Greek Organistn Football

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Gayle, your chorus call operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the ABAP SA conference call and live webcast question and answer session to discuss the third quarter 2021 financial results. Please note a video presentation has been distributed and is available on the ABAP Investor Relations website. All participants will be in listen only mode and the conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Jan Karas, CEO of Apopese. Mr. Karas, you may now proceed.

Thank you very much. Good evening or good morning to everyone, and welcome to our regular Q3 Results conference call. This time we have tried to be innovative, as in everything we do. I hope you appreciate as much as we do that the visual contact is generally much more preferable to the audio only and therefore we were delivering to you a new format today with combined recorded video and results presentation that hopefully is more efficient and saves you time since you have the option to watch it at your own convenience prior to the session. The video presentation has been distributed since this morning and additionally it is available in the IR section of our website, so I hope you all had the chance to watch it and I also hope you like it. Now, should our IR team receive your positive feedback on this new format, we will be certainly looking forward to adopt it as the new norm for us going forward. Now we can directly jump into the Q&A session. Operator, over to you. Let's start.

Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, then you may press star and two. Please use your handset when asking your question for better quality. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question is from the line of Kourtesis Iakovos with Perio Securities. Please go ahead.

Yes, good afternoon, Chairman. Two questions from my side. First has to do with your dividend policy. As far as I remember, you are committed to a minimum dividend distribution of one euro dividend per share per year. However, I assume this is for normalized conditions. Would you consider to reexamine your dividend policy if the epidemiological data would worsen in the next few weeks and this would lead to a lockdown? This is my first question, and the second question has to do with the minimum GGR tax payment for Hellenic lotteries, annual GDR tax payment, which stands at 50 million. Do you have any developments in your legal action on this issue with the Greek state? Thank you very much.

Good afternoon. Pavel Muchar speaking. Thank you for the question. What we said last time about our dividend policy remains valid, so we want to maximize the possible amount of distributing of distribution and pay regularly twice a year. At the moment, we have no reason to change it, including the floor of one euro. We just have excellent Q3 results and yes, epidemiological situation is definitely worsening. But at this stage, our policy remains in place and we have no reason to somehow adjust it.

Correct, and I will connect on the second part of the question about Helen Cotterie's tax obligation. I assume you refer to the Helen Cotterie's arbitration that we have now opened. There is no development at this moment that we could update you on. We continue according to the timetable of the Arbitrary Court, and of course, as soon as we have any updates, we'll come back to you on that. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

The next question is from the line of with your bank equities. Please go ahead.

Yes. Hi there. And just firstly to say well done for coming up with this new format for the conference call. It's quite a clever one and saves up quite a lot of time. Just on my questions, firstly a follow-up on the previous question regarding the arbitration with the Greek state with respect to Hellenic lotteries. gaming duty. Just wondering, do you think it's reasonable to expect the case to be decided upon in time for your 2021 results? And if this is indeed the case and you manage to get a positive court decision, what would the impact be on your numbers from the reversal of the extra gaming duty charge? So that was the first question. Second one, just on the recent You know, stiffer restrictions, which we all know. Firstly, the display of a negative COVID test or proof of recovery from COVID or a vaccine certificate. Then the curbs effectively limiting access solely to vaccinated individuals. Just wondering, I mean, I know the impact from the latter is rather hard to gauge as this has only been in effect for a few days, but could you maybe talk a bit about how the former affected your business and maybe tell us the extent to which you feel there is a chance that the government decision might change and perhaps shops might eventually be treated as retail venues, as was the case with previous COVID-related measures. Thank you.

