Gaming Innovation Group Inc

OSE:GIG

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q2

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

Hi, and welcome to Redeye. Today, we are joined by Gaming Innovation Group and CEO, Richard Brown, who will present the Q2 results, and we will follow up by a Q&A. And if you have some questions, please send them through on the webcast.

With that, I will leave over the word to you, Richard.

[Richard Brown, executive]

Perfect. Thank you very much, Hjalmar. Good morning to you all, and welcome to Gaming Innovation Group's Q2 2023 Report. I'm extremely pleased, and it's always a pleasure to stand here in front of you today. And I think in my CEO letter, I commented exactly on a number of items that the teams have worked immensely hard over the last 3 and 6 months. Those have resulted in fantastic performance financially during the quarter, but have also laid a path not only for the strong remainder of H2 2023, but also in the years to come. So I'm incredibly pleased, and we'll move on to some of those operational items now.

GiG has delivered another successive all-time high in revenues and EBITDA for the quarter. We've also made significant progress towards our EBITDA margin targets of 50% during next year with EBITDA margin coming in during the period at 45%. This is an all-time high and up from 37% last year. The Platform & Sportsbook has continued and completed a number of projects during the period, which has led to 7 different brands going live during the summer months.

Very pleased also that effort and contribution from the teams at AskGamblers and in GiG Media as they've combined working towards that post-merger integration plan have already started to show tremendous results with a revenue run rate up 45% comparatively to the period before the takeover. We've also made significant progress towards the strategic review and very pleased with how that's progressing.

With that, I'll move over to some of the financial highlights. We reached all-time highs in a number of the financial KPIs of the business. Revenues came in at EUR 31.1 million, up 40% year-over-year. And EBITDA came in at EUR 14 million, a 68% year-over-year improvement with a 45% margin. EBIT, also tremendous growth there, 173% up year-over-year to EUR 6.6 million.

We can also see the cash conversion continually improving as we focus on the scalability and operational capacity of that business -- or the business and the group. We've seen a strong growth here. We're defining the operational cash flow or contribution cash flow as EBITDA less CapEx, less leases and interest and fees. We're now, on a last 12-month basis, at more than EUR 21 million and continue to make this a priority for the businesses' performance over the coming months and years to come.

Q2 was also impacted by some working capital elements. We had a change in banking solutions that impacted the cash working capital flow by around EUR 3.5 million. The Enterprise Solution is structured with a payment that's generally going through 2023 -- back end of 2023 and onwards. And also, of course, we made the payment relating to the Sportnco acquisition earnout.

Moving then on to the Media business in some more detail. We reached another all-time quarterly high. This is continuing the sequential performance and growth of this business over the past 3 years, and it's tremendous to see that momentum carry through during the summer months. Q2 revenues ended at EUR 21.7 million, up 47% with a 20% organic growth rate. The adjusted EBITDA came in at EUR 10.3 million, up 46% year-over-year, and the EBITDA margin remained stable at 47%. Our Publishing department reached another all-time high, revenues up 47% year-over-year. And we've paid up 26% year-over-year despite a summer period with weaker sporting calendar and generally lower seasonality.

First Time Depositors came in at 109,000 for the period, a 38% increase year-over-year. 95% of those players referred were on a reoccurring revenue share basis, and we continue to anticipate that those players will generate future revenue streams on a recurring basis.

We're also very pleased with the underlying or legacy Publishing department that grew its player intake by 77% during the quarter. Player intake in the Paid Media was actually purposely lower due to the lower sporting activity in the calendar and the seasonality. So therefore, we can look to redeploy that marketing spend and marketing capital in that division towards the latter part of this year and into next.

In terms of the revenues, 64%, up from 58%, come from recurring revenue streams of revenue share, which will rely -- or the perpetual revenue share for the customers referred. Revenues from the Americas increased 24% year-over-year and represents now 22% of the total revenue.

Latin America remains a very strong region of growth and is becoming what we see as another runway that's really developing quite quickly for us. Brazil has historically been a very strong market for us, but we also start to see now in other Latin American countries where we're really pushing on and providing further growth opportunities such as Argentina and Colombia and the like. We've also seen and taken market share in our legacy or existing markets in Nordics and Northern Europe where revenues are up 21% year-over-year.

