Jumbo Interactive Limited (JIN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and welcome. Let me begin by acknowledging the traditional owners on the land in which we meet and pay our respects to all elders past and present. Today, I'm joined by our CFO, Jatin Khosla, to present our financial results for the first half of '25. First up is a review of the first half. In Lottery Retailing, we successfully launched our Daily Winners Premium Tier loyalty program, which is having a positive effect on our core Powerball and OzLotto games and helped with player engagement in a subdued jackpot period. Our SaaS segment continued with a positive momentum with customer advocacy at an all-time high, strong charity TTV growth, new partnerships and extensions to the Endeavour and [ Deaf Connect ] agreements. We've managed the cost base effectively given the unfavorable run of jackpots and are well-positioned to capitalize during periods of stronger jackpot activity. Overseas, progress in the U.K. and Canada under the leadership of Tam and Marina remains on track. Turning to capital. The balance sheet remains in good shape and provides flexibility to drive further growth. The Board has declared an interim fully franked $0.24 per share dividend, slightly lower than the pcp, and we spent just under $5 million on our ongoing share buyback in the half. Lastly, we continue to be disciplined on M&A and we will only enter transactions that fit within our strategic growth plan. Moving to the numbers, which were impacted by the subdued jackpot environment in the half. Group TTV and revenue were down 6% and 11%, while underlying EBITDA and NPATA both decreased by 13% and 11%, respectively. Free cash flow was down 64%, impacted by trade payable timing differences. But adjusting for these items, the cash conversion would have been around 100%. We've been selling tickets online for over 20 years, and it's not the first time we've seen a down cycle in large jackpots. And in my experience, it's usually followed by a mean reversion with the jackpots coming back stronger than before. Looking now at our Lottery Retailing segment in more detail. First half of '25, there were 24 Powerball and OzLotto in large jackpots and 100 -- $810 million aggregate Division 1 jackpots, which was 20% lower than the pcp. This below-trend jackpot outcome had an impact on the TTV for the half. It's all part of the lottery game cycle, and it's not surprising given the record jackpots in the second half of '24. Looking at the 12-month rolling TTV graph, on the right, it's pleasing to see the resilient ticket sales at the lower jackpot levels, which provide a strong foundation for growth. While the lower jackpots impacted some metrics, the average spend per player remains robust, giving us confidence that a return to normal jackpots will yield better results. The first 6 weeks of the second half have brought better jackpots and our sales have returned with strength, and I'll take a closer look at this later in my presentation. Digital penetration increased to 40.4%, indicating there's still room for plenty of growth. There were 81,000 new players in the half, reflecting the subdued jackpot environment. However, active players were up 15%, benefiting from the strong performance in the second half of '24. The increase in cost per lead is symptomatic of increasing -- of increased maturity in the online lottery market and heightened competition. Marketing costs as a percentage of TTV remain our key marketing efficiency metric. And while we will continue to report new players and cost per lead for the FY '25 period, from FY '26 onwards, we will focus on total marketing spend as a percentage of TTV, and active players as a business has grown to the point that these metrics are better representative of overall player engagement and retention and more closely correlate to the financial performance of the business. The development of Jumbo's proprietary products, such as Daily Winners and Splash For Good have been great during the subdued jackpot period, and they will also drive player engagement and have a positive impact on the Powerball and OzLotto games. Moving to SaaS, where positive momentum continues with underlying TTV and active players up 15% and 21%, respectively. Lotterywest was impacted by the subdued jackpot environment and saw TTV decrease 6%. However, we are pleased with how the channel is performing. We have been in consultation with Lotterywest and expect the RFP to be issued this half. Our charity partners increased TTV by 20%, highlighting the effectiveness of our software platform. We renewed a number of partners in the half with MS Queensland operating their first lottery on the platform in record time. Moving to Managed Services. As I said earlier, this segment is on track, and we will have celebrated a number of wins, which is pleasing to see. Since the new leadership has been in place, we have developed a solid platform from which to deliver growth and operating leverage. But putting in context, this segment is a small part of the business, about 9% of earnings, but provides us with a strategic foothold in the U.K. and Canadian markets. I'll now hand over to Jatin to take us through the financial update.

