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Hello, and welcome to the Better Collective Q1 2023 Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mikkel Munch Jacobsgaard. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our Q1 webcast. My name is Mikkel Munch Jacobsgaard, and I'm joined today by our Co-Founder and CEO, Jesper Sogaard; and CFO, Flemming Pedersen, as usual. Thank you for showing an interest in Better Collective and please follow me to the next page. As usual, we ask you to pay attention to this slide where we display our disclaimer regarding any forward-looking statements in today's webcast.
Please turn to Page 3. Here, you can see the agenda for today's presentation. We start out by Jesper taking you through our highlights for the quarter, then Flemming will take you through our financial performance before handing the word back to Jesper for business review. We will end the call with a Q&A session as always.
Let's get going. Please turn to the next page, as I hand the word over to you, Jesper.
Thank you, Mikkel, and hello, everyone. Q1 was a strong quarter for our group where we saw strong development across the full business. Let me take you through the key highlights. So please turn to the next slide. Q1 was a record-breaking quarter on the revenue side as it grew with 30% to EUR 88 million year-over-year where 23% were organic growth. I'm truly astonished of my colleagues, the company we've built together and how we keep pushing to break our own records. We continue our strong focus on recurring revenue. Hence, I'm proud seeing this grow 75% year-on-year, where we now also begin to see encouraging development in the U.S. after changing parts of our business from upfront payments, also called CPA to now recurring revenue share.
In Latin America, we have laid out a clear strategy for how to become the market leader, just like we have done in Europe and North America. This is paying off as our strong growth continues. Further in the Americas, we saw 2 states launched in Ohio and Massachusetts, which contributed to another strong quarter in this region. U.S. also saw great growth year-on-year despite very tough comps. During this call today, we'll focus on the growth markets in all of the Americas as these were a strong part of the reason for a tough performance during Q1.
We also hosted our Capital Markets Day, which was very well attended. We've received very positive feedback from both investors, shareholders and our own employees who all learned something new about our journey and vision of becoming the leading digital sports media group. During the day, we dived into all of our business areas and the viewers got the chance to peek into the tremendous talent pool we have in Better Collective as we have 9 different presenters. I would urge everyone to watch the presentation, which can be found on our corporate website. Lastly, in connection with our Capital Markets Day, an annual report, we announced new long-term financial targets for 2027, which shows the strong growth trajectory we are on. I'll come back to these later. Please go to the next slide where I hand over the word to our CFO, Flemming.
Thank you, Jesper, and good morning to you all. It's my pleasure to walk you through our numbers and financial highlights for the first quarter. So please follow me to the next page.
Q1 saw strong growth in revenue as we grew group revenues with 30% with 40% growth in Europe and rest of world and 19% in North America. 23% of this was organic growth, where the rest stems from our acquisitions of Futbin and Canada Sports Betting last year. Our EBITDA was EUR 33.3 million, which proved our strong operational leverage growing 44% year-on-year. Our operational cash flow spiked 154% during the quarter, partially due to a delayed cash flow in Q1 last year, where some of the cash flow was pushed into the second quarter. Lastly, as a shareholder myself, I'm happy to see that what is in my book, the mother of all KPIs, earnings per share was up by 52% year-on-year.
Please follow me to the next page. In Better Collective, we have always stayed focused on recurring revenue streams, being our revenue share income, subscription revenue and advertising sales. Our revenue share income is the legacy of Better Collective. During the past 20 years, we have built a large database of recurring revenues, which is truly paying off. Over the past few years, we have fast forwarded this move by sending record numbers of sports fans to our business partners on revenue share income contracts. I'm certain that this strong growth trend will continue in the future. Additionally, we have added subscription revenues and advertising sales over the past years. Here, we are focusing on ramping up our efforts, as we, for instance, are building our own internal ad tech platform during this year to cater for the advertising demand for our more than 150 million monthly sports fans returning to our media. If you wish to learn more about the ad tech investor -- ad tech investment, I would recommend you to read Jesper's CEO letter in our report. You can see on the chart here, we have managed to grow these recurring revenue streams steadily year-over-year and also during Q1, where we saw a very strong performance with recurring revenues being up 75% and now up to EUR 41 million in the quarter. Please turn to the next page. An important pillar is -- in our strategy is M&A, which, to a large extent, is self-funded through the strong cash conversion in our business, fluctuating around 100%. Also during Q1, we saw very strong cash conversion, which brought down our net debt-to-EBITDA. We expect net debt-to-EBITDA to be below 2x for the full year, excluding potential new acquisitions. On the top of bringing down our debt, we have been buying back shares during the first quarter.
