Catena Media PLC

STO:CTM

Earnings Call Transcript

[Manuel Stan, executive]

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Catena Media's Q4 interim report. I am Manuel Stan. And today, I'm joined by our Chief Financial Officer, Mike Gerrow. Today, we will be speaking to our Q4 interim report, related financials and our strategy and outlook.

We will start today's presentation with a high-level summary of the most important developments in the quarter.

During the quarter, we have continued to improve our profitability, as we saw a second consecutive quarterly improvement while reaching the highest adjusted EBITDA margin since Q3 2023. This was the result of the team's continuous efforts on efficiency across the entire organization. The revenue side, however, remained under pressure as measures to focus the group on new strategic priorities and gaining traction more slowly than anticipated.

From a people perspective, we continue to work on implementing and refining our new product-focused operating model. To improve the alignment and accountability across the organization, we have implemented an objective and key result system, OKR. While this may sound like a basic step, it is fundamental in aligning all personnel around our key priorities and ensuring the focus of the highest impact areas.

Another highlight in the quarter was the exclusive collaboration with Daily Racing Form, a blueprint for such strategic media partnerships that we are seeking.

During the quarter, we have discontinued the AI content generation platform joint venture and recovered EUR 0.7 million of the original investment. We continue to see AI as an important business enhancer, for example, in scaling up content output and quality. However, the new Board and management did not deem this particular venture to be the optimal way to realize the opportunity.

We have achieved a positive net cash position in February 2025 after the receipt of the final payment from the AskGamblers sale. This cash will be used to repay the senior bond in June 2025.

Moving on to the financial summary. Q4 revenue from continuing operations was EUR 10.2 million, down 30% from the previous year and down 5% from the previous quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was EUR 1.5 million, up 2% from the previous year and up 13% from the previous quarter. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 15%, up 5 percentage points from the previous year and 10 percentage points up from Q2 2024 and the highest level since Q3 2023. North America contributed 87% of the group revenue, up from 85% in the same period last year.

From a segment perspective, Sports remains challenging with continued underperformance in Q4 negatively affecting our quarterly margin. North American Casino revenue decreased 12% year-on-year. However, we maintained a healthy margin for this segment. Mike will go into further details regarding the geographical and segment results later in the presentation.

In the Q2 report, we started showcasing our average ranking score for the 70-plus most important keywords across Catena Media's owned and operated products. The core of the keywords remains mostly unchanged but factors like seasonality, new segments or new markets may result in changes to the list.

After the core algo update -- after Google's core algo update in August, September, Google had unexpected back-to-back updates in November and December. This resulted in a higher-than-normal volatility during the quarter. At the end of the period, our average score was 5.35, the highest, meaning the worst, score since we started measuring and reporting the syndicator. However, it's important to look at the score throughout the quarter, at the end of the quarter -- as at the end of the quarter, the number is not necessarily representative for the entire quarter.

On a positive note, we can see that while Google's core updates may have had an initial negative impact on some of our products, we are generally able to identify solutions and recover the rankings.

I will now hand over to Mike to give an in-depth update on our financial performance.

[Michael Gerrow, executive]

Thank you, Manu, and good morning.

Moving into our financial analysis from a geographical split perspective. We concluded the quarter at EUR 8.9 million in revenue in North America, down from 12.3% for the corresponding quarter last year and down 6% from the EUR 9.5 million that we saw in Q3 2024. Adjusted EBITDA in North America increased to EUR 4.5 million, 4% higher than last year corresponding to a margin of 51%, a 15 percentage point increase versus last year. Adjusted EBITDA is marginally higher than Q3 2024 despite EUR 600,000 lower revenue in the quarter, reflecting the effectiveness of our cost management programs. North America amounted to 87% of group revenue in the quarter, an increase of 2 percentage points from last year.

