everplay group plc (EVPL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining everplay's 2026 interim results presentation. I am joined today by Rashid Varachia, our CFO and COO. I will start out with an overview of the group's operational and strategic progress in the first half. Then Rashid will take you through the financial review. And finally, I'll return to cover our strategy and the outlook. The first half of 2026 was a period of solid progress within the company, preparing for a very strong second half of the year. We had no large launches during the first half as well as a delay in the launch of Hell Let Loose: Vietnam, which naturally impacted the results. Excluding the impact of our exit from physical distribution, group revenues declined 5% year-on-year to GBP 67 million, which we think was a very respectable performance leading up to all our big launches in the second half. Our resilient back catalog yet again delivered very strongly, with revenues growing in the half, which we, of course, are very happy about. We released 6 smaller new games in the first half, which were mostly well received but didn't quite match the hugely successful breakout Date Everything! in H1 last year. The key focus during the first half was preparing for and investing in our major new releases in the second half foremost, Hell Let Loose: Vietnam and Wardogs. This, of course, resulted in a very significant H2 weighting this year, which was as expected and already communicated. As a result, adjusted EBITDA came in lower than last year at GBP 9 million. We progressed with several strategic initiatives during the half. We expanded pipeline of first-party IP titles, and we implemented a number of organizational changes designed to improve execution and efficiency, including the reorganization of Team17 into 3 core genre pillars and focusing a slimmer astragon towards its core IPs. We also continued to attract very high-quality new talent to the group, including the hire of a new Chief Growth Officer. I'll talk more about these topics later on. We ended the half with a strong cash balance of GBP 57 million, providing ample capacity to fund organic growth and do selective M&A. The Board declared an interim dividend of 1.1p. Most importantly, we have entered the second half with real momentum. H2 sales to date have been significantly ahead of our expectations with record performances of our new releases, Hell Let Loose: Vietnam and Wardogs. As a result, I am delighted to announce that we expect our 2026 full year results to be materially ahead of current market expectations. Now let's look at the operating performance of our 3 businesses during the first half. Turning first to Team17. Revenues declined by 16% in H1 compared to H1 last year, where we had some very popular titles being released. The half was also very impacted by our decision to delay the launch of Hell Let Loose: Vietnam from June to August. However, Team17 still launched 4 new small titles, LumenTale, Sintopia, Wardrum and Rogue Point. LumenTale and Sintopia performed very well, although not quite matching the performance of Date Everything! last year, so revenues didn't reach the same level as the prior period. The back catalog was down 5% due to the nonrecurrence of a couple of platform deals. But on the other hand, it benefited from the expansion of several of our established titles onto new platforms, including Worms W.M.D. on Amazon GameNight, Overcooked! All You Can Eat on Netflix and Nice Day for Fishing on Epic. This enabled our games to reach new audiences. So a very robust performance overall. A highlight of the half was Team17 being named Indie Publisher of the Year at the MCV/Develop Awards, which is a strong external endorsement of the quality of our people and portfolio. A huge congratulations to the team. Looking ahead, Team17 is positioned for very strong growth in H2, underpinned by outstanding sales from new releases, Hell Let Loose: Vietnam and Wardogs, which I will come back to later but also the additional new title launches, Silver Pines, What Goes Up and Hokko Spaces still to come. We also announced the next installment of Team17's iconic Worms franchise, Worms: Galactic Tactics at Gamescom. It's coming in 2027. It's great to have our iconic IP alive and kicking. StoryToys has delivered another excellent performance with revenue growth of 43%, downloads exceeded 18 million during the half with active subscribers increasing by 22% year-on-year to 408,000. The team released 394 app updates across the portfolio, maintaining a strong engagement and fresh content including adding 3 new franchises for the LEGO DUPLO Disney app, including Toy Story. LEGO Bluey made a strong revenue contribution in the half including the Bluey Apple Arcade Ultimate Playdate campaign, which brought Bluey coloring content to Disney Coloring World. The app also received several industry accolades, including winning Best Mobile Game of the Kidscreen Awards as well as best licensed video game project at the Bologna Licensing Awards. StoryToys partnership with Netflix continues successfully with My Very Hungry Caterpillar, now live on Netflix Playground. Looking ahead in H2, plenty of new content is already out including a school play pack for LEGO Bluey and George gets a hearing aid for LEGO DUPLO Peppa Pig. We are also working on ramping up user acquisition and cross-promotions between the apps. At astragon, revenues declined by 20% or by 6% if we exclude the impact of the exit from physical distribution. The business has refocused on its core IP franchises, which helped deliver a robust back catalog performance, supported by 5 paid for DLCs, special editions and the Switch 2 release of Police Simulator: Patrol Officers. Two smaller third party IPs were released in the half. Ranger's Path into PC early access and Underground Garage on PC. Both unfortunately did not meet internal expectations. And as a result of recent divisional performance, reorganization initiatives have been completed during the half. We have reduced head count and costs and recently introduced several centralization initiatives. We only have 1 CEO in astragon now as opposed to 2 co-CEOs. Looking ahead, we expect a solid financial performance from astragon. We launched Bus Simulator 27 last week, which despite some early issues still contributes well to astragon's revenue, still to come with the full release of Seafarer, and we have also announced Construction Simulator: Evolution into early access and the next installment of Police Simulator, reinforcing the long-term opportunity in astragon's first-party portfolio. With that, I'll now hand over to Rashid for the financial review.

