Stillfront Group AB (publ)

Good morning and welcome to Stillfront's Q1 report. I am Alexis Bont. I'm the president and CEO of Stillfront. So in Q1, whilst we focus on delivering strong profitability and cash flows, we also continue to reallocate our product investments into our key franchises, in particular in Europe. We expect to see the results of these investments and their impact to our group growth in the second part of the year. There's some exciting highlights of how we are expanding our key franchises in Europe, uh during q1 uh the first one is our uh is a new game that's coming in the supremacy franchise based on the major ip we expect to be announcing this uh in late may another one is a launch of a new game in the big franchise of which unsigned island is a part and that will build on the success that we've had with sunshine island a third one is the soft launch of a new game in our narrative franchise with a major IP that we've already announced from Webtoon. So some pretty exciting news in our key franchises in Europe coming up in 2025. But I want to share a little bit more about what that means and what's happening with our largest game franchise in Europe, Supremacy. So as part of our efforts to become leaner and faster, we've restructured and unified the three studios working on Supremacy into a single focused franchise team to drive alignment and efficiency. We're also investing in deeper modes and cross promotion opportunities, taking a more pragmatic approach to deploying the still front ecosystem tools in a more targeted way to ensure that we're delivering maximum impact. In addition to the new Supremacy game that we're launching at the end of the year, that will be the franchise's fourth game, Supremacy 1914, one of the main games in the franchise, is also getting a major upgrade with the new client, improved visuals and enhanced gameplay. This is building on the success of our last revamp that we had a few years ago, which significantly accelerated growth then. This is also a great opportunity to retarget players and fans of the franchise. So lots of exciting things happening with Supremacy. Now going over the specific business areas performance over one quarter. In Europe, as mentioned before, it was a quarter with focus on product improvements and building on our pipeline momentum for later in the year. Organic revenue decline is expected due to fewer UA-driven launches, but adjusted EBITDA remains stable. Supremacy and the big farm franchise showed positive quarter-on-quarter trends, and that's very encouraging, especially as in supremacy, we're really in the product investment phase and not really pushing on the UA front yet. Albion Online grew from the EU server launch last year, which had a big peak in Q2. And as a result of that big peak in Q2 last year, it will face tough comps in Q2 this year. Because the way these new server launches work for a product like Albion Online, is you have a massive peak on the quarter and a few months where you're kind of launching the new server. And then that basically drops progressively and then stays kind of at a new high level. And that's kind of how we constantly grow that franchise. We have also a stronger pipeline of updates and new launches that are set to drive H2 growth in the business area. The one part that underperformed versus our expectations was narrative games. So we're doing some repositioning work and some investments into that franchise. leveraging in particular ai and also we're doing some ip partnerships as we discussed this is a webtoon partnership but that's a picture of europe a solid core major investments into the key franchises there to basically build the product we've retracted ua as you can see investing less in ua in in the quarter and we'll deploy UA again when we see the product improvements that we're making are allowing it to do so, and obviously with the new launches in the second part of the year. As for North America, We are in turnaround mode, as we said before, and we have a very strong margin focus there. As a result, revenue declined due to the reduced UA, but profitability improved quite significantly. We actually went from 1% EBITDA margin in Q4 and to about 9.5% EBITDA margin in Q1 for the business area. As part of our cost savings program, we also prepared during Q1 to transfer 24 Storm 8 Legacy games to Imperia. That was actually completed on April 1st, and we will see the impact of that from Q2 onwards. For reference, these games generated about 150 million SEC in revenues or about 75 million adjusted EBITDA in 2024. So that's for the full 2024, not just a specific quarter. So you have a reference of the value of the games that we're transferring from North America to basically our legacy studio in MENA and APAC called Imperia. Then we have kind of early direct to consumer pilots in casual games that we've done in Europe have shown really good promise for further margin expansion. We are in the process of implementing this DTC as a direct to consumer web shop to our key franchise in North America. We've had a few delays. in when that will go live, but we think we should be able to do that quite soon and then further improve the margins that we're able to get in the business area. So for North America, really, we haven't been focused at all on the top line. What we're really interested in is finding the right level to then invest and grow profitably the business area. And that's why you've seen our ability to extract profits within that area. In MENA and APAC, we had solid performance and we continue to have a profit focus. Joe Walker and Board perform well. There was a small slowdown in Board as we're focusing on improving the product there. We expect it will give, but it's still growing very healthily. Joe Walker now offers over 50 games via its super app. A key game franchise in the region achieved 21.2% year-on-year growth, as you can see at the bottom there of the slide. And Six Waves and Babel are refocusing on margins amid slower publishing activity, and that reduced overall year-on-year growth for the full business area. Imperius integration of 10 legacy titles is boosting profitability and free cash flow, but does have a negative impact on the year-on-year growth of the overall business area. This will be accentuated in Q2 and onwards with the transfer of further 24 legacy games from April the 1st. So in total, that will mean they will have 34 games that will have been transferred. And obviously, the idea from there is to reduce costs and increase the cash flows they extract from that. And in time, we do hope that we can actually slow down the decline of these legacy games as well. So that's the main things from the three business areas. And I will transfer to our CFO, Andreas, so that you can go over some numbers. Andreas.