Thank you very much for the good question and thank you very much for your kind words on the new format. Much appreciated. So starting with the first question, the Alain Cotterie's arbitration, I really don't want to speculate on the development of the case. If I should give you a little bit more color, then all I can tell you at this moment that we hope that we will hear more before the year end. I don't have any information at all to allow me even any speculations on what the feedback will be and what the final agreement eventually will be so that I could give you a flavor as to what the impact on our numbers could be. So I'm sorry, but we are not able to tell you more on this now. Regarding the second question, a very, very good one and very relevant one these days. Just to put it into picture for all the audience, we have about two weeks ago, we have been exposed to measures requesting COVID vaccination or COVID test as a mandatory condition for entering the op-op store, and that obviously created a challenge. for us, a challenge that is following the one with play stores that already happened several weeks prior to that. And starting this Monday, this situation got even worse because starting this Monday, only vaccinated people are allowed to go into the store. Now, as to the first part of the measure that happened more than two weeks back, the early indication on the total numbers was around 10%. But 10% impact and improving in time and improving in a positive way. Yet it's a number on total. It's important to notice that A, we see quite a different impact per vertical, per different games. We see very different impacts in geographies depending on the number of vaccinated people. And as I've mentioned, we have seen development in time that was improving. Now, starting this Monday, the measures have worsened even more. Two days behind us, so I really want to abstain from any speculations as to what the impact will be, but certainly the impact would be again something we will notice, as you can logically assume, when people who are not vaccinated are simply prohibited from entering the store. As to your last part of the question, could this decision eventually change, as you may have noticed in the media just today is the strike of OPAP agents happening in front of Ministry of Finance. And to our understanding as to the unofficial information we have, They have met government representatives and their promises have been made about this measure to be possibly brought back. I'm referring now to the last part of only vaccinated people allowed to enter the store. So possibly we may go back to the measure we have had until last week, until this Sunday, which would certainly be better than the new ones. Again, for those who are not aware, to put it into perspective, why we consider it unfair and why we are optimistic that possibly we might see that decision to be reversed is that op-op stores have been put in the bucket with restaurants for the first time in all the different measures that we have seen in the last two years. We were always in a bucket with other retail. And other retail continues to allow customers, even non-vaccinated, with the COVID test to enter the stores. So that's an essence of the case. In the next days, we should see, hopefully, some positive developments on that front. But again, it's not something I can officially confirm. It's only informal information we have received just today.

Mr. Draziotis, are you finished with your questions? Mr. Draziotis, I apologize. We cannot hear you. We will move on. The next question is from the line of , with Optima Bank. Please go ahead.

Yes, good afternoon, gentlemen. Thank you for your presentation and the new format was a great idea, I think. I have three questions. The first one relates to the online activity, Sticheman, who have seen a 28% growth in DGR in the third quarter. So I would be great if you could provide some update about the performance of Sticheman in October and November, if we should expect some deceleration or the growth is still there. Because you mentioned in your presentation that there are some unfavorable support results, so this means that we should expect some let's say, less strong growth in Q4. The second question has to do with the performance of Pilat-based games. The DDR was down by 2%. I understand that there was a high base of comparison for Joker and also for recent passives. But I wonder what was the performance of Kino given that retail sales in Greece rose up by 12% in July and 8% in August. So, to be honest, I was expecting to see a positive lottery DGR growth in the third quarter. So, if you could provide some insight about the keynote performance and what is Games' performance in October and, of course, in November, of course, last year, of past stores were closed in early November, but for October you have seen some better performance for Kino. And the last question has to do with your loyalty program. I think it's a very interesting initiative from your side. So I'm wondering what are the benefits in the first month of implementation of this program? And if agents are happy with this program, the Wheel of Fortune, what is the impact on visitorship? And also if you see some more upside potential from the cover penetration rate and also participation of players. That's my question from my side.

Thank you.