Great. Thank you, Mikkel. Group revenues decreased by 8% to GBP 66.9 million in the first half or by 5% on an underlying basis, excluding the exit from astragon physical distribution. The decline reflected lower new release revenues given the phasing of the group's major 2026 releases to H2. Accordingly, we expect strong double-digit growth in the second half. As touched on by Mikkel, Team17 revenues declined by 16% with strong performance from the back catalog offset by lower new release revenues. StoryToys delivered very strong growth, up 43%, driven by LEGO Bluey, which launched last year and their Netflix partnership. Astragon sales fell 6% on an underlying basis, excluding physical distribution revenues. The catalog once again delivered excellent performance with a marginal increase to GBP 64.3 million, strong contributions from titles such as Overcooked! ,Hell Let Loose, Dredge, Disney Coloring World, LEGO DUPLO World and Police Patrol, to name a few. New release revenues came in below the prior year level of GBP 2.7 million, reflecting the tough comparator from Date Everything! in H1 2025. Lower-than-expected revenues from astragon new releases and the planned H2 weighting of our major releases this year. First-party IP revenues declined 18% due to a couple of nonrecurring platform deals from the prior year as well as a focus on new content in H2. However, still represented 31% of group sales. The original Hell Let Loose along with Golf With Your Friends and Police Patrol all made good contributions. Third-party revenues were broadly stable at GBP 46.4 million, supported by Overcooked! Dredge, Disney Coloring World, LEGO DUPLO World. Gross profit decreased by 29% to GBP 23.9 million with gross margin falling to 35.7%. This was due to several factors. Lower sales for Hell Let Loose and Date Everything higher amortization costs of GBP 1.9 million title impairment, platform deals in H1 2025 and the timing of royalty payments and mix effect from lower margin back catalog revenues linked to lower first-party revenues. Specifically, within the cost of sales line, capitalized development costs, amortization increased to GBP 9.7 million, mainly due to title released over the last 12 months. Expense development costs increased as we continue to invest in back catalog content and the StoryToys Netflix partnership. Royalty payments reduced modestly by 1% of sales to 29.5%. Looking ahead, a significant improvement in gross margin is expected in H2 2026 as revenues from major second half releases is recognized. For full year 2026 as a whole, gross margin is anticipated to be within the recent historical range. Adjusted EBITDA decreased to GBP 9.2 million with a margin of 13.8%, reflecting lower gross profit and operating deleverage in the first half. Admin costs increased to GBP 22.3 million, driven by higher marketing investment ahead of major H2 launches and higher staff costs associated with enhanced key functions across the group. Acquisition-related costs and adjustments rose to GBP 6.2 million due to IP acquisitions in FY 2025. Looking ahead, a sharp improvement in adjusted EBITDA is expected with very strong double-digit growth in adjusted EBITDA in H2 margins returning to broadly FY 2025 levels. Looking further down the P&L, a GBP 2.2 million tax charge includes a one-off GBP 1.3 million prior year adjustment. This resulted in a small reporting loss after tax of GBP 0.6 million. However, adjusted profit before tax was GBP 8.8 million. Adjusted profit after tax was GBP 5.3 million, and basic adjusted EPS was 3.7p. Capitalized development costs increased to GBP 16.4 million, spread across 20% more titles than in H1 2025. In line with our strategy of elevating and investing in our existing first-party franchise, first-party IP represented 65% of capitalized development spend in the half. For full year 2026, we expect capitalized development costs to be in the range of GBP 35 million to GBP 40 million, reflecting the higher number of titles in development with first-party IP accounting for around 2/3 of our expenditure. Operating cash conversion was stronger at 128% and the group ended the first half with cash of GBP 57.1 million, which was slightly below the same period last year due to lower adjusted EBITDA, higher dividend payment of GBP 2.7 million and higher CapEx offset by lower acquisition-related expenditure. Thank you ever so much for listening, and I'll now hand you back to Mikkel.

