EUROPE: Adevinta Smacks Axel Springer!
The European market is poppin' hotter than a dinner date between Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin.
This episode, the boys invite the angriest Scot they know in Adam Gordon to come on the show and share a few thoughts. It helps counter Lieven's more laid-back, collegiate demeanor as they discuss topics ranging from Adevinta's latest acquisition of eBay Classifieds Group, making it a Top 3 classifieds player, to talking about growing pay inequality throughout the continent to opining about the current state of Swiss sex workers. And if that wasn't hot enough... soccer, er, football. Or is it futbol?
Such a complex place Europe is. Enjoy!
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
Chad and Cheese Podcast Does Europe Intro (5s):
Some podcasts, do it for the fun. Some do it for the fame, Chad and Cheese they do it for global effin domination. That's why bringing America to its knees was just the beginning. Now they have their eyes set on conquering Europe and they've drafted industry veteran Lieven Van Nieuwenhuyze of Belgium to help them navigate the old country and bring HR's most dangerous podcast across the pond to trash-talk like never before. Not safe for work in any language. The Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe.
Joel (38s):
Oh yeah. Guten tag, my Kinder. You're listening to the Chad and Cheese Podcast Does Europe. I'm your cohost Joel "I'll never be Royals" Cheeseman.
Chad (49s):
And I'm Chad, "show me some of that football" Sowash
Joel (53s):
On this episode, a major global reshuffle in online classifieds, wage inequality is a problem in all kinds of languages and Swiss sex workers. Still the world's oldest profession, you know, in case this whole podcast thing doesn't work out.
SFX (1m 10s):
Europe has a bunch of countries in it.
Joel (1m 13s):
Show number two, boys, how are we doing?
Chad (1m 15s):
You've forgot Lieven.
Joel (1m 16s):
I know Lieven. Lieven, forgot, Lieven.
Lieven (1m 20s):
I shouldn't be forgetting myself.
Joel (1m 23s):
Pretend you're the Germans invaded Poland in the future. That's how you got to work with us Americans. You gotta be bold.
Chad (1m 29s):
Probably. Probably not a good idea. So let's go ahead. Let's, jump into football right out of that. We invoked Adam Gordon's name a few times last week. So we have a special guest host, Adam Gordon on the show.
SFX (1m 43s):
Welcome to all things Scottish our slogan is if it's not Scottish it's crap!
Joel (1m 48s):
Is Adam still there?
Adam (1m 49s):
Yeah, absolutely. I'm excited to be here. Thanks so much for having me.
Chad (1m 54s):
Yeah, I bet you are. So the Scots and Walsh are out. Are you going to be rooting for England against Germany or is it anybody but England?
Adam (2m 4s):
Yeah, we've got a well-known acronym in Scotland, A.B.E. Anyone But England, I was really delighted with England's draw in the next round against Germany.
Joel (2m 17s):
Can they beat Germany?
Adam (2m 18s):
Because Germany always wins.
Chad (2m 20s):
No way.
Adam (2m 20s):
Germany always wins the weight on penalties and after like 300 minutes of play generally will still win.
Joel (2m 27s):
So I've done a little bit of homework, Adam, just a little bit. It looks like England's record in this tournament is better than Germany, but as Germany to spin in a tougher division, is that why you're predicting or Germany?
Adam (2m 38s):
I don't know. I mean, I don't, I'm surprised that England's record in this tournament's better than Germany's is. I don't think England's ever won it and I'm pretty sure Germany has won it. I really enjoyed 1996. I was at the game. It was the semifinal and it was England against Germany. And my dad and I were both there in our kilts. Unbelievable. The English fans didn't really appreciate us being there.
Joel (3m 5s):
What the hell does that look like? Lederhosen and a kilt? Wow!
Adam (3m 10s):
Probably a mix that should never happen.
Joel (3m 12s):
Lieven has a whole closet full of Lederhosen.
Chad (3m 16s):
You also have to realize that Germany was in the hardest group in this, in, in getting out of getting out of the groups.
Joel (3m 25s):
Yeah, that's what I meant. So they play five games, right? Something like that.
