Earnings call transcript: WithSecure Oyj sees stock rise, Q4 2024

WithSecure Oyj reported its fourth-quarter 2024 earnings, showcasing a robust performance in its cloud protection segment. The company’s stock surged by 5.51% following the announcement, reflecting investor confidence in its strategic direction and growth potential. According to InvestingPro data, while the company maintains a strong gross margin of 72%, analysts do not anticipate profitability this year, highlighting the importance of monitoring its growth trajectory.

Key Takeaways

• Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) increased by 6% year-on-year.
• Cloud Protection for Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) segment experienced a 52% ARR growth.
• Stock price rose 5.51% to €0.861, reflecting positive market sentiment.
• Consulting segment revenue declined, prompting a planned divestment in 2025.
• Focus on mid-market segment and operational efficiency highlighted.

Company Performance

WithSecure Oyj demonstrated solid performance in Q4 2024, particularly in its cloud protection offerings. The company’s ARR grew by 6% year-on-year, driven by a 52% increase in the Cloud Protection for Salesforce segment. However, the consulting segment saw a decline, with revenue falling to 8.6% in Q4, prompting plans for divestment.

Financial Highlights

• Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR): 6% increase year-on-year
• Q4 Adjusted EBITDA: €1.5 million
• Full-year Adjusted EBITDA: €4 million

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, WithSecure Oyj’s stock rose by 5.51%, with the last recorded price at €0.861. This increase brings the stock closer to its 52-week high of €1.164, indicating positive investor sentiment. The market reaction reflects confidence in the company’s strategic focus and growth in its cloud protection segment. The stock has shown resilience with a 7.79% year-to-date return, despite broader market volatility. InvestingPro analysis suggests the stock may be undervalued at current levels, with additional insights available in the comprehensive Pro Research Report.

Outlook & Guidance

WithSecure Oyj provided optimistic guidance for the future, projecting ARR growth of 10-20% for the Elements Company and 20-35% for Cloud Protection for Salesforce. The company aims to become a "Rule of 30+" entity by 2027, emphasizing profitable growth and operational efficiency.

Executive Commentary

Antti Koskela, CEO, stated, "We are a growth company. We invest to grow." This highlights the company’s commitment to investing in strategic areas to drive future growth. CFO Tom Janssen emphasized, "Our primary target is growth in cloud protection for Salesforce," indicating a clear focus on expanding this high-performing segment.

Risks and Challenges

• Decline in consulting segment revenue could impact overall growth.
• Geopolitical challenges may influence economic decisions and cybersecurity investments.
• Regulatory pressures in the European cybersecurity market could affect operations.
• Market softness in key regions like France and Germany poses a potential risk.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the impact of December discounts on ARR, the earn-out structure of the consulting divestment, and the strategic focus on mid-market cybersecurity. The company addressed concerns about market softness in France and Germany, reaffirming its commitment to growth in cloud protection and operational efficiency.

Full transcript - WithSecure Oyj (WITH) Q4 2024:

Laura Vita, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: Very good afternoon from Helsinki, Finland. We are WitSecure, and this is our quarter four twenty twenty four results release. My name is Laura Vita. I am responsible for the Investor Relations of WitSecure. We’ve had a very eventful quarter four as well as the month after the quarter end, and we are happy to be here today sharing all our news and figures with our investors and analysts.

So welcome to everybody, also those of you who are following us online today. Today’s speakers will be our President and CEO, Antti Koscala, who will go through the business, what happened and how that looks like going forward. After Antti, Tom Janssen, the CFO, will present our numbers and results and also share some insights regarding the consulting divestment and what to expect going forward. We will have questions and answers at the end. If you are watching us over the live webcast, you can put in questions at any time.

I will take them up with the presenters at the end. So now with that, I’m handing over to the President and CEO of WitSecure, Antti Koskela.

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: So thank you, Laura, so much. And so truly been busy quarter. And maybe I’ll just maybe say to Laura is that in addition to all this, we did a sustainability report as one of the first ones as the first one in the Helsinki Stock Exchange. So that they’re really proud on that one. So looking at the highlights of the 2024.

So I’ll first go through the Elements company segment, and I’ll talk about the underlying strategic drivers and then touch base on the cloud protection for Salesforce and then move over to Tom like Laura said. So the key metric that we measure is the ARR growth. So we grew 6% year on year, and that was impacted by the timing of the discounts. And we indicated in our report that without those timing matters, it would have been 3% points higher. And cloud NRR was 99% and obviously, the same discount topic affected here as well.