Looking deeper at our North America segments. Sports was down 56% versus last year. This poor performance was driven by increased competition and, to a lesser extent, the lack of a comparable state launch. Kentucky launched at the very end of September 2023 and had a trailing effect extending into October 2023. Our North America Sports business grew by 6% versus Q3 2024. While this is not as much growth as we would have liked to have seen in the quarter, it's a welcome shift from seasonally adjusted Sports declines in recent quarters. Our North America Casino business decreased by 12% versus Q4 2023. This was also a contraction of 9% versus Q3 2024, caused by competitive pressures driven by the volatile search rankings experienced through multiple Google core algorithm updates.

Looking at the rest of the world. This noncore geographical segment accounted for 13% of revenue and contains our esports, APAC and Latin America businesses. We saw revenue of EUR 1.3 million, which is a decrease of 41% versus last year. Adjusted EBITDA decreased by 31% versus last year. However, our margin increased to 58% as we decreased costs to align with the revenue trends.

Moving into our full company segment performance. We saw a very large decline in our Sports revenue to EUR 2.5 million versus EUR 5.7 million for Q4 2023. NDCs also decreased in Sports by 45%. As mentioned previously, this was driven by underperformance of several brands and challenging comparables from the Kentucky launch at the very end of September 2023, which extended into October 2023. Our Sports business grew modestly by 2% versus Q3 2024.

As mentioned earlier, the North America Sports business actually grew by 6%. However, declines from our esports business and revenue share churn from remaining European assets impacted the overall segment growth. Losses in our Sports business decreased by 42% versus last year as cost control measures took effect. We continue to invest adequately in this segment to turn it around and return to profitability.

The Casino segment accounted for 75% of group revenue. Revenue decreased by 15% versus the previous year while NDCs increased by 11%. The rest of world business, which is primarily legacy revenue share of noncore assets, decreased by 39% versus last year. The North America Casino business decreased by 12% versus last year. This minor yet disappointing decrease was a result of the tumultuous quarter with very volatile search rankings.

Casino margins decreased by 3% versus the same quarter in 2023. The impact of our cost management programs maintained relatively high margins despite the 15% decrease in revenue. And despite a 7% quarterly decrease in Casino revenue, the Casino segment margin actually improved by 2 percentage points versus Q3 2024. That preserved margin can be attributed to our continued cost management programs.

Continuing on to our cost development. We further decreased our cost base in Q4 2024 by rolling out the new operating model, implementing cost management programs and terminating unfavorable media partnerships. Our adjusted cost base decreased by 33% versus Q4 2023 and 7% versus Q3 2024. Our adjusted EBITDA margin for Q4 2024 landed at 15%, increasing for 2 consecutive quarters from our low of 5% in Q2 2024. We feel that we now have the rightsized cost base to fuel sustainable organic growth in 2025.

We do not anticipate any further major changes to our cost base at this time, but we do expect direct cost to fluctuate alongside the profitable growth of our media, our paid media, sub-affiliate and the newly reset media partnerships over the next few quarters. Total items affecting comparability were EUR 800,000 in the quarter. The vast majority of these were associated with restructuring redundancy costs, including those associated with previously announced headcount reductions.

Moving on to our financial position. Despite another consecutive quarter of minimal cash flows from operations, the receipts from proceeds of our divested assets through the strategic review continue to put us in a healthy financial position. We decreased interest costs by repaying the outstanding EUR 10 million balance on a revolving credit facility in Q4 and our only remaining debt is the unsecured senior bond, which is due in June 2025.

All proceeds from divested assets have been received on time including the final payment associated with the AskGamblers divestment, which arrived in early February 2025. As a result, the company is now in a net cash position, excluding the hybrid capital securities which do not have a maturity date. We will use current cash and the remaining outstanding proceeds from divested assets to repay the senior bond due in June 2025.

