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Allwyn Ag

Q12026

6/4/2026

speaker
Geli
Conference Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Geli, your course call operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the ONAG Investor Conference call and live webcast to present and discuss the first quarter 2026 preliminary results. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Robert Fatal, CEO. Mr. Fatal, you may now proceed.

speaker
Robert Fatal
Chief Executive Officer

Thank you very much, and good morning or good afternoon, everyone, and congratulations Welcome to Allwinds Q1 2026 earnings call. I'm particularly proud to present this quarter to you, not only because of the strong momentum and exciting developments in the quarter, but also because this is the first set of results post the combination of OPAP and Allwinds. And this is obviously a real milestone that positions the group as as differentiated, scaled and diversified listed gaming company. So in today's slides, I'll be walking you through key business developments. I will relate them to our strategy and then we'll hand over to Kent for some more detail on our numbers and financial topics. So let's get started with key Q1 headline. as a strong start into 2026, so stay tuned. Q1 was a very strong start to the year with great progress both strategically and financially. Financially, net revenues was up 21% year-on-year. Adjusted EBITDA increased 24%, and adjusted EBITDA minus CapEx, free cash flow, was up 30%. And it was driven by strong underlying performance and the acquisition of price peaks in mid-January. So that strong cash generation is a key feature of our financial profile and supports, obviously, our high capital returns. We paid 80 cents a share in May. We have announced a 150 million euro buyback today, and we expect an interim dividend of 20 cents today. in the second half of 2026. We also continued to execute our strategy, which is proven during this quarter and cross the markets. And the pictures are headlining key achievements in this quarter and come back to some of them later. So overall, a strong start, numbers speak for themselves. Next slide, headlines. consistency and delivery of our strategy, which we have been executing for many, many years. It is based on the pillars of organic growth, of M&A-driven inorganic growth, on operational efficiency, and also CSR or commitment to sustainable growth, thanks to the trust and This basically has to highlight the trust and responsible gaming, which is very important in the gaming business, serving tens of millions of players and consumers every year. And this is the strategy that has delivered one of the fastest growth rates in gaming. So for the context, we highlight some examples of how this translates into tangible delivery across key priorities. both in the quarter and over the long term. For example, the Q1 saw a 23% online GGR growth, and this is a short-term highlight. But if you look longer term, continental Europe, net revenue growth since 2019 was 12% compounded. So all in all, started to focus, and this is another important message, to start to focus very attentively on three key enablers that the group develops, namely one brand. You will see we already started rebranding in Greece and Czech Republic. And Allwin will build not only B2B operator brand, but going forward also B2C brand. consumer brand. Number two, one tech. We will develop and deploy more of our own tech stack in lottery space. We can see clear benefits of having such capability in Betano and PricePix case. And last but not least, one team is the last enabler where a strong single culture is of course key to delivering our ambitious goals. So moving to the next slide that takes us nicely to the message where we break down for you how the strategy, its key deliverables, play out across all four market segments, namely continental Europe, UK, North America, and Betano. I will highlight some of them in more detail, but at this point, I'm proud to say that combination of, on the one hand, consistent delivery, and on the other, diversification is a really, really important differentiator for Orlin. On the next slide, let me be a bit specific. I mentioned one brand enabler, and here's the concrete proof. We had a successful go-live in January in the Czech Republic, Greece, and Cyprus, and we have been very, very pleased by the consumer reception in the markets we've been rebranding. The adoption of the new global brand was very, very positive. And that is also reflected in the strong financial performance, by the way, in these markets. As a quick reminder, the rationale for our global brand is threefold. First, it is to transform visibility of the Olwen brand and to support our international profile and growth. Secondly, It is to ensure that we remain relevant and exciting to the next generation. This is very important. And thirdly, to optimize marketing costs and capture synergies across markets. So there are only a few gaming operators with a strong global B2C brand. A great example is, of course, Betano, whose single brand has been one of the key drivers of its very strong growth and profitability. On slide nine, let me briefly recap the price picks acquisition, which completed in January 2026. This has brought a technology-led innovative leader in daily fantasy sports in the US into the group. And it's very important to remind that part of our broader ambition to become the world's leading gaming entertainment company is to combine high-quality lottery-led operations with complementary high-growth platforms. And PricePix has a great team, great product, and a great brand, and is front and center in fast-growing and opportunity-rich markets. And that includes, moving to the next slide, prediction markets. The message of this slide is, number one, prediction markets materially expand addressable market and engagement, so far driving incremental growth without cannibalization. And