Gaming Innovation Group Inc

OSE:GIG

Earnings Call Transcript 2019-Q3

[Petter Nylander, Chairman of the Board]

Good morning, everyone here in Stockholm, and good morning, everyone, and welcome who's listening in over the webinar. My name is Petter Nylander, I'm representing the Board as the Chairman of the Board of Gaming Innovation Group. As you've seen this morning, we released that we yesterday have a new CEO, Mr. Richard Brown, who will present the Q3 report soon. Richard comes from a very strong career within GiG, as you say, and the industry. He's been working in the industry for 10 years and lately, at Gaming Innovation Group as its Chief Operating Officer. So Richard has impressed the Board since he was appointed acting CEO and after process and review, we, as of today, has signed and given Richard a strong mandate as the CEO for Gaming Innovation Group. We're looking forward to working with Richard and the team, driving shareholder value and executing on the things we have ahead of ourselves. So with that, I'll leave the word over to Richard, and I'll also be available for the Q&A session after presentation. Thank you. Richard?

[Richard Brown, Chief Executive Officer]

Perfect. Thank you very much, Petter, and welcome to everyone here this morning for the Q3 presentation from Gaming Innovation Group. As Petter introduced [ myself ], I would like to also just spend a little bit of time introducing myself as well because, I think, I'm quite new to a lot of the people here listening in as well. Yes, as Petter mentioned, I've been working in the online gambling industry for the past 10 years, predominantly in the media business, in which I joined GiG in 2017, early 2017, to lead the Media Services division. I spent the next 3 years building that up and then moving into the group COO position in September of last year. And now truly honored to be leading this company as CEO and very excited about the future potential that this company has. So today, I'm going to go through some of the elements from Q3. Just a brief agenda. We will do a business overview and some key takeaways from the quarter. We will touch on the financial results. Then, I will dive into more detail around the strategic and business update and some action points that we expect to deliver on in the upcoming quarters, followed by a Q&A by -- with myself and our group CFO, Tore, and Petter. So for those of you who are new to Gaming Innovation Group, I would like to also just spend a moment or two explaining what the company is and how it works. We're an iGaming solutions company. We are -- have business verticals across the entire value chain of iGaming, predominantly those being in services. We split the company essentially into a B2B and B2C offering. Within the B2B offering, we have a core technology platform or core services that enable clients to transition their online -- their offline businesses or build brands onto a casino platform. We also have a proprietary Sportsbook there that can be sold either as an individual Sportsbook or as part of the platform services itself. Then, we also run a media business that helps to facilitate the acquisition of casino and Sportsbook customers for various clients on a -- with a relatively global footprint. We also have 4 of our own operators. Not only does this operator business provide a growth story in itself and great potential, it also allows us to build up a managed services capability. As the industry itself transitions from an offline space into online as regulation drives that, more land-based casinos are looking to go online and having a managed services facilitating that where a lot of these land-based companies or media houses, for instance, have little experience with the online gambling world. That we can provide a service to that is imperative for our offering. Again, just to continue on GiG in brief, if you will, we've approximately 650 staff working in various locations. Our headquarters are in Malta. We have offices in Copenhagen, Marbella in Spain, Gibraltar and Norway as well. We're dual listed, as many of you will know, both in Oslo BøRs and on the NASDAQ in Stockholm. We have 4 of our own brands, I mentioned. 34 external customers working on our platform and licensed for both B2C and B2B in the U.K., Malta, New Jersey, in the U.S., Sweden, a Schleswig-Holstein German license, recently awarded a Spanish license and an affiliate license in Romania. So I will touch on Q3 now in some -- in more detail as well. I am quite positive about the underlying business position and drivers [ set ] within the various business verticals. However, the conditions in the market has developed this year in a very challenging way. There were challenges facing the entire industry, and we must try now to adapt to that. There were some very positive drivers, as I mentioned, within the underlying business areas. And some key takeaways or highlights for me from the quarter. We actually launched with