If we now look at our capital structure. Our cash balance at the end of the quarter was EUR 8.5 million. We reported a net debt of EUR 12.9 million at the end of December. This puts us in a net cash position at the end of the year of EUR 5.6 million excluding the hybrid capital securities after adjusting for scheduled inflow of EUR 18.5 million in divested proceeds during Q1 and Q2 and, as mentioned previously, EUR 15 million of those proceeds have now actually been collected. So we're already in a net cash position.

It is important to note that the final proceeds from past divestments are not conditional on any performance targets and all payments to date have been received according to plan. We will use our net cash position and upcoming proceeds from past divestments to repay the senior bond due in June. We currently have no outstanding financial commitments relating to prior acquisitions.

I will now hand back over to Manu to give us an update on the strategy and outlook.

[Manuel Stan, executive]

Thanks, Mike. We will now have a look into the strategy and outlook for the next few quarters. During the quarter, we have not had any U.S. state launches, meaning that the overall market penetration remains at approximately 50% for online sports betting and only 16% for casino, indicating a remaining sizable future opportunity.

In 2025, we expect 2 new market launches in North America: Missouri, following the November '24 ballot vote. Missouri Gaming Commission is drafting the online sports wagering regulations, and the market is expected to go live sometime in the second half of the year. Alberta, the legislation is expected to be introduced in the spring of 2025 with no launch date set yet. Alberta will have a model similar to Ontario, including both online sports betting and online casino.

Lastly, other casino bills recently introduced include New York, Indiana and Illinois, but these are still in the very early stages with less chances to succeed.

As laid out in the previous reports, our current strategy is focused on three key pillars: people, product and profit. From a people perspective, the key initiatives in the quarter include: the implementation of an OKR system, meant to create alignment and accountability across the organization; the strengthening of our leadership team with key hirings such as Director of Data, Director of SEO, Director of Engineering; the streamlining of the content organization resulting in a net reduction of the group's headcount of more than 10%; and the initiation of a return to office hybrid program, which will be fully implemented in the second half of the year. And we'll focus on 2 hubs, our existing European hub in Malta and a newly created North American hub in Miami.

From a product perspective, we have continued to focus our efforts to align with Google's best practices and improve the performance and accessibility of our products. We secured an exciting exclusive partnership with the Daily Racing Form to bring best-in-class sports betting content and promotions to the DRF customers. This is a great example of the type of strategic partnerships we are seeking to build, one that is designed to drive sustainable profitability for both parties. We further enhanced our CRM capabilities, allowing us to build an engaged and loyal customer database. And we have discontinued the AI content generation platform joint venture and recovered EUR 0.7 million of the original investment. We continue to see AI as an important business enhancer, for example, in scaling up content output and quality.

Our third and last strategic pillar is profit. We are pleased with the second consecutive quarter of improved profitability as our adjusted EBITDA margin reached the highest level since Q3 2023. The cost reduction measures implemented during the quarter are expected to generate an annual cost saving of EUR 2.2 million. The cost base was reduced by 33% from Q4 2023, and we are confident we have rightsized the cost base to fuel sustainable organic growth in 2025.

Lastly, let's recap the key takeaways from our report: first, we are pleased with the second consecutive quarter of improved profitability as our adjusted EBITDA margin reached its highest level since Q3 of 2023, however, ongoing focus to stabilize the revenue levels as the return to growth will take additional time; continued implementation of a new product-led operating model with clear focus and priorities; regulation in North America remained slow with very few expected new states or province openings in 2025; focus on growth in existing geographies and products; and lastly, we are now in a positive net cash position excluding the hybrid capital securities, which we achieved after the EUR 15 million receipt of the final payment from the AskGamblers sale.

Thank you very much for listening. I will now hand over to Mike to move on to the Q&A session of our report and open up for questions.

[Michael Gerrow, executive]

Thank you, Manu. I'll now open it up for questions. [Operator Instructions]

[Michael Gerrow, executive]

So our first caller is Oscar from ABG. Oscar, I'd like to see if you have any questions for us.