The following this same logic, Elements Cloud revenue growth was 9%. So the growth in Elements Cloud software continued. And it’s very much driven by the full portfolio. So we have launched many things this year in Sphere. They are now all in general availability.

The growth is not driven by the old products. It’s driven by the full portfolio. So I think that’s it’s important to be noticed. And Managed Services, like we reported in the Investor Day, So we are in the transition towards the mid market. The managed service is slightly below previous year level and due to churn of larger customers.

But we have notable progress here also in the mid market like the recently launched with SecureMDR is picking up here underneath quite nicely. So when we look at the whole segment then together with on premise, so we grew 4% year on year And we are really proud that we clocked in 1,500,000.0 adjusted EBITDA for the quarter. We’re on 4,000,000 full year and delivered on the promise that we have given to the market on the profitability. So that’s very important. But when I look at the strategy, with Secure Strategy going forward, it’s about focus.

It’s about focus to the mid market. It’s about an understanding that the mid market needs a different playbook than the large enterprises. So that’s number one. Number two is that we work with our partners to increase our addressable market and we reach these mid market customers in all the segments. And thirdly, it’s about proudly becoming a European cybersecurity leader and leading the way there.

It calls for a good cybersecurity research and the progress there adherence to our values in Europe and also making sure that we cover the regulatory aspects that we have in the society over here. So all these points that are here, so all the offerings we launched in Sphere are now in general availability. Identity security is the last one. It’s a big it’s a main attack vector. Is through identities in the mid market.

We have now solutions for that one. And we have been working with the partners quite a lot during the quarter and we are quite proud to say also that the full elements is available in AWS Marketplace currently to be purchased digitally. And we also launched our intent to launch with the AWS Sovereign Cloud together with the AWS launch. And what is the mid market focus and what’s the security specific to them? So if you look at the recent Gartner (NYSE:IT) Magic Quadrant that came in the quarter, we have an improved position.

We improved significantly the position there and we get recommendations. The Mitre is an important evaluation body that evaluates the effectiveness of certain cybersecurity products. And this time, they also reported the signal to noise ratio that how laborsome it is to work with the tooling. So we really set records in this one. So our products are known to be easy to use.

They are very effective, like we have said, all the time what’s the mid market needs. And that’s exactly the proof point we got from Maetre. We are way more effective than the large companies that we compete with and we are a lot more effective than companies like, for instance, like Sophos. I’ll take one example. LockBit attack in our system, when we detect that, it’s 17 alerts.

In one of these competitors, it’s 8,052. So it’s a question whether you work minutes and hours or whether you work weeks or months. Nobody can go through those lists. So there’s a lot of noise here. And this large company playbook has been historically about getting visibility in everything.

They have tons of people mid market doesn’t have, and that’s the problem we are solving. So that’s the highlight on element company. So looking quite positive for the next year because of the growth being driven by the full portfolio. So then hard work pays off. So when you look at our journey with the cloud protection, we were hit by churn earlier, as you remember in some of the reports.

We have been getting our customer success in place here. So London expand strategy is successful. So we are able to expand on the installed base quite significantly. We have won also significant new customer logos. Due to the nature of security, we don’t disclose them, but they are really good.

And the addressable market in salesforce ecosystem is not limiting our growth. And we brought in 52% year on year growth here in ARR terms. And this is a quite meaningful part now with Secure with SEK 12,800,000.0. And you know we have been having strategic review on this business as well. So we are developing this as an independent business inside with Secure.

We are really patient with it. And the question for us is that how can we accelerate further? So that’s the question when we think about strategy options. So how can we scale it still faster? And that’s why we keep it open.

But otherwise, there’s no rush and we enjoy the moment. And very good learnings also for the Element strategy. Many of the things we have done here in this business are exactly the ones that we talked with you in the Investor Day that we put a focus on the partners, put a focus on the portfolio and then we put focus on customer success. Those are the things we are doing now as we speak in the elements. And here, we have done them and are really happy on the result.

So maybe with this one, Tom.

Tom Janssen, CFO, WitSecure: Thank you, Antti, and good afternoon from my part as well. So if we share a little bit more further detail on the different numbers. And we start with the Elements company. As you can see, Anantin mentioned, the key metric cloud ARR grew 6%. We had some timing issues that we will correct in 2025, and that would have probably been about 3% higher for Q at the end of Q4.