Our marketing compliance software, GiG Comply, signed 1 new client and resigned 2 during the quarter, and we're happy with that continued progress of that product. And we see an opportunity there to continue to develop that product portfolio into an even further and wider expanding product offering.

I touched on it in the operational highlights. I think, as I said, the teams, both the kind of historical teams from AskGamblers and the GiG Media teams have come together exceptionally well and worked diligently and tirelessly towards the post-merger integration plan. That can be [ received ] immediately, therefore, it's after only 6 months and from the operational takeover to date with revenues up 45% from January, FTD is up over 40% and the EBITDA from that section doubling.

We are also executing a number of the technical migrations for the first website assets. Newcasinos and Johnslots migrated to our proprietary tech stacks, which have performed exceptionally well in terms of the performance test that we deployed after the migration. We've also seen strong product enhancement across AskGamblers with a number of the components already migrated to our technical stack. And we anticipate that, that will be completed towards the end of this year and potentially into early next.

I think we are demonstrating not only the ability, but we will continue to focus on executing short- and long-term actions to deliver assets -- the growth in these assets. Therefore, moving on to the Platform & Sportsbook unit, another fantastic performance during this quarter with revenues up by 27%, all organic, to EUR 9.3 million.

Adjusted EBITDA came in at EUR 3.7 million, up 194% and an EBITDA margin increasing to 40%, up from 17% last year, as we continue to reach and [ lever ] forward the scalability of this structure in this business unit as we continue to grow the revenues from a very stable or declining cost base, which is enabling that business to really reach further potential and puts it in a position for future growth and margin expansion and cash contributions in the coming quarters and years.

Of course, I think I mentioned this also in the last report that due to the variations and timing nature of setup fees, especially with the Enterprise Solution, sometimes the sequential earnings will fluctuate a little bit, and we can see that here from Q1 to Q2. But as I said in the last report, you can expect some less linear earnings structures on a quarterly basis. We're very pleased with how the underlying business is performing and generating revenue on a consistent basis.

We've also took an important strategic step during the quarter where we completed the migration and went live with the existing or legacy business of GiG Sportsbook clients migrating to the new Sportnco solution, which has performed very well. And the migrations were done very methodically and performed very well at [ no dime time ], et cetera. It was a very, very well-managed process. So we're very pleased to take that important step forward. Continued good commercial development as well, signing 2 new additional agreements during the quarter, and we continue to push this business unit forward.

In Q2, 41 clients live, 65 brands operating now on the platforms and product portfolio. During Q2, 2 brands went live, but a number of projects that actually reached completion that enabled 5 brand launches in the first weeks of Q3. The delivery pipeline remains strong with 14 brands in that pipeline. That is going to obviously secure future revenue growth and also margin expansion of that particular group and cash contribution.

The geographical diversification is reaching another all-time high with the pipeline included. We're now soon going to be able to operate in more than 38 different locally regulated jurisdictions. Also pleased to see that the development and strategic potential of the combination of both the Platform & Sportsbook solutions, with now more than 70% of the pipeline, the delivery pipeline, having both Sportsbook & Platform products combined.

We talked about it before, we can see that on a last 12-months basis, the revenues are still continuing to move forward with last 12 months on EUR 34 million, up from EUR 25 million in 2022. The operators GGR is geographically diverse with the legacy markets actually also decreasing as we grow from Latin America, like Media, being a strong region for growth for the business and is now Latin America is representing -- or North America and Latin America now combined almost 30%. We're also very proud of the fact that 92% of our operators GGR is coming from regulated or soon-to-be-regulated markets. That remains a key theme and strategic intent of the business to operate as a locally regulated partner.

Moving then on to some of the events after the quarter and the summary. As I mentioned before, 5 additional brands went live in Q3 already, including several new market entries. Our first launch of the Sportsbook solution into the U.S., in Maryland. We're also continuing off the back of the success in the CEE regions of Romania and Croatia over the last couple of years, we also launched now in Serbia. We also continue with those deliveries expanding further into LATAM.

Commercially, good start to the quarter, 4 additional contracts signed for the platform; and the media strong trend, despite the July probably being the weakest month, is up 26% in First Time Depositor acquisition. July has developed positively overall with revenues up 30% year-over-year.