SkyCity. SkyCity is the largest online-based and entertainment land-based casino group in New Zealand. We went -- after signing with them in Q2, we went live with them in Q3. We also extended our partnership with Hard Rock in the U.S., going live in Iowa with a retail sports betting solution and online to follow in the coming quarter. We also, as part of the strategic initiatives last year, decided to focus on fewer brands within our operators, moving away from multi-brand strategy. As part of that, we divested one of our brands, highroller.com. That sale was completed in Q3, and the buyer, Ellmount Gaming, will become a B2B customer in that process. We've also taken some initiatives and actions to strengthen the cash flow and reduce the burn rate within the core platform. We closed our proprietary game studio. It was what we consider not only a financial benefit, but also a strategic one. It didn't fit our core business focus. We were granted an online casino license in Spain, which we are now certified with the platform in as well, enabling both B2C and B2B operations there. And we are also finalized with the affiliation license in Romania. As I said before, there's some strong underlying KPIs, and I think I'll show later some of those when it relates to Rizk, which is our flagship own operator brand. So the head figures. Yes, challenging headwinds in the industry, but we've maintained a stable and steady development over that time period. Revenues coming in over the last 12 months at EUR 133 million, with EBITDA coming in at EUR 14.4 million. Q3 specifics, we achieved revenues of just over EUR 30 million. Cost of sales was at EUR 6.7 million, so a slight increase of 5% in the same period last year. This was driven mainly by the increase in revenue generated from regulated markets, the tax increase there. Marketing was down by 33% to EUR 7.1 million. Again, this relates predominantly down to the fact that we shifted from a multi-brand strategy to put all of the marketing spend behind or the majority of marketing spend towards our flagship brand, Rizk, as well as an adaptation from a kind of more broad marketing spend and channels into more digital ROI-focused ones. Other OpEx initiatives, we've -- over the year have resulted in other OpEx of EUR 13.7 million, which is a decrease of 10% comparatively to the same period last year, the resulting EBITDA being at EUR 2.7 million. I will now just go over some strategic and operational updates. I think it's always pertinent when a new CEO comes on board that they take stock of what they have in front of them in terms of the company. The board and I have now initiated a full strategic review of the business to enable and identify where the best value creation opportunities are. The objectives of that review essentially are to identify those really value driving, improve our capital allocation as part of that. We want to reduce the complexity within the organization. It's grown very quickly as a very -- over the last couple of years. We need to make sure that we're taking stock and that we're allocating everything in the right possible way to drive the long-term value in the company, improve our efficiency, strengthen that strategic position that we have in each of the various business verticals and then of course drive a better execution ability within the company. At the end of this, we would like to be able to set out to everyone what the -- and enable the real full potential of this business to be captured. We've -- obviously, with the conditions over this year, we've taken several strategic -- several initiatives to push through on the cost savings. So far this year that has resulted in a saving of about EUR 5.2 million, and we have significant and further initiatives that will drive that further in the year to come. One of those already in is executed on, the closure of the game studio, which leads to a savings of EUR 250,000 per month. We expect those savings to come in, in full from the new year. We are moving to a new tech infrastructure that will also, once fully migrated, result in annualized savings of EUR 3.5 million. We will start to see the benefit of that already next year, with 2021 being a full year of savings in that regard. We will also work on a lower level of CapEx and decommissioning the legacy software, further optimization of the marketing strategies and markets that we're in, making sure that it's always return-on-investment positive and further increase in efficiency throughout the organization. Again, a company that's growing very quickly and needs to move into a secondary life cycle of a mature more in everything it does whether that be procurement throughout the organization. All of those elements now need to be addressed into a much more mature organizational structure. Headcount, we went down obviously with the closure of games as well. We're down to 656 persons, in general. Given the scope of what we're trying to achieve, that's sort of a quite