Okay. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to this investor update call on April the 3rd. My name is Mark Stanger, I'm the CEO of 5th Planet Games, and I'm really pleased that you're able to join me this morning for the call. Hopefully, this won't be the most entertaining or the most interesting slide that you see this morning.
We have to put it up at the start of all of our presentations. It's our disclaimer slide, but it does serve to prompt me to say that this presentation will be available to view again or to download immediately at the end, and you can find it on the 5th Planet Games website. Please check it out there. Here's the agenda that I put together for this morning's call.
I want to spend a few minutes just looking at some of the highlights from the 2022 annual report that we released last Thursday. I'm going to take the opportunity to revisit some of the strategy that we've spoken about in recent meetings. We've spoken about it several times, I'm aware it's quite some time since we've looked at that strategy, I'm going to do that again this morning. I'll spend a couple of minutes focusing on the things that we have to look forward to this year in 2023 and in the coming months.
As we move towards a close, there's two slides, one where I'm very clear on where my focus is as CEO for the coming months, and then a summary slide, which hopefully wraps up all of the details from last year. Then we'll close, as we always do, with me providing my contact details and my email address. I always get a number of emails with questions and queries coming out of these presentations, and I look forward to receiving those again.
This slide, I look at some of the highlights from the 2022 annual report that we submitted and released last Thursday. The first point there is, I guess, the most significant, and it's the one on which we're ultimately judged, and that is that we now have a profitable business. We turned around a loss from the financial year 2021 of DKK 9.5 million into an EBITDA profit last year of DKK 1.7 million. That's a significant turnaround in itself. In the course of doing that, we also strengthened our cash position.
Cash on hand at the end of 2021 stood at just over DKK 13.5 million. Cash on hand at the end of last year went up to DKK 36.3 million. Within that, we recognize the Tranche 2 and Tranche 3 payments coming from Skybound as a result of their investment agreement in 2021. What's very pleasing to me is that we've achieved all that while at the same time, we've maintained our strict control of all the costs associated with operating the business.
In fact, we closed 2022 with our costs at a historically low level. A combination of the financial performance of the business and the pipeline of opportunities that we've now got in front of us, I believe is giving us a really solid platform for profitable growth. We've already got exciting new releases confirmed for 2023.
We've got a growing and actively managed back catalog of games, and we'll continue to keep all the costs associated with operating the business closely monitored and under strict control. Here I just wanted to go back and restate, revisit, the strategy that we have as a business and how we approach our publishing activity. I really want 5th Planet to continue to be a relatively small and extremely agile publishing entity.
We address some very fast-moving dynamic markets, and I want us to be able to react quickly when we choose to enter the market with a new game. Whenever we do enter the market with a new game or any new product, I want us to be able to make an impact above our size. This notion of punching above our weight is really important to me.
I think we've already got examples of where we've done that, and I want to continue to do that. We've built a solid catalog of content, and we've done that with a real focus on quality, putting quality first. We've presented high quality games to a global audience. Those games have themselves come from really high quality teams that have developed that content, and we look to publish on the broadest range of platforms that we can.
We also look to optimize all the opportunities that are presented by each and every release and look to work them as hard as we can. We've seen a great example of that recently with Before Your Eyes, and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a second. Also, k ey to our strategy, and we've mentioned this again, is that we'll manage costs, all the costs involved in operating the business very strictly. We'll continue to proactively manage our back catalog. Our back catalog is one of the most precious assets that we have as a business. We'll continue to work it as much as we possibly can.
In this slide we take a look forward into the rest of 2023. I honestly feel there's a lot to look forward to here. We've got more high-quality new releases that we bring into market that have already been confirmed and announced. Glitch Busters: Stuck on You, WrestleQuest, and the brand-new game based on The Walking Dead IP.
There's also going to be new opportunities for games that have already released, and we've seen that very recently with Before Your Eyes and being selected as a launch title for Sony and their PlayStation VR2, and we'll see it again with Escape Academy and the new content that's going to roll out for that game in the coming months.
There will be many more new games signed and announced as we run through this year, all with a very firm commitment to quality first, both in terms of the game and the developer that's bringing that game to us. As a result of all of that, we feel that the real story is starting to be written here at 5th Planet.
Myself and the board are looking at a number of opportunities to go into the investment market and start to tell that story in the shape of an investor roadshow, and I'll be able to talk more about that in the coming months. There's other more strategic deals and partnerships that we're currently reviewing, and again, I look forward to sharing more details of those with you soon. As a result of all that, where is my focus as CEO as we move into Q2 of this year?
The first point that you see there for me is the most important by some way, and that's to maintain the profitability that as a business and as a management team, we've worked really hard to achieve. That's going to come as a result of working the precious assets that we have, the content that we have, as hard as we possibly can, keeping strict control of costs and continuing to build on the foundations that we've now laid. It's really important to me also as CEO that we continue to deliver on the promises that we've made as a business.
That means delivering the new games, continuing to drive the back catalog, and achieving the financial results and the targets that we've set ourselves. If you look at the 2022 annual report, you'll see that we have given guidance for the remainder of this year. We're very focused on continuing to grow the pipeline of new content. We're in the market. We keep our eyes open, our ears close to the ground. Remain vigilant for new opportunities, new publishing opportunities that are right for 5th Planet, we'll continue to do that.
As I mentioned in the previous slide, we believe that there's a really compelling story that's being written here, and we are going to look at opportunities to go more widely into the investment market and start to tell that story. That's where my focus is as we go through the next few months. I'm starting to wrap up here, and I offer this as a summary of the annual report that we released last Thursday. What I think that report says, proves, is that we've worked hard to create a now profitable business.
We've significantly broadened our product base and reduced our risk in doing that, our publishing risk, and we've given ourselves a solid foundation for growth in both the financial performance of the company and the product pipeline that we've now created. We've done all of that at the same time as we've tightly controlled all the costs associated with the business, and we'll continue to do so. We've undoubtedly proven the value of the partnership that we have with Skybound.
The point that I made on the previous slide as a result of all of that, we now really feel that we have a story to tell, and we'll be going out in the coming months to tell that story. That brings me to the end of the presentation. I'm sharing here, as I always do, my contact details, including my direct email address.
You're very welcome to contact me directly with any questions or queries that you have. I always look forward to hearing from you, and I will do my best to respond to each of those emails as quickly as I possibly can. Otherwise, look forward to speaking to you again soon and giving further updates in the coming weeks. Thanks for joining us this morning.