Playtech PLC

So, good morning, everyone. Firstly, I want to thank you all for attending today. It's been an eventful and exciting couple of weeks for Playtech. On to slide two. I'll begin with the highlights before handing over to Chris McGuinness, our CFO, who will take you through the financials and the outlook. I'll then update you on our progress against our strategic priorities. Turning now to slide three. I'm pleased to report an excellent financial performance in H1 2024, delivering adjusted EBITDA of 243 million euros, up 11% and ahead of expectations as we flagged in our trading statement issued a couple of weeks ago. This strong performance was driven by the B2B division, which saw adjusted EBITDA growth of 38% with the Americas, the standout region. Given the performance in the first six months of 2024, the B2B segment is ahead of schedule to be within the medium-term adjusted EBITDA target range of 200 to 250 million euros in 2024, set just 18 months ago. A couple of weeks ago, we made two announcements that will fundamentally transform the future of the Group. Starting with CaliPlay, we were delighted to finalize the terms of our revised strategic agreement that marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter for both parties and sets the foundation for growth in both domestic and international markets. Turning to Snytech, we reached a definitive agreement for the sale of this business to Flutter for a total enterprise value of 2.3 billion euros, realizing significant shareholder return with 1.27 to 1.8 billion euros expected to be returned. DeSale leaves Playtech returning to its roots as a highly focused B2B business where we have positioned ourselves for significant growth in highly attractive markets such as the US and Brazil and casino and live casino from a product perspective. I will now hand over to Chris who will take you through the financial performance and outlook.

Thanks, Mor. On slide five, I'll now talk through an excellent financial performance in H1. Group revenue grew 5%, reaching €907 million, with adjusted EBITDA increasing by 11% to €243 million, ahead of expectations set at the start of the year. As you will have seen, we reached a revised agreement with CaliPlay earlier this month and have received over €150 million of the amounts owed to us. However, as this was post-period end, cash generation in H1 was impacted with adjusted operating cash flow of 151 million euros. Our balance sheet remained robust, with leverage declining to 0.5 times, down from 0.7 a year ago. On a pro forma basis, adjusting for cash received from CaliPlay post-period end, leverage would have been further reduced to 0.2 times. Moving to slide six, the excellent performance in H1 was driven by strong execution within B2B. B2B revenues were up 14% driven by regulated markets. Adjusted EBITDA margin within B2B expanded 510 basis points. A strong revenue growth combined with tight cost control and high operating leverage resulted in 38% growth in adjusted EBITDA in the first half of 2024. B2B free cash flow generation, excluding the working capital impact of CaliPlay, improved significantly in a period due to Strong's earnings growth. In B2C, revenues remained flat and adjusted EBITDA declined 6% compared to last year, as good growth in wagers against a tough comparative was offset by customer-friendly sporting results. Turning to slide seven, Looking at the B2B division in more detail, the performance in H1 was very strong, with revenue reaching 382 million euros, representing 12% growth on a constant currency basis. Within the division, regulated markets continue to see strong growth, with revenue growth of 16% in constant currency. The Americas remains the standout region, growing 37% in constant currency, driven by the continued success of Cali Play in Mexico and an increasing contribution from W Play in Colombia. The U.S. and Canada are showing great progress and becoming a greater contributor to growth in the division, with revenue up more than 200% in H1, albeit from a small base, as we continue to execute our strategy there. Looking at Europe, revenues remained flat at constant currency. The strong growth in Spain, Italy, and Ireland was offset by declines in Greece due to loss of a customer, and Poland due to changes in a contract that had a neutral impact to EBITDA. The UK business saw revenue growth of 2% at constant currency, with growth across multiple licensees partly offset by a decline in revenue from Intane due to the impact of insourcing their SSBTs. Finally, in unregulated markets, revenue increased 1% of constant currency, with growth in Brazil partly offset by a decline in Asia. Now, on to slide 8, I will talk you through the highlights from the B2C division. Snitex saw revenue decline 1% in H1, with adjusted EBITDA falling 5%. This overall performance was impacted by customer-friendly sporting results, particularly at the start of the year, although the underlying