Asetek A/S (A31.F) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hi, and good morning. Welcome to this Investor Presentation with Asetek A/S today represented by CEO and Founder, Andre Sloth Eriksen, we have CFO, Peter Dam Madsen; and Vice President of Brand & Digital, Maja Sand-Grimnitz, who will give a short introduction to the company, the investment highlights and then finally, some information on the financials and the current rights issue. My name is Rasmus and I will be the moderator of today's event. Following the presentation by management, we'll have a Q&A session. You can ask questions in the chat below for the Q&A session. If you're not comfortable writing in English, you can write in Danish, and we will translate the questions. Your questions will not be visible before they are published from our side. The presentation will be recorded and will be available afterwards on Asetek's webpage and other platforms. With that I'll hand it over to you, Andre, Peter and Maja, please.

Thanks, and we can change the slide. Just a legal important legal information that you can read at your leisure, it's important to read it. And with that, please proceed to the next slide, introduction of you, Andre.

Yes. I think I'll do my introduction short since I've been here forever and started the company back in '97. And yes, I've been with the company ever since. And I play a big role in the -- of course, the management of the company's -- needless to say, but also in the business development and on the development side of new products.

Yes. And the next name is me, Peter Dam Madsen. I'm the CFO. I've been here since 2006. I have a traditional CFO background in accounting and audit. And then I topped it off with an MBA at some point. And then over to you, Maja, and I believe that you are muted. So maybe you should just hit the unmute button.

Yes. Thank you very much, Peter. My name is Maja. I joined the company a little more than 3 years ago as part of the Board of Directors. And then this summer, we decided that I would step down from the Board of Directors to join the senior management team with a specific focus on building and scaling the SIM Sports business. I have a background of working my career. I've been working in the nexus between product brand and marketing. And it's with that experience that I step into this role, I've been in start-ups and global brands. Always worked globally, always within B2C, always focusing on how you can build and scale a business through brand-led strategies and with a clear focus on organizational optimization and performance.

Very good, and then we changed the slide again. And we have split the agenda into three main points -- groups and one is a company overview and then it's followed by the investment highlights. And then we ended off with the financials around the transaction. And then we do have the Q&A session afterwards, of course. Next slide, please. .

All right. So let me just try to describe as shortly as possible, what it is we actually do. On the left side of the slide here, you have a good example of our most recent liquid cooling, where you have a radiator you can see the fans, you can see the pump unit and there's actually, in this case, a bent LED screen. This goes inside gaming PC. Most PCs, most gaming PCs actually have windows in them. And I'm not talking about the operating system, I'm talking about a glass window in the site meaning that you can see the motherboard, you can see everything what's going on. And as such, the cooler is used by many OEMs as, let's say, a premium branding opportunity because what will happen in the center of that window is always the CPU and half of the CPU, you always have the liquid cooler. The reason for using liquid cooling is essentially that you will get a much lower noise, Nobody wants a noisy PC. And on top of that, you can get much higher CPU performance, for example, by [ over tracking ] and keeping the CPU cool. We have, at this point, I think past 10 million units, I think we've actually passed 11 million units sold. And that business is primarily OEM, it's actually almost all OEM, meaning that we do not sell under the Asetek brand. We sell to PC manufacturers, and we sell to -- let's say, channel partners who actually rebrand them or put their own brand on them and sell it to use who were building their own PCs. On the right side of the slide and our newest business is the SimSports, it is essentially pedals, wheelbase and steering wheels for sim racing. So you can sit back in your own room and drive a Formula One car, if you so desire. I will get back a little bit later to the synergies between the two businesses, because indeed, the business model is different from segment to segment, but there is a big, big overlap in between the products actually. So next slide. Very briefly on the two businesses, a little bit more numbers. I'll take the left side and then Maja will take the right side. But if we look at the liquid cooling business, that's what I found many years ago. And therefore, it's an old business, you could say right now. We expect the revenue between $42 million and $44 million this year. And growth profile is, of course, not as deep is on the SimSports since it's an older business. And in terms of margins, what we're shooting for is an adjusted EBITDA margin of plus 25%. That's what we normally see. Our customers, as I alluded to before, is B2B2C, meaning that we have customers who take our product, we sell to them as a business and then they sell it to their consumers. And just a few examples, we have Asus and NZXT. On the OEM side, on the pure OEM side, and when I say pure OEM, it is actually a little bit like being a supplier to the car industry. So if you imagine that we were doing, let's say, premium seats for BMW 7 Series. Then our demand follow their demand one-to-one every time they see a good market for luxury cars, we would be selling our seats. But without them selling their cars, we would not be able to sell our seats. And that is kind of the nature of the liquid cooling business that when our OEM for example, like Dell is doing really well, then we are also doing really well. If they are not doing really well, we are also not doing really well because we cannot really do anything about it. So that is the nature of the liquid cooling business that we are in. So Maja, will you cover the Sim?

Yes. So on the SimSports side, the business is made up of B2C, that means when we go direct to the customer or the consumer, which is selling through, for example, our own web sub or it could be selling through Amazon, which is basically a platform where we have our own shop on. And then we have B2B2C, which is when we go through distributors or resellers, so that will be channels like, say, Elgiganten or Best Buy. It will also be small independent retail chains specializing within gaming. The key thing for both of these, whether we talk B2C or B2B2C in SimSports is that our task in the end is to make our brand known to the consumer, the end users so that they go into either our shop or where they buy their consumer electronics in general and ask for our products. So the sales channels that we work with are important to channels, because they have reach and they are where the end users use to be in this type of product, but it is on us to make sure that the consumer actually goes into that and specifically for our products. So building the brand and understanding of the brand and products within the end user is key to that business model.