So I will start with the second part of your question. Performance in the Q3 overall in retail. Yes, indeed we have seen a good performance in Kino. Lastly, we like to believe that thanks to the resilience of the business and positive impact of our new loyalty scheme, which at that period was predominantly used, as you could see in the charts we have shown you in our presentation, by keynote players. So I think that's one of the... that I want to give you on the loyalty scheme, which I'll speak about in a second. Before I go there, though, regarding the general trends in Q3, we have, since you mentioned also Joker and Scratch, these are at the same time, or on the other hand, I might say, verticals that have certainly been under challenge due to the missing occasional or peripheral trends. players in our stores, connected generally with the pandemic and people making more cautious choices as to visiting point of sales and generally going out. So that is on the point of lottery games in the summertime. In terms of loyalty, again, to remind ourselves, the key reason why we are doing loyalty is actually the smart anonymization of the retail base. So our base historically, our retail historically has been an anonymous play and we want to evolve that and we want to collect customer data so that we can bring better solutions and better experiences to our customers and also because we want to digitalize the customer experience in stores which gives us benefits like personalization of our offers. So first of all, Smart de-anonymization of the base. Second, smarter development of the new propositions going forward. Third, digitalization of the retail experience because loyalty app is just the first step. And if you have seen my presentation, you would see the next day being the op-up store app where the loyalty is combined with the ability to place your bet and collect your winnings. So another extremely important dimension. And last but not least, the loyalty itself, giving benefits to customers, is significantly improving the perception of winnability, another challenge that we constantly have because we want to make sure that our customers feel they are winning with us and strengthening that element is very important for our business. We tick all the boxes with our loyalty scheme. And what is important, it's not some kind of OPEX that costs us money and it's just another budget line. The important thing is all this is powered by the loyalty scheme, or I should probably say a CRM scheme behind that, that brings us money back. So it's a profit-generating activity at the same time. I think the financial results are yet to be seen in mid to long term when we reach an even bigger penetration of the base. But already now I can tell you that we are seeing multiple of the GGR for every euro of investment. And then that's a great result for the start. And we are very, so far, encouraged about it. Now, your question was also about agents and customers. So we have positive feedback from both customers as well as agents. And also, we see a lot of engagement around this proposition, so we also have a lot of feedback from both customers as well as our agents on how to develop the loyalty scheme further. Typical example of something that we want to bring in the next day is more involvement of our retailers and the point of sale network in delivering benefits to the customers in making more personalized communication to them, etc., etc. Impact on visitorship, not to avoid any specific question of yours, is not something I can comment in exact numbers because we are not tracking visitorship in our stores yet. It's, by the way, another exciting side benefit of the technology that we have implemented in our stores that in the future will allow us track visitorship in our stores. But for that reason, that exact tracking is missing at this moment, and very importantly, The whole COVID situation bringing a significant disruption into whatever trends measuring, I cannot comment on the visitorship. But I like to believe and we certainly provide our loyalty also for the reason that it will bring us more customers, new customers and the existing customers coming more often. So the impact on visitorship should certainly be positive as well. So hopefully that covered your question and I'm handing over to Pavel to comment on the performance of Sticheman, that was the first part.

Yes, the question about performance of Sticheman into October and November. I would say Sticheman continues very well in terms of new registrations into activations of the customer base and the activity of the players and all the activities which they are doing. So that is definitely the activity and the turnover of players that is there. But despite this, the Q4 result of Stichemann will be a bit challenging. And this is purely because of October and purely because of sports betting, where October was a really difficult month in terms of the margin. And in sports betting, it was really very high payout in October due to the results, due to the sports results. And this is not really just for Sticheman, this is also for OPAP online and all the other operators across Europe and globally. So really October was in the last three or four years by far the worst month in terms of the margin due to the sports betting payout. And this will somehow impact the Q4 results. However, the situation, this is kind of one of impact already in November. the situation is normalizing and will normalize going forward. But for that reason, despite growing turnover, the GGR and the result in Q4 will be somewhat impacted.

Okay. Thank you very much for your answers.

The next question is a follow-up question from Drazioc Stamatis with Europe Bank Equities. Please go ahead.

