Multitude Q4'25 preview: Seeking path towards 2026 guidance

Source: Inderes

Multitude will report its preliminary 2025 results on the morning of March 12. We anticipate a continued decline in the largest segment due to lower interest rates and the divestment of certain business entities, alongside flat development or modest growth in the smaller segments. The guidance indicates a rather clear earnings drop for Q4 and our estimates align with this expectation. The guidance for 2026 is already known (30 MEUR net profit) and our focus will largely be on identifying the concrete steps necessary to reach this goal, as it implies strong earnings growth, despite the current headwind from the decline in net interest income.

Topline set to decline

We expect Multitude’s Q4 total net operating income (NOI) to have declined by 10 % to 51.8 MEUR. Prior to Q4, the NOI development has been largely flat in 2025 compared to last year and thus our estimate would indicate a clear negative trend in the topline development. In our estimates, the decline is caused by lower net interest income in the largest business unit, Consumer Banking, primarily due to the divestment of certain units and lower interest rates (already affected Q3). The total NOI of Consumer Banking is supported by growth in fee income from partners (part of the net interest income transferred to fee income). We expect to see flat or modest growth in the smaller business areas, SME Banking and Wholesale Banking. We find the growth and outlook of Wholesale Banking especially interesting as the growth of the loan portfolio slowed down in Q3 after a very strong growth earlier in the year. On the other hand, the segment is also growing its capital-light fee income through its payment service business.

We expect a profit decline against a strong comparison period

Multitude's guidance for 2025 expects a net profit of 24-26 MEUR. Our estimate is in line with this, and we expect net profit to be at the midpoint of the range (25.0 MEUR). This would imply a 5.4 MEUR net profit for Q4 (Q4'24: 7.5 MEUR). This is a clear year-on-year drop, but we note that the comparison period was exceptionally strong. We attribute the profit decline mainly to the topline decline. We estimate the impairment losses have continued to decline highlighting the improved asset quality. Our estimate for cost level development is rather flat, which would imply an increased cost-to-income ratio (estimate 50.8% vs. Q4'24: 45.3%). We expect Consumer Banking to continue to be largely responsible for the Group-level profit, but the smaller segments should significantly increase their contribution given the business unit level targets for the year and also the trend seen this year.

In terms of the dividend, we expect the board to propose a 0.29 EUR (2024: 0.44 EUR) dividend per share, which would be close to the lower end of the dividend policy (25-50 % of net profit). Thus, we expect the dividend to decline, but it's worth noting that last year's dividend included a 0.20 EUR per share extraordinary dividend and the base dividend was 0.24 EUR per share.

Guidance for 2026 is already known

Multitude has already given its guidance for 2026, in which the company expects to reach a net profit of 30 MEUR. We view the guidance as ambitious, especially given the negative trend in net interest income seen in Q3, which will also affect 2026 performance. Our current estimate for 2026 net profit is at 27.2 MEUR. In our view, for the company to reach the 2026 guidance, it would have to either return to meaningful growth, see a significant decline in impairment losses, or improve its cost/income ratio. Given the financial targets, we believe the company aims to do all of these. We note that visibility regarding impairment losses remains weak and that they may be the determining factor. Naturally, we also see potential for cost-saving measures, as the company has actively discussed productivity gains from AI. Thus, our analysis of the Q4 report will largely focus on profit growth drivers going forward.