Welcome to Catena Media's interim report, January through June 2022. I'm Michael Daly, CEO, and I'm joined by Peter Messner, our Group CFO. I'm pleased with our forging ahead in our largest markets in North America, and today we're going to talk about our Q2 highlights, our Q2 financials, our outlook, and our Q&A. We have been forging ahead in North America during its slow season, but at the same time, it has been a tough quarter and one that's led us to effecting a paradigm shift in our business operations in Europe. Revenues fell 5% globally to EUR 28.9 million. Some revenue decline was expected based on the sports calendar in Europe this year over last year, not having Euros in June, and with the normal slowing casino periods in the summer of the European holidays.
Although it's been anything but normal the last few years due to COVID-inflated online businesses. Some decline versus forecast was not expected. We saw some revenue challenges compared to our forecasts in the Canadian province of Ontario, which started very differently from the initial burst seen in the US states. Ontario still contributed favorably just below our expectations, given the non-competitive marketing rules put in place. North America overall grew 21% year-on-year, with sports well up even during the slow part of the sports calendar. Our 2021 acquisitions acquired based on the plan to use those to expand in these newer markets for both sport and casino contributed significantly. Japan was another unpleasant surprise. That market has grown steadily for us the last few years, bolstered by COVID restrictions and the strength of our teams. Those dynamics changed this quarter.
We had some expected reverse COVID effect as the country-wide travel opened, but also press around an individual event that blossomed to an election-level topic stemmed the flow of new customers and impacted current customers' spend rate due to payment providers backing away at least temporarily. This should correct, but will take a bit of time for the news to abate and SEO to return to expected trends. The other unplanned item, at least not planned when we started the year with an investment for future thesis, was the macroeconomic conditions, particularly starting to show themselves in the European markets. We're seeing the first parts of impact from consumer spend levels, decreasing rev share in some markets, and this will be felt going forward into the winter months as our expectations. I'll talk a bit later on the paradigm shift that this requires of us.
The aforementioned revenue impacts also significantly impacted our adjusted EBITDA year- over- year, down to EUR 9.1 million. Frankly, some of this was expected. We continue to invest heavily in North America with the opportunities there. That investment is to both grow and defend our territory in the sports business, which has a seasonality. From April to August, this is the low season. However, annualized investments to capture the opportunities in Q1 and later Q3 through Q4 are still annual investments, people, technology, etc . These slower times are even often when we have to accelerate the product investments to be ready for the start of the NFL season in September and maximize the sports calendar as it happens.
Given this, we were expecting a margin in the 30s this quarter as compared to the exceptionally high margin last Q2 when we had the Euros, as well as the COVID-inflated online markets, which we did very well optimizing for. Q2 was lower than our targeted plans for the aforementioned revenue reasons. As we saw macro conditions start to deteriorate, we started even before the recently announced strategic review to tighten the belt for our non-North American operations compared to original plans. Revenue deterioration impacted faster than cost control measures could. Again, more to cover on cost controls and the strategic review in a bit. All this said, while Q2 below our targets, we're still in a solid financial position with options for capital usage with operating cash flows up 25%. I'll now turn it over to Peter to talk more specifically about the numbers.
Thank you, Michael, and welcome to our second quarter earnings call also from my side. Let's start with group revenue and our new depositing customers as a key performance measure. We had a slight revenue dip in our slowest quarter of the year, as Michael mentioned. Revenue came in at EUR 28.9 million, which is 5% below last year's second quarter. While North America, however, grew by 21% and accounted for 52% of the total group revenue. Due to the sports seasonality, this is really the lowest revenue quarter of that year. In line with that revenue dip, the new depositing customers are below last year's comparable number with 3%, and that is primarily driven by a weaker casino performance outside of North America.
The customers generated in our sports segment, however, increased by 20%, and that was a very strong contribution from the recently added states of New York and Louisiana, as well as the launch in the province of Ontario in Canada in the beginning of the second quarter. If we take a look at the revenue segmentation, casino very clearly returned to a dominance in the second quarter. Historically, casino has always been the biggest segment in our portfolio. Whenever new states in North America launch, in particular what we have seen in the first quarter with New York and Louisiana, that might temporarily shift. Following the strong sports Q1 with these launches in New York and Louisiana, casino returned to that dominance with 59% of total group revenue as a share.