Thanks, Mike, and good morning, everyone. Starting with the usual underlying EBITDA waterfall, where the impact of the subdued jackpot environment was clearly evident. Underlying EBITDA was down 12.9%, driven mainly by lower revenue in Lottery Retailing. This was partially offset by a lower TLC service fee and lower operating expenses, which I will cover on the next slide. The underlying group EBITDA margin was 46.3%, with Australia achieving an underlying margin of 51.9% and Managed Services 21.7%, respectively, all in line with our FY '25 margin guidance range. Underlying operating expenses declined 5.4%, with marketing and technology costs broadly flat on the pcp. Lottery Retailing marketing costs, which include a circa $1.1 million investment in the Daily Winners loyalty program was equivalent to 1.7% of Lottery Retailing TTV. The 4.4% increase in employee costs reflects the combined effect of broadly flat head count, wage inflation, the annualization effect of new hires from FY '24 and the lower bonus accrual. The significant reduction in corporate and other costs reflect savings across a broad range of spend, including insurance, consulting and discretionary spend and lower electronic ID verification costs due to lower new player numbers. Turning to the segments and starting with Lottery Retailing. TTV was down 15.3% on the pcp, reflecting the relatively unfavorable jackpot run and our skew to the big 3 games, which in aggregate represent approximately 90% of our portfolio. More specifically, the lower TTV was impacted by a record 90 million OzLotto in the pcp, a less favorable Powerball run and timing of the Saturday Lotto mega draw. Pleasingly, the revenue margin was up to 23.4%, driven by product mix. Underlying EBITDA was down 15.7%, reflecting lower revenue and higher operating costs, which, as I said, includes the investment in Daily Winners and was equivalent to an underlying EBITDA margin of 35.4%. Moving to SaaS, where underlying TTV and external revenue grew 15% and 5.8%, respectively. The lower revenue margin was impacted by mix, specifically a decline in Lotterywest TTV due to the subdued jackpot environment and strong growth in [ Mater ] TTV. Lower internal revenue was a function of the Lottery Retailing performance. Overall EBITDA was down 5.3% as the lower revenue was partially offset by lower operating expenses, resulting in an improvement in the EBITDA margin to 65.3%. Turning to a new slide in the presentation, which shows our Australian operations and is consistent with the format of the guidance we provided for FY '25. These figures reflect the aggregate performance of the Lottery Retailing, SaaS and Corporate segments. Lower revenue as a result of the subdued jackpot environment was partially offset by the disciplined cost management I spoke about earlier. Removing the positive effect of one-off items, the underlying EBITDA margin of 51.9% was within the 51% to 53% FY '25 guidance range, demonstrating our ability to optimize margin during a low jackpot period. Moving on to Managed Services. U.K. revenue was broadly flat on the pcp, while EBITDA declined 11% due to the impact of the Jumbo Win B2C proof of concept. Excluding this impact, EBITDA was flat on the pcp. Canadian revenue declined 19%, in line with our commentary at the FY '24 result as a number of lottery contracts were either transitioned or discontinued. With the reevaluation of customer contracts across the lottery value chain in Canada largely complete, we anticipate a modest improvement in 2H '25 revenue driven by growth in existing client campaigns. Overall, the segment achieved an underlying EBITDA margin of 21.7%, which is in line with our expectations. Turning now to the balance sheet, where we continue to maintain a strong position with available funds of $52.7 million. The Board has declared an interim fully franked dividend of $0.24 per share, modestly lower than the pcp. The dividend reflects a payout ratio of 84.2% of statutory NPAT, which is at the upper end of our targeted range. Over 1H '25, we spent $4.6 million on purchasing shares as part of our ongoing share buyback, taking the total spend to date to approximately $8 million. Moving on to the usual cash flow waterfall. The operating cash flow was impacted mainly by the timing of trade payables and the subdued jackpot environment. Key timing variances relate to payments for insurance, staff bonuses, tax and payments to TLC. In addition, operating cash flow was affected by lower customer account balance, which reduced from elevated levels following the record jackpot run in 2H '24. Adjusting for these timing variances results in a cash conversion ratio of approximately 100% and I've included a slide in the appendix showing these effects. On the right-hand side of the chart, on a pro forma basis, I've shown the impact of the final dividend payment as well as the available liquidity from our debt facility. This highlights our capacity to invest in strategic growth opportunities as well as capital management initiatives by our on-market share buyback. I'll now hand back to Mike.