As said, we have had during the year and we discussed it many times also in the previous quarters, some churn with our existing managed services offering specifically related to large customers who then have chosen a different direction than what we offer. At the same time, our new offerings like the vSECURE MDR has been quite nicely starting. And we’re also winning new customers with our Countercept traditional solutions. So but that has not didn’t fully yet compensate the churn that we had experienced during the year. This is mainly in terms of geographical impact.

It’s mainly in The U. K. And U. S. And so on.

As said, 99% NRR. We were hit a little bit there also by the discount timings, but that, of course, then will be corrected going forward. And our on premise revenue declined as was expected and has been a better trend and so on that we’ve been seeing many quarters already. And as said, we are quite pleased with our EBITDA performance at the end of the year and full year for the Elements company, reaching 1,500,000.0 in Q4 and then 4,000,000 on a full year basis. Then I said cloud protection for sales force.

A lot of work has been done there. Great turnaround from back to growth. And we have seen during the year a great a lot of work, but then also a good focus and results. And therefore, we ended up with over 50% growth. We also our NRR here has been is back up over 120%, which is also what we are expecting.

And as I said, this is a business where the typical land and expand strategy really has demonstrated its strength. So in many cases, as these are large customers, we go in with a smaller part of the customer and offer there and then it expands throughout the organization. And we’ve seen many, many good examples of this during 2024 and are, of course, very pleased about that. And we can see that the chosen strategy works. Then for the last time, we’re still going to go through the cybersecurity consulting as a segment as it has been.

And from a revenue perspective, of course, was a bit disappointing by reaching only 8.6% in Q4 ’twenty four percent. Mainly, if you look at the comparison to previous year, we in Q4 ’twenty three, U. S. Was going very strong for us then, a significant customer there had a lot of work less this year though, so there’s some seasonality also in that. And also in Denmark, we have experienced some lower revenue during 2024.

However, we have also done a lot of kind of transformative initiatives also in our consulting during 2024 and made sure, for instance, that our sales transformation and as well as looking at our cost structure and trying to manage our cost closer to the business levels. And therefore, really happy also to see that despite the low revenue in Q4, our EBITDA was 900,000 positive. So clearly, you can see that the trend is right. And I think I believe we built a good foundation for the future for consulting also for the next owner and so on. And as you all hopefully know, and if you don’t, we signed an agreement to divest it with a new owner called Next (LON:NXT) from Sweden.

And therefore, also, of course, we have now in this annual report and Q4 are treating this segment as discontinued operations, which makes the numbers a bit more challenging than normal to follow. But hopefully, we have been able to present them so that you can make sense out of them. But if I just very quickly go through the divestment. So we signed the agreement on the January 23 with a Swedish investment company called Next. The enterprise value was 22.5% and that’s the basis for how we made a decision.

Then within that, there was a segregation within a fixed fee that became payable at closing, which we expect to happen in Q2. And then 40% will be paid on different metrics than during the first two years, where we, of course, we have a mutual interest to make sure that the business continues on the a favorable trend that is at least in that the end of ’twenty four showed. And we are confident that we built a good foundation for that as well. So at this point then, of course, then looking at the EV, then we also valued our balance sheet based on that and we did a further million impairment of the goodwill at the end of Q4. And here we also in the table below try to demonstrate what how this kind of impacts our P and L also for elements company.

And one of the things, of course, to note here is that there is a 1,500,000.0 of costs that our group functions that will be allocated back to elements company. We don’t see this as a big issue, and we will review and make decisions to and being prepared for this already. So among many things, we will look at our and already have decided today also some actions around, for instance, our facilities globally that will help and reduce this cost going forward and we further review on what we can do. And we have pretty good plans already ready for that. So we don’t expect this to have a major impact on the elements company this year either.

Then if you look at the overall profitability and now this is the continued operations P and L, so that means that this is the elements company plus the cloud protection for sales force. And the revenue of that was about 116% for the full year, so 6% growth. Then if you look at from that perspective, gross margin pretty much on the same level. Then as you can see on the cost side, of course, quite a bit of reductions as we have restructured the company in 2023 and found a new reset our cost structure levels, I would say, in ’twenty three. And therefore, maybe to point out on the last line, combined operations adjusted EBITDA.

So we did almost a million improvement year over year in EBITDA, which, of course, for a sizable company is quite a significant change. But this is the kind of the overall situation with our finances after our 4.24. Then if we look at our new outlook for this year, so one of the things that, of course, has changed now, we are with consulting going out from the company. We are a subscription company and therefore also moving our outlook to more that direction as well as we are doing now a separate guidance for our CPSF and elements company. For the elements company, we expect our ARR to grow 10% to 20% from the end of this year, 2024, which was 83,300,000.0 as a starting point.