steady number. Of course, if we're looking to enter new markets, that number may fluctuate as well. So I will now just move on to the business update. I will start with our gaming operators, our B2C business. As you can see, pretty steady revenue development throughout the year despite the headwinds that we face with the reregulation in Sweden. And I'm very pleased and proud to say that we've -- after the strategic shift we made last year from a multi-brand strategy to that single-brand strategy, that we've resulted in an all-time high in EBITDA for the B2C segment of EUR 2.4 million. Rizk, as we've planned, has been -- is the main growth driver, 75% of revenues, had an EBITDA margin of 17.3% and year-on-year growth despite that Sweden impact of 2%. So some very positive aspects when we look at what we did, shifting towards Rizk as the main brand. As I said, I think, when we now focus on Rizk and we've -- coming out into next year, we have a focus on growth in what we consider [ essentially ] immature or emerging markets. We're focusing also next year in those regulated markets, Spain, Croatia, to drive the growth, where we believe that the transition from online to offline is still at an immature phase, which will enable us to grow with the market itself. Spain, for example, I think, in H2 -- or in quarter 2 had a casino growth of the market of 30%. So a very positive market to be entering in, in 2020. We talked a lot about Sweden, and the industry itself has talked a lot about Sweden throughout the year. And I think it's pertinent as shareholders and everything that you're aware of some of the more details around the impact, that it's hard on us, and also why I'm positive or bullish, especially about the development of Rizk. The graph you see in front of you is unique depositing customers. If you look at the first graph, it's the total. If you include Sweden, as you see, there's still growth there through the quarters in Rizk. But if you can see, when we moved the marketing spend away from Sweden, when we realized that, that marketing spend would not generate a positive return on the new level of player values, this enabled us to then shift that marketing funds into other markets where we see real growth and actual return on spend as well. And as you can see, the number of unique depositing customers is growing significantly outside of that. A similar story when we look at the revenue split. Sweden prior to regulation was a very high-value market in Europe, developed, spend is good. And I would like to just bring your attention to the graph, particularly on the right. Again, moving away from Sweden and driving revenue growth in the newer markets. In Media services, again, also impacted by the changing environment in Scandinavia. This led to a slight decline in revenues of around EUR 400,000 comparatively to Q3 in 2018. Again, underlying growth mechanics, I'm very pleased with and positive towards the impact of revenue comparative period, around 23% down in Sweden, but that has been offset by the growth in new markets as well. A lot of projects that we initiated in new markets, new verticals, et cetera, in 2018 are starting to pay dividends and show results, up to around 15% of the total FTDs now from quite a low level last year and still continued growth, 49% in growth from those projects quarter-on-quarter. When it comes to the U.S., we started around, just prior to PASPA, building up a site organically over the time period. We relaunched the site with a new design, a site called wsn.com. Our approach is a nationwide approach towards the U.S. We believe, given the levels of investment that we can afford in that, that will pay the biggest return to grow organically over the time period entering states from a kind of multifaceted perspective, which also enables that growth to come. It will be a slow burn. It is a complex and regulatory environment not only for operators, but also for affiliation. You have licensing, which is unusual in Europe, which will be pretty predominant in the U.S. However, I believe we're quite well positioned to enter each of the different states now with a lower level of investment or than that we would have to if we were to have to acquire something that's already there. Still relatively low levels, but I'm very pleased with the actual development of the site across the U.S., and I'm looking forward to investing more in particular into that project over the coming 18 months. We're in a position of transferring or moving towards a software-as-a-service model away from the white-label model to increase the sustainability and produce higher earnings quality as well. You see there that the revenues have declined in the comparable period. One of the things that must be adjusted for as well is we terminated the client in Q1, which affects numbers gradually and also, of course, our white label is being affected by Scandinavian changes. I think one of the things we're doing, especially to accelerate