NIP Group Inc.

Good morning and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by and welcome to NIP Group earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will be hosting a question and answer session after management's prepared remarks. Please note that today's event is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your first speaker today, Mr. Benny, CFO of the company. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Hello, everyone, and welcome to NIP Group's first half 2025 earnings call. With us today are our chairman and co-CEO, Mr. Mario Ho, and our co-CEO, Mr. Hisham Shaheen. You can refer to our first half financial results on our IR website. You can also access a replay of this call on our IR website when it becomes available a few hours after its conclusion. Before we continue, I'd like to refer you to our safe harbor statement in our earnings press release, which also applies to this call, as we will be making forward-looking statements. Please note that all numbers stated in the following management's prepared remarks are in US dollar terms, and we will discuss non-GAAP measures today, which are more thoroughly explained and reconciled to the most comparable measures reported in our earnings release and the filings with the SEC. I will now turn the call over to our chairman and the co-CEO, Mario. Mario, please go ahead.

Good morning and good evening, everyone. Thanks for joining us. The first half of 2025 was a period of recalibration, rebuilding, and disciplined execution for NIP Group. We focused on strengthening our foundational pillars while positioning the company for its next phase of growth under our new dual engine model. Entertainment remains the core of our brand and community. Alongside it, we're building momentum in our newly established mining and digital assets division, which represents our second growth engine and the bridge to our digital future. Let me start with our flagship entertainment business and the progress we've made here. Hisham will then take you through our strategy and progress with our mining and digital asset division, the Abu Dhabi build-out, and our forward outlook. Starting with entertainment, Our esports, talent, and events businesses remain the three pillars of how we engage audiences and monetize our entertainment assets. Total revenues for the first half of the year were $61.2 million, climbing 55.5% year-over-year. Total esports revenue were $3.8 million. In China, esports' first-half softness reflected two industry dynamics, a general market normalization and the timing of revenue recognition. as some league confirmation letters were delayed to the second half. Amid this backdrop, we maintained a disciplined approach, streamlining operations and benefiting from a market-wide reset in player salaries for both China and Western esports. Top-tier talent today cost significantly less than three years ago, which is translating into healthier unit economics. In Western esports, we carried out a deliberate structural rebuild to sharpen competitiveness and commercial efficiency. While this transition temporarily impacted In the first half of 2025, it has paved the way for a return to normalization of revenues as we re-qualified for major events and reinstated digital items and league sharing income following a successful rebuild. This will also set a stronger base for future growth. As we move through the fourth quarter, we have strong visibility and expect Western esports to break even or make a slight profit on an adjusted EBITDA basis in the second half of 2025, with momentum expected to carry into the first half of 2026. Ninjas in Pajamas' performance gains are also feeding commercial opportunities. Our sponsorship pipeline is improving, supported by renewals and new brand partners. Recurring contributions from existing relationships such as Rainbet, Sanex, and Chili's are ongoing, and overall sponsorship discussions are significantly more active and constructive than earlier in the year. At the Esports World Cup, NIP qualified in multiple disciplines, including Rocket League, Apex Legends, Street Fighter, and Rainbow Six. with 14 teams representing its events. This breadth reinforces our position as a multi-title organization. To further strengthen our operations, we recently appointed Grant Rousseau as Chief Operating Officer of NIPG Esports. Grant is among the industry's most accomplished leaders, having led Team Falcon to back-to-back Esports World Cup championships. His experience in scaling global Esports organizations and developing sustainable competitive models will be an important asset for the movement. Turning to tele-management, total revenues for the first half were $46.1 million, surging 110.6% year-over-year. We undertook a purposeful recalibration here to improve both quality and efficiency. We've also integrated online advertising and promotion and diversified monetization from pure live streaming toward brand integrations and product placements. Here is straightforward, make this a lighter, higher quality revenue stream that complements our broader entertainment ecosystem. Our events production business recorded revenues of 11.3 million US dollars, 30.1% year over year. Events production continues to evolve from pure e-sports tournaments to a cultural platform. Early results are encouraging. As an example, we successfully held the Tianfan Music Festival in Beijing, drawing more than 70,000 attendees and setting a high benchmark for crossover entertainment that connects deeply with our core Gen Z and young millennial esport audiences. Music festivals not only deliver strong margins than conventional esport events, they also create valuable sponsor touchpoints. We're scaling from the second half with four to five similar festivals across key cities, one completed in Guangzhou, one in Nanjing, Wuhan, and Foshan. We're also building out a pipeline that includes traditional sports and AR, VR activations in the future. Earlier this month, we signed a framework agreement with the government in Hainan to jointly develop an integrated sports and leisure complex that will combine esports, music, and lifestyle experiences. This partnership underscores our commitment to bringing gaming and youth culture into broader tourism and entertainment formats while contributing to local cultural economies. In conclusion, the competition is audience as we're serving the same digitally native community with more formats more often. Our focus on extending our brand also encompasses physical experiences. We're on track to open our first esports-themed hotel in January. An important proof point that our brand and audience can travel across formats from teams to content and physical experiences. Operationally, all of the steps we've taken in the first half places us on a firm path towards profitability. We're maintaining strict cost discipline across teams and corporate functions, focusing on operational efficiency across every part of the P&L. That operating rigor, together with improving esports performance and the scaling of our Bitcoin mining initiative, support our target of achieving positive adjusted EBITDA in the second half of 2025. Ben will walk through the financial details in just a moment. As we grow, we're also strengthening our corporate governance of sustainability practices. ESG is an integral part of how we build long term value in culture. Earlier this year, we published our inaugural sustainability report. outlining our commitments and achievements in governance, diversity, and community engagement. Women now represent nearly 48% of our workforce, well above the industry average. And our global teams completed over 5,500 hours of professional training. In summary, the first half of 2025 was about discipline, rebuilding, and execution. In esports, China remained focused and efficient, while the West is showing tangible, competitive, and commercial recovery. Talent management was reached for a more sustainable economics. and events are expanding into music-led formats with better margins and wider brand reach. In parallel, we have established our mining and digital asset division, which we view as a natural extension of our capabilities, anchored in compute capacity today and expanding toward digital assets, AI, and AI-enabled applications over time. With that, I'll pass the call over to Hisham to walk through mining and digital assets, our Abu Dhabi headquarters initiatives and incentives, and the outlook for the remainder of the year into 2026. Hisham, over to you.