Chad (3m 28s):
Well, they, had to get through France, Portugal, and Hungary themselves. Now they're actually on the easy side of the bracket. If they get through England, the Netherlands have already done dropped off.
Joel (3m 40s):
If Lieven's a little quiet it's because he's hung over from the upset of Portugal.
Lieven (3m 44s):
Slight hangover, I told you.
Joel (3m 47s):
Is Belgium like a favorite now?
Lieven (3m 49s):
Yeah,
Chad (3m 49s):
They were a favorite before, Belgium was actually ranked above Portugal in this one. So.
Lieven (3m 55s):
Belgians ranked number one in the world. Number one football team in the world. And to me, Belgium is the second favorite, I think France is probably the favorite.
Chad (4m 2s):
What about Italy? Italy is looking pretty tough. They didn't look great the other day, but they're looking pretty tough.
Adam (4m 8s):
They're a dark horse. They're a young team and they've got, they've definitely got a chance. So it'd be an upset. It'd be a surprise if they won. It would be very cool!
Lieven (4m 18s):
When play against Saturday. Is it Monday?
Chad (4m 20s):
Yeah. It's soon. It is very soon. I mean, and again, Belgium got screwed in the upper left-hand quad. It's going to be like a slaughter house. Whoever gets out of that, will have France to deal with in, the semi's. Right? That's ridiculous. How were the teams actually picked? Because that didn't look like a fair draw at all.
Adam (4m 41s):
No it's out of a hat. They put all the, they put all the teams into like a big bowl and then they have a big ceremony with like hundreds of people getting prompts, sandwiches and coffee cups of tea and their suits and ties. And then they get a model or a pop star or somebody who fills out the names and that, yeah. You're right. Sorry. Yeah. Joel, when you said that, you know, England's got a better result in this tournament. That's because England had the easiest possible group. Alpha Scott. They had Scotland. Yeah. They had the Czech Republic, Croatia and Croatia. Pretty good. Czech Republic actually did very well. The other night beating the Netherlands.
Lieven (5m 18s):
Exactly. They killed the Netherlands yesterday.
Chad (5m 20s):
Well the red card didn't hurt. Right? When you get a red card and get a dude booted. Yeah. That's that that's gonna, that's gonna help out a little bit, but what about Hungary, man? They had 67,000 plus attendees in the stadium. You've got the Delta variant, like running mad from what I hear throughout Europe, is this gonna continue to happen? I mean, everybody who came in had to have a COVID passport, I guess. And they had to beat, they had to demonstrate that they had their shot. But do you see full stadiums continuing during this tournament?
Lieven (5m 57s):
Yesterday, they weren't full that much as I saw, they were empty, sometimes.
Adam (6m 2s):
Different countries, different rules, different rules in different countries. We're all in different phases of coming out of this or,
Joel (6m 8s):
Or, yeah. They're like, they're like states. I think Americans just think Europe is one big unified place. Cause you call it the Europe unification or the EU. So yeah.
Lieven (6m 18s):
Yeah. That was really, really looking forward to it. Russia versus Ukraine, two countries on the verge of war.
Adam (6m 24s):
Where are they playing? Are they playing in Crimea?
Chad (6m 26s):
Playing in Crimea? Yeah. That's a good idea.
Joel (6m 29s):
Yeah. Did you guys have any, did you guys care about the Biden/Putin meeting or was that sort of a yawner?
Lieven (6m 35s):
Oh, we watched this.
Joel (6m 36s):
And did Biden perform as a Europe had hoped he would.
Lieven (6m 39s):
He doesn't insult Putin this time, so we were a bit disappointed. He wasn't insane. He was a killer and et cetera. So yeah,
Joel (6m 47s):
He also didn't give him a tongue bath like our last president did.
Chad (6m 52s):
He gave him more than a tongue bath.
Adam (6m 55s):
But it would have been so much fun though. Cute. And it just guy, a wrestling match and said, right. Okay. You, you and me, you guys go and like full wrestling over.
Chad (7m 4s):
Come on man. Surprised he actually came to the press conference with a shirt on, to be quite Frank. I thought he would have come in on a horse. Yeah. With no shirt on, you know.
