Super Group (SGHC) Ltd

Greetings and welcome to the Supergroup Full Year 2021 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Lisa Kumpf, Head of Investor Relations for Supergroup. Thank you.

You may begin. Good morning, everyone. I'm Lisa Katz, and I'm delighted to have recently joined Supergroup as the Head of Investor Relations. I'm based in New York, and I look forward to engaging with many of you virtually and in person in the coming days. Joining me today to discuss Supergroup's results are Neil Manashi, Chief Executive Officer, Richard Hassan, President and Chief Operating Officer, and Alinda Zanzake, Chief Financial Officer. Also with us today during the Q&A session is Spencer McNally, Group Head of Data and Analytics. By now, everyone should have access to the company's full-year earnings press release issued earlier this morning. The press release is available on the Investor Relations page of Supergroup's website at investors.sghc.com. During this call and in our earnings press release, we will be making or have made comments of a forward-looking nature. These forward-looking statements include statements related to supergroups' anticipated financial performance and operating results, market opportunity, and business strategy and plans. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees and are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements. The company assumes no obligation to update these statements after today's call, except as required by law. Please refer to today's press release and the company's filings with the SEC, including the risk factors section in the company's report on Form 20F, filed on February 2nd, 2022, and in the annual report on Form 20F for the year ended December 31st, 2021, to be filed with the SEC later this month. for the detailed discussion of the risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements made today. Additionally, on today's call, we may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP financial measures are in addition to and not a substitute for measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP. The reconciliation of historical non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP figures are included in the press release issued earlier today and available on the investor relations page of Supergroup's website. As a result of uncertainty regarding the potential variability of reconciling items, we have not reconciled our expectations as to adjusted EBITDA. Accordingly, reconciliation is not available without unreasonable effort, although it is important to note that these factors could be material to our results computed in accordance with GAAP. Also note that we have posted a supplemental presentation to the investor relations section of our company website, along with the earnings release, the link to this webcast, and filings with the SEC. And now I would like to turn the call over to Neil.

Thanks, Lisa. It's great to have you on board. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today on our first earnings call as a public company. I'm Neil Manashi, and I've been with the business in various leadership positions for over two decades. and I've been the Chief Executive Officer of Supergroup since it was incorporated as our group holding company in 2020. As you know, Supergroup stocks began trading under the ticker SJC on the New York Stock Exchange in January 2022. We are excited and humbled to have this amazing opportunity and look forward to this new chapter. I would like to thank our existing investors and our new shareholders as we embark on this very exciting journey. Most importantly, I want to thank our team at Supergroup for their relentless dedication and commitment through such a challenging environment over the last two years, and also for their fantastic efforts that have contributed to Supergroup becoming a publicly traded company. Our team truly understands the core mission of delivering first-class, safe, and responsible gaming entertainment to our customers. We are excited to communicate with you on a quarterly basis as we continue to discuss our current business initiatives and developments towards our long-term goals. In our press release issued earlier today, Supergroup announced tremendous results across all of our key financial metrics, exceeding our outlook on both net gaming revenue and adjusted EBITDA. Net gaming revenue, or NGR, at a constant currency was $1.53 billion for 2021, exceeding our forecast of $1.5 billion. Adjusted EBITDA at constant currency was $368 million, better than our forecast of $350 million. Using actual exchange rates during 2021, this translates to $1.48 billion of NGR and $358 million of adjusted EBITDA. Given that this is our first earnings call as a public company, I will spend a few minutes providing some background on who we are, our mission, and what we believe makes us different. I will then hand over to Richard, our president and COO, to explain the progress we have made as we continue to grow in existing markets, enter new markets, and how we plan to continue gaining traction in the large and growing worldwide market of online gaming and sports betting. After that, Alinda, our CFO, will discuss our financial performance over the past year. Supergroup is the parent company for two leading global online sports betting and gaming businesses. Firstly, Betway, which is our premier global online sports betting brand, and then Spin, which is our multi-brand casino offering. Our sports betting and online gaming offerings are underpinned by scalable technology, enabling fast and effective entry into new markets. while proprietary marketing and data analytics engines empower us to provide a unique, customized, safe, and responsible gaming experience. We believe that we have a number of advantages and differentiators over our competitors, and I'm briefly going to highlight some of the more significant ones. Firstly, Betway is the only sportsbook brand that we promote, and we do so in a consistent manner worldwide. We have marketing and sponsorship arrangements with more than 70 sports teams, events, leagues, and franchises worldwide. And our single brand means that we are able to optimize marketing ROI rather than spread it out less efficiently over multiple brands. Campaigns targeted at one country generate revenue for us worldwide. And the cost of even a single country campaign can be amortized across the entire globe. This compares to some of our competitors who only trade in a few markets and therefore can't amortize their spend or generate worldwide revenue like we can. or others who have multiple brands which may dilute the effectiveness of their spend in the big traditional media channels where sports betting is advertised. Secondly, while there are many markets in which large-scale traditional brand marketing is possible for sports, that's rarely the case for online casinos, where instead a wide range of brands is required for strategy with a greater weight towards online marketing. spins well-established and diverse portfolio of online casino brands gives us extra shelf space over single-brand competitors and the ability to suitably service different sectors of this market. Thirdly, we own or control under long-term contracts all of the key components of our tech stack, with the exception of temporary third-party tech for regulatory purposes in select new markets. Even then, we aim to convert this to one of our existing technology options at the earliest possible time with the ultimate goal of owning or controlling all key aspects of the front end and back end for all of our casino and sports products critically we do always own or control all of the competitive advantage technology related to data and analytics and all of the key components required for interacting with customers in real time amongst many other things this means that we're able to launch into more markets more quickly adapt more quickly to the changing needs of existing markets, and in particular, that we can move more quickly and effectively, adapt our products to the complexities of a world in which regulation and customer needs are changing all the time. Our fourth major competitive advantage relates to data and analytics, and in particular, how we use proprietary models and systems plus massive amounts of granular data to understand our customers in real time, to enhance our interactions with them in real time in order to customize and optimize the individual experiences of our products safely, responsibly, and profitably, again, all in real time. I want to emphasize that these are well-calibrated, proven commercial models, not black box or outsourced AI algorithms that no one understands and which could randomly go haywire at any time. Our models are all proprietary. we've shown that we can predict individual customer possibilities with remarkable accuracy. And together with our proprietary interaction system, we're therefore able to offer our products to customers both profitably and responsibly or in real time. That's a quick summary of what makes us different. I hope that you have found it useful. I'll now pass it over to Richard to provide more detail on the global market opportunity for Supergroup, as well as current business initiatives and development. Richard.