Thank you, Alexis. And good morning, everyone. Looking then at the financials as a total, Alexis did a deep dive on each of the business areas that are driving this. We posted net revenues of 1,545,000,000. That is obviously It is a decline, it's an organic decline of 12% that is driven primarily by the intentional reduction in terms of US spend, funding the profitable spend, especially in the US where we are turning around the business. Looking at UA as well, we still are spending around the 30%. So we have 29% spending in the quarter as a total as a group. And that has been the fairly stable. If you look at this over a period, I think it's very important to remember when we start presenting the business areas, There will be more fluctuations in the business areas, which has always been. But when we look at the total, you see that the U.A. spend is fairly stable across across the group as a whole. But in the business, it will fluctuate the same as revenues will fluctuate. One of the things that is obviously keeping up the EBITDA performance is the fact that we have improved our gross profit. It's been continuously an improvement in the last 18 to 24 months. Well, we have gradually moved our player base into our DTC channels, and we hope that we have more ability to do that in the future, especially in the North American business. we have also reduced the ua as as in this quarter i think we're still at a as a higher level i would say but but we also need to remember in q1 2024 we also had a trampoline launch on sunshine island which had an an an excess of of ua spent and our and our fixed cost um um initiatives in terms of reducing them are going a bit more into detail or not in there later they are also helping. So both in terms of whilst we're reducing top line, our EBITDA in absolute term actually grow by 12% a year over year. In terms of our free cash flow, it has also been historically impacted by high interest rate costs, which are now slightly coming down. And this is the second quarter now in a row that we post positive overall billions. We are at 1.1 billion in terms of LTM free cash flow, even if this quarter we actually had a negative working capital effect versus the last quarter, which was expected as well. Then moving into the next slide, looking at the cash flow in a bit more detail, just isolating the quarter, and we had 388 million of cash flow from operations prior to working capital adjustments. But in that, we still have financial expenses of 78 million. It is down versus last year, partially that we don't have a one-off effect in the same fashion, but primarily driven by lower UA that we have in the business. Taxes, we paid at 53 million, which is similar to the same as last year. And we have a negative working capital impact, which is in the same fashion as last year, mainly driven by that we reduced our liabilities. I think it's also a timing effect that we have a positive operating liabilities effect in Q4 2024, and that is naturally now reversed in Q1 2025. Then looking at how we invest, I mean, we have gradually taken down our investments in terms of capex. So we invest in total in terms of investment activities, 150 million. Out of that, 132 is driven by the fact that we are investing on product development. That is a reduction. It's an 8.5%. of our net revenues. And I think it will fluctuate between quarters, but that's roughly where we think we are feasible to stay over time. In addition to that, we have a small part that we actually bought up the minority stake from the supremacy franchise or Dorado, which was completed as well in Q4. And some of the settlements happened in Q1 this year. In terms of financing activities, fairly straightforward. We repaid 85 million and we purchased 42 million of shares in the quarter. Then we purchased a bit of more shares post the quarter end, which is not reflected in the numbers. And I think one of the things that we always talk about is our free cash flow. I showed on the previous slide how that we are back now two quarters in a row. with above 1 billion of free cash flow. And I think it's also important to remember where we have actually deployed this free cash flow, where we have actually bought back or paid earn out, which is acquisition and divestments of business of 460 million. So that's reducing our overall debt if we talk about total debt as such. We also then reduce some of our outstanding borrowings to the banks. And we also then supported a buyback program of 344 million. So we are, as we showed, gradually increasing our cash flows back to a billion, and we are deploying that to both reduce that, but also to buy back shares. And then if we then look at our financial position, slightly new. So we just talk first about the total debt profile. The total debt profile is the graph to the left, which is basically all debts, including all earn outs. And as you can see on this, we are reducing that year over the last year with more than 600 million SEC of total debt. And that is something that we have continuously been doing. And if you take a step back from when we last did the acquisition, the total debt reduction and the buyback of shares is approximately 2 billion SEC. Then we look at the portfolio profile. This quarter, we did not have any new financing. We completed the financing track in Q4 last year. So we have a good maturity profile. The big maturities that are coming up is in more than two years until we have the next, what do you call it, maturity of the RCEF debt. In terms of our leverage ratio, we are now at 1.9. So the leverage ratio is that including the next 12 months cash earnouts, that is now at 1.9 in the quarter, which is then a reduction versus the last quarter we were at 2.1. So overall, um, you know, we, we continue to show that whilst we have a declining top line, we can defend our margins. We can defend our, our cash flows. Um, and we can deploy that both within the business, reduce that, but also continue to support the earn up, um, uh, program and, and, or the buyback program. And that's also why we today also announced that we will continue to buy back program in the next quarter, the next few weeks here until the AGM at least. Then as a last slide until I hand over to Alexis, we have in Q3, we announced a cost optimization program and we have been following that in the last few quarters and we are on track. We are Especially, I would say this, the fixed cost, we are definitely on track. And the majority then, of course, comes out of North America, where we have now, as of Q1, realized and analyzed run rate saving, i.e. what is going to hit in Q4 2025, of 70 million. Then the program is between 200 and 250. And it's equally shared between direct-to-consumer, or in terms of the direct-to-consumer channels, i.e. improving our gross profit and also our fixed cost. And I think the focus has been very much on the fixed cost. And I think, as Alexis also mentioned, that there is an opportunity here in terms of rolling out the webshops, especially in the North American business. So with that said, I will hand back to Alexis.