Joel (7m 19s):
He looks. So put out for that meeting. Like he was so mad to be there.
Chad (7m 23s):
He was because he generally doesn't have to answer questions from press, unless they're, I mean, if they're his press and you know, they're going to ask the questions that he allows asked.
Joel (7m 33s):
Speaking of not happy, I got a lot of flack for my Beamery commentary about there recent fundraising.
Chad (7m 40s):
What kind of flack?
Joel (7m 42s):
Well, I was kind of negative on the company and Adam in particular was quick to tell me that I sucked and he's a huge fan.
Adam (7m 52s):
I'm not sure I've said anything other than I completely agree with all of it, that you said. The only thing is, I mean, I don't think they're going to be losers, which is what I think you said. I don't think that, absolutely. Sure, they're not going to be as a CRM because the world does not need recruitment CRM as a category of technology. So, you know, you've got applicant tracking systems that are building their own folders effectively. So you don't need a CRM if you've got an iCIMS or if you've got a Smart Recruiters, you just don't need a CRM. Where it's still adding loads of value, I guess, is if you've got to work are a success factors, but both of those have either built or are in the process of building the same type of functionality.
Adam (8m 34s):
But what Beamery has to be using is not what it was or what it is today.
Joel (8m 39s):
So I think when you raise that amount of money, you know, as from my perspective, you know, bells go off and say, look, when you raise that much money, you either have to go and you have to go IPO, or you have to sell your, the number of buyers that can gobble you up becomes much smaller. So, I guess my perception or critique of a company changes when they raise that much money, do you, as a European Lieven and Adam, both, when you see a company raise that much money, do you guys think the same thing? Like, oh, they have to have a liquidation of intercut you get bought by a very few number of companies, or do you think something different?
Lieven (9m 14s):
Oh, it depends.
Chad (9m 15s):
Depends on what?
Lieven (9m 15s):
I guess depends on what the type of company, and their ambitions, what they plan to achieve.
Chad (9m 20s):
So take a look at Beamery and you, I mean, House of HR, you guys have done four acquisitions this year, so take a look at Beamery and give us kind of like your honest assessment on, you know, your thoughts around that space, being CRM, moving to ATS, what are your thoughts on it?
Lieven (9m 38s):
They claim to be a talent operating system, and it sounds a bit like a disc operating system, but less eighties, but when Microsoft launched it back, then they ended up pretty well. So I think choosing the name, right? I guess talent operating system does sound cool. I've been trying to figure out what they're up to, but I have no idea.
Adam (9m 57s):
I want to know what talent operating system is. Does it operate the talent? So it actually controls the people. The individuals is that what talent operating system is?
Lieven (10m 8s):
A fancy name for like a full service agency, something like that I feel.
Adam (10m 12s):
To me, It's a terrible, terrible name to call any type of technology is that it operates the talent. I don't know who came up with that, but they need fired.
Chad (10m 21s):
Well, if you take it, take a look at Eightfold who came out with the tip, talent intelligence platform world, right? And then you've got Phenoms candidate experience, and then you've got Beamery with this operating system thing. They're all trying to come up with new names, or new ways not to say applicant tracking system.
Adam (10m 41s):
Whomever came up with a tip. Whoever came up with that, they also need fired. There is an established talent intelligence is an established process within recruitment, which, and they do not do talent intelligence. So that was the wrong description again. The toss and the tip both needs tossed into the tip.
Joel (10m 59s):
Toss in the tip.
Lieven (11m 2s):
I tend to agree with Adam, if you say Talent operating, it's like it's too harsh. You can nurture talent, but to operate talent does sound a bit fancy, almost.
Chad (11m 14s):
Tell me what you think about the convergence though, because we have now all of these quote, unquote CRMs and or matching platforms or whatever they are. They are taking a shitload of cash, which means they have to broaden out and they have to converge on the applicant tracking system. What are your thoughts around that?
Lieven (11m 29s):
Exactly. So it's like a very red ocean. I mean, I was a veteran company, launched an ATS system last week, a free one just to enable our clients to post our jobs better. So there are so many layers on the markets. And if you want to make a difference, you'll have to come up with something great. And then 138 million might help, but I'm not sure how they are going to do it.
