Raketech Group Holding PLC (RAKE) Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Raketech Q4 2025 Report Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to CEO, Johan Svensson; and CFO, Mans Svalborn. Please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to Raketech's Q4 2025 presentation. My name is Johan Svensson and I'm the CEO of Raketech. Today CFO, Mans Svalborn, and I are here to present Raketech's Q4 report and the full numbers of 2025. We will start with financial highlights. Q4 was the first quarter without the divested Casumba assets. We sold them at the end of Q3. So far we have received EUR 0.4 million of the payment consideration of total EUR 12 million. The continued operations excluding Casumba assets came in at EUR 5.7 million in revenue for the quarter, an organic decrease of 45.5% year-on-year and 7.3% compared to Q3. Most of the revenue decline year-on-year came from a paid publisher network within sub-affiliation. Adjusted EBITDA for continued operations, excluding Casumba, amounted to EUR 1.1 million compared to EUR 1.2 million in Q3. Adjusted EBITDA margin amounted to 18.8% reflecting our continued cost discipline. Affiliation Marketing or Raketech Owned Publishers, as we refer to the portfolio internally, generated EUR 3.9 million in revenue excluding Casumba. We had a weak start to the quarter, but a strong finish with the December Google Core Update contributing to the improved performance towards the end of the period. SubAffiliation revenue amounted to EUR 1.8 million in Q4 compared to EUR 1.9 million in Q3. The Paid Network continued to decline while we saw some quarter-on-quarter growth in the Organic Publisher Network on AffiliationCloud. Let's now review the performance of each business area starting with Affiliation Marketing as we call Raketech Owned Publishers. Excluding Casumba assets, the Affiliation Marketing portfolio came in at EUR 3.9 million in revenue. The portfolio mainly consists of products in the Nordics with Sweden being the largest market. It's a diversified portfolio with many products across both sports and casino. We are working very actively to broaden and develop the product to make them more relevant to the end users in order to increase the share of direct traffic and become less dependent on SEO traffic. I will talk more about our latest launches later in the presentation. SubAffiliation performed in line with Q3 while the Paid Network continued to decline. Since early 2024, changing market conditions have continued to negatively affect our paid publishers within SubAffiliation, which has meant that the inflow of new traffic has been limited. As a result and in line with our strategic focus on Organic Publisher Network, we stopped onboarding new paid publishers during the quarter and began a structured phaseout of the remaining Paid Network. The Paid Network accounted for around half of SubAffiliation's revenues during the quarter, but going forward we expect that share to gradually decrease. This phaseout process has also resulted in certain cost savings. The External Organic Publisher Network showed some growth in Q4 compared to Q3. However, revenues came in lower than expected. Despite the strong start to the quarter, we didn't fully manage to materialize the recently signed agreement with U.S. publishers. Going to the next slide and our platform-first strategy. We are continuing to develop our commercial B2B platform, AffiliationCloud. Today, the platform is used by all Raketech owned publishers, external publishers and operators. During Q4, we had close to 100 external publishers that generated revenue through our Organic Publisher Network. In addition to facilitating commercial agreements between the publishers and the operators, the platform provides its users with data insights, fast payments, it ensures compliance among other essential services. We have an ambitious road map for 2026 focusing on adding more features and increasing automation across the platform. Some of the key initiatives includes rolling out automated payment flows, improved reporting and adding an on-page SEO audit tool to better support all publishers using the platform, both Raketech owned publishers and external publishers. We're also getting ready to launch a fully integrated sports widget ahead of the upcoming FIFA World Cup. AffiliationCloud is being developed as a global platform, but our focus at the moment are on the Nordics in line with geographic footprint on our Affiliation Marketing portfolio while we also target a focused expansion in North America, both U.S. and Canada. From a commercial standpoint, the platform allows Raketech to bundle traffic and inventory across both Raketech owned and external publishers. This helps us coordinate sales more effectively and build stronger and more strategic partnership with operators. Let's move to the next slide and dive a bit deeper into our commercial strategy. We have in the past talked about our exclusive commercial agreement with both operators and publishers. When we say exclusive commercial operator agreement, we mean that we are the only affiliate network that can provide access to that specific operator. So if a publisher doesn't have a direct agreement in place, they need to go through AffiliationCloud to get the deal and to be able to advertise the brand. Today, we have a handful of these agreements live both in the U.S. and in Sweden. And we are continuously working on expanding existing partnerships as well as signing new ones. In simple terms, this setup means that AffiliationCloud is the only affiliate network offering access to that operator. Unless you are a large Tier 1 publisher with a direct relationship, AffiliationCloud is the go-to platform to establish a commercial agreement and start advertising the brand. For operators, this creates clear benefits through 1 single agreement with Raketech that can broaden their reach and speed up player acquisition while we take care of the day-to-day operations, including account management, communication, deal negotiation, compliance, KYC and paying the publishers. During the quarter, we signed our second exclusive publisher partnership in U.S. Under this setup, we take full responsibility for selling the publisher's inventory and managing all commercial agreements on their behalf. This allows the publisher to focus entirely on developing their product and driving traffic to operators while we handle sales, deal optimization, administration and invoicing and we are paying the publishers on demand. Partnerships like these are a key part of our strategy going forward. We expect to see more of these agreements as it becomes increasingly costly for publishers in regulated markets to maintain their own in-house commercial teams, including sales, legal and compliance and all related administration. For Raketech, this model enables us to make better use of our existing commercial agreements and infrastructure driving shared growth and improved efficiencies for both parties. Now let's turn to the next slide and Raketech Owned Publishers. For our Raketech Owned Publishers, we have launched 2 new projects after the end of the quarter, Casinofeber Media and the premium new section at Tvmatchen. These launches are part of our strategy to build stronger go-to brands with more relevant content and higher user engagement. The goal is to increase the share of returning visitors and drive more direct traffic to our platforms. At the same time, we are focused on building stronger brands and expanding across more channels, reducing our reliance on pure SEO-driven traffic over time. Casinofeber, it has been Raketech's flagship casino brand in Sweden since 2018. Yesterday, we relaunched the brand on a new platform and at the same time we went live with the first version of Casinofeber Media. Casinofeber Media will be a Swedish language news platform focused on the Swedish gambling market and iGaming industry. It will cover both online and land based. In addition to daily news coverage, we will produce more in-depth analysis of listed iGaming companies as well analysis on how the regulated Swedish market contributes -- continues to evolve. We will also produce video content and launch an article series featuring interviews with Swedish industry profiles, entrepreneurs and founders of successful iGaming businesses. Just before the Winter Olympics started, we rolled out the first version of our pregame content news section on Tvmatchen. Our ambition is to build a more comprehensive pregame content platform on top of our popular TV sports guides, adding further value for the end users and additional commercial inventories. Today, most visitors come to our TV sports guides to check what games are on, which channel is broadcasting and when different events take place. By adding deeper content and guides around events, we expect users to spend more time on the platform and engage more with the content. This also creates additional commercial opportunities where we can integrate more performance-based marketing elements and inventories into our TV sports guide portfolio. There are also clear synergies across markets. For example, an article covering the weekend's Premier League round in Sweden can easily be translated and localized into other languages using AI. This allows us to scale content efficiently across the different markets. Now over to Mans and a deeper look into our financials.

