Aristocrat Leisure Limited (ALL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Aristocrat Half Year 2025 Results Briefing Webcast and Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I'd now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Mr. Trevor Croker, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Aristocrat. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, and welcome to Aristocrat's financial results presentation for the half year to 31 March 2025. My name is Trevor Croker, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Aristocrat. Joining me today in Sydney is Sally Denby, our Chief Financial Officer. Today, I'll step through the highlights of the results and provide an update on our strategy. Sally will then discuss our group financial results and balance sheet, after which I'll run through the operational performance and outlook. Please note the usual disclaimer statement on the back of the deck. Turning now to Slide 2. First half of the financial year was a period of transition for Aristocrat. We completed the divestiture of Plarium, generating a significant gain on sale and refocused our mobile operations around the core Product Madness Social Casino business in line with our growth strategy. We also invested in aligning technology and product strategies and took foundational steps that will set up Aristocrat Interactive to accelerate its performance and allow us to fully leverage our scale and capabilities. I'm confident we now have three focused and fully complementary business lines united by a common core of great gaming content and each offering exciting growth prospects. The group reported a positive result over the half year, illustrating the quality of Aristocrat's portfolio and ability to grow through different environments while also investing for the future. My comments on financial performance exclude Plarium, which has been reclassified as discontinued operations as previously confirmed. Group revenues grew 9% over the period, while segment profit grew 12% with the inclusion of NeoGames, positive operating leverage and a strong U.S. dollar also evident. Aristocrat Gaming delivered further installed base growth and market share gains in gaming operations with lower fee per day and reduced outright sales in North America and Rest of World. Product Madness delivered a strong performance with continued share gain and impressive profit growth, reflecting focused investment in user acquisition or UA and ongoing operational efficiency. Interactive benefited from strong double-digit growth in content and the iLottery joint venture. Group NPATA grew 6% and 2% on a constant currency basis. This reflected increased corporate costs, including higher legal costs, along with lower interest income given the NeoGames acquisition and continued share buybacks and a higher effective tax rate. We expect improved operating performance across the group for the second half of the year and, as such, reiterate our outlook that Aristocrat expects to deliver NPATA growth over the full year to 30 September 2025. Sally will share more detail on group performance shortly. I'll now turn to our strategy. Slide 4 lays out the three established elements of our approach to delivering superior long-term sustainable profit growth. We start by investing and innovating to create the world's greatest gaming content at scale. We are committed to high levels of D&D investment to support content development and growth. This includes investment in outstanding creative talent and technology to improve both the speed and efficiency with which we can deploy content across multiple priority markets, cabinets and channels. The establishment of Interactive provides scope for our studios to innovate across channels and expand their commercialization opportunities. Defending our intellectual property in all markets is critical, and Aristocrat takes a rigorous proactive approach to ensure that everyone competes fairly on a level playing field. It's clear to us from the litigation with Light & Wonder that they have not played by the rules, evident in a number of employees being terminated. We were pleased with how the litigation is progressing in both the U.S. and Australia, including the U.S. court's decision to issue a preliminary injunction with respect to Dragon Train. Other positive developments include the undertakings that Light & Wonder provided in Australia obligating to cease sales of Dragon Train and Light & Wonder's decision to cease commercialization of Jewel of the Dragon following our amended U.S. complaint identifying that game as the product of trade secret misappropriation. In relation to statements that Light & Wonder has undertaken a broad third-party audit of its hold and spin games, our external counsel has not been provided with the [ mapped ] information used for this review. So we haven't been able to conduct our own legal process, and we don't intend to rely on the purported conclusions of this audit. This audit was conducted by the same person Light & Wonder has been using as a paid expert witness in the U.S. litigation, including during the preliminary injunction proceedings. Our external counsel is continuing to investigate the extent to which our trade secrets were used to develop other Light & Wonder games. Next, we focus on growing and distributing our leading content, taking share wherever we compete, including in existing and new adjacent markets. Interactive is now a full solution provider for online RMG with an expanded portfolio across iLottery content and platforms. We're investing to become a scaled global player in this important adjacency and to position the Interactive business to accelerate its growth consistent with our stated target of achieving at least USD 1 billion in revenue by 2029. Aristocrat also invests in differentiating enablers. These include long-term customer partnerships and commercialization capabilities and a compliance culture that is underpinned by our commitment to a sustainable and vibrant industry. We believe Aristocrat has the right long-term strategy and is executing effectively. Over the 5-year period since 2019, group revenues and segment profits have grown at a CAGR of 8% and 10%, respectively, reflecting share gains and operating leverage across all key segments. NPATA has grown at 12% CAGR underpinned by market share gains in the gaming operations installed base from 33% to 42% over the same period. Strong financial performance has been delivered through diverse conditions, demonstrating the resilience of the group and reflecting the high proportion of recurring revenues that we generate. Consistent delivery has also allowed us to maintain investment and fully fund our organic and inorganic growth priorities while delivering ongoing returns to shareholders. Over the same 5-year period, we returned over $3 billion of capital to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. Turning to Slide 6. We continued to progress our sustainability agenda in the first half, driving improvements and further lifting maturity across our most important priorities. This slide shares a few highlights. Empowering Safer Play or ESP remains our single most important sustainability matter, directly supporting our ability to deliver results over the long term to benefit our people, customers and shareholders. I'd like to call out the significant step-up in the presence of Flexiplay functionality in Australia. We increased the number of enabled EGMs in New South Wales from approximately 4,000 in 2024 to over 7,000 at period end. Flexiplay is now available on the vast majority of new Aristocrat games released in Australia wherever regulations permit. This reflects the years-long effort across our product, sales and sustainability teams with effective partnerships from customers, venue staff, researchers, regulators and others. Our commitment to decarbonizing our business was formalized with the Science Based Targets initiative validating our near-term and Net Zero targets last year. Over the reporting period, we continue to accelerate foundational work to underpin our abatement activities and expect to see this reflected through reduced emissions in the years ahead. We also made significant progress to prepare for mandatory climate reporting and delivery of our public climate commitments. And finally, we progressed our efforts to integrate NeoGames into our sustainability program with a focus on safer play standards and processes, among other highlights. Now I'll hand over to Sally, who will take us through a summary of the group results.

