Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Jumbo Interactive Limited FY 2022 results briefing. All participants are in a listen -only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question -and- answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Mike Veverka, Founder and CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome. Let me begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and pay our respects to all elders past, present, and emerging. Today, I'm joined in our Brisbane office by our CFO, David Todd. I'll provide an overview of our FY 2022 results and the progress we are making with our strategy while Dave will run you through the numbers. I'll then wrap up, reaffirm our FY 2023 outlook and move to Q&A. Turning to the results, this slide presents the key group metrics for the year. TTV and revenue were in line with our July update, while underlying EBITDA and NPAT came in marginally higher. We are very pleased with our FY 2022 performance, with double-digit growth on all key metrics versus the PCP.
While underlying EBITDA increased 16%, the underlying margin was approximately five percentage points lower, reflecting a step up in The Lottery Corporation service fee and increased investment in the business. This is a key focus area for us, and I will talk about the margin levers later in the presentation. Given the strong FY 2022 performance, the board has declared a final fully franked dividend of AUD 0.205 per share, taking the total dividend for the year to AUD 0.425 per share, a 16% uplift on the PCP. As I mentioned in our investor forum in June, we have a clear growth strategy and FY 2022 has been all about execution. It has been another record year for lottery retailing supported by good jackpots.
All our SaaS clients are enjoying the benefits of being on our platform, and we operationalized our first U.K. SaaS client. We are building our active player base globally through the acquisitions of Stride and StarVale. As we said around this time last year, we have invested significantly in the business, our platform, marketing capability and people. This is all aligned to our growth aspirations. Finally, as part of our proactive approach to capital management, today we are announcing an on-market share buyback of up to AUD 25 million. Our balance sheet, cash conversion and free cash flow remain strong and when combined with our new debt facility and revised dividend payout ratio provide capacity for future M&A. This is our strategy on a page which is unchanged from when we launched our SaaS and Managed Services segment.
In summary, we believe we've built a best- in- class software platform, matured this software as we use it every day in our lottery retailing segment. When you put this together, we believe we have a unique product that can offer clients value globally and open up the TAM, particularly given the shift to digital lotteries. I now wanted to quickly recap on a few key slides from our investor forum. At Jumbo, we're on a mission to make lotteries easier for our clients and easier for our players, and remove the complexity involved in running a lottery. By staying true to our mission, we'll continue to drive growth and become the number one choice in digital lottery and services globally. We have three operating segments which came into being a little over a year ago.
Lottery retailing is the largest part of the business and has been operating for well over 20 years and has an enviable track record of delivering sustainable growth in revenue, profits and cash. Our software as a service and managed services segment are a result of our vision to expand beyond Australia and leverage our best in class lottery software and lottery management expertise. SaaS focuses on providing our software to existing lottery clients, while managed services is simply software plus additional lottery services, including program development, marketing and draw management. While we have not put a specific time frame on it, our aspiration is to grow these relatively nascent segments to rival that of lottery retailing. Active players are our North Star.
On this slide, I've shown our FY 2022 active players, which have now surpassed 3 million, which is expected to rise to 4 million once the StarVale acquisition has been completed. As I've said before, the formula is simple. The more active players we have on our platform, the more tickets we sell and the more we grow revenue. Our digital skills and continuously improving player experience keep players active, in turn satisfying our lottery partners and minimizing our contract risks. Turning to the operating segments and starting with lottery retailing. As expected, online sales of lottery tickets continued to trend upwards, increasing by 4.9 percentage points to 37.7%. We had 43 Powerball and Oz Lotto jackpots greater than or equal to AUD 15 million, compared to 38 in the PCP, with the aggregate value per jackpot up 28%.
FY 2022 also benefited from a record AUD 120 million Powerball in February this year, the first greater than AUD 100 million jackpot since September 2019. This is our usual chart showing our track record of delivering consistent growth. The orange bars that indicate jackpots under AUD 15 million demonstrate the resilience of our business, while the blue bars highlight the boost we get from large jackpots. New players were up 63% on the PCP as a result of better jackpots and player engagement and retention initiatives. Active players, who we define as those players who have made a purchase in the last 12 months, were up 20% on the PCP, with the average spend per player up 12%. This slide shows the revenue and cost dynamics of new players.
