speaker
Lars Torstensson
CFO and EVP Communication and IR, MTG

Good afternoon and welcome to MTG's interim report presentation for the fourth quarter. My name is Lars Torstensson and I'm CFO and EVP Communication and IR here at MTG. And joining me I have, as always, our Group President and CEO Maria Redin. We will begin by presenting the quarter and then take your questions in a Q&A session for dive-in participants only. With that said, I'm now handing over to you, Maria, to take us through the quarter.

speaker
Maria Redin
Group President and CEO, MTG

Thank you, Lars, and hello, everyone, and welcome to our Q4 call. For us, as you know, the biggest news actually came after the end of the quarter, where we announced the divestment of the ESL group to Savvy Gaming. That was a transaction that transformed the esports market overnight, and the deal actually meant that MPG had been able to create the first esports unicorn, thanks to the valuation worth of $1 billion. The transaction also provides MPG shareholders with a two-and-a-half times return on the investment on ESLs. This is a combination of a seven-year long journey driven by clear vision, close partnership with ESL management, and supportive shareholders. For the ESL gaming, it brings a merger with Faceit and a new supportive long-term shareholder who loves esports as much as we do and can also help the company take the next step to become the clear leader in the competitive gaming space. So where does it then leave MTG and us? Well, the answer is quite simple. MTG is now a pure play gaming company. With the transaction in the cell of ESL, we fully expect the transaction to close in Q2 as announced this year. One of the key priorities going into this deal was actually deal certainty. Given the competitive landscape, that was highly important to us, and we have now done the final filings this week, and we are fully confident in deal closures. So, post-announcement, It's now also time for us to take the first step as a dual-play gaming group. I'm therefore very happy to see the strong operational performance that we're having in the gaming vertical and that we delivered in Q4. The performance growth accelerated to 13% year-over-year in the quarter. The main driver of this growth have been PlaySimple and Ninja Kiwi, supported by improved sequential performance from InnoGames. In total, we reported group revenues of 1.7 billion kroner, with a performance year-over-year growth of 7%. We've also had a record high adjusted EBITDA in the quarter, 346 million kroner. These operational financial results reflect the year of focus work and the dedication from the whole team, and that has resulted in a fundamental transformation of the group. So if we move down the slide and look in more detail on the gaming vertical, we've taken several important steps to make sure that we're building a more relevant and competitive gaming group for the future. We're convinced that we entered 2022 with a well-diversified portfolio of gaming titles that enables ongoing organic growth. We began consolidating results in IndieKey in May and later played simple in August 2021. This means that now in Q4, it's actually the first quarter where we have fully consolidated our complete current gaming portfolio. That is, of course, the main reason that we're reporting 100% year-over-year growth in both revenues and EBITDA for this segment. Therefore, it's really important to look at the like-for-like developments, so I would suggest we move to the next slide and we look at the organic growth and its drivers behind it. If you look at the performer growth, we delivered 13% year-on-year net sales growth in the quarter and 12% for the full year. Our adjusted performer EBITDA margin was 32% in the quarter and 31% for the full year. We reported revenues of 4.8 billion kroner for the combined game of portfolio, And the exciting part is that we clearly outperformed the market, which is expected now to grow around 7%. At the same time as we deliver accelerated growth, we kept our margins intact with a total growth EBITDA for the gaming part of 1.5 billion krona. And as I said, this was done in combination with accelerated performer growth. Looking isolated then at Q4, we're reporting revenues of 1.3 billion krona. The growth rate has accelerated from 8% in Q3, which is mainly driven by stronger underlying performance of the classic performer, which improves sequentially on a quarterly basis. So what are then the drivers of this success? Well, I want to mention a few parts. First and foremost, the Play Simple Anagram franchise and IndieKiwi Blue's TD6 were strong performance drivers in the quarter. And then the growth was further supported by the launch of Battles 2 and the improved performance coming from EnuGames Forge of Empires. And finally, we're also very happy to see that Risa Culture showed strong early signs of success as it was commercially launched now already in January. It's clear that most of our growth is coming from our newly acquired businesses. We're very happy with the performance and how we look at the combined portfolio. And the new assets are delivering just over 40% year-over-year growth in Q4. That means that our newly acquired assets represent roughly 50% of our sales and EBITDAs. And when we don't talk about our newly acquired businesses, it's worth highlighting IndieKiwi's stellar performance. We've always been firm believers in the strength of evergreen IPs. Despite that, the performance of IndieKiwi's title still exceeded our expectations. As a result, we've adjusted the earn-out liability in the quarter. This means that the payout threshold that IndieKiwi is going to reach will be higher than what we expected at the time of closing. And we are therefore making an adjustment of $320 million in Q4, which primarily relates to Nindakivi outperforming our expectations. So we take a step back and put this in context. When we take into account the upfront payments and the estimated total earnouts, the implied EBITDA multiple for this deal is 6.9 times the adjusted 2021 actual EBITDA adjusted. And when we look