As mentioned on previous slides, the sports NDCs increased quite significantly with 20%, and that translated into an overall 31% increase in sports revenue during that second quarter as well. We saw particularly a strong performance of the acquisitions of last year, Lineups.com and all our i15Media assets. The share of CPA, that is cost per acquisition, was in line with the last two quarters of last year and at 53%. Again, the second quarter was a little bit different due to the launches in New York and Louisiana in North America. We haven't seen any negative impacts on our CPA rates, and it is fair to state that the CPA model partly even insulated us from margin pressures elsewhere, where we are fully reliant, not fully reliant, but to the largest extent reliant on revenue share.
That, of course, is historically impacted on any consumer spend if there should be any. Switching to the next slide on our cost development. We have been investing in innovation and long-term growth for several quarters now. As you see, we have reached a cost base that was only marginally higher than in the first quarter of this year. That is a 1% difference to the first quarter. In comparison to last year, however, there was a significant increase based on these investments. The direct costs increased by 20%, and that reflects growing revenue contributions from content partnerships in North America, also including influencers. The personnel expenses increased by 29% year-on-year, and that's the same growth rate as in Q1 as compared to Q1 last year.
That is in line with the increased investment in North America and readiness for future market launches. There are a lot of those piled up, and Michael will talk about that a little bit later. Compared to last year, the number of employees in North America increased by 82% in the second quarter, and that includes the effects of the two acquisitions as well. Of course, the continued investment to fully seize the opportunities that came with these strategic investments. Other operating expenses increased by 39%, versus the second quarter last year, and that's likewise a result of the investment in technology and search engine optimization, but it's also resumed travel activity, which essentially was non-existent last year.
The cost ratio, which is all the costs as a percentage of revenue, is expected to fluctuate quarterly, as a function of the revenue seasonality. Again, Q2 was a very low quarter from a sports calendar perspective. That is of course the reverse of the adjusted EBITDA, where the margin now ended at 31%. Going into a view of our segments. Casino is the biggest segment with 59% of total group revenue. Casino in North America increased on the back of also growth in social and sweepstakes casinos, and also the addition of Ontario as a new market. Ontario launched in April with both sports betting and casino. The adjusted EBITDA was overall impacted by the growth investment continuously in North America and also in Japan.
As I said, Ontario as a new casino launch. Also, of course, the decline in player spending in Europe. As Michael mentioned, Japan had previously shown continued double-digit growth, but that market had a decline during this quarter as a result of this political campaign around online gaming and the player behavior that was now temporarily impacted. Furthermore, the yen continued its weakness against the dollar, and that is affecting deposit levels, and then as a result, revenue share, which is the majority of our Japanese business. Switching to the sports segment. This is again the low sports season in North America. Still, group sports revenue increased by 31%, driven by the launches in North America and also Ontario that launched in Q2.
Adjusted EBITDA reflected the aggressive investment in preparing for further North American markets, and most of those are expected to primarily be sports betting in the beginning and maybe then later on online casino as well. We were particularly pleased, as I mentioned before, with Lineups.com and i15Media assets that we acquired last year. As announced after the quarter end, we signed the first media deal in the U.S. with NJ.com, and Michael will talk about this and media partnerships in the outlook session a little bit later. Finally, financial trading, our smallest segment, contributed 3% of total group revenue and, in particular, continued to face challenging market conditions as expected in the macroeconomic environment that we have.
While the stock markets really had their sharpest first six-month fall for decades, markets will eventually, from a historic perspective, rebound at one point, and then the segment is well prepared for any expected increase in search volume again and investment activity if that is resumed. The flagship brand of the segment is AskTraders, but also other brands in the segment focused quite a lot on content and a wider range of trading assets, and that helped to increase traffic in particular in Germany, which accounts for approximately half of the segment's revenue. Taking a look at cash flow and our cash conversion, that was an insane cash conversion percentage with 280%. As a starting point, Catena Media's business model comes with a very strong cash generation.
For the full last year, cash conversion was 104%. The operating cash flow this quarter was EUR 20.5 million, and it increased by 25% as compared to last year. That translated into 280% cash conversion. Why was that? Well, if you take a look at our first quarter results, we had a lower cash conversion and a lower operating cash flow because that was a result of partly delayed receivables collection from Q1 sales. That happened now in the second quarter as expected.
