Welcome to Asmodee Q4 Report 2024-2025. During the Q&A session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing #Key5 on their telephone keypad. Now, I will hand the conference over to CEO Thomas Kœgler and CFO Andrea Gasparini. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everybody. I'm excited to present Asmodee's Q4 report, our second interim report following our listing on Nasdaq Stockholm earlier this year. It's great to be back in Stockholm today together with Andrea Gasparini, our CFO. I will start with an overview of some highlights from the full year and fourth quarter, after which Andrea will walk you through the financials. I'll then return with a few concluding remarks before we open up for questions. Fiscal year 2024-2025 was a year of strong growth, novelties, and collaborations. From a financial perspective, we reached close to EUR 1.4 billion in sales, corresponding to an organic growth of 7.7%, above our expectations, as well as above our medium-term target. The adjusted EBITDA margin improved from 16.4% to 16.7%, and our cash conversion was very strong at 86%, in line with previous year, despite last year being already very strong.
It was also a year of novelties, with more than 150 new releases and several key releases building for the future, such as Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth, LEGO Monkey Palace, Azul Duel, or the Arkham Horror role-playing games, or even Forest Truffle. In fiscal year 2024-2025, we continued our strong collaboration with distributed partners, notably on trading card games with the Pokémon Trading Card Game, Magic: The Gathering, and One Piece Card Game, of which we were honored to release the first-ever localized version in French this year. We also further leveraged our strong relationships with major IP owners, continuing our extensive Star Wars, Disney, Marvel, and Middle-earth ranges with Star Wars Unlimited, Marvel Crisis Protocol, The Fellowship of the Ring Trick-taking Game, amongst others. Our collaboration with LEGO Group saw its first product coming out this year with the successful launch of LEGO Monkey Palace.
Looking at Q4, it was a milestone quarter in itself, including our successful listing on Nasdaq Stockholm on February 7. As part of our ongoing strategy to promote playing games, we participated in the Cannes International Games Festival, Festival International des Jeux de Cannes, where Asmodee launched the first-ever trading card game Village, a successful showcase of the strength of our distributed and published trading card games portfolio. We also presented our products at major trade events like Nuremberg and New York Toy Fairs, engaging national and international industry partners. Finally, recognizing our ESG commitment, Catan Studio was named one of the top 10 most innovative companies in CSR for 2025 by Fast Company, highlighting the launch of Catan New Energies, which engages players with climate challenges in a thoughtful and educational way. Q4 was also a quarter of strong releases.
This includes The Fellowship of the Ring, Trick-taking Game, Azul Duel, a new two-player version of our evergreen game Azul, launched in February. Within games published by partners, we had new releases like Scarlet and Violet Prismatic Evolutions in the Pokémon Trading Card Game. We had the European-wide retail events for Pokémon Day on February 27 and the initial sell-in of Scarlet and Violet Journey Together within this quarter. The quarter also saw strong performance on other TCGs, including, as mentioned earlier, One Piece, distributed by Asmodee in English in several territories, that was successfully launched in French in its first foreign language outside of English and Japanese with the release of The Emperors in the New World. In March, we also launched Star Wars Unlimited Jump to Light Speed. It's the set four that also included the exclusive and time-limited Carbonite boosters and cards.
Moving on to the highlights of the fourth quarter, we recorded net sales exceeding EUR 340 million, representing an organic year-on-year growth of 23.6%. The number came in stronger than expectations that we had at the spinoff, primarily thanks to some tailwinds in TCGs performing much better than anticipated in a very active market. This exceptional performance was primarily driven by games published by partners and the development for Pokémon and One Piece, as just mentioned. The growth in Asmodee published games was fueled by both new releases, such as prior-quoted Star Wars Unlimited Jump to Light Speed, and the continued strong performance from core titles like Catan, Ticket to Ride, and Azul. The adjusted EBITDA margin declined by 3.3 percentage points, impacted by a less favorable sales mix and higher operating expenses.