Thanks, Jatin. Moving on to some portfolio updates. We launched our Daily Winners loyalty program last year, and I'm pleased to report that we have reached the 12-month target of 30,000 members in half time, a fantastic effort from the team. But let's not get too carried away, though, as it's still early days, and we're seeing positive player engagement and the positive impacts on our core Powerball and OzLotto games. And we hope over time, initiatives like this will shield us from subdued jackpots. Also earlier this week, TLC announced some game changes. Saturday Lotto's price pool is being enhanced and the price increasing by $0.10. This game is about 17% of our portfolio, so we welcome the changes and announced that Jumbo will increase the price to further $0.05. I know TLC have flagged a change in Powerball in FY '26, which we will review in due course. Turning to the Lottery Retailing trading update we released today for the first 6 weeks of the second half. The large jackpot environment in the first 6 weeks improved relative to the first half with 9 jackpots greater than or equal to $15 million and an aggregate Division 1 prize value of $410 million, equivalent to an average value per jackpot of $45 million. The first 6 weeks of the half included the $100 million OzLotto jackpot on the 4th of February. This extra jackpot activity boosted TTV to $70 million, equivalent to $11.7 million per week compared to the $8 million per week on the first half, which is an increase of 45%. Marketing costs in the first 6 weeks of the second half were equivalent to 3.2% of Lottery Retailing TTV, which is no surprise given the recent OzLotto run and $60 million Powerball this month. The marketing spend also included our investment in the Daily Winners Premium Tier loyalty program, which I spoke about earlier. Marketing costs as a percentage of TTV remain our key marketing efficiency metric. And while we'll continue to report new players and a cost per lead for the FY '25 period, from FY '26 onwards, we'll focus on total marketing spend as a percentage of TTV and active players as the business has grown to the point that these metrics are better representative of the overall player engagement and more closely correlate to the financial performance of the business. We track our performance on a draw-by-draw basis using an internally developed methodology for our share of total lottery ticket sales. As you can see from the bottom right-hand side chart on the slide, we estimate we lost share in the first half of '25, which prompted changes to our marketing playbook. While it's early days, results from this new playbook are encouraging, and we estimate that we've clawed back some share in the first half in the 6 weeks of the second half. Turning to the outlook. We have today reaffirmed our FY '25 margin guidance. We continue to flex the cost base to absorb the ups and downs of the jackpot cycle, and we remain well placed to capitalize during periods of stronger jackpot activity. M&A continues to be a focus and is being influenced by our learnings from our Jumbo proprietary products. We are forming a view that B2C opportunities are more likely to deliver higher growth than the traditional B2B targets. While it has taken us time to refocus on B2C opportunities, we do have a number of live opportunities on the go. We will, of course, remain disciplined on the economics to deliver growth at an appropriate price. So in conclusion, while the first half has brought a few challenges, the Jumbo team responded with innovations such as the Daily Winners program. We've also managed our costs and most importantly, put us in a position to make the most of a healthier run of jackpots as evidenced in the first 6 weeks of the second half. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from David Fabris from Macquarie.

Just looking at Slide 20 and the market share piece there, you just mentioned in your prepared remarks that you've been clawing back share based on your marketing playbook. Can you walk us through what that actually means? And then secondly, if it's been so successful so quickly, what's stopping you from winning market share from here?

Basically, during the first half, we were focused on our cost per acquisition target. And in a subdued jackpot environment, we found that it wasn't that effective. And while we did save money, we didn't sign up that many players and generate a lot of TTV as you saw in the results. We started having a look at this through the half and realize that a lot of our existing players because our customer database is already quite large, are actually being reactivated by our paid advertisements. So the shift to a percentage of TTV is driven by the realization that a lot of our existing players are getting reactivated, and it's worthwhile spending the money on reactivating those players. So we put that into test come December. However, there weren't too many jackpots to really talk about in December. But in January, it yielded some good results and again in February. So really, we're going to continue on with that, fine-tune it some more. And we think that's going to be the better way to go going forward.

If you hone to those comments on reactivation, can you kind of give us some KPIs there? I mean how much of your player base have you reactivated? How much more opportunity is there for you?