Cash flow used in investing activities included EUR 15.4 million, and those related to the deferred purchase price payments of the previous year's acquisitions in Lineups and i15Media . Cash flow used in financing activities included EUR 2.8 million that related to the share buyback program that we did prior to the annual general meeting, and then EUR 2.1 million in the quarterly bank term loan repayment as per the agreement that we have with the bank, and EUR 2.2 million in total interest payments which relate to the term loan, the revolving credit facility, and our hybrid capital securities as well. At the end of the quarter, the cash balance of cash and cash equivalents was EUR 23.5 million. The balance sheet is continuously strong.
We had total assets of EUR 357.2 million, and total equity of EUR 238.9 million, including the hybrid capital securities. There are still amounts that are committed on the acquisition of EUR 13.8 million, and they also still relate to Lineups and i15Media assets, and they are all due within 12 months. In December this year, $10 million will be paid in relation to i15Media, and the remaining $5 million for Lineups in May next year. That together are the EUR 13.8 million from a foreign exchange perspective. The borrowings of a little bit above EUR 80 million comprise the bonds, the bank term loan, and the RCF.
There is a current liability to be paid of EUR 80.3 million within the next 12 months. That is the bank term loan. Other liabilities of EUR 24.2 million are mainly our trade and other payables, and then there are certain amounts in relation to the deferred tax liabilities and lease liabilities as well. The net interest-bearing liabilities totaled EUR 58.2 million. That's essentially the borrowings minus the cash, and that results in a leverage ratio, which is these net interest-bearing liabilities in relation to the last 12 months adjusted EBITDA of 0.91, which is well in line with our financial targets. At the end of June, the company had 33.8 million outstanding warrants in relation to the issue of our hybrid capital securities in the summer two years ago.
These warrants can be exercised during always one of the exercise windows following a quarterly or year-end report until and including the second quarter report in 2024, so exactly around this time in two years. With that, I hand back to Michael to talk about the outlook.
Thanks, Peter. Let's talk about July. July, we remain in our slow period of the North American sports affiliation calendar. Compared to last July, the team's efforts, plus the added sports products and markets, plus the growing Ontario sports and casino market, led to a 33% year-on-year growth in July for North America, and a 10% total company when excluding the still stagnating German market. In Germany, I am very excited that we've started working with operators who have received or are imminently receiving their casino licenses, which means growth during the second half when compared to where we ended H1. Speed of growth will still remain unclear as operators enter, test the waters, and determine sustainable levels of marketing in the new environment.
The takeaway is a new German business is now starting for Catena, and the investment done there this last year will start to pay off. Japan, with the news flow disruption, still declined in July. With the July elections now over and the pro-gambling party winning, we have healthy expectations as things return to normal over this next quarter or so. Overall, July, during what is a weak month in many markets and not having the Euros, which was going on in July 2021, performed quite respectably. Let's talk about the H2 story. The H2 story is exciting, particularly in North America. If you go to the next slide. Year-over-year increases in July look favorable when compared to H1 and Q2 year-over-year. Granted, it's very early in H2, but the year-over-year comparisons start as pleasing, particularly with the roadmap ahead.
What is the roadmap? Numerous states on the cusp of launch. While it is less likely many of these will make H2, some will make this next NFL season, which ends in February, and a few may surprise us by pushing in. One such surprise looks like Kansas. That, although a very small state, it's moved far forward much faster than others, and now has a launch expected in the earlier part of this NFL season. This is what makes North America so exciting, is the dynamic that varies so greatly from state to state. It's also what makes it so difficult to forecast. As we originally had Ohio, a state of significance in H2, and that's now stated to be in Q1 of 2023. Maryland was expected to be ahead of Kansas and with a higher contribution.
Those, along with the slower Ontario start, all impact the when we cross the rolling 12 months of EUR 100 million threshold. It does not impact the if we will pass that, as we will. Oh, and the newly approved Massachusetts state even further solidifies that not being an if, but a when. It's most likely to be a when in H1 on the roll next year with the rolling 12 versus the end of this year, based just on what we now know about state launch expectations, which as you know, continue to change. Also on that roadmap, partnerships. We've long avoided these as the commercials were not reasonable in our view, alongside the potential cannibalization in certain markets where we had strong sites.