We're also very pleased and very proud to announce, Jonas Warrer has been named as the CEO of the GiG Media division. Jonas has been working with the company for more than 6 years, and over the last 4 years running the Media division, has demonstrated an extremely strong track record for growth. He has not only been able to drive meaningful revenue growth, but also improved significantly along with his team the operational, the product and the technological capabilities of the unit. So we're very proud, and we're very sure that he'll be able to continue that success going forward.

Also this week, we announced that Richard Carter will join GiG as the CEO of the Platform & Sportsbook unit. Richard has an incredibly strong track record as the CEO of SBTech, a very, very successful business over the period before it was acquired by DraftKings. He has a fantastic knowledge of the industry, and we look very much forward to him joining and working with the teams to drive that business forward. So we look forward to welcoming him to the company in September.

Just to touch then on the strategic review that we announced earlier in the year. Just to summarize the idea or the principle we're working towards here is separating the 2 business units into 2 independently publicly listed companies. We've been making very strong progress along that in the last 3 to 4 months. What we consider an operational split, so where the business will be able to execute the split, both operationally, legally, financially, will be completed at the end of this year.

And therefore, we will be able to look at the actual final split in the early part of 2024, obviously, subject to market conditions and all the necessary corporate actions, including shareholder approvals. We still remain with a very strong conviction that the proposed split will enable each of the business units to drive a much greater value and enable them to reach their full value potential and growth opportunities over the coming years.

In summary, we've had a fantastic quarter, delivering all-time high in revenues and EBITDA again. The EBITDA margin is progressing extremely well, meaningful progress at 45% and are moving very well towards the 50% target that we set out a couple of years ago. We've also seen a significant EBIT and net profit growth, 173% and 399% year-over-year growth in those 2 KPIs.

The strategy of having a diverse footprint supporting the growth across both the Media and the Platform & Sportsbook divisions. We continue to enhance the businesses' operational position with a focus on that margin expansion and the offer -- and always increasing free cash flows.

GiG anticipates for full year revenues to come in at between EUR 125 million and EUR 130 million with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 47% to 50%. The business is making clear progress towards its long-term targets and is dedicated to improve throughout 2023 and onward, driving value for shareholders, customers and its staff.

With that, I would like to thank you very much for your time this morning and pass over to Hjalmar for the Q&A.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

Okay. Thanks for a great presentation, and congrats on a really strong quarter.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

Maybe we can start a bit on the trading update. I got a few questions from the audience here. You did mention July is typically the softest month, I guess, in Q3. So how do you see the trajectory for the rest of the quarter compared to July?

[Richard Brown, executive]

Yes, I think we can anticipate not only from a sporting calendar perspective, we have to consider that not only the Media division is continually growing its Sportsbook presence over the last couple of years, but also our Sportsbook platform is going to be impacted. This time last year, you had a condensed sporting calendar ahead of the World Cup, a lot of buildup around that. So therefore, when we look at the comparables, we can see it's a little bit more of a difficult comparison.

But one of the things I can also say is that we anticipate July, very, very strong summer, kind of hot month and people are away from their kind of normal activities outside of that. So we're seeing a seasonality impact there. But we anticipate then for the remainder of the quarter to build back up towards kind of normalized levels, if you will. And just like December is normally the strongest month of the year, July is normally probably one of your weakest months.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

Right. And also a question on -- I mean the organic growth was 10% in July. So you expect it to move back to kind of your targets of 20%?

[Richard Brown, executive]

Yes, exactly. I mean I think, as I said, it's very hard to look at a specific month and then deduct what's actually happening, especially when that particular month is probably the weakest in the year.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

Yes, right. And looking at this quarter, I mean, you saw really strong margin in the Platform & Sportsbook. There are some questions also. I mean you saw a decrease, I think, in operational costs Q-over-Q. So can you talk a bit about what drove that?

[Richard Brown, executive]

I think we've been quite clear for the last 12 months, if not more, that we were going to -- we've done a lot of the work in order to put us in this position. And that meant that we could continue to operate and kind of work towards improving the margins, and this points again to the scalability of that unit overall. I think it will always fluctuate on a quarter-over-quarter basis in the structure in general, but the trend has been going down over the last 12 to 18 months anyway.

