S4 Capital plc (SFOR) Q3 2024 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good afternoon, everybody. Good morning in New York or in the US. Welcome to our presentation on the third quarter results for 2024. On my left is Scott Spirit. On his left is Jean-Benoît Berti. And on my right is Mary Bastapil. We have five items to go through. The first is a trading update by Mary. Second is a market momentum update. analysis and client analysis and third thing client analysis with scotland i'll come back just briefly for a summary and outlook and then we'll open up for q a so to start off with mary Thank you for joining us today. Trading conditions in the third quarter remain challenging due to the global macroeconomic backdrop and continuing high interest rates. There was also some underperformance against our addressable markets. These trends impacted marketing spend, especially from some of our larger technology clients. And our technology services practice continued to be affected by a reduction in activity from one of our larger clients. Reported revenue was down 19% at 198 million, with some impact from foreign exchange rates, especially the dollar to pound. On a like-for-like basis, revenue was down 17%. Reported net revenue decreased 15% to £179 million, or 13% like-for-like. We have continued to take action on costs and are making a significant reduction in the number of monks across the company. Given slower-than-expected trading in Q3 and current client activity levels, we anticipate a low double-digit reduction in full-year net revenue on a like-for-like basis. Due to these continuing revenue challenges, and despite our increased focus on cost reduction, we now expect like-for-like operational EBITDA to be slightly below last year. As in previous years, financial performance will be heavily weighted to the final quarter. Net debt at th...