RAS Technology Holdings Limited (RTH) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

[Audio Gap] Presenting today will be CEO, Stephen Crispe, and CFO, Tim Olive, who will be going through the presentation released earlier today on the ASX. [Operator Instructions] I'll now hand it over to Stephen.

Wonderful, and thanks very much, Ben. And thank you, everyone for joining us today for our Half Year FY '25 Results and Presentation. It's been a very exciting half year for us. We've achieved a lot and that continues to roll into the second half of '25, which we'll see in some slides in the presentation today. I'm here with our CFO, Tim Olive, as Ben said, who will talk you through some of the financial details in subsequent slides and go through some of the information, which I'm sure you're all very eager to hear. But Racing and Sports has really evolved quite significantly over the past couple of years, but more so in the past 6 months where we've seen a lot of change within the industry. A lot of evolution within the industry and a lot of opportunity for companies like Racing and Sports as a B2B provider of data content, Wagering tech, digital and media services, not just here in Australia, but also on a global basis. So, very pleasing that the company has expanded from Australia into the UK in a really meaningful way. And that includes obviously, parts of Europe, emerging territories as well as work within the U.S., and also, now in Asia, which we'll get to in later slides. So, the deal flow remains very strong and the pipeline as well, and we'll see evidence of that in coming slides, and really evidence Is the hard work from the team, not just here in Australia but also around the world. So, with that, I'd like to hand over to Tim Olive to talk us through the first slides of the financials.

Thank you, Stephen, and good afternoon, everyone. Great to have you here for our half year results presentation. This slide provides an overview of our key metrics for the first half of FY '25. I'll give you a quick around the ground showing the highlights in each of these key metrics. So, revenue continues to grow strongly in the first half of the year, up 33% on the prior corresponding period. Revenue from customers for the period was $10.1 million, which was a really pleasing result for the business and shows continuing strong revenue growth. From an EBITDA perspective, we again have seen a really favorable result there as operating leverage continues to kick in. We've nearly doubled our EBITDA compared to the prior corresponding period. We've reported an EBITDA for the half year of $1.4 million, which shows really good momentum in the business. From an ARR perspective, we've reported ARR of $18.3 million, which when is normalized for the change in the arrangements of a key customer Picklebet, represents 33% growth on the prior corresponding period. So still really good momentum in our ARR. From a cash perspective, our effective cash is $10.2 million, which is a good strong cash level for Racing Sports. And we did note there that we received an R&D grant just after the end of the year. So, we've included that in our effective cash. And from a cash flow from operations perspective, we continue to strongly grow our cash flow from operations, having received an effective $2.1 million in the first half of FY '25, which is nearly 100% growth on the prior period. Jumping to the next slide, just showing a slightly broader time series on each of our key metrics. And pleasingly, they are all continuing to perform strongly, really good growth across all of those metrics over the last 3 years in a half year context. And you can see here our net profit before tax, again, has continued to grow, achieving around about $0.5 million in the first half of FY '25. And we've also reported our first after-tax profit of $399,000 since we IPO-ed. So that shows the impact of increasing revenue and profit, and also, the benefit we're now seeing with our R&D grants being applied to the tax expense below bottom-line. We might jump to the next slide. Thank you. We've added an additional slide to this year's pack just to show a longer time series of results for our key metrics now that we've been listed for around 3 years. You can see here a series of 6 half year results over the last 3 years. Starting at the top left, you can see revenue is continuing to grow very strongly and consistently, which is pleasing. Our ARR has had a really good run of growth over time and in the current period, when we normalize for the impact of that one change of arrangement of that key customer, you can see continued growth there. And as we mentioned before, the change arrangement of the key customer doesn't materially impact our bottom-line. So that's going to sort of flow through nicely to our profitability. From an EBITDA perspective and also an NPAT perspective, you can see there that we're continuing to achieve strong growth and now getting to a period of consistent profitability, particularly from an EBITDA perspective. And when you normalize out the R&D accounting treatment over those periods, you can see that, that growth is even higher, which sort of represents the 2 yellow bars on top of the right-hand bars. So, a really good set of metrics and really healthy company with good growth momentum. Zooming in a little bit by our functional units, you can see here that all of our business units are continuing to grow. The star performer in the first half of FY '25 was enhanced information services, our data and content products, where we saw growth of 28% on the prior period. When we look at the breakup from a geographic perspective, you can see the evolving strategy and nature of the business. We're particularly pleased that our UK business saw its ARR grow by 68% in the first half of FY '25, which really shows that our UK strategy is delivering results, which is very pleasing. All of our jurisdictions grew on an ARR basis year-on-year and we saw strong growth in other international markets, which was up 36% on the prior corresponding period, which was helped by the Stake deal. Going forward, having announced that acquisition earlier in the week, we feel really confident that we'll see some really strong growth come out of Asia with the acquisition and way beyond that. So, we're excited about our continuing international expansion. I jump to the next slide. Those of you who have been following the RTA story for some time will be very familiar with this graph. It's a 2-series graph, which shows the bars being half year periods of operating cash flow and the line being a trend line for our ARR, which goes off the right-hand side. okay? As we know, we're very profitable pre-IPO and we went through a period of significant investment to build capability and set us up for growth, which we're now starting to realize as we get increasing results of operating cash flow. You can see there that when we adjust for that slight timing issue around the R&D grant receipt, you can see that operating cash flow has grown very strongly once again in the first half of 2025. And ARR is once again strong, but has been slightly impacted by that change to the operating arrangement of one of our key clients. I might throw back to Steve to talk through some of the deal highlights from the first half of FY '25. Thanks, Steve.

