Hi. Welcome to the half year results of Excel Media. My name is Stuart Sims. I'm the CEO and I'm joined today by Rowan Ellis, who is our interim CFO. We're going to walk you through the results and give you some more background on all of the things that we've been working on in the first half of this year.
Hi. Firstly, I just wanted to reacquaint you with our ambition. Our ambition is to use data and behavioral insights to matchmake consumers with products and services that they love. And then let me just give you a quick insight into XL Media. We operate across 3 verticals.
We're present in over 23 countries. And we've recently, I'm going to talk about this in more detail throughout the presentation, really focused on high quality branded assets and having a portfolio of Assets and Brands that operate globally. We're headquartered in the U. K. And we've got this growing presence in the U.
S. That's foundational to our growth story. Again, I'm going to unpick that in a bit more detail a bit later on. So just to talk through some of the operating highlights. We had a really solid performance in H1.
Obviously, we had well documented challenges in last year. And we're recovering from that and now seeing across all of our assets this continued improvement. We also underwent a significant equity raise, which allowed us to really continue to grow and accelerate our sports division in the U. S. And then coupled with that, we've taken the opportunity for some of the easing around the COVID restrictions and some of the opportunities that we have to now reinvigorate the business and reorganize.
And I'm going to spend some more time on talking about that a bit later on. But really, the net net, We've got solid growth going into the second half of the year. We're restructuring the business and we've added to our portfolio. And then since H1, we've also done further acquisitions and we're announcing another one today, Blue Claw, of which I'm going to talk about later about how that's really helping us evolve some of our operations within the company. And I'm also going to then unpick with the help of Rowan, some of the we've been asked a lot of times by investors to give a bit more detail around some of the moving pieces that we're wrestling with and give more insights on the trajectory of the business.
So we're going to spend some time talking about that a bit later on as well. So just to go through the strategy. So we've talked quite often about having 2 Key corporate objectives last year that came on into this year as well, which is portfolio management premium branded assets. Now I will talk about that at a high level now, but we've spent a lot of time talking about these in the past. But just to reacquaint you again with them, premium branded That means that we're really focusing on quality over quantity.
We've gone from 3,500 websites down to less than 100 And we've optimized our teams, as you'll see later in the slide deck, to really support those quality assets, improving editorial content, Rich media, user generated content and making sure that we can really do a great job in bringing those brands to life. In addition to that, we've talked a lot about our portfolio management. So making sure that we operate in immature markets, mature markets with a focus on regulation. We've made a very significant transformation in that regard over the course of the last year. Again, I think Rowan is going to talk about that in his presentation.
But the bit that I wanted to add in for the first half of this year is that we came into this year having really started to bed down those first two corporate objectives by adding a third one, which is really thinking about how do we create an operating platform that all of our assets and our network can sit on in the future to provide and fuel growth, de risk our business, whilst also helping us diversify our revenue Dreams and adding in new business models. So we're going to talk about that today in a bit more detail. And that's the 3rd corporate objective that we've now added. And that is really people, operations and data become a core part of what we do and how we do it. Okay.
So just to build on the evolved operating platform that we're investing in and have been investing in for a while, I just wanted to bring to life one of the key metrics We're going to be using to look at the productivity of the company. And the key KPI for us is the revenue per headcount. We've been tracking that for a while, and we're going to continue to look at it. And for us, what's most important is how do we look at the new money for headcount. So how efficient are our people and our assets at generating new revenues?
As you can see from this slide, we've made a sizable increase, 21% increase in H1 of this year versus H1 2020. And in 2020, that also included for a period of time our casino assets. So if we were looking at a like for like comparison, that would probably be even more. Now we're going to continue to track this, but this really underpins why it's so important for us to share best practice, technology and working sees as much as possible across our different asset classes to then improve their performance. It allows us to look at benchmarking.