secondly, price picks are well positioned to succeed, given large and engaged player base they have, own tech they control, and also passionate and flexible team who's there to win. And therefore, it came quick and natural for them to come up with blended experience combining team pick with player picks in a lineup, in a parlay. So let me expand on this. While DFS, Daily Fantasy Sports, is still the majority of the business, prediction markets are a major opportunity to bring more ways for our players to engage with the content industry. They laugh. So prediction markets expand price picks addressable market in multiple ways. Firstly, they include match outcomes, event outcomes beyond the traditional DFS model for player stats. Secondly, they broaden the range of sports and categories available. For example, college basketball, which is huge in the US, but has not been a big sport for PricePix historically, unlike the NBA. And thirdly, they enable the enhancement of the DFS product. So each of these can expand both the number of the users and engagement per user. And PricePix is in a great place to capture this opportunity. So PricePix already has a very large and highly engaged player community. And as I mentioned, it is a joy to see the passionate team craving to deliver PricePix out customers a great experience. And that is what allowed PricePix to go from challenger to leader in the FS. And turning to product on the right-hand side, we have been moving fast and just last Friday launched a blended experience that allows a team pick to be combined with a DFS player pick lineup, so it becomes a seamless user journey between DFS and predictions. So far, for players active in both DFS and predictions, we see no sign of cannibalization and instead see that the DFS activity of these players is actually increasing. Moreover, we are actually continuing to iterate and innovate offering and we have some additional features planned for the start of the American football season in September. Now to the UK on the next slide. UK reached a triple inflection point in the beginning of this year. we have completed the tech transition, one of the largest transitions in lottery history. So CAPEX has now stepped right down and the OPEX related to the transition is complete. Secondly, we start recovery of the significant majority of those costs under the license mechanism. And last but not least, With our new tech, we are able to begin to launch major commercial initiatives. And on that note, this month we will launch an enhanced format for the domestic jackpot game, Lotto, with two draws in a day and thus two chances to win, which is a big change in the UK. And then front and center on the slide, we are bringing the UK into Powerball. This is the world's biggest jackpot game and the first launch of a US multi-state jackpot game outside the US. And we are obviously proud that it is Allwin delivering it, demonstrating our leadership in global lottery. Powerball is literally a different order of magnitude to the games that we currently offer in Europe. So a great customer acquisition tool as well as a major game in its own right. Now turning to the next slide, this is just an important reminder for you of our ongoing commitment to responsible gaming and CSR. Our initiatives in this space are not only the right thing to do, but they reinforce the social license of our business, which is essential for sustainable growth in the long term. to have the trust with both consumers and the regulators. Turning to the next slide, slide 13, I will finish by briefly summarizing the highlights of the combined listed business following the recent completion of the transaction with OPAP. At a high level, you can think of the Erwin platform in two very complementary paths. The first is a unique lottery portfolio supported by sports betting and iGaming operations in European markets. This is a high-quality, cash-generative set of assets with market-leading positions. And it represents 70% of EBITDA. And this obviously provides a very sustainable, compounding, like a consumer staple-like growth. as well as strong cash generation. And for those of you who follow Adopop, these businesses are somewhat similar, though the total addressable market and the growth potential is now much greater. And secondly, we have a complementary market-leading high-growth assets. This includes price picks and our stake in Betano. These are among the most exciting assets in gaming globally and represent 30% of EBITDA. And they are fast-growing businesses which enhance our growth profile significantly. And we then have our own content. A good example is IWG, which is the market-leading proposition company in the US, for example, of e-scratch cards, the digital scratch cards. We have our own tech and own brand, and these are key differentiators and enablers of growth and competitive advantage across Allwin. That makes Allwin unique. And to be more explicit on what makes Allwin unique, I want to lay out what sets us clearly apart and why we believe the platform is structurally advantaged. So we have global scale. We are in continental Europe, UK, Latin America, North America. We have exposure to lottery, supporting really solid growth trends, but they are stable, predictable, and with broadest installed base. as lotteries have always the broadest installed base among the gaming world. And this is always a great base to cross up. We have leading market positions across multiple geographies and businesses, which also gives us the benefit of diversification and optionality for growth. And we already have very high cash generation. So together, these factors underpin a combination of growth and cash returns that is really differentiated and is core to our investment proposition. So we look forward to delivering this proposition moving forward and are delighted to have got off to a strong start in Q1 2026. And with that, I will hand over to Ken to talk through our numbers in more detail.