back and we see the expectations when we announce the deal, This was a multiple of 7.3 times the 2020 adjusted EBITDA based on only the upfront consideration. So, understandably, we're quite excited about the performance, even taking into account the extra earn-out liability, which is purely driven by the improved financial performance by the company. When we then look forward into 2022, several of the soft launch titles are now set to launch commercially, both in Q1 and later on this year. And these will, of course, be key growth drivers for our organic growth, as well as the group's overall marketing spend. Maybe then we slide and we look and then we drill down into the portfolio. Our dependency on top three titles has come down further in the quarter as we fully consolidate Play Simple. Currently, our top three performing games are Port of Empire, Word Trip, and Word Jam. And as I said, Play Simple has now been consolidated for the full quarter. In Q4, they saw an opportunity to excel in marketing initiatives around the AniGame franchise in particular. The games have continued to perform very well, and we saw a positive return on that investment. The strong performance of the PlaySimp Anigram has also had a positive of our monthly and daily active users in the quarter. This combined with a strong early trend for Battles 2, which was launched by Ninja Kiwi, as well as the Rise of Culture launch from InnoGames. If you take it all together, they're gradually building up for a full commercial launch in Q1. And all in all, it's driving sequential growth in monthly and daily active users, building a fantastic momentum going into 2022. And if you then look down into our IP, evolving and expanding our portfolio of IP is critical to our future success. We want to continue to broaden our genre coverage, balance out the impact from differences in maturity for different titles, and to continue to diversify our revenue streams. With the new portfolio, we also, and this is really key, we reduce our dependency on individual games. The work that we are doing on diversification means that we are less dependent on our top three games today than we were before. And as we go into 2022, we have a clear portfolio strategy, well-developed priorities, and a team that is ready to deliver on our ambitious strategy. Moving on forward, of course, one of the most important strategic priorities as a pure play gaming company is to ensure that we have the right operating model and framework to nurture our game companies, their teams, and entrepreneurs. We will continue to execute on our buy and build strategy going forward. Thanks to the recent divestment to ESL Gaming, we have demonstrated that we have the patience, vision, and the focus to grow and develop companies for success. Our next journey will be to embrace and involve MTG as a growth accelerator for our gaming companies. We will accomplish this by creating value across the group through a strategy focused on building selective center of excellence around the best-in-class capabilities we already have in the group. Some of these most critical areas for us include business intelligence, user acquisition, and blockchain technologies. We want to make sure that we elevate talent and knowledge no matter where it originates, both from the headquarters and also from the people in our companies. In the coming months, we'll continue to develop our strategy and refine our approach. Our ambition is to host the Capital Market Day in Q2, and we hope that you can join us then for a deeper dive into these topics. Let's now move into the esports segment. Operationally, ESR Gaming successfully delivered and produced five master properties in Q4, This was a mix of both studio and online events. ESL Mobile continued to develop at a high pace and finished three regional seasons with games like Clash of Clans and PUBG Mobile. Some of the developments in Q4 also included ESL Gaming announcing a multi-year extension with Monster, main cost, as well as publisher deals with Psyonix for the Rocket League Championship. DreamHack went back to their roots and successfully relaunched a live LAN event in Sweden. And DreamX Sport Games also organized three challenging properties in golf and football. Net sales for the esports verdict were down 10% year-over-year in the quarter, with a positive effect impact of 1%. Sales declined 11% organically year-over-year in the quarter, mainly as a result of Q4 2020 being packed with events because of the impact that the pandemic had on the year, which meant that we actually moved properties to Q4 rather than Q3. Looking at the second half of performance, we see that esports is back to growth in the second half of the year. Looking at the announced transaction that we have now in January, that is, of course, the biggest news of the quarter, the sale of ESL to Savvy Gaming. And if we take a step back, I mean, part of being a great owner is to know when to add value and support, but also to know when the time has come to divest the companies to help them on the next phase of their journey. We're a huge fan and believer in the strategic merger of ESL and Faceit, but we also were realistic about the fact that we could not have made this happen on our own basis. The sale of ESL Gaming to Savvy, therefore, helps us achieve several strategic and important objectives. First of all, it lets us enable the merger and the creation of the world's leading competitive gaming platform. It enables us to also create the first ever esports unicorn with a valuation north of $1 billion. And it also helps us to deliver a substantial shareholder return that equals two and a half times on our investments. We do expect around $875 million of net proceeds from the transaction, and we are going to propose to provide back at least 40% of that money to shareholders. And most importantly, we are now becoming a pure play gaming company with a strengthened balance sheet, which gives us the opportunity to pursue an acceleration of our gaming strategy as well as further relevant M&As. And on that high note, I'll hand over to Lars.