It allows us to look at quality. It really does allow us to start to look through a different lens of the business. And then we might diversify this kind of KPI further to look at how many consumers are we passing across to the products and services per headcount. So expect us to come back to you more with these kind of metrics as we go forward. So firstly, let me just recap on one of the announcements that we made earlier in this month.
We acquired Saturday Football, a significant US asset, which complements really nicely the existing assets that we already had with Sports Betting Dime and CBWG. It's incredible to think that only a year ago, We didn't really have a significant US sports business and now arguably in terms of audience size, we're one of the largest affiliate groups in that's addressing the U. S. Market. So it's a brilliant testament to the change that we've driven into the company and to the team to be able to acquire these assets.
And now we're seeing the benefits of that as we're coming into H2. Saturday Football is really beneficial to us because it adds another audience for us, which is the college sports, into the mix and then allow us to then cross pollinate some of the assets that we've already got with that asset. In addition to that, I think we've mentioned this on previous investor calls, we get significant benefits from the relationships with operators by having scale. And we continue to see our CPAs continue to grow And we benefit from having this scale, not only through the owned and operated assets we've got, but we also continue to then grow our network. And SDS, as we mentioned, as part of the acquisition announcements came from having worked with us for a period of time and then joined our portfolio off the back of a successful working relationship.
So we're really, really excited about the U. S. Market in general and in particular, the assets we've acquired and can't wait to tell you more about it, the full year, as to how they've performed. Clearly, Low season for U. S.
Sports is during the summer months and September onwards is when things start to pick up again. So there'll be a lot more news on this in the trading update in January and then the full year results later in the year next year. In addition to that, as I mentioned earlier, to support the evolved operating platform that we talk about, we've had to recruit some key people. So we took a very calculated decision at the beginning of this year to refresh our C suite and complement with additional people on the board. So we're very fortunate to have brought Julie Mackie into the business as a non exec director with a huge level of experience in terms of people and HR as background.
As you know, One of our foundational elements is people. It's brilliant to have that capability reflected on the Board. In addition to that, we brought in Rowan on the finance side, Nigel to lead our Information Technology Group with a particular focus on data. Ken Dorward continues to grow his commercial influence by now taking on the role of Chief Growth Officer. And then we've added 2 new people into the mix.
1, Alia, who is running operations for us and is tasked with creating that platform and scaling it globally. And David Williver, who was the founder of Money Under 30, and we're lucky to have brought him back full time to now run our financial services business unit. So really exciting to see that Off the back of last year, we're able, off the back of the equity raise, to really attract some amazing talent into the business that will really help us deliver against our ambition and goals for the future. Now This is new for today. We're announcing the Blueklaar acquisition.
Personally, this is really exciting for me. It's our first acquisition of a UK asset. It's an award winning agency that has particular expertise in SEO, paid and also content marketing and PR. So Key areas for us as we think about this platform we're trying to create, Blue Claw come with an amazing talent within the business, but also Tried and tested workflow and processes to support the scaling of kind of best practices across all of our audience and assets and gives us a really nice hub in the north of England in the UK to start building a team out from. We've been working with them for a number of months already.
They went through a competitive process to be selected as an agency to support our European sports business. And off the back of that, We like them so much in working with them that we decided to bring them in house and then set them to work to help across multiple different assets. As I mentioned, I think this gives us not only access to significant talent in the UK, particularly in sports and casino, but also gives us an excellent agency that will provide material value to the assets that we already own and operate. So I wanted to spend a little bit of time, and we're going to spend more time on this at the full year and into next year, but just to talk about why data is so important to us as a company. We are putting data at the heart of everything we do.
We've been, over the 4th of the last 18 months, really thinking carefully about the data that we can generate on our sites and how we can use that to greater effect. We're putting it at the center of everything we do. We have a rich first party data capability that we can utilize not only to improve our current decision making, not only to improve the content, the engagement with the consumers to behaviorally understand them and be able to respond to that through recommendation or personalization engines. But also, it means that it is the Foundational element that means that we can start to look at automation and machines to then improve the yield and the performance of our assets going forward. So not the prettiest slide in the world, but hopefully this gives you the kind of view that when we're thinking about this investment in creating this platform It's a combination of data, the core platform apps and the network infrastructure that we've spoken about, particularly in the U.