Adam (11m 54s):
There's a third option. So you said that you said they either get bought by somebody, but at the end of the number of companies that buy them, do it starts to become smaller because of the amount of money they've raised, or they go for an IPO. The IPO option is something that they might do, but there's a third option, which is, they just become a walking zombie. That's very, very possible. If they've got game-changing ideas that they're going to spend that $130 million on, they've got a brilliant chance of being a huge player, you know, a big, big market player within recruitment technology. If they're out of ideas, they're a zombie, they're becoming a zombie like slowly.
Chad (12m 31s):
Well, everybody has ideas. It's all about prioritizing. And then being able to execute on them without getting too, too wide. And when you start taking money like this, you have investors coming in and pressing you to be able to do things that are on the fringe of quote-unquote vision. Right? So how do you stay disciplined to do what you need to be that expert in that one space, as opposed to be really shitty at everything else?
Adam (13m 0s):
Well, with $130 million, you don't. You have to go broad. You have to, the convergence that you've been talking about past the app, but they have to take in take over the applicant tracking system area because you know, the one doesn't, the world does not need recruitment CRM, all the ATS's are building it. Even Workday is building it, which is really interesting as well, because what, they obviously invested a lot of money into Beamery. So, I mean, the supposition was that they were going to acquire Beamery at some point, which they haven't done. And they're literally going to probably 138 million. Now they can still buy it, but thought they had done it, <something Scottish>, rather than somebody else investing.
Chad (13m 38s):
You would have thought so. Right? Well, what do you think Lieven?
Lieven (13m 40s):
It's just too easy today to get money. There's so much money in the markets. And sometimes I feel those investors are actually looking for someone who they can spend it on. Our own company, for example, when the whole COVID experience started our management dots, eh, we're going to get all the cash we can just to make sure. And we ended up referring that million. And now we have a big fund to do some acquisitions because maybe we just saved the bit on the expenses. And when we got some credits, so now we are on the lookout as well. And as you mentioned, we did four M and A's this year, plenty more to come. It's just the perfect day today to get money and to buy companies.
Lieven (14m 24s):
But I'm not sure how long it will last. And as you say, with companies getting that much money too easily, if you become a zombie company, it's easy to get paid for a few years before the investors, get to know it.
Joel (14m 37s):
And speaking of a lot of money.
Chad (14m 40s):
TOPICS!
Joel (14m 43s):
Big news apparently out of Europe, out of Adevinta. And I'm apparently saying that correctly because our European guests told me so. The Oslo-based marketplace, operator last week announced it has completed a $9.2 billion cash and stock acquisition of eBay Classifieds Group. The biggest deal in the history of classifieds, everybody. The transaction has created a company with annual revenue of around 1.6 billion euros. That's based on 2019 results. Adevinta now becomes a whole new company that almost doubles in size. Here are a few of the other highlights. This deal catapults Adevinta from number 11 in classified revenue globally to number three, thereafter, Recruit Holdings are buddies who own Indeed and Glassdoor and fiftyeight.com.
Joel (15m 33s):
I believe out of China, this also based on 2019. It establishes a near dominant classifieds company across Western Europe with the leading horizontals in each of the big five economies. It also ends any ambition process, which we've been talking about, making a lot of acquisitions lately. Any ambition they have to become a major player in Europe and a truly global operator across both emerging and developed markets. And it also ends Axel Springer's ambitions to become the European leader in classifieds and brings a new level of competition to its home territory in Germany. So, yeah, it sounds like a pretty good, pretty big deal. What are the Europeans on the show?
Adam (16m 14s):
It's great for European companies that they're buying American businesses because normally it happens the other way around people, what some people, especially in America, but people don't realize is Europe has twice the population of the USA in half of the land space. So it's a very, very complex territory. And so as a result and because there's so many different languages and things like that. As a result, there's so many business opportunities here you can, that you could, you know, you can target different countries. You can target different professional interests, personal interests, there's all sorts of ways of slicing it up and then you can slice it up a bit more so, the opportunities are probably bigger than they are in the USA for a few different reasons.
