Ringier realigns itself - and grows profitably

The Ringier Group can look back on a successful financial year 2024. Despite strategic portfolio adjustments and a challenging market environment, the company significantly increased its operating profit. At the same time, Ringier is resolutely driving forward its digital transformation and repositioning itself as an "AI-driven company". Renowned photographer Heji Shin designed the 28th Ringier Art Annual Report, whose rocket motifs symbolize the company's new beginnings. Ringier CEO Marc Walder spoke about the business figures and strategic direction in an exclusive m&k talk, among other things, and his insights are also included in this specialist article.

Significant profit increase despite decline in sales

The 2024 financial year was remarkable for the Ringier Group from a financial perspective. Despite relevant investments in technology and data, operating profit (EBITDA) rose significantly by 12.6 % to CHF 118.8 million (2023: CHF 105.5 million). This is the second-best result since 2015 and the best in ten years. The EBITDA margin improved to 14.8 % (2023: 11.5 %). Revenue, on the other hand, was down on the previous year and amounted to CHF 800.6 million (2023: CHF 918.9 million). According to Ringier, this decline is due to one-off effects from strategic portfolio adjustments. These include, in particular, the sale of the e-commerce platform DeinDeal and the closure of the large-scale print shop Swissprinters. Marc Walder described the closure of Swissprinters as an emotional moment and symbolic of the transformation of the media industry, as it was the company's last printing plant. DeinDeal was strong in terms of sales, but in the end the company saw no chance against players such as Amazon in this consolidated market. According to Ringier, these adjustments had a negative impact on sales but a positive effect on EBITDA and the margin.

The digital share of EBITDA remained consistently high at 82 %, which underlines the company's strategic focus and places Ringier among the European leaders in the media industry, according to its own statements.

AI as a strategic growth driver and catalyst

Ringier sees itself at the beginning of a new technological era, marked by Generative Artificial Intelligence, which is seen as the third major stage of digital transformation after the internet and smartphones. AI is not seen as a disruptive tool, but as a catalyst for progress, as an instrument that, in combination with human creativity, integrity and vision, can shape a more networked and innovative future. Ringier is pursuing the goal of becoming an "AI-driven company". AI is driving digital transformation by optimizing content creation, promoting target group interaction and improving business processes.

Marc Walder emphasized that AI tools should be used as tools in all positions in the company. He quoted Jensen Huang (Nvidia founder): "People will not lose their jobs to AI, but people will lose their jobs to other people who deal with AI". The most important thing is to "learn how to prompt" and to learn which large language model is used for which task. Walder himself uses ChatGPT Pro, Perplexity, Meta AI and Claude, among others.

AI was integrated into all business areas in 2024. An important cooperation exists with Palantir to structure data and automate AI-supported workflows. Examples of the use of AI include

• In the range MarketplacesRicardo AI for image search and title/description/price generation. Automated job descriptions and application feedback. Semantic search for job seekers.
• In the range MediaAround 50 % of editorial content is created with the help of AI. Use of over 20 AI tools in newsrooms. AI-supported news summaries at Blick. AI language integration for articles at Blick. Automated content generation, e.g. AIWA (Slovakian AI weather assistant) produces 80 localized articles per day. Chatbots at many media brands. AI video presenters and extended audio functionalities.
• In the range Sports MediaAI-Transcreation enables the translation and localization of articles for different markets.
• Cross-divisionalThe AI-supported EqualVoice Assistant for recognizing and combating gender discrimination in media content. Every month, 40 million users benefit from AI-supported recommendations.

"Exciting and frightening at the same time"

At the same time, Walder warned of the dark side of AI, which promotes misinformation and disinformation. Like all technological changes, AI is a "double-edged sword", exciting and frightening at the same time. He cited examples such as AI voice cloning for fraud or the generation of fake images of damaged cars. Another challenge for media companies is how AI-supported search results (summaries) can reduce traffic to original links, which leads to lower advertising revenue. Ringier must learn to optimize for AI, said Walder. He also emphasized the importance of "AI agents" that can perform tasks independently and learn.

The media business under pressure - journalism as a craft of freedom

The traditional print market continues to shrink and the advertising market remains challenging. Marc Walder was very sober and concerned about the future of the traditional media industry. He has been skeptical for around 15 years as to whether sustainable economic models can be found in this industry. He sees a trend in which media publications are increasingly owned by politically driven investors or wealthy individuals, not so much because of economically viable journalism, but for political or social motives. He sees total consolidation for many large media brands.