And as I said before, I think we've been developing new sets of technology that enable us to be faster, quicker, more effective, more efficient. So there's going to be a kind of combination of the very different items. But we're happy with the progress, but we're never happy with the end result, if that makes sense. So we will continue to optimize. We will continue to be never satisfied with the operational structures until we are aiming for perfection, which is impossible, right? But that's what we try and move towards at all times.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

Yes. And you mentioned the migration of legacy Sportsbook now being completed, I think. So did that have any significant impact on the cost level?

[Richard Brown, executive]

No. I mean that was in discontinued -- the Sportsbook -- the legacy Sportsbook was in discontinued operation, so it doesn't impact those numbers. But of course, it doesn't mean that like we've completed projects. I mean, again, a testament is the complex process doing migrations, and the teams have handled it extremely well. We're not -- again, another kind of highlight is we're not only migrated to the Sportnco solution, the legacy client, we've also started launching new customers with -- from the combined product offering across the technology stacks. So again, really putting us in that position to then move forward. And we're always thinking, of course, about this current period, but also what can we do with this solution next year and the years after.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

Right. And in the pipeline, you mentioned that 70% of the Platform & Sportsbook customers will have the Sportsbook compared to 36%, I think, for the legacy?

[Richard Brown, executive]

Yes.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

Is there upside potential on that? Or is it the customers that don't have a Sportsbook or don't...

[Richard Brown, executive]

It's basically a lot of the -- I think one of the key differences is, historically, when we were a very casino-led Platform & Sportsbook product, we kind of tended to get casino-only brands coming in. And now that we have opened up that kind of quality of product in the Sportsbook side, that means that we're getting customers who either have a mixed portfolio or potentially Sportsbook-led. I think also the fact that we've moved into Latin America with a force as well, which is a kind of Sportsbook-first priority market in many cases as well.

So I think those combinations have opened up the sales pipeline and, therefore, the -- and then the delivery pipeline. We have also been upselling to existing customers and managing it from that. So it's a combination of both, but definitely, we see a potential. It's one of the strategic intents that we had when we made the acquisition, and it's very good to see that kind of 12-months plus after that completed that it's coming to fruition.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

Yes. And you also mentioned 41 clients now in the Platform & Sportsbook. You gave us some information about the mix when you acquired Sportnco. Can you give us any update and the flavor on that? What's the largest client and if there's any big clients or if it's a, yes, broad mix of clients?

[Richard Brown, executive]

I mean it's very -- it's quite a diverse mix. I mean, of course, on a consolidated basis, on a group level, we have a very diverse client concentration. I mean it's very, very diverse. On a segment level, it is something we continually work towards. I think, of course, as we've launched a lot of customers in the last 12 months, we have a very heavy delivery pipeline. So even the cost of a concentration that exists today is not going to be reflected in the same way in 6 to 12 months' time because we have a lot of those new launches that will start to increase the revenue, and we have some of the more mature customers who are potentially larger, but maybe not growing at the same rate.

So we continually work on that, remains a priority for us in terms of our -- the diversity and sustainability of the business. And that goes also to the Media business that has done a fantastic job in the last couple of years, reducing client dependencies, improving the geographic distribution that also enables further client deconcentration as well.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

Right. And looking back to previous quarters, you had a few brands closing down on your platform. How has that trend been this quarter? Is it...

[Richard Brown, executive]

Yes, we had just a couple of smaller brands drop off. I mean it's combined reasons. I think you can already expect some level of churn. I mean I think there was a couple in the last quarter that were maybe slightly larger, but it was a funding-related item. This one, there was a couple that was more regulatory, et cetera, like that.

So I think what we see in the positive structure is that the clients who are the material ones are continuing to push forward, and we're onboarding consistently on the new ones and then some of the smaller ones fall away. But again, that means that we can either optimize the cost base if they fall away or we can redeploy them into more revenue-generating activities.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

Yes. And you also mentioned that you're launching in Germany with Rizk. Are operators becoming more positive to an operation in the German market despite the regulation there? Or...

[Richard Brown, executive]

Yes, I think the German market is an interesting one and quite a challenging one given the regulatory nature of it. But I think it's also important if you zoom out there, where is it going to be in 3, 5 years' time? I mean it's still one of -- or prior to the regulation, was one of the largest markets in Europe. And there's no reason it shouldn't be kind of close to the U.K. levels in terms of billions of euros deployed -- spent each year.

