Raw Transcript

22-May-2024

Better Collective A/S (BETCO.SE)

Q1 2024 Earnings Call

Total Pages: 16

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Better Collective A/S (BETCO.SE)

Raw Transcript

Q1 2024 Earnings Call

22-May-2024

MANAGEMENT DISCUSSION SECTION

Operator: Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Better Collective First Quarter 2024 Presentation. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. to ask a question. [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.

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Unverified Participant

Thank you and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our webcast. My name is Mikkel Munch-Jacobsgaard and I'm the Vice President of Investor Relations Group Strategy and Corporate Communications here at Better Collective. As always, I'm joined by our Co-founder and CEO, Jesper Sogaard; and CFO, Flemming Pedersen, who will help me walk you through our Q4 -- Q1 performance, sorry. Please follow me to the next page.

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 the next slide. Here you see today's agenda. Jesper will start by taking you through the highlights of Q1, here after Flemming will take you through the financial performance before handing back the word to Jesper for our business review. And then we, of course, end the call with a Q&A session. So let's get going. Please turn to the next page as I hand over the word to you, Jesper.

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Unverified Participant

Thank you, Mikkel. Q1 marked another strong quarter for Better Collective with group revenue increasing by 8% to €95 million. Recurring revenue grew 14% to €53 million, cementing another high quarter with increased quality and revenue and earnings. Group EBITDA before special items was €29 million, down 13% as expected due to tough comparisons, which Flemming will expand on a bit later on.

In early 2024, we announced the completion of the Playmaker Capital acquisition, making it the second largest acquisition to date in Better Collective's history. So far, the integration is progressing as planned and we are very excited to have welcome the Playmaker Capital team to the Better Collective Group. We achieved notable success when the State of North Carolina launched online sports betting with revenue structured on a combination of revenue share and CPA based contracts. I've been very pleased with our performance in North America where we have never been stronger position commercially.

Post-Q1, Better Collective acquired UK sports betting media, AceOdds for total consideration of €42 million implying four times last 12 months EBITDA. AceOdds offers a comprehensive range of betting tools, art, reviews and streaming schedules through its web and app-based platforms and comes with a significant amount of recurring revenue. Following the acquisition, Better Collective upgraded its 2024 full year financial targets by €5 million on revenue and EBITDA. Please follow me to the next page where I hand the word over to Flemming.

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Raw Transcript

Q1 2024 Earnings Call

22-May-2024

Unverified Participant

Thank you, Jesper. Please follow me to the next slide where we'll dive a bit deeper into the group's financial performance of the first quarter. As Jesper already pointed out, Q1 marked another good quarter, with revenue increasing 8% to €95 million, with organic revenue growth down 6%. The growth was attained despite the one-off overperformance last year during Q1, which included the launch of online sports betting in two major US states; Massachusetts and Ohio.

These state launches operate on the CPA-based model, resulting in significant one-off upfront revenue, whereas the state launch of North Carolina during Q1 this year was a blend of recurring revenue share and CPA. As expected, the EBITDA was down year-on-year due to the aforementioned impact from receiving revenue on an upfront basis versus recurring revenue share income. The margin was also impacted by our Playmaker HQ and Playmaker Capital acquisitions being dilutive to group margins in the short-term.

Please follow me to the next slide. Our recurring revenue grew 14% to €53 million now, including significant audience driven revenue from Playmaker Capital, hence signaling another quarter with revenue of higher quality. Recurring revenue makes up 56% of total group revenue, which we achieved, even though our core revenue share markets in Europe and South America saw a reduction of more than 10% in the number of soccer games in major leagues when compared to last year, as well as seeing a sports win margin below last year.

Overall, an impressive performance building for Better Collective's sustainable future growth.

Please follow me to the next slide. With the release of our 2023 annual report, we also disclosed our 2024 financial targets as displayed on this slide in gray. After Q1 closing, we announced the acquisition of a leading UK sports betting brand, AceOdds, which Jesper will be diving into later. With this acquisition, we upgraded our targets by €5 million on revenue and EBITDA for the full year of 2024, highlighting the high margin business it is.