speaker
Kent
Chief Financial Officer

Thank you very much, Robert, and hello to everybody on the call. I'm going to start with our financial performance in Q1, then I'm going to cover current trading and the outlook, and then we'll wrap up and move to Q&A. As always, we've tried to provide the information that our investors and analysts need in a clear and convenient way. So we've included some slides in the appendix with some additional detail, in particular for the benefit of our debt investors. I'd also like to draw your attention to our financial data book, which is intended to make it easy to work through our numbers and also to build a model. As usual, we've published a new version of that on our website today. Before I start, just one point of context. Most of the financial information that we're going to be talking through today is presented on a look-through basis. That's a non-IFRS basis, which reflects the underlying performance of the enlarged group. Data on that basis does differ from the reported IFRS statements following the combination in March. Those IFRS statements will be published on our website next week. So now moving to slide 16, where we have a summary of what that strong start that Robert was talking through translated into in terms of financial performance in our P&L. Net revenue increased by 21% year-on-year to £1.2 billion. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 24% year-on-year to $443 million. Now margin was up to 37% of net revenue. There are a couple of moving parts impacting comparability that I would mention now. Primarily, of course, the first-time consolidation of price picks from the 16th of January. And there are a few others which I'll talk through on subsequent slides. On an underlying basis, adjusting for those factors, Net revenue was up 5% year-on-year, and I'd also highlight strong performance in the digital channel in continental Europe as key drivers of that performance. On that same underlying basis, adjusted EBITDA growth was strong, up 11% year-on-year. That reflects another quarter of very strong top-line and also profitability growth at Bitano, as well as the positive net revenue dynamic that I just mentioned. Finally, on leverage, net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 2.8 times at the end of the quarter. We remain committed to our 2.5 times target. Now on slide 17, we have a bridge for the development of adjusted EBITDA year on year to explain the underlying performance in Q1. Key takeaway here is that underlying EBITDA growth was 11% before the acquisition of price picks, sorry, before the impact of the consolidation of price picks during the quarter. And I'd mentioned that that is against a relatively strong comparative period in Q1 2025, where we had record jackpots in a number of our markets. So starting from Q1 2025, adjusted EBITDA of 358 million. Higher gaming taxes in Austria were a 14 million euro headwind. We have some supplier contracts that are linked to net revenue in Austria, as in many of our markets. And the 14 million euros is net of the automatic mitigating effect that those contracts provide. We then have organic EBITDA growth of 46 million, partly offset by the 9 million effective higher license fee amortization in Italy under the new license, which began in December last year. And taken together, that gives underlying adjusted EBITDA growth of 37 million, or 11%. Slovakia was a new market that we entered in the second half of last year, incurring some minor launch costs that we also show on the chart. And then finally, price picks was consolidated from mid-January. So the consolidated reported number reflects consolidation from the 15th of January, slightly less than the full quarter's contribution, therefore. Slide 18, we've included as reference a brief summary of our segments for those who may be less familiar with Orwin. And now moving to slide 19, we've summarized performance in terms of those segments and included a buildup of the segmental performance into our aggregate metrics. Before we move on to our normal commentary on the individual segments, a few words on performance by product. We saw very strong growth in iGaming, which was up 30% year-on-year in the quarter, and also saw double-digit growth in sports betting and VLTs and casinos, which were up 12% and 11%, respectively. Performance in lottery reflects the all-time record high jackpots that I mentioned earlier. There were record jackpots in EuroMillions, which is the international game that we offer in the UK and Austria, and also in Joker, which is the national game in Australia. Eastern Cyprus. So bearing in mind that difficult comparative, we're very pleased with the performance of our lottery products in Q1 this year. And of course, as Robert mentioned, we've got some really, really exciting product launches to come, particularly in the UK with the revitalization of Lotto and the launch of Powerball. Now turning to slide 20, where we recap the current splits and diversification of our business across across geography, across product, across channel, and across type of license. That high degree of diversification is, of course, a real benefit in gaming with our operations under a large number of licenses and fiscal and regulatory regimes. From the financial perspective, it