Yes, hi again. Firstly, just to thank you for your answers before I had an issue with my mic. Just a couple of quick questions that popped to my mind, follow-ups. You briefly mentioned in your presentation the new regime regarding the tax on winnings and recent performance having been dragged down a bit by this. Could you maybe, you know, give us a bit more color on that, the impact from this regulatory measure? And on online, we heard you the last time communicating some, you know, quite ambitious targets in the medium term. Could you maybe talk about, you know, the product plans that you have in the pipeline, for example, online keynote? and the time of these actions and rollout.

Thank you. Apologies, can you, on the second part of the question, are you asking about the product roadmaps or customer proposition evolution on the online side only?

Yes, that's correct.

Yeah, exactly. All right, good. So for the first part, impact on taxation, It was certainly something that was not very pleasant to us. Just to remind you, it was a taxation change happening early in July, but at the same time, we had also a number of competitors coming. We have done a lot of campaigns to protect our base and acquire more customers. So there were multiple things happening at the same time. There was also a few weeks afterwards happening the max bet limit limitation to 2 euro. So quite a few things happened. Not all of them very pleasant. The taxation max bet limit certainly didn't help our performance since it was something that customers did not appreciate it at all. But as always, we were trying to compensate it by many different actions ranging from customer proposition development all the way to different promos that we have been doing in the summer. I have been mentioning those in the presentation. So overall, even though these obviously did have a negative impact, we somehow managed manage the difficulties as we always do and continue to grow our online business according to the numbers you have seen in the presentation. So that's on the online performance. Regarding the second part of the question, the plans for the future of the portfolio, Our plans are certainly to keep strengthening our lottery proposition, lottery online proposition. There is more that we have in our kitchen than the joker that currently customers can enjoy. So we foresee an evolution. of the lottery portfolio. We want to provide a holistic offering for our customers. We want to provide a true lottery entertainment and it should be for much more focus on casual customers and players. In terms of what games you will see, we are certainly looking into and assessing the launch and benefits of all the games that we provide currently in retail. But the way they will be offered in online might have some spin in it because the beauty of a digital environment is that you can serve those things in a slightly different way to the customers. Now, not to confuse you, what I'm referring to, while in the store, Kino Monaziga, as an example, is a subset of Kino, in the online world, you can position it as almost like a separate game for customers to enjoy. Still with the same branding, obviously, because that's a regulatory obligation. Now, what I'm trying to give you a flavor of is that our aim is not just to bring our retail lottery games to online and that's it. Our aim is to bring it with an exciting, entertaining twist so that we provide a customer proposition that will be interesting for new segment of customers besides relevancy to the existing ones. As to when exactly? There remains numerous question marks to be answered on the technology, legal and regulatory fronts for us to clarify and sign off that will then confirm the final launch dates. But as always, we will certainly make sure to keep you informed as to when exactly that will happen. Our intention is certainly next year.

That's great. Thank you so much.

The next question comes from the line of with Wood and Co. Please go ahead. Mrs. has withdrawn her question. The next question comes from with . Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking my questions. is with respect to the slide on the loyalty program, I think the slide number 14, and I'm referring to the fourth chart in that or the graph, which the heavy users increasing very, very rapidly. So my question is that how does that play out for me? problem gambling perspective since that's been a talk in other parts of Europe and not specifically in Greece. How do we read it from that perspective? There could be a fine line between heavy user agent and problem gambling. How do you balance that? And then another question was, Anything in particular driving the strong cost controls, and by that I mean when I see the cost, the NGR-related costs, like the agent commissions and the payroll expenses specifically. So there's some kind of a decrease at the overall level in spite of the top-line momentum that you're seeing. And lastly, just... What is the current status of your retail estate and distribution channel? What kind of constraints are you operating? In the presentation, you did mention that you're seeing some kind of constraints, but could you just detail them? That would be really helpful. Thank you.

Can you clarify the third part of your question? Because I was speaking about the restrictions quite in detail. Are you referring to COVID measures restrictions or you mean something else?

No, no, the COVID restrictions that are in force in your retail channel. So are you on or like operating at some capacity constraints or are you expected to shut down a certain part of your estate? Those kind of restrictions.