Good morning, everyone. Turning to Slide 8, our group results summary. Just a reminder that my comments on financial performance exclude Plarium. Aristocrat delivered NPATA of $732 million, an increase of 6% in reported terms and 2% in constant currency. On a fully diluted basis, EPSA increased 8% to $1.16 in reported currency, reflecting solid operational performance and accretion from our on-market share buyback program. Revenue increased 9% to over $3 billion and 5% in constant currency. This result was driven by net additions to the North American gaming operations installed base, continued gains in Social Casino and strong growth in Interactive from the inclusion of NeoGames for the full period, partially offset by a softer fee per day and lower outright sales. EBITDA was 13% higher than the PCP, reflecting margin expansion from positive mix and improved operating leverage. Benefits from effective cost initiatives in FY '24 also supported the results. Ongoing cost management continues to provide capacity for strategic reinvestment with well-established discipline across the group. Operating cash flows also remained strong, up 18% compared to the first half 2024. The effective tax rate for the half was 27% compared to 26% in the PCP. There are two key callouts here. The restated tax rate in both periods reflects a 1% increase relating to the reclassification of Plarium. The increase in first half '25 compared to PCP reflects changes in the regional earnings mix and acquisition-related transitional changes, which are expected to moderate over time. The directors have authorized an unfranked interim dividend of $0.44 per share for the period, an increase of 22% compared to the prior year. Slide 9 provides a snapshot of the drivers of NPATA growth in the period, reconciled to the PCP. NPATA was driven by strong growth in Product Madness from share gains and cost optimization and the addition of NeoGames to Interactive with a small reduction from Gaming on a constant currency basis. Increased investment in D&D, lower interest income and higher corporate costs reduced growth with foreign exchange providing a tailwind in reporting currency. Interest income decreased as a result of funding the NeoGames acquisition and continued share buybacks over the course of the year. Corporate costs reflect an increase in legal costs of around $15 million compared to the first half '24, which includes legal costs incurred in taking proactive steps [ towards ] Aristocrat's intellectual property. Turning now to cash flow on Slide 10. Strong cash flow generation was achieved over the period, reflecting continued operating momentum. During the half, we completed the $1.85 billion share buyback program and announced a new $750 million program running through to February 2026. In total, Aristocrat returned $533 million to shareholders through share buybacks and dividends over the half till 31st of March 2025. Aristocrat continues to focus capital allocation on supporting our long-term growth strategy and delivering shareholder returns. In particular, the business drives organic growth through consistent, strong and disciplined D&D, UA and CapEx investment, whilst actively pursuing strategic M&A opportunities in a disciplined and consistent manner. Aristocrat invested $402 million in D&D during the half to further strengthen our product and technology portfolios and prepared to scaling online RMG. This represented 13.3% of revenues, within the 12.5% to 13.5% guidance range provided at the AGM in February. Aristocrat manages our balance sheet through cycles of investment. As foreshadowed, we deployed a portion of the proceeds from the sale of Plarium to retire debt. We continue to target a leverage ratio of 1 to 2x net debt to EBITDA over the medium term. However, taking into account the group's strong operating cash flow generation and current levels of liquidity that influence our buyback program, it's unlikely that our leverage will fall within this range without material M&A. I would now like to focus on our investments to drive organic growth on Slide 12. Chart tracks investment over the past 5 reporting periods, excluding Plarium. We make investment choices across our portfolio of businesses, prioritizing opportunities with a view to optimizing returns. Total organic investment is generally tracked at around 25% to 27% of group revenues with a potential to flex this where required in response to business needs and opportunities. Increased CapEx in 2024 reflects the exceptional growth of our gaming operations installed base as well as the investment in our Las Vegas integration center, and this has reduced to more typical levels over the reporting period. UA spend increased to support strong seasonal momentum while reflecting our continued focus on efficiency and return on advertising spend. Increased D&D largely reflects the inclusion of NeoGames for the full period and investments in product and platform technology. Slide 13 provides a more detailed view of D&D. In Interactive, we have continued to invest a significant proportion of revenues as we scale our presence. A disciplined approach has also allowed us to sustain leading levels of investment in gaming and in Product Madness, where we have delivered successful new features and live ops whilst maintaining investment in creative capabilities. D&D will fluctuate as a percent of revenue as we move through different investment cycles required to implement our growth strategy. However, over the medium term, we continue to expect D&D investment to land within a range of 11% to 12% of revenue. A growing proportion of D&D relates to enterprise technology, and we are increasingly managing this across the entire portfolio instead of divisionally. We anticipate this will yield efficiencies and greater coordination over time. As we indicated at the full year results in November last year, we intend changing the way that we measure and disclose D&D performance and modeling guidance to reflect our evolving business and the maturing approach. We anticipate sharing more information and revised disclosure at the FY '25 results. I will now hand back to Trevor, who will step through the operational performance.