speaker
Lars Torstensson
CFO and EVP Communication and IR, MTG

Thanks, Maria. And let's have a look at the financial performance of MTG on a group level. I would like to re-emphasize what Maria has already said, a very solid quarter displaying our execution of our strategy to build a more diversified group of companies on the gaming side. Net sales increased by 56% on the back of an intensive M&A year, adding three great companies in Hutch, New York, and PlaySimple. On a pro forma basis, net sales increased by 7%, representing a strong performance by a gaming vertical. And speaking of the gaming vertical, it grew 13% pro forma, a very strong showing. Adjusted EBITDA for the group grew 80% year over year. And I think it's quite impressive to see that we are able to accelerate growth and still maintain the margin contribution from the gaming vertical. And then speaking of the gaming vertical, we had an adjusted EBITDA margin of 32%. Once again, we saw stellar performance from Ninja Kiwi, the main driver, but also supported by InnoGames. Adjustments in the quarter were mostly related to the long-term incentive program in both the esports and gaming verticals. Additionally, and no surprise, we saw cost associated with our M&A activity amounting to 28 million krona in the quarter. We also have slightly elevated central costs on the back of building an even stronger team around the gaming vertical. Moving on to the next slide, please. There are quite some items in our cash flow statement that are worth highlighting in the quarter. As we grow as a company, purely mechanically, our cash flow contribution from operations improves. It also impacts taxes paid, as we now have more profit-generating units in the group. On networking capital, we had a positive swing, partly due to ESL Gaming seeing early payments or prepayments from partners in the quarter. Additionally, our gaming vertical contributed positively, as payments made through Google Play and App Store have a positive impact on accounts receivable. It should be noted that this will reverse somewhat in Q1 2022. In the quarter, we paid the last part of the upfront payment to Ninja Kiwi, amounting to around 100 million krona. Additionally, the first earn-up payment based on the calendar year was finalized and paid in December, amounting to 160 million krona. At the end of the period, we had 943 million in cash, In MCG, we are currently carrying approximately 1.9 billion krona in debt, divided between a bridge facility of 1 billion and a revolving credit facility of 1 billion, of which 900 million has been drawn upon. This leads to a total net debt of 957 million. Also a few words on the general strength of the balance sheet following the sale of ESL Gaming. Of the net proceeds, 8 billion krona approximately, we anticipate to distribute 40% back to shareholders, equaling 3.2 billion krona. Just to clarify on the distribution, we plan to do that in a fair and tax-efficient manner. That leaves the net cash position slightly shy of 4 billion Swedish krona, including bank debt. It provides MTG with a strong position to be able to act if interesting M&A opportunities would arise. Last but not least, we're looking into 2022. I would like to remind all listeners that we are commercially launching three games from InnoGames across the first half. That will be backed by increased marketing. Additionally, the esports vertical will be treated as discontinued operations in Q1 2022. and hence not be consolidated. With that said, I hand it back to you, Maria.