Wonderful. Thanks so much, Tim. So, the first half of FY '25 has been a strong half for us. There's been a lot of activity and a lot of deal flow. Some of the brands you see on the screen in front of you really bring those to life. So, the Stake deal has continued to perform strongly and we've been working with the team there around new innovation and services to directly engage with their local audience and grow that account. Deals for BlueBet and also PointsBet around data and content have been very pleasing for us and have been performing well. So, moving the racing sports data and content to be the market leader, particularly within the Australian territory. The deal with Tabcorp has been performing well since we announced it a couple of years ago around the data and content, which is supplied to all of Tabcorp's retail, their sky assets and also their digital assets as well around their app and website. So that's been a very pleasing deal. And also, the Runner Insights visual form product, which has been launched more recently, really brings their product as a world-class racing product and allows them to compete in a more meaningful way with the competition. The Waterhouse VC has continued to bear fruit and both short-term deals as well as more long-term strategic initiatives are being undertaken under that arrangement. So again, very pleasing for us, and we'll continue to see that evolve as time moves on. And then lastly, the deals with Bet365, Sportsbet and Betfair and the VRC, just go to show that there's been a heap of activity in that first half, a lot of which will actually continue into the second half of the year and beyond. So, a very pleasing half year. So, to call out the U.K. market expansion, I mean, this has been going really well for the business over the past number of years as we've continued to grow our partnership with some of the platform providers over there. So, the pragmatic play contract has really gone well. They are a platform provider primarily to Tier-1 style bookmakers. So, DAZN Bet went live in Q4 '24. And DAZN Bet, as you would likely know, have recently announced a deal to take over Fox here in Australia, and DAZN Bet is their betting -- they're a massive brand globally in media, sports media, and we're very excited to work with them and grow that brand over there in the U.K. Quinn Bet has recently gone live in February '25, again, another Tier-1 brand within that U.K. market and really sets the Pragmatic Pay platform and brands up as market leaders over there in that Tier-1 space. The Playbook Engineering deal has continued to bear fruit for us and grow. they deal with Tier-2, Tier-3 style players and have a little bit more movement around those brands coming on and coming off. But overall, we've seen really good performance across the playbook engineering account. We've also signed deals with the Northern Hemisphere betting exchange, which is a really novel deal that basically sits in our SaaS and managed trading solutions for input and optionality for our customers who do take up those services. So again, that's been a real groundbreaking deal and also the innovation that brings to our products really sets us more aside as leading capabilities in the market. We've signed another deal with a platform provider in Europe, and again, who have just launched its first U.K.-based bookmaker as well. So, there's 3 platform providers in the U.K. now that Racing and Sports, or U.K. and Europe that Racing and Sports is providing content data and services to even around trading and pricing. So again, very pleasing. And last of all, the racing offer system for GBGB has finally gone live with all tracks across the U.K., which means Racing and Sports now controls all the data generation from the track through to the database, the regulatory systems, the compliance systems, as well as the generation of the Greyhound race cards that go into our bookmakers and partners over there in the U.K. market. So, a great strategic partnership and really starting to drive the GBGB product suite further and create more revenues back to the industry over there. So, the expansion in Hong Kong, this deal was done very recently this month in the second half. It really goes to show some of the activity that we've been undertaking and around the strategy of Racing and Sports to enter in a really meaningful way into the Asian region. So, the deal was to purchase 6 highly established racing publications with a massive circulation across the Hong Kong region. And these publications are very well known. They're heavily relied upon by local hunters and a real cornerstone of the racing industry in the Hong Kong market. So, a really pleasing way for us to start into -- in a really meaningful way. We've established a business over there, Racing and Sports Asia. We're going to have office space. We're going to have local employees and really to take on growth and evolution in that Hong Kong market. So, Hong Kong is one of the world's largest Wagering markets. And yes, this marks a really significant diversification for Racing and Sports into that part of the world. We're going to optimize that business. So, we're going to streamline the processes to make it a leaner and a more efficient, a fitter business for us to take on. So, where it stands today, it will get fitter. It will get more operationally effective and allow us to take that business to new levels through innovation, enhancement of the existing product, as well as a digital transformation around launching digital products to really carry on from these printed publications to the digital native audience in the Hong Kong region. We see that region as absolutely prime for disruption in only a way that Racing and Sports can. And we're really excited about this as our first step into the Asian theater, which will be followed by additional movements into broader parts of Asia as well around Singapore, Korea, Malaysia, Japan and so on. So, we see this move as the first in a series of steps into much broader penetration into Asia and tapping into parts of the industry that we previously haven't been involved with. So again, very exciting and opens up a much bigger addressable market for us. Tim, would you like to talk about the financials of the deal?