Turning first to the Aristocrat Gaming business on Slide 15. Revenue and profit increased 2% and 3%, respectively, in reported currency with continued share gains in our North American gaming operations installed base and positive currency impacts. Softer fee per day and lower outright sales impacted growth as previously noted. Baron Upright cabinet was launched in the U.S. in October 2024 and in Australia in the last 2 weeks of April this year. The Portrait version of Baron cabinet was also launched in April in the U.S. Both the Baron cabinet as well as Phoenix Link have been exceptionally well received, and we also benefit from continued penetration of other high-performing game titles, including House of Dragon, Buffalo Ultimate Stampede and Dragon Link, which is now in its eighth year and still performing strongly. North American revenues were up 1% and profits increased 4%. Gaming operations grew 4%, driven by a 10% increase in installed base over the prior year and maintained market-leading fee per day, which decreased 5%. We also added close to 2,500 units in the first half, further extending our market-leading share to around 42%. In North American outright sales, clear revenue leadership was maintained given the combination of a strong average selling price or ASP and around 28% ship share. Outright sales units decreased 3% with strong demand for the recently released new Baron Portrait cabinet having some impact on the timing of other sales in the half. ASP also declined 3%, reflecting the greater contribution from lower-priced adjacencies, but remained at leading levels overall. North America's margin increased by 130 basis points to 58%, reflecting positive mix and effective cost optimization. Rest of World revenues decreased 9% and profits decreased 20%, driven by lower unit sales in both ANZ and Asian markets and negative operating leverage and product mix in Asia. ANZ was impacted by competition as well as the timing of sales given the highly anticipated launch of the Baron Cabinet, while Asia experienced reduced opening and expansion activity during the period. We expect strong performance over the second half of the year given our product pipeline and robust demand. We've made an encouraging start to the second half in ANZ. Strong gains were achieved in April in both New South Wales and Queensland with ship share close to 50% over the month in these states. As noted, our North American gaming operations business continued to perform well with Aristocrat's revenue growth once again outpacing slot GGR growth across the U.S. As we flagged in February, fee per day over the period was softer than the PCP. We wanted to provide transparency into the drivers behind this and how we manage the various revenue levers across our market-leading position in the U.S. The chart on Slide 16 unpacks key factors that impacted the fee per day. Product mix was the largest contributor and arose from the reduced proportion of multisite progressive games across the installed base. Similarly, we saw a greater shift towards customers with Class II games that carry a lower fee per day given our strong participation in openings and expansions with tribal customers last year. Finally, we saw a slight headwind from higher promotional activity to capture market share. As we look to the second half of the year, we expect some of these factors will begin to unwind, and we anticipate benefits from recent launches of Phoenix Link and Baron Cabinet. As such, we expect a sequential improvement in fee per day and continued installed base growth consistent with our historical performance. Slide 17 provides some context relevant to the current economic and trade policy uncertainties in the U.S. The chart on the top left of the slide is a reminder of how the gaming sector has performed through market cycles and significant economic events over the last 20 years. It highlights the resilience of GGR through shocks and slowdowns and demonstrates how quickly GGR growth has historically rebounded. Outright game sales in the lower chart clearly exhibit more volatility from period to period. However, these sales represent less than 30% of Aristocrat's North American revenues. At this stage, we are not observing any material cutbacks in customer CapEx budgets in response to the uncertainty. Should pressure on consumer spending rise, we anticipate operators could turn to leased units to manage cash flows while keeping their floors fresh. Historically, Aristocrat has accelerated share taking through such periods as our customers have focused investment on the highest performing premium games, and we have been active in supporting them. In terms of tariffs, we are not currently anticipating any significant financial impact on our business, but we continue to closely monitor developments in this fast-moving area. We have a detailed mitigation playbook, and we'll react quickly to minimize potential impacts, if necessary. Aristocrat diversified and derisked our supply chain post COVID and is no longer dependent on any single market or supplier for key components. For example, China purchasing has reduced by around 70% and currently represents only 14% of our supply chain. Additionally, we have a diverse global manufacturing footprint across our four major integration centers in Australia, Europe and the U.S., providing additional flexibility and risk mitigation. Turning to Slide 18. Our Product Madness social casino business, which includes the Big Fish social casino portfolio and the remaining social casual games within Big Fish. And just a reminder, all numbers have been restated to exclude Plarium. Following the outcome of the strategic review last year, Product Madness has entered a new chapter with refreshed leadership, strategic clarity and increased momentum. The business delivered strong performance over the half year and continued to take share in a market that contracted with investment in new content, effective player engagement, live ops and features. Social casino bookings increased 4%, driven by growth in our evergreen franchises, including Lightning Link and Heart of Vegas compared to the social slot market decline of 6%. Total revenues increased 2% with segment profit up an impressive 9%. Margins improved 310 basis points, driven by continued focus on efficiency, operating leverage, increased off-platform revenues and disciplined UA investment. We continue to focus on driving off-platform and direct-to-consumer or D2C revenues, which incur lower commission rates. D2C represents 13% of social casino revenues, up from roughly 6% in the PCP. We believe there is more scope to grow the D2C contribution as a percentage of revenues over the next few years. Turning to Aristocrat Interactive. We highlight the three divisions that you are now familiar with on Slide 19. Each of these has large addressable markets and significant growth opportunities, both individually and from the combined strengths and capabilities of the Aristocrat Group. While significant work lies ahead to realize Interactive's full potential, we continue to make encouraging early progress across all divisions, providing us with increased confidence in our plans and potential. Now turning to Interactive's full year reported results on Slide 20. Half 1 '25 revenues and profits reflect the inclusion of NeoGames for the full period and strong organic growth across key iLottery and Content divisions. iLottery delivered strong performance with new contract wins and improving metrics across existing contracts. Compared to half 1 '24 pro formas, iLottery delivered revenue growth of 15%, including our share of the NeoPollard JV revenue with strong contributions from North Carolina, Virginia and Alberta. On a pro forma basis, content revenues grew 17%, reflecting strong growth from our larger aggregation customers and numerous content launches with major operators in the U.S., Canada, U.K., including the release of top Aristocrat land-based titles. We extended our Buffalo franchise with the launch of Buffalo Gold Max Power in the U.S. and added new land-based titles over the half, such as Jackpot Carnival Buffalo. And more recently, we successfully launched Bao Zhu Zhao Fu and Mo' Mummy Mighty Pyramid. We also rolled out top Roxor titles in the U.S. and Europe, including Double Bubble and Secrets of the Phoenix Blaze. Bao Zhu and Mo' Mummy were released in New Jersey towards the end of the period, leading to strong market share gains in the state. Additionally, both were ranked in the top 10 slot games overall despite only being present in one market, demonstrating the strength of Aristocrat content. We launched 40 new games over the period and have contracts with around 90% of the market in the U.S. Additionally, at period end, we were aggregating over 15,300 games to third parties, providing our customers with a full suite of gaming options. Pace of content rollout in the first half was below our plan. This followed a strategic decision to consolidate our remote gaming server platforms, precipitating regulatory approvals and causing some delays. However, this was an important step that adds contemporary features to our offer and will position Interactive to achieve an optimum velocity of content releases in the future. We expect to see a step-up over the remainder of the year and into 2026 with a strong portfolio of Aristocrat game content and features scheduled for launch. Platforms continue to expand across the U.S. and ANZ markets with growth in recurring revenue, partly offsetting the impact of higher hardware sales in the prior corresponding period. Around 76% of platform revenues were recurring in nature with long-term contracts marginally up over the period. We are committed to bringing Aristocrat's cashless technology to the New South Wales market by the end of the calendar year, and we'll continue to invest to bring forward a solution for our customers that meets regulator, government and community expectations. Moving now to outlook. Aristocrat expects to deliver NPATA growth over the full year to 30 September 2025 on a constant currency basis for its continuing operations, excluding Plarium, reflecting continued market share gains from Aristocrat Gaming with strong revenue and profit growth in second half '25 based on current economic conditions in key geographies, disciplined execution in product matters with a focus on market share and investment efficiency, accelerating performance at Aristocrat Interactive towards our FY '29 USD 1 billion revenue target through further scaling of content to support broader market access in North America and Europe. In summary, the group has delivered a positive result over the first half supported by continued market share gains and demonstrating strong fundamentals. We expect improved operating performance across the group with strong NPATA growth, cash flow generation and operating leverage in the back half of the year. Going forward, we remain committed to our capital management strategy and executing our share buyback program. We continue to position Aristocrat from an organizational capability and financial perspective to actively pursue strategic M&A opportunities in a disciplined and consistent manner to accelerate our growth strategy. Today, Aristocrat has over 7,300 people around the world, and I want to thank each and every one of them for their dedication and hard work throughout the period. With that, I'll conclude the formal presentation and hand it back to the moderator to open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] We will now take our first question from the line of Adrian Lemme from Citi.