Next slide, please. And once again, next slide. And I think it's you again, Maja.

Yes. So speaking a little bit to the opportunities in these markets, and I'll focus in on SimSports. But in liquid cooling, we still see a steady growth in the gaming market, especially driven by PC upgrade cycles with new chips, GPUs are coming out, and we see a boost in demand every time that happens. In the gaming simulation market, we've seen a significant growth over the recent years, actually a growth that has be in other categories in the gaming market. So definitely a segment that we see going more mainstream. It is driven by a number of big game titles, and we see spike in growth when new game titles are released. There are some significant barriers to this market in terms of brand loyalty with the end user awareness and then product complexity. But it is a market where we see the customers are willing to spend money on the equipment that they use for, which is basically their passion and hobby, so these are end users that are willing to say, this is where I spend my free time. This is where I entertain myself and get enjoyment in an otherwise busy day, and I'm willing to spend some money on the equipment I use for that. There are up-sell and cross-sell opportunities, working within an ecosystem of various product points and multiple products. And then, right now, we are focusing very much on specifically Sim racing, but there are also opportunities within other simulation categories, such as farming -- simulation farming, simulation trucking, where we also see significant amount of end users.

Very well. We changed the slide. So I can talk a little bit about the liquid cooling segment here. Where we have usually played around and still is, for that matter, is in the, let's say, in the high end and in the premium space, and that's typically because that's where we've been able to extract the best margins, and we have not really wanted to be a part of the -- let's say, very ultra-low only cost-focused stuff. And that's something that our customers appreciate because as we all know, there is a price to quality and quality is super important when you are selling into the big OEMs. One thing is to sell on [indiscernible], for example, to an end user. And if something happens, well, you can replace the product. But if it's in a PC and on a PC brand that shipped globally, quality is super important. So we have mainly played in the premium end, what we can see right now is there is a little shift in the market in terms of demand. It does not mean that the premium end is going away, but I think we all know just watching outside the window that with interest rates and what have we -- people are not necessarily spending the same amount of money as they used to. That's also true for PCs. So there is a higher demand for, let's say, a little bit more mid-level products. And that's, of course, something we work with our customers on also, because there's no reason that we cannot play there. So that's where we see -- we are going, but we are not going to -- on this slide into the lower left corner, where we would just participate in a price game. And it's also not what our customers are asking for. So that's another important data point that, what our customers are saying is, if you want higher volume, you need to also play on the mid-level field. But the customers we have also, do not play in the super low-end market. So therefore, they are also not asking for that. Will you cover the Sim, Maja or do you want me to do that?

Yes, I can do that. So on the Sim side, we have launched our branded portfolio within the premium brands. So not all the way up at the top of the high end where you have real niche brands that are not looking to scale that big. But at premium brands where we are just below them in price, but delivering on par with them in quality. Expanding and scaling our business, we are looking to entering the mid-level brands and compete with that segment. And first, I want to say that moving from a premium position with a higher price premium and telling the market, we are now opening up our universe to invite end users in, at a lower price point, but still delivering at a very high quality is definitely a much better position than what we see some of our competitors probably be looking at in the low category and mid-level brands, saying we are at a very low price and now we want you to pay more. So we already have a starting point to target the mid level, which is quite beneficial and a very strong story to last in. Moving into that category, what we'll be able to offer compared to some of the competitors we meet there, who are established brands in the mid-level and lower-level brands category. Is this ability to customize? We have a modular approach to building our product portfolio. So you can enter our system at one price point, but then you can upgrade through customization and this modular approach and how our products are put together. You can end at one price point and as you get excited about the portfolio, you can move your way up the ecosystem to the more complex, higher priced products? The other thing is that we remove an intra barrier, which we don't see any of our competitors doing by saying that our ecosystem is open and compatible with other brands. So, if you are not ready to move into our ecosystem, purchasing everything you need the engine, the steering wheel, the pedals, the shifters from us. We can start with some of our products. They are comparable with other brands. And then as you get excited about our universe, which we are certain you will be, then you will move you into completely. This is because we truly believe that our product to get the competitors in price to experienced value ratio. And therefore, we are not afraid to remove that intra barrier and allowing people to come in and test without buying fully into it from the first stage. Besides that, we are currently only compatible with PC in our product portfolio, but we have recently secured an Xbox license, which will now open up a much larger market. So if you remember or the numbers on the previous slide talking a bit about the amount of active users in the same sports category. 47% of those are on Xbox as their primary platform. So it is the largest platform when we look at Xbox, PlayStation and PC today. So it is a significant step into mass market and scaling that we are able to -- starting next year offering products compatible with Xbox.

