Half Year 2026 Grupa Pracuj SA Earnings Call
Speaker #1: 26 results, and before we get started, a few quick housekeeping notes on the technical side. Your microphones and cameras will be kept off for the duration of the session, of the meeting, once the management board has completed their presentation.
Speaker #1: We'll open the floor for questions, so you are able to submit them through Q&A function in the Zoom toolbar during the whole meeting. Okay, so I believe that's it for the technical details.
Speaker #1: Now let me introduce the hosts of today's meeting. Przemek Gacek, CEO of Grupa Pracuj. Hello, Przemek.
Speaker #2: Hello, good morning everyone.
Speaker #1: Grazian Fedorowicz, responsible for the finance of the group. Hello, Grazian. And Rafał Nachyna, who oversees the group's operations. Hello, good morning, Rafał.
Speaker #2: Hello.
Speaker #1: And Przemek, over to you.
Speaker #2: All right, thank you very much. Welcome everyone. For our, you know, H1, Q2 presentation. Just to remind you, the vision of Grupa Pracuj is to become Europe's leading HR technology to base it on two strong pillars, which is on one hand job classifieds, on the other one HR software.
Speaker #2: Talking about the results for the Q2, we are very satisfied with the results. We are especially happy with accelerated growth of our high-margin job classifieds business.
Speaker #2: We haven't had double-digit growth for quite a few years, so it's great to see the acceleration and the growth was 10% year on year.
Speaker #2: And it was, you know, resulting from, on one hand, pricing momentum, which as you remember, you know, we put lots of attention to it, but also it was reinforced by volume recovery of the in Poland.
Speaker #2: We also recorded the record high adjusted EBITDA first time ever. We crossed 100 million slots with 103 million slots of the adjusted EBITDA, which is 12% growth year on year.
Speaker #2: We maintain a very strong EBITDA margin, and also the net profit grew in Q2 by 20%, which as you know it's always, you know, the issue with the it was actually in this case supported by the net finance income.
Speaker #2: We'll discuss the business more later on, but then right now I will pass to Grazian, our CFO, to guide you through more detailed financial results.
Speaker #2: Grazian, please.
Speaker #3: Thank you, Przemek. Net revenue, so after or excluding the cost of job offers sold from multi-posting services, in Germany our revenue increased by 7% to 212 million slots.
Speaker #3: The main accelerator of growth was Poland. This time as Przemek mentioned, we observed the volume recovery of over 5%. Prices also grew by almost 5%, so it's a I believe very healthy combination.
Speaker #3: Half by half more or less of growth from price and volume. This was this growth was obviously supported by growth from eRecruiter, the fastest growing business was again Ukraine, with revenue growth of 19%.
Speaker #3: Here the growth was driven as in previous quarters by pricing. The prices in Ukraine are catching up gradually to Western Europe. Prices, so the growth of price was 41% in Ukrainian hryvnia.
Speaker #3: Germany, similarly to previous quarter, were down with revenue, by 4%, the main contributor to this decrease was multi-posting which was lower than previous than in previous year.
Speaker #3: MRR continued to grow modestly by 4% here on year in euro, so our subscription business is okay, but multi-posting as you can see unfortunately is driving the revenue in Germany down.
Speaker #3: From the cost perspective, my next slide please, yeah. From cost perspective, the operating expenses grew by almost 11%, but I want to draw your attention to the fact that this growth the two there were kind of two main factors of this growth which were non-cash costs.
Speaker #3: One is share-based payments, of 8 million slots, which was not existent in Q2 2025. So it's a kind of new cost this quarter versus last year, and also depreciation grew by almost 2 million slots, by 20%, so these two non-cash costs impacted significantly the growth of our operating expenses, employee benefits, excluding share-based payments, grew by 3% only, so below the dynamics of revenue.
Speaker #3: Growth. Operating profit grew by almost 2%, adjusted EBITDA as Przemek mentions, by 12%, with record high amount of over 1,100 million slots net income.
Speaker #3: Net finance income this quarter was obviously better than net finance cost last year. The main reason for the change of direction, let's say, and the numbers here in this line was much less negative impact of fair value revaluation of our unlisted shares, so the impacts last year was significant negative impact was significantly higher last year than this year.