Thank you. So I will start from the last one. I was mentioning before it in more detail, so just quick recap. Last, more than two weeks ago, we were imposed with new limitations that only vaccinated people or people with negative COVID tests are allowed into AROPA source. That was something that had around 10% impact on average on the performance. However, it was improving already in the week after in the positive direction. Now, this Monday, another hit came when the new limitation says that only vaccinated people and nobody else are allowed to enter our stores. Impact remains to be seen, but we certainly believe that this is something that will not remain unnoticed. At the same time, I have shared the positive expectations that possibly following the strike of agents today, we may see some developments that the state authorities might change the measures back to the previous ones that were valid until last Sunday. So that's for the third part of the question. On the first one, the chart that you are referring to presents segments of players depending on their activity in the loyalty app. So that is possibly a slightly misinterpreted description from our side because we are not saying heavy players, we are saying heavy scanners. So the segment that you are referring to are not necessarily people spending a fortune in the shops, they are simply playing more often and they are scanning more often. What we believe since responsible gaming is extremely important for us and we take it very seriously. This is another benefit of the whole loyalty scheme that we have under control how customers play and we can step in when we would see any unhealthy developments of behaviors of our customers. And we have such mechanics in place and we proactively interact with customers where we would see a possible dangerous gambling behavior as part of our responsible gaming programs. So, like I said, I believe it's the contrary. We want to reward our players, we want to make sure they enjoy our games, they have fun, and that in a certainly safe and responsible environment, and that is a big priority for us. There is a reason why we have WLA certification received. So I hope you can trust us that we mean this really seriously as also confirmed by not only CEO statements but also relevant third parties. As to the second part of your question, Pavle, you want to comment?

Yes. Well, you asked specifically about agents commission and about payroll. Agents commission is really directly linked to our revenues. So basically there is no magic with agents commission. They are really correlated with the movements in the revenue. And in terms of the payroll, yes, we took number of the cautious actions. were really not only on payroll but really on all OPEX throughout 2020 and into 2021 we are trying to control our costs. So we had some actions to reduce the headcount and we were very cautious in terms of the salary increases so all this helped us to manage the payroll line. In terms of the agents commission, what I would also mention that obviously a big part of our GGR growth is driven by online, where this has nothing to do with the agents. So that's also maybe relative to revenues or NGR. You may see different growth in terms of agents commission versus the top line. OK.

Just one follow-up. When I look at the GGR-related expense and the payroll expenses, is this probably around 25%, 26% on the former and about the 4%, 4.5% level on your payroll? Is that something that we should be looking at, which will be replicated in the future as well? Will that sustain?

I think with payroll, I cannot promise that the payroll will be flat because we have to continue to invest into our infrastructure and digitalization of OPAP, not only in online and into the retail. So we will definitely be able to stay with the same level, but we don't expect some dramatic growth. And in terms of the agents commission, again, Most of our growth going forward, as we also presented to you in the Q2 call in detail, is really in online. Of course, we continue to manage the retail, but definitely the top line will grow mainly thanks to the online. So, again, you will not see dramatic increase in the agents commission.

Okay. Perfect. Thank you. And the new format is brilliant. Thank you for that.

Thank you very much.

The next question is from the line of with Wooden Co. Please go ahead.

Hi. Hello, everyone. Sorry for before. Friendly advice, don't touch your airport if you're about to take on the phone. Two questions from my side. So, first of all, if you could just provide some color on retail sports settings for the quarter, for the third quarter of 2021. regarding the performance and secondly has to do with online and a few words maybe on how do you see the online competition and market share shaping now with the new licenses and with respect to your active players if you see I mean we do see an increase a very encouraging increase on the number of active players but What about their spending habits? Do you see them spending some more money? Is it a stable spending versus registered accounts? That's it. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your question. So I'll start from the second one, the online performance for both OPAP and Sticheman. As Pavel has commented before, as to very recent, we had a very unfortunate October, not only us, I think all sports betting providers around the world, or at least in this part of Europe, because the luck was on the on the customer side. So that was an unfortunate payout and an unusual payout. You were referring, I think, to the summer months, though. In summer, we obviously have seen impact of the measures that I have commented before, like the new taxation. And very important, the new licenses came in force and that brought several new competitors in the market and a little bit disruption. So we all were fighting for good positions in this new environment and a lot of activities, marketing activities has been done around it. In terms of performance itself, it largely correlates with the availability of the content and availability of the sports events and markets for the customers. We have seen certainly continuous positive trends for both Sticheman and Opap and we hope that continues to be the case even in Q4.

