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Intrinsic Value is all-important and is the only logical way to evaluate the relative attractiveness of investments and businesses.
Intrinsic Value is all-important and is the only logical way to evaluate the relative attractiveness of investments and businesses.
This call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] Welcome to the Media and Games Invest Q4 presentation. [Operator Instructions]Now I will hand the conference over to the CEO, Remco Westermann; and CFO, Paul Echt. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Yes. Also good morning from our side. Welcome to investors, analysts and other stakeholders and we're happy to present the Q4 report and of course, also the full year number for '23. I would like to start with giving a bit of an overview. Paul [indiscernible]. Yes, what happened? 2023 was a very strange year. We had still from starting already 2022, of course, pressure on the market. People saving their marketing budgets, supporting their marketing budgets, but we have seen really a strong growth in Q4. And yes, 16% organic growth after we did 1% in the quarters before, roughly each quarter, we're really happy to present that.What did we do in 2023? Yes, and also in especially Q4, streamlining operations. So we've really looked that we have our cost base flexible. I will go in more details on the next slide. Then strategic investments in data and AI improved our direct supply position and winning market share. So those were the drivers -- the main drivers in 2023 in Q4.And yes, we're also happy -- and that's on the right side of the slide. 2024 start off very well. The growth -- organic growth continues out of last year, actually picked up a notch. And yes, we are ready for strong organic growth in 2024.I'll go into the bit more detail. Yes, streamlined operations. What did we do? We announced before, we have -- did an annual EUR 10 million cost saving program, that is now fully implemented. We focused on flexible cost structure, including off-shoring. So we have a big development center in India, which we're further building U.S., our main market salary costs are super expensive. So we really manage our personnel costs between the different parts of the continent, the one part, let's say, U.S. then Europe and as said also India.And then further integrating our platforms, optimizations there in the bidding processes and especially also deprecating platforms. But due to our M&A, we have, of course, brought several platforms. And in the end, the few technical platforms, you have to manage better, and we were really good in deprecating, and there will be more coming in the coming quarters. What is the result? Yes, increased profitability and also a lower cost base for the future. So we will yield from this in the coming quarters as well.Going to the next slide. Strategic investments in data and AI. Yes, super important, of course, that we deliver quality and mostly efficiency effectiveness for our customers. So we use AI for better targeting and more efficiency. AI is -- has been always important for us, but we have also here made further structural investments to improve this.Then data. Data is super important if you want to target, you need to know how to target where to target. That's the added value that we can create. We have the data from our own open -- our own games, but we also have a lot of other data going through the platform, and that's super important, of course, to deliver the good results.And then AI and data, the combination of the 2, of course, for a strong positioning in ID-Less targeting. Identifiers are disappearing and Apple in mobile was the first one to start. And we now see cookies also in the web [ gone ] way with Google, and they will also deprecate their cookie in mobile.And yes, if we go -- zoom in a little bit into the ID-Less targeting, we have been investing in that thoroughly in the last year's ATOM, which we launched in 2021. It's anonymous targeting on mobile device. It's really showing very good results. We are scaling that at the moment. Then Moments.AI contextual targeting we launched in '22. And we are really proud that only yesterday we saw the announcement that Digiday gave us, yes, shows us as being the winner of the contextual targeting in Europe.And then, yes, AI-driven optimization for SKAN. SKAN is, yes, the optimization platform, which we launched in 2023. The good thing is that we are really gaining market share with this ID-Less targeting and also that we are able to even show better results -- 25% better results on cost per install if we were without identifiers. So really happy with this, and we see a lot of things happening here also in the coming quarters.ID-Less targeting or contextual targeting is really very hot. And while agencies and customers were still a little bit, yes, this will not come, [ having ] as an attitude last year, we see that also [ daily ] attitude is changing. So a lot of optimism here.Going to the next slide. Direct supply position. Yes, we have been investing a lot in getting a very strong publisher base. And the results you see on the right side of the slide is the Jounce Media report which is really showing that Verve, which is our media activities brand, is really in the top when it's about quality and direct supply. So really proud about that and that helps, of course, also to gain market share, to get new customers on. We further focus on in-app and CTV. Those are the most important segment for us.Then working on the value add. If you have a direct supply position, you have more data, you can also get unique formats in your