Baltic Classifieds Group Plc (LON:BCG) has announced full year results for the year ended 30 April 2026.
Financial overview
· Revenue grew 7% to €88.5 million (2025: €82.8 million).
· EBITDA margin1 remained stable at 78% (2025: 78%).
· Operating profit increased 13% to €60.4 million (2025: €53.5 million).
· Adjusted net income1 increased 7% to €58.1 million (2025: €54.4 million). Profit for the year increased 14% to €50.9 million (2025: €44.8 million).
· Adjusted basic EPS1 increased 9% to 12.3 euro cent (2025: 11.3 euro cent), while basic EPS increased 16% to 10.8 euro cent (2025: 9.3 euro cent).
· In total, BCG returned €101.1 million to shareholders through buybacks and dividends (2025: €29.4 million).
· The Board believes the prevailing BCG share price undervalues the strength of the Company’s business model, cash generation and long-term growth prospects and therefore accelerated its buyback programme, including the use of debt to finance purchases.
Strategic overview
· BCG maintained its strong leadership2 position versus competitors across all our major platforms.
· Traffic3 to our sites averaged 57 million visits per month, meaning that on average, a resident in the Baltics visited one of our sites 10 times every month (2025: 57 million visits and 9 times).
· Improvements to our products and services, pricing and packaging actions, and underlying asset inflation of the products and services advertised on our sites, drove continued ARPU4 and yield4 growth across the Group’s major businesses.
· B2C advertiser numbers in Real Estate, Auto and Jobs & Services were strong, supported by healthy underlying economic conditions.
· C2C ad volumes declined. In Real Estate, the decline reflected properties being sold faster, reflecting the strength of the economy. In Auto, activity remained affected by the Estonian vehicle tax and temporary weather-related disruption during January and February 2026.
· The number of visits to our websites originating from an AI search remains negligible. We continue to invest in product enhancements, some of which are enabled or accelerated through the use of AI. Investment into AI remains within the levels previously indicated.
· Following the year-end, in June 2026, the Group acquired Cenubanka.lv, a Latvian real estate data and market analysis platform that aggregates property transaction, listing and other market data. The acquisition strengthens the Group’s data capabilities in the Latvian real estate market and complements its existing property classifieds offering.
Financial highlights
| € million (unless stated otherwise) | 2026 | 2025 | Change |
| Auto | 31.5 | 31.4 | 0% |
| Real Estate | 26.0 | 22.2 | 17% |
| Jobs & Services | 17.4 | 16.0 | 9% |
| Generalist | 13.6 | 13.2 | 3% |
| Group revenue | 88.5 | 82.8 | 7% |
| Operating cost excluding depreciation and amortisation | (19.9) | (18.4) | 8% |
| EBITDA1 | 68.6 | 64.4 | 7% |
| EBITDA margin1 | 78% | 78% | 0% pts |
| Depreciation and amortisation | (8.3) | (10.9) | (24%) |
| Operating profit | 60.4 | 53.5 | 13% |
| Add back: amortisation of acquired intangibles | 7.5 | 10.1 | (26%) |
| Adjusted operating profit1 | 67.8 | 63.6 | 7% |
| Profit for the year | 50.9 | 44.8 | 14% |
| Adjusted net income1 | 58.1 | 54.4 | 7% |
| Basic EPS (euro cent) | 10.8 | 9.3 | 16% |
| Adjusted basic EPS1 (euro cent) | 12.3 | 11.3 | 9% |
· Core classifieds revenue streams B2C and C2C together comprise 91% of total revenue. B2C revenue grew 13% and C2C revenue grew 1%.
· Real Estate and Jobs & Services were the strongest-performing categories during the year, growing 17% and 9% respectively, and together contributing approximately half of Group revenue.
· Whilst Auto B2C grew 11%, the growth was offset by C2C, which declined 9%, reflecting continued weakness in the Estonian market alongside severe weather-related disruption to C2C auto activity in Lithuania and Estonia during January and February 2026. Trading trends improved from March 2026 onwards and have since broadly aligned with management expectations.
· Generalist growth of 3% was in line with expectations.
