Earnings Call: H2 2020

Aug 27, 2020

Thanks very much. I'd like to thank you all for joining this call for the Pointsworth Holdings Limited investor update and full year 2020 results. This is Sam Swanell, Group CEO, and I'm joined today by our CFO, Andrew Mellor and Eric Foote, U. S. Chief Commercial Officer, who is joining us from Denver, Colorado. Please note we will not be holding a question and answer session on this call. As released earlier today, we are thrilled to announce our transformational five year media partnership with NBCUniversal. This provides PointsBet with deep access and integration into NBCUniversal's world leading broadcast and digital assets. NBCUniversal is one of the most iconic and trusted media brands in The United States with the largest sports audience of any U. S. Media company, accessing over 184,000,000 viewers. As part of the agreement, PointsBid is committing over five years to a minimum of USD 3 and 93,100,000.0 in media spend. Importantly, this amount is progressively weighted towards the back end of the five year term, aligning marketing spend to PointsBet's expansion into new U. S. States. Pleasingly, this partnership has been cemented by NBCUniversal seeking a significant equity stake in PointsBet, with shares representing 4.9% to be issued upon shareholder approval and an additional 66,880,000.00 options, which, if exercised in full for cash after year five, will result in an additional $870,000,000 of funds being received by PointsFit. I will now hand over to Eric Foote to provide an overview of NBCUniversal's world leading sports broadcast and digital media assets. Thank you, Sam. Turning to slides five and six, we believe NBCUniversal is the perfect partner for PointsBet to execute our US media, customer acquisition, and retention strategy. NBCUniversal reaches 100% of all US households with their digital platforms having over 60,000,000 monthly active users. NBCUniversal has a diverse mix of media assets that are local, regional, and national platforms. This will allow PointsBet the ability to geo target and customize local, regional, and national marketing campaigns. PointsBet's access to exclusive broadcast and digital integrations across NBCUniversal's expansive portfolio of live sports rights, builds trust and credibility in the PointsBet brand. NBCUniversal has an incredible array of rights to live sports broadcast with their diverse and market leading portfolio, including the NFL, PGA Tour, NHL, English Premier League, and NASCAR, to just name a few. These rights are distributed across national broadcast and cable networks, including the Spanish language Telemundo network, regional sports networks, local television stations, and expansive digital platforms, including Peacock, a direct to consumer streaming service that includes live sports, and Roto World, a sports betting news and information subscription service. Turning to slide eight. As can be seen, NBCUniversal has an expansive footprint across The United States. As PointsBet scales with the burgeoning US sports wagering opportunity, the integration into NBCUniversal media assets will lead to improved acquisition and retention efficiencies. This delivers a distinct competitive competitive advantage. Planning is already underway to execute with NBCUniversal for our launch in Chicago and across Illinois through both the NBC Sports and Telemundo broadcast networks and digital platforms. Turning to slide nine. It is clear that NBCUniversal's vast national, regional, and local broadcast networks provides PointsBet the ability to efficiently scale as our business grows and expands across The United States. The national reach builds the PointsBet brand, while the eight regional sports networks and 41 local broadcast stations, together with over 200 local affiliate stations, allows for targeted marketing campaigns and the ability to execute on relevant regional and team specific promotions, thus reducing spend wastage. Turning to slide 12. Regional sports networks, also known as RSNs, are cable television networks dedicated to providing sports programming to a specific geographic region, allowing fast reach with focused presence in key markets. NBC has one of the largest RSN networks in The United States, and PointsBet will have exclusive game day integration across them all. As RSNs are the exclusive place to watch local teams play in any given geography, they allow for customized messaging and integrations within pregame, in game, and postgame coverage. Turning to slide 13. NBCUniversal Telemundo network is a leading Spanish language broadcast featuring original content and live sporting events. Telemundo reaches 94% of The US Hispanic TV households across 210 different markets. Telemundo provides a strategic asset for PointsBet to reach the Hispanic betting population. This is significant given PointsBet partnership with La Liga North America and the fact that we currently have one of two of we are one of two wagering operators with a full Spanish language site. Turning to slide 15. We are excited to be the exclusive game day integration across NBCUniversal television networks. Integrations will include prominent pregame, halftime, and postgame features, virtual signage, and importantly, PointsBets odds integration across in game promotions and horizontal tickers, reaching over 80,000,000 viewers. Turning to slide 16. As noted earlier, NBC Sports digital properties reach more than 60,000,000 monthly average users. These high traffic, high growth digital assets include the direct to consumer streaming service Peacock, a full suite of sports focused mobile apps, and national and regional podcast services providing exclusive integration opportunities allowing PointsBet to connect with sports fans 24 a day. Turning to slide 17. As part of the partnership, PointsBet will provide content integration and strategic digital media inventory across Peacock, a direct to consumer streaming service launched in July featuring NBCUniversal content, original series, news programs, and live sports. Think Netflix, Netflix, but for live sports. Sports related offerings on Peacock will range