Very good. Next slide, please. Potentially rule out a misunderstanding that I often hear and also explain a little bit more how we are organized and what it is, how we work. So first of all, we are not two companies. We are one company, and both business segments share the same engineers, for example, same quality, same manufacturing, same sourcing, same finance, same management. So it's not like SimSports is 40 people in the corner, then we have the liquid cooling in another corner of the company. Of course, we have specialists, for example, on the liquid cooling side, we have Thermodynamics experts. On the simulation side, we have a low-level firmware specialists. So of course, our specialists. But as I alluded to earlier, some of the synergies that we see between these two business segments, because it may not be obvious seen from the outside, but from the inside, we have engineers who are literally working on SimSports one day and then the next day, they are working with a customer on liquid cooling. And that is a great way to get the kind of innovation into our products as we do. And we are really investing significantly in R&D, because we believe that is the future essentially for most companies in the Western world and that is where we are ahead of the competition. That is both in SimSports and in liquid cooling and to a high degree, we share these resources, and why is that a good thing? Well, first of all, it's a good thing because there is a big customer overlap. And when I say customer overlap, it's not necessarily an ACE customer overlap, but it is an end user overlap. People who use our liquid cooling are gamers, people who use our SimSports are gamers. And even on our customers, we do have customers now, that is only -- so when I say customers, I mean our direct customers. We have direct customers who are only buying liquid cooling, because we started selling Sim to them and also the other way around. So although from the outside, because one is a branded business and the other is an unbranded business, that seems a little bit odd. It makes a lot of sense on all levels inside the company. Next slide, please. I will cover the liquid cooling here as well. So on the liquid cooling side, again, I think a common misunderstanding is that we developed a product 25 years ago, we took out our patents. And now the patent is about to experience -- so now the liquid cooling is old and boring. That is very far from the truth. First of all, we keep developing hard. We come up with new innovations all the time. And the reason we are not that depending on our patents is a different story altogether and has nothing to do with our revenue situation right now. What I mean by that is, in the early days of Asetek and liquid cooling, it was important for us to defend our patents. But as time has moved on, it's not patents that decide whether we get a certain customer or not, because at no point in time, has -- have companies in China respected our IP. So whether we have it or not, makes absolutely no difference in that regard. The Chinese have been there for 20 years and there are more of them now, and there's nothing we can do about it. So patents are not -- that's not what we live off. What we live off is innovation, working closely with our customers to meet their needs and of course, I cannot say anything that's confidential towards a customer, but what I can say is we still have a lot of great dialogues with some of the biggest OEMs in the world on how we can innovate, how can we make PCs even more low noise and so forth. So for sure, and that happens to any technology over time. Of course, it's more commoditized than it was 20 years ago, but it's absolutely still a market that's alive and it's still a market that where we can compete and innovate. And I think just a final remark on that. I expect there will be some conversations later about our revenue situation right now. But I think it's important to realize that the revenue situation we are in right now is not the cause we launch any customers. We have the same customers that we used to have. So I think somehow there's spread this misunderstanding that now China is coming and now Asetek is falling apart, or the liquid cooling business is falling apart. That's not the case. The case is that when the global gaming market is down, then we are also down. And because we only have that one product line right now on the product line, the product business, then, of course, we are very vulnerable. That's the right picture to sit back with. So over to you, Maja.

Yes. So on the SimSports side, we have also a number of strategic initiatives to scale that business. I already mentioned that we are coming from a premium position moving into mid-level brands competing there. One of the key things is investing in the brand, because at the moment, as in many other consumer tech markets, you might have a number of brands competing only on price, and that is not sustainable for the long term, that is going to end up with a race to the bottom. So building a brand that is desirable to the end user and which is why they stay loyal to our products, because our products they actually deliver on what our brand promise is key to our long-term success in this market. Then we're working on scaling our business by growing our distribution network. And with the new offerings that we'll have on the road map for the coming years, we are very much focusing again on more this mid-level mass market. And that will also be products that will have higher relevance for mass market, consumer electronics, retail. These channels are important because they sit on a large part of the market when it comes to selling consumer and electronics to more of what we would call the leisure gamer, which is the next segment we are adding to the end users that we are targeting. Today, we are targeting a bit more of a niche segment of very enthusiast hard core Sim races. We will continue to stay loyal and true to them, but we will expand our offering and our distribution availability of the product to target this broader mass market of gamers who are gaming at a more leisure level. In terms of leveraging our technology and premium brand position, I already talked to that, that at the moment, we are focusing on Sim racing specifically, but there are huge opportunities going into farming and [indiscernible], which will, from a product level should be fairly easy for us to move into. And then brand already established within Sim racing. We already have the proof point through to these other gamers within farming and [indiscernible] to get them into our universe and try out our offerings. I want to mention quickly on the Xbox license because I know that's also often something being asked. As said, Xbox is when you look at the top 25 Sim racing titles that use our type of equipment. Xbox is 47% of the users in that market and 40% of the monthly active users. So it is the largest platform. But that's not to say that we will not also be looking to adding PlayStation compatibility in the future through our platform. We started with Xbox, because it's one of the largest platforms and also their model for licensing is a straightforward licensing model where they want quality products and then you can move into discuss our partnership. PlayStation is looking a bit more to also availability of the product. So as we move into platforms like Amazon and mass market retail we'll be able to engage PlayStation and have discussions on also adding debt to our portfolio. We are targeting a nice and quite ambitious goal in the midterm of USD 50 million in revenue. We are also aware that we are overinvesting in that period, which is necessary a set to build the brand, develop the products and get into these mass market channels, reaching the midterm goal, we will also take a look at them starting to focus more on improving margins for the business.