Just thank you for the breakdown on Slide 16 of the fee per day. Yes, I mean, I've gone back in time. It looks like the magnitude of that decline, we haven't really seen outside of COVID. So I just want to unpack this further. Is it right to understand that the -- there's been no impact on fee per day from lower turnover through the machines, that it looks like it's mostly mix and pricing. Can you talk to that, please?

Yes. Thanks, Adrian. I appreciate the question. And look, at the end of the day, there is a variable aspect to fee per day as we outlined. So it was around product mix, which is around the MSP portfolio and the installed base for MSPs. There was some channel mix, which was into lower fee per day markets where we're placing games sometimes in tribes and sometimes in lower fee per day properties. So that does bring down the average from that perspective. There was also some softness in the market, but it was only a small part of that. It's about 1% of that decline, which was around softness, primarily around weather-related activities in the period.

Okay. That's very helpful. Could I just ask one quick follow-up question.

Sure.

Just in terms of the second half. I've noticed like MGM talked about that they brought forward all of their slot purchases for the year to avoid the tariffs and Wynn has talked to pausing its investment projects due to higher costs. So can you talk to just generally how your customers are behaving that you can see at the moment in terms of the outlook into the second half, please?

Yes. Thanks. Look, I think the way I'd like to characterize this is, first of all, the first half was a transition for us. We launched a new cabinet being Baron Upright into North America, and we've seen strong demand for that and growth through that through the first half. Obviously, Phoenix Link coming through as well, which has driven good installs from a gaming operations point of view. That's now being complemented by the release of Baron Portrait, which was released earlier this month -- sorry, in April this year. So Baron Portrait is going out, and we've got a very strong pipeline and good visibility of that pipeline, both from a games perspective and from a hardware point of view. So we feel confident that despite some of that commentary, we're still seeing strong pipeline in the second half. We've got good innovation in hardware. We've got good game portfolio coming through, and we've got strong relationships with the customers. I think it's important to context this that whilst there's a lot of that commentary going around about consumer content and confidence, we're not seeing that at the moment. And Slide 15 sort of reflects the fact that gaming tends to come out of this quicker and companies that have both the financial capacity, the high-performing platforms, high-performing portfolio are those that will be able to take share. We see ourselves well positioned if there is a slowdown. But if you -- in answer to your question, leaning forward, we see good confidence in our pipeline, and we've obviously guided to a stronger second half on the basis that we can see that. And the pipeline for Baron Portrait in North America is very solid. We've also launched in Australia and achieved nearly 50% market share, and we see a strong pipeline behind it there. And it is being released in other markets across Asia and Europe as well.