performance in both retail and online was strong with growth in the wagers. Happy Bet saw revenues fall 7% in H1, driven by the rationalization of retail sites in Germany and Austria. Given the lack of scale and difficulty in addressing this, the decision has been taken to close the Austrian business, which will take effect in H2. As a result, a provision of 2 million euros has been booked in H1, which is included in adjusted EBITDA. Elsewhere, Sunbingo and other B2C saw 17% revenue growth driven by the launch of an additional brand in H2 of 2023. Adjusted EBITDA declined 18% due to increased marketing spend in H1 to fuel growth. Turning now to slide nine, we will look at the net debt bridge. Despite not receiving any cash from CaliPlay during the period, leverage still reduced from 0.7 at the end of 2023 to 0.5 at the end of H1. Adjusting for the cash received from CaliPlay earlier this month, leverage would have further reduced to 0.2 times. Part of the reason for the strong cash generation in the period has been the prioritization of prudent cash management policies, which will continue to be an area of focus given the expected structure of the group without Snytec and the current cash generation profile of the B2B division. Finally, we intend to repay the €350 million bond due in March 2026 with part of the proceeds received from the sale of Snitech, leaving just a €300 million bond due in June 2028, as we look to ensure that Playtech has an appropriate balance sheet as it continues to execute its strategy. Onto slide 10. As you may recall, at the 2023 full year results, I outlined three areas of focus for 2024. We're continuing to make progress on each of these, although there's more work to be done. First, I want to highlight the notable improvement in cash generation within B2B, where free cash flow has more than doubled compared to a year ago when adjusting for the CaliPlay working capital swing. We will continue to ensure we are focused on this metric as a company going forward. Secondly, cost efficiency has been an area of focus for me since I became CFO. In H1, we remained prudent with cost management, which partly contributed to the 510 basis point EBITDA margin expansion. We made progress in evaluating underperforming businesses, and more importantly, are acting on it. We decided to close the Austrian segment of HappyBet as it lacks the necessary scale to be a viable business. Going forward, given the proposed sale of Snytech, we need to ensure that B2B has the appropriate cost base as a standalone business. Finally, I outlined that I wanted to provide additional disclosures to improve transparency. I've continued on this path by giving additional disclosure on Caluplay's financial performance. Going forward, I will continue to evaluate the level of B2B disclosure, particularly in light of the proposed changes to the group. We expect CapEx, including capitalization, capitalized development to be approximately 170 million euros in 2024, while there is no change in guidance for the effective tax rate of the group at circa 30% for the year. Onto slide 11. We are delighted with the signing of a revised agreement with CaliPlay that creates an exciting new chapter for both parties. Together, we have achieved hugely impressive progress to date, as reflected in the chart on the left-hand side. More importantly, we believe that with a new agreement in place, we will be able to achieve even greater success going forward. More will later talk you through the commercial and strategic elements of the revised agreement, and I will now walk you through the main terms and the respective financial implications. Playtech will now hold a 30.8% equity ownership in Cali Interactive with the right to receive dividends from this new US incorporated company. We will not be entitled to the general services fee starting at 2025, and we will stop providing the services to which this relates. Cali Play has agreed to pay us additional fees of 140 million US dollars phased over a four year period. We estimate the overall impact of the revised agreement will result in the 30 to 40 million Euro cash headwind in 2025 compared to 2024, which I will go into in more detail on the next slide. This impact is before the expected growth in the remainder of the B2B business in 2025. From 2025 onwards, we'd respect our cash flows from CaliPlay to grow. In terms of the outstanding working capital balance, we are pleased to confirm that more than 150 million euros has been received, which is more than 80% of the previously unpaid balance, with 33 million to be received on closing of the revised agreement. Onto slide 12, where I give more details around the accounting and cash impact of the new deal, using 2023 as the base year, given it is the last full year of reported results. In terms of the impact to revenue, the software and services element takes into account a slightly lower take rates for the new agreement, but excludes