Yes. Look, we'll have to work on -- it's only early days. It's only been a couple of month since we've been doing this playbook, but we'll look at doing some numbers to show what we're talking about. But the fact remains that we're seeing that our existing players are being activated successfully, not just through e-mails and notifications, but also through Facebook and Google Ads.

Just to add, David, I think if you look at the overall customer database, we're about 3.8 million, close to 4 million customers. And we've got about 1 million actives, 900,000 actives based on the trading update. So we're only 25% penetrated into that overall customer database. So we think there's more opportunity over there to extract more TTV from the existing customer database.

Got it. Understood. And then just thinking about the new loyalty program, Daily Winners, that Slide 19 shows that chart. It looks like there's been a pretty good uptake or momentum of membership growth coming through. Are you may be able to provide some guardrails on how to think about how many members you might have signed up by the end of FY '25? And then further to that, can you just walk through the economics on how do we think about the EBITDA drop-through for this business?

Look, so the first 6 months was breakeven, which is unusual for a new program. You normally expect to go into cost territory before it starts breaking even. So the fact that the uptake was so good means that we're already into breakeven. And as time goes on, we can expand the margins further. The focus at the moment is to sign up people and making sure that the churn rate is low so that they continue playing. Obviously, as a subscription product, the revenue will compound over time, and the prices that we offer and the marketing that we do will start flattening out and the margin will expand. So we originally gave ourselves a target of 30,000 to do in 12 months. We've hit that in 6 months. It's still growing. If we do get that return to normal jackpots, that certainly helps accelerate it. So again, we're able to achieve that in a very low jackpot period. Whenever there are high jackpots, it always helps. So yes, we'll see how it goes. It is kind of a new territory, but it's certainly quite pleasing.

David, I'll just add. I don't want to get drawn into specific economics. Suffice to say, I agree with what Mike said, I think the marginal rate of investment decreases over time as you get a bit more scale. And I see the margin as being accretive to the Lottery Retailing current EBITDA margin.

Yes. Okay. So that comment on accretive says it's above the Lottery Retailing current margin, but nowhere near the SaaS margin.

Yes, I think that's a fair assumption. But like Mike said, it's still early days. We'll see how the program scales.

Got it. And just one last question from me. Just the Saturday Lotto price rise. Can you give us a sense for the revenue margin benefit in FY '26 that you would expect from putting that price rise through?

Yes. So we're lifting the price 14%. So that's a $0.10 subscription price and $0.05 to the ancillary fee. If you took the FY '23 or FY '24 numbers, we think that's about a $300,000 to $400,000 uplift in revenue if you assume the same jackpot sequence and cycle.

Your next question comes from Ben Wilson from Wilsons Advisory.

First question, maybe just focusing on the market share a bit further. Can you just give a sense for how much of the increase or the recovery in market share so far in the second half came from the strong $100 million jackpot?

Yes. Look, it's -- as you know, Jumbo being 100% digital does outperform on the higher jackpots and conversely underperforms on the low jackpots. So there's a bit of that effect as well. The $100 million performs quite well for us, plus the marketing playbook, which has sort of kicked into gear, which also increased our market share. So I suppose those 2 things combined and perhaps the customers haven't had too much to talk about in terms of jackpots. So when they do come, they do come a lot stronger. So I think all of those things combined to help bring back our market share.

And then just on the sort of revised marketing playbook, should we take that as a guide that there will probably be an increase on the sort of previous 1.5% to 2% range for marketing costs as a percentage of lottery TTV?

Yes. It all depends on what the jackpots do, of course. But in a perfect world with good jackpots, even just a moderate run of jackpots, we will be driving that percentage of TTV up a bit further, which will -- which is not only attracting new players, but also reactivating existing players. if I wind the clock back 10 years, the majority of the players were all new. Now that we're growing, we still have new, but we still have such a large database of existing players, close to 4 million, as Jatin said, further. So it is harder to get new players, but it also gets easier to reactivate existing sign-up.

Ben, it's Jatin. I'll just add. So that includes the Daily Winners investment as well. So we fully loaded that. If you exclude the $1.1 million in marketing costs that we spend on Daily Winners, marketing costs as a percentage of Lottery Retailing TTV were around 1.2%. So that's a fully loaded number that Mike is talking to, including Daily Winners.