[Oscar Ronnkvist, analyst]

Perfect. Just first, on the North America CPA levels. So I think that the revenue is declining a little bit more than the NDCs at the moment. So just do you see any sort of continued cost -- or continued pressure on the CPA levels at the moment? And also, if you could talk a little bit about the outlook as you're hearing from the operators. So do you see any sort of evidence of them being a little bit more positive on increasing the spend on affiliates at the moment? Or do you still see sort of pretty slow markets?

[Manuel Stan, executive]

Oscar, so I think two parts to that. The first one, the slightly drop in the average CPA level. So I think there are different number of reasons that are contributing to that. First of all, as you point out, the pressure from the operators and the operators aiming to optimize their margins.

Secondly, I think for us, it's important to note that the distribution of where the new depositing customers are coming from: first of all, from an operator perspective, obviously there are different deals and different types of arrangements; and secondly, also the distribution of NDPs between the different segments, even within a segment like casino. So all those play part into where we ended up with the average CPA number. But overall, as you point out, there's a slight drop quarter-on-quarter.

I think going forward, the operators will continue to try to apply pressure and optimize their margins. What we're trying to do on our side is to package good deals for operators, so not necessarily just from the traditional way of looking at things but trying to include CRM, trying to include other benefits for the operators, including communication to players, videos and other channels. So overall, I think we've managed to secure good long-term deals with some of our key partners. But overall, we do continue to see the pressure on CPA.

[Oscar Ronnkvist, analyst]

Got it. Then just on -- any comments on sweeps, both on the performance side and also on the outlook? So we have seen a bit of news recently that there could be some regulatory pressure in some states, I think it was Mississippi, the last one. Could you talk a little bit about, I mean, performance and the outlook that you see on the sweeps side?

[Manuel Stan, executive]

Absolutely. So from a performance perspective, sweeps continues to grow. We're looking at it as the overall casino segment. And as we communicated previously, for us, sweeps is an immediate strategy but also a future term bullet-proof for the Casino segment, trying to build our brand and our database for states that are yet to regulate.

Again, when you reiterate the fact that only 16% of the U.S. population lives in states where casino regulation is already in place, so there's a future massive opportunity. Sweeps represents that gateway for us to put ourselves in the best possible position for when that happens. So we continue to invest and we continue to grow the sweeps segment. It remains one of our fastest-growing verticals within Q4 -- in Q4.

Regarding the regulatory pressure, I think we continue to see some pressure from some of the states. So far, we haven't seen any of the bigger states, if you will, doing anything or taking any actions. So I think for time being, we're still in a very good position and we continue to monitor that. But overall, we haven't seen anything significant to put us in a position that we need to be concerned about the immediate future of sweepstakes.

Mike, if you want to add anything to that, please do.

[Michael Gerrow, executive]

I think you've covered that off well. Thank you, Manu.

[Oscar Ronnkvist, analyst]

Understood. So do you have any sort of comments to give on what you have in terms of positions from the iCasino or the states that maybe launching iCasino in the near future? You talked about New York and Indiana bills, for instance. So is there any sort of regional exposure in the sweeps, where you are well positioned ahead of the regulation?

[Manuel Stan, executive]

I think, so without disclosing, we have not communicated the distribution per state in the U.S. per geography. But as you can imagine, New York is one of the largest states in the U.S. and, from sweeps perspective, is one of the states where we see the highest amount of traffic and revenues coming. So yes, I think we are generally in a very good position in the larger states in the U.S. So that would be beneficial for us, the potential regulation in the bigger states.

[Oscar Ronnkvist, analyst]

Perfect. Next one, just on the financial targets. So you did target double-digit growth in revenue and EBITDA. And I mean, you have just seen the revenue run rate maybe decrease a little bit during 2024. You're facing quite tough comps in H1, including the North Carolina launch in Q1 2024. The rankings trend, I think, maybe it is volatile but ended a little bit lower in December. So just on the sort of confidence level going into the 2025 guidance, is there any sort of immediate uptick that you see from the new strategy that you have?