from live sports to documentaries to studio shows as well as nightly curated highlights for fans. As more live sports content is distributed via digital platforms, Peacock is well placed to add additional live sporting content to its offering. In addition to this existing premier content such as NFL, the Olympics, and English Premier League. This allows PointsBet to integrate and reach an expanding audience. Turning to slide 18. NBCUniversal's Predictor is a free to play sports mobile app with over 1,000,000 downloads and 630,000 monthly active users and will be designed to enhance the NBC Sports enhance the NBC Sports live viewing experience. PointsBet has full marketing and advertising, exclusivity across all categories, not just sports betting on this Predictor app. Given the demographic of users, this represents a valuable foundation to build the PointsBet brand and for qualified lead generation and acquisition. Now referencing slides twenty three and twenty four. To highlight the benefits of this transformational partnership, we are working in conjunction with NBCUniversal to build a media plan and strategy for our launch in Illinois. This will include exclusive local and regional broadcast rights for iconic franchises with NBC Sports Chicago, which includes the Chicago Bulls of the NBA, Chicago White Sox of the Major League Baseball, and the Chicago Black Sox Blackhawks of the NHL. NBCUniversal's rich and diverse assets across the Bulls, Blackhawks, and Whitehawks will allow PointsBet to dominate the Chicago media market with exclusive game day integrations and a significant share of voice across broadcast media elevating the PointsBet brand. Additionally, the NBCUniversal digital assets are a key competitive advantage in a largely populated sport centric city such as Chicago. This combination in conjunction with PointsBet's four retail sportsbook locations and market leading technology, will result in a significant competitive advantage. I will now hand back to Sam for some concluding remarks on this transformational partnership. Thanks, Eric. Turning to Slide 25. To summarize, PointsBet will become the official sports betting partner of NBCUniversal with exclusive live sport integrations. We will have exclusive game day integrations across all NBC Sports regional networks, exclusive partner of NBC Predictor free to play mobile app, first rights to new NBC properties, platforms and products, premium placement and agreed pricing across NBC Sports Television and digital assets majority of category advertising placements, known as share of voice, across NBCUniversal's key sports media assets. Now turning to Slide 26. Through this partnership, Portspec gains access to market leading linear assets which span 184,000,000 viewers and digital assets which span 60,000,000 monthly active users. These assets will act as the cornerstone of our marketing strategy and, combined with our in house technology and products as well as our talented and experienced team, will deliver outstanding client acquisition and retention efficiency as we scale rapidly over the next five years. Turning to Slide 28. This slide reflects the sports wagering and iGaming market opportunity over the term of the NBCUniversal partnership to 2025. This opportunity is predicted to be at least USD 12,100,000,000.0 of annual gross gaming revenue. This is the immediate opportunity in front of us, and we are more confident than ever of achieving our target market share. Turning to Slide '29. We can see what the market opportunity can become longer term at maturity. Sports betting market size gross gaming revenue estimates have materially increased from $17,000,000,000 in 2019 to twenty seven billion dollars in 2020, and the potential for buy gaming is clear to see. I will now talk to our full year financial results as lodged with the ASX a short time ago. All figures in this presentation are in Australian dollars unless otherwise stated. Turning to Slide 33. It's clear to see that I am thrilled with our progress. The group handled over $1,000,000,000 in turnover, finishing the year at $1,150,000,000 up 103% on PCP. Improved net margin of 7.1% meant that net wind growth exceeded turnover growth, rising 191% to $82,000,000 As shown on Slide 34, it currently has market access in 12 states, up from five states at thirty June 'nineteen. As evidenced by Slide 35, PointsBet is well positioned for future growth. The Australian trading business delivered an annual positive EBITDA of 6,900,000.0 within three years of launch. This achievement should not be underestimated in an established and highly competitive market and speaks to PointsBet's expertise in strategy and execution. In New Jersey, PointsBet achieved FY 'twenty online handle market share of 6.25% as reported by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement. Because of the nuances of the New Jersey media DMA, this has been achieved without a full brand building marketing strategy in that state. In addition to today's NBCUniversal announcement, the company previously became an approved gaming partner of the NBA, MLB, PGA TOUR and the official and exclusive sports betting partner of Oliga North America. The company entered into partnerships with the Detroit Tigers MLB team, Indiana Pacers NBA team, and the Conkey Sports Entertainment Group, which owns the Denver Nuggets NBA team, the Colorado NHL team, and the Pepsi Center. In Australia, the company became the exclusive wagering partner for FOX Sports AFL during the twenty twenty AFL season and entered into a partnership with Trainer seven to become the exclusive Victorian Odds integration partner for the autumn and spring Carnival national horse racing coverage. Touching briefly on Slide 36. As can be seen, it has been an incredible journey since launching our first product in just February 2017. These key achievements are a testament to the bench strength and dedication of the Pointsbeck global team. Turning to Slide 37. Until the suspension of key global sports from 12/2020, I was pleased with the growth in active clients across the Australian and U. S. Businesses. However, the sport suspensions from