S. Business. That then powers our owned and operated sites and assets and brands that we manage as well as 3rd party brands that we own and operate as well. And what's been fascinating over the course of the last few months is we've been running proof of concepts to utilize our data at scale to then try and drive Performance. And we've seen significant upsides in terms of the yield that gives us a lot of confidence that When we move our sites across onto this new platform, we get the opportunity to really start to see the benefits and improve productivity and driving that performance harder.
So just to finish up my section before we pass across to Rowan. As you can see, we're continuing to track against guidance for FY 2021, which is between CHF 65,000,000 CHF 70,000,000. Although EBITDA is going to continue to be slightly suppressed as we look at continuing with the transformation, building out that platform and creating that evolved company platform that we spoke about earlier. We're also taking full advantage of some of the restrictions around COVID to accelerate that transformation and try and bring as much of that into FY 2021 as we can with a view to then finishing up as much of the transformation work as possible within H1 of 2022. So on that note, I'm now going to pass across to Rowan, who's going to walk us through some of the financials.
Hi, I'm Rowan Ellis, Chief Financial Officer of XL Media. And I'm going to walk you through the numbers and H1 results. First up, we have the income statement. Our revenues in H1 'twenty one have shown a good increase of 16% compared to the same period last year. The 16% increase is driven mainly by U.
S. Sports, which of course has been positively impacted by recent acquisitions. As I move down, we will look at the gross profit margin, which I think is an important Ratio to look at, the gross profit margin has gone down from 60% to 57%. This is due to the acquisition of SPD acquired at a low season, low seasonality in sports, in U. S.
Sports. We took on 27 headcount and of course I expect that gross profit margin to correct itself as H2 To Lance with the seasonality improving in U. S. Sport. As we move down, we've Got operating expenses.
Operating expenses has shown an increase of CHF2 1,000,000. The CHF2 1,000,000 has been driven primarily By M and A acquisition costs and other transactional activity, which I'll get to later on in the slide, but also as a result of transformational expenditure, which we will also discuss later on in the presentation. Right. The next slide talks about the revenue mix. Now in line with our corporate objectives, which as you know, one of them was focus of quality over quantity, The slide depicts the fact that we have we now in 2021 have a far more balanced portfolio of assets and we've done this through fewer websites.
The next slide shows us different views of our revenue mix, which we've been talking about. On the left hand side, you have the vertical model And quite clearly there, you can see our focus on sports in H1 2021 and you can also see some growth in personal finance. So as a result, we've diversified, we've done more diversification on our verticals. Moving on to the middle, we've got our business model. This is ultimately our revenue streams.
And as you can see, our CPA has increased significantly, Which means that we aren't as reliant on rev share as we were before. Moving on to geography, the same story, just through a different lens. We have significant growth in North America and we expect that growth to continue as more states open up for business in the back end of 2021 2022. Just to bring to life the changes we've made to our business And I think Stuart alluded to most of them earlier on in the presentation. We've got a slide which talks about The variance between EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA.
Now if I could start on the M and A or portfolio management Corporate objective, we've done a significant capital raise during the year, which is really successful and we've done a rather complex acquisition in SPD And those both came with significant costs. Then moving to the left, we have transformation, but the core Corporate objective there is an evolved operating system. The core operating system is around technology, people and process. And we've Invested in H1 to achieve those and there'll be further investment in H2 and into the early part of 2022. So just to close then on the numbers side, I'm going to hand back to Stuart to wrap up.
Thanks, Rowan. I'm really excited. I think we've made some really solid progress this year. It's been refreshing to have moved from being very reactive in 2020 and then being enabled to become a lot more proactive in taking control of the situation in 2021. And we hope to carry that through to 2022.