So I think it's important for us to be there and we start to see, hopefully, the regulator will take more action against the ones who don't have licenses that would obviously improve the channelization rate. So early days, obviously, the market isn't where it was a couple of years ago, but we remain very committed to, hopefully, to that market and seeing strong brands enter into those such as Rizk before -- prior to the regulation.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

Interesting. And moving over to the Media Services, I guess, one of the highlights in the quarter was, of course, the very strong performance of AskGamblers since the acquisition. And you mentioned the 45% growth in run rate revenue and doubling EBITDA. Can you give some examples of what you've done or how you were able to grow that, that much?

[Richard Brown, executive]

I think a number of aspects. I mean, as I said, certain of the components have been migrated to our technology stack. The teams have refocused on what we believe is the right thing for the product, both in terms of the content creation and as well as the usability, et cetera. So there's been a number of activities. And I don't exaggerate, the granularity that the teams actually operate on is immense. And that's, again, a testament to the teams, their focus and what they always have been doing in demonstrating not only with AskGamblers, but with GiG's assets over the last years.

This isn't -- we haven't just done something by accident when it comes through. We've continually demonstrated the ability to execute this on our own assets. We applied those principles there. And again, it's that level of granularity that the teams going through, making sure that every single page is as performant as possible. Then also, of course, our BI systems that we have are tremendous. They enable us to really make very strong commercial decisions, and also usability decisions were both in terms of conversion rates. So again, those kind of elements combined in will also then lead us to have an uplift in the structure of the revenue and the performance of those assets.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

Yes. And can you say anything about maybe operators that are on AskGamblers platform, how they view the takeover from you? Have they been happy? Have they been able to improve the performance as well?

[Richard Brown, executive]

Well, I think, again, the fact that the FTDs are up 40%, operators will always be happy when they're getting a higher volume of customers. So I think that, again, also helps to restore an element of trust into the brand. I think there was a lot of companies that worked a lot with AskGamblers; and then, obviously, given the historical performance, maybe not so much. So we've managed to rebuild that trust with some of the partners towards the commercial potential and the value that we're creating for them. Again, we work on -- we're very much revenue share-focused, so it has to have value for the clients and for our customers in Media, otherwise, it won't have value for us. So again, we really focus on that part.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

Right. And you saw a slight increase in your investments during the quarter, and you mentioned that it was partly driven by the Media segment, I think. Is this kind of a temporary increase? Or is it a new kind of run rate for investments in that segment?

[Richard Brown, executive]

It will always fluctuate in a way. I mean if you -- it's also -- conversely, we didn't spend as much on marketing in the period as well on a like-for-like basis. So there's always going to be kind of a balanced structure there. I mean we're very pleased with how the EBITDA margin and the cash conversion is in that business, but we will always look at opportunity when we see.

Again, I will point to something that was mentioned in the report that our social media channel has really started to improve significantly. And we managed to move that from just kind of a handful of markets into something like 16 regulated jurisdictions in the last period very rapidly, those kind of things. We always look at things on a short-term basis and on a long-term basis when we drive towards our targets as well.

So I think it's a combination of it. I don't want to say it's like, yes, this is the level. We will always be able to look at things from a quarterly basis. And again, because of the technology that we use within that segment and the team's structures and performance around it, very easily able to identify what has ROI, what doesn't, what we should push more on, what we can hold back and maybe say, okay, well, later in the year, we can deploy this again because we see a greater potential then.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

And social media was actually my next question. I mean I think you haven't maybe talked that much about that historically. So are those kind of new products? And can you give some examples of the products? Or...

[Richard Brown, executive]

I won't go into too much detail because I think there's probably some commercial sensitivity into what we're doing there. But what I will say is that it's something we've been working on consistently for a number of years, given the fact that it plays a very important role, especially in a certain generational demographic, if you will. And we've been working on that, again, very, very hard in the background and trying to test and work out what's working and do so, so that we don't just go in all guns blazing, if that makes sense. We make very concise decisions. And we saw that it worked very well in several markets. We were then able to roll that out quite rapidly given the fact that the team operates a very lean and very effective way of managing the campaigns and structures.