Our next question comes from the line of Andre Fromyhr from UBS.

Maybe just sort of following up on that comments about the rest of the year. At the AGM trading update, you indicated that the second half growth or that the growth would be more skewed to the second half. And am I correct in interpreting that that's still the view now just given the comments you've made around growth being stronger in revenue and profit for gaming? And maybe you could talk to how the rate of installs has sort of normalized from an elevated '24. How does that profile for the year feed into those expectations?

Yes. Thanks, Andre. I think a couple of context here. We've got obviously line of sight of the pipeline. The launch of the new cabinets have generated a lot of customer excitement and demand. And so we see that in the Portrait cabinets for North America. We also see that in the Baron Upright cabinets for Australia and then launching Phoenix Link and a new suite of games, Buffalo Ultimate Stampede, House of the Dragon continue to be able to be placed in those markets. So the visibility for the second half remains strong. And therefore, we are able to guide to that second half phasing perspective. If I think about how we're seeing the whole gaming marketplace as a whole, we still see the opportunity to take share, and we believe that we are well positioned to take that share. If you look at the performance of the portfolio for outright sales, we're the #1 in the Eilers report from that perspective, high-performing portfolio of games and new investments. So we feel comfortable we're able to achieve that. And from a guidance point of view, like I said, we've got visibility going forward. If I then look at the Product Madness business, which is running very well, taking good share, strong momentum, we'll be launching NFL slots later this year, well-run business with the opportunity to continue to take share and grow. And obviously, scaling in the back half of this year with Interactive as we start to place more content and get a higher share of the content in the North American content marketplace, plus continue to pursue improvements in our iLottery businesses and our platform business for the second half as well.

There's a comment relating to your outright sales that they were down year-on-year due to the timing of unit sales. Can you just say more a bit about what you mean by timing? Is that like first half versus second half this year? Or is there something about the PCP that it's cycling that's really a timing factor?

Andre, to be honest with you, it's really the release of cabinet. When you release to the customers that you're going to release new cabinet out, they freeze their CapEx on the old cabinet. So as you heard, we've launched two cabinets in the first month of the second half, one in Australia, one in North America. And we ran good momentum into that period when you look at the performance, but they then said, we want to wait for the new cabinet, new games, and we've seen that pipeline convert to a strong second half pipeline. So I would characterize that as a phasing on a hardware transition.

Our next question comes from the line of Rohan Sundram from MST Financial.

Just one for me. Most of my questions have been answered. But maybe just on the theme of timings and what has been called out, can you just please talk through some of the Asia expansion timings you were referring to? And just how do you see the second half for Asia in light of these expansions and also Macau regulatory churn? And is that what's also partly contributing to your expectation for better performance in the second half?

Yes. Thanks, Rohan. Great question. So there was no new openings in our first half '25, which was down sort of 500 to 600 from first half '24, but we are anticipating openings in the second half. They will be largely Philippines-based openings, not Macau, and we expect to be able to participate in churn through the Macau technology churn. We are up 50% on our hybrid installed base in Asia from a year ago. And so we continue to see that as an alternative for operators to be able to refresh their floor and to increase our performance on those -- on their floor as well.

Our next question comes from Paul Mason from E&P.

Just two for me. The first one, I was just wondering if you could make some comments with iGaming. You seem to be prioritizing a bunch of other games still over Dragon Link and Lightning Link. Just sort of what the strategy is there behind keeping those ones from already being live. And then the second one was just if you could give a little bit of extra color on the nature of the promotions that impacted the fee per day, sort of how long they last for and anything on magnitude as well would be helpful if you can comment.

Yes. Thanks, Paul. On the question around interactive, it's a great question. I appreciate it. First of all, I think as we referenced in the talking points, we transitioned off the [ nQube ] RGS to the Interactive RGS, which is a technology change. And that is an important thing because it builds in jackpots, rewards and other features into the actual RGS platform. And we wanted to have that platform stable and working well before we put, if you like, the crown jewels, things like Buffalo Ultimate Stampede in time, Phoenix Link, Dragon Link, Lightning Link onto that. So it is all about a phased approach. We do have plans to release those games into the iGaming market. We also wanted to ensure that the RGS was installed. And currently, it's installed largely in New Jersey, Michigan and Pennsylvania, but we want to get into those other states. And then as we get those distributions, be able to feed our best games in there to actually grow share quickly. So it is part of the pipeline. It's about ensuring that we have the right quality of games and that those games are released and that they have the right incremental value created for us and the operators. But it is in the pipeline, and we're confident around being able to release those. On the second part of the question, was around the gaming operations pricing. That was a tactical activity that was around. There was market opportunities at the time. That has been -- as we made the comments, has been unwound, and we expect to see benefits coming through in an increase in fee per day because of that unwinding plus other activities we're doing in the shape of the portfolio and our commercialization efforts. So I think we said it was around 1% of the 5% decline, is the way we characterized it.

Our next question comes from the line of Sriharsh Singh from Bank of America.