Please turn to the next slide, where I hand the word back to Jesper for a walk-through of our business highlights.
Thanks a lot, Flemming. As mentioned, we saw good development in all of the Americas during the quarter. Please allow me to take that a step deeper.
Please turn to the next slide. Latin America remains a growth area for Better Collective, where we expect to see strong growth for many years to come. In the previous quarters, we have grown a strong presence in the region, which we wish to continue. During the first quarter, we established a local presence as we appointed as CEO of South America, Simon Hovmand-Stilling. We have been busy in building up a strong local organization around him, which already has gotten far. Moving forward, we will focus on utilizing our affiliation foundation as well as our other media capabilities. On top of this, we already have several media partnerships in the region and we expect to sign more in the near future. The ones who follow us will have heard this song before, as it's basically -- as it basically is our blueprint for success developed in Europe and also executed in North America. Different to our expansion into North America, the sports focus in Latin America is very similar to the 1 in Europe where soccer is by far the most popular sport. Very special for the Latin American region is their focus on social media, which is the capability we are focusing on building on top of our existing competences. Through these efforts, we expect to build a strong understanding of the local sports fans as Latin America, just like Europe, is a mix of many very different cultures. Lastly, we'll focus on complementing our offering and business model with strategic M&A. Please turn to the next slide. Our North American business has truly been an amazing ride for Better Collective since the PASPA repeal in 2018. Recently, it was the 5-year anniversary of the repeal, and it is quite astonishing how this time frame has come this far. We now have an extremely strong sports brand portfolio, amazing talent and delivered $100 million in revenues during 2022. The growth did not stop with last year as our American North American revenues grew 19% during Q1 this year. There were 2 new states launching sports betting in Ohio and Massachusetts. Ohio was really the perfect state launch as it was strategically well placed ahead of a lot of sporting events and completed without any regulatory turmoil. Massachusetts, on the other hand, launched on the back of the Super Bowl, hence, after the NFL season, and in a slower period. Furthermore, the industry experienced some turmoil around regulations not in place in due time. Nevertheless, the launch was good for us. It's worth reminding that Q1 last year was an extremely strong quarter as New York launched sports betting with record-high CPA rates and a lot of activity. And on top of this, our revenues last year were almost solely dependent on these upfront payments in CPA. worth reminding that Q1 last year was an extremely strong quarter as New York launched sports betting with record-high CPA rates and a lot of activity. And on top of this, our revenues last year were almost solely dependent on these upfront payments in CPA.
This year, we still managed to grow our business 19% despite the tough comps as well as absorbing our transition to recurring revenue share. We announced then around 60% to 70% of all new depositing customers in North America on revenue share deals. Hence, we are building recurring revenues for the future, which, of course, is short-term dampening here and there. Lastly, some of you might have noticed that we are now pulling North America, and that's because we have included Canada in our U.S. business. The reasoning behind this is simply that this is the way we are structured internally as Canada is managed out of our Manhattan office. You can find all relevant information on the shift in our report.
Please turn to the next page. Our 2023 targets have changed a bit since we last talked following our acquisition of Skycon Limited, a leading global display advertising company. This acquisition made us upgrade revenues and EBITDA, and we now expect EUR 305 million to EUR 315 million in revenues and EUR 95 million to EUR 105 million in EBITDA for the year. In connection with our Capital Markets Day and annual report, we announced new long-term financial targets. Here, we expect to grow our revenues with a compounded annual growth rate of more than 20% as well as maintaining our strong profitability with an EBITDA margin around 30% to 40%.