speaker
Maria Redin
Group President and CEO, MTG

Thank you, Lars. And let's continue on the forward-looking stage. The sale of ESL will help us refine and simplify our equity story. We are now a gaming company. We have a clear and focused strategy. And we have a team and a balance sheet to continue to build on our success. The transactional deserves of the catalyst to accelerate our buy and build strategy. and to continue to be one of the driving forces in the market consolidation that we see around us. We have a full confidence in the sale of ESL that they will close within the timeframe that we have outlined, and we don't see any significant risk in this area. So to wrap it all up before taking your question, we have a fantastic team in place to execute our strategy. We have the firepower to be an active force in our industry, and we enter now 2022 with a strong operational momentum. So take that all together. We're extremely excited as we now put 2021 behind us, and it's also looking forward into 2022. So with that, Lars and I are ready to take your questions.

speaker
Lars Torstensson
CFO and EVP Communication and IR, MTG

Thank you, Maria, and that concludes our formal presentation for our fourth quarter. We are now ready to take any questions that you might have on the report, and operator, if you can help us to have the first question, please.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Thank you. The first question comes from the line of Paul Ericsson. Please ask your question.

speaker
Oscar Ericsson
Analyst, Carnegie

Thanks, that might be me, Oscar Ericsson here at Carnegie. A couple of questions from me on the gaming segment. You seem to primarily be pushing rights of cultures now for in-game games. Could you elaborate a little bit on the early indications Do you expect continued scaling up of the marketing investments throughout Q1? Could you say something about retention and monetization, please?

speaker
Maria Redin
Group President and CEO, MTG

Yes. Hi, Oscar. Yes, we're talking about rise of culture because I think that's the game that is now actually moved into full commercial launch. We have been actually, in a slow scale, been ramping it up in the second half of the year. But I think it's now in sort of Q1 and onwards where you're really going to see meaningful marketing be put behind it. When it comes to retention and monetization, I mean, I don't want to give out too much rather than we would not put it into full commercial launch unless we saw really strong metrics because that's the way that we feel comfortable that we can do marketing and also scale marketing on back of it. You need the proper both retention and monetization metrics. But on a good note, I can share with you that we are actually looking at already now around 300,000 daily active users in that game, which is something that we're very excited about.

speaker
Oscar Ericsson
Analyst, Carnegie

Perfect. Thanks, Maria. And on the similar note, organic growth minus 8% in Q4. Looking into Q1 here, would you expect such to contribute positively in Q1 and also significantly Do you expect InnoGames to have better year-on-year momentum, also taking the rights of cultures into account?

speaker
Maria Redin
Group President and CEO, MTG

Thank you. We're quite happy, actually, when we see the sequential performance, Q3 going into Q4. We see that there is good traction in our companies, and they're delivering according to the plan, which means that we expect that the organic growth momentum will continue to build in a good way going into Q2 and Q3 this year. So you should expect organic growth to return during the first half this year. I don't want to give specific and detail on the different companies because we look at the company in its totality and making sure, to be honest, that the most important number, the way we look at it, is a combined group performance, which means that it's a 13% performant growth for the combined group in Q4 and 12% for the full year, which is the number that we would like to continue to grow better than the market the way we've done now actually throughout the whole sort of 2021, which we are excited about.

speaker
Oscar Ericsson
Analyst, Carnegie

Understood. And then just a final question for me before handing over. Clearly, a fantastic performance by the high-margin Ninja Kiwi in Q4. First of all, I mean, this is sustainable. What's the pipeline ahead? And if you could give any sort of indication on the Q1 and four-year EBITDA margin, given the strong performance here by Ninja Kiwi. Thank you.