As we've talked about, we're really optimizing the business to drive new revenue and diversify our revenue streams. And we're doing that through really solid progress on our corporate objectives, Portfolio Branded Assets and this new one around the evolved operating system for the company. And our business is derisked and more sustainable as a consequence. And we are playing in some really huge markets The as this particularly in the US sports, the states continue to develop and grow. That just means we have a huge opportunity just coming at us all the time that we can then benefit from.
And we're making sure that we put all the right operations and the right tools and the right processes in place to benefit from that significant growth and the market presence that we've already got. So many thanks for listening today. I'm very keen and interested to get your questions. So please make sure that you ask the right questions and look forward to speaking to you soon.
Thank you. We'll now start the Q and A session and we'll take questions which have come through Via the platform. First couple of questions. Can you provide an update on how you're rightsizing your casino assets? And is Tel revenue a realistic benchmark when reviewing your casino assets going forward?
Yes. So, the casino generally has been quite a well documented one over the course of the last 12 months. And, we took the decision at the beginning of this year to really focus the team on the assets that were live, ranking well and performing with a view to really then driving improved performance of those assets coming into H2. We've also right sized the business. So we've reduced the headcount associated with casino and made sure that we're carving out that business It's going to be domiciled in our Israeli office.
And good news is we're starting to see some positive signs on that investment and that focus coming into H2. And hopefully we'll be able to give some further news on that as we get into January's trading. But Key message is we are focusing on the assets that are already ranked performing well with a view to then driving them harder with the right team in the right
Is the traffic decline in Personal Finance temporary or structural? And is what's the current status on the potential sale of Finnish Casino Assets.
So we learned some really valuable lessons from Casino about how we should be restructuring and rightsizing sizing the business. And we've applied a similar methodology to Personal Finance. So, towards the tail end of last year, we looked at the Personal Finance business and made a conscious Decision that we were going to revamp the executive team that looked after that business. So Personal Finance obviously went after under Ken last year and then we hired David Williver back into the He was the founder of Money Under 30 earlier on this year during H1 to then lead that business unit and really take more of an editorial focus for it. He then has been working closely with us as an executive team to rebuild that team, moving it out of Israel into the U.
S. And Restructuring. One thing to bear in mind with Personal Finance is that it is all of the Virtually, all of the personal finance sites are on Palcom, our old platform. So we did envisage, especially as the latest Google updates Our type of performance, we did envisage that we might have a reduction in traffic off the back of that. Candidly, we didn't expect as big a hit by that change.
But actually, that change in impact to traffic has not necessarily impacted The bottom line or the revenue, in some ways our contribution margin for Personal Finance has gone up due to the restructuring. So from a profitability standpoint, I think we're actually going to be improving over the over H2. So in short, I believe personal finance will come back over the next 12 months back to a level that we have expected previously. And I feel really confident in the exec and leadership team that's now put in place and the team that we're building in the U. S.
To support it. There was 2 parts to that question. I can't remember
the second one. The sell and the Finnish Yes.
There's no plans at the moment to sell the finished assets. As I mentioned earlier, with regards to casino, we've rebuilt the
casino team. We've rightsized it. We're putting some real focus on those assets and that's paying dividends for us at the moment. So there's a couple of questions on M and A. What is the Value and rationale behind buying the recent U.
S. Acquisitions compared to other acquisitions from our competitors? And can you provide more Clarity on the company's general M and A strategy, possible pipeline and how you intend to balance creating shareholder value with usage funds.
Yes. I'll try and bring that to life by using US sports as an example because it's obviously a really hot market and it's kind of very pertinent to the conversation. Firstly, let me just kind of walk through the strategy that we talked through as part of the equity raise. So We talked about having a number of brands that operated across the US and allowed us to get really good coverage and intelligence on the audiences and the level of engagement across the different states. And Sports Betting Dime epitomizes that really nicely.
