Digital Tools And Platform Consolidation Will Drive Stronger Marketplace Dominance Over Time

Catalysts

About Vend Marketplaces

Vend operates digital marketplaces across Mobility, Real Estate, Jobs and Recommerce, increasingly focused on high margin, pure-play marketplace and transactional models.

What are the underlying business or industry changes driving this perspective?

• Ongoing shift to structured packages and value-based pricing in Mobility and Real Estate, including Nordic harmonization and dealer bundles, is described as driving sustained ARPA expansion and supporting high single-digit to low double-digit revenue growth with minimal incremental cost, lifting EBITDA margins.
• Rapid growth in transactional models such as Recommerce GMV, Qasa and HomeQ, combined with improving take rates and gross margins, is described as scaling higher quality revenue streams that structurally enhance net margins and accelerate earnings growth.
• Rising penetration of digital tools in housing and mobility, including agent promotion, home valuation services and integrated dealer solutions, is described as deepening customer dependence on Vend’s platforms and underpinning resilient, recurring revenues and expanding ARPA over time.
• Company-wide platform consolidation onto Aurora and simplification of the portfolio, including multiple divestments and TSA exits, are described as structurally lowering OpEx, enabling revenue growth to increasingly drop through to earnings and driving a step change in EBITDA margin profile.
• Disciplined capital allocation with a strong investment-grade balance sheet, ongoing share buybacks and potential upside from the Adevinta stake are described as creating financial flexibility to fund AI and product investments while also boosting earnings per share through reduced share count.

Assumptions

This narrative explores a more optimistic perspective on Vend Marketplaces compared to the consensus, based on a Fair Value that aligns with the bullish cohort of analysts. How have these above catalysts been quantified?

• The bullish analysts are assuming Vend Marketplaces's revenue will remain fairly flat over the next 3 years.
• The bullish analysts assume that profit margins will increase from 18.0% today to 28.5% in 3 years time.
• The bullish analysts expect earnings to reach NOK 2.3 billion (and earnings per share of NOK 10.92) by about December 2028, up from NOK 1.5 billion today. However, there is some disagreement amongst the analysts with the more bearish ones expecting earnings as low as NOK1.5 billion.
• In order for the above numbers to justify the price target of the more bullish analyst cohort, the company would need to trade at a PE ratio of 37.8x on those 2028 earnings, down from 39.1x today. This future PE is lower than the current PE for the GB Interactive Media and Services industry at 39.1x.
• The bullish analysts expect the number of shares outstanding to decline by 7.0% per year for the next 3 years.
• To value all of this in today's terms, we will use a discount rate of 7.63%, as per the Simply Wall St company report.

Risks

What could happen that would invalidate this narrative?

• Structural decline in legacy and third-party revenue streams, including the deliberate phaseout of low-margin Recommerce and Jobs revenues and the full termination of Schibsted Media TSA income by 2026, could leave the group overly reliant on ARPA uplift to offset shrinking top line contributions, putting sustained revenue growth at risk.
• Persistent or worsening macro headwinds in core end markets, such as weaker demand in sub-verticals like boats, caravans and heavy machinery, as well as structurally lower job advertising volumes in Norway, may limit listing and transaction volumes, constraining the scalability of marketplace models and capping revenue and earnings expansion.
• Execution risk around pricing and packaging, illustrated by the need to reverse Danish private listing fees and the ongoing harmonization of dealer packages, could signal limited pricing power or customer pushback, which would slow ARPA growth and prevent targeted improvements in net margins and EBITDA margins.
• Ongoing losses in Recommerce despite strong GMV and transactional revenue growth, combined with the absence of a clear alternative strategy, raise the risk that this business remains structurally subscale and margin dilutive, dragging on group EBITDA and delaying the anticipated uplift in net margins.
• Long-term competitive and technological pressures from GenAI and new search or agentic models could erode the network effects and traffic advantages of Vend’s vertical marketplaces if investment in AI capabilities within a tight cost framework proves insufficient, compressing future ARPA potential and limiting earnings growth.

Valuation

How have all the factors above been brought together to estimate a fair value?

• The assumed bullish price target for Vend Marketplaces is NOK410.0, which represents up to two standard deviations above the consensus price target of NOK340.44. This valuation is based on what can be assumed as the expectations of Vend Marketplaces's future earnings growth, profit margins and other risk factors from analysts on the bullish end of the spectrum.
  
• However, there is a degree of disagreement amongst analysts, with the most bullish reporting a price target of NOK410.0, and the most bearish reporting a price target of just NOK268.0.
  
• In order for you to agree with the more bullish analyst cohort, you'd need to believe that by 2028, revenues will be NOK8.1 billion, earnings will come to NOK2.3 billion, and it would be trading on a PE ratio of 37.8x, assuming you use a discount rate of 7.6%.
  
• Given the current share price of NOK267.8, the analyst price target of NOK410.0 is 34.7% higher.
  
• We always encourage you to reach your own conclusions though. So sense check these analyst numbers against your own assumptions and expectations based on your understanding of the business and what you believe is probable.