Acroud AB

STO:ACROUD

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q3

[Robert Andersson, executive]

All right. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this Q3 presentation for 2023. If we take a look at the agenda, we have the Q3 highlights. We're going to have to go over some Q3 figures, Q3 summary. The financial details, Andrzej, which is our new CFO, he'll introduce himself when it's his turn. He will go over that. And then we will end off as usually with the Q&A.

And if we look at the key highlights, we've made EUR 1.2 million EBITDA and EUR 9.9 million in revenue, which is a 48% year-on-year growth, and 72,300 NDCs, 114% growth.

Going to the next slide. There we go. So revenue amounted to EUR 9.9 million. It's not as high as our last year -- or sorry, our last quarter. However, this is due to seasonality. And the adjusted EBITDA amount is EUR 1.2 million, that is also again, due to seasonality, and we are taking a lot of costs in investment in the future in this quarter. Basically, from Q3 onwards, now going forward, we will see EBITDA growing.

Profit after tax was minus EUR 1.9 million, and adjusted profit after tax was minus EUR 750,000. NDCs 72,300, as I said before, so we go to the next slide.

I'll talk a little bit more about this. Revenue, as you will be able to say, we are keeping that stable over the last year for around EUR 10 million. The NDCs is another really strong number, however, lower than last quarter. Again, you have July and August are really quiet months. So that's why we have this drop and we say that again, as normally, Q4 is really picking up.

We have a new CFO, Tricia decided that she was going to move on in her career, and I'm really happy we have Andrzej with us now. And then with this, we're also restructuring our finance department. We are making some changes to, again, keep cost down and using our own Voonix software, we are able to streamline our organization even further.

We did execute all of these changes in earn-out deals and strengthen our balance sheet, where our contingent liabilities has gone from pretty much around EUR 25 million to EUR 3.7 million and our liabilities to shareholder has gone to 0. So you will see this later when Andrzej go it over. It's a significantly strengthened balance sheet.

And as I mentioned before, you have the group revenue development, stable around EUR 10 million over the last 4 quarters. And you will see that this Q4 will be a growth over last Q4. With that, I'm fairly certain. Obviously, we are still in early days, but we're happy how this quarter has started out.

And if we go to the last slide from my part today, so I think it's important to recap what Acroud really is because we are Acroud -- we are not one company in that sense, a crowd is an umbrella. And in it, we have a leading SaaS offering, which is Voonix. It's pretty much the best tracking software that you have in the affiliate industry.

We have the super affiliate network with matching visions, also the largest pretty much in the industry. We have the global poker news with PokerListings. We are running Sweden's largest betting and gambling community. And we do have our old traditional casino and sports affiliation, and we have the media buying and partnerships with FAIRGROUNDS in the U.K. We have turned into a really sports-centric organization at the moment.

And with that, I will hand it over to some financial details from our new CFO, Andrzej.

[Andrzej Mieszkowicz, executive]

Thank you, Robert, and good morning, everyone. I'm Andrzej Mieszkowicz, and we'll walk you through the financial part of this presentation.

On the first slide, we can see an exit from a balance sheet that is much stronger, and this is because of a massive reduction in liabilities and increase in equity. That was due to execution of the written procedure in Q3. That consisted of injection of share capital, bond to equity conversion, shareholders loan conversion to equity, sale of 9% of media business, removal put option from minority and earnout settlement agreement.

Moving to the next slide. There is a revenue development and NDC development. Compared to the last quarter of the last year, the revenue increased by 48% to EUR 9.9 million. iGaming affiliation segment contributed 90% of an increase and the SaaS segment, 13%. On the right hand of the slide, we see the NDC development. It dropped from the quarterly perspective, mostly due to seasonality, but if you look at the -- if we compare to the year-over-year figures, then we see 114% increase, which causes it's of iGaming affiliation, 150% increase and 51% in the SaaS segment business.

Now we see the group revenue development quarter-over-quarter. There is a decrease in revenue by 4%, that corresponds to EUR 413,000. That is due to increasing the SaaS network model, but a decrease in Sports Betting by EUR 796,000 as I mentioned, mostly due to seasonality and decrease in the SEO traditional business of Casino.

Here, we see the group cost bridge quarter-over-quarter. The cost is more or less at the same level, just a small increase of EUR 26,000. That is due to increase in the SaaS network payouts. But also on the other hand, we see a decrease in other external costs, mostly attributable to the Media business.

Now moving on to the adjusted EBITDA development. We see that adjusted EBITDA decreased by 27% quarter-over-quarter. If we look at the margin, then the group blended margin is 12%. We have affiliation very good margin of 24% and the SaaS segment of 6%.

Now I'm going to present to the iGaming affiliation revenue details. So here, we have a sports betting vertical, that is the largest, which comprises of 85% of iGaming revenue. Then the poker is 10% and casino is 5%.

Here, we see the revenue -- by the revenue model and by affiliation type. As per the revenue model, revenue share -- from the revenue share is going 78% of the revenue from the CPA 11 and 11 from other sources. And this is a very good mix going forward.

As for the affiliation type, the Paid Media is the largest one. That was because of acquisition of Paid Media and it has 75%. SEO, traditional business, 21% and 4% social and community based, and this is in line with the previous quarter.

Here, we can see NDC development. As I already mentioned, it is mostly due to seasonality in the Q3. iGaming segment delivered above 53,000 NDCs which is -- which corresponds to the yearly increase of 150% and the quarterly decrease of 47%.

As far adjusted EBITDA development, adjusted EBITDA stood for -- nearly EUR 1.4 million, which is increase both in the yearly comparison and comparison to the previous quarter.

Here, it is the section of adjusted cost base development. We had a slight increase in the personnel cost by 5%, and that was due to restructuring of the finance department. And we have also other external costs decrease of 25% attributable to the Media business.

Here in this section, it is about the SaaS segment. We start from the revenue development. We see that the network model increased by 20% and subscription model decreased 3%.

Now moving on to the adjusted EBITDA development. The SaaS segment EBITDA was EUR 252,000, which corresponds to decrease in the comparison to the previous year and to the previous quarter. That was due to increased cost in Q3 related to development of new features and making the products more user friendly.

Now we move to the RGU development. We see that the SaaS segment delivered 429,000 RGUs, which is a yearly increase of 9%, and on a quarterly basis, it stays the -- same at the same level.

Now financing and cash flow section. We see really a reduction in gross debt that is like a significant highlight here. That was mostly due to the bond to equity conversion for SEK 25 million that happened during Q3. That was as a result of the written procedure. And then on the right, we see the net debt to adjusted EBITDA. It stays at a constant level of 2.2, that is lower than the target of 2.5.

Here, it is the section about cash flow development. We see the operating cash flow at a level above EUR 1.1 million. But when we look at here, what is important to note is the cash conversion ratio. It improved from 83% to 97%, and it stays at 98% in 2023. That is a very, very good, impressive result.

That is all from my part. Thank you. Robert, please.

[Robert Andersson, executive]

Thank you, Andrzej. So with that, we are opening for Q&A.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

[Robert Andersson, executive]

Okay. Well, then, thank you for taking a look at our Q3 presentation, and I look forward to seeing you at Q4. Thank you.

[Andrzej Mieszkowicz, executive]

Thank you so much. Thank you.