At the interim result, I explained how we typically recoup our first half acquisition costs in just under five months on average. This dynamic gets even better when you extrapolate on a yearly basis, and each cohort of new players continues to play into the future. This dynamic, underpinned by player loyalty and our growth marketing capability, is why we don't mind spending more on marketing, particularly when jackpots are favorable. Marketing costs were up almost 50% on the PCP, although broadly in line with the average ratio of the last four years. This underpinned the strong uplift in new players, which in turn drove a 10% decline in the cost per lead to AUD 18.33.
Moving to our SaaS business segment, where underlying TTV growth increased 39% on the PCP with all our Australian clients fully operational on the platform and contributing for the full 12 months to June 30, 2022. In May this year, we fully operationalized our first client in the U.K., and while the first lottery took longer than we originally anticipated, as we had to make some adjustments for local conditions, the second lottery took only three weeks to be up and running. Consistent with our experience in Australia, as we grow our client base in the U.K., we expect deployment of our software to get faster, better and cheaper. Lotterywest represents the biggest SaaS opportunity for Jumbo. The potential for growth in digital sales is enormous, given only 18% of lottery tickets are currently sold online.
Our joint marketing initiative kicked off late July, slightly later than anticipated, due to delays with getting up with Facebook. While we have not yet had the large jackpot to work with, we are already seeing some encouraging signs from this initiative. As you can see from the quote from Ralph Addis, the CEO of Lotterywest, the teams have worked extremely well together over the past almost two years. We anticipate Lotterywest to release an RFP process later this calendar year, and given the strength of our existing partnership, aligned culture and demonstrated value delivery, we believe we've put ourselves in the best possible position to expand our relationship further down the track, but we have to take it step by step.
Turning now to our managed services and starting with Gatherwell in the U.K., which continues to demonstrate impressive growth as TTV up 31% on the PCP. The active players shown at a point in time with the average active players for FY 2022 up 23% versus the PCP. Gatherwell now supports over 11,000 good causes and has increased its market share of schools and local government authorities and continues to maintain very strong customer advocacy metrics. The map on the right shows Gatherwell's share of local government authorities and highlights the significant growth runway ahead. Moving now to Stride, which completed on June 1st, this year and contributed one month to our FY 2022 performance. We've gotten to know the business well over the last 12 months and have been very impressed with the team, their client relationships and industry knowledge.
The average tenure of the senior leadership team at Stride is over 10 years, and we're very pleased for Stride to officially be part of Jumbo. We'll see a compelling growth opportunity for Stride to expand its client base outside of its home provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan and into British Columbia and Ontario. They're currently exploring the licensing process for these provinces. I'd now like to hand over to Dave to take you through the numbers.
Thanks, Mike, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for your time. For my presentation, I've provided both FY 2021 reported and underlying figures, adjusting for Lotterywest moving from lottery retailing to SaaS in December 2020. Starting with the underlying EBITDA, which increased by 16% to AUD 55.1 million. This was driven by strong revenue growth in all operating segments, partially offset by a higher cost of sales and higher OpEx. The increase in cost of sales primarily reflects the step up in the service fee paid to The Lottery Corporation, which was approximately AUD 5 million out of the AUD 6.3 million cost of sales increase. Underlying OpEx was up 33.2%, and I'll go through this in more detail shortly.
FY 2022 EBITDA also includes a one-month contribution from Stride, which was not material, and the full 12-month contribution of AUD 540 ,000 from Intellitron Pty Ltd, which was sold on June 30th, 2022. Intellitron was our payroll software subsidiary and was considered to be non-core to the group. The one-off items to reconcile to the reported position reflect one-off expenses of approximately AUD 1.6 million, partially offset by the AUD 525 ,000 profit on sale of Intellitron. Turning to the operating segments, we start with the lottery retailing on slide 18. The strong revenue growth of 26.7% was a function of the strong TTV growth, underpinned by higher large jackpots and increased customer activity, partially offset by a reduced revenue margin, mainly due to product mix.