Three questions from my side. So one, on the fee per day, the product mix impact, is that largely related to NFL slots that were there in the base and were priced at around $100 fee per day in 1H FY '24 and now they're out of the floor in 1H '25? And could there be some more drag from NFL slots in 2H FY '24 on the second half results? Second question on Australia. Phoenix Link, could you talk about the plans to release that into Australia? Is that coming on this year or maybe next year? And lastly, online slots, it looks like the market share of -- the content share of online slots has stagnated around 4%, 5%. Could you talk about your expectations of fair share in online slot content?

Thanks, Sriharsh. I'll have a go at each one of these. So first of all, on the fee per day, it was around the installed base of MSP, and that was -- some of that was through the NFL. What has happened is that those games have been churned out in some cases, not all of them. There still exists a number of NFL MSP games on the floor. And those cabinets are on the floor. We just got different games in those cabinets. So there has been a churn. I don't anticipate that there'll be a further churn on that in the second half. There are other games coming through that have MSP features that we'll be able to place in the second half to improve our installed base for MSP in the second half to improve our fee per day. On the ANZ Phoenix link, Phoenix Link is difficult to get approved in Australia because of the regulatory conditions here. So it is uncertain as to when it will be released in the Australian market because of those regulatory conditions. We're continuing to work with the regulator and the game design team around that, but I don't have a confidence in being able to give you a time for that. What I would reference is that in the last 12 months that Dragon Link with its new jackpots has been a strong contributor to the performance of the ANZ business on the MarsX cabinet, and that's been a strong install for us. And also Thunder Empire, which is one of our newest games, is doing extremely well in the Australian market and providing opportunity for increased share and placements as well. On the AI piece, you're correct around the fact that the share has stagnated. That is really around our decision to move our technology to the RGS and moving off what we would call older technology to that more contemporary features, like I spoke earlier about loyalty, rewards and other aspects that can offer in the RGS. We expect to be able to publish more games onto that and expect to be able to take share from that. As I said, we've made 40 games in the half. We anticipate making 90 games for the full year and publishing those. And the performance that I would indicate is that the current performance is largely only for New Jersey at this point in time where we have launched those top-performing games. And both of those top-performing games were in the top 10 games for the month of March with only 1 month of activity. So my view on expectations is that we should be well above 10% and moving more towards a 20% sort of number over a number of years, but that will take our portfolio to be broader and also the number of markets in which we participate, noting we currently only participate in 3 of the 7 regulated iGaming markets in North America, and we will enter the other 7 -- other 4 over the next period of time.

[Operator Instructions] We will now take our next question from the line of David Fabris from Macquarie.

I've got a couple of questions. I might start off with Product Madness actually. Pretty impressive step-up in direct-to-consumer volumes sequentially. Is that available in all apps now? And should we extrapolate that run rate? And just one more on the Product Madness piece. Should we be thinking about maybe a 20 percentage point margin benefit on DTC volumes versus third-party volumes?

Yes. Thanks, David. Good questions. First of all, D2C is not available on the full portfolio at the moment. So it's only available on a number of apps, but we continue to work towards making it available on all of the applications. So it's not there at this point in time. The step-up from 6% on D2C a year ago to 13% is quite an impressive step-up on that basis. And also, we're already seeing this half an increase on that 13% as a percentage of revenues going through D2C. As far as margin goes, Sally, I don't know whether you want to make any comments. It's not...

It's not that clear, but it is clearly -- it does give us a step-up in the margin, but I wouldn't anchor into 20%. But you can see the performance of that business and, obviously, continued focus on D2C and how we can move that across all the apps where it's relevant.

Got it. And then, can we just explore some of the comments you made on M&A? I guess I'm trying to understand is, are there options in land-based gaming via products or regions, faster ways to scale Interactive? Or is there a possible fourth operating segment we should be thinking about here?

Yes. Thanks, David. I mean I think we've got a track record of disciplined approach to M&A and also around the quality of integration and returns that we generate from M&A. From our perspective, we have, what we spoke about earlier, the three core pillars of the business is now very clearly articulated with a common theme of slot content and technology that runs across that. I think it's fair to assume that if we were to consider M&A, it would be to accelerate growth in sectors where we see opportunity. Gaming is one of those. Interactive is another one. And we will continue to pursue opportunities in those markets. We've spent time and continue to spend time monitoring those markets for opportunity. At the same time, we're building the capability across Aristocrat and the capacity to do M&A and to make sure that we're able to ingest it and also to make it accretive as quickly as possible. So I think it's fair to say that we are not looking at an extension to a fourth pillar at this point in time. We're looking to strengthen our position in existing markets and continue to accelerate the growth of the company.

Yes. Got it. I'm just going to sneak one more in. Just the buyback. I don't think you bought back stock since late January. Is there any reason after today's result that you can't be back in the market buying back stock?

Today is the -- we're out of blackout today. So there is no reason why we can't be back in the market buying stock.

Our next question comes from Matt Ryan from Barrenjoey.

I guess lack of talk about tariffs relative to a lot of other calls we've been listening to. I'm just keen to understand your exposure to importing parts. And I think you mentioned cost mitigation efforts. If you could just talk a bit about that as well.