advertising. So there's a lot of things that you can do with it, especially our direct SDK base. So our integration into apps helps us there a lot.And then the other point is, which we have always said, you need to be able to target cross-platform to target people on the mobile device, but also on CTV and also on digital out-of-home so that we really can make a customer journey. So also the other channels we serve, but our strength is really in in-app and CTV.And on top of it, we are working now on, yes -- more focused on the demand side. So having this strong supply position gives us the unique opportunity to really get close to agencies and brands. And yes, also the ID-Less targeting is helping us a lot. So a lot of, yes, positive things here also for the future.Coming to the next slide. Then winning market share. Yes, the CPM, so the price per ads were under pressure in '23. What we have been consistently doing is adding new customers. And yes, we added new software customers 19%. And if you look at the high-yield customers, so the customers at over $100,000 per year, we also were nicely adding in Q4. And yes, a result of that gaining market share in the U.S., which is the majority of our revenues. We are the #1 -- consistently the #1 now in 2023 for Apple and for Google and also the other areas we have really been gaining market shares. So really proud of that.Going to the next slide. Yes, [ so ] in it for 2024, we want to further accelerate our organic growth. As said, Q3 -- sorry, Q1 to Q3 '23 were weak. Q4 really shows that we can grow again, and this is what we're planning also for the next quarters.How do we do that? What are our main drivers? Yes, capitalizing on our direct supply position for in-app and CTV. Strong demand side growth, which we're working on. So we've also yes, stepped up here, working on getting better relations to the agencies and brands, then levering our investments in AI and first-party data and growing our ID-Less targeting outside of the Walled Gardens, Walled Gardens being the Apples and the Googles.Those are things that are internal drivers. And then, of course, we see -- and you have also seen that on other companies in the ad space. The market is picking up and that will, of course, give us yes, tailwinds instead of the headwinds that we noticed in the first 3 quarters in '23.So we had a strong start into the year, 18% organic growth in January. We're normally not showing individual months, but we thought we'd make an exception here to really give also an indication that Q4 is not just a 1 day happening, but we really see a structural improvement and the structural organic growth coming up.That said, I will turn it over to Paul to the financial part.
Perfect. And then we are coming now to the financial summary of the fourth quarter as well as the full year 2023. Before we dig into the numbers, we look into the core KPIs on Slide 9, which is underscoring our sustainable organic growth. And similar to previous quarters, we showed a very strong growth in the ad impressions, reaching our 206 billion as delivered to end consumers in the fourth quarter compared to 181 billion in the previous year, which is a 14% organic growth in ad impressions.And on the right upper side, what Remco emphasized on already, more in a long-term view, if you also see that we have really grown our blue-chip large software client base substantially over the last years, so also further diversifying the business. And what is also good to see in the client retention rate, we not just onboard a lot of new customers, we're also really keeping the customers on board, which is also building a very strong base for future organic growth.And then coming also to the net dollar expansion rate, which is basically the revenue growth from existing customers compared to the previous year on a like-for-like basis. And here, you see that we basically saw the bottom with 82%, which means an 18% decline in existing budgets from existing customers compared to the previous year, but that we now really see that this is picking up. We're still not being above the 100%, which means, yes, we're basically still doing a little bit less revenues in the fourth quarter with existing customers compared to the previous year, but it's really improving, and we are also very, yes, sure that this will go up to the plus 100%, again, similar to previous years, where we also saw a lot of growth coming from the existing customers. And this then also will be another organic growth drivers in future periods.Coming now to the financials on Slide 10. And here, we basically see a very strong return to organic growth in the fourth quarter. That enabled us to show 6% total revenue growth and reaching EUR 99 million revenues and even more than in the organic revenue growth adjusted for FX effects as well as the divestments, the divestment basically summarizing the game closures which we had in Q4 previous year, which was impacting our revenue growth this year. And therefore, yes, the overall organic growth is higher than the total revenue growth.Overall, looking into the profitability, also very strong margins, 1% EBITDA growth, 225% net result growth, which was driven by less financial expenses as well as reduced tax expenses following new tax groups, which were set up, also leveraging additional cash flow -- free cash flow in future periods.And overall, also very strong margins, the 32% EBITDA margin, 8% net result margin leading to a very strong cash conversion, which we also see in the cash flow, EUR 42 million operating cash flow, where we just had EUR 8 million investing cash flow, given that we had a much lower M&A activity