We have to say that we had a tough comparable last year at the same quarter with an exceptionally high EBITDA margin. We delivered strong cash flow of nearly EUR 100 million in the quarter, corresponding to a cash conversion rate of approximately 233%. It is our highest conversion quarter, which is very normal following the end-of-year season in quarter three. Following the EUR 400 million capital injection from Embracer Group during the quarter, of which EUR 300 million was used to repay gross debt, our net debt on adjusted EBITDA ratio after M&A commitments finished the year at 2.3 times, in line with our ambition. While tariffs had a limited impact in the fourth quarter, their long-term implication remains uncertain. With 17% of group net sales generated in the U.S., our geographic diversification helps mitigate overall exposure.
Although we prioritize proximity to market, part of our board game sales in the U.S. are sourced from China, representing around 12% of our total group net sales. In response, we have reviewed our supply chain strategy, including the selective delay of certain imports. With the most recent reduction of tariffs to 30%, we have also taken the opportunity to accelerate shipping a significant amount of goods from China to secure future releases and end-of-year season. I have to say I'm extremely proud of the reactivity of our teams on that topic. We are also implementing price increases, reinforcing cost control measures, and further diversifying sourcing around the globe. Our outsourced and flexible manufacturing really allows us to adapt swiftly, and we continue to closely monitor the evolving situation.
At the end of the quarter, worth noting that we also divested our video games publishing studio Twin Sails to focus on our core business. Twin Sails Interactive was acquired by its current management team. Ensuring continuity and a seamless transition, the divestment will have no material impact on our financial performance. I now very happily hand over to you, Andrea.
Thank you. Thank you, Thomas. Good morning, everybody. Let's now turn to sales for the fourth quarter, where the net sales reached EUR 341 million, a year-on-year increase of 23%. On an organic basis, sales grew by 23.6% with the disposal of Miniature Market last year, which had a negative impact of -1.3%, reflected in the other category, while currency exchange rate fluctuations contributed a positive effect of 0.7%. Breaking down sales by publisher, games published by Asmodee Studios grew by 10.2%. Games published by partners increased by 32.5%, and the other category declined by around 20%. Double-digit growth in games published by Asmodee was split heavily between the successful launch of Star Wars Unlimited set four and the solid performance of our core franchises, such as Catan, Ticket to Ride, Double Spotted, Exploding Kittens, and Azul.
The strong performance in games published by partners was driven by favorable momentum in major TCG. Pokémon contributes to benefit from strong demand, driven in part by the launch of the limited edition Prismatic Evolution set. It's also worth noting that we are now comparing to the period from January to September last year, during which the franchise experienced a slight slowdown. One Piece is rapidly gaining market share since its launch through the sustained success of Emperors in the New World. We saw solid double-digit growth in the trading card games category, namely driven by Star Wars and Pokémon performance, while board games were up by 2%. This strong performance in Q4 brings us to a yearly net sales of close to EUR 1.4 billion, a yearly growth of 6.3% or 7.7% on an organic basis.
In the fourth quarter, adjusted EBITDA decreased by around 3.5%, from EUR 42.3 million to EUR 40.8 million compared to the same period last year. This decline reflects a combination of several factors. Adjusted EBITDA was positively impacted by higher volumes driven by strong sales development. However, this was offset by increased personnel and operating expenses, partly due to the transition to a standalone listed company, and partly due to supporting the sales growth. We also made a higher investment in marketing to support long-term growth, including promotional campaigns and participation in major industry events such as Cannes, Nuremberg, and New York Toy Fairs, as well as higher shipping costs. From a margin perspective, the adjusted EBITDA was negatively impacted by less favorable sales mix and tough comparison with last year's low level of goods for resales in the context of the destocking plan, as well as increasing other opex.
Items affecting comparability on the adjusted EBITDA were very limited this quarter, less than EUR 1 million. It is worth noting that below the adjusted EBITDA, we recorded EUR 6 million in fees related to the early repayment of EUR 300 million in gross debt, which impacted the financial result for the quarter. Looking at the full-year performance, the adjusted EBITDA margin reached 16.7%, up 0.3 percentage points from the performance of the last year. This margin improvement was driven by higher volumes, a favorable sales mix, partly offset by increased royalty payments to licensors, higher marketing spend, and other operating expenses. Moving on to cash flow, the free cash flow after tax and capitalized lease payment amounted to EUR 95 million in the fourth quarter, corresponding to a free cash flow conversion of more than 200% as compared to adjusted EBITDA.