Okay, in terms of the sports betting performance in Q3 it was a good quarter in the online both for Sticheman and for Opap online as we already had before so in terms of the active players and the activity it was really a decent quarter In terms of the retail, obviously there is a big quarter-on-quarter or year-on-year growth. However, in retail, just to give you a bit of color, the challenge is the live betting. While in pregame, we have relatively good performance, definitely the COVID measures, even in Q3, because as you probably know, there are still limitations about one customer at the table, number of customers in the stores, and people more come and place the bets and lease. So it's a bit more challenging for sports betting in retail in terms of the retail performance. And also if you compare quarter on quarter, comparing to last year, the Q3 calendar was very different this year compared to what we had last year

The current situation, just to add some more flavor, is certainly not helping. But at the same time, I think I can say that sports betting, on the other hand, is one of the verticals that is showing quite a strong resilience despite the increased measures. So that just proves that there is a high dependency on the content availability. content and the markets from now on going forward is quite exciting because many of the things because of COVID were delayed. So we will see a very rich sports calendar ahead of us and I hope that will help us overcome this difficult period with solid performance. Hope this helped.

Okay, thank you so much. And just one last question. Maybe some color on the VLTs because we saw that there was, I mean, personally, we were expecting, you know, a flattish, let's say, more or less flattish performance, but it appeared to be extremely resilient versus the reopening. I mean, we had the same, let's say, trend on the quarter last year and the quarter this year. And what do you think drove this 5% year-on-year growth on the VLTs performance?

I think VLTs are extremely exciting vertical. It just shows how big opportunities still there is in this product. We have big expectations from this vertical, from all VLTs, both in Play Stores as well as in Op-Op Stores. not only for end of this year but also for next year. It's an area where we believe there is still an opportunity to grow and the trajectory of the life cycle is still in its rather earlier stages. Now that I think is the key explanation of the performance we are seeing and I can only dream about what the performance would be without any measures. So we have been so far satisfied but not to be only positive Unfortunately, play stores are obviously the ones suffering the most from the measures being applied, because unlike in op-up stores where eventually customers might stop at the door and ask the agent to come and take their bet, it's not something that you can do in any way in a play store. Simply, you cannot enter the venue, you cannot play, and the rules are black and white while in OPAP stores with the help, proactive help of the agent, it's something that can be in a difficult way but overcome. So, PlayStores, the hit is direct, the VLTs are direct hit, and when I was referring to the measures impact in last couple of weeks, we have certainly seen more than 10% impact in the area of VLTs in OPAP stores and PlayStores. Now, good thing is the resilience is big. Activity of players remains. So, number of active players we see is still the same. It's just the people come less often and play more. So we will see now what the new measures will imply. Like I said before, we need a couple of weeks to make any conclusions, but it would certainly be naive to believe that it will be without an impact. At the same time, we don't expect any kind of super drama on this front.

Okay, this has been extremely helpful. Thank you so much.

You're welcome. Thank you.

The next question is from the line of Pilios Vagelis with Alpha Finance. Please go ahead.

Hello. Congratulations also from me for your jobs as well for the new format of the presentation. Basically, all the questions are already answered, so I don't have anything to add. Thank you.

Thank you for your kind words anyway, and we are happy that we have managed to answer questions before. We can proceed to the next one. Thank you.