Please change the slide then. And once again, to the revenue slide here. For those of you who follow us, this will be known stuff, of course, but let's do it anyway. If we have been delivering a 6% annual compounded growth over the last 8 years, if we took a longer period of time, we would actually show a higher number. But as you -- as Andre has alluded to before, in the last couple of years has been very volatile and has been pulling down the overall CAGR to 6%. Looking at the EBITDA, we are delivering a quite decent, I would say, 12% on average over the last 8 years -- sorry, I just lost it here. Quite decent EBITDA of 12%, sorry. And we are proud of that. I don't think you will find many hardware component companies who are delivering EBITDA at that level, in that level. If you look at 2021 and onwards, the EBITDA has been pulled down by the fact that we've started investing in the [indiscernible] business. And of course, also the revenue just finish [indiscernible] that the revenue here in 2024 and in recent years has been impacted by the factors that Andre alluded to around the PC business in general. The next slide, please. The 2024 guidance is maintained. We are coming out. We estimate at this point with the revenue in between $52 million and $55 million. That is a decrease of around 30% compared to last year 2023. And it's -- and we're coming up the EBITDA margin adjusted between 1% and 4%. More interesting on this slide is the right-hand side, where we're looking about -- talking about the medium-term ambitions, where for the two segments, the liquid cooling segment, we are projecting a revenue level of $50 million in medium term. And of course, that's not a high number compared to the 70, 75 that we've seen in earlier years, and that is in line with the guidance that we have given where we see a reduction -- compression of the market in 2025, and then we see that it will start increasing again from 2026. We see an EBITDA margin consistently around 25% or plus 25%. That's a little bit lower than what we've seen historically. But keep in mind, the story that Andre told you about how we are moving into mid-range market where we are giving up potentially a little bit of EBITDA margin and instead receiving EBITDA dollars. On the SimSports, the ambition is to reach $50 million in the midterm scenario of revenue, and we are aiming at continuously improving our gross margin and reach a positive single-digit margin in the midterm. Of course, $50 million of revenue is not the end goal here. And of course, single-digit margin on EBITDA is not the end-goal either. But when we reached the $50 million revenue, then we can start talking, okay, do we still want to charge ahead and invest in the growth? Or do we want to take the foot off the speed a little bit and then increase the growth and the margins instead. With that, change the slide, please. Just a little bit on the story why we are here today. 1.5 years ago, a little bit more than that, we raised money. And that was in a year 2023, where we performed extremely well. We raised money and we paid off debts, and then we -- from the operation, we gained almost $20 million of cash flow. And then of course, you all know that we invested heavily in our headquarters. And that meant all these numbers together that at the end of the year 2023, we had around $9 million in the bank. 2024 this year has been a whole different story. And where you can see that for the last 3 quarters of 2023, we had operating cash flow of positive $20 million, then the operating cash flow this year for the first 3 quarters has been minus about $1 million. So it's a quite different story. The investment in the headquarters has eased here at the end of September, I believe it was. And that meant that we, at the end of September, has $3 million, $3.4 million in the bank. So that's why we are here today. And of course, we want to continue our investments and get into the SimSports so we can grow that segment. With that change the slide, and over to you, Andre.

Yes. So just a little bit about why we're here and what's on the table. So the deal structure is that today, we have 98.3 million shares. The maximum number of new shares will be just shy of 295 million subscription price of DKK 0.4. If everything goes to plan, we will receive gross proceeds of DKK 118 million. And the net of that is DKK 104 million. And the lower bar from when we say, okay, this is not going to work. We're going to withdraw the offering is $60 million and for those of you who are wondering why we have a lower, that is simply because we don't want investors to invest their money into something that will just not pan out, and then they have lost their money. So that's why there is a lower management commitment, $3.2 million and that the minimum subscriptions we have right now from external shareholders is somewhere between DKK 11.2 million and DKK 17.7 million, and that depends a little bit on the final offering is. The use of proceeds, of course, strengthening our balance sheet and making sure we have the needed working capital for the next year and onwards. And then, of course, the continued investments into SimSports, including the short-term growth that we are looking at. And as Maja explained, that to become a household gaming brand, we do need to invest in the brands. The products don't sell themselves. We are in the state right now where they pretty much have sold themselves, because it's such great products. But if we want to move on to mainstream, and that's what we want, then we need to invest. So that was the end of the formal presentation then I guess we are going into the Q&A on. Then we give the microphone to Rasmus.

Thank you very much, Andre, Peter and Maja. Yes, sure, we'll go proceed to the Q&A session. As I told in the beginning, you can ask questions in the chat, and we'll get them through. We will not publish them, but we will see them behind the screens here. But I think we should start with some of the questions regarding the rights issue and the financials, as there is a good number of questions here. One of them is here, one of the consequences if the full amount is not raised -- any impact on the bank financing agreement and agreed covenants published on 26th of November?

If the full amount is not reached, then of course, we will need to reevaluate how we spend the proceeds. There is a minimum in there. The minimum is DKK 60 million. And with that, our covenants are going to be met. And then we will reevaluate how to proceed from there. We have a good collaboration with our bank. And we have, of course, a strong -- a strong platform for negotiating with the bank going forward.

Very good. And then another question here. How is it that in the prospectus, you lower the ambitions for the capital raise setting a range between DKK 60 million and DKK 118 million while in the company announcement, on the 26th of November, you state that you aim to raise DKK 115 million in new capital?

The aim is still DKK 115 million or DKK 118 million. The difference between DKK 115 million and DKK 118 million. I -- as far as I remember, is a calculation thing. If you have 1 share today, then you get 3 rights and that those 3 rights times [indiscernible] It turns into 118. And the 3 versus 1 is simply just an easier calculation than 2.9 something.

Thank you. And another question here from my side. Can investors expect future dilutive capital raises or should be sufficient to fund your midterm targets?

I think that's a very simple to answer that. Of course, not. We are not planning for any future capital raises at least not on this kind. Of course, had you asked me that question last time, I would have said the same. So of course, I cannot predict the future, but what I can say is that it's definitely not the ambition or the plan.