This means we now expect €395 million to €425 million in revenue, implying growth of 21% to 30% and EBITDA of €130 million to €140 million implying growth of 17% to 26% on on that metrics. The net debt to EBITDA ratio remains unchanged at below 3X. Following the acquisition of Playmaker Capital earlier this year, we also raised our long-term financial targets for EBITDA from 30% to 40%, now 35% to 40%, underscoring our confidence in achieving the synergies over time.

This adjustment indicated that the buildup of synergy realization will be more pronounced in the latter part of our forecast period. During the quarter, we raised 10% of new equity or around €145 million for future M&A. During the process of dual listing in Copenhagen and last year and the capital raise, we are excited to have welcome a lot of new shareholders in Better Collective. Please turn to the next page and then I'll hand the word back to Jesper for our Q1 business update.

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Unverified Participant

Thank you, Flemming. Let's continue and please turn to the next page. In Q1, we saw good performance across all markets. Europe and rest of the world showed outstanding performance with an impressive 20% growth, of which 5% was organic. This achievement was fueled by a widespread impact across markets.

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Raw Transcript

Q1 2024 Earnings Call

22-May-2024

Turning attention to the North American market, we're delighted with the progress made in Q1. We achieved notable successes during the North Carolina state launch and the Super Bowl events. North American indices were up versus last year, but revenue was down 8% and organic down 22% due to the already mentioned comparison and the ongoing revenue share transition. We increased our investment in revenue share, which will set us up well for sustained revenue in years to come.

The mix of NDCs on revenue share versus upfront CPA was similar as in previous quarters. Last year we made our intention to acquire the sports media group, Playmaker Capital, public and successfully closed the acquisition earlier this year. Having only taken over the company in February, we are already observing positive trends. The cultural fit between our organizations is excellent and we see great opportunities to share knowledge across the teams.

Overall, the integration of Playmaker Capital has progressed as planned and we have already observed encouraging early performance marketing results during the quarter stemming from affiliation revenue.

I'm very excited to welcome the full Playmaker Capital team to the Better Collective Group. Additionally, our expansion into high level media, i.e. podcasts, YouTube shows and social media content has proven successful following last year's acquisition of Playmaker HQ. At one point, three out of the top five sports podcast in the US on Spotify belong to Better Collective. This strategic move has enriched our product offerings and amplified our reach within the North American audience, cementing our leading position.

As of now, we are looking into a busy summer with the European Championships and Copa America, along with the Olympics, and preparations are already in action, including concept developments and brand strategies tailored to maximize our impact. We anticipate that the European Championship will be a significant sporting event for our group positively contributing to growth.

Please follow me to the next slide. After the closing of Q1, Better Collective has successfully completed the acquisition of the UK sports betting media brand, AceOdds in a €42 million transaction. Rooted in the UK, AceOdds has over time, experienced growing international interest, extending its reach beyond the UK borders. We recognized the potential in leveraging our local expertise across various regions to scale the brand globally. capitalizing on this expansion opportunity.

Despite already maintaining a robust presence in the UK, this acquisition further solidifies Better Collective's position in one of the world's biggest markets for sports and sports fans. Established in 2008, AceOdds was founded with the aim of providing UK sports enthusiasts with an easy to use betting calculator. Over the years, the brand has expanded significantly, offering a well-regarded web platform featuring a range of betting tools, comparison features, live streaming schedules and odds and parlay calculator and more.

Additionally, AceOdds has introduced a popular app that has garnered hundreds of thousands of downloads. The acquisition aligns with Better Collective strategy, exemplified on this slide of owning the full range of sports media across key regions, spanning from traditional sportsbook comparison brands to general sports media, social media content creators, e-sports communities and beyond. The acquisition comes with a lot of recurring revenue, and we paid €42 million for the brand, which implies our last 12-month EBITDA multiple of 4 times.