Powerball and Oz Lotto represent some of our lowest margin gains in the portfolio, with Powerball's contribution in FY 2022 more than half of lottery retailing TTV. EBITDA growth of 4.7% was impacted by the step up in the TLC service fee and a 47.6% increase in marketing costs. Non-marketing spend was up 17.6%, mainly driven by higher employee costs. Moving to SaaS, where revenue growth of 31.9% reflects the TTV growth, partially offset by a slightly lower revenue margin. The TTV increase is distorted by the fact that FY 2021 doesn't fully reflect the full 12 months contribution from all clients. Only Mater and Lotterywest have been fully captured in the comparative period, with Deaf Services and Endeavour contributing approximately one month and nine months respectively.
St. Helena Hospice in the U.K. was fully operationalized in the second half of 2022 and contributed approximately GBP 2 million in TTV. The annualized TTV for St Helena is approximately GBP 10 million. External revenue was up 29%. The foreign revenue margin from 5.3% to 5% reflects the increased skew towards charities, which are around the 3%-4% revenue margin level. EBITDA margins in this segment remain healthy, although were impacted by higher employee costs. Gatherwell has achieved strong TTV growth on the back of momentum with existing clients and new client wins. The foreign revenue margin was mainly due to product mix, while EBITDA grew only 2.9% impacted by increased investment in marketing and staff, both of which are expected to result in increased future revenue and operating leverage in financial year 2023.
As we flagged last year, we saw a step up in operating costs with underlying operating costs up 33.2% on the PCP, driven by the 52% or AUD 2.9 million increase in marketing costs, which as Mike mentioned, led to a strong uplift in new players. A 33% or AUD 3.5 million increase in employee costs, reflecting a combination of factors, including the establishment of a new senior leadership group, reflecting a mix of internal promotions and new hires, including expansion of the KMP, annual remuneration increases for staff and moderately higher turnover in a tight labor market, and expansion of the STI pool to include staff, all staff.
There was a resumption of travel following the easing of international border restrictions and other reconciling items for operating costs were up AUD 1.2 million, mainly reflecting the higher cost of insurance, the cost of the new debt facility, and share-based payments. Turning now to the balance sheet, where we continue to maintain a strong position underpinned by the organic cash generation of the business. The board has declared a fully franked dividend of AUD 0.205 per share, reflecting a payout ratio of 85.6% of statutory NPAT. As we flagged when we announced the acquisition of StarVale in January, following the completion of the transaction and effective from FY 2023, the board has resolved to adjust the targeted dividend payout ratio from 85% to a range of 65%-85% of statutory NPAT.
Today, as mentioned by Mike, we've also announced an on-market share buyback of up to AUD 25 million, which importantly still allows us to pursue our growth strategy. Finally, turning to cash flow, where the cash generative profile of the business is clearly evident with a free cash flow of AUD 38.2 million and greater than 100% cash conversion. On the right-hand side of the chart, on a pro forma basis, I have shown the key items expected to impact the group's cash balance, including the FY 2022 final dividend, StarVale acquisition, and the first tranche of our new senior debt facility. Should we draw down the AUD 30 million debt facility, we expect to remain in a net cash position. Business as usual CapEx was AUD 6 million, compared to about AUD 6.5 million in the PCP, and we expect this to be the range for financial year 2023. I'll now hand back to Mike.
Thanks, Dave. In conclusion, FY 2022 adds another year of strong revenue, profit and cash flow performance to our history. As the economic backdrop becomes more challenging and many question the discretionary nature of lotteries. I wanted to point out that the lottery industry has been very resilient to downturns in the past, with lottery share of household spend being relatively stable over the last decade. A quick look at Oz Lotto's performance following the game and price change in May. This slide shows the average revenue per player for jackpots less than or equal to AUD 10 million. We look at low jackpots and as they are a bellwether of underlying player health. You can see from the graph the players are spending more following the change, and we've seen no regression after increasing the price. Moving on to our FY 2023 outlook.