Adam (16m 56s):
Adevinta is a company that I know a little bit about because they, one of my customers, generally people have not heard of them because they're better known by their brands and in the UK, they're not very well known because I think their main brands are in Spain and France and Germany and other places so they don't really have an awful lot of presence in the UK.
Joel (17m 14s):
What are some of their bigger, more well-known brands in the, in the continent and particularly job search ones in particular? Are there any that stand out?
Lieven (17m 21s):
Info jobs in Spain, that is the one I know. And another one is <inaudible> in the Netherlands, but that's mostly just classifieds, but it's really a fragmented. I think jobs is just a rather small part of what they're doing.
Joel (17m 36s):
So on the US side, it was eBay classifieds anything that you guys thought about when you advertised or looked at competitors?
Lieven (17m 44s):
Not me.
Adam (17m 46s):
No, no. Here either no
Joel (17m 49s):
Impacts Canada on our side with Kijiji, which is a huge cost of flights online there in Canada. But I guess Kijiji, wasn't a thing over in Europe?
Adam (17m 59s):
No, no time.
Chad (18m 1s):
They have a very diversified portfolio. I mean, if you take a look at it across geographies, verticals, notably Germany, France, Netherlands, Spain, Canada, Brazil, I mean really didn't have anything at all in the US. This is a big impact. The big question is, do they start reaching out into the job space at all? Or is that not even relevant to them because they're more into selling other things
Joel (18m 27s):
Personally, I think it has to be, I mean, classifieds online, whether it be, you know, whatever industry jobs is going to be a component of that. And I think that when you look at, you know, Recruit Holdings is in that list of the top three, I think it would be in Adevinta's best interest is to start getting into recruitment. And I wouldn't be surprised from our perspective that with the new money and sort of, you know, gravitas that this company will command is that if, you know, they don't maybe go gobble up a Beamery or an Eightfold or make a big impact or big acquisition, maybe a ZipRecruiter to really sort of stake their claim in the employment sector.
Chad (19m 7s):
Is that where Axel Springer starts to really hedge and they start to gain more market because they focus on the job side of the house where it seems like Adventa is a kind of, they have a blind spot right now?
Adam (19m 21s):
Is Recruit Holdings number one, did you say in the world for classifieds and Recruit Holdings, do they only do recruitment?
Joel (19m 28s):
It's based on classified revenue? So, yeah. Recruit Holdings is number ones too. Obviously jobs is their number one. I don't even know if they're in anything else, but in revenue, that's the list.
Lieven (19m 39s):
Adevinta and Glassdoor are the companies you can compare to this one, than, they might be big, but it's, in my opinion, something different. You can't compare Indeed with, let's say Infer Jobs in Spain.
Joel (19m 52s):
But does Adevinta sort of make some big moves now with the enhanced revenue to make a big move in recruitment? I mean, is there anyone in Europe that you guys would say, wow, if they bought them, that would be a huge deal?
Adam (20m 5s):
Yeah. If they bought Axel Springer. Step and then total jobs and all that, but again, it's very like probably a bit, unlike the USA, it is much more country focused. So the, the biggest, like outside of Indeed the biggest job boards in the UK are not anywhere else. Like read is I think probably number one after indeed. And then I know there is nowhere else. It's only in the UK to full jobs. I'm pretty sure it's the biggest in tech and I'm pretty sure it's nowhere else inside the UK and it'll be the same. We're Levin is and yeah,
Lieven (20m 43s):
It's really a very fragmented and there are many local players who are dominant just in their own region and you have a few global players, like Indeed, for example, but not that many.
Adam (20m 52s):
I mean, StepStone, for example, must be number one, the number, number one, European like job board, but I'm pretty sure it's not in the UK. It is certainly not one that any of my customers use regularly.
Lieven (21m 5s):
And young people just don't know StepStone anymore. It's not as bad as with Monster, but one out of two has never heard about StepStone, graduating now. So it's also old school.
Chad (21m 14s):
Wow. That that's, that's big. So 50% of the people that are actually graduating don't know StepStone, is that what I just heard?
Lieven (21m 21s):
But I can only speak for the Belgium market in this. I'm going to do more research on the surrounding countries, but I can see why it would be different than the Neth