speaker
Maria Redin
Group President and CEO, MTG

It goes without saying that the Ninda Kiva performance is absolutely stellar, and it shows the relevance of evergreen IPs and strong IPs. It obviously also performs better than what we anticipated, which is something that we're really excited about. There's no reason to not believe that that strong performance will continue. That is also why we increased the earn-out not just for the existing year, but also for 2022. But the margins are, to your point, extremely high, and that is driven by the fact that everything is sort of community and influencer-driven when it comes to the users. And I think that what we would like to do is, as Batted 2 is being launched in November, we want to make sure we start to scale that up and actually start to put marketing behind that. And that is the first time actually that Kiwi has spent any marketing dollars. So that should imply in theory that the margin should go down a little bit, but then you should over time see positive growth instead. But the high margins overall will sustain in IndieKivi. It's a fantastic company with a strong profitability.

speaker
Oscar Ericsson
Analyst, Carnegie

Great. Thank you very much, Maria.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Thank you.

speaker
Lars Torstensson
CFO and EVP Communication and IR, MTG

Thank you, Oskar. Operator, could we have the next question, please?

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question comes from Martin Hanel from BNP Markets. Please ask your question.

speaker
Martin Hanel
Analyst, BNP Markets

Hi, guys. So, yeah, my first question is on the shareholder distribution of the 3.2 billion. How will you prioritize between the alternatives you have, like buybacks, redemption, cash dividends?

speaker
Lars Torstensson
CFO and EVP Communication and IR, MTG

Hi, Martin. Thanks for the question. I think what we have said is that we're going to distribute at least 40% of the net proceeds back to our shareholders. And the comment that we made is that we need to make it as tax efficient as we possibly can. We haven't yet clarified exactly how that distribution will look like. That's something that the board will come back with in front of the upcoming AGM. And hence we will let that rest for a while until that is the case. So for now, I mean, the only indication that we provide is that it needs to be tax efficient.

speaker
Martin Hanel
Analyst, BNP Markets

Okay. Thank you, Lars. And when was it that you expect closure? And is everything running according to plan in everything so far?

speaker
Maria Redin
Group President and CEO, MTG

Yes, everything is running in line with them, which is great. We had no reason to expect anything else either from day one, to be fair. So the relevant applications will be filed this week, and thereafter the clock starts ticking, and then it's just a waiting time. We have announced that we said initially that we expect closing in Q2, and that remains true.

speaker
Martin Hanel
Analyst, BNP Markets

Okay, great. And I also have some questions on your organic growth performance. You mentioned that you expect a return to organic growth in the first half of this year. If you look at your Q4, did it improve at the end of the quarter, and can you share anything on the progress so far, almost halfway into Q1?

speaker
Maria Redin
Group President and CEO, MTG

As we said, we're quite happy to see the improvement in Q4 versus Q3, and it has been a sort of a gradual improvement, And, of course, the next big driver of improvement also lies in the successful launch of the new games. I mean, you have three games going into full commercial launch in Q1 and Q2. That will, of course, be a big driver to that, together with the improvement that we have seen, in particular in Forge of Empires, in the way that we changed the in-game events, and also being able to do more efficient marketing, which is also an equally important part of it. So we take it all together. I mean... We look very positive in the future, but it will continue to come sort of sequentially, build up.

speaker
Martin Hanel
Analyst, BNP Markets

Okay. Do you expect continued growth improvements in the old games, like Forge of Empire also here in Q1, compared with the second half of last year?

speaker
Maria Redin
Group President and CEO, MTG

We don't want to go in and comment on individual sort of games and their improvements. What we're always trying to do is to optimize the performance of every single game And then it is also, to be fair, to some extent, the capital allocation on how do we then divide our marketing spend. Where do we see the best return on that marketing spend? And that is also a judgment that both on the company level and on a group level we look at that. So that is something that Intergames is looking at their end. And on a good note, we have three games where they can then also increase the marketing spend on next year. That is quite exciting. And the company has never been in that kind of position before.

speaker
Martin Hanel
Analyst, BNP Markets

Yeah, okay. And just finally, when you look at where you are today when it comes to inner games, just thinking about the margin progress in this quarter when you increase the marketing spend for the new game.