As Flemming mentioned, we upgraded our guidance with €5 million on revenue and EBITDA for 2024. Please turn to the next page. We remain focused in building out a global network of leading sports media brands, entertaining a global sports audience. Currently, we engage with sports fans by having more than 400 million monthly visits across our networks.

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Raw Transcript

Q1 2024 Earnings Call

22-May-2024

Please turn to the next slide. On May 5, just two weeks ago, Google activated a new policy focusing on third-party content across a variety of different commercial categories. This impacted the rankings and thereby traffic to some of our media partnerships. Better Collective remains proud of the partnership we have -- the partnerships we have developed with general media and is working closely together with all parties involved to address the changes.

An additional consequence of the update has been improved rankings towards some of the proprietary sports media owned by us, resulting in increased traffic. Better Collective mainly works on revenue share with our media partners. Hence, the short-term revenue and earnings impact from this change is estimated to be limited and thereby to be contained within current guidance. It is still very early days to comment on the mid- to long-term impact, hence what the NDC mix will be between owned and operated and media partnerships.

Please turn to the next page. So to summarize the quarter, we saw a solid performance across the group with good recurring revenue growth. EBITDA was €29 million, down 13% as expected due to tough comparisons. Better Collective secured notable success when the state of North Carolina launched online sports betting with revenue structured on a combination of revenue share and CPA-based contracts.

In Q1, we closed the Playmaker Capital acquisition and since February, when we took over the group, the integration has been going as planned and we see a great cultural fit between us. We acquired a leading UK sports betting media brand in AceOdds, securing a stronger foothold in that market. And lastly, we are now looking forward to a very busy summer ahead.

This concludes our webcast presentation. I'll now pass the word back to the operator and open for questions from the audience. Thank you for listening in.

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Raw Transcript

Q1 2024 Earnings Call

22-May-2024

QUESTION AND ANSWER SECTION

Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] We will now take our first question. Please standby. And the first question comes from the line of Peter Sebastian from Nordea. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

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Q

Hi. Good morning, Jesper and Flemming and Mikkel and thank you for taking my questions. So I have a few, I'll just take them one by one. First is on the Google update here, as you allude to, Jesper. So, I mean, you say that you see a negative traffic effect on your media partnerships from the new policy here but that it traffic on your own operator sports media portfolio has increased. So I believe what the market is looking for here is some sort of guidance on net effects. So, could you provide any help or maybe try to expand on the dynamics here? So what what could be the net effects of this new policy change as you see it?

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A

Good morning, Sebastian, and thanks. Thanks for the question. Well, let me start by our approach overall to the digital sports media market, which obviously is what we're very excited about. And our approach is that we want to be relevant in all forms of into the media consumption. So we started out with our owned and operated and have been building that and also acquiring a lot of those media in recent years.

Five years ago, we then developed the media partnerships, which we are very proud of, where we're working with some of the strongest media brands globally. A few years later, we acquired a paid media business that has seen substantial growth. And more recently, we have acquired businesses focused on high level media producing podcasts, YouTube shows, and a lot of social media content.

And what I'm saying with this is that the category for us is where we need to have as much optionality as possible and have been successful in creating that. And I think this is actually, so to come back to your question, we are now seeing sort of the effect of having that diverse optionality, as you rightfully allude to, we see an impact here on on our media partnerships, but have also noticed a positive development in the search rankings and total audience to our owned and operated.

It's just two weeks ago, so to be honest, the net of this is very early to estimate. But again, we have restated the guidance that we have in place and therefore can absorb the effect within the guidance.

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Q

Okay. Thank you, Jesper. I appreciate it. And I guess you also, I mean, you also restate your your medium-term guidance. So I guess you also think as of now that you can absorb this into your medium-term guidance as well. Is that how to think about it?

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A

Correct.