· EBITDA grew 7% to €68.6 million (2025: €64.4 million). EBITDA margin remained stable at 78% (2025: 78%) assisted by lower share option charge.
· Cash generated from operating activities grew 5% to €69.9 million (2025: €66.8 million). Cash conversion1 was maintained at 99% (2025: 99%).
· During the second half of the year, the Group refinanced its debt facilities and increased available borrowing capacity to support an accelerated share buyback programme.
· €73.0 million was drawn under a new debt facility at the end of the year. Net debt1 including lease liabilities increased to €46.2 million (2025: €4.4 million), with leverage1 increasing to 0.7x (2025: 0.1x). At the date of this announcement, €118.0 million has been drawn under the facility, with a further €7.0 million term loan and €20.0 million RCF available to drawdown.
· The Board has proposed a final ordinary dividend of 2.8 euro cent per share and a special dividend of 0.3 euro cent per share. The final ordinary dividend represents an 8% increase on 2025 final dividend. Together, the final ordinary and special dividends amount to 3.1 euro cent per share, representing a 19% increase on the 2025 final dividend (2025: 2.6 euro cent per share). Subject to shareholder approval, total dividend for the year will amount to 4.4 euro cent per share (2025: 3.8 euro cent per share).
Operational highlights
· We maintained our strong leadership2 position over nearest competitors across all of our major websites (accounting for 90% of Group revenue): Autoplius.lt at 5x (6x in 2025), Auto24.ee at 28x (36x in 2025), Aruodas.lt at 62x (27x in 2025), KV.ee plus City24.ee at 16x (13x in 2025), CVBankas.lt at 5x (5x in 2025) and Skelbiu.lt at 24x (21x in 2025).
· In the Auto platform in Lithuania and across Real Estate platforms in all three countries, we implemented our annual B2C pricing actions in September and October 2025, supported by enhancements in products and packaging. In Jobs5, the pricing programme commenced in September 2025 and will continue to roll out over a 12‑month period.
· Business customer numbers continue to be strong: increasing by 3% in Real Estate, by 1% in Jobs, and, after growing for many years in a row, declining by 2% in Auto.
· The changes to our B2C packages and prices in autumn both this year and a year ago led to increased ARPU in all business lines: Real Estate +16%, Auto +13%, Jobs +8%.
· We successfully implemented C2C pricing and packaging changes across all business units, which, combined with rising market prices of the goods and services advertised on our sites, have resulted in yield improvements. Further yield growth was driven by users selecting more of the premium longer-duration packages. Yields per C2C listed ad grew 25% in Real Estate, 22% in Auto6 and 23% in Generalist7. Yield per C2C active ad in Services slightly declined year-on-year mainly due to change in the mix of service providers.
· With regards to C2C listed and active ads8 volumes:
· Faster real estate selling time combined with stronger uptake of premium longer-duration packages resulted in Real Estate inventory declines of 11% in listed and 6% in active ads.
· Estonian car transactions9 declined by 43% year-on-year following the introduction of vehicle transaction and ownership taxes in January 2025, alongside severe weather-related disruption to C2C auto activity in Lithuania and Estonia during January and February 2026. Total listed and active ads declined by 25% and 26%, respectively. Trading trends improved from March 2026 onwards and have since broadly aligned with management expectations.
· The number of C2C active ads in Services was up 12% due to higher uptake of longer-duration packages.
· Paid listings on our Generalist platform, which competes with our market-leading vertical platforms, declined by 13%. However, including free listings, total inventory remained close to the record level achieved last year.
· During 2026, we introduced a number of improvements to our products and services, including:
· Auto: Meaningful improvements were made to the listing process at Autoplius.lt and Auto24.ee. AI now helps sellers create ads by analysing images and descriptions, automatically filling in key vehicle attributes and generating listing descriptions. This reduces friction for sellers, improves data accuracy and supports better search relevance across the marketplace. Autoplius.lt listing pages were fully redesigned with a clearer, responsive layout and improved navigation. The new design improves user experience and gives stronger visibility to paid features and data products.