Firstly, on lottery retailing, the cost of sales will be impacted by the step-up in The Lottery Corporation service fee from 2.5% to 3.5% of the subscription ticket costs in line with our 10-year agreement. Marketing costs are expected to be in the range of 1.5%-2% of TTV. Clearly, if jackpots are favorable, we will most likely be at the upper end of this range and vice versa. Moving on to the group. The underlying group cost base, ex lottery retailing marketing costs and the increased cost base from Stride and StarVale is expected to be up 20%-22%, reflecting continued reinvestment in the business to drive growth. The underlying EBITDA margin, excluding acquisitions, is expected to be in the range of 48%-50%.
The reduction on the PCP mainly reflects the step-up in the service fee paid to The Lottery Corporation. This TLC service fee will remain a headwind for margins until it caps out at 4.65% in FY 2024. The margin dilution is a key focus for management, and we are focused on a number of levers, including game mix. We increased the price of Oz Lotto by a further AUD 0.05 atop the base price increase. Notwithstanding any future game changes, we'll continue to monitor player behavior closely and not rule out any potential out-of-cycle price increases. Growth. With international travel back on the cards, our business development team is actively exploring new business opportunities. We have also made some personnel changes targeted at growth.
Richard Bateson will transition from his role as Chief Commercial Officer to an advisory role with Jumbo, reporting directly to me and allowing me to be more involved in international opportunities. I'm also very pleased to announce the appointment of Abby Perry to the new role as Chief People Officer. Abby joined Jumbo six years ago and will be responsible for continuing to drive our people strategy, particularly as we become a more global business. Costs. Jumbo started off with a single computer and has grown into the business it is today. Cost control is one thing we're good at. The vast majority of our planned spend is on driving growth internationally. We have also reduced our focus on Jumbo Fundraising Australia, demonstrating our cost discipline, and we'll look at other opportunities in the market.
As previously advised, regulatory approval for our acquisition of StarVale is still pending from the U.K. Gambling Commission. However, we remain confident of receiving this by the end of Q1 FY 2023. Finally on capital. Our balance sheet remains strong and the combination, debt headroom, strong cash generation profile, and revised dividend payout ratio enables us to continue to invest in the business, provide capacity for further M&A, and return cash through dividends and share buyback. I'll now hand back over to the operator to open up for Q&A.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star -one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star -two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from David Fabris from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi, Mike. Hi, Dave. I've got a couple of questions. Just starting off, with Australian lotteries, we think the volumes are down around 20% in the first seven weeks of trade this year, in particular Powerball, which hasn't seen a jackpot above AUD 20 million. Can you comment on how you're seeing spend in your customer base? Then secondly, how do you think about marketing spend with low jackpots? I mean, you've given us a guidance range versus TTV, but if volumes are down 20%, does that mean you'll be willing to drop below that target range in that period? C an you help us try to understand that moving part in the business as well?
Yes, sure, David. You're right, the jackpots are lower for the first couple of months compared to the PCP. Powerball was particularly strong in financial year 2022. As you say, we've only had one Powerball so far at AUD 20 million. In terms of marketing, relative to the lower jackpot and expected TTV, what you'll see is that the marketing spend will trend towards the lower end of that range. We don't think that we'll drop below the bottom end of it. It'll just trend to the bottom side of it.
Got you. Can you comment on whether you're seeing the same impact on your customer base with the drop in volumes we're seeing in lotteries in the first couple of months of trade?
Well, yeah, look, there's always a correlation between the jackpots and player activity and spend. But nothing that we haven't seen before. It is a light run in this financial year for sure. But with the new Oz Lotto game, you know, at longer odds, you know, can't last like this forever. We do expect that the jackpots will return because the underlying odds are basically in the favor of increasing those jackpots. You know, time will bring that back to more of an equilibrium.