[Manuel Stan, executive]

Yes. Thanks, Oscar. That's a great question. I think as we said in the presentation, we're happy to see the profitability improving, but our measures to drive up the revenue are obviously taking longer than anticipated. I think being the positive there, we see the top line drop being at its lowest level for a long period of time, which is somewhat encouraging. So hopefully, that is the bottom line of our revenues. And we can get back to growth shortly.

In terms of the comparables with last year, you're absolutely right. Q1 is by far the highest revenue generator or revenue recorded in 2024. The comparables are slowing down into Q2, Q3, Q4. So I think we're highly confident about the 2025 return to growth and double-digit organic growth. However, as you point out, Q1 is a bit challenging as we have very tough comparables from last year. So I think that's the summary, in my view. I think we managed to slow down the drop in revenue.

We obviously -- media partnerships played a role into that, into the revenues in the first half of the year. State launches, North Carolina, as you point out, played the part into March, April last year. So we have those. But if we exclude those from the calculations, I think we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and we believe that the initiatives we put in place will pay out. It's right now the reality that they have not paid out in the time that we're expecting initially. But we're still confident that we have the right strategy in place and we have the right structure in place.

[Oscar Ronnkvist, analyst]

Great. And then just a final one. If we take a step back from the -- so excluding the market pressure that we see at the moment on the affiliation side. So how do you see the competitive landscape developing? I think you talked a little bit about, especially in Q3, that you saw increased competition. Do you still see new affiliates entering the market, bigger pressure from the operators that are already in the market? Or is there any change of that? Or do you still feel that you are well positioned to capture any sort of market growth that could come into 2025?

[Manuel Stan, executive]

So I think a combination of the two. I think we definitely see increased competition. We -- I think the lack of state launches also adds to that. Competitors are focusing on the same markets as we are. The lack of new launches means less distraction, if you will. So everybody is trying to focus their existing footprint and trying to focus on that. So I think we do see that. We do see a high number of operators, and I think that applies for both Sports and Casino.

But again, coming back to where we stand, I think we have very strong products that have unfortunately underperformed for a number of quarters. But with the right strategy and the right structure, I think that we can position those products to be leading products in the market. I think we have some really great assets, including Bonus.com, PlayUSA, the regional network that are very, very valuable for us. And with the right strategy and right initiatives in place, again, highly confident that this year we can return to growth.

[Michael Gerrow, executive]

All right. Thank you, Oscar. That's the end of the requested people to call in. So I'm going to move to a few written questions that have been submitted. So I just have one here for you, Manu, which is, will you do further layoffs or cost cuts going forward?

[Manuel Stan, executive]

Thanks, Mike. I think two parts to that. Obviously, as any business, we're always evaluating the efficiency and we're always looking to optimize our profitability. I think we've done a good job in the last 2 quarters. But it doesn't end here. We continue to do that. And I'm sure there may be opportunities as we progress.

Regarding layoffs, per se, right now, as I said, we are confident that we have the structure -- we have structured the team in an optimal manner. We have a much flatter organization that we did in the past, and it's all aligned behind the product-focused setup that we have put in place. The introduction of OKRs again may sound like a basic step, but I think it's a great tool to align the entire organization behind it.

So for time being, I think we have the right setup and the right structure in the company not to have any discussions about further staff costs anywhere in the near future. But as I said, we're always evaluating our efficiency and continue to look to optimize going forward.

[Michael Gerrow, executive]

Thanks. And I'll also add on that one that in the section I went through on the cost developments, we do expect the direct costs to fluctuate a bit just in line with the performance of those kind of more performance-based campaigns that go with media partnerships and sub-affiliation and paid media. So we do expect those to move around. But from a cost-cutting perspective, there's nothing major on the horizon.