And then on the EBITDA, we expect to be between 37% of revenue during twenty twenty five percent. Then for the ARR, for Cloud Protection ARR, we are guiding that we will grow by 20% to 35% from end of twenty twenty four percent. And that is what we expect for CPSF at this point. And as mentioned, cybersecurity consulting will be divested during ’twenty five. Then as a last reminder for those who may not have seen our Investors Day for the next few years, we set our medium term financial targets to be a rule of 30 plus companies.

So we expect us to be over 30 in that respect in 27. Percent. And then to remind where are the what the components of this is, is the percentage revenue growth combined with the adjusted EBITDA percentage of revenue. And that combination, we expect to be over 30 in a couple of years’ time. And that’s what we are determined driving the company forward in the next two years or so.

So this was a brief overview of the numbers. And I will call back Laura to talk a little bit about our reporting and then we go to Q and A.

Laura Vita, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: All right. Thank you, Tom. So for the IR Director, this is always a happy and proud moment. We have this morning with the Q4 results also published our annual report for 2024. And it includes, obviously, the financial statements, Board of Directors’ report, remuneration report and corporate governance statement.

And the two last ones are according to the Finnish corporate governance code. And our remuneration report and the financial statements include additional information of the remuneration. So we are basically providing more transparency than we would have to provide. And then like Antti said, we have, as the first listed company in Finland, today issued a fully compliant sustainability report under the CSRD, Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, of the EU, which has, of course, been an enormous project for the team. So very happy to be here today introducing that as well.

It’s a heavy set, very transparent data about the ESG matters and cybersecurity, how we do it ourselves. So I hope you will have a good time reading our annual report. Then I think we are done with the presentations. We’ll do like this and then go to the questions. I think we can take first the questions from the room.

Atter Rykala, Analyst, INTRES: Hi, it’s Atter Rykala from INTRES. First, about the Elements Company ARR guidance. If you look at the history, sometimes the in the first half of the year?

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: I think we attempt that to be more balanced. I think what then happens always in the reality is that what we find in the markets. But I think there will be some sensational towards the end. I think that’s why I’m thinking, but I think we try to keep it more balanced. I think anything

Tom Janssen, CFO, WitSecure: No, I think typical seasonality is that Q4 in this business is strong. I don’t think we can break that too much. But of course, we are attempt our ambition is to be more balanced.

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: If you look

Atter Rykala, Analyst, INTRES: at the market situation in Europe, do you see any improvement here compared to the last couple of quarters, for example?

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: Of course, the focus that we we have on working with the partners, cybersecurity market is really about understanding the threat landscape. It’s not getting easier with the geopolitical climate we are having in. So many companies are being attacked. And also, it’s this regulatory pressure. I think I see in my dealings with customers and partners, increased understanding in the C suite and the board level is that there’s a necessity to make cybersecurity investment.

And some of the deals we have won are won because of that. And in a way, it’s a positive because it’s not always a specialist sale, and it’s a C level sale. And usually, you will get access to different levels of funding. So I think so that I have seen. Then in terms of the market, I think we talked earlier about the softness of some of the economies.

I think situation in France and Germany is challenging politically as well and in the economy. So that and while the companies need to do these modest decisions, there’s some slowdown on that one. Anything you want to add, Tom?

Tom Janssen, CFO, WitSecure: No. I think it’s I would say it’s fair to say it’s the market direction is not that clear at the moment. But there may be some nuggets of positive news, but we’ll see.

Atter Rykala, Analyst, INTRES: All right. Then about the Elements company profitability guidance. If you look at your H2 performance already last year, you were doing like 5% to 7% adjusted EBITDA, and now you’re guiding almost like 3% to 7%. So what is like if you are still planning to grow on that business, so what is like burdening the profitability this year even though you’re growing with a high gross margin?

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: I think we are we want to be a rule of 30 company, 30 plus company. And it happens with two ways, either by making the profitability now or growing. I think some of the investments next year, of course, we have growth investments that we need to cater for. But then I think we target for this 10% to 20% ARR growth as well. And that takes some forward investments.

And that’s reflected in the EBITDA guidance as well.

Atter Rykala, Analyst, INTRES: All right. Can you give us some examples on what areas you are planning to increase your investments this year?