in 2023, which we will also see later a bit more in detail on our cash flow insight.Looking now into the organic growth. So where is it coming from and how do we calculate this. As already communicated on the Capital Markets in August 2023, we basically normalized the FY '22 for the divestments and strong FX effects, which we -- which impacted the year, which provides us with a very clean base of EUR 303 million, which was also the guidance which we gave as organic growth in the first 9 months was rather limited.Looking now at the 6% growth which we achieved and especially which was driven by the fourth quarter. We see the EUR 4 million of the revenue growth were coming from M&A. That's basically 6 months of Dataseat which we acquired by mid of '22, and therefore, starting from July 2023, this is then going into the organic growth, but therefore, not the revenue anymore. And then we have EUR 15 million coming from real organic revenue growth, just a [ CapEx ] leading now to the very strong year-end where we achieved basically EUR 322 million revenues for the group.Looking now into the -- a little bit more long-term consistent growth. Here, we see that we have consistently now really streamlined the business over the last years, not just in 2023 and therefore, also increased our EBITDA margins from 21% in 2020 to now 30% in 2023. So we have never been more efficient in regards to our profits in relation to revenues, while we also now see that we have a very strong return to organic growth after reaching the bottom with 1% in the first 9 months 2023 and this is also consistently now going into the new year. January 18% organic growth, but we also see a good February and therefore, having very strong outlook with streamlined operations, which will also allow us to really take on additional operating leverage in regards to driving further margins and profits together with the revenue growth in future periods.Then coming to the operating cash flow and CapEx development. Here we see a stable operating cash flow reaching now EUR 75 million in 2023. Last year, we had a very strong working capital effect, which we normalize here for comparison reasons basically from the securitization setup.What you see also here is that we reduced our expansion CapEx significantly following the communication in previous quarters that we put less focus on the M&A activity. And therefore, we reduced our total CapEx from EUR 177 million in 2022 to now EUR 34 million in 2023. And that also allowed us to deliver a very strong free cash flow of EUR 28 million after interest expenses despite the fact that the interest expenses actually increased from EUR 23 million to EUR 39 million. But that is also something that we currently see rather a bottom in regards to further increases of cash interest.Coming now to the net leverage. And here, we see that we have slightly delevered compared to the mid of 2023 and slightly increased compared to end of 2022. So rather stable leverage. The reason for that is mainly driven by earn-out payments which were occurring in 2023. On the right side, we also see that we have significantly reduced earn-out liabilities from EUR 112 million to EUR 35 million. Out of the EUR 35 million which we had on the balance sheet by end of 2023, EUR 20 million were payable in shares or cash at our sole discretion, while EUR 15 million from existing motion would be payable in cash.We have decided to pay approximately EUR 10 million for [ Dataseat ] in cash as we did not want to dilute our shareholders, and that's also explained in the subsequent events following the year 2023. So you can find the details there in the year-end report. Overall, the significant reduction in potential earn-outs. And given the strong organic growth which we see now for 2024, we also expect further good deleverage in 2024 from the operational business and that should also be yes, to a reduction in leverage in 2024.Then looking into the interest coverage ratio, and that has become a more important KPI over the last year given the strong increases in interest expenses. That's also the reason for the drop from 4x to 2.5x. It's still a healthy interest coverage ratio. But what we see now is that we really -- yes, that it's bottoming out, which means we most likely have seen the peak.And without giving any forecast here, on the right side, we also see the expectation from the market in regards to the 3-month Euirbor forecast where the market expects significant declines. While we're not giving any forecast here, that would obviously also have an additional upside to the MGI P&L as we saw earlier, cash interest expenses that have an impact on the cash flow.Then coming now to the guidance. And here, we are very happy that we have been able to clearly exceed the updated guidance, which we gave in August 2023, where we guided on EUR 303 million revenues and the EUR 93 million EBITDA and now ending the year on a high note, the EUR 322 million revenues and EUR 95 million EBITDA really is a very strong end of the year, but an even better start into the new year future periods. And that's basically where we are committed to deliver double-digit organic growth in 2024. And we see already with the visibility now in January, but also February that this is holding. And therefore, we are very committed to drive this throughout the full year 2024 as well as in future periods. And then also the operating leverage from additional revenues will also lead to additional profits and the reduction leverage is also one of our core things where we want to put more focus on.And with this, I would like to hand over back to Remco for the closing remarks.