It's a Pan American brand. It's focused on betters. It has great tools, great technology, great products that we believe will give that coverage. We then said that we wanted to have community based assets, which CBWG again was a really good example where it works with fan bases On the local level in specific states that gives us great conversions in those states that are regulating. And we will continue to acquire owned and operated, kind of community based sites going forward.
And SDS is a really good example of that because it's an enormous audience that's focused on College Football. And that was a really good kind of complement to CBWG and SPD. Further to that, we will also look at sports specific assets to complement that. So whether that's tennis, NFL or if it's Golf, there may be other assets that we look at from a sports standpoint. But the most important piece is, so how do we go and create value?
Because at the moment, we just bought Are we really adding value to it or are we just kind of riding the wave of the US sports? And the answer is probably realistically a bit of both at the moment. But the evolved company platform or operating system that we're talking about is going to be crucial to powering and for more operating system that we're talking about is going to be crucial to powering increased levels of productivity and yield as more and more states regulate and as we get more assets. And that platform is really to make sure that we can utilize that really rich first party data that we get access to, to drive improved performance of the ad face that we have available to us both through the owned and operated sites and as importantly, the network, which has been a major component of our investment and will continue to be a core foundation of how we intend to build the business. So to answer the question, we're going to continue to acquire audiences that we believe we can monetize and have really good knowledge of.
We're going to continue to grow our network, which gives us improved levels of coverage and we're going to be deploying technology and data platforms to help and support improve the yield.
Please could you quantify the additional costs full year 'twenty one and full year 'twenty two? And please explain this It might be something that we can't answer, but I want to read it out. Please, can you explain the difference in the multiples of sales between, say, what Catina Media reports for Global Live Gaming, which Roughly 10 times sales and our recent acquisition of SaaSleeping will be roughly 6 times sales.
Yes. Thanks. In 2021, first half of the year, we had which is on the slides, we had a CHF 3,000,000 spend, A $3,000,000 gap between in the transformational M and A space. For H2, we expect that to increase to around the $4,000,000 mark. And that we can go into detail, but that's Investment in systems that Stuart's talked about to a large extent and it's across technology, finance, our back office functions And of course, there is some people transformational cost there as well.
We throw into the bucket An opportunity to do M and A, so it's the additional costs around M and A, consultancy spend, legal costs, etcetera, etcetera. And then in H1 2022, we expect an equivalent spend to H1 this year, which is that $3,000,000 to $4,000,000 spend as well. So that is driving our transformation. It's a significant cost, But we believe now is the time to do it.
And I'll pick up a bit on the Catena piece. So we don't typically Compare the multiples that we pay to others. Clearly, it does it's a consideration. But the thing that SDS, to bring SDS to life a bit more, we had been working with them since December of last year. So we had a really strong track record and knowledge of their business.
We knew how they were monetizing, where the opportunities for future growth was. We also were very comfortable in terms of working with the founders and understanding the trajectory and the kind of strategic plans for that business. So I think, you know, for us, the beauty of us having a network and having worked with some of these companies that come into our pipeline is that we really understand those businesses and how they tick before we bring them on board. And that gives us a really nice confidence level in terms of the multiples that we're paying.
Exelon has added U. S. Sports betting to the portfolio over the last 12 months. Are there any other new verticals that could be added in the medium term? So I
think we get asked this question a lot. The answer is I'm really keen to get the platform put in place first before we would explore any future for us. Form put in place first before we would explore any future verticals. I think that's crucial. We're not, in my mind, Flying as much as we should best practices and systems and tools across the assets that we currently own.
It's still patchy depending on the business unit. And our ambition for this, finishing up this transformation phase by the beginning by June of next year, is to really bed down that platform, prove it works in the verticals and the sub verticals in which we already operate. And then we might consider, Depending on progress, you know, and cash and balances and things like that, we may then consider going into other verticals. And I've spoken about with Envy, the likes of Future PLC, IAC Group and admire their business model. And I think they've taken a similar approach, which is to build a platform and then use that to then scale the assets they've got and we're going to do the same thing.