Thank you, Rashid. Our strategy remains focused on 4 key pillars: building long-term first-party IP road maps, discovering and nurturing innovative third-party games, maintaining disciplined cost control and driving organic and inorganic growth. In H1, I'm pleased to say we made good progress across each of these priorities. Our first-party franchises are very important to us. We have more control and greater visibility of performance, and we get higher margins. We can more easily operate and sustain life cycle revenues through additional content and back catalog sales. The first-party IPs create a more solid foundation for us. In H1, as already mentioned, astragon launched a small new title Ranger's Path. This has been followed in H2 by Team17's successful launch of Hell Let Loose: Vietnam, the next installment of our top-selling franchise and astragon's Bus Simulator 27. We have also announced 4 additional titles supporting our healthy pipeline. Construction Simulator: Evolution, a new Police Simulator game, Golf With Your Friends 2 and Worms: Galactic Tactics. Third-party titles also remain very important for us, and we are committed to discovering a broad range of new and exciting games, which we can nurture over time in our back catalog. In H1, we brought 4 new titles to the market. Team17's LumenTale was a particular highlight receiving a very positive response from the role-playing audience. But there is no better example of our successful nurturing of third-party titles than the Overcooked! franchise, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in August. The franchise has attracted more than 100 million players across PC and console platforms, and we extended its audience further during the half, releasing Overcooked! All You Can Eat on Netflix. Since the period end, we also launched a hugely successful Wardogs, Team17's first title with our strategic partner, Bulkhead, which I will come back to in more detail shortly. As we own a stake in Bulkhead, you could, of course, argue it's a bit of a first-party IP title as well. Our CapEx on the new title has increased this year, managed within a disciplined capital allocation framework. Ultimately, we are investing in more titles to secure our healthy pipeline while focusing expenditure on games where we have confidence in good returns, particularly on proven franchises with established communities. When considering our higher CapEx, it's important to reiterate the strong consistent track record we have of delivering good returns from our investments. Since 2020, in aggregate, our investment in new title has exceeded breakeven within year 1, and we have achieved a multiple return on our investments within 3 years. So while CapEx is increasing this year to a range of GBP 35 million to GBP 40 million and to a similar range for FY 2027, we are confident in getting a good return from that. The increase in CapEx this year reflects our larger pipeline of new games, which is up 15% compared to last year. In fact, the average spend per title is broadly flat this year. However, we are and should be investing more in our established first-party titles. And also when we come across highly proven games and brands with large communities, where we realistically can calculate a very strong return with Wardogs providing a great example. First-party titles will account for around 2/3 of our CapEx this year and these titles have consistently delivered a higher return. We are confident that we are pursuing the right strategy for our shareholders. The performance of Hell Let Loose Vietnam this year has confirmed this. Finally, delivering organic growth remains a top priority. As I just mentioned, we do see opportunities to accelerate growth through occasional investments in larger titles such as Wardogs, but we will remain highly selective and only when we are confident in the risk reward profile. We have also continued to strengthen the organization to support future growth, drive synergies and unlock greater values from future acquisitions. As part of this, we are delighted that Jon Rissik has joined everplay as Chief Growth Officer to oversee new growth opportunities across the group. Most recently serving as CEO of Dovetail Games, Jon brings more than 25 years experience in gaming franchise and life cycle management. It's great to have Jon on board, and he's already making a real difference. Further investments were also made in central functions, including people and culture, finance, IT and M&A as part of the move towards a more scaled service offering from our center. By centralizing, we are driving efficiencies across the group, and we enable the business units to stay agile and nimble. The reorganization of Team17 into 3 portfolio pillars, each focused on specific areas of the market and designed to deepen category expertise has progressed well. While the first half was quieter from an M&A perspective, selective M&A remains an important component of the group's long-term growth strategy. We are very happy to announce that since the period end, we have exercised our option to increase our stake in Super Media Group, the parent company of Wardogs developer, Bulkhead. We now own 28% of the company, up from 20%. We invested an additional GBP 2 million. Considering the outstanding performance of Wardogs since launch, this has been a very attractive investment for the group, and we are very excited to further expand our partnership with Bulkhead within the shooter genre. With that, I will soon turn to the outlook. But before I do that, let's kick off with a clip from a game you might have heard of by now. [Presentation]