Despite these challenges, the demand for trustworthy journalism is greater than ever. In an age of AI-generated content and misinformation, media brands that impress with clear and credible reporting are winning through. Michael Ringier emphasized that journalism, especially successful tabloid journalism, is "craftsmanship of the finest kind" - even "artistry". Journalists are "masters of the craft of writing" and "craftsmen of thought".

The challenge of the advertising market

Financially, the development of media advertising market revenues remains a challenge. Digital media revenues are also no longer expected to grow. The topic of digital subscriptions is an "arduous path". In Switzerland, 17 % of the population aged 18 and over have a digital subscription. Two years after its launch, Blick+ has reached the 25,000 subscriber mark. Walder described this as a "glass half full" and emphasized that the editorial team is learning which topics people are starting to pay for. He called the current situation, in which excellent journalistic content is largely available for free and you hardly have to log in, an "abstruse situation".

Another key issue is the question of remuneration for journalistic content used by large language models. Ringier is of the opinion that content is protected by copyright and that providers of AI models should be compensated if they gain access to this content. This is a discussion that is being held with Google Cloud, among others. However, Walder noted that the media industry is in a position of dependency here, similar to the search issue, which makes negotiations more difficult.

Despite the challenges in the traditional media business, some print titles such as Tele and Glückspost are holding up surprisingly well, according to Walder. However, Ringier's media portfolio will certainly not grow and will include fewer titles.

Successful diversification and portfolio adjustments

In addition to the media business, the marketplace platforms (Jobs, Real Estate, Auto, General Marketplaces and Ticketing) made a decisive contribution to the increase in digital revenue and EBITDA growth in 2024. Marc Walder described the digital marketplaces as significant growth drivers in all countries. The Jobs segment faced challenges in 2024 due to the economic situation, as fewer jobs were advertised. Nevertheless, Ringier achieved strong results in this area thanks to improved services and customer focus. The Jobcloud Group, a joint venture with the TX Group, was under pressure but still operated with a very high EBITDA margin of 50 %. The Sports Media segment also recorded further growth in revenue and EBITDA.

The strategic portfolio adjustments, such as the sale of DeinDeal and the closure of Swissprinters, were deliberate decisions to streamline the portfolio and improve margins. Ringier still had almost 130 companies under its umbrella.

The Swiss Marketplace Group (SMG), a joint venture involving Ringier, TX Group, Mobiliar and General Atlantic, also contributed to growth. An initial public offering (IPO) is still being sought for SMG, despite short-term market volatility, according to Walder.

Other successes in the portfolio include Ticketcorner, which set a new record with 11.9 million tickets sold. In the Media International (RMI) segment, Onet in Poland, a digital pureplay platform, was highlighted as the most visited news website in the EU and the most trusted online medium in Poland. In Africa, Pulse consolidated its position as the leading social media brand with a wide reach, particularly on TikTok.

Culture, innovation and the changing world of work

Ringier sees change as part of its journey and transformation as part of the company's DNA for almost two centuries. Agility and the willingness to learn are important cultural strengths. Marc Walder emphasized that transformation today is no longer gradual, but exponential and requires anticipation, adaptation and leadership.

As digitalization progresses and AI emerges, the importance of traditional job descriptions will diminish. In future, it will be about thinking in terms of "tasks" and solving problems, creating value and constantly developing further. Walder emphasized the importance of learning quickly ("learn how to learn") and strengthening human skills that remain relevant. AI agents would become new "colleagues" who could make teams stronger, better and faster. What used to take teams weeks could be done in hours or minutes. The question is whether to adapt or fall behind.

Ringier also drives innovation with initiatives such as Ringier X, which promotes internal innovation processes. The EqualVoice initiative, which celebrated its fifth anniversary in 2024, is committed to equal representation of the sexes in the media and uses the EqualVoice Factor and the AI-supported EqualVoice Assistant, among other things, to achieve this.

The corporate culture attaches great importance to the well-being of employees with offers such as flexible working hours, home office options, psychological counseling and generous vacation arrangements.

The annual report itself, which has been designed by renowned artists since 1998, is symbolic of the combination of tradition and innovation. The design by Heji Shin with the rocket motif in 2024 symbolizes not only the American dream of expansion, but also the last 15 years of Ringier as a "departure into the unknown that we are trying to keep under control". The combination of haptic poster and digital video of a rocket launch, accessible via QR code, stands for the continuation of an idea and the opening up of digital space.

Marc Walder expressed his gratitude for the performance and commitment of the more than 6,000 employees in 20 countries who have made this development possible and have made Ringier what it is today. Ringier wants to remain a thoughtful but ambitious and successful company.