Thank you, Johan. So let's start with the overall revenue picture for the quarter. Similar to last quarter, the recently disposed Casumba assets are excluded in Q4 and all comparative periods. Affiliation Marketing accounted for roughly 68% of total revenues in Q4. We did see a softer performance within Affiliation Marketing compared to Q3 and the year before. And as Johan noted, the quarter started slower than expected, but picked up with a strong December, which we normally do see from a seasonality perspective; but we also had a positive effect from a net positive Google Core Update for our main assets in the Nordics. Within SubAffiliation, we were essentially in line with Q3. The split between what we refer to as organic and paid publishers were approximately half and half. As we have highlighted for the last several quarters, the paid publishers in our network have had a hard time getting back to driving traffic as market conditions have changed and as such, we have during the quarter discontinued the onboarding of new publishers in this area. In parallel, however, and in line with what we have said in previous presentations, the focus is on onboarding and growing organic publishers. As Johan said, we did sign a new U.S. publisher during the quarter, but getting started with them has taken a bit longer than anticipated and growth was therefore slightly lower than expected. We did, however, despite this, see some growth in Q4 compared to Q3. Moving on to revenue mix and the variations you see here are primarily driven by CPA activity and it's an effect of the decline within the paid publisher network. The somewhat slower rev share in Q4 is an effect of the softer performance in the beginning of the quarter, which did pick up during December. Positive, however, is that the flat fees remained stable throughout, which is a good sign that operators see good value in our sites. EBITDA was slightly lower compared to previous quarter excluding one-offs and discontinued operations. Despite a somewhat softer top line, it shows that the cost discipline and efficiencies we have worked on throughout the year are having a positive effect. Compared to Q4 of last year, we're approximately down 24% in costs excluding publisher costs. And compared to Q3, we were also lower in cost and this is to some extent an effect of the efficiencies following the discontinued Paid Publisher Network within SubAffiliation. And turning to cash flow, cash conversion was reasonably stable in the quarter in line with EBITDA. The main differences between EBITDA and free cash flow are normally related to taxes, lease and interest payments and some smaller CapEx items. For this quarter, we had somewhat a positive effect on trade receivables, which are related to timing effects, but this is all within expectations as well. We continue to settle earn-outs. We settled about EUR 400,000 in the quarter and as a reminder, the remaining earn-out balance will continue to be paid in partial installments through March 2028. On the Casumba disposal, which closed at the end of September, the fixed consideration is EUR 12 million. This will be paid in monthly variable installments through December 2029. The consideration is, however, measured at a fair value of roughly EUR 7 million reflecting time, value and money, but also the underlying credit risk. And as of today, we received approximately EUR 0.4 million. And now back to Johan.