Yes. Thanks, Steve. And certainly, echo your comments that we're very excited about this acquisition. We see great growth opportunities in Hong Kong and Asia more broadly. From a financial perspective, the results of the business in the recently completed financial year were revenue of $3.6 million and a profit of just over $400,000, okay? And we do expect the acquisition to be accretive to earnings in the first year with major growth opportunities ahead. Look, it's a business that is a high-quality business, but probably hasn't had a lot of investment in recent times. So, we see an opportunity to invest and really enhance the reach of the business, the quality of the product and the business outcomes achieved. We've touched on a few of the business benefits that will come from the acquisition. We see a very significant opportunity for automation within the business, which we think will result in considerable cost savings and uplift of product when leveraging Racing and Sports broader capability. There's a number of fairly immediate growth opportunities. We feel there's an opportunity to optimize pricing once we've got the quality of the product right, and that will probably result in a double-digit price increase in the new season. We also feel that we will benefit from the increased number of Hong Kong Jockey Club race meetings. They're currently expecting to grow sort of 10% to 15% a year, their numbers of meetings over the next couple of years, including the opening of the [ Changpao ] Racecourse in Southern China. There are a number of other very significant growth opportunities as well with the increasing number of international race meetings. I think there's 50 in the current season, and that's expected to grow considerably going forward. We see major promotional opportunities to partner with rights holders to take their product into Asia in a quality way. So that's another major growth opportunity. And then as Steve touched on, by leveraging Racing and Sports existing data technology and digital media assets, we see major opportunities for B2B business opportunities in Hong Kong and Asia more broadly. So, all those things combine for a really compelling business case, and we're really excited to see that strategy evolve over the next couple of years and beyond. Thanks. Steve?

Thanks very much, Tim, for that. And look, for the outlook of the business, obviously, into half 2 FY '25, but also further beyond into FY '26. There's still strong deal flow, which we achieved in Q1 '25 and calendar year '25 that is with the platform partnerships and U.K. business. Obviously, the acquisition of the Hong Kong business also goes to that as well. And I think it's safe to say we're very bullish about what's ahead of us in terms of our pipeline and deal flow that we're seeing organically, as well as, obviously, that's going to come from making that Hong Kong business fitter, more agile and growing that as well. I mean, the pipeline across all geographies where we're selling is very strong. So, in the U.K. and Europe, there are great opportunities there, where the team is working on emerging territories. Are also a great source of new activity for us as well, and that really centers around Latin America. There's some activity happening in the Middle East. Obviously, Asia, we've spoken about at length. And it doesn't necessarily mean that Australia is capped out either. There's a heap of opportunities in the Australian market still that we're pursuing, working with the industry, working with bookmakers, which gets us on to our Wagering360 platform. This is literally launched this month with its first brand, and the second brand is coming online very soon. And we really -- we see the Wagering360 platform as a premium white-label offering for those bookmakers who want to offer something slightly different in the market. And we're very -- we're really happy that it's gone live, and we think that it's going to be a really compelling product for those bookmakers who want a more premium service than what's currently available out there. And the managed trading service and SaaS platform continues to be a great product for us in the market. The managed trading service underpins the Wagering360 product as well. So, we're seeing it used in anger there as well as other clients who are coming online across -- around the world. We've recently hired our Head of Trading. So, our Global Head of Trading, who is based in the U.K., and that team is also growing as well across Australia, Sri Lanka, and of course, into the U.K. theaters. Our SaaS platform continues to be the most advanced and capable in the market, and that's further enhanced by the deal with the betting exchange partner in the U.K., and I think we'll see more on the features that they will bring to life in subsequent releases. So again, we've also launched in the Wagering technology side of the business, our [ BetRridge ] product, which is a rapidly deployable racing solution. So, for those customers, casinos, sportsbooks who don't have skill expertise in racing, this is a rapidly deployable solution that can be stood up very quickly. We take care of all the UX, the UI, the bets of integration, the bet settlement, the trading. The full vertical integration of a racing product, and that can be done extremely quickly for those operators. So again, a really exciting product, which is just being launched into the market as we speak. And we've spoken about the acquisition, which we believe that's the first step in quite a series of steps into the Asian theater that will really give Racing and Sports some great returns and unlocking the opportunities for the company to grow into that part of the world. So again, we're really excited by this opportunity. It's very strategic, and we will certainly start to bear fruit very quickly, we believe. So, with that, I'll hand it back to Ben.