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: I think we covered very much those in the Investor Day like that we are doubling down on the top partners. I think with the high touch partners, customer success is a key investment area that we are doing. And then, of course, the continued investment in the products, but I’m not expecting that much more in the product side, but I think the sales and marketing that we need to look.

Atter Rykala, Analyst, INTRES: All right. Then we can see that cloud production for sales force is growing pretty nicely at the moment. So can you say anything about the profitability of that business for this year?

Tom Janssen, CFO, WitSecure: Yes. I think we are in a heavy growth phase, and I think our primary target is growth. What that means from a profitability perspective, we’ll see. We are at the breakeven point at this point. But we will not limit investments in that business we want to grow.

So we’ll see where it takes us. All

Atter Rykala, Analyst, INTRES: right. And on that business, if you think about your typical customer contracts, are those like annual contracts? Or do you sign like multiyear contracts there?

Tom Janssen, CFO, WitSecure: In the CapEx section? Well, there’s variety of durations on the contract.

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: And we have a multiyear up to three years?

Tom Janssen, CFO, WitSecure: Yes. We probably don’t do more than three years, but it depends on the customer. Many customers and this is, of course, large customers, so they typically then this is not something you change very easily.

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: But the important thing is, like Tom mentioned, that you start usually with a large customer in a certain department. Then that you do that really well and then you are able to land. And with that landing, you’re able to expand to other parts of the organization. And I think we saw that one happening this year quite a lot.

Atter Rykala, Analyst, INTRES: And we know that there has been some customer churn in managed services business, those some large customers. So can you say anything about what kind of impact is happening from those for this year’s growth?

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: For this year growth on the I would say that the key things we do with the customer success, I would hope that we’re able to contain. I think some of the transition, I don’t yet declare full victory on this managed service churn, but I think we are working towards that one. And then the key part of that one is also that the full elements services portfolio, the core security start when it picks up more, it starts to compensate for that. And we didn’t open up now how the different portfolio items are doing. We are considering that one for next year.

But we wanted to say in this report that this growth is driven by the full portfolio, not just old.

Atter Rykala, Analyst, INTRES: And then about the consulting divestment, we know that there is that 40% part like earn out, so and it’s based on what’s like realistic business assumption. So should we like expect or is your expectation that you’re expecting to get the full sum back in a couple of years?

Tom Janssen, CFO, WitSecure: Like I said, we did quite a bit of good transformation items, built the foundation, I would say, claim even to a new level. So we are confident at this point, and we expect to get the full earn out. And in fact, we could even get more on the second one. It’s not capped to anything. So that’s our today’s expectation.

Atter Rykala, Analyst, INTRES: All right. And last question from me. If you look at your history or a couple of years now, there has been lots of changes and restructuring and different kind of nonrecurring items in your earnings. So should we expect years? Or is there any more any specific stuff happening this year, for example?

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: Too early to say on that one. But obviously, so we need to continue, like with the development of AI and AI based automation, of course, we want to drive efficiency in the company. And that will be an on cost. So that’s one of our strategic themes to drive efficiency with the use of AI. And then working with the customers and partners, I think those are the key tenets for the growth.

But then any company needs to look at the balance sheet and operations and optimize it continuously. I see that’s a continuous work and a duty for management.

Walter Rossi, Analyst, Danske Bank (CSE:DANSKE): Walter Rossi from Danske Bank. Few questions as well. You said in the report that December revenues included a higher than customary volume of discounts. Can you just explain what do you mean by this? So

Tom Janssen, CFO, WitSecure: we had many discount programs with our partners. And then for December, we did have an unexpected large amount of those that, from a timing perspective, of course, should have then been maybe recorded earlier. But they came in December and that’s why it impacted then the ARR specifically at the end of the year.

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: And for next year, we are working towards reducing all volatility in the ARR because there has been some volatility with some of these items.

Walter Rossi, Analyst, Danske Bank: All right. Yes. So next maybe about cloud protection for Salesforce. So that development looks really good at the moment. Can you open up, like what is driving that performance right now?

And why are so you’re so confident with it in 2025? Have you gained any new customers there or have been able to sell more to existing ones or

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: Both. I think we have gained many new customers and we have been able to expand. I think why I’m confident is that we have a good product market fit. We have a good ecosystem partnership with Salesforce. And through the Salesforce ecosystem, Salesforce ecosystem, we have a reach to the prospective customers so that you are already in the club when you are in the Salesforce ecosystem.

And there’s less brand building in that one required. So that’s brand building in that one required. So that seems to work really well. The work we have done with the customer success has worked really, really well this year. And then think just operationally, it has been well run this year, I think, in all aspects.