this and improve this area as well is we're investing into the sales capacity that we have. Our target audience, the land-based casino, is transitioning online. There are more complex negotiation periods. The offerings we're giving them is more complex. The regulatory aspects are also lengthier. So in that case, we're ensuring that we need to address that by investing in our sales capacity in order to be able to help those clients transfer. The EBITDA has also impacted this quarter by an investment into that managed services. It's something that we've seen has been -- is an essential part of the offering, in which we needed to capture as well at this point. Again, as I said, we have reduced the burn rate going forward as well by the closure of GiG Games, and we've continued to work on the efficiency of that platform. The tech infrastructure savings will predominantly impact this area as well. Sports Betting, continual investment in that. Of course, it's a difficult segment that we are -- and an investment cycle that's still in the -- relatively early in the comparison to some of the larger competitors. In order to accelerate the improvement in this particular area, we employed a new management team, a new Director of Sports, Stuart Weston, has joined us, comes with 20 years of experience from William Hill, Scientific Games and brands such as that. They have a concrete focus and target to breakeven by the end of H1 in 2020, which they believe they will be able to achieve by utilizing our own in-house brands, Guts in particular, with a localized focused market approach. We use our proprietary odds in those markets in order to be able to compete on price, [ but like ] meeting on price, we have a lesser cost of marketing that should drive up the revenues in this segment going forward. I think there's some -- again, some -- as soon as we started with the trading, our own manual trading in the beginning -- at the end of the summer, we saw a quarter-on-quarter increase of actives and turnover of 25% -- 24% to 22% as well. Key priority there is to continue to build on that momentum. We also then launched -- on the B2B side, to launch a Sportsbook in the second state of Iowa with Hard Rock, pleased to expand that partnership further. And just to recap, we have 4 external customers and 2 internal brands running our Sportsbook as of today. Again, as I'm new, I would like to kind of present some of the main action points that I would like to be working on and completing over the coming quarters as well, just to give you some more transparency around what our main priorities and focus areas are for the various business units. On a group level, as I said, we closed GiG Games in order to reduce the burn rate. We have initiated that full strategic review of the company that we hope will deliver -- or we'll ensure that delivers better shareholder value going forward. We have initiated the bond refinancing projects with Pareto and ABG selected as advisers in that process. And, of course, continue to optimize the company and its non-related -- non-marketing-related OpEx. From B2C, as I said, we've already completed that kind of shift towards a much more flagship brand focus. We'll continue to support that. We completed the divestiture as part of that strategic review as well of highroller.com, and as I mentioned before, entering into new markets in 2020 to accelerate that growth. In Media, very similar story, investing into new markets and delivering on continued growth in those new projects, new markets to substitute the decline in player values in Sweden. And from B2B, main focus being the acceleration of the sales pipeline and building up the sales capacity in even more complex environment. And of course, yes, move to more -- reduce the burn rate further by moving to a much more efficient tech stack. On B2B, as I previously mentioned, we have full focus by a localized market approach, enabling that part of the business to try and to breakeven in H2 -- end of H1 in 2020. In summary, I believe that each of the various business areas hold strong global position with positive underlying KPIs. As Petter alluded to at the beginning, the industry is adapting and adjusting to a new reality of where we stand after Sweden's regulation and the upcoming regulatory changes. We are coming to an end of an investment cycle as GiG. We, therefore, need to adapt to a strategic review to make sure that all of those capital allocations are actually bringing up value going forward. And we need to focus on the performance, execution and reduce the complexity within the organization. I believe, as I said, all of those business areas are well positioned to capitalize from the further transition from offline to online that is happening throughout the world. And I guarantee that now we'll have a full focus on driving shareholder value in the years to come. Thank you very much for your time today. We will now have a Q&A. And we'll pass over to -- Jonas?