As you know, the Q4 is typically a strong cash flow quarter for Asmodee due to seasonality. This quarter was exceptionally strong, reflecting both our ongoing focus on working capital management and strong end-of-quarter sales, particularly in products lined with favorable cash cycles. This is especially true in the TCG category, including titles like Star Wars, Pokémon, and Bandai. Year-to-date free cash flow after tax and capitalized lease payment amounted to EUR 197 million, corresponding to a free cash flow of 86%, broadly in line with the previous year. This performance solidifies a second consecutive year of robust free cash flow, demonstrating the resilience and efficiency of our business model, even in the context of strong growth, increased investment, and operating expenses.
Looking at working capital evolution throughout the year, we saw a healthy increase in inventories, although decreasing as a percentage of net sales, reflecting strong TCG performance and efficient stock management. Trade receivables decreased due to seasonality and focus on cash collection, while the payables remained stable, supported by the favorable cash cycle of TCG products. Capex for the year amounted to EUR 17.4 million, representing 1.3% of net sales, slightly below our guidance range of 2%-3% on average per year. With respect to net debt and balance sheet, the change in net debt was primarily driven by the EUR 400 million capital injection from Embracer Group received in Q4, of which EUR 300 million was used to repay the gross debt, as well as by strong cash flow generation, as just described.
As a result, the net debt stood at 1.8 times, the net debt on EBITDA stood at 1.8 times before M&A commitment and 2.3 times after M&A commitment. We maintain our access to a revolving credit facility of EUR 150 million, which as of today remains untapped, ensuring financial flexibility going forward. Finally, the Board of Directors proposes that no dividend will be paid for the fiscal year up to March 2025, and that all returned earnings should be carried forward to support future investment and strategic initiatives. With that, I'll hand back to Thomas.
Thank you, Andrea. Before we open for questions, I have a few concluding remarks. This year was a year like no other. Strong growth in sales and improved profitability, continued strong cash flow generation and solid balance sheet, reinforced business relationships and successful novelties to build for the future. I have to say all of this while preparing and successfully executing the listing of the company on Nasdaq Stockholm and putting in place the long-term financing of the group. I'm extremely proud of the team's achievements, the team's dedication. They are building with us the group year after year. Looking forward, we have a strong lineup of new releases, and we will be unveiling soon our new consumer-facing identity for the Asmodee brand. I'm very excited about that.
We should also acknowledge that we are operating in a world of rapid change and uncertainty, including the geopolitical context that can impact trade and supply chain. While recent tariffs introduced uncertainty, our exposure remains fairly limited, and we will leverage our agility and strategic inventory planning to respond quickly and stay resilient. In this context, we are also actively pursuing our M&A strategy. As a reminder, we are focused on bolt-on acquisitions, primarily in intellectual properties and game development studios. We're working actively and some to follow in the future. With that, I'm now opening up the floor for questions.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial #5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial #6 on your telephone keypad.
Good morning and congratulations on a good report. I hope you can hear me. I did not hear any announcement. It is Simon from ABG.
Good morning, Simon.
Good morning. I want to start with the external games, especially trading cards, which was strong in the quarter. Given the surge of the prices on the secondary market here in the quarter, is it fair to assume that your stronger sales was more price-driven than volume? Moreover, we have seen that some of your partners say that they will try to increase production volumes from here. Is it fair to assume that if this quarter was more price-driven, you could see better volume as a driver for the coming quarters? I'll start there.
Thanks for the question. I wouldn't say that our growth was price-driven. It was more volume-driven with the demand and the product availability. Our sales prices to retail have remained fairly stable. It is really the demand that is growing and that we'll see pursuing in the upcoming quarters. Our sales prices are not linked to the secondary market. That is independent.
Okay. Good. Yes, a follow-up on that. If you agree that production volumes from your partners could increase going forward, should we expect that the working capital should be less favorable in coming quarters compared to last year? I mean, this quarter, I think you had a more favorable development. Maybe we have not really seen your partners increase the production volumes. Any comment on that?