These were probably better for those we thought who served those better who didn't have strong sites of their own to grow. However, the market is maturing. Operators are talking about managing marketing spend as a whole, and that's being reviewed. This opened up the opportunity for better discussions with partners. I'm very pleased to announce our first such publishing relationship started just after the end of the quarter with NJ.com, which has been a strong site in the very strong market of New Jersey for years. We expect the two companies to cross-serve and grow their audiences who may have casino and sports betting interests. We could not ask for a better first partner in the space and look forward to expanding to more relationships like this in other future markets. The third interesting element of North America is development of revenue share discussions.
Long have we been and still remain CPA dominant. CPA has great strengths in these early market phases, helping bring capital for required growth across the continent. Also bringing some buffer from what are likely to be revenue share impacts in other places due to the macroeconomics that impact players' wallets. There has also been the condition in North America that even those who are willing to broach the subject of revenue share from the operator side were trying to follow the old models of Daily Fantasy, where those rev shares would be short-lived at two or three years, best case. I'm happy to say we are now in what appear to be serious negotiations for our first revenue share deal that is much more extended period. With the right terms for both ourselves and our operating partner, we hope to move forward on this.
While I've said before that I thought marketing conditions might bring operators to the table on this topic, it's happening a bit sooner than expected and honestly may be less about the changes in marketing spend versus certain operators recognizing the potential synergies that such a revenue share relationship encourages. CPA will remain dominant in the market for some time, to be clear. So a transition like this, I think, is potentially the optimal way for it to happen. Very exciting times in North America, which does seem to be a recurring theme. Next slide. Turning to Europe, I and Peter have spoken about the challenge of European revenues that have continued. While we tightened the belt in Q2, we recognized that our investment thesis that we started the year with was no longer in line with the macroeconomic indicators.
Regulatory conditions in Germany and the Netherlands have not and will not improve at any dramatic pace. U.K. continues to oscillate in their own regulatory view of gambling. On top of this, inflation and fuel impacts will be increasing, not decreasing, in our view, in the coming months. More impacting Europe than North America, quite frankly. This led to a paradigm shift on how to think about our European businesses going forward. We started a strategic review concerning our financial trading and our larger AskGamblers products.
These products were seeing some interest in the markets, and we thought it prudent to explore what the future of those assets would be in our business with our shift focusing towards white European gambling markets and North America versus the cash that might be raised for M&A activities in North America and LATAM from selling some or all of these assets. That review continues. As we open it up, we get more interest, and that leads to more simulations, etc , that have to be run to figure out what is best for the company and our investors. This paradigm shift in Europe also led to further review being started in the last few weeks concerning margins and efficiencies in other parts of that business.
We're determining what markets have the best outlook in the coming period of economic uncertainty and what will give Catena the best European baseline to go from with margins that support that. This process targets at least EUR 5 million in annual cost savings, and quite frankly, I would consider it disappointing if it only gets to that. It will be completed before the end of September, so those impacts can start to be felt in Q4. On the discussions of capital and capital deployment, next slide. Our AGM on 10 August allowed us continuation of share buybacks up to 10% of total issue. We already hold a percentage of shares, so at the point necessary, we will consider canceling those at the board.
Other uses of capital do include potential strategic acquisitions in Latin America and North America, particularly at a time when valuations may be deflating and creating interesting acquisition and thus long-term growth opportunities. The outcome of the strategic review and any asset sales will materially impact the decisions regarding capital deployment of any type. We'll be more forthcoming on that in future weeks. Next slide, please. Takeaways. Some of the very active period for Catena, even though it was a slower period externally. North America is strong and less impact anticipated from economics going forward. Cost reductions implemented across Europe, most post Q2 to improve margins in the EMEA business, stabilize growth, and focus the teams. Content partnerships have started in North America and will continue as a new vertical area for us to explore. We are in a strong cash position and remain there.
North America timing and rolling of 12 months of the rolling 12 months to EUR 100 million, as I said, moves out slightly due to that state launch schedule based on what we know now. We will keep the markets apprised as those things continue to shift in and out. With that, I think, Peter, we will open it up for questions.
Yes.
Thank you.
Yes, operator.
To ask a question. Yes, sir. Thank you. To ask a question, please press star then one. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. We do ask that you limit yourself to three questions at a time, and please rejoin the queue if you have additional questions. Today's first question comes from Oscar Rönnquist with ABG. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good morning, Michael and Peter. Let's see. The first one was about the comments you had on the macro environment. We have seen kind of mixed comments about this from operators and B2B suppliers. I know like Entain blamed some macro impact negatively, and DraftKings raised their guidance. Kindred, Betsson doesn't really see a macro impact. Could you just elaborate why you see or how do you see the macro impacting your business that some others don't see?