[Jonas Amnesten, Equity Analyst]

Jonas Amnesten from Redeye. So I have a few questions. The first one is regarding the Rizk brand. It had a quite good development looking between Q3 and Q2, both on the revenues as well as the EBITDA margin. Could you explain a bit more how -- what were the drivers behind this development?

[Richard Brown, Chief Executive Officer]

As I said, I think, when we made that strategic shift to a kind of single brand, that takes time to really develop when you put all the marketing spend behind it over a period of time, shifting it away from the other brands, the results are not going to be immediate. We've also made adjustments within the B2B -- B2C organization over the last, like, 9, 12 months in order to reduce the non-related marketing OpEx as well, and again, focusing on more efficient marketing channels. So that's been driven. And also some kind of growth markets as well, which have kind of tailed into that growth.

[Jonas Amnesten, Equity Analyst]

Okay. But have you increased the marketing expense for that brand? Or...

[Richard Brown, Chief Executive Officer]

Yes, in relation to the total. So the total marketing spend may be down, but as a percentage of risks, then we've increased it over the period.

[Jonas Amnesten, Equity Analyst]

Okay. And I also have a question about the Indian market, what potential do you see for that market? And what actions...

[Richard Brown, Chief Executive Officer]

We entered the Indian market, I believe, right at the end of Q2. We're still obviously investing into that market. My personal view is that, I think, a lot of these emerging markets will probably take quite some time to reach their full potential. So it's very good that we can get into them quite early. They are more complex markets than we're kind of used to in Europe. So therefore, I would make sure that we kind of do it in a very sensible way. I don't want to go into a market with full, like -- diverting a huge amount of the marketing spend into it, unless I'm confident that we can get the return on the player values there as well. I think it's -- all emerging markets are positive as well. For next year, as I mentioned, our focus will be on Spain and Croatia, both which are regulated, but we believe that they have underlying growth factors in there. So those will be our 2 priorities. Obviously, when you have Spain, then Latin America kind of opens up as well. You get a natural flow from that continent coming to the site -- coming to the brand, you have language support. So there's an easier -- the barrier of entry for us would then be lower into that market. But again, that's something kind of future down line. I want to make sure that when we go after a market, we're localized, that we have full focus on it, and we don't spread ourselves too thin. So therefore, key markets for us next year will be Croatia and Spain.

[Jonas Amnesten, Equity Analyst]

Okay. And my last question, regarding the Media segment, you had a bit of drop in FTDs. Could you elaborate a bit more on why the FTDs...

[Richard Brown, Chief Executive Officer]

Yes. So that's a combination of the regulatory marketing channels changing in Sweden a little bit as well. But also, there's been some -- several Google updates throughout the year, some of them have been positive, some of them have been neutral, and some of them have been a slight decline. So we experienced on some of our sites a decline in the Google rankings at the end of Q3, which has a slight impact in the FTD numbers. As I said, the growth in new projects are showing very good trends, maybe more -- some of the more mature markets that we've seen that in. We've just reorganized the Media division. Obviously, I was quite heavily involved for quite some time. We have a new management team there and new structure. And I'm very confident in the new team and the new structure. And also just talking about capital allocation before, I think this is an area that when -- as we go through the strategic review, we'll probably see that -- my gut feeling at least is maybe we've under-invested a little bit in that particular segment. And therefore, I would like to make sure that we would drive that forward. I'm very confident in the team that we'll be able to regain in those FTD growth as well.

[Operator]

We have a question from Andreas Aaen from Symmetry Investments.

[Andreas Aaen]

This is Andreas from Symmetry in Denmark. Can you hear me clearly?

[Richard Brown, Chief Executive Officer]

Yes. Hi, Andreas.

[Andreas Aaen]

Perfect -- perfectly. Yes, first of all, congratulations with the permanent CEO position. I have a few questions. Regarding the strategic review, can you disclose how broad is that? Is it like only for internal efficiency process? Or is it like you can sell segments or sell the whole company or how broad is that?

[Richard Brown, Chief Executive Officer]

For me, it's important as a CEO to get a full scope of the company as part of the strategic review. So it will be broad and wide-ranging in order to make sure that we don't leave any stone unturned when it comes to identifying what the value proposition for each part of the business will be, both now and in the future.

[Andreas Aaen]

Okay. I would -- with an investment bank, or is it just an internal project so far?

[Richard Brown, Chief Executive Officer]

We appointed advisers as well, external advisers, to assist us in the process.

[Andreas Aaen]

Okay, then about Highroller. How is this accounted for? I would have assumed you get that EUR 7 million [ lift ] as the onetime benefit or is it like throughout the transition period? Or how is this drawn from the books?

[Richard Brown, Chief Executive Officer]

Tore, maybe you want to detail on how we're accounting for the Highroller?

[Tore Formo, Group Chief Financial Officer]

Yes, I can elaborate a bit on that. We have -- we get paid over a period of 48 months. And if they fail to pay, the IP and the product will be returned to us. So in discussion with our auditors, we have decided to book that as an operational lease. We'll have a revenue stream over those 48 months covering that sales price and not a gain in the Q3 when we sold the asset.

[Andreas Aaen]

Okay. And that will be accounted for in the B2C segment or in the quarter?