There are a few elements there. Obviously, everybody's objective is to satisfy consumer demand with the right levels of products, avoiding at the same time overflowing the market to maintain healthy demand levels. On the working capital, distributed trading card games have a favorable impact on working capital given how fast they exit our inventories.
Yeah. Coming quarters, should we be prepared for a less favorable development, or do you have any comment on that?
I have no specific comment on that.
Okay. Thank you. On Star Wars Unlimited, if you could maybe share some reflections on the collector edition, the carbonite pack from the quarter, and how important was that, and is this something you will continue to release?
On the carbonites, they were a great success. I think consumers were very eager to see those products in complementary to the classical boosters and the starter packs. I would say it is a great success. The team is working on having the most balanced range so that we maximize player pleasure in building their decks and the impact of exclusive products.
Got it. Thank you. One last question for me on the cost side. You have talked about before that you need to increase some of the admin costs, etc., for being a standalone company, and you want to increase marketing to drive growth, and you talked about it here as well. Have you sort of done a step up on the cost side, and you are now on a more level you're more happy with, or should we expect that you will continue to add more costs gradually coming quarter?
We are in the process of strengthening the organization, and it goes through strengthening admin and corporate functions to work in a more and more efficient way in this listed environment. There is, of course, the kind of variable part of our cost increase, which is linked to royalties that we pay to licensors. It also goes with the reinforcing department, such as purchasing, logistics, etc. We will, of course, be very looking at gradually ramping up those cost center if and where it makes sense.
Okay. Got it. In terms of the overhead, there are sort of the more central costs. Are you expecting that those will sort of gradually increase as well?
There will be a run rate full impact next year, notably in the context of being a listed company. Yes, you will see the full year impact of those costs for the next year.
Okay. Thank you. That's all for me.
The next question comes from Eric Larsen from SEB. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning. Encouraging numbers here. I have a few questions. First off, on Star Wars, I assume you will not give us a number here, at least nothing precise. But does Star Wars qualify as a top 5 or maybe top 10 game over the past year for you, or is that too early?
No, it's not. Hi, Eric. It's fair to say that Star Wars enters the top five ranges of the group.
Okay. Congrats on that. Thank you. I had a question on costs. Last quarter, you broke down the change in other operating expenses. You had EUR 12 million here. You broke it down in shipping and royalties and then marketing. Could you do the same here? It would be helpful.
For Q4, the breakdown would go with around 60%, which relates directly to what we sold, royalties to licensor and shipping costs. Around 25% would be marketing. Among the rest, you will find costs related to, as I said before, becoming a standalone company as well as some software development.
Okay. Appreciate that very much. Thank you. I just have a final question and, I guess, more high level on the earnings. We see adjusted EBITDA down here a few % year on year. Clearly, it is a tough comparison, and you did highlight some costs, so no surprise per se. When do you expect that the strong organic growth we are seeing will follow through on earnings whenever you reach sort of the appropriate cost level?
I mean, all of this that we are doing is to build long-term growth. I would say it will gradually materialize. We had given long-term guidance in overall and progressively improving our profitability ratio. Again, it is a long-term game that we are playing here and that we want to deliver in order to deliver value creation for shareholders.
All right. Thank you. That's all for me. I'll get back in the queue.
Thanks, Eric.
The next question comes from Will Packer from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Thanks for taking my questions. Three from me, please. Firstly, could you help us understand where we are in the Pokémon cycle you've previously referred to for FY2026? H1 comps are easy, as I recall, and momentum from Q4 looks quite good. As a related follow-up, do we have any indications for the cadence of the Pokémon TCG products related to the launch of the Switch 2 and the 30th anniversary of the brand? Any early indications of timing or scope? Finally, could you talk through a little bit how you plan to mitigate the impact of tariffs? Back of the envelope, you've got a 15% EBIT margin business, and we now have a new 30%+ cost for a double-digit percentage of your revenue. I'm sure it's more complicated than that, but just help us understand how you can mitigate those headwinds. Thank you.
Sure. Thank you. On the Pokémon cycle, 2024 was the second year of the three-year cycle of Scarlet and Violet, which will come to a conclusion at the end of this year with the launch of the new cycle or generation with the game coming out, I think, on Switch 2 in November. The next TCG cycle will start in our Q4, so early 2026, leading up to the 30th anniversary in 2026. In terms of H1 comps, as we did say, we saw some headwinds last year, which corresponded to the second year of the cycle. All of this is fairly normal. Now we are back to the, I would say, more supporting trends leading to the end of this cycle and the beginning of the next one.