Very good. And actually, another question here for you, Andre. The CEO received a total compensation of DKK 8 million last year. Why is the CEO not participating with more than DKK 300 million in the new issue. Does this indicate that top management doesn't have faith in the emission being beneficial for the shareholders? Why should we then invest?

That's a fair point. I think first of all, let me say that the combined management and Board is actually subscribing for more than the [ prorata ], and I think it will be much worse than if I was the only one that subscribed. That does not change the question for myself. But when you look at my total comp, you also have to take in consideration the components of it, and some of the components are shares. We know what they are worth now, but there was a different value on the last time. So there are a lot of stuff that's actually not just cash. Over the last years, I have actually invested quite a lot of tax money. I have paid a lot of tax for my shares that I never got abandoned out of that the Danish tax system. And then finally, last time we did around -- on unfortunately long ago, I also came up with several millions and unfortunately, at this time, I just don't have the liquidity to do it fully. I would put it like this on my commitment I've been here for 20-some years. Trust me, if I was not committed, I would have left a long time ago, this is not a fun situation to be in. So if I did not believe in it, I would simply not be here. So of course, I believe in it. And then a final note on that topic, as everyone who understands the right issues will know, then as I do not take my phone prorata, I obviously have an excess amount of rights -- subscription rights and I can tell you right away that every single time I get from that will go right into buying new shafts. So it's not like I won't sit back with any money, not one single Danish krone and everything will be used for participating in the new round. So yes, I think that's the most detail I can answer. I also don't feel it's neither here, nor do I feel comfortable that I have to share my private financials with the rest of the world.

Thank you very much, Andre. And also regarding the biggest shareholders, will they participate fully in the rights issue. And also, it seems like in the best that some of the largest shareholders have a different view on the best way forward for Asetek. Maybe you could also walk us a little bit through those thoughts and considerations and the way forward for Asetek and why this is the best for the company and the shareholders.

Yes, of course. And I think, again, it's very important to look at the facts here. When we launched this capital raise, our biggest investor was another one in the current biggest investor. And prior to this capital raise and before we announced it, we have had very constructive dialogues with our biggest shareholders who support the transaction. Then after we announced the transaction, a new shareholder has come in and bought a lot of shares well knowing that we were doing the capital raise. We have then since learned that they do not support our capital raise based on what they can see from the outside. And I think, again, it's important here to understand that the way this works is when we talk to our shareholders in advance of capital race, we offer them to become insiders so that we can share our plans with them in detail for the future, and the downside of big investors becoming insiders, of course, is they cannot trade in the shares. No insiders can trade in the shares. So of course, we had secured that we have the backup and the support from our shareholders. And this new shareholder of ours, we have also offered him to become insider so we can talk to him in detail about what our plans are and why it is, we're doing as we are. He has not wanted to become an insider. So therefore, it's really tricky. What I can say is that the reason we believe this is the best is because the SimSports business is a start-up business. That's important to realize. We have gone from zero to, let's say, roughly DKK 70 million this year in only 2.5 years of operations, we believe that's really a great result, but we want to continue and the running venture companies for bank loans is not really what the bank wants to do. And we also do need to have working capital enough to have the right amount of inventory. Just a very low key example. We just had our first ever, let's call it, real Black Friday campaign. And in no time, our highest price product were sold out. And why is that? Is that bad planning? I think we were surprised, positively surprised, number one, and number two, in the financial situation we are in right now, we are very careful investing in inventory, and that bit us pretty hard right now. So to do this right, we need money and we need -- what should we call it, we cannot be chasing money all the time to do the SimSports business, and we think it's unfair to the SimSports business and the liquid cooling business that we can only do one business if the other one is performing 100%, which we have seen now is not the case. So I know this is a long answer, but there are many components and factors going into it.

Very good. And then just a final question on the rights issue before we move a little bit to the financials. Could you give some details on the cost of this transaction?

I can do some general and then [indiscernible] is last time we did the offering, we had this guarantee that cost us a lot of money. We are talking 2-digit percentages. This time, we have decided not to do this guarantee. So it's significantly lower cost than last time. But I guess on the overall scheme of things that the slide I went through, where you have the difference between the gross and the net proceeds there, you'll see everything that's included. Just one comment on that. The reason why we also don't want to turn this into smaller tranches is that it is very expensive to do a rights issue, not only in money but also in management time needless to say, I have spent a lot of my resources on investors and on rights issues, et cetera, the last few months. And I think it's better for all of us that we can put that in the draw and say, now we focus on driving the business. Was that answer enough?

That's very good. Thank you. And then maybe a little bit of a clarification, because someone was a little bit uncertain when we were speaking dollars and we move as speaking Danish krone. But I guess in terms of the rights issue, we are talking Danish krone. And when we have the numbers on the other slides, we're talking dollars, is that correctly understood?

Yes, that's correct. The rights issue is gross proceed DKK 118 million. We are -- and I apologize for that. We are a little bit colored by the fact that we came from the U.S., we sell in dollars and we buy in dollars. And so it's -- we will try to be sharp on that.

Very good. Thanks for clarifying. And then perhaps, operator, if you could move to Slide 14, we could do a little bit of questions on the financial sides. There was a question here. When will SimSports be breakeven?

It's very difficult to say simply because there are so many assumptions baked into it, and it is not a new business as it is. And what I can say because that's perhaps the root of the question or the origin of the question is, that if we see the business is not scaling accordingly, then of course, we will just not keep throw money at it and say, okay, we hope it will turn around. Of course, the objective here is to do it the right way, but of course, also be cautious about the money. This also urged me to say that we are not here today because we have not been cautious about spending money. We are here today because the liquid cooling business has disappointed. And I think that's important to keep in mind.