also helps to smooth volatility in our individual businesses and products between quarters, whether that's caused by sports betting margins or jackpots or FX. And you can see that in the revenue performance that I commented on on the previous slide. And strategically, of course, it provides us with a great deal of optionality. Having expertise across verticals and geographies is really pretty differentiated within gaming, and it's been a key contributor to the success of our M&A strategy over a long period. So now moving to slide 21, we begin with a strong start to the year in continental Europe, which is, of course, particularly pleasing as this is our largest business. We delivered good top-line growth with net revenue up 5% year-on-year, led by the digital channel and strong year-on-year growth across our product, with the exception of Lottery, where I commented already on headwinds from large jackpots in the comparative period. Including the impact of higher gaming tax rates in Austria, underlying net revenue growth was actually 7%, despite that strong comp again. The bridge on the bottom left of the slide illustrates the impact of the main moving parts, which I discussed earlier on the aggregate waterfall on the continental Europe results, which is where all these factors came to bear. So you can see that on an underlying basis adjusted for those factors, EBITDA increased by 8% year on year. Moving now to slide 22, we show results for our North America business here on what we describe as a 100% basis. So that's including price picks for all of Q1 in 2026 and also for Q1 2025 for comparability. On that basis, net revenue increased by 5% year on year in US dollar terms with our reported performance in euros reflecting an FX headwind as a result of a weaker dollar against the Euro year-on-year. In terms of price picks, we saw strong performance in the first couple of months of the year with growth in the low teens, with the eventual outturn for the quarter also reflecting customer-friendly outcomes in March. With that, we saw the contribution of prediction markets increase sequentially across the quarter despite a relatively early-stage product offering that, as Robert mentioned, is continuing to evolve rapidly. At the adjusted EBITDA level, we saw a decrease of 5% year-on-year, which mainly reflects those currency headwinds that I already mentioned. Finally, in North America, we have one exciting recent update from Illinois. Legislation which would allow a three-year extension of the current private management agreement under which we operate the Illinois Lottery has passed both legislative chambers in Illinois and is currently awaiting the governor's signature. Commercial terms for that extension remain to be negotiated. Illinois has been one of the best performing lotteries in the US in recent years in terms of draw-based games and instance and also in terms of the digital channel. And we think that we've done an absolutely great job of running this business and we'd be very pleased to continue to deliver for the state and the people of Illinois. We'll keep you up to date with developments as they occur. Turning now to slide 23, we come to the UK. The UK has been our only cash flow negative business over the past two years as we've invested significant amounts in transition at the start of the new license. We've spent approximately £450 million in total. Now that the transaction transition, apologies, is finished, we're positioned for a triple inflection in terms of our financial metrics, as Robert mentioned. in terms of revenue driven by product initiatives, in terms of profitability as we begin to recover transition costs, and also in terms of capex. Looking at the numbers for Q1, net revenue increased by 7% year-on-year on a local currency basis, although as we've also called out on the slide, GGR was lower year-on-year in the first quarter. That performance reflects a strong comparative in which there was a record high Euro millions jackpot and also some short-term effects related to the digital re-platforming in the quarter, which we'd expect to continue to run into the second quarter to some extent. Now on slide 24 and moving on to Botano, which continues to go from strength to strength, as you can see there, looking at the revenue growth on the top right chart. Total revenue was up 27% year on year, strong performance even by Bitano standards with growth even stronger on a constant currency basis at 31%. Our share of net income increased at 43% year on year to 60 million. I'd also note that Bitano is not only growing very quickly, but also highly cash flow generative even after 2021. significant investment in growth. This has enabled a substantial increase of dividend payments over the last several quarters and we saw a continuation of that trend in Q1, with Pitano paying 200 million of dividends compared to no dividend in Q1 last year. Now turning to slide 25, we provide some detail on a few cash flow items I'd like to use this opportunity to emphasise two points. First of all, ongoing CapEx requirements across the group are low, typically a few percent of net revenue on a run rate basis. Over the last couple of years, of course, CapEx levels in aggregate have been above that level because of our investment in the UK transition, but