Yes. Thank you very much, Paul. Yes. So overall, we're really happy with the Q4 results and looking very yes, positive into the future.But I think it's time for the analysts to ask their questions. So I hand over, or hand back to the moderator.
[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Fiona Orford-Williams from Edison Group.
Congratulations on what looks like a very happy quarter 4. Could you just -- you talked about the ability to optimize operating expenses and get the operational leverage as you go forward. What do you regard as a sustainable adjusted EBITDA margin from where you were? That's my first question.And my second question is about the CTV. I mean, obviously, in the in-app market you've got a large share. But there are some large incumbents already in the CTV space, looking at the Pixelate that came out yesterday. So how do you get a sensible market share in that market?
Thank you, Fiona. And I think yes, starting to answer the question here. Looking at the EBITDA level, we have, let's say, always been guiding at 25% to 30% EBITDA. We are over that at the moment. So in that sense, doing pretty nicely with that range. It doesn't make sense to go up a lot more. So we would rather invest, let's say, all the extra money that we make into further growth. And that's also what you saw in the growth. I mean we have also in Q4 [ seen ] the good numbers. We already further started to invest in our growth angles, which is extra [ sellers ], which is, let's say, extra investments in AI and those kind of things. So I think the 25% to 30%, rather on the upper side of that is what we would like to guide at for the future. If we are above, it's nice, but it's not the target now to short-term go not above that.Then on CTV -- sorry, does that answer your question?
Yes, it does.
Then on CTV. Yes, CTV is in strong growth markets. Traditionally, TV was, of course, always the big part where people were putting their marketing budgets. We see that traditional TV is really declining and CTV is winning. Main reason is you can much better target via CTV. We are playing in a very nice role in CTV. We have a very strong direct supply. We are, however, let's say, not going for the mass CTV. We see some, let's say, other players in the market which really take the big volumes. But they are basically -- yes, it sounds a bit -- not so nice, but dumb pipes, but they basically are helping people to distribute their CTV inventories often with very low margins. And if you then take the technology cost, you don't have a lot of margin on that.So we're really looking into growing sustainably in CTV with a good margin. How are we doing that? That's by adding value. That's really by data. It's by strong targeting capabilities, also across platform targeting capabilities. So I wouldn't say that we are going here for the top market share. We'd rather go for the top market share into quality supply, which is for us much more interesting and I think also more interesting for, yes, our customers. I hope that answers.
The next question comes from Sebastian Patulea from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
I've got 3, please. And if I may, I'll ask them one by one. The first one regarding the guidance of double-digit organic growth. May I please ask why isn't this guidance more quantitative as you've done in the past, a bit more specific? Does this mean that your visibility is lower for fiscal year 2024? Or am I reading too much into it?
Paul, do you want to take it or should I?
I can take it. So basically, we have already good visibility, but similar also to previous years, we have always given the guidance within the Q1 report, and that's basically also what we plan this year, but to give the market a bit more outlook and first guidance, basically, we also provided the January organic growth numbers, which I think is the first good indicator. And then, again, similar to previous years, we also plan to give a full year guidance as part of the Q1 report.
May I also please ask, so you're seeing early signs of recovery in the advertising market. Can you please remind us how you see the profitability growth in this environment? Is it linear? Or do you have considerable operating leverage on that revenue growth?
Paul, [ you'll ] take this?
I can take it. So we have definitely operating leverage that just for the reason economies of scale -- the tax cost in relation to revenues are reducing more revenues and volumes we drive through the platform, similar to also the personal and employee cost. And that's in the end the beauty about having such a high-tech scalable platform that you can drive much, much more volumes without adding a lot of additional cost. And therefore, we also expect to further increase profits even and that's what Remco emphasized on the questions from Fiona.We don't plan to go well above the 30% EBITDA margin even if we could do this because we also want to invest in the future ID-Less solutions, our AI capabilities and therefore, definitely also want to further invest into organic growth. That said, there is a substantial operating leverage, which also will lead to a decrease in net leverage going forward as profits are growing and the cash flows and, therefore, net leverage decreasing.