Yes. Thanks, Matt. Appreciate the question. It's definitely topical. As you know, it's moving fast, and it's moving regularly. What we did in post-COVID was to diversify our supply chain, as I mentioned in the opening comments, and we are now dual sourced and dual locations on componentry for our supply chain. So we're now only 14% of our supply chain is coming from China. Other parts of Asia, we have sourcing from, but we have been able to mitigate that. We have an extensive playbook around what would happen if tariffs were implemented and how we would configure our supply chain and our options. And should we get certainty around certain tariff structures, then we would then consider making those calls at the appropriate time once that certainty was there. The other thing is that our integration centers are in Australia, the U.S. and in Europe. And so that gives us the opportunity to be able to participate in integrating in those -- each of those core markets and servicing those core markets. For instance, we can service Canada from Europe or Australia if there is -- continues to be a dispute between the U.S. and Canada on doing business with each other. So we feel that we're well positioned to manage it as we see today. We don't see any impact in our FY '25 numbers, and we're continuing to watch it and remain live to it.

And maybe a question for Sally, just on the D&D commentary. It's been a few periods now you're sort of hovering at that maybe 13.5% D&D to revenue number. I'm just trying to work out how that changes over time to get back into your range. And if I look at like the individual components, they look to be sort of going sideways. I mean the Interactive division is obviously the smallest part. So is it a case of growing the revenue to a point where you get back into that 11% to 12% range? Or do you actually think that some of these costs may end up coming down over time?

Thanks, Matt. I think there's two things. I think, obviously, revenue is one of the aspects that determines that percentage. I think the second thing is the focus that we've now got on how we scale the business. So we have started some changes this year where in D&D, we're looking less at the D&D spend on an individual business basis and looking at it more holistically. So we have a CPO, we have a CTO, and we're actually working out how we can actually make all of the right decisions in a more coordinated centralized manner, which will give us scale and more efficiency over time. And I think, as I said before, that will lead into us looking at D&D in a slightly different way as we move away from business-specific D&D spend to enterprise spend in terms of driving that efficiency over time. So first, obviously, revenue is one of the numerators and denominators in that equation and the spend itself, but we're very focused on how we drive the scalability and make decisions that are for the enterprise and not just for individual businesses.

Our next question comes from the line of Annabel Li from Goldman Sachs.

Just two from me, please. The first one, given you're talking to a stronger second half revenue outlook, what are some major cost buckets we need to be thinking about, maybe anything associated with the two cabinet launches?

I think there's probably two things there, Annabel. I think the second half is about the actual revenue and our projection on sales and our confidence in those products that are in the market and the timing that Trevor spoke to. From a cost perspective, we remain heavily focused on managing our cost base effectively. And so you can look at our corporate costs, our SG&A, our D&D, how we think about cost of sales, which goes to the tariffs. So it's not one area. It's just a fundamental view of how we manage costs across the business. And obviously, the second half projections in terms of our outlook and sales with the product launches that we've got happening across April and May. I think the only thing I'd probably add is we did have a large focus on costs last year. So we have seen some benefits roll into this year for that and it is a continued area of focus for us.

Okay. That's helpful. The second one on your ANZ sales performance. You've called out the timing impact from the Baron cabinet into the second half and then close to 50% ship share you've seen in New South Wales and Queensland. Should we interpret that as flat to potential growth in the full year if the first half impact was all timing related?

I just missed the last part, Annabel. I got to the first, the part about second half, and then I didn't quite hear it.

Yes. So just on the timing of the Baron cabinet, you've called out that in the second half, and then you've got 50% ship share in New South Wales and Queensland so far. Should we then interpret ANZ sales performance to be flat in the full year or potentially some growth if the first half impact was all timing related?

I think the way to think about it is that we anticipate that we'll be able to take a significant share of the churn in the second half. I'm not going to guide to what the full year number looks like, but we feel confident enough to tell you that we're going to have a stronger second half, which will deliver our NPATA growth over the full year. I feel comfortable with the visibility of the cabinet portfolio and the games portfolio plus new games we have to release later in the year that we'll be able to take that share and actually have a very -- have a strong second half from a gaming point of view in Australia.

[Operator Instructions] We will now take our next question from the line of Kai Erman from Jefferies.

Don't mean to labor the point around fee per day, but just a couple of follow-ups on that one from my end. Just wanted to get your sense of if there's been any element of discounting in the fee per day to drive volume in the face of any competitive pressure? Or is that not something you guys have been seeing so far?

No, Kai. From a competitive point of view, we feel very comfortable we're able to compete and very comfortable with the competitions out there that we have a stronger portfolio. We have stronger investment, and we have stronger commercialization and capability. So the reason that we would be doing that is around opportunities maybe with openings, maybe opportunities around refreshing of floors. So from our perspective, it was a tactic. As we said, we've wound that back, and we see line of sight being able to continue to be competitive and to take share through the balance of the year. So from a competitive point of view, we're not troubled by competition. We feel that we've got the right portfolio, the right games and the right execution to continue to increase fee per day sequentially in the second half.

And also that kind of leads into my second question. On your comments on the sequential improvement in the second half, just in the context that the first half was the lowest fee per day sort of since COVID, would you be able to give some more detail or sense on how you're thinking about the quantum of improvement maybe on a year-on-year basis or relative to sort of recent history ex this weaker half?

What I would say is that we're confident in the sequential improvement in it. We're taking active choices for what we can control. I think one of the questions earlier was what was some of the softness that was just through core, and we said that was about a percentage point. But we continue to look at our portfolio, and I feel confident that we'll see sequential improvement. It is market-leading. I'd just like to put that back out there that it is market-leading compared to our competitors, and we see the ability to be able to increase that sequentially in the second half from product, from hardware and from games. So I won't give you the -- what the number looks like, but we feel comfortable we can improve that sequentially.

Our next question comes from the line of Rohan Gallagher from Jarden Group.