So in the foreseeable future, over the next sort of 6 to 9 months, we will continue with the verticals that we operate in, and then we might look further afield.
What kind of growth rates should we expect in the Sports business? And how do you see the mix of M and A and organic growth rates going forward.
So, I mean, Growth rates, if you look at the sports business in the U. S, is really predicated upon the speed at which we're seeing The federal governments regulate and that is snowballing. So I think we started the year with 6 or 7 and we're finishing the year with
Yes, it's end of last year in 9 states. Currently, we've got about 16 that are open. And then I think, I mean, it's obviously an undocumented timetable, but we believe between 2024 and 26 to be open by the end of the year. So that just shows you that the revenue that is out there to get.
If you think about how that then applies to growth rates, every time one of those states regulates and we're licensed for, and one of the key things that we're really good at is getting licenses, Not every company is either prepared to or is able to get licenses to be able to then benefit from Those states opening up and regulating, we get the benefit of that. And then with the existing assets that we've gotten through the network, we can then monetize those Changes in regulation immediately. So there's a really nice growth rate there that we can look at. And as Rowan mentioned, We're seeing an acceleration in terms of those states. Further to that, we do see that there's growth potential in both our European business organic through improved use of data and technology as we've spoken about.
We've done some POCs to be able to increase the yield on existing assets And that's looked very favorable. Now we're looking to scale that out under Nigel's guidance, which has been a major Benefit for having Nigel in the business to be able to craft that technology and data structure going forward, and we look to telling the market more about that in January.
Okay. A couple more questions on U. S. Sports. Legalized states may hit Mid-20s by the end of the year.
Could you describe how you're positioned to take advantage of the opportunity in those states and what you need to do, whether legally or marketing, To enter new states as they legalize.
So we really touched on this. The strategy that we've got is is a 4 pronged attack really. It's having a brand operates across the US that immediately benefits the likes of SPD, having local owned and operated brands like CBWG and SDS, and having sport specific brands that also allow us to target that. So naturally, as part of that, they all benefit when The individual states then regulate further to that having a network business that we are investing in and growing That's been a major, benefit for us as well because we get a revenue share agreement with media companies that have coverage in some of those states And off the as soon as they regulate, we get the opportunity to then monetize that.
And finally, on U. S. Forks' We're just trying to understand the revenue trajectory of U. S. Sports, particularly as we've now got 3 strong acquisitions and we're heading into the peak sports season.
Can we add any color on that? We can certainly give some color to CBWG, the way we've more than doubled the revenue since we acquired it
and we're seeing a really, really nice Going into this year, SDS early signs are good, but obviously it's only a few weeks in. And sports betting time was always going to be a slower burn. We bought it right at the end of this season last year. So coming into the lowest season in sports, we've been putting time, money and effort into improving conversion rates and making We see that continue to grow, but the 3 assets and plus the network working together, I think we're going to see some really nice So growth over the course of the next 6 months, which is the peak trading or peak season for U. S.
Sports. So we're really confident in that vertical. Rowan, anything to add?
No, that's exactly the position.
Have you become more encouraged about the potential of U. S. Assets, having owned them now for over 6 plus months?
Look, I've always as soon as I joined Exel Media, one of the First conversations that we have with the Board and our strategy was that we must get into the U. S. We must put U. S. Footprint and we really must invest in not only building the team, the capability to be able to support it.
And I'm really excited about what we're seeing. But more importantly, I can see huge potential. We're barely scratching the surface with with with our existing assets. And I'm a bit of a techie as you can probably guess. So I'm really excited about the power of using data and technology.
But more importantly, you look at what we acquired with Sports Betting Dime, we acquired a really good product team that's very capable of delivering technology that we can use across many of our different assets. So I also think that there is a product and technology play here that will also help accelerate some of the growth and the yield that we're getting from our existing assets. So It's not the individual or the audience, which is impressive in its own right. It's actually the capability that we're building. And over time, when we bring that together, I think we've got a very powerful story that we're going to be showcasing to the market over the next 12 to 18 months.