All right. I have one more question that came in for you, Manu, which is, why did you discontinue the joint venture? And I think they're talking about the AI-based content generation joint venture.

[Manuel Stan, executive]

Yes. Thank you, Mike. I think that the short story is that after careful evaluation, we decided to discontinue it and also acquire 100% of the business before liquidating it. But as part of the agreement, we managed to recoup EUR 0.7 million of the original investment which, obviously, it's a significant amount of cash that we can deploy elsewhere.

As we continue to see AI as an important part of our business, as we said in the report, we did not deem this particular deal to be -- or this particular product to be the right venture for us to realize the AI opportunities. So I think that's the key part in there. We still believe in the vertical, but this was not it for us. We have EUR 0.7 million cash out of the finalization of that agreement, and we'll look to deploy that elsewhere and continue to focus on the AI vertical one way or another.

[Michael Gerrow, executive]

All right. Thank you. There's a couple of questions that have come in that are more on the financing side. So I'll take those. So there's actually two that related to the hybrid capital so I'll try to kind of summarize those together which is, with a weaker revenue profile, how will we manage the interest payments on the outstanding bond and hybrid? And also does our financial target regarding net interest-bearing debt to adjusted EBITDA include the hybrid securities?

So since they're both related, I will kind of take those together, which is the easy one is, no, the hybrid securities are treated as an equity in accordance with IFRS. So they're not part of the noncurrent liabilities from an accounting perspective in our financial statements. And it's important to note that they don't have -- and the reason they are considered that is that they don't have a maturity date. So there's no forced repayment on those.

When we look at the revenue profile and how we're going to manage the interest payments, and what I'd like to say there is that our main focus is about how we resolve our senior debt and the revolving credit facility. The revolving credit facility, we paid back in Q4. And the idea there was to kind of decrease the interest payments right away where we could. And then with the payment that we've already received from AskGamblers, we're going to be able to redeem the senior bond in June. So that's the plan that we've been talking about for quite a while when it comes to what we're doing with proceeds from the strategic review.

When you take into consideration the removal of the senior debt and the RCF -- sorry, the senior bond, the interest on the hybrids, although that steps up in July this year, our actual total interest cost will be significantly lower in comparison to where it's been for the past few years. So right now, since the hybrids offer a lot of flexibility and they're perpetual, we'll explore other alternatives that are there. But right now, we're probably going to stick with the hybrids. And we're not considering any dilutive actions for the company. So our intention is to pay the interest costs, and then as things develop, see if there are better, more cost-efficient ways to finance the company on that side of things.

All right. We have one more question that came through. And this is, I have been a shareholder for a few years and I'm wondering if you will have to raise more capital during the year, for example, through an emission.

Okay. Well, I guess I kind of answered that in the previous question which is, as of today, we do not foresee any dilutive actions for the company. We're not looking at doing an equity issuance in order to repay the hybrid. And we'll be paying the other debt instruments or interest-bearing instruments off by the end of the year using available cash. That's not in the plans as of today.

I'm just checking to see if any more questions have come through. And I don't think they have. So I'm going to hand it back over to Manu for final statements.

[Manuel Stan, executive]

Thank you, Mike, and thank you, everybody, for listening in and for the questions. Just to recap, during the quarter, we have made significant efforts to improve our profitability, and we are pleased to see for 2 consecutive quarters that we were able to improve our margin and also reach out the highest profitability margin since Q3 of 2023. So kudos to the team for the work, for the efforts put there and for the results.

And also equally important, during the quarter, we have -- as we said, we have not managed to improve our top line, which remains a focus area for us. Our actions have proven to take longer than we expected initially to pay dividends. So we're -- we continue to push on developing our products and do the right things in the long run. So we're confident that we will record that double-digit organic growth in revenue and adjusted EBITDA by the end of the year.

With that, I thank you all for joining today's call, and we look forward to hosting you for the Q1 report on May 13. Thank you very much, and have a great rest of the week.