the potential impact of additional flexibility afforded to CaliPlay under the new agreement, in addition to our revenue protection measures. The payments of $140 million that will be paid in cash over a four-year period are, from an accounting perspective, expected to be amortized and recognized in revenue on a straight-line basis over the eight-year life of the software and services contract. Under the new agreement, the general services fee will no longer be collected, and direct costs associated with CaliPlay will also reduce. Finally, as a 30.8% direct equity holder in Cali Interactive, we intend to account for our equity ownership as income from associate, which will be included within adjusted EBITDA. In terms of the cash impact, we will receive dividends from Cali Interactive based on an agreed upon dividend policy. In addition, on this slide, you can see the headline financials for the CaliPlay business, which should be helpful in valuing our equity stake in Cali Interactive, which we think is very significant. Finally, moving to slide 13 and the outlook. We have seen a solid start to H2 with normal seasonality. Our strong performance in H1 gives us confidence that we'll deliver 2024 adjusted EBITDA ahead of expectations prior to the trading statement issued a couple of weeks ago. We are firmly on course to meet our medium term adjusted EBITDA target of 200 to 250 million euros by the end of 2024. We initially set the target as the three- to five-year medium-term target at our 2022 full-year results, and now expect to hit it within two years. I will flag, however, that 2025 will be impacted by the revised Cali Play Agreement, as I discussed earlier, and we will revisit our medium-term targets at the full-year results. From a balance sheet perspective, we are in a very strong position. The funds due to be received from the sale of Snitech, as well as the payment of the previously outstanding fees by CaliPlay, will allow us to repay the €350 million March 2026 bond, as well as fund both organic and inorganic growth opportunities at the same time. Considering our strong financial performance and healthy balance sheet, the board is confident in Playtech's prospects for 2024 and beyond. I will now hand back to Mor to update you on our strategic priorities.

Thanks, Chris. Moving on to slide 15. Here I would like to provide an update on our progress against our 2024 priorities outlined during the 2023 full e-results. Starting with CaliPlay, as mentioned earlier, we are pleased to resolve the situation and enter into the new and exciting chapter of our partnership. I'll talk more about this later on. Moving to our second priority, the execution and delivery of the U.S. strategy. We've continued to sign up the biggest operators in the U.S., including DraftKings and Penn Interactive, while also securing a new platform deal with Ocean Casino Resorts. We are also delivering growth with revenue in the U.S. up over 200% in H1. Turning to Brazil, which in my opinion is one of the most exciting and rapidly growing markets in the world, as it is set to launch under the new regulation in early 2025. Aside from working closely with Galerabet, who applied for a local license, we are also well positioned with multiple B2B licenses that are expected to successfully obtain a Brazilian B2C operator license. Finally, on the live segment, where we aim to differentiate by delivering the most innovating gambling experience. In H1 2024, we announced a partnership with MGM Resorts International to launch live casino content streamed directly from the gaming floors of the Bellagio and MGM Grand. We have also gone live with DraftKings in multiple states, a relationship that we are hoping to expand on. Turning to slide 16. Here we look in detail at the amount of value that has been created with the Snytec acquisition and subsequent disposal six years later. Back in 2018, we acquired Snytec for 846 million euros at an EBITDA multiple of 6.1 times. The asset benefited from strong brand equity and derived nearly 80% of its EBITDA from the retail segment, largely a reflection of the under-penetrated online channel in Italy, which stood at less than 10%. The investment thesis revolved around utilizing Sny's strong brand and Playtech's expertise in online to benefit from the predicted increase in online penetration. Over the course of the last six years, the thesis has broadly played out. Today, Snytech looks at different business. Based on 2023, the last full year of financials, Snytex profits have nearly doubled and the online segment now constitutes close to 50% of the adjusted EBITDA. More importantly, the shift to online drove the expansion of Snytec's EBITDA margin from 16% to 27%, creating a higher quality and less capital intensive business that delivers a higher return on capital employed. And the increase in quality of the Snytec asset is reflected in the price that Flutter was willing to pay. The total consideration