Please turn to the next page. As we look ahead, it's worth reminding ourselves of the natural seasonality in our business. As we're a sports media group, we rely on the sports calendar. And as most of you will know, the sports season is slow during the summer months. This means that our naturally largest quarters always have been Q1 and Q4, whereas Q2 and Q3 tend to see less action. We have noticed the positive development within women's soccer tournaments during the past years. Hence, we are looking forward to the Women's World Cup this summer held in Australia and New Zealand.
Please turn to the next page where I'll summarize our Q1 efforts. As mentioned, we are proud to present our shareholders with another record-breaking quarter, seeing strong growth in revenues, recurring revenues, EBITDA and all other relevant financial metrics. Our growth formula, which has been formulated over more than a decade in Europe and also have been implemented in North America has been proven its worth in our newest growth area in Latin America. We have invested in gaining a local footprint to get closer to the culture, sports fans and our business partners.
During Q1, we grew our U.S. revenues on the back of 2 new state launches, 22 states in the U.S. now allows sports betting, and we have developed an amazing blueprint through our learnings from the past 5 years that simply deliver in connection with each launch. Further, we still managed to grow more mature states. After another great quarter, I believe we have never been better positioned and prepared for the future as we expect to realize our vision of becoming the leading digital sports media group.
This concludes our webcast presentation. I'll now pass the word back to the operator and open for questions from the audience. Thank you very much for listening in.
[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Oscar Ronnkvist at ABGSC.
So first of all, I just had a question on the paid media margin, which looked exceptionally strong in the quarter. And so obviously, this is driven by your transition towards revenue share contracts, which you alluded to in the report. But what should we expect going forward? And what do you think is sort of the run rate here? Or can we just see it expand over time?
Thanks, Oscar. So on the margin for the paid, as you know, we have been building revenue share. And the effect of that is that we are more dependent on the sports win margin, meaning that for quarters where we see a strong sports win margin for the sports books, we will have some tailwind in the paid and basically also in the publishing part of our business. But I think this is what we are seeing in both Q4 last year and in this quarter that we had a strong sports win margin and that simply had a direct effect on the margin for the paid media business. And if you sort of take the opposite, let's assume we had, had a weak sports win margin, then you would also have seen a lower margin for the paid media business. And obviously, it will fluctuate. So it's just the nature of the business that some quarters will see a higher sports win margin. Others will see a lower sports win margin.
Perfect. Then just in -- you had, let's say, 40% growth, I think, in Europe and rest of world, just looking year-over-year. So how much of that will be driven by Latin America, you think? And also, I mean, what I'm trying to get a sense of is the underlying growth in, let's say, core European markets, which maybe has a little bit of a slower market growth, I suppose, if you could say anything about that.
Yes. So first of all, we give the -- you can say the segment reporting as a total. So we cannot, you can say, give the numbers in -- specified for Latin America. But clearly, as we comment, we say we are seeing strong growth in that region. And I think that goes for most of the industry. As we, you can say, also alluded to in our recent Capital Markets Day, we are seeing, you can say, also growth in the legacy business in Europe, we highlighted the U.K. as a market where we have seen very strong growth for us. And actually, by that, also taking market shares. So that's something that we stay very focused on to also remain present and build our business furthermore in legacy Europe, which is, after all, a very big market for us.
Perfect. Then just on -- in Latin America again. So I think that Brazil is quite an important market for you. And how do you expect the upcoming regulation to impact your top line?
Well, it's hard to speculate about like eventually the timing of it, when it will go live and then ultimately, the effect of that. And I think basically, the prospects of the Brazilian market long term are very exciting to us. So it's hard to comment concretely on that, but we are basically very excited about the developments in Brazil.
So in essence, do you think that the regulation will be a net positive for you? Or rather would it be, I mean, increased competition?