Speaker #3: A little bit surprising, line probably, for some of you at least, is share of profit of equity. Accountant investees because last year we showed over 4 million slots, this year 3.5 million slots, so work UA contributed less this year than last year, and the main reason here is nothing wrong.
Speaker #3: They had very strong marketing campaign in the second half of the second quarter, so it impacted significantly the results for Q2, but it will the results will improve in the in the coming quarter, so it's like I would say almost last like one of events.
Speaker #3: And this all these factors ended up in the 20% growth of net profit almost 67 million slots recognized in Q2. So let's look on our profitability.
Speaker #3: As you can see again no surprises here the main the main profit engine is still Poland, so with EBITDA growth of almost 14%, Ukraine was the fastest growing business also in terms of EBITDA, almost over 50% growth here and only Germany again had lower EBITDA than last year, but on the other hand we improved profitability versus first quarter so we crossed 20% EBITDA margin in Q2 and Poland and Ukraine as you can see improved profitability maybe not significantly but especially impact of Poland for on total profitability significant so the group profitability increased by 2.7%.
Speaker #3: And in the whole half year it was over one time I would say even it proved that we are on a good way to achieve what we are assumed in our strategy, so just to remind you for we assumed for 2027 adjusted EBITDA tax positions us very well to for such target.
Speaker #3: Three slot per share pay ratio is 85% of our net profit, so and additionally we were able to make selective acquisition of Northlab jobs also in July so our cash flows is very very good remains very good especially taking into consideration that the loan we have only one installment payable in June 2027 so the position here is very very good.
Speaker #3: So maybe that's that's enough from financial summary. Rafa will summarize our businesses from our operational perspective. Thank you and Rafael. Voice to you.
Speaker #1: Thank you Gracian. So let me briefly recap the key elements of our growth strategy for recruitment platforms. It is built around three closely connected areas.
Speaker #1: First one of course is a growing number of recruitment projects posted by growing base of active customers. Second one is a better monetization supported by the increasing value of the products we offer.
Speaker #1: And the last one focused investment and cost discipline driving higher business efficiency. And short summary related to Pracuj PL. The most important I think we couldn't wait for this so at Pracuj PL this is the first quarter in some time when two key growth drivers clearly work together.
Speaker #1: Volume and pricing. As you can see the number of recruitment projects increased by 5.5% the rebound was visible across all major segments especially blue colors and IT.
Speaker #1: At the same time average price increased by 4.6% despite this is really important that the growing share of low priced blue color listing. This shows how effective AI supported dynamic pricing in our e-commerce can be.
Speaker #1: What's more average price in blue color segment increased by 12% confirming that this growing segment can be an additional future growth engine. Right now e-commerce remains a scalable growth channel now serves 67% of Pracuj PL customers.
Speaker #1: Before we jump to robota Ukrainian part of our business I ask Przemek about outlook about IT labor market.
Speaker #2: Yeah so I just want to cover the IT and the Northlab jobs. So it's I think it's quite interesting and you know everyone is asking the questions what is happening with the jobs for the software engineers you know what happens within software development and how AI is affecting that.
Speaker #2: So what actually the data that we see is that there is a growth of the US of software development positions in the US since the AI coding were launched we see the growth of the IT offers in Pracuj PL and the protocol and there is actually better and better sentiment for the IT and we think that you know that the AI basically you know improves the productivity demand is growing and there is some there is a little bit of shift you know the AI shifted the IT hiring towards more senior high value talents especially because more simple positions are being covered by the AI and it's you know people can work with different agents already and that's you know that's why also we decided to do the acquisition Northlab jobs on the next slide please.
Speaker #2: So I think this is even though it's quite a small transaction I think it's a crucial transaction within the IT and the reason for that is that the Northlab jobs is the has the highest responsiveness for the senior roles among Polish job boards and we believe it's actually a great fit for Pracuj PL and also the protocol.
Speaker #2: So that gives us you know really a very good leverage and we are able to offer more senior candidates for all the clients. It doesn't matter whether this is the clients you know the protocol of Pracuj as you can see also the transaction was realized at the very reasonable price which was you know 10.4 million slots a little bit less while the business was having more than 15 million slots of revenues last year with a little bit of loss there are some already you know some questions about you know was it why was it so cheap why was it this price and I would say that you know we bought it from Ringer actually Springer Poland they have been in the business for quite a few years and I think like every business at some point decides strategically what they want to focus on.