Okay. Great. Just a final question for me. Looking at TLC's turnover disclosures a couple of days ago, the expanded Weekday Windfall game basically took volume and share of OzLotto and Saturday Lotto in the first half. Obviously, those are your second and third biggest games. I guess, the decline in Aussie in Saturday, also driven by jackpot mix, et cetera, but do you see that as a potential cause of concern? Or are they really, do you think, sort of 2 separate sort of customer dynamics, jackpot dynamics, et cetera?

Yes. It probably doesn't have as much impact on us. Those games are not a huge part of our portfolio in comparison to TLC. I think they're a lot more successful with TLC. With us, it's more about the jackpots, the Saturday, OzLotto and the Powerball. So it doesn't have as much impact on us.

Your next question comes from Rohan Sundram from MST Financial.

Just one for me. Mike, you talked about the M&A potential. And just on that, how would you describe the pipeline of potential opportunities in the B2C space? And how does it compare to what you were previously looking at?

Yes. Look, we have transitioned from having a full pipeline of B2B businesses, learning a lot about the B2C market through our Daily Winners and through our own investigations and realizing that the B2B wasn't going to deliver the growth that we wanted. So we kind of had to empty out our pipeline and fill it up with B2C opportunities, which has taken a bit of time. It is now full. We do have quite a few on the go, as I said, not only in the U.K., but also in North America. We've learned a lot about that market just through our own investigations and from our own efforts with Daily Winners and everything. And we like what we see. So the trick now is to find the right company at the right price with the right growth profile, and then we think we can land a deal that will grow a lot faster than the businesses that we've acquired to date.

Your next question comes from Matt Ryan from Barrenjoey.

I was just hoping if you could talk a bit about on Slide 37, the cost per lead. It looks like it went up a lot year-on-year.

Yes. That's a result of existing players clicking on our ads. And that's why we're saying it's not a very good representation going forward because we've grown so much. Basically, we're spending X on marketing, we're getting Y in terms of new customers. But a big -- larger and larger proportion of those clicks are going to existing players, which, of course, we don't count as a new player. So it can be a bit deceiving by seeing the cost per lead going up because that only counts new players, and we're seeing a larger proportion of existing players coming through bumping it up. But we still think it's the right thing to do because by reactivating existing players, they will turn around and buy tickets. So that's the crux of why we're moving to a percentage of TTV model as a better representation.

Was there something that changed in that calculation relative to last year? Because I would have thought you would have had a similar phenomenon as you've just described in the pcp, but that number has gone up 76%. Seems like a very big jump. Like are you seeing sort of underlying inflation that's adding to that? Or it just seems like a really big increase?

It has been building up over a period of time. It's not a sudden event. Certainly, competition and inflation has had a part to play in it, but I think it's just been highlighted abnormally by the low jackpot environment. All things being equal, the low jackpot environment would have driven a higher CPA anyway. So it's just kind of like a perfect storm of a few things coming together makes it look a little bit unusual and a bit deceiving. So it's a few things all joined together.

So I mean I don't want to ask the question in too many different ways. But was there any impact on that number from the marketing strategy that you were outlining earlier on the call?

Not in the first half. We did try to experiment in December, but there wasn't much to really spend on, so it didn't really have an impact in the half. It's having more of an impact in the January and February numbers, which we highlighted there. So it was something that we were working on during the half and only implemented late in the half.

Okay. And just the comments a minute ago about moving into a focus on B2C acquisitions. I think you may have said this a second ago, but is the major driver more about the growth that you can get out of B2C relative to B2B? Or, I guess, just looking at your history of B2B acquisitions, is there something else that, I guess, you've learned along that experience that's causing the decision to pivot?

Yes. Look, it is about growth. The reason we're moving to B2C is that we're seeing a lot more growth already in the market and a lot more potential for growth. It basically comes down to the fundamental nature that if we're selling software to other organizations, we're reliant on those organizations to deliver growth, and they're not always the most dynamic. Sometimes they are, but most of the time, they're not. And we see opportunities to grow. So we're kind of taking control of the marketing and of the product design and development and all that type of stuff and make -- we're more at the cold face of selling the tickets, using all of our technology and using all of our knowledge to its full extent. And with that, we think we can get better growth. So it's not to say that B2B will be left by the wayside. It will still be there and it will still grow at its natural rate. But if we were to push it too hard, we could risk losing clients, which we can't do. So this -- we found a way in which we can enter the B2C market and deliver growth that way through our own efforts in addition to buying businesses that have already got a head start.