Well, in general, we always welcome regulation as it expands the market. So in essence, we are happy about regulation coming. We care about the long-term view, as you know. So -- and there we are dependent on regulation to open markets for us.
Great. Perfect. One more question on the U.S. So Massachusetts, I mean, finally, did that only become a CPA market? Or are you allowed to go rev share there? And also if you have some thoughts about the New York regulation maybe changing towards prohibiting revenue share?
Yes. I think for Massachusetts, and I think it's worthwhile noticing for many of, you can say, the regulators in the U.S., this is new territory. And you can say taking views from industry and other, Massachusetts was a fairly, you can say, condensed process. And there are still, you can say, debates around how to work there. There is an ongoing process in New York, which you can say we are slightly positive and also we'll continue to allow working on revenue share. But it is a political process in each state, you can say, and the regulators will have to find their feet there. And some, you can say, will likely return and revisit regulation once they have implemented the first go. So yes, we are positive on working on revenue share and our partners actually also -- or many of our partners are, you can say, also preferring that model going forward and supporting it. So yes, we'll have to see how it all pans out. But I think we have to accept that there's some, you can say, new territory to be late here.
Okay. Perfect. One last question, sorry. A lot of -- a lot from me today. But just on CPM rates, are you seeing any decreases in CPM rates? Or -- and is that sort of a material impact for you? Or is that sort of insignificant maybe?
Well, it is insignificant compared to the full business, but we are seeing decent CPM rates. So I think no material news related to the CPM rates for us.
Your next question comes from Hjalmar Ahlberg at Redeye.
Sorry, I had some problems connecting to the Q&A. But maybe first on NDC intake in Q1. Could you say anything about the market mix if that's similar to your revenue progress? Or if you can add some flavor on that, maybe?
Well, we don't -- just like with the revenue, we don't guide and give information specifically to the markets. But obviously, there are high-growth markets where we see a bigger intake. And we have mentioned Latin America as a market where we see strong growth, equally so with the U.S. and then still solid growth in Europe, but more of a mature market. So I think in terms of NDC mix, that is probably what you should have in mind.
Okay. And on the U.S. rev share transition. Could you talk a bit about how the revenue generation from these rev share contracts has been compared maybe to your expectation? And also maybe you can give some -- you've been given some feedback from the operators how do they view this model compared to the CPA model?
Yes, we have, you can say, those that are, you can say, we also work within Europe and rest of world. They are, of course, you can say, that's their clear preference. And for, you can say, those that -- where this is a new way of working, you can say, legacy U.S. operators, I think those we are working with are happy with the model. We are positive on, you can say, the development that we are seeing, even though it's early days, and we are still, I would say, in the investment phase here. It takes some time to get into positive territory, as you know. So -- but I think it's at least in line with our expectations, I would put it.
Right. And you mentioned the asset deal for sports media in emerging markets in the report. Could you explain what that was?
Yes. We did one acquisition in the first half. It was a fairly small acquisition and in a new territory for us. We have decided not to disclose it for competitive reasons.
Okay. I understand. And just curious also with the high player count we see in Counter Strike now, have you seen any material impact on HLTV from this? Or yes, if you could talk about that a bit, maybe?
Yes, there have been some very interesting developments in Counter Strike. In particular, the highlight being that CS:GO 2 will be launched this summer expectedly. So we believe, and I think we're already seeing that now that the interest in CS-GO will grow and basically bring in even more new players to this game, and we are just perfectly positioned for that and basically see record after record for HLTV in terms of traffic and financial performance. So yes, we are extremely excited about HLTV and fits very well with our long-term vision of becoming the leading digital sports media group.
Right. Great. And just a question on your costs. Staff cost was up a bit quarter-over-quarter, but employees were even down a bit, I think. Could you explain if it's something to think about there?