speaker
Maria Redin
Group President and CEO, MTG

Yeah, you didn't see the full effect in Q4, Raleigh. You're going to see that coming up now in Q1, we'll be going into full commercial launch. And as you do that, and as we have always said, especially in the mid-core games, I mean, the first year, I mean, you actually have a negative contribution on the bottom line. But, of course, there will be a driver of the top-line growth. So that's what you should see as well for indie games as we now go into 2022. But on a good note, that will also accelerate their growth. And that's the part we're excited about. And that growth will then eventually turn into higher profitability.

speaker
Lars Torstensson
CFO and EVP Communication and IR, MTG

Okay. Thank you. Excellent.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Thank you.

speaker
Lars Torstensson
CFO and EVP Communication and IR, MTG

Thank you, Martin. And Operator, we can take the next question, please.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Rasmus Engberg from SHB. Please ask your question.

speaker
Rasmus Engberg
Analyst, SHB

Yes, hi. Two questions, actually. This improvement that we see in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter, what do you make of that? Where do you think it comes from? Is it comps, or is it changes in in-game, or is it the product portfolio, or What is it? And then the second question, as we go into Q1 and Q2, comps are, can you remind us, are comps not as easy as they were in the fourth quarter? So on a performer basis, potentially we could see a little bit of a slowdown, but is that fair to assume, or how do you look at that?

speaker
Maria Redin
Group President and CEO, MTG

Yeah, we start with the sequential improvement that we see now in Q4. I mean, they really come from both The continuous strong performance of the newly acquired assets. I mean, we saw an opportunity to scale marketing in Play Simple and back of the Anagram franchises, which we're very happy about. That's a big ramp up on the top line revenues and the increase in daily and monthly active users. And that is, of course, something we also bring with us going into 2022, that we come in with elevator user levels and engagement level, which is fantastic. And then also on top of that, of course, Ninja Kiwi continues to perform strong in the BCD6 and also launched out of two. And when you saw the sequential improvements in inner games, in particular Forge of Empires, where, I mean, we said in Q3 we were not happy with the event calendar. It was simply not strong enough, which meant that it was not appealing enough for our customers and users. Indirectly, they told us so. So that was something we improved now in Q4. And we also saw better marketing environments for that game as well. So those are the great things that we saw sort of improving and driving the sequential performance in Q4. And I think as we move into then Q1 and Q2, of course, we then bring with us those strong operational momentum. And I think that as we look into Q2, I think that's when you will see the comms also easing up when you talk about the sort of the COVID effect, if I can put it that way.

speaker
Lars Torstensson
CFO and EVP Communication and IR, MTG

All right. Thanks.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Thank you.

speaker
Lars Torstensson
CFO and EVP Communication and IR, MTG

Thanks, Rasmus. Operator, could we have the next question, please?

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Yes, of course. Thank you. And the next question comes from the line of Tom Singleheart from Citi. Please ask your question.

speaker
Tom Singleheart
Analyst, Citi

Yeah, thank you, thank you. Tom here from Citi. I was interested in a throwaway line earlier on where you talked about your sort of central capabilities and I think you referenced business development sort of marketing and then you said blockchain technology. I mean, a bunch of other sort of mobile gaming platforms have seen a sort of, let's not call it a one-off boost, they've seen a boost from sort of selling NFTs and other sort of metaverse related sort of revenue streams in the fourth quarter was there any sort of major impact for you from those kind of activities and and does that comment about blockchain at the central level indicate that you think it's going to be a big opportunity going forward thank you thank you hi tom um no it's a good question i think the honest answer is i don't think anyone truly knows the impact that sort of blockchain gaming and nfts will have long term on the gaming

speaker
Maria Redin
Group President and CEO, MTG

But what I do believe it's important to sort of understand it and understand how could it possibly change the unit economic within free-to-play mobile and how could we potentially play a part of it. And on a good note, we've actually within Kongigate been working with different sort of crypto partners and exploring already, not in any material sort of monetary parts, but from a learning experience it's been very relevant. And I think those are the parts we want to build on now and observe the outside to say, is there something we should do when it comes to actually providing relevant, entertaining sort of blockchain gaming? Because there is today probably not any out there that is sort of entertaining blockchain gaming. And could it possibly have an impact on how actually the free-to-play model would work going forward? So I think... For us, it's more getting ready and observe the outside a little bit for the future rather than to have any financial impact sort of in the quarter that we just left or in the quarter that is to come.