March 2020 clearly had a direct impact on client acquisition and client activity for the remainder of the reporting period. In The U. S, due to the lack of premium sporting content for clients to bet on and the reduction of marketing spend that followed, lower activity naturally resulted from March 2020. In July and August 2020, as a result of the return of major sporting leagues and the reengagement of targeted marketing spend, higher activity higher active client activity has resulted. As can be seen on the right hand side of Slide 36, during the twelve months to twenty five August twenty twenty, the company had 134,799 active clients, a substantial increase from the June 30 reported number. I will now hand over to our Chief Financial Officer, Andrew Melo, to run through the details of our result. Thank you, Sam. Before I talk to the group statutory normalized results for the reporting period, I would like to walk you through the trading performance for the Australian and U. S. Businesses over the period. Turning to Slide 39. The Australian trading business performed exceptionally well, achieving a record net win for the year of seventy five point one million dollars up from 159.4% from the PCP. Net win margin of 9% was up from 5.9% in the PCP, representing a record yearly net win margin for the Australian trading business. In particular, Q4 saw extremely strong performance, predominantly driven by improvement in PointsBet's overall product offering and the shift of wagering spend online. For the reporting period, the Australian trading business had marketing expenses of $20,100,000 slightly less than onethree of the full year net win of $75,100,000 We've previously communicated that our business model seeks to achieve a marketing expense and net win ratio of approximately 30%, and we were thrilled to be able to deliver this in FY 'twenty. After deducting GST, net revenue for Australia for the reporting period was $68,200,000 As Sam mentioned, pleasingly, the Australian trading business achieved its inaugural annual positive EBITDA of $6,900,000 Turning to Slide 41. PointsBet U. S. Recorded a net revenue of $7,000,000 which represented just over 9% of group net revenue. This is compared to a net revenue loss of $700,000 in the PCP. In The U. S, PointsBet achieved a gross win margin of 5.1% and net win margin of 2.2% in FY 'twenty off the back of March of turnover, referred to as Handle in The US. This was PointsBet's first full financial year of trading in The US since brand launch in late January twenty nineteen. US marketing expenses were 15,300,000.0 Australian dollars circa 10,000,000 to 11,000,000 US dollars for the reporting period. The majority of this spend was in New Jersey, although we did allocate approximately 20% of total U. S. Marketing expense to national brand campaigns. As previously communicated, we significantly reduced our marketing expenses in Q4 compared to our pre COVID expectations. As the major U. S. Sports resumed in Q1 FY 'twenty one, we've increased our marketing spend in target U. S. States. In New Jersey, PointsBet's financial year online handle market share was 6.25% as reported by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement. Now turning to Slide 42, our group normalized results. For the reporting period, PointsFed reported net revenue of $75,200,000 a growth of 193% versus the PCP. Gross profit of 38,200,000.0 represented growth of 252% over the PCP. Gross profit margins for the Australian trading business have remained consistent on the PCP. As our U. S. Business grows, we expect our U. S. Gross profit margin to improve as the business reduces promotions as a percentage of gross win and grows its net win in absolute terms. As I've previously mentioned, Australian marketing expense for the reporting period was 20,100,000.0 and The U. Marketing expense was $15,300,000 Employee benefits expense increased over the period across all areas of the business as the group continued to build a world class team. As betting volumes have increased, costs associated with developing, posting, operating and securing our technology and data platforms have increased for the reporting period versus the PCP. The normalized group EBITDA loss, excluding significant items, was $37,600,000 and the statutory group EBITDA loss was $39,700,000 for the reporting period. Segment statutory EBITDA is set out on Slide 43. Our balance sheet. The balance sheet was strengthened over the reporting period, and as a result, the group had net assets of $177,100,000 as at the June 30. Intangible assets predominantly comprise our capitalized U. S. Licenses and market access fees, and the total cost of intangible assets increased by $44,800,000 during the reporting period. Further, the company completed a successful capital markets transaction in November 2019, raising $122,000,000 As at the June 30, the company had $135,400,000 corporate cash and no borrowings. Turning to Slide 45. Net cash outflows from operating activities in the year ending thirty June twenty twenty was $30,300,000 net cash outflows from investing activities was $21,400,000 and net cash inflow from financing activities was $118,300,000 as has been previously reported in the Appendix 4Cs lodged during the reporting period. I will now hand back to Sam for some further comments. Thanks, Andy. It really has been a great period of continued progress for PointsBet. Moving to Slide 47. PointsBet continues to execute on its strategic and operational objectives. Since listing in June, the company's strategic objectives have included gaining additional U. S. Market access, achieving strong market share in New Jersey, launching operations in additional U. S. States, reaching profitability in the Australian trading business and executing a media deal with a market leading U. S. Media company. Following today's announcement, I'm pleased to announce that we've delivered on all five objectives. It's an exciting time for our business, and I'd particularly like to thank PointsBet's staff globally for their outstanding work and dedication over the last twelve months. I thank you for your time and interest in PointsBet.