Product cadence, I mean, on the TCG, it remains on the same cycle with quarter releases plus intermediate releases. As I said, Scarlet and Violet will come to its close at the end of this calendar year, and the new cycle will open up early next year. On the tariffs, as we did say, the games that are manufactured in China, if we look at 2024, 2025, obviously, and that are sold in the U.S. represent roughly 12% of our revenue. Tariffs are, I would say, now at a more reasonable 30% in comparison to assumptions or announcements that were prior. We are working on the supply chain side. The teams have been moving productions around to help mitigate.
I have to say also that the teams have been extremely agile on putting products on the boats in the right timing to shoot for the windows of favorable tariff before implementation of the higher ones as soon as the lower ones have been introduced to get goods into the U.S. Finally, I have to say that the tariffs on the games that are manufactured for games published by our group are obviously on manufacturing costs and not sale to distribution, which helps mitigate. In the end, it's a numbers game, and it's a game of spreading the impact. We also work with some suppliers that have made some efforts to share some of the burden. Finally, what we cannot mitigate will lead to implementing some price increases, sensible price increases across the board.
Thanks, Thomas. Just to confirm, there is scope in a kind of sufficiently short-term timeframe to move production in a way that can mitigate risks and leave your kind of medium-term guidance unchanged?
Yes. I mean, some products we can manufacture in China, in Europe. In the very short term, we are switching some productions around. For instance, we have products that for the European market were manufactured in Europe, and the U.S. or the versions for the U.S. were manufactured in China. We are switching those. That is the most reactive actions. The teams are also, with the help of our suppliers, identifying or working actively on alternative manufacturing capabilities in neighboring countries like India, Cambodia, or Vietnam. We are working both in the short-term reactive capabilities and also in the more long-term.
Thank you.
Thanks, Will.
The next question comes from Victor Lindström from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Hi, Thomas, and hi, Andrea. Thank you for taking my questions. Firstly, you mentioned that you have a quite strong release schedule entering this fiscal year. I just wonder when are those planned to be released during the year? Is there any particular quarter here to be aware of?
Thanks for the question. Yes, we have some exciting products that are coming up. We have LEGO Brick like this, for instance, that's coming out in August. We have Star Wars: Battle of Hoth in our Memoir '44 game mechanic from Days of Wonder that's coming out in the summer. That's amongst many others. I mean, we also have Fellowship of the Ring in the Pandemic universe that is coming out, and we're also releasing the sixth edition of Catan. Now, once we've said that, our results are less driven by novelties. They are, I would say, with a limited impact on a specific quarter. I would say it's spread across the year and nothing absolutely major to look forward.
Right. Perfect. You decided to delay some selected imports here. Is this something that can have a negative impact on some releases or the growth here in the near term?
As I did say, it's very limited. Also, the releases that we have pushed back are for the U.S. market. We maintain release dates for the rest of the world. Again, it's, I would say, limited to marginal impact on the short-term top-line performance.
All right. Lastly here, on M&A side, I mean, back at your capital markets day, you had around 20 targets. How would you say that has evolved since that?
It has evolved according to plan. We're actively working, as I said, as I also referred to in the previous quarter and even at the capital markets day. Those projects take time. In order for them both to be successful and at acceptable prices, they need to be done in a timely fashion. Stay tuned.
All right. Thank you very much.
Thanks a lot.
The next question comes from Rasmus Engberg from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good morning. Two questions on my side. To what extent is this strong fourth quarter in distributed products at the expense of the coming two quarters, if that is possible at all to quantify? The second question is, with regard to if we think about the key selling season, Christmas and before that, how much of your inventory do you already have in place? I mean, what kind of timing effect should we expect from, or rather, how far is it between tariffs impacting you and it impacting your sales and cost base? If you understand the question.