that is now done. You can see a step down already beginning in Q1 2026. Secondly, our EBITDA adjustments have also been higher in recent quarters than we'd expect over the medium term and higher than they have historically been as well. That reflects, first of all, transition costs associated with the combination of all-win and OPAP and the price-picks acquisition in the quarter. Clearly, those are landmark transactions and not part of our normal cost structure. Secondly, of course, we've been expensing a portion of our UK transition costs under IFRS. Thirdly, Q1, you see a step down already in some non-cash acquisition accounting relating to the acquisition of IWG. We expect those amounts to be minimal after the payment of an earn-out to IWG this quarter. And finally, you see investment in our all-win brand initiative, which, as Robert mentioned, we kicked off in terms of the B2C proposition during the quarter. So similarly to the position with CapEx, I hope you can see that several of those items will be stepping down or not present in future quarters. Now on page 26, a few words on our capital structure. As you can see, looking at the top left chart, we've got a smooth and long dated maturity profile with no material maturities until 29. And we have a very diversified access to key capital markets in terms of instruments and in terms of currency. You can see looking at the top right chart. And that allows us to access markets opportunistically to achieve an attractive cost of funds. During the quarter, we issued 550 million euros of bonds at 4 and 5 eighths in a transaction that I'm pleased to say was very well received by the market. We also saw good ratings momentum in the quarter with Fitch upgrading our issuer rating by one notch and our instrument rating by two, and S&P upgrading their outlook. At the bottom of the page, you can see our leverage going back over the last six years. You can see that Our leverage during that period has been conservative, and also you can see how rapidly the business deleverages naturally because of our high cash flow generation. As a reminder, during the period that we show on the chart, we made some very significant investments in organic growth and paid substantial shareholder dividends while maintaining a conservative level of leverage significantly inside our leverage target. for most of that period. Now on slide 27, a few words on capital allocation. We continue, of course, to target a minimum annual cash distribution of one euro per share. And in connection with that, having paid already 80 cents this year, we expect to pay further 20 cents per share interim distribution in the second half of the year. And today we've announced a share buyback of up to 150 million on market. The buyback reflects, of course, our confidence in the outlook and our commitment to cash returns to shareholders. It also reflects somewhat lower than previously expected M&A spend following our withdrawal from the NoviBet transaction. And assessing capital allocation in light of those factors, we see our own shares as an attractive option at current levels. KTCG will not be participating in the buyback given their high level of confidence in the long term of value, value of all and especially the current valuation. So overall message on capital allocation is unchanged. In fact, probably reinforced by our announcement of the buyback. We're focused on disciplined capital allocation, balancing investment in value accretive growth and also material value. capital returns to shareholders. With that, we move to the final section and current trading on slide 29. I'll be brief in terms of the trading update. Since the start of the year, trading has been in line with our expectations overall, and the business continues to develop well. Turning to guidance, we're pleased to reaffirm our outlook for 2026 net revenue and adjusted EBITDA. And in the current macro environment, I'd just like to remind you briefly that historically our business has been very resilient even during periods of weaker consumer sentiment. That's a function of our product's low price point, low spend per customer and a very large base of regular players. And of course, we also benefit here from our very substantial diversification across geographies, across products and across channels. And now turning to slide 30, I'd like to end by putting the strong results that we delivered in Q1 in the context of our long-term financial performance. We're very proud of our track record, and this is one of my favorite slides showing some of our all-in key financial metrics going back to 2019. Net revenue, adjusted EBITDA, they're up over 3%. times during that period and adjusted EBITDA minus capex only marginally below that because of our investment in the UK with a CAGR of about 20% for each metric and as you'll notice our Q1 performance is right in line with that long-term dynamic. That combination of consistent strong growth profitability and cash flow generation and scale is quite unusual for a company in any sector and underpins our shareholder value proposition. With that, I'd like to pass back to Robert to summarize the key points that we hope you'll take away from our presentation today, and then we can move to Q&A.

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