Maja, do you have anything to add?

No, I think you covered it all.

Well, then talking about liquid cooling, there was a question here. You expect a decline in liquid cooling revenue in 2025. Most of your computer gaming hardware competitors expect a significant upgrade cycle as the cohort of gamers who bought gaming computers during COVID. I expect it to start upgrading when the new generation of GPUs are launched in January '25. Your own slide also highlights this trend and you highlight that you have not lost any customers. Can you try to walk us through why your outlook is a decline in the liquid cooling business in 2025?

Yes. First of all, you have to deduct customers' inventory from these statements and some of our customers have big inventories, then they may see a demand that we do not see yet. So that's one explanation. Another explanation, although we haven't lost any customers, as I explained before. Some of our customers want to enter, let's say, lower cost segments and when we enter into a new design win with an OEM customers, that's typically a year or more process before we start on the drawing boards and until there are products in the field. That's the second explanation. Third explanation, we have particularly one very big customer, where we have been the exclusive supplier for, I would say, 10 years, at least 10 years, and they have now come to realize that they want two vendors. It has nothing to do with Asetek, it's just policy. And it's -- while it's hard to accept in the circumstances we are in, it's really not hard to understand. There are no -- I hope at least there are no components in our entire supply chain where we are depending on only one vendor. So the sum of it is what we see. Those who follow us know that -- and I'm sorry about that, because it makes me look like I'm not credible. But I -- the fact of the nature of our business is we have very few very large customers. When they tell us something, we tell it to the stock market. If they say we expect a 40% increase next year, we communicate it. If they say we expect 40% decrease, we communicate it. And there's nothing we can do to influence it and that is, I know, hard to accept, but that is the story. And then before you ask the next obvious question, how can you talk about '26 when you cannot even talk about next quarter? That is a very good question. And I can only say that when we talk about '26 and beyond, of course, it's bound with a big amount of uncertainty, because we only have the quality of the data that we get from our customers. What I can say as the CEO and as the founder and as just having visited all our big customers, more or less without exception, is that structurally, I cannot pinpoint one single thing that would not bring the growth back into the liquid cooling market. Then there's nothing. I just cannot say with a high precision margin. When is it and how much is it? So we are giving you the best data that we have. We are not sandbagging. We are also not being aggressive. I hope at least, we are simply trying to be as honest and as transparent as we can possibly be.

Very good. And then a question also on the liquid cooling EBITDA margin is sort of the 25% long-term sustainable margin from your point of view?

Yes. Absolutely. And the reason I say it like this, is because, first of all, let's just also remind ourselves that, that margin is, of course, also following the revenue to some extent. And now that we have a lower revenue, then, of course, we are also a little bit under pressure here, but the ambition of the liquid cooling product core values, which is the reliability, the performance and our ability to work together with these big customers. And of course, I cannot predict the future. But again, when I face our customers, and when I say face, I mean sit down with them face-to-face, they are not telling me, Andre, you need to sell us cost products or we are not buying from you. What they are saying is we want lower cost products so we can enter new markets together, but it's not like we are competing with the lower end of the low end. And if the business ever comes to that, then, of course, we do have a substantial issue. But I think, the question was what I believe and what I see. And if I should tell you or communicate what the customers are telling me at least are not worried about them.

Very good. And then a question on the financial side, perhaps for Peter, how much is the expected cash burn in 2025? And would you also have a plan B if you're not able to raise the asked amount?

Yes, thanks. I actually don't have a specific number for the cash burn next year that I can share. However, if we take a look at this year, and then we subtract the cost savings that we've done on the operations side of things, and we see a decline in the liquid cooling business as we have prepared the world for and an increase over on the SimSports to meet our midterm margin ambition, et cetera, then I think one can model one way through this whole thing here. On the Plan B issue, whether what we have as a plan B. Of course, one plan B is to continue as we do today with the reduced OpEx and then revenue-wise, will also be a continuation of what we do.

I can just fill in a little bit because there are different shades of gray here. One thing is we raised the minimum amount, and then we will have to make that work. The other, of course, is the more ultimate one if we cannot raise the funds or if we pull the rights issue. And then, of course, we will have to sit down with our biggest shareholders and [ locate ] opportunities. And let me just clarify something right away that I also addressed in the presentation. It's not an option to just say now we shut down the SimSports business and then we have the liquid cooling. There is one business. We can decide and we can discuss what we focus on, but it's not like we can just fire 1/2 of the company and said that was SimSports. Now we have liquid cooling. It does, unfortunately, not work like that. And I think that's also something just to -- I think most people have not considered. We executed pretty hard and pretty fast when we saw the downturn of the liquid cooling business and for those who are not aware, I said goodbye to my COO, I said goodbye to my VP of Marketing, and I said goodbye to my VP of Sales and all three in the U.S. or North America, and we said goodbye to a big number of employees as well. When we do that, then naturally, the SimSports business gets loaded with a much higher cost, because before the liquid cooling cost base was a bigger portion. So when we cut down the liquid cooling business, the SimSports business actually does get hurt as well. And that would be the same statement that if we shut down SimSports, then you could not just assume that we will continue the profitability in the liquid cooling that we have, because of a lot of cost for example, my own salary management salary, how do we book that I think with me personally, I don't do a time registration. But I think I am actually the only exception in the entire company, that where we load the costs are actually where they have spent, but of course, we cannot just cut management and half and say, if we didn't have that one business like then we would only need half the management or have the fixed cost in general.