The next question is from the line of Mamisogluos, Modus Ambrosia Capital. Please go ahead.

Hello. Many thanks for taking my questions. I have two on my side. One is on the ONLINE SIDE, IF YOU COULD COMMENT ON THE ONLINE CASINO REGULATION DEVELOPMENTS. I THINK THERE WAS THIS TWO EURO THRESHOLD INTRODUCED AT THE END OF SUMMER. HOW IS THAT IMPACTING THE BUSINESS, IF AT ALL, AND WHAT DO YOU EXPECT THERE EVENTUALLY MAYBE REVERSAL OR SOME MIDDLE GROUND? THAT'S THE FIRST QUESTION. AND THEN THE SECOND ONE IS ON CAPITAL STRUCTURE. You're generating lots of cash. If nothing material happens on the COVID front, you're expected to generate even more next year. So balance sheet will almost be unlevered next year. You have the minimum dividend, but if you could give us a bit more color on how you plan the capital structure, maybe some expectations in CapEx for the next year or so, that would be helpful. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I will start with Anto on your question regarding the casino. Yes, indeed, there has been a new limitation on 2 euro bet for the RNG games, so if you want VLTs for the online world at the end of summer. So the new 2 euro max bet limit certainly did not help. It's a bit difficult to say what exactly was the impact because I could probably do it if we do nothing else, but casino is actually one of the areas as following our fast forward strategy we invest a lot of efforts into so a lot of things have been done especially around this new measure we have been doing a lot of campaigns and promoting and CRM campaigns and moving customers to the live casino where they keep enjoying the benefits of the live game and that is something we want to spice up very soon with the with the full Greek experience, if I may say, or offering fully localized with local promoters live casino experience. So that's the big area where we invest and it has helped us certainly compensate the impact of the limitation on the RNG casino. What is also worth mentioning, talking about casino, another thing that is helping us grow is the new front-end that we have launched just a few days ago, so I'll be looking forward on the next call to share with you some hopefully good results driven by this new front-end of our online casino for our customers. I certainly encourage you to take a look because we like to believe that this is certainly a big improvement of the customer experience we offer. On the second part of the question, I kind of ask Pavel to comment.

Yes, your question about capital structure dividend. So as I mentioned, we are committed to distribute maximum possible dividend and to return the cash to the shareholders. One of the things we are assessing at the moment is to have a look at the leverage at potentially some loan repayments. In terms of your question on CAPEX, it's pretty much standard CAPEX. We are continuing to invest into proper infrastructure, both in online and in retail, but nothing, no major projects. I would say it's the standard 20 to 30 million investment for the next year. And other than that, we do not plan any large investment, no M&A or nothing like that to be done. We still have some earnouts to be paid for Stichemann up to 100 million euro, but those are the largest items, if it helps you to understand our position.

And that $100 million will be paid over a certain number of years, or how should we think about that?

Pretty much most of it will be paid, well, part of it in 2022, part of it, some small part as well in 2023.

Okay. And regarding license payments and all that, that's still very early, right?

I mean... Yes, our nearest... Our nearest license expires in Hellenic Lotteries in 2026, so that's the one. At the moment we are discussing the new concession agreement in Cyprus, so that's coming potentially in 22, but it's hard to say because the negotiations are progressing. But it hopefully shouldn't be any major impact.

Got it. Thank you.

As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and 1 on your telephone. Once again, to register for a question, please press star and 1 on your telephone. As a final reminder, to register for a question, please press star and 1 on your telephone. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Karas for any closing comments. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you all very much for your time and patience to be with us. It's much appreciated. We are very excited that you like the new format. We'll be waiting for more feedback from you offline, and we will most likely, based on what I heard today, stick to this new format for you also in the future. With that, I hope you all stay sound and safe, and I hope it's not too early to wish you to enjoy also Merry Christmas period. We'll be looking forward to talk to you again soon. Thank you very much, and have a great day. Goodbye.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone.

Thank you for calling, and have a pleasant evening.