Yes. Hi, Rasmus. Thanks for those two questions. On the distributed products, and mainly relating to trading cards, I mean, it's constant releases throughout the year. The strong performance of Q4 has no impact, sorry, no negative impact on following quarters. It's just the strong dynamic that we see in the market that we're able to capture. On the key selling season periods, as we did say, we have the right inventories on the right products currently. I would say no impact on tariffs except for the US, where, as we did say, we're moving production around. We are working with retailers on when to deliver the products. We do not foresee any limitations on our ability to have the products in inventory to sell during the key seasons.
Thank you. Excellent. I'll get back in line.
Thanks.
The next question comes from Martin Arnold from DNB Markets. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, guys. My first question is on the revenue. In the quarter, it looked very strong, and it looked quite broad-based. Would you be able to filter it down to, say, two, three, four most notable games that contributed to the strong growth?
It's a lot of games that contribute to the strong growth. Obviously, comparing quarter to quarter, Pokémon and Star Wars Unlimited had a material positive impact. Again, I mean, the growth is spread across many products. The top five products on this quarter are unchanged, taking into consideration Unlimited entering it.
Okay. Thank you. What would you say is a fair market growth number in this market since Christmas, looking at year on year, just to get a better sense on your relative performance?
Since Christmas, you have different trends between geographies. I would say some prudency on the consumer side in the US. However, from what we see, Asmodee has overperformed the overall market, especially in the mass market or in the broad market. In Europe, we had strong underlying trends, both in the games and in the trading card games categories.
Would you say that the market growth has accelerated a bit since a while back, or how would you explain it?
No, I would say that 2024 in the fiscal year came out stronger than we anticipated. If you remember, we had communicated on a flattish year market-wise overall. We saw some slight growth that is reflected also in our own performance. Since Christmas, I would say that the overall geopolitical context has created some uncertainty on the consumer side, but our games continue to sell very strongly.
Okay. Thanks. My final question on the margin outlook discussion and the effects from the tariff risks and also the fact that the external games are outperforming quite a bit, is there any change to the route to your medium-term view of a margin in excess of 18%, if you understand my question?
We do not review the mid-long-term guidance. We stick on that. I have to say we will gradually get there. I think this year will be a year where we will capitalize on the product categories that are performing strongly whilst continuing to invest.
Okay. Perfect. Thanks. That's all from me.
Thanks, Martin.
The next question comes from Simon Kowe from Société Générale. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Could you give us just a few more details on China exports to the U.S. and some numbers? I heard a 12% number mentioned. Is that the proportion of group revenues which are manufactured in China and exported to the U.S.?
You're correct. It's.
12% of revenues that are exposed?
Yes. It's 20% of the revenue that are products manufactured in China sold in the U.S. Again, as I said, that was with last year's setup of manufacturing. We are moving production around, adapting the sourcing, having some products that were manufactured in China and now manufactured in Europe. I mean, it's a balance. We are working also with some Chinese suppliers to review their pricing strategy or their pricing in order to mitigate some costs. Finally, we will, in a comprehensive way, do certain price increases when we have no other option.
Understood. Would it be fair to say that the current position is more like something in single digits in terms of exposure, given the changes that you've made? I just don't have a feel for how quickly you can shift manufacturing around to change the number.
There are two elements here. First of all, we have a decent amount of products in inventory limiting the short-term impact. Secondly, the import costs or the tariffs are, as I said, applied to our purchase price, which is manufacturing price, not transfer price to distribution in the case of the U.S. We mitigate most of the impact through quite strong responses. Chain team and at DNB. The rest will be managed through price increases, comprehensive price increases that we are working on with retailers also.
Obviously, the quarter to June sounds like it's largely mitigated by additional inventory held in the US and exported early. For the second quarter, it sounds like you're pretty comfortable that you're not anticipating any great margin hit. Is that fair?
Yes, in the sense of no great margin hit. The rest, we will see. I mean, we're always prudent. We should take all of this with caution, but the resilience is very strong, and the fundamentals of the market are also very strong.
Last follow-up from me. I mean, with this background, are you expecting to slow down your cost increases in terms of the corporate functions and other costs which you are planning to expand this year? Obviously, that was bringing margin headwinds, which we've seen in the fourth quarter. Is that something that you're going to kind of do at a slower pace now to reduce the amount of margin impact?