[Operator Instructions] A few questions have come through. Firstly, just regards to the Hong Kong acquisition. It comes with $0.5 million in transaction costs and require an additional $0.5 million investment. Would the earnings accretive expectation be inclusive of these costs?

Yes. Thank you, Ben. Look, I guess a lot of those costs -- or some of the costs, the transaction costs will certainly come in the short-term and will probably wash out through the remainder of this financial year. So, we certainly think that by the time we get to FY '26, which, as we know, starts in 4 months, the acquisition will be very much accretive. So, look, there will be a little upfront cost, obviously, with the transactional costs, but we're confident that the benefits will flow through the business, and it will be very much accretive by FY '26. Thanks, Ben.

Thank you, Tim. Another question will be for you, Tim. So, with regards to data processing expenses, they reached $1 million in the half, which is nearly double the prior corresponding period. Can you explain the drivers behind the increase and the geographies involved? Would you consider some of these costs as an investment ahead of future growth?

Yes. So, I guess in terms of the data costs, quite a lot of that will relate to the U.K. There is a fairly sort of intensive cost structure in the U.K. for rights, we've also invested in rights in France as well. Look, it's certainly an investment ahead of the curve and some of the costs are fixed in nature. So, as we scale, they'll become a lower proportion of total revenue, but there are other parts of it that are variable in nature as well. So, it's predominantly rights costs out of the U.K. and the Northern Hemisphere to support growth in those markets.

Thank you, Tim. Quick question on Stake here. So, what's the current status of the Stake.com rights issue? And what level of revenue are you earning from this contract?

Look, we'll answer in 2 parts. So, I mean, the Stake relationship obviously continues to grow as they continue to grow their product. The Stake team are obviously extraordinarily busy across all parts of their business and racing is obviously a very important one, which we would continue to invest in. We're seeing the additional new bet types and bet products brought on to the Stake platform. And there's obviously still the addition of a couple of territories to come as well to bolster the racing territories offered to Stake customers, but that will happen in time. Again, the revenues from the deal have been performing well. We're not -- obviously don't talk about individual customers. In the market, it's all very confidential, but we're very pleased with the way the deal has been performing. We're working very closely with the team there to continue to mature and grow that product. But the Stake team are certainly very focused on producing a product which is credible, best-in-class, and there for the long haul. So, Tim, do you have something to add?

I think you covered it, Steve.

Thanks, Stephen. So ARR has declined from $18.9 million at FY '24 to $18.3 million in the half. What has caused the small decline?

Yes. Thank you. So, look, the biggest contributor to that has been a change in arrangements with a key customer, which we've sort of called out bigger in the past, where they've moved from a sort of NGR-based revenue share type deal to a fixed fee deal. We have stated in the past that it's not going to materially impact our bottom line that change. So, whilst the headline ARR number has had a small decline over that period, the actual -- if you look at that at a gross and net level, it's still much more positive than that. And I think as we mentioned in our AGM announcement, we probably had a move to a model where we're, I guess, activating our own proprietary MTS system, and there was -- understandably, there were 1 or 2 deals that came out as a result of that. So, that would be the major factors. But if you sort of I guess, do the math on that, it does show there's been a considerable value of deals put on over that period as well, which will be high-margin data and trading deals. So, we're confident that, that won't materially impact bottom-line and we'll continue to grow profit and revenue going forward. And further to that, as we alluded to in the closing slide and in the announcement, we've had a really good start to deal flow and signing in the first half of H2 2025. And we're confident that both ARR and revenue will grow strongly going forward. So just a transitional issue, Ben.