of 2.3 billion euros implies an exit EV to EBITDA multiple of nine times, slightly ahead of other recent deals in Italy. The vast majority of the proceeds will be paid out to shareholders, ensuring they are crystallizing the value that has been created. One other thing to point out is that on top of the 2.3 billion euro sale price, Snytec has also generated a sizable amount of cash since acquisition, amounting to over 800 million euros. So in the end, we have delivered multiple expansion and a near doubling of EBITDA with the majority of proceeds returned as cash to shareholders. And while we are on the topic of Italy, it would be remiss of me not to mention Emilio Patrone, the former CEO of Seasal, who tragically died a couple of weeks ago. We knew each other for many years, and I always held him in the highest regard as one of the true professionals in the industry, and in Italy in particularly. He will be missed dearly. Turning to slide 17. The sale of Snytech essentially leaves us as a pure play B2B gambling business. Here I want to remind you all about how Playtech as a B2B business creates value. As a leading technology provider to the gambling industry, we are partnering with virtually all of the most prominent and ambitious brands in the industry, alongside midsize and smaller operators, which aspire to rapidly grow in selected markets. Over multiple years, we have established successful partnerships with major multinational operators like Flutter and Tain, Bet365 and Betano. In addition, we have expanded our network to include renowned brands such as MGM and Hard Rock Digital, as well as emerging local heroes like Kaliplay and Wplay. We invest heavily to provide these hugely attractive brands with our market leading innovative content across a range of verticals including casino and live casino. And we are exposed to the fastest growing regulated or soon to be regulated markets such as the US and Brazil. and we can offer a range of innovative business models to ensure we are able to extract the appropriate level of value for the software and services we provide, whether that be via a SaaS model that helps us to address the long tail of providers not using us for the PAM, through to strategic agreements where there is a much more comprehensive relationship. The previous slide talked about how we create value within B2B. Slide 18 paints a picture about how much value resides within the group going forward. In the Americas, we have multiple equity stakes in high quality assets in attractive countries. Let's start with our most successful structured agreement to date, CaliPlay. In the last decade, Playtech has worked closely with CaliPlay, the online division of Caliente, to significantly expand the business, growing annual revenue to more than 700 million euros in 2023, and operating profit of 223 million euros, with 2024 expected to see further underlying growth. The Mexico market has been growing rapidly, and CaliPlay holds a very significant market share. The 30.8% equity stake in Kaliplay under the revised agreement is hugely valuable in our view. Our other structured agreements are at a much earlier stage than Kaliplay, yet some of these agreements have huge potential to generate value for Playtex shareholders. In the U.S., our low single-digit equity stake in Hard Rock Digital gives us valuable exposure to the rapidly growing business, which in our opinion possesses all the necessary characteristics to become over time a significant contributor to Playtech. The combination of an iconic brand and unique leadership position in the online sports betting market in Florida should support the successful expansion of Hard Rock Digital across both domestic and international markets. In Colombia, we hold a nil-cost option on 49% equity in a leading online gaming operator, Wplay. In 2023, Playtech for the first time received an additional services fee reflecting the transition to profitability. In Brazil, we also hold a nil cost option on 40% of the equity in GaleraBet. As the hugely attractive Brazilian market opens up in early 2025, we expect those B2C companies that have initially been granted a license to operate will be in an advantageous position to take market share in what could potentially become one of the largest gambling markets in the world. In addition to our structured agreements in the Americas, our B2B portfolio includes the attractive live casino product Vertical, which already generates more than 150 million euros in revenues, with adjusted EBITDA margins more than 35%, including the loss-making US business, where we have invested heavily on new studios ahead of expected demand over the coming years. The final asset I'd like to pick out is our 49% equity stake in L-Sports, which we haven't mentioned before, but we think is extremely promising. L-Sports is a real-time sports betting data provider covering over 100 sports with some of the lowest latency rates in the market. The