Yes. I think well noted and glad you asked. We had, I would say, a stellar performance in Q1, as we alluded to. And actually, we had, you can say, also by that part of our salaries are variable bonuses. So the -- in particular, also in the U.S. where we saw state launches where we have bonus payments for that, how the performance were there, they basically made throughout. So yes, we heavily appreciate that we have to pay out those but that's the reason for some, you can say, development in that cost base. Some of it will not, you can say, return as it was linked to the specific events. But yes, well noted.
Your next question comes from Marlon Varnik at Nordea Markets.
Yes. Great. So maybe if I can just start with a follow-up here on the previous question. Could you give some more color and quantify what's the bonus-related cost here in Q1?
Yes. We do not specify it, you can say, by that, but it has a marginal effect. And as I said, some of it is one-offs related to the very high performance that we saw. But if I should give, you can say, a guidance, it will have, you can say, a small dampening effect in Q2 on the cost development. Nothing you can say material in that sense.
Yes. Great. And the start of Q2 here, I mean EUR 27 million revenues for April, it's above the February, March daily average revenue. Normally, the calendar would soften here after March. Can you give some color on what's driving the April number here compared maybe to February or March?
Well, we still see good momentum in the business. And we also had -- we still have all the big football leagues going in Europe. We also have seen a pretty solid sports win margin. And then finally, Massachusetts launched in March, also sort of having an effect in April. But fundamentally, April was good and the business have been doing well across the board.
Yes. Great. And just on the growth here for Q1, organic growth, 30% -- or sorry, total growth 30% organic, 23%. Can you give the split what's the FX growth for the quarter? And also if you can give the revenue currency exposure we have now?
I think the currency growth was very limited because we actually saw a decline in the U.S. dollar, so that had very little impact. It is mostly the U.S. dollar, where we are exposed to when recognizing revenue and profits in the U.S. So second half of last year, we saw a positive effect. And as you know, the U.S. dollar has come down a bit or actually quite a lot in the first Q. So it is, I would say, immaterial to the quarter.
Yes. Fair enough. And just lastly here on M&A. You mentioned that the strategy going forward is the sports media companies. How do you see M&A within the casino vertical, for example, to strengthen the U.S. position here?
So I think actually, Flemming laid out during our Capital Markets Day, sort of our views on M&A. And there, we are not excluding the idea of potentially doing an iGaming acquisition. But it's just not our primary focus, and it would have to be for very specific reasons. But ultimately, for sports betting, casino will be a complementary product. So it's not our primary focus. We, ideally, are looking for strong sports media brands. But if there is the right opportunity, then we would not exclude the idea of acquiring a casino business.
Yes. And for your 2027 strategy, does it include U.S. casino, or would M&A within the casino space add additional upside to your 2027 targets?
Well, so in general, the 2027 targets include M&A financed by our cash flow and credit facilities. So obviously, that would entail all kind of acquisitions that we will make.
[Operator Instructions] We currently have no further telephone questions.
Thank you. This is Mikkel again. I will take our written questions, and I'll just remind that you can also write us questions online, if you have any. We'll start here. In terms of M&A, how much significant is Better Collective placing on M&A for its future growth and development?
I think if you look back the last 5 years since we listed the company, there have been a mix of organic growth and acquired growth. And there's nothing sort of fundamentally changing when we look ahead. So I think it's, of course, very difficult to guide exactly on this. But I would assume and expect that it's more -- it will be similar to what we've seen in the past.
Yes. And then another question here. What parallels do you see between the European and Latin American sports betting sectors?
I think there are definitely more similarities between Latin America and Europe than in, for example, North America and Europe. It's because of the nature of sports interest. So soccer, or as we call it here in Europe football, is the main sport. When you look at the mix of sportsbooks, it's also more similar between Europe and Latin America than compared to North America and Europe. So in some ways, it feels more like our home turf, Latin America, but still with cultural differences between the countries. But I think it's more of a similar market to Europe than when you compare North America and Europe.
Yes. There are no more written questions from the webcast. I don't think there are more from the phones as well. So this concludes the Q&A session. Thank you very much for showing interest in Better Collective, and we'll see you next quarter.
This concludes today's presentation. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.