[Tore Formo, Group Chief Financial Officer]

In Q3, it was in the B2C segment. It was just a very little amount since it was -- yes.

[Andreas Aaen]

Okay, then regarding the SkyCity. When you start that one, you talked about it, it could be as flat as the one you terminated, the big one. Are you happy with the development so far with SkyCity? Or has it developed more slowly or how do you think about that one?

[Richard Brown, Chief Executive Officer]

Sorry, Andreas, could you just repeat that question? Was that about SkyCity? Yes.

[Andreas Aaen]

Yes. Regarding SkyCity, the revenue development so far, the uptick in the revenue since the launch, are you happy with that or it has been slower than you expected? Or...

[Richard Brown, Chief Executive Officer]

I'm not going to comment too much detail around the exact development. I think it's still very early days with SkyCity. We've only been live for a couple of months. So I'm very pleased with the launch and pleased with the partnership that we have. I think the New Zealand market, especially post regulation, is going to be an incredibly exciting one for SkyCity and therefore for us as well. So that's my feeling on SkyCity at the moment.

[Andreas Aaen]

Okay, then on GiG Core, you had a drop from EUR 4.2 million to EUR 3.6 million in this quarter. Like, that's a 15% sequential drop from Q2. And if I look at Hard Rock, that was flat, like B2C flat. You had SkyCity up and running, so where did all the decline come from in the GiG Core? Was this from Sweden or...

[Richard Brown, Chief Executive Officer]

Predominantly from white labels being impacted by the decline in the Scandinavian market.

[Andreas Aaen]

Okay. And then on the pipeline for new turnkey contracts, are you in some tender process or anything that is quite close? Or -- you talked about building up the pipeline now, but that's nothing like the [ de minimis ] that would come close [indiscernible]

[Richard Brown, Chief Executive Officer]

We continue in the process of several tenders, and as I mentioned in the report as well, as like -- I think we're coming to a stage now where we really want to invest and accelerate that sales process and develop it a little bit more. I think it's -- as I said before, the clients that we're targeting, if we're trying to transition away from kind of the lower earnings quality within the white label model over to a higher kind of software-as-a-service with greater upside and longer -- longevity that the sales process is around them. And also as our offering is quite complex in terms of managed services for those transition-based clients, the sales process is longer, and we need to adapt to that. And that's why I kind of mentioned that [ we're something ] -- we will accelerate and invest into improving over the coming 12 months as well.

[Andreas Aaen]

Okay. And then the last question for me. Regarding the sports side, you've not really improved the revenue over the last -- like I think you launched Sportsbook for the World Cup last year, that's like 18 months now. How are you going to like have the sudden acceleration in H1 next year? You have, like, to have a real, real big push now. And do you have the margin dollars to really get to that push to get the breakeven?

[Richard Brown, Chief Executive Officer]

Yes, it's a very good question, Andreas. So I think, as I said before, we have the new management team coming in place who have a wealth of experience and the proprietary odds we have will enable us to be able to be competitive on price, so that we don't have to spend as much in marketing as you would do to be able to reach that kind of price level, at least that's the position we're taking now. That's the approach that we will take by having such a localized approach with odds that we can compete against other people with that will enable us to take the player uptake increasing and, therefore, the NGR as well.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Questions at this time? Please go ahead, speakers.

[Petter Nylander, Chairman of the Board]

Yes. Okay. We have a question from the web here. There seems to be tremendous traffic coming from Rizk -- coming to Rizk from India. Care to comment? How do you consider the revenue potential from India short term and long term?

[Richard Brown, Chief Executive Officer]

I think -- I mean Jonas also asked something about India. The traffic to the [ Indian ] site. I mean just as a word of warning for everyone is that the tools that you use to monitor external traffic are not all that reliable. We've been running marketing campaigns in India to try and drive traffic to the website in order to try and capture what we believe might be the initial value of those customers. I believe there's potential in the market, that's why we're there. However, as I said, I would like to make sure that we're doing things in a pragmatic and solid way that we can make sure that we get the return on investment before we go overboard on a particular marketing spend. No more questions?Okay. Thank you very much for your time, everyone, today. We look forward to seeing you in -- with the Q4 numbers. Thank you.