· Real Estate: At KV.ee, we introduced new service packages for real estate developers. Moving away from shared plans allows us to offer more relevant marketing and analytics tools for this customer segment, together with a more targeted pricing model. The update also improves the consumer experience by grouping related listings under their respective developments, making it easier for buyers to browse and compare new apartments.
· Jobs & Services: At Cvbankas.lt, jobseeker experience was significantly improved with AI-powered CV creation. Candidates can now upload an existing PDF or Word CV, and AI automatically fills in their Cvbankas profile and CV information. This makes it easier and faster for candidates to begin their job search.
We also expanded job search with AI-powered synonym matching. Jobseekers no longer need to know the exact wording of a role title, as the search can now identify job ads with similar meanings, even when different terms are used. This improves matching quality and helps candidates discover more relevant opportunities.
· Generalist: At Skelbiu.lt, we launched AI-powered image moderation. The service checks images for forbidden content and allows moderators to adjust prompts directly in the back office for specific categories. This increases moderation efficiency while improving consistency and platform safety.
In addition, Skelbiu.lt refreshed the user experience of its activation plans to better communicate the value of combined Skelbiu.lt, Aruodas.lt and Autoplius.lt packages. This makes package benefits clearer for customers and supports stronger uptake of paid services.
· Average FTEs increased 6% to 157 (2025: 148). At year end, the Group employed 163 FTEs (2025: 156), with a female-to-male employee ratio of 47:53.
· In 2026, emissions from the Group’s own operations (Scope 1 and Scope 2) increased by 21%, primarily due to the expansion of office space in Vilnius and higher heating-related emissions during an unusually cold winter. At the same time, we achieved 18% reduction in Scope 1 vehicle emissions and an increase in renewable electricity usage to 95%.
Capital allocation
Since IPO in 2021, BCG has returned materially all the cash generated by the business to shareholders. Historically, this has been delivered through ordinary dividends of approximately one-third of adjusted net income, with the balance allocated between share buybacks and debt reduction depending on circumstances. During the first half of 2026 the Group became net cash positive.
Share price reduction in 2026 led the Board to conclude that the BCG’s market valuation did not reflect its underlying fundamentals or long-term prospects. The Board considered the equity market concerns regarding the long-term impact of AI on the business model to be overstated and considered recent trading headwinds to be temporary rather than structural.
The Board therefore launched an accelerated share buyback programme, and by mid-June 2026 the Company had repurchased 10% of its issued share capital. To support this strategy, in addition to the organic operating cash flow, the Company has secured €145 million of new debt facilities, repaying €15 million of outstanding debt. The Board intends to continue repurchasing shares subject to market conditions, available authority and the Group’s capital position.
At the upcoming AGM, BCG intends to seek annual shareholder authority to repurchase up to a further 15% of its issued share capital. This represents the maximum flexibility sought from shareholders and should not be interpreted as an intention or commitment to utilise it in full. Continuation of the accelerated share buyback programme beyond the Group’s existing financing capacity would require additional debt financing.
The Board will continue to assess its capital allocation priorities and evaluate value-creating opportunities, including M&A as well as buying back BCG shares, and maintain flexibility in how such opportunities are financed, including through cash resources, debt facilities and, where appropriate, equity capital.
The Board has not established fixed thresholds for either the BCG’s share price or leverage and will continue to determine capital allocation based on the information available at the time. Capital allocation priorities may shift towards debt reduction, or share repurchases funded from operating cash flow subject to circumstances at the time.
Going forward, the Board intends to increase the ordinary dividend per share broadly in line with growth in adjusted net income. The Board believes that a progressive ordinary dividend policy strikes an appropriate balance between providing shareholders with a predictable cash return whilst retaining flexibility within BCG’s broader capital allocation framework.
The Board is recommending a final ordinary dividend of 2.8 euro cent per share, representing an increase in line with the growth in adjusted net income. In addition, it is recommending a special dividend of 0.3 euro cent per share, resulting in total dividends for 2026 of approximately one-third of adjusted net income, consistent with the BCG’s previous guidance.
