• Good progress in our key strategic focus areas for 2024–2026
  • Board proposes an increasing dividend of EUR 0.42, up by 8% from 2024
  • Outlook for 2026 reflects a step change in adjusted operating profit growth driven by Learning
  • Solid net sales growth path in 2026–2030, expected to deliver high single-digit organic earnings growth – impact of potential future M&A comes on top

”In 2025, we continued to make good progress in our strategic focus areas of increasing the profitability of Learning and Media Finland and deleveraging the Group's balance sheet. We also continued to build on the long-term strengths of both businesses. As a result, our adjusted operating profit increased and our free cash flow improved by 10% from the previous year. At the end of 2025, we updated our financial targets. The updated targets reflect our accelerated net sales growth path in 2026–2030, expected to deliver high single-digit organic growth in adjusted operating profit (measured annually using a 3-year CAGR) during the same period.


AI is an important element in enhancing our growth. It has become an increasingly integral part of the way we work in both of our businesses, always with a strong emphasis on its responsible use and human oversight. Across Learning, we see great opportunities for AI to enhance the way we support teachers, students and parents through increasingly personalised learning pathways and resources. A recent example of this is our AI Teacher Assistant that saves teachers’ time by offering support in exercise creation, lesson planning and grading, and that will be rolled out across our operating markets in 2026. In Media Finland, we use AI to increase the depth and breadth of our unique content and introduce smarter, intuitive, interactive, and more personalised products. In news media, we have built our capability to produce a high‑quality stream of basic news in‑house. This enables us to direct more resources to journalism that best serves our readers.


Learning’s adjusted operating profit and margin improved, while net sales declined due to the planned discontinuation of low-value distribution contracts in the Netherlands. In a year with no major curriculum renewals, our total learning content sales increased slightly driven by new product launches and market share gains in the Dutch market. Earnings were further supported by a more digital sales mix and improved cost base from Program Solar, which is now successfully completed and creating significant operating leverage. Together with our increased scale and growth outlook, Learning’s adjusted operating profit margin is expected to improve to clearly above 23% in 2026.


In Media Finland, growth in digital subscription sales continued throughout the year. It was driven by Ruutu+, with its attractive entertainment and sports content, while digital news media subscriptions also developed well. Impacted by a soft market and ending the reselling of a third-party TV channel advertising, our advertising sales decreased. With continued effective cost containment, Media Finland's adjusted operating profit and margin improved.

The deleveraging of our balance sheet continued in 2025. Our net debt decreased and leverage (net debt / adj. EBITDA) improved to 1.8 (2024: 2.2), being well within the updated target of < 2.5. We also refinanced a key part of our external loan portfolio in December and prolonged the average maturity of our external loans.


The Board proposes a dividend of EUR 0.42 per share (2024: 0.39), corresponding to 43% of the 2025 free cash flow. This proposal reflects our ability to deliver increasing free cash flow and balances the capital use between the dividend, which continues to be an important part of our equity story, continued deleveraging of the balance sheet and investing in future growth. We remain committed to paying an increasing dividend, equal to 40–60% of our annual free cash flow. From 2026 onwards, we are amending the definition of free cash flow to include payments of lease liabilities. This change will enable free cash flow to better reflect the amount of cash available for profit distribution. The Board makes its dividend proposal in euros per share. The updated free cash flow definition does not change this consideration; however, it will be reflected as a higher payout ratio. With the updated free cash flow definition, the payout ratio of the dividend for 2025 is 53%.


We have a unique sustainability profile as learning and media have a positive impact on the lives of millions of people every day. To support the purpose of our businesses, we have set ambitious targets for sustainability aspects in which we have the biggest impact, and we performed well against these targets in 2025. We have enhanced our employee engagement measurement with standardised, benchmark-enabled questions, establishing a new baseline for future comparison and strengthening the quality of insight. Our engagement score of 62% is close to the European benchmark of 65%. Our climate work was awarded by a status on the CDP Climate A list in December 2025 as the only learning company globally. This recognition by CDP honours our ambitious climate targets as well as robust actions and climate risk management.


Our Outlook for 2026 indicates a significantly improving adjusted operating profit compared to 2025. We expect the demand for learning content to increase, driven by curriculum renewals in some of our operating markets, and the adjusted operating profit to grow strongly, with the corresponding margin improving to clearly above 23% as indicated earlier. In Media Finland, we expect the digital transformation to continue, with relatively stable net sales and adjusted operating profit.


Looking ahead, the accelerated growth outlook of both Learning and Media Finland is expected to deliver high single-digit organic growth in adjusted operating profit (measured annually using a 3-year CAGR) for the Group in the coming years. In Learning, we have multiple levers to drive growth and value-creation: continued organic growth with our best-in-class learning content, opportunities in shaping the evolution of K12 education towards personalised learning, embracing AI, and value-creating and strategically focused M&A. In Media Finland, we are continuing and accelerating our successful digital transformation. In addition, growth in high margin advertising sales is expected following the opening of the gambling market mid-2027.


I would like to extend my warmest thanks to all Sanoma employees for their excellent work in delivering these good results, and for their strong commitment and passion in supporting our customers. We are in a great position to leverage the exciting growth opportunities across our business, deliver increasing adjusted operating profit and free cash flow and create value for all our stakeholders. I am looking forward to a successful 2026.”

31 December 2025