Speaker #2: I think for them that was certainly not jobs. Also I think it's more challenging to be alone on the market. I think it's always better to be a part of the larger group.
Speaker #2: And finally the price is decided by you know whoever is willing to pay it. So of course the price was good for us but I think it was also reasonable for the seller keeping in mind you know what are the challenges ahead of day businesses and how quickly we made this transaction.
Speaker #2: So you know we are very happy about that. Maybe it wasn't a large but we believe that we can really build on that into the future as well.
Speaker #2: Coming back to you Rafael.
Speaker #1: Thank you Przemek for the strategy. All in one out the best with Grupa Pracuj when it comes to IT segment. So when it comes to the robota in Ukraine we successfully combined businesses growth with the support of the local economy.
Speaker #1: We offer more free listing while maintaining strong revenue growth. As you can see the average price increased by 31% year on year. More than offsetting the lower volume of paid recruitment projects.
Speaker #1: As a result revenue increased by 29% in the Ukrainian currency and almost 20% in Polish zloty. While as Gracian mentioned before the margin in this business also improved.
Speaker #1: In Ukraine we invest in e-commerce similar strategy what is visible right now and what works in Poland. So right now we offer more and more freemium for our customers because we believe that it's a future conversion next engine.
Speaker #1: Let me jump to our second leg of our businesses. So HR software. And similar situation HR software our growth strategy is also based on a free closely connected areas first one the most important is a strong customer acquisition constantly expanding the active customer base of course we constantly try to offer more and more comprehensive solution which allowing us to increase the average monthly fee and at the same as a job board part focus investment and cost discipline as and driving higher business efficiency quarter by quarter.
Speaker #1: More specific about eRecruiter. So as you can see eRecruiter continues to scale and in parallel and hence customer loyalty the number of active customer customers increased by 13%.
Speaker #1: It was supported by HR link customers integration. Monthly recurring revenue increased by 10%. It is really interesting quarter for us because we we have a lot of tests with the starting offer we fell lower entry price threshold and we see that this activities accelerate acquisition also.
Speaker #1: Additional growing customer activities in the system allows for the sales of more advanced modules. So thanks to that we are able to increase monthly recurring revenue.
Speaker #1: But still one of the key points it is deeper integration within the platform. We are really happy with this because 33% of our customers already use HR workflows so this is really useful solution tools so thanks to that we can enhance a lot of internal customer processes.
Speaker #1: And additionally almost 20% of our customers use from thanks to our marketplace for solutions and products from external providers. So you as you can see together with the AI features the increasing value of the system support upselling and reduce customer churn.
Speaker #1: Right now we can jump to German business. At Softgarden SaaS revenue continues to grow despite the demanding economy environment. Monthly recurring revenue reach 8.5 million Polish zloty.
Speaker #1: This is a growth by 5% year over year. Growth was driven mainly by better monetization of existing customer base and the same time churn remained low.
Speaker #1: The weaker labor market limits recruitment activity and reduce the role of the multi-posting. The share of SaaS revenue increased to 77%. This improves revenue quality by making it more predictable and less depend on the cycle part of the business.
Speaker #1: We continue to maintain as always cost discipline while keeping the capacity to benefit from the future market revenue. And right now we would like to cover I think right now the most common questions and we prepared examples how we implement AI and what does it mean AI for us.
Speaker #1: So in the section I will show several examples of how our investment in AI translate into clear business results. The impact is already visible in three areas.
Speaker #1: Stronger engagement from candidates and customers. Higher revenue. And more scalable processes. First part of the story this is the candidate sites so let's start with this candidates.
Speaker #1: This supply site of our marketplace. We offer more and more new AI features as you can see AI search module, AI CV creator, candidate fit score, and AI Q&A.
Speaker #1: All those solutions leads to same outcome. Candidates can apply more easily more quickly and to roles that fit them better. We estimate that thanks to AI features we generate around 1.5 additional 1.5 million additional CVs this year.
Speaker #1: This improves quality of our product and creates clear value for employers who ultimately buy access to more better match candidates. When it comes to the employers site can I ask about the next slide?