Very good. Thank you. I think we'll just do a couple of questions on the domicile, headquarters, then we'll move on a little bit to sort of the operations and the market side on the SimSports and liquid cooling segments. But on the domicile, there was a question here now. Is it under consideration to sell the newly built head office or eventually do a sale and leaseback in order to consolidate the company financially?

So that's a good question. I think, again, facts are important. The fact is, we just started to use the building. We don't even have the final approvement from [indiscernible]. So before that was done, it has not even been possible to take out a real loan or to do any sale and leaseback or to ultimately sell the building. It's just happening real time. So that's one thing. The other thing is that we are not married to the building at all, whether we would have to move to a completely different location or whether we would have to do a sale and leaseback. We are, of course, open to all of that. But again, the property market right now for this type of property is simply not existing, primarily, I assume, because of the interest level. Of course, we can give it away and then all shareholders, including myself, will take a big hit. And I don't think that's the right thing to do right now. I don't think it's the right thing to do right now to force ourselves into a sale and leaseback, where we are stuck to a very, very high monthly payment and monthly rent. However, when the market opens up, there is nothing that we are not willing or interested to look at. But we can do a lot of wishful thinking. Again, we need to look at the facts. And the facts are that we have been in dialogue with huge number of real estate agents, and people who are doing sale on leaseback for living. So of course, we have looked into all of this.

And the next step here on the loan side is a natural towards a mortgage loan where they do look at the entirety of the company. If you are a private individual in Denmark, you just turn to your mortgage company and you can get a loan of 80% of the real estate value. That's different when you're a company. First of all, the percentage is lower, and they look at the entirety of the company's financials. And here, it's a good thing that we are now strengthening the balance sheet of the company.

Very good. And today, you rent part of the domicile out and do you plan to rent out more?

I would say there is not a lot more to rent out. We are pretty much crammed up as it is. And of course, there is one single large office back, but we also do not want to be in a situation where if we just do pretty well in the next couple of years, then we have to move out of our own building again because there's no space, because we rent it all out. So I think with the right balance where it is right now. And I also think it's important to say that the building was not constructed for optimizing tenants and get a monthly rent. That's not what it was designed for.

Very good. And then I think we move on to sort of some questions on the liquid cooling and [indiscernible] part. So if we move to Slide 8 already, please. There was actually one here that goes around any update or changed view regarding Asetek opportunity within the liquid cooling for data centers. What is needed to commercialize within data centers? And is Asetek's technology is still relevant after the company withdrew from that market a couple of years ago?

That is a good question. I mean it when I say it's a good question. First of all, strategically, we invested $100 million in this space. There is nothing I would like more than to one day be able to make profit out of that. The reason we withdraw from the market was that being green is not really on top of, let's say, data centers agenda, they may say something different. And it was not on top of the politicians agenda, although they said something different. And what I mean by that is that the legislation we waited for did not come and it has still not come. The current liquid cooling opportunity in data centers is not driven by the green agenda at all, is driven by a performance play and because of AI, of course, and supercomputing. And I would say, is our technology relevant, I think our technology is relevant. It's not where we have the greatest value proposition but what I do believe we have is 15 years of knowledge and experience that at least a lot of Chinese and Taiwanese vendors do not have. So for me, what it will require to get back would be a hard look at who are the customers, who is the paying customer and how much are they actually willing to pay for it. Because our former solutions were not expensive, and they would earn themselves back within a short period of time, but this is a little bit different. This is more like a component you need to run at these speeds. So we are not focusing on it right now, but it's, of course, not completely off the table that we would never look at it again. And if the right opportunity represents itself, we will look at it again. And the closing remark on that is, yes, we still have the resources in the company to do it.

Very good. And then a few questions on SimSports, and we are running a little bit out of time. So maybe quickly on these ones. So maybe for you, Maja, would you aim to get further licenses for SimSports to consult such as PlayStation? I think you touched a little bit upon that in your presentation also.

Yes. We definitely continue to make ourselves available on the platforms that the end user adhere to and PlayStation is important on that one. So we will also pursue getting PlayStation license in the future.

Very good. And could you also elaborate a bit on what kind of expenses in R&D is connected with entering the Xbox mass market as you're doing now? And do you expect the production on the first products to be done in Denmark? And if so, when do we expect to move the production out of Denmark again?

So on the first part, two costs around joining an Xbox license or any license. There's a royalty fee to Xbox and then there's the development costs. In terms of the development cost, I won't dive into the details of that. But I think what is key is that we have, even while we were pursuing getting the Xbox license, ensured that we have resources in R&D that has done Xbox integration for SimSports products before, which will optimize what kind of cost we will be looking at to integrate Xbox. So I think we're in a very good position to do it as cost efficient as possible. And it is a cost that any of our competitors is going through as well, but I think we're in a good place for that. Production will not happen in Denmark. It will be out in China to start with.

And also on the Xbox and the potentially also the PlayStation, is there any risk that this is sort of like a dying as it moves to more cloud-based solutions?

Well, I've been in gaming for more than 8 years now within hardware and software. And I've heard about cloud solution disrupting the market since day 1, and it hasn't really happened yet. I think it's the responsibility of any tech company to ensure that you keep an eye on what can disrupt the market, also because we know that when a disruption occurs, it tends to be quite big. At the moment, we still see the traditional platforms growing in our market data. So we will make sure we are available on them and then, of course, keep an eye on what could potentially disrupt the market and be the new big thing to be on.

Very good. And also on this planned move to sort of the medium segment, when are you planning to launch your [indiscernible] gear in this segment?