So that kudos to you, Tom, you have been leading it.

Tom Janssen, CFO, WitSecure: Maybe I can complement also. We can clearly see that in this specific area, we are clearly the market leader and continue to be that. So from that perspective also, we as Antti said, we are winning new really nice customers and then expanding within them.

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: Yes. But we have only got started with that one in a way, so that in that one so that there are so many Salesforce users out there. And from that lot, we’d have just a handful yet.

Walter Rossi, Analyst, Danske Bank: All right. Thank you. Then regarding the consulting divestment, do you have any TSA contracts now with the buyer?

Tom Janssen, CFO, WitSecure: There will be some TSAs, of course, like in any of these situations. And we have working the carve out activities together with them. And once we close, depends a little bit on how much they will be able to implement before that and so on. But there will be some TSA things that during part of this year.

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: But not like in F Secure Debenture, this will be a shorter period.

Tom Janssen, CFO, WitSecure: And the goal is very much that they will be independent quite fast.

Walter Rossi, Analyst, Danske Bank: All right. Thank you. Then maybe one last question. You now have quite a lot of cash in your balance sheet. What do you plan to do with it going forward?

Tom Janssen, CFO, WitSecure: I wouldn’t maybe say that we have so much cash yet. So but of course, the cash situation is improving, which we are very happy about and of course, worked very hard to get there.

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: Both with Q4 execution, by the way, that wasn’t in the slides, but the cash situation improved quite a lot now in Poma Business as well. And then this will of course, it will give us a lot more flexibility, our capital structure is in a better shape, I think. And I think we are a growth company. We invest to grow. I think that’s how we are thinking about it.

Walter Rossi, Analyst, Danske Bank: Okay. Thank you. That’s it from me.

Laura Vita, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: All right. Thank you. I’m moving on to the audience online. So first, there’s Jaakko Turveinen, our analyst, with a couple of questions. Elements Cloud ARR increased quarter on quarter by some EUR 1,500,000.0.

Did you see still some of the large legacy clients leaving during the quarter? And what was the impact of decline in managed services in ARR? Second part, also could you give some additional color on the mentioned discounting impact? And what was the reason for the discounting? So maybe the ARR question first.

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: Yes. I think just on the ARR, I think we commented on the ARR is that the new services did not fully compensate the old one. So we are not opening up the number specifically. It’s a good question. And but in terms of the ARR growth, I think this one off timing event that Tom will talk about, I think it impacted on the ARR growth quarter to quarter.

Tom Janssen, CFO, WitSecure: Yes, of course, that and as we said, the estimated value was about 3%. So that’s kind of the impact that there was from the discount perspective.

Laura Vita, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: All right. Then, Jaakko, again, regarding the consulting divestment earn out of 40%, could you open up a bit on the performance criteria set on this?

Tom Janssen, CFO, WitSecure: Well, they are normal KPIs that we have agreed on. We have agreed also not to open them. So but they are like we have said in different announcements that they are realistic goals. They are different for different years and that we agreed as part of the agreement with the buyer.

Laura Vita, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: All right. Then there’s Sami Hutunen. Thanks for the question. NIST two adoption has been slow. Does your guidance reflect the full NIST two directive implementation international law in your core markets in Europe in 2025?

Or should such a scenario mean high end of the range and slow adoption, low end of the range?

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: I would say that all these regulations on cybersecurity, whether it’s DORA for Finance, whether it’s Cyber Resilience Act, whether it’s AI Act, Data Act, whether it’s NIST two, these are all having one impact. These have become board level topics. It’s like the sustainability CSRD reporting, so we can’t avoid it. And so NIST two almost independent when it will be implemented. It’s already on the top of mind of the decision makers, and we are reaching the right audiences.

And we get to the proper security discussions that is anyway as a part of the board’s duty of care with or without NIST two. But it’s I think the positive impact it’s doing, it’s opening up C level conversations for cybersecurity. And this domain has been very techie historically. So that the techie sale but is now moving more towards sea level sale, which is different. And I think that impact, the NIST two is already doing despite a few months differences in country specific implementations.

Laura Vita, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: Very good. Then Sami asks, in December, you mentioned that about 500 plus customers had implemented your high ARPU product exposure management. Where do you see your current penetration rate compared to potential existing clients?

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: I don’t know the reference on the I don’t think we have disclosed the exposure management customer number. But we have a nice pickup on the exposure management, which is one of the items in the with the new portfolio. And for next year, we are looking how we open up the new portfolio, a ramp up. But hey, thanks for the question, but I can’t relate the link where we have said that.