speaker
Lars Torstensson
CFO and EVP Communication and IR, MTG

Very clear. Thank you. Thanks, Tom. And, Operic, we have the next question, please.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Yes, of course. The next question comes again from Paul Erickson Carnegie. Please ask your question.

speaker
Oscar Ericsson
Analyst, Carnegie

Hi, Oscar here again to follow up questions. I mean, first on the EBITDA margin, 32% here in Q4. Do you have any input on what to expect here in Q1, just, I mean, describing for the dynamics, given the full commercial launch of rising cultures, and also, as you indicated, Maria, marketing standpoint for TD Battles 2? any sort of indication of the direction and magnitude would be helpful.

speaker
Maria Redin
Group President and CEO, MTG

Thank you. Mary, I would say, I mean, we have in the whole almost 2021, even though we've been stopped launching the new games, I mean, we have only been putting marketing on back of already existing launch game, which of course gives you high margins than what you would do if you actually started to launch a new game and actually have a negative contributing EBITDA. So that implies that you should expect the EBITDA margin to go down in the first quarter, and then, of course, throughout the year, sort of sequentially improve, but you will see a lower margin the first half of the year than the second half of the year, in theory. But having said that, on a good note, as we also have a broader portfolio, of course, you have more profitable games that contribute to the broadness and the richness of the EBITDA contribution, so that makes it all the easier for us to be able to scale new games. I'm sorry I'm a little bit flustered, but it's hard to be sort of very concrete on it, but you have two different dynamics. You have a negative contribution of the new game launches that we're doing, which will bring our future revenue growth, to be fair. But on the same side, you have really strong performing underlying games in the existing launch portfolio that is still operating now in Q4 that is, of course, keeping that sort of strong margin up. So those two will sort of meet each other in Q1 and Q2.

speaker
Lars Torstensson
CFO and EVP Communication and IR, MTG

Yeah, it's a little bit of the beauty of the new structural portfolios that we can balance better, you know, push, marketing pushes within specific studios, while then having more mature games in other studios. So, as Maria is saying, even though we will see market spend go up in Q1, to some extent, first half, we still are going to be able to balance that to some extent with the performance of the other portfolio companies, which is, of course, a strength of the more diversified entity.

speaker
Oscar Ericsson
Analyst, Carnegie

Great, that's helpful. And then last one from me, specifically on Hutch, which seems to have had a slightly slow performance in the second half of 2021. Could you say something about the pipeline on new content and seasonality here in Q1, Q2, please?

speaker
Maria Redin
Group President and CEO, MTG

I think the Hutch is very much focused on the two games now, which we are supporting. It's Pop Drive and Formula One Flash, and have a much better focus on the live ops. And we're also with the center experts that we're building up are going to be able to support them and also work together with them to make sure that we drive UA also to one level better. So I think there's a lot of things that should work in favor of Hutch and to see these two great games to really move forward.

speaker
Oscar Ericsson
Analyst, Carnegie

Great. Thank you very much.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Thank you.

speaker
Lars Torstensson
CFO and EVP Communication and IR, MTG

Thank you, Oscar. Operator, do we have any more questions?

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

There are no further questions at this moment. So, dear participants, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and 1 on your telephone keypad. Once again, star and 1 if you wish to ask a question. The speakers don't have further questions at this time.

speaker
Lars Torstensson
CFO and EVP Communication and IR, MTG

Okay, very good. Thank you. In that case, that concludes the conference call for the fourth quarter. We appreciate that you have taken the time today to join us, and we look forward to staying in touch until we release the next quarterly report, which will be on the 27th of April. With that said, take care, everyone, and speak soon. Bye-bye.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect. Have a nice day.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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