Yeah. Got you. Makes sense. Just with the buyback, are you trying to signal to us that you're pausing M&A in the near -term, or do you think we can concurrently see M&A?
Not at all. We're still pedal to the metal on M&A. In fact, I'm getting a lot more involved in it myself. Yeah, we're still very much pushing ahead with our M&A, running the rule over quite a few opportunities that we're seeing. With the success that we're seeing with Stride and even StarVale looking really good on top of Gatherwell, we think we've got the right formula there.
Okay. Just one last question, just on the M&A pipeline, can you remind us of potential deal sizes and where you think the acquisition and multiple ranges might be sitting at the moment?
Yeah, look, we're looking at all different sizes, but our preference is for deals around the size that we've around StarVale. Maybe a little bit bigger, maybe a little bit smaller. You know, there are plenty of businesses around about this size that we think will fit quite nicely.
Any comment on acquisition multiple ranges?
Yeah. We'll keep on trying to, you know, can get them at those attractive rates, you know, a sub-nine multiple. We think that can be achieved.
Yeah. Okay. A little bit higher than where you were previously, but I'll leave it there with questions. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Matt Ryan from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Hi, Mike. Hi, Todd. Just trying to get a sense of, I guess, the margin outlook from here. I think in your outlook commentary, you sort of suggested that the step down from FY 2022 to FY 2023 guidance is primarily the increased service fee to Tabcorp. I guess from your comments a little bit earlier, we can sort of conclude that cost inflation or the amount that you're investing, you know, is increasing. Just from a high level over the next few years, are you sort of anticipating that those rising costs get met with revenue growth? I guess the guidance for FY 2023 margins is sort of reflective of where we might be over the next few years? You know, how do we think about, I guess, the outlook from that perspective?
Yeah. Matt, that's quite correct. It's obviously, through lottery retailing, it still contributes the major component to revenue for the group and mainly because of the step up in the TLC service fee. It is a headwind for margins. As a result for the group, as well, we will see margins under pressure until 2024. After that, 2025 onwards, we expect to see the operating leverage kick in, and we will then see a rise in those EBITDA margins going forward.
Okay. That's really helpful. Thanks. Just another question on the buyback. I guess I'm just trying to understand what the motivation was to announce that, I guess today relative to maybe, you know, six months ago or a year ago. I think the question is probably more about the speed at which you acquire new businesses. You know, I understand there's potentially a lot of targets out there. Is there something in particular that's stopping you from proceeding with more investments? You know, and I don't want to put words into your mouth, but are you trying to digest, I guess, what you've sort of done so far o r is it price? I guess, what's the key reason that you've chosen to do a buyback rather than pursue some of those other opportunities?
Well, the thing is, Matt, that, you know, in the lottery industry, things happen at a certain pace, and, you know, not as fast as many other industries. We do need to make sure that we run the rule over these opportunities very carefully. You know, one bad acquisition, you know, that doesn't respect their partners or their players, you know, would not be a good move for us. It's just the time it takes to run through the opportunities to make sure we get the good ones. Obviously we've picked the sort of the best ones first, and we're sort of running down the list now. But yeah, look, that's just how long it takes. We think we've got about the right pace of acquisitions going forward. We've got plenty of opportunities there. If you go too fast, there's a real danger that you could mess it up. You know, our ideal outcome is that we can continue to do, you know, with whatever comes after StarVale with the same success that we've seen so far.
Matt, just a couple of other points on it as well. One is in terms of the timing. Now just seems to be the right time to be able to do an on-market share buyback when we have a look at the intrinsic value of the business and where the shares have been trading, you know, over the last three months or so. Yeah, we've got a fairly large cash reserve. Some might even think that the balance sheet is a little bit lazy. There is surplus cash that we can utilize for that, as well as being able to consider returning cash to shareholders through the dividend payout, and also acquire other companies. You know, we've got the debt facility over there, which, while interest rates have been increasing, it's still a relatively cheap form of finance. It gives us a lot of flexibility in terms of what we can do for capital management. Those are sort of the main reasons around the rationale for going with an on-market share buyback now.