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Q1 2024 Earnings Call

22-May-2024

Q

Okay. And then just a last question on this Google topic. So, I mean, considering that traffic is shifting from partnerships where you share margins, I mean, now talking from as an affiliate perspective, so your traffic is shifting from partnerships where you share margins to sort of your own 100% margin owned affiliate side. So is it fair to say to assume that that there's also a scenario where the net EBITDA effect could actually be positive over time?

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A

Yeah, again, it's very early days with with this but I do follow your question and I would probably revert back to what I started saying is we focused on the entire category and creating optionality and being best possible positioned for all forms of sports, entertainment and media consumption. And I think, again, this is actually a testament to this strategy, what we are seeing right now. But, yeah, it's too early to comment on on the effect of this for the long-term, to be honest, Sebastian.

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Q

Oh, that's totally fair. Great stuff. And then just my last question on your latest acquisition, AceOdds, it seems like a different beast compared to Playmaker Capital at least more towards traditional affiliation. Is this among sort of the last relevant pure affiliate assets for Better Collective out there? Or how do you view the sort of the M&A landscape from here?

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A

No, I wouldn't -- I would not say that it's the last. And I think it's in general, we have a big pipeline. And just to give you a sense of AceOdds and the developments over time, the first time we had a touchpoint with the owner of -- the former owner AceOdds, was in 2016 where we were in contact and he wasn't interested in selling. And we have this very big pipeline that we constantly work with and we have a wide, wide range of sports media that we think are relevant in any given market.

And this is more relates to two to sports betting media, as you rightfully put it, Sebastian, more the traditional affiliate business where we started out in Better Collective. But in a market as big as the UK, we really want to own the whole range of media. So also the traditional sports media with news, we want to be relevant within arts and in this case, like a best in calculator, we are also gaining with this acquisition.

So to me, this is spot on to the strategy of owning the different kinds of media where we know there's a significant demand. And as an example, AceOdds has around a million monthly visits for this niche area of sports betting and media. So to me, this fits well and I believe we have also been able to secure an attractive deal for Better Collective.

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Q

Thanks a lot, Jesper. Great stuff.

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Q1 2024 Earnings Call

22-May-2024

A

Thanks, Sebastian.

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Operator: Thank you. We will now take our next question. Please stand by. And the next question comes from the line of Poul Jessen from Danske Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

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Q

Yes. Thank you and thanks for taking my questions. I'm coming back to one of ancestral [indiscernible] (00:34:43) for the long-term guidance. First, you say that you confirm the long-term guidance and afterwards you say it's too early to assess an impact from the Google changes. On your long-term guidance, so how sure that we understood?

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A

Well, as for -- we restate the long-term guidance. What we say is that since this change of policy, which it is, and just to maybe give a bit of color to what this is, it's a change in policy where third-party content providers to established media sites have been affected. And this ranges from voucher codes to restaurants, different kinds of coupon codes within many, many commercial categories and then also within sports betting.

And we know this is, of course, impacting our partners here. We work with them to to mitigate the impact and basically resolve this. And but we are not -- we don't know like the continued development of this. And it's I think it's relevant to know that when there are significant changes in the search landscape, it takes time to fully digest sort of the evolution of this. Also coming back to the part of we are not really commenting on the long-term effects for our owned and operated, which as we allude to, could also be positive in this scenario.

So that's basically it, but the current changes and the result of those, we maintain this year's guidance and the long-term guidance.

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Q

Okay. And then when you say that your own and operating website has seen investing [indiscernible] (00:36:42) you say some of them, how should we weave the word some, is that two of them has had a positive impact on them and then, I don't know, [indiscernible] (00:36:54) has had neutral or...

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A

Well we, Poul, we will not single out but it is sort of on a broad range that we have seen a positive effect in our owned and operated business. And then on our media partnerships, some that are affected by this.

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Q

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Q1 2024 Earnings Call

22-May-2024

Okay. Is it possible to give any indications if you look at NDCs, how much is [indiscernible] (00:37:24) from media partners and how much is coming from your own pages? I just think you say about 300 million visits is coming from partner sites, that's 40%, 45% of the visits. Is that an indication of how the split of this is as well, or is it totally different?