Baltic Classifieds Group Chief Executive Officer statement
“This past year presented a challenging landscape, yet BCG once again demonstrated the resilience of its business model. We delivered solid financial results, with both revenue and EBITDA growing by 7%. We also successfully maintained our highly attractive EBITDA margin at 78%. Excluding the impact of the introduction of the car tax in Estonia in January 2025, which created significant headwinds for listing volumes on our Auto24 portal, the broader BCG portfolio delivered double-digit growth.
Across our verticals, Real Estate was our clear growth champion, delivering an exceptional 17% increase in revenue for the full year. We also saw healthy momentum in our Jobs & Services segment, where revenue growth accelerated from 7% in the first half to 11% in the second half, resulting in a 9% increase for the full year. Our Auto business remained flat – a highly resilient performance considering the strong volume headwinds and the coldest winter our region has experienced in 30 years. Finally, our Generalist segment, while our smallest business line, continues to provide a defensive element to the portfolio and delivered steady revenue growth of 3%.
Looking ahead, the strategic C2C price changes we implemented in March 2026, alongside our planned B2C enhancements for the autumn, position us well to accelerate our top-line growth back into the double digits next financial year.
I would like to thank all our colleagues for their continued commitment and contribution throughout the year.”
Outlook
The Group expects revenue growth of around 10% in 2027, with growth anticipated to be slower in the first half and faster in the second half of the year. Real Estate, Auto and Jobs are expected to be the primary growth contributors, while Generalist is expected to remain broadly flat.
The revenue growth outlook reflects confidence in our product pipeline and pricing and packaging changes, but caution on inventory trends.
We expect our full-year margin to be in line with the previous medium-term guidance of mid-70s.
1 Alternative performance measure, see note 3 for further details.
2 Leadership position in number of times against closest competitor based on time on site (source: Similarweb data), except for Auto24. Auto24 has no significant vertical competitor, the next relevant player is a generalist portal, therefore, the relative market share for this generalist portal is calculated by multiplying time on site by the percentage of active automotive listings out of total listings at the end of the reporting period.
3 Source: Google Analytics, 2026.
4 Yield refers to the average monthly revenue per C2C listing (in Auto, Real Estate and Generalist), per active C2C ad (in Auto, Real Estate, Services) or ARPU in B2C. Revenue per listed ad reflects the total revenue generated from each new listing or extension over its entire active period. In contrast, revenue per active ad represents the average monthly revenue attributable to each active ad on our websites. ARPU is monthly average revenue per user (in Auto – per dealer, in Real Estate – per broker, in Jobs – per client).
5 CVbankas.lt.
6 Car listings only (excluding listings of vehicle parts, vehicles other than cars and other categories).
7 Skelbiu.lt only, which is our main Generalist portal. The monthly number of listed ads on Skelbiu.lt represents the monthly average of paid new listings and extensions, while the number of active ads includes both paid and free ads and represents total inventory available on the website.
8 The monthly number of listed ads represents the monthly average of paid new listings and extensions, while the number of active ads represents total inventory available on the website and, in the case of Skelbiu.lt, includes free ads.
9 Source: Estonian Transport Administration.
Results presentation details
A presentation for analysts will be held in person at the offices of Bank of America and also via audio webcast and conference call at 9:30 am BST on Thursday, 2 July 2026. Details below:
Address: Bank of America, 2 King Edward Street, 6th floor, London EC1A 1HQ
A simultaneous live webcast will be available at: https://www.investis-live.com/balticclassifieds/6a28220a09fc18001022a2ab/jgdfg
Participants joining via telephone:
| United Kingdom (Toll-free) | +44 808 189 0158 |
| United Kingdom | +44 20 3936 2999 |
| United States (Toll-free) | +1 855 979 6654 |
| United States | +1 646 233 4753 |
| Lithuania | +370 521 40 826 |
| All other locations | +44 20 3936 2999 |
| Global Dial-In Numbers |
Access code: 170565
Press *1 to ask a question, *2 to withdraw your question, or *0 for operator assistance.
Accessing the telephone replay
A recording will be available until 11:59 pm BST on Thursday, 9 July 2026
United Kingdom (Toll-free): +44 808 196 0486
United Kingdom: +44 1626 572049
Access Code: 451830