Laura Vita, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: But we’ll keep it in mind and hopefully come back to it. Then there’s Matti Rykonen from Carnegie. How have the elements discounts worked in earlier years? Have they been more evenly split between quarters?

Tom Janssen, CFO, WitSecure: Yes, they have. So it was a bit summed up very high in December, which we haven’t seen before.

Laura Vita, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: Matti continues. Did you lose more customers in quarter four compared to previous quarters of 2024?

Tom Janssen, CFO, WitSecure: Lose more customers.

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: I don’t think we give that number. But I think ARR is growing, and I think the focus is on the mid market. I think that’s where it matters so that new portfolio is selling. I leave it Matti this time here. We are thinking about next year how we give more granularity on that one.

Laura Vita, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: Good. Then Felix Hendrickson, our analysts online as well. Do you expect cloud protection for Salesforce to be profitable in terms of adjusted EBITDA for 2025? And does the business need further significant investments?

Tom Janssen, CFO, WitSecure: Like I think I answered earlier, our primary target is growth in cloud protection for Salesforce. We probably don’t have all the plans exactly ready, but we are ready to invest in that in a way that we secure a good growth rate and hopefully even accelerating that, but we’ll see. So I would leave it that whether it’s breakeven or what it is, that remains to be seen.

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: It is. But you see from the Q4 result, it was roughly breakeven with this growth rate just to open it up.

Laura Vita, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: All right. Then both, Jaakko and Felix, you asked about the NIST two. I think we already gave the answers pretty much, I hope. If we didn’t, just get back to us. And one question about NIST two.

Has it already contributed to your Q4 revenues?

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: Like whenever we engage with the C level, we get larger deals in. And I think I would say yes. And then and I would expect that to continue. That we can have a better quality decision maker discussions on this as opposed to technical. I think that’s a very important change in the dialogue.

Laura Vita, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: Good. Then I think this goes to you, Tom. Looking back at it, can you elaborate how consuming the consulting divestment project was for top management? Has this taken a considerable amount of time from focusing on your core business in 2024?

Tom Janssen, CFO, WitSecure: Of course, our aim was not to direct or get too much attention, but it is clearly that some of the management, as you have known, we announced that the intention already in Q3 or Q4 ’twenty three, it taken a while and had taken a lot of airtime for some people, but mainly within consulting and it’s been Under staff roles. Yes. So limited more to the people who are part of M and A activity. So from that perspective, of course, we have had advisors and so on. So I wouldn’t say that it has had a major thing.

But of course, some energy or attention has gone to it before we were able to close it.

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: But we organized the work very much so that it was different set of executives involved with this one and the people who are running revenue operations, customer success and products for elements, they were less involved in this process because there’s no need to.

Laura Vita, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: It’s almost involved in everything.

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: It’s almost involved in everything.

Tom Janssen, CFO, WitSecure: Yes. But it is a different segment already. So from that perspective, it was quite clear.

Laura Vita, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: Okay. Then I think we have both Matti from Carnegie and Kimmo from OP asking about Elements Company. What kind of revenue growth is in your plans for 2025?

Tom Janssen, CFO, WitSecure: So we haven’t guided this time the revenue growth. So we’re only giving the ARR. So from that perspective, it needs to be calculated based on best estimates on from what you think that would be.

Laura Vita, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: All right. Jaakko asks, your Sphere marketing event, should we expect similar impact in marketing costs of Q2 as in 2024?

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: So we have looked at the Sphere concept for this year. So we’ll have more focus session here in Finland and then maybe half of the attendees from the previous year. And then we will have regional events in the countries. And so that it’s marketing is one of the areas where it’s a duty of the management to look at the expenditure prudently. And I think I just want to just highlight that I’m very much of a person who likes profitable growth.

And I will not turn any let any stones to be not turned when it comes to efficiency. And marketing is not excluded from that.

Laura Vita, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: Okay. Then we’ll go back to the churning large customers in managed services. How much better visibility do you have on the possible churn versus what you had one year ago? What is the level of so called at risk customers versus early, I think, 2024?