There are a few components here. We do all this in a comprehensive and sensible way. There are some intangibles. I mean, things related to being listed and meet obligations, etc., we will do. In parallel, obviously, if there are some slight changes in market, in product categories, we'll adjust our investments accordingly. Now, what's very important is that we're not just building for this year. We are building for the upcoming growth in the future years. Our industry is an industry of constant flows. Yes, of course, we will adapt. We remain agile. Again, the objective is to secure long-term performance and long-term value creation.
Okay. Sorry, the very last one for me. Does that then mean that also the M&A plans are unchanged too?
They are completely unchanged. I mean, we have a very healthy balance sheet. We have cash available. So we have the means to execute our M&A strategy. This doesn't change.
Understood. Thank you. Thank you. That's it from me.
If we have no more.
There are no more questions at this time. I hand the conference back to the speakers.
All right. Let's take some questions from the feed. The first one, I was just wondering if you have any plans to do board games or card games based, for example, on Lord of the Rings, Tomb Raider, Metro 2033, or other big franchises which are owned by Embracer. I mean, we've been partners for 20 years and working in the Lord of the Rings franchise for 20 years. We're actively working on that. We had some strong releases. For the others, we will announce if we have projects that we have products to announce. I don't like making speculations, but obviously, we have a strong partnership with the Embracer Group. Second question, we would love to see some acquisitions of studios, IPs, or distribution. Will you, as a CEO, buy some Asmodee stocks? Yes, we are working actively on acquiring studios and IPs.
We have reignited the strategy and are working actively. On the second part of the question, I am already personally an owner of Asmodee stock. In my contract, my variable remuneration is reinvested in Asmodee stock. Yes, I will continue to buy Asmodee stock. Maybe a question for Andrea afterwards. How are you impacted by the weakened U.S. dollar?
Yes. Thank you, Thomas. Our geographical footprint provides some hedge in terms of the fixed impact on profit. Sales are made, in most of the cases, in the local currency of the selling countries. That is also what we have experienced this year. There were ups and downs in currencies, but there is almost a neutral impact at adjusted EBITDA level on a year-to-date basis. A strong decline in USD could potentially impact sales negatively, although at EBITDA level, we tend to have a hedge because it will lower our purchase cost. We will, of course, look at this very closely, implement actions, and plan where needed. For the timing, it remains, as we said, relatively naturally hedged at group level.
We have another question, which is for Q4 2024. What is the average BDA margin for games produced by partners, and what is it for games published by Asmodee? We do not disclose a BDA contribution by product category. However, if you look at gross margin levels, the ratio between games made by partners and games published by Asmodee studios is roughly one to two. However, on the games that we publish, obviously, we have higher marketing investment and some royalties that we pay to IP owners. The contribution is significantly higher for the games we publish. Another question, which is, the U.S. board game market is larger than Europe. According to Statista, what concrete action Asmodee is doing to increase revenue in the U.S. and Asmodee's sales in the U.S. are low in relation to its sales in Europe. The sales in the U.S. are growing.
You need to remember that the group was built out of Europe and that our entry in the U.S. market is, in comparison to our overall history, fairly recent. Growth is pretty strong. I have also to say that in the U.S., our team is working in a more reduced portfolio versus some of our European countries because we are not a third-party TCG distributor in the U.S. Having said that, the U.S. is a very healthy market in which our studios are pretty well positioned to capture market or grow in the market. We will also continue working and increasing our distributed games portfolio, working with partners and helping them sell their products on the U.S. market. All of this will be very organic and gradual. Revenue growth expectations for the upcoming year between games published by Asmodee and games published by your partners.
I said they are not correlated to each other in a certain way, and they are complementary. In opposition to last year, we currently see some tailwinds on some distributed products, especially in the trading counts. However, the fundamentals on the game side remain very strong. I would say growth will come from both sides, maybe a bit more tailwinds right now on the distributed side. Another question, which is, you seem very relaxed about tariffs and their impact on Asmodee. Is that simply because U.S. sales sourced from China is such a relatively small portion of net sales of the company? Thanks for the question. I cannot summarize in the fact that I am relaxed. I am very confident in the ability of our teams to be reactive to mitigate as much of the impacts.
