Asiakastieto Group’s strategy and financial objectives for 2020–2023: Creating value by building trust in the everyday

ASIAKASTIETO GROUP PLC, STOCK EXCHANGE RELEASE ON 8 MAY 2020 AT 1.00 P.M. EEST

Asiakastieto Group’s strategy and financial objectives for 2020–2023: Creating value by building trust in the everyday

Asiakastieto Group Plc’s Board of Directors has approved the company’s new strategy for the years 2020-2023 and the strategic and long-term financial targets. Asiakastieto is aiming for growth and increased profitability by strengthening its current position and seizing new opportunities within credit information, business information and digitalisation of data-related processes. Focus on innovation, building of a future-fit innovative organization and building of a Nordic platform will enable Asiakastieto to achieve the set goals.

“I’m extremely excited about the new strategy and the opportunities ahead,” says CEO Jukka Ruuska. “We are determined to grow our business through innovation, digitalisation and development of new services and platform. Our target is to be the leading partner within credit and business information in the Nordics and the number one choice for digitalisation of data-related processes. The keys to Asiakastieto’s success are our competent and engaged people, innovative culture and trust. With the new strategy, we will continue to pursue strong growth and increased profitability.”

Asiakastieto’s purpose is to build trust in the everyday. We transform data into knowledge and intelligence that we share through our solutions and products, and as they are used in interactions, it builds trust in the everyday between people, businesses and society. For more than a century, we have been building trust and developing data-driven solutions that power societies with intelligence. During the times of uncertainty, this is more valid than ever, and we have the ambition to continue to do so with an even broader presence in the Nordic region.

Future lies ahead with many opportunities. The universe of useful data is growing exponentially as digital processes are expanding. The COVID-19 implications are further accelerating the digitalization as well as changes in business models and ways of working. With rapidly evolving market environment, the need for real-time data, agility and speed are at the essence. These market trends will offer us new opportunities to grow and accelerate customer value creation.

Strategic goals

Asiakastieto has three main offering goals for the strategy period: to retain and strengthen the leading position in the credit information business, to become the number one choice in data-driven business processes as a service, and to become the leader in business information.

Risk management services are at the core of Asiakastieto’s business. In our home markets, we are the preferred partner of the financial vertical and have a key societal role in the prevention of over-indebtedness. With our unique data capabilities, operational and regulatory excellence and focus on real-time data and machine learning, we will develop our offering and accelerate customer value creation. Developing new services related to sustainability, regulation and fraud will drive the growth. With the focus on evolving customer needs and development of new offering, we will retain and strengthen the leading position within credit information business.

Asiakastieto wants to become the number one choice in data-driven business processes as a service. Many processes are currently dispersed, involving several parties, and using various non-standardized ways to exchange information. We help our customers to digitalise and automate those processes and connect between various parties. We can provide our customers true process automation with greater data security, quality and efficiency.

The need for high quality business information is increasing but the market is fragmented. We aim to become the leader within business information by packaging and turning high quality structured and unstructured data into insight. With great data, easy access and excellent user experience we will provide a one-shop experience and serve a wide range of business processes and functions, from sales and marketing to procurement and legal, with their different business needs. Combined with our expertise in data refining and strong brands, we will become the leading partner in the Nordics within business information.

To enable Asiakastieto to meet the three main offering goals, we will foster a growth mindset and future thinking capacity in the organization, drive innovation and focus on building the Nordic future platform. Through innovation we accelerate growth and customer value creation which will lead to constantly increasing new services’ share of net sales.

Building the Nordic future platform is an investment for the future that will enable accelerated growth through efficient Nordic service development, faster time to market and lower maintenance costs. Platform development will require significant investments but will provide remarkable competitive advantage and benefits after the strategy period.

Sustainability is at our core. We contribute to a sustainable society, among other things, by preventing over-indebtedness and helping our customers to make sustainable decisions. We target to have an extensive sustainability offering to support our customers’ decision making, and we aim to have zero net emissions by 2023.

Strategic and long-term financial targets and optimized capital allocation

Asiakastieto’s financial targets reflect our view on the opportunities to create value in the long term based on the new strategy. We believe that despite the possible downturn following the COVID-19 pandemic, we can deliver steady growth both in terms of turnover and profitability during the strategy period 2020-2023. We also believe that through innovation and becoming a future-fit innovative organization, we will accelerate growth and increase new services’ share of net sales on an annual basis.

Therefore, our long-term financial targets remain unchanged and are the following:

• An annual average net sales growth of 5-10%
• Adjusted EBITDA growth rate exceeding net sales growth rate
• Net debt to Adjusted EBITDA at or below 3x

The company’s strategy and its implementation will be discussed in more detail in the Capital Markets Day that is planned to be held in autumn 2020.

ASIAKASTIETO GROUP PLC

For further information:
Jukka Ruuska
CEO
Tel. +358 10 270 7111

Distribution:
Nasdaq Helsinki
Major media
investors.asiakastieto.fi

Asiakastieto Group is one of the leading providers of digital business and consumer information services in the Nordic countries. The Group's products and services are primarily used for risk management, finance and administration, decision-making and sales and marketing purposes. We are operating in Finland under the brand Suomen Asiakastieto and in Sweden under the brand UC. Our annual net sales for 2019 was EUR 146 million and the number of employees was approximately 420. The Group serves several industries, the largest ones including finance and banking as well as wholesale and retail sectors and expert service companies. Asiakastieto Group is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki with the trading code ATG1V. More information about Asiakastieto Group is available at www.asiakastieto.fi and www.uc.se.

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