Tom Janssen, CFO, WitSecure: If I start. So we have a very good view on the customers in managed service and when their contracts values and so on. So that is very we have that very well in our sights and control. And I guess, as we have said before, we have had some churn there, and we’ll see how the future goes out. But we serve all our customers very well, and we have these new solutions also underway that is early days but still performing quite well in at

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: this phase. But a key thing is about to prevent churn is to adding customer success like in the case of CPSF doubling down on that one so that we do that properly. And but also understanding is that some of these customers might take this large company playbook. And but then we focus on the mid market and the people who buy the mid market playbook and we compensate for that one. That’s how we look at it.

And we gave you an indication what the managed service number is. It’s in the Investor Day. I think so and we are not opening up further today. But this is a topic for next year as well, how we want to guide you to.

Laura Vita, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: All right. Moving on. So there’s Erik. Thanks. You have sent a couple of questions.

So first, why was the employee share savings plan postponed?

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: To me, that’s a part of the prudency. You may have noticed we had an insider project here with this consulting, which we did so that I think there was an element of being prudent by moving the dates. I for sure would like to join that and so that this makes it possible.

Laura Vita, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: Regarding the strategic review of cloud protection for sales force, when do you expect that to be concluded?

Tom Janssen, CFO, WitSecure: I think we as said, the options are open. We are not giving any guidance on when we’re going to be closing anything. But as said, we have the possibility to do our own focused effort on that or so. But of course, longer term, we are our strategy is to focus on elements.

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: Exactly. And but that’s why we are guiding in a way giving you this visibility is that we have patience to develop it as a part of the internal business. We are in no rush, and we need to do what’s best for the shareholders of WitSecure and what’s the best for the to accelerate the business further. I think those are the guiding things so that it’s an it gives us optionality as a business. And I think that’s how I would like to view it.

But don’t expect that we would manage the run M and A on that one and try to do something rapidly like with the consulting. That’s not the case. It’s more how we accelerate growth.

Laura Vita, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: Good. Back to elements. So how is the price trend in the elements business? Are prices declining or increasing for comparable services?

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: Yes. So it’s always a competitive market. And like you, I think many of you know that if you are if you get to these procurement discussions, you get to quite competitive situations. The fact that we are able to sell solutions that meet the C level needs, I think that helps a bit. But I think competition is always there.

Price competition is always there. We have a good portfolio, which is wider. I think that with that one, we can command larger share of wallet.

Laura Vita, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: Okay. Then Felix asks one more about the discounts. So what is the reason for the customer discounts?

Tom Janssen, CFO, WitSecure: Like I said, we have many different kind of discount, volume discounts and marketing corporation discounts. And so there are different programs and the combination of these were the things that impacted us in December.

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: Usually linked to the commercial success of the partners in selling elements.

Laura Vita, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: But not included in the basic price.

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: Exactly. Not included in the basic price.

Laura Vita, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: Uneven timing. All right. Then there’s a question from Maria. What are your plans for a new CMO hire? Is this a focus for you this year?

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: So in the new organization, we have revenue operations. We don’t have a separate executive for marketing. So we will have a revenue operation. Lasse Gerd heads that one. Then we have a customer success executive that’s to set up.

We are hiring a new VP of marketing reporting to the revenue ops. In SaaS companies, marketing and sales is typically combined together rather than doing task switching between the functions.

Laura Vita, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: All right. Thank you. Then there’s Frank. He asks, With Secure stock has been under for an extended period and investor confidence remains shaky. What specific measurable actions will the leadership take to rebuild market trust and demonstrate clear differentiation in an increasingly crowded cybersecurity landscape?

Antti Koskela, President and CEO, WitSecure: For us, it’s about executing on the strategy that we have shared with you on Investor Day. It’s about these three pillars, focusing on mid market and building competitive portfolio, which needs to be different from the large company playbook. Working with our partners to get the reach that we reach these customers. And thirdly, being the European alternative. These are the pillars on which we build execution.

And then we will demonstrate it on the way with the ARR growth profitability improvement. And we do success in the market. The numbers will gradually follow. And ’27 comes fast and we will be here to tell about the plus 30 rule of 30 plus at that time. And that’s where we are heading.

And I think I understand confidence is earned over time. I was just talking before this session that I voiced belief about cost reduction for sales force when it was flat in the beginning of the year. Now we are at 52%. And I’m not asking you to trust me right and us right now. But then but we will make sure that we are trustworthy and we get to our results.

I think there’s no easy way out of that one.

Laura Vita, Investor Relations Director, WitSecure: Thanks, Antti. That was a nice recap of our full strategy and quite nicely wraps up our session today. So if there are no more questions, we will close the webcast. Thank you very much for joining today.

Tom Janssen, CFO, WitSecure: Thank you.

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