business is growing rapidly, is profitable, and is paying out cash dividends with 1.8 million euros received in 2023. On to slide 19, and looking a bit more closely at the B2B strategy. Here, we outline the progress that has been made during H1 2024 against our strategic priorities. Firstly, on aiming to be the partner of choice for newly regulating markets. Over the last six months, we have continued to make good progress in building on our existing partnerships and signing new agreements. As I'll go into more detail in a couple of slides, we are pleased to reach a revised agreement with CaliPlay, making an exciting new chapter for both parties. Elsewhere, our strategic agreements with other operators in Latin America and North America, such as Galerabet and Wplay, continue to perform well as we benefit from structural tailwinds in these newly regulated markets. The signing of a new strategic partnership with MGM Resorts was a huge moment for Playtech. This partnership demonstrates the attractiveness of Playtex technology to global brands and our ability to bring market innovative and more entertaining concepts. Looking at our second strategic priority of capitalizing on live and SaaS opportunities, I'm pleased to report an excellent performance in the first six months of 2024. With the attractive live segment where we focus on regulated markets, we saw strong revenue growth of 17% in H1. The demand for our innovative live offering continues to accelerate and we are planning to expand capacity in each of our three US live studios by the end of the year. In SaaS, our impressive growth continues as revenues increased by more than 40% in H1 2024. With more than 500 brands on our platform, we are ahead of schedule to hit the medium-term revenue target range by the end of 2024, well ahead of the original plan. Finally, our third strategic objective of looking to align resources to reflect B2B growth areas has become even more essential given the sale of Snytech leaves us as a B2B company. There has been some progress made around tighter cost control and that is reflected in the EBITDA margin expansion of 510 basis points we saw in H1. However, more work needs to be done to ensure there is a healthy balance between having a cost base that is appropriate for the B2B business and sufficient investment in the areas within strategic. Post the sale of Snytech, our balance sheet will be strong with a net cash position, and we will be active on the M&A front to ensure appropriate exposure to attractive segments, both regionally and within product verticals. However, given the smaller size of the company, it is increasingly important that we remain disciplined in our criteria and approach. Onto slide 20. This slide is familiar to you as we have presented it a couple of times before, but this time we went one step further by highlighting the relative size of each market based on the online GGR estimates for 2024. And as you can see, there is a healthy balance between more mature markets, such as the UK and Italy, and countries that are early in their regulatory cycle and are set to deliver faster growth. This balance is very important for the following reasons. Firstly, more mature markets are highly cash-generative, and this cash can be used to invest into more nascent, faster-growing markets to secure advantages positions as these markets move towards regulating. Secondly, the relationships with operators in established markets such as the UK can then be leveraged as these operators expand into other faster growing countries, providing Playtech with an opportunity to increase its wallet share with these partners. Two countries that illustrate these nascent fast growing markets that we are excited about and are well positioned in are South Africa and Peru. South Africa is expected to grow 24% on a compound annual basis over the next three years, while Peru is set to regulate at the end of 2024 and is expected to grow 16% on a compound basis over the next three years. Turning to slide 21, where we will look in more detail at our revised strategic agreement with CaliPlay. Chris took you through the financial impact of the agreement, whereas I will focus on the strategic implications of the revised deal. CaliPlay is a highly valued partner, and together we have built an extraordinary business in Mexico that has grown from less than 10 million euros of revenue in 2014 to more than 700 million euros in 2023. The 30.8% direct equity holding we have in a U.S. company is a much cleaner structure than the previous one which had various options in place. Our commercial agreement is also revised and now offers more flexible terms to CaliPlay with regards to exclusivity commitments for our products, particularly for sports. While CaliPlay has benefited significantly from the growth in the online market in Mexico, we think there is still ample room for future growth in this market, and given their positioning in the market, CaliPlay