, there's a lot that we can do to improve this. And a lot of it is -- a lot of my thinking, our thinking around this is -- I don't really want to share because it's competitive, right? There's -- we've got some good ideas, some very good ideas of how to improve this whole area. And it's something that we will talk about next year as we start to reveal them and get into it. So yes, Cint is in the middle of this whole exchange of value or value chain, and there are opportunities to improve the entire flow that we haven't taken yet but I really want us to. So yes, I agree with you that this is something that we should be stepping into more actively.

[Unidentified Analyst, analyst]

It's just kind of a thing that will be implemented post integration or is that something that's coming along with the kind of new platform that you have already...

[Giles Palmer, executive]

It will be post-integration, so post-Q1.

[Unidentified Analyst, analyst]

All right. And I guess, that kind of also answers the data quality or kind of CPIs.

[Giles Palmer, executive]

Yes. I mean, CPIs is -- so that means cost per interview or ACPI, average cost per interview is a core metric for us. And I think the entire industry thinks that ACPIs are probably lower than they should be in an ideal world. I think there's a strong point of view across the industry that higher ACPIs would deliver higher quality, if managed in the right way. So that's something that I think is an opportunity for the entire industry, and we can help facilitate that.

[Operator]

We have no further questions. So I'd like to hand back to management for any closing remarks.

[Giles Palmer, executive]

Thank you. No real closing remarks for me. Well, the one -- the closing remarks is to restate what I have been saying repeatedly on this call, which is we are extremely focused on consolidating, standardizing and optimizing this business. That will give us a fantastic platform right in the heart of the market research value chain for increased profitability and long-term innovation and growth. And that is what I'm focused on, and that's what we're going to do over the next 9 months. So thank you very much for your time today, everybody.

[Operator]

Thank you, everyone, for joining today's call. You may now disconnect your lines, and have a lovely day.