So the first product line within the segment will be out next year, we are targeting within first half of the year.

Very good. Thank you. And also, if we look a little bit on quality issues that we talked about in the Q3 report, there were some issues here. And also on this competition from Chinese manufacturers. And if there could be a change after the election with Trump as President in the U.S. and potential tariffs on imports?

Yes. Let me address the quality thing first. So as I said earlier, very proudly, we had sold more than 11 million liquid coolers to the best of my recollection, we never ever had to do any field recalls. And I don't think we still have ever done that. But a little bit more than a year back, we wanted to change our fluid to a greener alternative, and we believe all our competitors will be forced to do the same, perhaps not in China, perhaps not on [indiscernible], because nobody seems to care. But our customers at least cash and after doing 1 year, 12 months of rigorous testing, we still managed to discover some, let's call it, chemical chemistry issues with the fluid, and therefore, we were -- when I say forced, it's not like we were strong, but we decided to take back some batches of products. And that's what this quality issue was, and I don't believe we will see it again, whether we will have a smaller impact in the future on inventory somewhere. And so it's impossible for me to say. But it's the first real quality issue, I ever remember in the history of the company. And we know what it is, at least we believe we know what it is. So I think that is a one-off. In terms of tariffs, it's a very difficult question to answer. What I can say is that we, of course, take it into account and we think about it last time we established manufacturing in Malaysia in no time. Still, our U.S. customers didn't really want to buy because the products were a little bit more expensive, is simply because of the added logistics. But we do have manufacturing running in Malaysia, but obviously, a lot of the parts come from China. But at least right now, on the Sim, there are no tariffs on liquid cooling, there is -- we do have manufacturing lines in Malaysia. And I think for now, that's the best we can do. Then there was a third question. What was that?

We had one also on the -- when you would be live with the new products on the medium segments for liquid cooling, the same questions that we had for [indiscernible].

Yes, I expect during next year.

Very good. And then there was a follow-up question on this thing with -- as we touched upon earlier with you new largest shareholder. Could you elaborate a bit about why the new larger shareholders not sharing your plans? Do you have any thoughts on that?

My only thought is he does know them because he did not want to become an insider. So I cannot really talk on behalf of other persons. I guess that's a question for him.

Very good. And then there was a couple of follow-up also on the rights issue like this one, you have received commitment from existing shareholders of 24% of the minimum offering just under DKK 15 million. Do you find it realistic that you will be able to raise the remaining approximately DKK 4 million to DKK 5 million, give or take?

I guess the quick answer is if I did not find it realistic, there's no reason to spend my [indiscernible] here with you. But I also think that one thing that's important here, again, being fact based when we issue a guarantee of 10% or 11% and say, you get 10% or 11% if you want to underwrite, then people are okay with having their names in their prospectus. As I understand it from our bankers, we do have investors who are, for sure, going to participate in the round. But since there is no guarantee fee, they don't want their name in the prospectus.

Very good. I think we have a few time for a few questions left here. There's also one on the prospectus here that you state that the new funding is for SimSports, but the reality is that you raise -- if you raise the minimum of DKK 60 million, then 20% of proceed goes to the financial advisers, ABG, another 20% goes to [indiscernible] bank and the remaining 60% goes to pay CEO salary for the next 5 years. So no money to invest in the business. Why should investors use their hard earned money and invest in the rights issue? I think we touched upon it before, but maybe you could just give a quick comment on that, Andre, also, please.

I think with that kind of math, you should definitely not invest in anything. At least that's not how I do math. On my salary, I think that's a discussion with my boss, and it's not something that I decide. I would say that in my opinion, I am worth to the company many times my salary. And people are, of course, respectfully have the right to disagree with that, but that's at least my perspective. In terms of [indiscernible] bank, we are not giving any money to [indiscernible]. It's our money. We spend our own money that they put on a credit line, but [indiscernible] is not getting any money out of this as such. And in terms of ABG, keep in mind, there are many other players here than ABG. There is a lot of lawyers and accountants and -- involved in this. So that's the total of the transaction some. And I guess that's -- I wish it will be only half, but it's not -- that's how it is.

And the management compensation is, of course, it's an ongoing amount. It's been there for a long time and will be in the future also. So the net effect here is that it is new money coming in the net proceeds.

Very good. And then there was a question also on the data center part that you closed down a couple of years ago, is it possible to sell this setup on the data center side? There's a question on that.

It's, of course, also a discussion we've had internally, and it's also something that we have been approached by many times but as I repeated a couple of times already, we are one company. There is no data center division. So if we were to sell it off, we would have to let go of some of our core people and then there's not much left. On top of that, there would also be -- remember, when we went out of the data center market, I think we laid out 40 or 50 people. So we obviously kept the ones that we felt was most valuable going forward. And then also -- we did discuss what it would take to bring it back to life for a sale. And it would require a significant derail of our focus on what we're doing right now. It's not something we have packed down in boxes and can give a way to a new [indiscernible] saying here you go. There's a lot of the IP around it is our know-how.

Very good. We're about to end. So thank you very much for listening in and asking questions. I'll leave it to you, Andre, for any final remarks.

Yes. I just want to say thank you for your time, and I appreciate getting the opportunity to answer especially some of the questions around the company and our future. And I hope you will back us up. Yes, I think that's it.

Very good. Thank you. With that, we'll conclude today's presentation. You can find more information on Asetek's web page under the investor part, and we will also publish the recording of this presentation. So thank you very much for participating, and have a nice day.

Thank you.