is best placed to benefit from this. We also foresee significant opportunity in international expansion for CaliPlay. Considering CaliPlay's strong brand recognition and the substantial Hispanic population in neighboring countries, the business is well positioned for strategic expansion in the Americas. On to slide 22. Here we look in more detail at the US, a market with significant opportunity for Playtech. Our journey in the US started in 2019 and over the past four years, we have focused on establishing a presence and laying the foundations for growth as part of our market entry strategy. We are now beginning the execution and delivery phase. Looking at our performance in the first half of 2024, we delivered an impressive triple digit percentage revenue growth driven by strong demand from existing clients and new launches. We have now signed and launched with 12 operators in the US, including most of the major Tier 1 operators. We are also making good progress in rolling out our suite of innovative content, with our games being recognized for their success in the industry. The progress in the US is supported by our significant investments into infrastructure and technology. At present, we have over 270 employees in the US and three live studios. However, considering the expected increase in demand for our live offering, we are planning to increase headcount to more than 500 people as we ramp up capacity. Moving on to slide 23, where we outline the performance of the live segment. The live business has continued to make good progress in the first half of the year with revenues in regulated markets where we are focusing our efforts up 17%. We have continued to sign and launch with new operators in multiple regions. We launched with Rust Street Interactive in both Michigan and Pennsylvania, whilst helping Penn Interactive to launch live casino in Michigan and Pennsylvania. We have also gone live with DraftKings in multiple states. Given the strong demand we are seeing in the market, we have continued to invest in the business and expand capacity, taking the number of tables to over 400 across a number of locations at the end of H1. Our capacity expansion efforts will continue in the second half of 2024 with the number of tables in each of our three studios in the US to increase to meet demand. Our most notable milestone in H1 was the signing of a partnership with MGM Resorts International to stream live casino content directly from the gaming floors of the iconic Las Vegas Street properties Bellagio and MGM Grand to be made available to players in regulated markets throughout the world outside the United States. Onto slide 24, as you can see, we continue to make progress against all four of our sustainability priorities. We are well positioned to meet increasing demand for safer gambling technology and services in both mature and growth markets. We are now providing Playtech Protect our technology and services offering to licensees in 11 jurisdictions across North America, Latin America, and Europe. We have also enhanced our capabilities to track and evaluate responsible gambling interactions with at-risk players and have expanded our responsible gambling advisory and managed services to meet growing industry demand. In H1, we also continue to expand our responsible gambling partnerships in the US. I'm particularly delighted to mention a new collaboration with the University of Nevada Las Vegas International Gaming Institute, which will include a focus on how best to further utilize technology to further strengthen player protection measures and create a more sustainable gambling environment. I look forward to sharing more details on our progress against our 2025 commitments during our full year 2024 results. Finally, slide 25. In summary, we have delivered a strong performance in the first half. We are executing our strategy to grow and improve the B2B business, and we are encouraged by the broad-based growth we have seen across our key markets and verticals. We are delighted to have agreed a revised strategic agreement with CaliPlay in Mexico. This maintains our presence in a strategic market and ensures we will continue to benefit from the rapid growth we continue to see there. Taken together with the progress we are making with our other partners, we are confident that we will meet our medium-term adjusted EBITDA target range for B2B this year earlier than expected. The sale of Snytech is a major milestone. It will generate significant value for shareholders and fundamentally reshape our business with a return to our roots as a pure-play B2B operator. Our strategic agreements and technology leadership mean we are well positioned to drive growth in the coming years. Our people remain as hungry as ever, and I have every faith that together we can make the most of the exciting opportunities ahead. Thank you all for listening. Chris and I will be more than happy to take any questions you may have.