Thank you, Mans. To summarize before we open up for Q&A. Financials: Q4 was the first quarter without the divested Casumba assets. To date, as Mans mentioned as well, proceeds from the sales of the Casumba assets totaled EUR 0.4 million. The continued operations, excluding Casumba assets, came in at EUR 5.7 million in revenue, adjusted EBITDA of EUR 1.1 million representing a margin of 18.8%. Key takeaways per business area. Raketech Owned Publishers, we had a relatively soft start to the quarter, but saw improved momentum in December following a net positive impact from the December Google Core Update. We continue to stay focused on product development with a clear objective of increasing direct traffic and gradually reducing our dependency on SEO. Following the end of the quarter, we went live with 2 strategic important product launches, Casinofeber Media and the new pregame new section on Tvmatchen. Within SubAffiliation, the Paid Network continued to decline and is currently being phased out as a part of our strategic shift. At the same time, Organic Published Network delivered quarter-on-quarter growth. That said, revenue came in below our expectations mainly due to a slower ramp-up and materialization of certain partnerships in the U.S. market. Business outlook: we continue to accelerate the execution of our platform-first strategy with AffiliationCloud playing a central role in improving commercial integration, driving operational efficiencies and supporting long-term scalability. At the same time, we are expanding our Organic Published Network across North America and the Nordics, building out both reach and depth in those markets. We will continue scaling our investments in expanding our go-to products while at the same time preparing for the upcoming FIFA World Cup. Preliminary data for January shows that Affiliation Marketing, Raketech Owned Publishers, are performing slightly above the Q4 average while the External Organic Published Network has been impacted by a slow start of the year from certain U.S. publishers. With these words, we are now opening up for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Rikard Engberg from DNB Carnegie.

So my first question is regarding the trading update. You say that you see like a slight growth Q-on-Q compared to Q4. Is this adjusted for seasonality as Q4 is usually the strongest quarter of the year? So to say that a slight growth is in fact a quite strong growth Q-on-Q given the seasonality pattern of the industry.

We have not taken any seasonality into consideration here. So yes, we see a slight increase in for Raketech Owned Publishers quarter-on-quarter.

Okay. Good. And my next question is regarding the payments that you are receiving from the sale of the Casumba assets. Have they arrived as planned and do you see -- have you seen any increased risk or decreased risk for these going forward?

They are as expected. We divested this late Q3 and it was no upfront payment for the divestment and we have started to receive funds as expected.

[Operator Instructions] There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions and closing comments.

Questions. One question relates to how much was received for the Casumba sales? That we covered in the presentation. So to date we've received EUR 0.4 million. Do you expect to be able to collect the full EUR 12 million related to the divestment within the agreed time period. And as Mans also mentioned in the presentation, the current value we have for this balance is around EUR 7 million and we'll continue to monitor this balance and update the market accordingly. There's another question related to the settlement of the earn-out. Why only EUR 405,000 was settled, previous quarter it has been much higher? And the sort of level of the settlement depends on the quarterly free cash flow and it's an estimate of the quarterly free cash flow as well. So if there are any adjustments that will come in the following quarter, but it is a variable part of the free cash flow in that specific quarter. Then it's a question when are you targeting to return to growth? We are confident in our strategy, but we are not forecasting or guiding on when we will return to growth. It's a question, do you plan for further cost reductions? To be cost disciplined is important for us, but we have done a lot of cost savings for last 2 years and we are comfortable with the position we are in at the moment.

Then there is a question around the working capital related to both the receivable from the disposal and the earn-out and our capabilities of meeting these payments. And as we stand as of now is that we expect to be able to settle all of these earn-outs with the projected cash flow with the addition of the existing facility we have in place. Then there's a question around the current market capitalization around EUR 8 million compared to the company's asset value and if there are any additional risk in impairments. And no, not to date, there are not. So these asset values are checked and assessed every quarter and specifically at the year-end as well based on the forecast and EPS calculation. Based on that, there's obviously always uncertainties and subjectivity in forecast, but this is where it stands at the moment.

Okay. I think that was all questions. Thank you all for listening in and we see you again when we will report the Q1. Thank you and have a good day.