Thank you very much, Andreas. So we also communicated today that we've initiated a strategic review. The purpose of the strategic review is to evaluate certain assets as part of a focused effort to strengthen the group by relocating resources towards more scalable franchises and other opportunities. This will have no effect or impact on our 250 million cost savings program, which is progressing, as Andreas mentioned, according to plan. This will be initiated now and Arim and Carnegie have been retained as advisors to help with the review. And we will update the market or the board will update the market according to rules and regulations as the strategic review progresses. And the review, I think is more just to say, you know, we'll take the time that it needs to ensure the best outcome for our shareholders. So the key focus going forward is we're focusing on the key game franchises and we're making the investments that we need to make to get them to the place where we want them to be. We have some pretty amazing and incredible game franchises within Stillfront that have a lot of potential short, medium, and in particular, long term. And we want to make sure we make the most out of these. But at the same time, we know we want to make sure that we're growing in a way that is profitable and that we're quite opportunistic and tactical about when we deploy and we don't deploy UA. So that's why you will see variances from quarter to quarter. But of course, we always kind of keep an eye on our cash flow and EV tech and make sure that that stays stable. We also are focusing on our pipeline and it's very important to successfully launch new games at the end of the year. We're a games company, so yes, we operate games, but we also launch new games. Of course, a big focus of these new games are within our key franchises, and we have strong hopes for the potential of these games. We, as I said, continue to deliver strong margins and cash flows. And then, you know, final focus going forward will be to execute on the strategic review that we just announced. With this, that concludes the presentation and we are ready to take questions. If Andreas wants to join me here for the questions. Thank you. Yeah, this is mine.

To ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad. To enter the queue, if you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 6 on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Nick Dempsey from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Yeah, good morning, guys. I've got two questions. So the first one, just thinking about Q2 group organization, I think back at the full year results, you were talking about hoping for a benefit from Easter moving from Q1 in 24 to Q2 in 25, and that helping you a little bit. You don't really mention that in your Outlook comments anymore, and you talk about it continuing to be challenging in Q2. Can we hope for any improvement in the rate of year-on-year organic growth in Q2 compared to what we've seen in Q1? That's the first question. And the second one, just on the strategic review, I think I've understood the way you're thinking about it, but is there any chance that as part of this review you could look to sell assets that are doing really well if you get a really interesting price for them? Or are we simply focused more on the assets that are currently dragging you down a bit and you don't want them to be in the group anymore and you're looking to sell them or close them depending which works?

Thank you very much. I'll take the first one and maybe take the second one, Chris. Regarding Q2, we do expect to see a benefit from Easter being in Q2 now, but as I kind of explained already when we were doing the previous set of results and say it again in terms of these results, we expect the bulk of the of the kind of the return to the neutral organic growth to happen in the second part of the year. We do expect slight improvements into Q2, but we do continue to think that Q2 will be challenging, at least in terms of the top line organic growth. We do believe that we will continue to perform with cash flows and EBITDA as in Q1. As for the second question.

Yeah, in terms of if we would sell some of the currently good assets, the fairly simple answer, yes, we communicated that certain assets are up. We didn't say that it's not including what you might consider good assets. So for the right price, that would be something we consider. I mean, we're looking at this from a sort of long-term strategy as well, what fits and what doesn't. If we can release some shareholder value through that, That is absolutely something that we would consider.

Okay. Thank you, guys. That's helpful.

The next question comes from Rasmus Engberg from Kepler Shoebrew. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Are you able to say that with the current EBITDA-CEU report in North America, are all the assets in positive or are there assets there that are negative? And if so, could you give us some sort of a magnitude?

Hi, Rasmus. So in terms of North America, as I say, we're kind of really, really focusing on the profitability of the business area. I'd say the majority of the assets are not profitable in there. We still have one or two that need some work. Part of that is going to be achieved in the next ongoing quarters. Our strategy and the way we work is we want all kind of studios and key game franchises to be profitable over the medium to long term. Short term that might not be the case, but then we correct that.

And the second question, but I don't know if you can answer this, but you previously talked about having a capital market stay in the second half of the year. Is that still the plan and is it reasonable to assume that you have finalized the strategic review at that time, or is that a separate thing?

I mean, I think there's two questions to that. In terms of the strategic review, we say that You shouldn't rush these things, but you should progress quickly. So it's not that we haven't committed to an exact timeline, except that we will update here. So that's what we stated. It's a balance there. I think a capital markets that we haven't communicated, but I think the intention is to have a capital markets day when the strategic review has more clarity and we will get back to exact those dates.

All right. Thanks for that.

Well, thank you very much for the questions. This concludes our Q1 report for Steelfront. Thank you all for your attention, and I wish you a very good day. Thank you.