Your next question comes from James Bales from Morgan Stanley.

I guess, firstly, on the pressures that you're seeing in SaaS take rate. So obviously, you've sort of just alluded to the M&A strategy more focused on B2C. But if you're enabling a lot more sales, which is showing up in customers' TTV growth, why are you not able to deliver price increases rather than effective take rate deflation in that business?

James, it's Jatin. I'll just take that one, and then Mike can add something if he'd like. So we saw the external revenue margin come off really driven by that mix that I was talking about. So Lotterywest, as you know, is on a blended rate of about 8.5%, which we've said publicly. So given the lower jackpot run, we've been impacted by that mix, and we don't get that benefit. And then the same with Mater, which we put out, so that's a scale benefit that Mater gets. There is some timing given they reset in November. So I do expect a little improvement in the second half. But to your point about price, with some of the recent acquisitions that -- the recent SaaS agreements that we've signed, we have upped the take rate on those. You'll recall, they're about 7.5%. So we are trying to actually improve the take rate, and we've done that with the most recent SaaS agreements that we've signed.

And I guess sort of bigger picture there is the fact that your capital allocation strategy is more skewed towards B2C now, does that mean that things like the Lotterywest contract RFP is less important going forward?

No, not necessarily. It's more the acquisition targets that we're looking at. We'll still continue to grow the B2B business. We have a good business there. It's growing. But if we were to acquire more businesses of a similar nature to StarVale and Stride, we've learned enough over the last few years to realize it's going to be difficult to get those businesses up to like the 20% to 30% growth targets that we'd like to achieve. They're going to be in that single-digit growth category, just the nature of the industry, while the B2C is something that 20% to 30% is well and truly possible.

Got it. And then maybe just a question on second half OpEx expectations. When we look at the Slides 14 and 15 and you split out the OpEx numbers by segment, obviously, adjusting for sales and marketing that might swing around a bit, is that a reasonable guide to what we should expect for the second half? Or can you maybe provide some nuance there?

Yes, James. So I think if you take out marketing costs from the Australian business, I do think the first half is a good proxy for the second half. So the swing factor there will obviously be the new marketing playbook and jackpots, which will determine the marketing spend and also the investment that we make in Daily Winners. And then similarly, when I look at Managed Services, I think U.K. first half, they'll probably do slightly better in the second half given some of the savings that we put through the business. But on the flip side, I think costs will ramp up in Stride, given they have a significant skew to the second half in terms of their major campaigns. So overall, ex marketing at the group level, I'd expect the first half to be representative of what the second half would shape up to be.

See, we have shaved the costs to be in line with the jackpot environment, but we also know that the jackpot environment is not going to stay low forever. So we have to be careful about shaving too far and not be in a good position when the jackpots do return and that causes other problems. So we have to at least be able to ramp up when things do get busy. So we have shaved, but I think we've got it right. We haven't gone too far, and we are expecting a better jackpot run. It's only a matter of time, and we'll be ready to react.

Got it. And maybe just one last one on Daily Winners. I think you were sort of answering an earlier question basically saying that you expect operating leverage in that business as the volume of subs goes up. Is the subs revenue minus the price pool a bigger prize than the GP dollar uplift from increased activity in the major games? Can you maybe help us understand the relative size of the opportunity of those potential profit pools?

The people that we have on Daily Winners represents only 3% of our active and probably less than 1% of our total database. So that speaks to the opportunity there. It's only 6 months in, and there's still a long, long way to go. So we think that we've just been tweaking with the product and trying to find what people want and everything. There's still a lot more to go in that. So yes, we do see a lot of potential on that. We've only just started, and it's been the take-up rate, as you can see, has been pretty good. We've still got a bit more work to do with the price levels, the price levels. There's obviously -- we've only got 1 tier there. It would be relatively easy to introduce a second tier as we go forward, but it all depends on the learnings that we get through the half.

There are no further questions at this time. And so that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.