Okay, that's really helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Rohan Sundram from MST Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi, Mike and team. Just one from me. Around the M&A outlook, a continuation on what you've already said. Just given that I appreciate there's not too many managed services providers in this space, do you feel that with a few more acquisitions, there is an opportunity to be one of the major players, say, in two or three years' time? How are you perceiving that opportunity for you?
Yeah, it is a possibility to be a major player. I mean, just with the acquisition of StarVale, you could almost say that we're a major player in the charity space in the U.K. already. There's still a few more. You know, the nature of the lottery industry is that the lottery or the charity partners that we work with are very loyal and it's very difficult or very time-consuming to convince them to leave their current provider and go over to us. While the organic side has been ticking along, it's certainly a big time saver to go out and acquire these businesses. As I said earlier, we just gotta do it at the right pace. Yeah, still plenty of runway there on the M&A front, in the U.K. as well as in Canada, and, you know, we're even looking beyond. No concerns there.
Thanks, Mike.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Daniel Seeney from Q Value Equity Research. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good day, guys. I was just hoping you could give us an update on how much share online can take from offline over the near- term, given the recent run of a few strong years for online penetration?
Well, if you look at last year, it went up five percentage points or about 15%. Look, to me, that's about the right pace. Obviously, it's highly dependent on jackpot runs. You know, a low jackpot run will decrease that and a strong jackpot run might even increase that. But you got to look at it over the long term. You know, I've been in the business for 20 years, and I've seen periods with high jackpot runs and very low jackpot runs, and the numbers always win at the end of the day, given enough time. You know, five percentage points I think is a pretty good one. We're also entering that sort of that middle spectrum of the life cycle, where it's up by over 1/3 and it's on, i t's marching towards the 2/3 mark, which is usually the fastest pace. You know, between here and say, 2/3 penetration, I think should be quite buoyant.
Okay, thank you. Just on the balance sheet, the business is always historically run with net cash. You know, what do you think is a reasonable level of gearing that this business should or could carry, and is the board's view on that changing at all?
Daniel, I think the board has always been happy having some debt on the balance sheet. It's just been a matter of timing and opportunity more than anything else at this stage. I think we're pretty comfortable with the level that we have obtained, which is AUD 50 million at the moment, AUD 30 million for the StarVale acquisition, and then AUD 20 million is available for any subsequent acquisitions that we make.
Great. Thanks very much.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star- one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from James Bales from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
H i, guys. I had a question on the software side. Across both SaaS and Gatherwell, we haven't seen a lot of operating leverage, and particularly Gatherwell, you've seen EBITDA basically flat while TTV and revenue are growing at a really decent clip. I guess my question is, firstly, why is that? Secondly, is there any read-through from these data points for the growth profiles and leverage that we should expect on Stride and StarVale?
Yeah, James, for Gatherwell, the reason for that flat EBITDA margin growth really is for two reasons. One is the investment in marketing, and the other is investment in people. Now, both of those are to underpin future growth, so we do expect to see the operating leverage in financial year 2023, 2024, and going forward, so that EBITDA margin should increase. Both StarVale and Stride have EBITDA margins of around the 40% level. Now, we do expect to put some investment into both of those companies, and it'll be in the same areas, marketing and people as well. There might be a slight dip in the EBITDA margin in 2023, but again, it's to underpin future growth, so that'll pick up the year after.
James, I might add to that, you know, that's part of buying a private company and transforming it into a subsidiary of a public company. You know, we're changing gears so that we can look for longer -term growth as opposed to, you know, the private company where it's sort of pretty much run on a shoestring. The investment in marketing and people, you know, is essential and then gives it a really good runway to go forward from here on in.
With that reinvestment, once you start getting operating leverage back into StarVale and Stride, what terminal margins do you think are realistic for those sort of businesses?
Yeah, can't really say at the moment, James. Yeah, just other than that, we think it'll be higher than where we are at the moment.
Higher than the 40% that they're doing standalone?
Yeah.
All right. Thanks for your help, guys. Appreciate it.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.