Overview
Morgan Stanley has downgraded Vend Marketplaces ASA from "overweight" to "equal-weight" and reduced its price target to 275 Norwegian crowns from 320 crowns, pointing to greater execution and competitive risks across Vend's Mobility, Jobs and Recommerce units. Concurrently, the broker has promoted Scout24 to its Top Pick among European classifieds companies, highlighting what it sees as an attractive risk-reward after the stock's recent decline.
Details on Vend
The bank said issues in Sweden and Denmark have increased friction between the platform and both private users and dealers, diminishing visibility on how Mobility will monetize going forward. At Vend's Blocket platform, a platform migration in November 2025 disrupted private listings and hurt user satisfaction. A separate price increase in May prompted dealers to cut discretionary spending, which Morgan Stanley says constrained professional average revenue per account growth to 3% even though car volumes rose by 5%.
In the Jobs segment, Morgan Stanley noted that artificial intelligence is moving beyond basic search and matching and into broader parts of the recruitment workflow. The bank views this as raising a structural risk for existing players and increasing the level of investment required to remain competitive.
On Recommerce, Morgan Stanley flagged Vinted's rising traction in Sweden, Finland and Denmark as a source of uncertainty for Vend's growth, take rates and its ability to reach profitability outside of Norway.
Reflecting these dynamics, Morgan Stanley trimmed its FY27 and FY28 revenue forecasts for Vend by 0% and 1%, respectively. The cuts were driven by a slower Recommerce trajectory due to competition from Vinted, a more moderate recovery in Mobility and weaker Jobs growth, with the latter now modeled toward the bottom of management's medium-term guidance range of 5% to 10%.
The broker also reduced its FY27 and FY28 EBITDA estimates by 3% and 4%, respectively, citing a smaller revenue base and softer margins in Jobs and Recommerce. Those adjustments fed through to a 3% to 4% reduction in FY27/28 earnings-per-share estimates. Morgan Stanley lowered its bull and bear case valuations for Vend to 370 crowns and 175 crowns, down from previous scenarios of 390 crowns and 200 crowns.
Scout24: Top Pick Rationale
Morgan Stanley said Scout24's shares have fallen roughly 30% over the past 12 months even as consensus FY27/28 EPS estimates have risen by 4% and 10% year-to-date. The broker points to momentum in AI-enabled monetization products as a driver of upside. It set a price target of 114 for Scout24, implying about 50% upside, based on roughly a 1 times price/earnings-to-growth ratio and about 11 times FY27 enterprise value/EBITDA. Those multiples sit against forecasts of around an 11% revenue compound annual growth rate, 14% operating EBITDA compound annual growth and 20% earnings-per-share compound annual growth from FY26 to FY28.
Morgan Stanley highlighted that Propstack AI customers nearly doubled in the first half and that ImmoPunkte monthly revenue rose 53% year-over-year in June. The bank also noted a marked difference in monetization: Propstack AI users generated about 340 of average revenue per user versus about 220 for non-AI users. For Scout24 the broker's bull case is 144 and its bear case is 60.
Implications
The research change encapsulates a split view across European classifieds: rising competition and execution challenges weighing on one player, while product-led AI monetization supports a more constructive outlook for another. Morgan Stanley's revisions to forecasts and valuation scenarios for Vend reflect both near-term operational headwinds and altered medium-term growth expectations.
Data and forecasts cited in this report are those published by Morgan Stanley as described above.