Thank you, Tim. We did have another couple of questions on the same topic. So, for those individuals, if you need some more information, please reach out. A question here regarding -- does the takeover of PointsBet represent a risk to your current contract?

Look, we're not at liberty to talk about any of our contracts or the terms within them. But look, we'll wait to see how the PointsBet acquisition goes. There's obviously a couple of players still involved in that. So, we'll see how that plays out. But we don't expect any initial material change to the deal with PointsBet.

All right. Thank you, Stephen. How big is the Asian market compared to other Wagering global markets? Will you look at additional acquisitions in the region?

Yes. Look, as we said in our announcement, Asia and Asia-Pacific more broadly is a huge part of the global Wagering market, particularly for racing. We put some numbers in the announcement earlier in the week, whereby we estimated that total turnover for racing globally was $106 billion and that nearly 60% of this came from the Asian market, with Japan being $40 billion and Hong Kong being $21 billion. So, a major opportunity there. I think with Hong Kong, one thing to note, whilst its total turnover is maybe 20% or 30% below Australia in historic terms, when you think about the racing product that's offered in both those markets, the upside and the growth potential is incredibly exciting. In Australia, as we all know, there are so many race meetings every week, every day. We take in all sorts of international content and generate in terms of this estimate, $28 billion in Hong Kong. Pundits are only allowed to bet on 88 Hong Kong race meetings and about 50 international whirlpool meetings, which are imported into Hong Kong. So, that turnover of $21 billion is generated from basically 140 race meetings, which you would see in most weeks in Australia. So, as they continue to grow product in Hong Kong and continue to import considerably more international racing, we think there's major growth opportunities there, and we are very excited about being part of that and realizing a very growth opportunities there. So, we will continue to invest in Asia, and we see it as a major growth driver for us. Thanks, Ben.

Thank you, Tim. And final question here. Has there been much done in terms of product development in the last 6 to 12 months?

Thanks, Ben. Look, there has been. The company has been continually working on new products and refining existing products. So, in and around the data and content space. We've really been working on enhanced products in that space around visual form. Obviously, we've seen with Tabcorp's visual form product. We certainly have several varieties of visual form, which we're now developing and commercializing and starting around the global markets. There's translated products in different languages. There's animated products that really bring racing to life and engage with a newer, younger demographic and make it a much more entertaining product as well from a predictive perspective. So, there's absolutely a lot of activity around the data and content side, bringing that to life and really making it much more accessible, I guess, to a much broader audience is the aim of the game. The Wagering technology side of the business has really seen a lot of product development as well around the SaaS and MTS platforms. Obviously, the SaaS platform we've had in market for many years. It's been the world-leading SaaS platform, we believe. And certainly, feedback from our customers tends to confirm that, where it's the most feature-rich customizable and scalable SaaS platform. But the MTS now, which has been launched in market, will also continue to grow revenues. It underpins the Wagering360 platform, which has also just gone live. So those together actually create a really superior ecosystem, we believe, and there's been a product development in and around not just the Wagering360 front-end platform, but all the back-end services that go into that as well, around customer profiling, bet settlement, bet acceptance, bet recommendation engines, the whole box and dice. So, it's a really well-rounded suite of products that will be offered globally to customers, not just here in Australia. So again, very exciting in that space. And also, the BetRidge product, which has been in development now for several months and has been recently completed and launched and ready for its first customer around that rapidly deployable racing solution that gives sports books that don't have great technical depth or even industry experience in racing, the ability to launch a racing product rapidly and have a very credible solution in the marketplace. So, look, they're just examples of the type of product development we've been working on, and there is more that the team is working on that hasn't been launched yet, which I won't speak about. But certainly, we're very active in the product development space, commercialization, and then obviously, expansion and refinement of those products over time.

Thank you, Stephen. That concludes the Q&A segment of the webinar. I'll now throw it back to Stephen for closing remarks.

Thanks, Ben. And look, thanks, everyone, for joining and staying with us today on the presentation. As you can see, it's been a big first half for the company globally. There's been a lot of activity and a lot of great deal flow into the business that continues to perform in the second half of the year as we've come out with several deals signed already in the second half, as well as the acquisition of the Hong Kong publications. And again, this -- we'll see that deal evolve over the coming months and years ahead of us. So, we're really excited and bullish for what we have planned in the next half and beyond. And we look forward to keeping you all updated with future announcements and press releases as activities and things come to life. So, thank you very much. And if you have any further questions, please send them into Ben and the team.