Interactive obviously enjoyed some nice margin expansion, presumably bigger contribution from iLottery and content. It's not going to be a linear path to your aspirational $900 million or $1 billion revenue targets, Trevor, pending accounting. Are there any phase step-ups or approaches that we should be mindful of such as, for example, this last half where you've sort of held back content on a go-forward basis? Just I'm just trying to navigate the sort of pathway and the bridge to FY '29, please.

Yes. Thanks, Rohan. I think the way to think about it is if you look at the current position of our North American content and the share that we're holding in that space, is that there's a lot of share opportunity there. And that's with just three markets we currently participate. And as we said, we're going to be in four markets over the period of time, which will be all regulated iGaming markets. So I think there's a big step up from that perspective. There's also the exposure into European markets where North American content and Roxor content being published into the European markets as well. ILottery continues to be an opportunity. And as you may be aware, the Massachusetts RFP is out at the moment. We are due to go live in New Hampshire soon. So there are opportunities in the iLottery markets, which continue to legalize. We anticipate that we'll be able to be successful there in new markets, but also the organic growth comes through it as well. And then there's markets like the tribal markets with mobile on-premise and the platforms business. So continuing to expand our platforms in North America and ANZ through our CX business, but also the mobile on-premise opportunity, which is presented for the tribal customers in North America as well.

Trevor, last year, the second half FY '24, Gaming was an exceptional result. Obviously, this result this half was arguably a bit softer than expectations. How much of that could have been a pull forward into the second half of last year, acknowledging you still command dominant positions across your premium games outright sale businesses?

Yes. Look, great question, Rohan. I don't believe there's any pull forward. I think it's more around the tactical choices we made around release of cabinets and new cabinet releases, particularly towards the back half of the half -- the back end of the half, and that actually slowed things down. There was obviously some headwinds around MSP, but I don't believe that it was a pull forward. In fact, we'll be back towards our historical average installed base increase on an annualized basis for the full year. So I still believe that we're still able to increase our installed base, and we will sequentially improve our fee per day in the second half.

Fantastic. And final question, if I may. Obviously, it's still early days for the integration of NeoGames and so on. So you're going through that period of consolidation and integration. Conscious of the commentary around your targeted leveraging around in the absence of strategic material M&A, you're not going to hit that target. Do you have the internal capability and capacity to both integrate NeoGames and acquire another $1 billion-plus sort of acquisition in the sort of short to medium term? Or is there preference just to hit that buyback hard and complete the $750 million buyback by February?

Yes. No, we're a growth company, Rohan, and we've got aspirations to do M&A, but it's got to be strategic and disciplined. And so we are building the capability -- sorry, we have built the capability and the capacity to do more M&A. It's now what is the right M&A for our strategy and what's the right targets for our strategy. So we continue to be participating in the market on an ongoing basis, and we have built the capability and capacity to do more M&A of scale, but it's the right M&A that aligns with our strategy. And everyone will appreciate the discipline we apply to our M&A processes.

Our next question comes from Justin Barratt from CLSA.

Just wanted to ask, Trevor, I guess, just in relation to -- can we get your commentary on how you're seeing the competitive environment in that premium leased space? And how that translates into your, I guess, focus on taking market share versus driving yield growth in your premium leased operations. Just wanted to see if you've got any comments that you're willing to share there.

Yes. Thanks, Justin. I think a couple of things to point out was the success of the launch of Phoenix Link certainly been very well accepted and performing very well on the floors. Also, if you think about Buffalo Ultimate Stampede, another very strong game that should come to market. And we're still actually placing Dragon Link, like we said. Even though it's 8 years old, we're still continuing to place Dragon Link. So our portfolio of premium games, premium gaming operations is actually quite broad at the moment. That plus the new hardware allows us to continue to place games. And in the second season of NFL, there will be some MSP and games that we'll be using in that space as well. So I feel -- if you look at the install -- we've installed nearly 2,500 incremental units in the half. I think that's a very strong number coming off the back of the performance that we did in the second half and the overall 7,100 for 2024. I still feel confident we're able to place high-quality units and good game performance into the market. And from a competitive point of view, I think if you look at just the overall performance, our portfolio performance continues to get stronger and performance is what will ultimately drive placements.

Understood. And then, Sally, just one other question for you. You noted that the dividend payout ratio reached 40% in this half, and that's much more akin to where you're at sort of pre-COVID. Is that sort of a relevant marker for us to work on going forward? Is sort of 40% something that you think you aspire to going forward or what we should sort of think about in our modeling?

It's a good question. The dividends are at the Board's discretion. And when we go forward with them, we have a number of different factors that we consider. I think you can take it. If you look at the payout ratio over the last couple of halves, we have increased slightly, partly because obviously, now this is the second period where we've got an unfranked dividend as well. So I would look at the last 2 halves and take that as an indication, but it is completely at the Board's discretion each time we bring this through.

I'm showing no further questions. Thank you all very much for your questions. I'll now turn the conference back to Trevor for his closing comments.

Thank you, moderator. Aristocrat continues to execute well against its strategy of offering a diversified gaming portfolio that leverages our leading content and capabilities. Our consistently strong investment in talent, technology and innovation leave us confident we can capture the numerous opportunities that lie ahead. I'm very confident around how we're going to progress for the second half, and we look forward to talking to you at the end of the full year. If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to our Investor Relations team. I'll now call the formal proceedings to a close. And on behalf of the Aristocrat team, we thank you for your ongoing interest in the company and wish you a good day. Thank you.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect your lines.