It is true that the share of our global revenue in the U.S., in comparison to other players in the industry, is relatively limited given our geographical footprint. We are more diversified. Obviously, our U.S. teams are working extremely intensively right now, hand in hand with our supply chain teams, to try and mitigate as much as possible of this. What is happening with acquisition activity? Last November, at the Capital Markets Day, much was made of the strategy of being reignited. We have not seen acquisitions since. When can we expect the first ones? Acquisitions take time. Acquisitions are done with partnership between the company buying and companies selling. I would say you just have to be patient. We are working, and we are confident in our future ability on that, but we will not provide any further guidance. One more about tariffs.
You mentioned there will be sensible price increases across the board for the impact you can't mitigate. Will that just be for U.S. releases, or will you spread those across the global releases? Maybe just a quick remark: when I say sensible, I meant it in the French way. I'm French-speaking. So it's just having the price increases on the products that can afford it, etc. I don't want there to be any misunderstanding. It's not large price increases. This will be up to our local teams to work out. They are working out a strategy also with the retailers. Yes, it's mainly focused on the US market with a local response. I do believe consumers expect price increases in the overall context. Can you comment on the gross margin development in the quarter? What contributed positively versus negatively, and what's the outlook for the new financial year?
Maybe Andrea, you want to take this one?
Yeah. Yes. Happy to take it. Of course, gross margin is impacted by volumes. This quarter, in absolute value, the gross margin was positively impacted by the tailwinds on top line. Generally speaking, the gross margin in our business is also impacted by the mixed effect between published and distributed. As previously described, the margin for these two categories are different. Third, there could be some rate effect when it comes to being able to change some terms with respect to either how we manufacture the games or how we source those games. In the Q4, there are no major changes from this third last point I have just mentioned. Going forward, the balance between these three factors will remain the same for fiscal year 2025-2026.
Next question is, without saying any numbers, can you confirm that Star Wars Unlimited is margin equative when taking into account royalty costs? A bit surprised about the margin given that Star Wars Unlimited has made top five. Yes, Star Wars Unlimited is margin equative after royalties. On Q4, it is just that we are anniversarying the launch last year. On the pure Star Wars Unlimited contribution, it is much more comparable in terms of levels of margin in comparison to the earlier quarters where Star Wars Unlimited had a very good positive impact on the overall margin. Can you elaborate a bit on the rationale of increasing marketing costs in order to build the Asmodee brand when you are not selling direct and the games have their own specific brands that are well-known to gamers? This is an excellent question. We are not over-investing in the Asmodee brand.
We are taking the opportunity of having very strong product brands to use the Asmodee brand to make a link between the games. Obviously, I would say expert gamers or knowledgeable gamers in our industry know the product brands. They know the studio brands, and some of them might know, in which cases, the products are from studios that are part of the Asmodee Group. I would say that for more of the general public, it's lesser known, and we're missing a brand that can make the link between Catan, Ticket to Ride, Azul, and what we call pillar brands. Lastly, Asmodee is present on events. We are bringing consistency and are extremely proud of the games that come from our studios and the games that come from partners.
We believe that Asmodee is a great umbrella, a positive umbrella that we are a flag we're proud to carry. Lastly, in our strategy, it is a cost-conscious strategy of deploying the consumer-facing side of Asmodee, meaning that I like to make an analogy for people that like cycling. In the peloton, you have the spearheading brands, which are our product brands, and Asmodee is just behind, benefiting from the aspiration that they are providing. Maybe one day, in the face of certain consumers, Asmodee will take the lead. Again, each brand is talking to their audiences. It is just that we see an opportunity there. Very excited about that. This was the last question. Unless we have another incoming question, we will close the meeting. Maybe in conclusion, I really would like to thank the teams, the players.
I mean, everything we do is for the people that play games and the partners we have across retail, across publishing and licensing that really help us shape what Asmodee is today. As we look ahead, we are in a strong position to capture profitable growth and create long-term value. This does not change, even if some context is a bit more challenging than it used to be. Again, as I said, the industry is resilient, and people playing the long term will see the benefit of this. Thank you for joining us today, and we look forward to seeing a lot of you in various meetings in the upcoming days. Thanks a lot.
Thank you very much.