So again, just consistency in being there every day, making sure that we're focused on how do we get this improved. And then when it is working, we can start to scale it out. Of course, regulation helps in that particular segment because then the social media channels, so whether that's Facebook or Twitter, become more accustomed and much more -- or less sensitive to gambling as a topic as it becomes more accepted in terms of regulation, that enables us to also accelerate in that period.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

Right. And is it the same kind of model, same kind of margins in that? Or is it...

[Richard Brown, executive]

It's a similar -- again, it fluctuates some time and such like that, but very similar to the rest of the paid structures. You would probably anticipate -- just as a general comment, you would probably anticipate maybe the cost of acquisition is slightly lower on social media, but then there's probably a corresponding player value to that as well. So -- and again, it is very market specific. There are some markets where player value is derived much higher from social media channels than it is from traditional digital marketing channels and vice versa.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

Yes. And looking at the FTD increase, you continue to keep a very good pace there, and we see more coming from Publishing now than Paid. Can you give some more flavor on what drives that in a specific asset or market? Or...

[Richard Brown, executive]

It's a collective again, actually. I mean we talked about it before, in the Publishing side of things, it's quite a slow-moving machine. But when you start to improve the products and continually enforcing the product performance, you will start to see an increase in your search visibility basically where you're being seen by in the various different search engines, and that drives more traffic. And I think over the last year or so, those continued improvements are continually rewarded. And we've had a couple of good quarters in terms of the search -- overall search visibility of the assets.

So yes, we're very pleased to see that, that continues as a trend and really push that department forward. And then we obviously anticipate, if they're up 77% on the legacy side this quarter, we would anticipate because the majority is revenue share in the coming quarters for the revenues to flow through on that.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

Right. And in terms of geographic mix, I mean, Americas continues to be strong. You mentioned LATAM specifically, but also that you have good traffic in U.S., tiny now, of course, in the low season. But maybe comparing to peers, you might have a lower mix of North America. Would you say that that's kind of an untapped potential for you? Or how should we view the North America and U.S. mix going forward?

[Richard Brown, executive]

We've always been very clear that we believe there's a great potential in the U.S., and it's something that we're obviously not deriving huge amounts of revenue from as of today, but there's a great deal of potential there. But again, as we do with everything, we're methodical, we're precise and we haven't acquired businesses in that jurisdiction. So we're building everything organically, and that comes with a learning process. But -- so we're really pleased to see that underlying trend continually improving. So we see great lever potential, and we will continue to go about our business methodology towards that market.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

Yes. On GiG Comply, you also talked about it a bit this quarter, which is a product you've had for some time, but you're saying you now will be focusing a bit on it. Then you mentioned you were able to extend a deal with bet365 and 2 new clients. Is this a product where you have competition or something that may be unique for GiG?

[Richard Brown, executive]

There is a couple of other companies that provide a similar service. I think one of the benefits of our product is given that we've actually built it specifically for ourselves initially to make sure that we are able to do it and then developed that principle to be able to kind of commoditize or commercialize that product.

We're also -- having seen the experience, and this has been one of the things, at least from a historical perspective, we were able to view it from when we had B2C operations when -- from a B2B side, what is the actual product needed to actually develop it further. And the team have been focusing on making sure that improve -- continual improvement of products. So -- and I think we're looking very much at digital marketing compliance structures at the moment where the other element is as regulation evolves, you will have more and more marketing regulations because more and more markets. And that's not normally the first thing they do, but it's a follow-on. So the market opportunity actually expands over time for that particular product.

We also see that because of our BI systems that we've built, the proprietary structures there or business intelligence systems, really, really fantastic that we're able to take potentially elements of those, build that through and in there and then developed the product portfolio as a total and more complete offering for the operators as well. It's not just a compliance check element.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

Yes. And regarding -- you also mentioned the Google update this quarter where you seem to benefit from. And I think historically, you have seemed to benefit from this kind of update. Is that kind of a thing structurally that you're good at anticipating updates? Or is that the assets are just good, so Google will rank them high?

[Richard Brown, executive]

The assets are good, but that's because the teams work. And again, with that diligence and that granularity we keep in our minds or the teams keep in their minds very much that what is good for the user will be best served in the search engines and the visibility. So with that continual focus on how do we make sure that the user has the best possible experience, that translates into search performance on a very kind of general level. There's many elements to it, but that's the guiding principles that the teams are working from.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

Right. And also a few questions on the updated guidance here. I guess that implies a pretty good growth looking into the second half here despite maybe having some tough comps from Q4 and the FIFA World Cup. So do you have any input on what you see will drive the growth over the next couple of quarters?