Yes. And I would like to add one effect, and that's the pricing. So the CPMs, the price spreads, they came down. Let's say, with the economic crisis, less demand was leading to lower pricing. And we expect, let's say, now with demand picking up, that also the pricing will come back. And that, of course, is a very nice additional one where our technical cost in relation to the revenue, of course, will also show that -- a much better percentage. So that's another effect that we are expecting for 2024, not with marketing picking up again.
And finally, please, regarding CapEx investments. Do you see any upside risk for increased CapEx investments in 2024 maybe in artificial intelligence as new technologies or processes will likely appear in 2024?
I don't see in --
I'll tell --
Yes, go ahead.
Go ahead, Remco.
I was already starting to answer. Sorry, Paul. No, I don't see a big increase coming up there. We are -- we have increased our investments in AI, in technology, in our data part in the last quarters already. And so by saving on the one hand, a lot of, let's say, personnel cost by the [indiscernible] platforms, et cetera, as I described before, we have been substantially investing there. I don't see our -- yes, the investments in that sense going up as part of P&L. If then I'm not -- yes, I would say it is due to higher margins that we're making, as my answer before to Fiona. So if there's room for it, we will further put it up. But let's say, it will not damage the bottom line, if I can say so.
And maybe just to add, so we have already roughly EUR 10 million invested from our CapEx, which is a substantial part of our total CapEx of roughly EUR 40 million in 2023. And we already see good results. So it's not like we need to invest 2 or 3 years to see the first return on investment. As we have used AI already in a lot of fields for targeting solutions, et cetera, we -- by using more AI capabilities and also doing AI development, we actually see sometimes within a few quarters already very good results. And therefore, this is improving and also the organic growth and therefore, the profitability of the overall group.So we see that as -- much, much more as a very positive leverage -- operating leverage, which we -- where we can use AI than any risk. Actually, you don't see big risk as we do rather really improving the overall profitability as well as revenue growth of the group.
[Operator Instructions] There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Yes. Thank you very much. We would like to thank everybody who's dialing into this call or listening to this later -- very much for your attendance. And yes, I hope we were able to show that this company is a structural growth company, we showed --
Sorry, Remco, we got another question. Wait.
Sorry?
Wait a second. We got another question right from -- [ the last one ]. Wait a second.
Okay. Then we take that first, and then I'll follow through to my opening remarks -- with my closing remarks.
The next question comes from Vincent Edholm from Pareto Securities.
My last question here. I was just wondering about your current ongoing dialogues beginning of 2024 as you're mentioning strong growth also in January with regards to cookie [ depreciation ] and what's coming in from Google here in the beginning of the year? What you're currently hearing or seeing from customers in those dialogues and trying to onboard new customers? Have they learned from the past? And I'm referring to [ IDFA ] -- or how do you see that -- or those discussions going here by the beginning of the year?
Thank you for the question. Yes. It's interesting to see -- while [ IDFA ] was seen as a kind of incident and not really as a big thing for a lot of the agencies and advertisers and a lot of them were really saying, okay, this whole cookie [ deprecation of Google, which was in the market as a rumor already for a long time, is not going to happen because of the [ JOD ], because of, let's say, all kind of effects they will postpone it. But now since they really -- since Google really seriously started deprecating cookie in January -- And we see a big, big change in attitude, suddenly with agencies and the advertisers themselves. And there's suddenly awareness that they need to do something. And that's really yes, helping us a lot, of course, because we have been investing in this in the last years.So it's -- suddenly we see a lot more interest, and that also helps us, of course, to onboard customers and yes, to really drive our products into the market. So we are really happy with this. And yes, it will shake up the market a bit. I think those partners that have not been expecting this or not prepared well for it will suffer from it, but those that have can really gain market shares now.
There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Yes, then I'll start again with my closing comments. So thank you all very much for participating. And yes, I hope we were able to show that we are coming back to organic growth. We left our organic growth path with a 38% organic growth in '21, then, let's say, from mid-'22, we had with you pretty more with interest going up, et cetera, et cetera. A much more difficult time in advertising -- advertisers. Yes, the first thing when you do as a company, if you -- if there's uncertainty in the market, you start looking at your cost. Advertising budgets are the ones that are the easiest to cut.But yes, at a certain point, you will also see the effects, you're losing market share. So in that sense, we see marketing budgets coming up, picking up again. And also, the interest rates look like to have, let's say, peaked and with more tendency to going down. So we are very positive about the next quarters. And yes, thank you all for listening and for tuning it. Thank you.