There's been a number of questions submitted online about Shareholder value and whether or not XL Media is moving in the right direction. So I'll just try and summarize it if you're a major late Let's talk about that. Given that we've had a number of years now of issues and challenges around whether it's Casino and Google and dealing with COVID and some of the aftermath of that. Do you feel that this is a line in the sand moment for the business in terms of Both rightsizing it and strategically positioning it for growth. And are we do you think we're In the right place in terms of driving future growth.
And can you give any more clarity on where you see the business is Or if there are any near term challenges to navigate?
So I'll give it a go and then you can. Sure. So the first sort of 15 months of my tenure, having joined in October 2019 through to December of last year, We were completely reactive to a number of issues and challenges, whether it's Google, whether it's COVID, whether it was, You know, hit after hit we seem to be trying to react to. Since December of last year and since the acquisition of CBWG, we've become a lot more Proactive. We've been very proactive in restructuring the business, rebuilding the executive team, doing further acquisitions, harmonizing those acquisitions and then restructuring and moving the audience centric teams closer to the customer and to the talent and to lower cost talent as much as possible.
So we really grabbed the ball by the horns in the first half of this year. We were really emboldened by the equity raise and the backing that we got from really significant shareholders. And that really then made us as a leadership team and executive team really push on hard in terms of driving the changes we knew we need to make and become a lot more proactive in driving that change. So for me, I think, You know, of course, there are things that we need to continue to address. I really want to see continued growth in casino.
I want to see our sports business growing again and really building a fantastic set of brands that we can really shout about to investors. And I'm really keen to see Personal Finance having domiciled into the U. S, put it under a new leadership team, start to thrive probably in Q1, Q2 of next year as it starts to rebound from a traffic standpoint. So for me, we are proactively driving the business hard. We're being very bold in the decisions with a view to pursuing the ambition that we laid out when I first joined the business.
And I think, you know, I look at I'm not as much of a techy as Stuart is, but I look at the business through a risk lens as well. And A lot of the strategy that Stuart's discussed and I've touched on, a lot of those strategic objectives, the transformation that we do is also about mitigating risk. And there's no time like the present to do that. And if you look at the slide that shows our revenue mix Split in terms of geography and our vertical, our vertical mix. The progress that we've made there is all about Mitigating our risk in revenue, in geo, in vertical.
So we're increasing sport. There's a downside on the casino business. We know about that. It's well documented. But we've got to look for other verticals To go out and get.
And sport is our focus at the moment. It may well be that we consider different verticals The time is right and we've got our platform. But we from my perspective, and the numbers are showing me this, as we move into those other areas and diversify Our business model, our portfolio and everything else, it puts us in a very strong position. So I'm happy with the direction of travel that we have at the moment. And we've also looked at the time.
We've taken a long a lot of consideration in looking at time to do transformation. And if you look at it through a risk lens, the time is now because we would rather protect our revenue and increase our cost base to get to a stable position or to get to a risk mitigation position, a better one. So that's my take on it.
Yes. And I think to kind of summarize, we are we can see an end to the transformation. I think there's nothing worse than coming on calls and talking about adjusted EBITDA and transformations. We want to bring that to an end and we now have a timeline for doing so. And we're being very bold about that fact.
And the and we as Rowan said, We derisked the business substantially both in terms of working practices, in terms of the assets we work in, the markets we operate in and having a more diverse portfolio, but also a smaller asset base to work with, which means that we can then put high quality working practices Platforms across those. So we're really encouraged about where we are. We've made some significant changes, more sustainable revenue, Perhaps slower growth and less margin than in the past, but a lot more predictable and a lot more sustainable. And I think that has always been the key ambition is to wrestle the business under control, which we did last year, and then really start to invest in it and grow it this year and beyond.
Thank you, Stuart. I think that Concludes the call. Thank you everyone for logging on and asking such pointed questions.
Very good. Thank you everyone.