[Richard Brown, executive]

I think that all of the elements are structural elements that we've been putting in place for 12 to 18 months. The run rate is up meaningfully already from where the Q4 number rates are. This is a sequential growth that we're experiencing as a group, and that will continue to push through.

We have a number, across the platform business, a number of clients that are starting to move into a slightly more mature phase. We also then have a number of brand launches. Of course, there's some kind of things we would wish that we would be able to deliver earlier. The Media business, again, we have the kind of the low seasonality point, a number of assets are performing well, we continue to drive forward. The number of FTD intake that I mentioned previously, that will continue to secure future revenue scale.

And in terms of the margin, I think, again, it will fluctuate over time as we look at the various different structures. But we have consistently, over the last 12 -- well, 24 months, been improving that EBITDA margin and cash conversion all the way through. And I think that trend just -- we anticipate to continue as the business improves its scalability, reaches new levels of performance, delivers new customers, improves its products in the Media side, improves conversion. So a combined effort across the business, the same thing that we've been doing for the last 2 years that has led us to continue on a successive quarterly growth. We'll continue to drive what we've been doing the rest of this year and into next as well.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

Yes. And also a follow-up question on that from the audience was, I mean, you're now getting closer to your long-term guidance earlier maybe. Do you see potential to raise your midterm, long-term guidance? We're getting there earlier, so...

[Richard Brown, executive]

I think we're still very happy with the fact that we said we'd be at 50% or above 50% during next year at some point. So I think we keep on that. And I think also considering that with the thought process of the proposed or potential split of the 2 businesses into separate listed entities, I don't think it would make sense to make an adjustment on the group level. And I'm sure when the businesses actually eventually do move into separate listed entities, they will have their own targets, their own financial KPIs and their own kind of strategic intent when it comes to that.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

And also a few questions on the potential split-up or the ongoing split-up. I mean, for example, if you look at what remains, I mean, you were quite confident that operationally, you are set for Q4 this year. But do you have any risk elements there that could mean it's postponed, let's say?

[Richard Brown, executive]

No. From an operational standpoint, no, we don't anticipate there to be any kind of meaningful deviations from kind of end of Q4 element to it. I mean the timing that -- we never provided a guidance there on exactly when we would do it. We're not doing it for any other reason than we believe that the 2 businesses will perform significantly better in the next period of time. I see something has popped up on the screen.

So I think there's various different elements of it, and it's a complicated process, but we're very convinced that many of those items will be on track by the end of the year. And then we have a market dependency as well. We're not doing this for any other reason than to drive success for the group, for the business operations and for shareholders. So ensuring that we do it in a successful manner is the primary, not necessarily the time line of it.

We're still confident that, yes, H1 next year, probably more towards kind of earlier in the year than the latter part of H1, but that's our target now. And we obviously have the necessary -- the shareholder approvals that we will seek out towards the end of the year. And then there's market conditions as well that are dependent. So we're not going to do this if there's something -- we're not going to be specific on the plan because you don't know how the market is moving. We want to make sure that we do it in the best possible way.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

Yes. And do you have any input on, for example, how that will split up the bond and so on? Or is that too early to discuss?

[Richard Brown, executive]

Well, we're actually also going into a period where we would anticipate the refinancing before the end of the year, probably relatively soon, and that will probably become much clearer then. I mean, on a general comment, I suppose I can say that the bond was originally taken out in order to fund acquisition within the Media business. It would probably make sense, given the leverage ratio structures, that, that would carry at least the public bond and then we have some debt related to the Sportnco acquisition that we'll probably roll out. So that would be like both a logical operational split, but also in terms of the cash generation that the Media business is probably a good way of being able to finance or have a financial capital within that structure.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

Okay. Great. It sounds like we have an exciting H2 to look forward to and 2024 as well.

[Richard Brown, executive]

Indeed. Thank you very much.

[Hjalmar Ahlberg, analyst]

Thank you very much.

[Richard Brown, executive]

Thank you. Thank you, everyone.