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A

And we haven't commented on the mix of the NDCs related to the media partnerships and the owned and operated and we will not change that now. I would probably just sort of restate that we are not updating or making change to the guidance here, so we can absorb the effect of this.

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Q

Okay. Then two questions on the financial side on the [indiscernible] (00:38:13). You say that Europe and South America was impacted by mismatches and also that the sport betting margin was not stable in the quarter. Is that a material impact on Europe or is it just to highlight some of the [indiscernible] (00:38:33)?

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A

So so the number of games, there is a fairly direct correlation between the number of games and the sports betting activity. So that is sort of, yeah, as I said, a fairly good correlation between activity levels and number of games and. Then on the other part to the sports win margin, it was more or less as expected for us, but just noting that it was lower compared to last year.

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Q

Got it. And the final one, AceOdds, you say that it has a very high margin. Is that above 50% or so on the EBITDA level? I was just considering that you have the same change to revenue as should to EBITDA based on that acquisition?

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A

Perhaps I can answer that, Poul. Yes, it is. I think we can safely say that and refer back to the guidance. It is a very high margin business. And what we are gaining with that brand and the domain is also, as we stated, a lot of recurring revenue that has been build over time, so the margin is very high. So that's correct.

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Q

Okay. Thank you.

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Operator: Thank you. We will now take our next question. Please stand by. And the next question comes from the line of Oscar Rönnkvist from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

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Q1 2024 Earnings Call

22-May-2024

Q

Thank you. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one, I will just continue on the guidance. So you upgraded the revenue guidance by €5 million, but I suppose that, you know, that you have more than €5 million in contribution from AceOdds. So just wondered, I mean, I guess that we could interpret this as sort of an underlying cut on the top line guidance or the target for 2024. So just is this related to the Google update or have you seen any other sort of impacts on the top line except for just the Google updates, which came now in the beginning of May? Thanks.

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A

Thank you. Oscar. Flemming here. The upgrade of guidance is solely related to AceOdds and please remember that it is -- we will include it a period of, say, seven months after the acquisition. So in this case, our revenue and earnings are very much, you can say, they are close. So hence that we have not included any other effects to answer your question directly.

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Q

All right. Got it. And then just -- I had a few questions on Playmaker, so it was breakeven in the first two months. And I know that you say that this was I mean, this was very muted in the beginning and then it's, you know, seasonality wise it's increasing towards Q4. So, just wanted to to hear anything sort of on the magnitude of that and if the first two months was in line with your expectations or if the sort of break even is slightly below?

I know that you are, I mean, you see that you want to have some sort of transition towards rev share, which is, you know, weighing on to the margin short-term and obviously also on the top line. So just the, I mean, if you could walk us through the beginning of the trajectory here for the [indiscernible] (00:42:24) that you are talking about for Playmaker.

And then also, if you, again, could just repeat, I mean, you're essentially buying AceOdds for a third of the valuation compared to Playmaker. And it seems like you have synergies or pretty visible synergies in both of them. So I know that obviously there's a different sort of mix in Playmaker that makes it attractive. But three times the multiple is, you know, I mean do you still think that you know, 12 times is a pretty fair multiple for this compared to companies such as AceOdds or is it very hard or difficult to find more M&A opportunities such as AceOdds four times multiple? Thanks.

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A

Yeah, I'll try to answer and perhaps I'll start with with the latter one, because clearly they are very different in nature as Jessper alluded to and also it is our strategy to be relevant in all categories across sports betting and sports media consumption. Playmaker Capital, what we acquired with that was a vast portfolio of sports media across the Americas where we have not really there's been almost no monetization on the performance marketing channel, so mostly display advertising.

Whereas the AceOdds is a completely the opposite. So it's a -- it's very true, it's two different assets basically, and thereby very difficult to compare with AceOdds. We're also buying a lot of recurring revenue. So coming back to

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Better Collective A/S published this content on 22 May 2024 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 22 May 2024 09:55:03 UTC.