Speaker #1: Yes of course. On the employer site AI improves the scalability of e-commerce and at several stages. The new creator helps customer publish better job and more quickly as you see today 32% of e-commerce ads are priced with AI support including sometimes non-standard cases.
Speaker #1: What I would like to underline during second quarter last quarter we launched the new test and we right now we have the first takeaways from this so it was the AI call agent pilot is especially promising for us.
Speaker #1: Why? Because running outside standard working hours for one month it brought 63 new customers. Almost 50,000 Polish zloty. I would like to you know stress and underline this is only still pilot but it clearly show the potential to improve the economic of the entire sales funnel.
Speaker #1: And I would like to jump to the recruiter because as you can see we try to offer more and more really useful features within all our systems.
Speaker #1: So in recruiter AI now supports every key stage of the recruitment's work from creating job ads and interview questions to support with the feedback for each candidate.
Speaker #1: Our goal is not to add insulate new features it is to save time and improve the quality of the recruitment decisions this also matters for the SaaS models the more comprehensive the system supports the customers daily work the harder it's become to replace so we constantly try to catch two different elements so higher revenue and at the same time lower churn.
Speaker #1: So AI improves recruitment productivity while also supporting retention and future expansion. So that's from e-recruiter. And short summary so as you can see right now we understand that AI tools help us strength our competition advantage.
Speaker #1: Our discipline because we always remember about this discipline approach ensure that AI investment are cost efficient and have specific metrics KPIs so we know what is the takeaway from each almost each investment each zloty invested in AI.
Speaker #1: What is really important because we try to take from the best knowledge from different businesses we also try to diversify the AI tools. We use we give us flexibility we work right now with several external providers taking to consideration that sooner or later they will try to monetize their product better and it will be more costly for us and what is really important we constantly try to build our knowledge when it comes to the SLMs capabilities because we know that this approach so this internal solution will give us better control and make cost more predictable.
Speaker #1: So this is sum up when it comes to AI and I would like us Shamek for the outlook for the next quarters.
Speaker #2: Yes thank you Rafał. So let's go to the next slide. You know as you know we operate on you know three very different geographies.
Speaker #2: I think with Poland being the let's say the strongest one solid growth for this year and plan for the next year you know as most of you know we have also the elections next year so there will be probably lots of money going into the economy.
Speaker #2: So that's quite a good let's say market environment for us. In Germany of course we are quite cautious and you know there are lots of pressures on the market.
Speaker #2: I think also on the recruitment market maybe not affecting us so much but certainly the pure recruitment software sorry recruitment classified players. And Ukraine you know we do not really expect the war to be over soon the economy is at the moment quite resilient with the IVs from the European Union countries let's see how the situation develops obviously it remains like a very strong option for us in the future when the war is over still despite of that this is the fastest growing business in our portfolio at the moment.
Speaker #2: So talking about the expectations for the upcoming quarters in the job classifieds this is the second quarter we would like to revise our expectations.
Speaker #2: So we would like to we are raising this from the high single digit number to the low double digit revenue growth which would be very much you know supported by what is happening in Poland here.
Speaker #2: That would be achieved through the obviously very good very good price optimization across all the categories white pink and the blue colors there will be obviously a shift still you know from the towards the blue collar as for the software we still plan to grow mid single digit MRR year on year with a little bit stronger growth in Poland and softer in Germany.
Speaker #2: And obviously we are going to maintain the EBITDA margin at you know 45% plus for the on the group level position. So I think overall on the next slide just you know when you know how we would like you to think about group pracu first of all that you know we have we have the market leadership across three geographies we know with the strong recruitment classifieds you know pracu PL number one in Poland and robota UA and when work UA as the clear co leaders in Ukraine you know e-recruiter number one in Poland and softgarden you know a very strong player in Germany as well.
Speaker #2: We know how to price how to provide more value for the for the employers as well. We are very profitable and we the more we think about this the more we do we see that there is the AI might be a great acceleration of us in terms of potential in new products that we could deliver to the employers and to the candidates.
Speaker #2: But also you know it helps us already with some improvement in terms of the efficiency of the business. So you know and maybe the last points you know that you know we are growing quite well we'll be growing hopefully faster as well and you know we will be on the track with the group pracu 2030 strategy.