That was Wardogs, which we launched last week. And if you haven't heard about, I'm not sure where you've been. It's fair to say that it is going very, very well. And I'm just so thrilled with the performance and I want to say a huge congratulations to the team at Bulkhead and Team17. But H2 was going very well even before the Wardogs launch. Hell Let Loose: Vietnam was released in August, delivering a record month in sales for the group, attracting peak CCUs over 65,000 and achieving the #1 position on Steam's global bestseller chart. There were some technical issues affecting the first weeks of review scores, but the team is making solid progress fixing these issues and the review scores have improved significantly afterwards. And then our records were broken again this month with the launch of Wardogs into early access. The reception has been incredible. We have already sold well in excess of 1 million copies with peak CCUs well above 400,000. And review scores have great momentum being 80% positive on Steam. As we speak right now, it is still the #1 top-selling game on Steam. There isn't enough room on this slide to share all the other amazing stats on the games performance, but this is truly a groundbreaking game. It's clearly going to be a very important franchise for the group moving forward, which makes our stake in Super Media Group all the more exciting. We have even more new content to come in H2, including Silver Pines, Hokko Spaces and What Goes Up. The pipeline is building very nicely for 2027 too with first-party IPs, Police Simulator, Golf With Your Friends 2, Worms: Galactic Tactics, all due to be released along with great third-party titles such as Holstin and Westlanders. So we are very excited about the future pipeline. Let's watch some trailers. [Presentation]

Finally, looking at the outlook for the current financial year and following the strong start to H2 trading, we expect revenues and adjusted EBITDA to be materially ahead of current market expectations. We expect adjusted EBITDA margin to be broadly in line with FY 2025 and capitalized development expenditure in the range of GBP 35 million to GBP 40 million. I'm also excited by the prospects of 2027 where we see further room for growth due to the strong pipeline of new releases we have and the high quality of games from this year entering the back catalog. Thank you all for listening to this presentation. If you would like to reach out to the team, our contact details will be available on our website through the Investor section.

I'd like to thank you for the management team for the presentation. We've had a number of pre-submitted and submitted live questions. [Operator Instructions]. I'd like to hand over to the management team for the question-and-answer session.

Great. Thanks for joining our Q&A session. I'm going to kick off with a few of your questions. I think the first one is to Rashid. Are you able to add a bit more color as to what is materially ahead of current expectations? And how confident are you in achieving those new expectations?

Okay. Yes. Thanks, James. So yes, very pleased to announce a material upgrade. Our brokers this morning have raised guidance by 10% on adjusted EBITDA, and I believe a similar sort of value in terms of our revenue top line revenue as well. So yes, there's still a long way to go. But obviously, we're feeling confident in terms of achieving those numbers for this year.

That's great. Mikkel, maybe you could talk about what the -- what part of the business is growing the fastest right now.

Right now, definitely, the shooter category with Wardogs and Hell Let Loose has the most momentum within Team17. But of course, StoryToys is also doing really well, adding a lot of new subscribers to their business.

Okay. And then maybe following on from that, how pleased are you with the performance of Hell Let Loose: Vietnam since launch? And how important is that franchise in driving the second half revenue momentum?

It's very important. It's one of the factors why we are expecting higher results than previously. It has done really well since launch. While we did see some hiccups during the launch, it is now in a very good state with good user scores and selling well. So it's an important part of the puzzle for sure.

Thank you Rashid, what proportion of expected H2 revenues rely on unreleased titles versus the ongoing performance of the titles you've already released?

Yes. So we've now released a majority of our key titles for the current year. We are expecting some smaller titles to be released in the final quarter of the year, but they'll be relatively small to our overall revenue contribution.

Great. Sticking with the sort of the guidance comments. Obviously, it's great to have such a strong launch in the second half of the year, but the bar has been set high for next year. So as we sit today, do you think it will be possible to grow revenues in 2027?

For the underlying business, definitely. So as we sit here today, we've had an exceptional performance from our 2 -- the 2 biggest games, Hell Let Loose and Wardogs. But yes, definitely excited for next year, as Mikkel mentioned in the video, well, -- they've got some very -- we've got some great games coming, which we've already announced, some games, which we haven't announced yet. But yes, I can confirm for the underlying business, definite growth.

What made management decide to increase its stake in Super Media Group?

Well, I think that was a fairly obvious decision. They're doing a great game that has performed very, very well, and we had an opportunity to take a larger stake. So we just grab that one and are very happy with the now owning 28% of Bulkhead.

That's great. And speaking of Bulkhead, several people are interested in just knowing if it's a usual type of -- a typical publisher deal that we have with Bulkhead for Wardogs?