Sure. Again, I will claim not to be an economist, and there are many views on this. There are the views that this will be a slight impact or it will be a full recession over a year or multiple years. We're going to be prudent and be cautious in what to expect, so we plan for the worst and take the best. The other side of that is the gaming industry back in 2007 and 2008, more land-based North America, was slow to see the impacts of what was going on in the economy, but it came around and hit it afterwards. It was slow to start, but it increased. I think we would be not prudent and proper if we were not considering that the macroeconomics are likely to get worse.
Europe has more so than North America, but North America has it, full impact on what's going to impact the wallet of individuals. In Europe, where we're on rev share, that will have more of an impact for us and the operators over time. It is going to be a long winter, I think. Again, that opens up some interesting M&A opportunities on the one hand, but on the other side, we expect it will be a slower period from some of the years past. Peter, anything you want to add as the.
Oh.
Oh. That's good summary.
Thanks. Moving on to the 2021-2025 targets. You still have the double-digit organic growth annually. Could you just explain a little bit about the assumptions you have? Because it's obviously going to be fueled by North America. Does that include assumptions of like New York regulating iGaming, California regulating sports betting? Or when at what point would you need to take a look at that target and maybe revise it?
Do you want to start with this, Peter, or I can?
Well, I mean, I can start very briefly. The starting point for this year is apparently what is still going to happen from the NFL season, which is the beginning of September. From the NFL season, I'm focusing now on the word organic growth in that financial target, from the NFL season, all our acquired assets from last year will count as organic growth. One of the reason why you have seen a negative organic growth is simply the calculation method of not having the contribution of the acquisitions of last year in the first quarter results this year and up until May in relation to Lineups. The i15Media assets didn't contribute to the organic growth. When the NFL season starts, that will be fully a contribution to that organic growth.
As mentioned, the second quarter now is going to be the lowest quarter for the company based on the sports seasonality. There's still a possibility that the remaining four months from September to December will make a significant contribution. For the entire plan for the upcoming years, of course, there is a consideration of further state regulation and state launches. Whether that is going to be now California or whether that includes a casino in New York, that's a very difficult question. I would believe California is not necessarily factored in that. It is not a guessing of a specific state, but rather what is still in the pipeline and how is the likelihood of a certain amount of additional population, adult population getting access to either sports betting or also online casino.
I think that's put well, Peter. It's a pool of states, particularly the North American states, that are impacting that forecast and that planning. There are many things that can change. Again, macroeconomics could slow things, but they could also accelerate more states looking at other tax advantages from legalizing online sport or online casino. There's Latin American growth. There are a number of factors in there. We'll assess that through the rest of this year and how this NFL season and World Cup goes. We'll look at that again as we go through how 2023 and beyond looks. We continue to assess this, but at this point, there are still a lot of factors, and the fall season will tell us a bit.
Okay. Thanks. On the annual savings, you target the European annual savings of EUR 5 million. Could you just talk about the net effect? Because, I mean, is that EUR 5 million going into North American and Latin American investments or how should we think about that?
A couple of things. That savings is both operational and capital expenditure. The effect there will be also offset by where it's going. Some of that is going into North America already on a plan. We already had a plan for North America. We're following that plan. It is meeting and exceeding those plans in terms of the revenue side. The operational costs continue to follow plan. There is cost savings compared to our original plan, but it doesn't mean we're, "Yes, we're just going to sit on cash." We're going to be investing in the opportunities that exist. Right now, North America, Latin America, probably esports, are higher trajectory growth rates than our current European markets. We need to look at those.
We need to optimize the products and the markets we're focused on and maybe pull back or save costs, particularly during an uncertain time in the macro picture, but invest in the places where there is less uncertainty and more promise. That's what we're going to do.
Okay, thanks. Then I have a question on the current trading. Considering Ontario may be ramping up in the latter part here, also on Japan, just looking at, like, the current run rate and if you see signs of rapid improvements after July. The thing I'm trying to get a sense of here is the dynamics of Q3. Obviously you grew 8% year-over-year in July, but just comparing to last year, I think that August and September was really strong, primarily September with the Arizona launch. How should we think about full Q3 growth comparing to the trading update in July?
Many factors out there, as you say, Oscar, and many things in flux. Japan remains in flux, so I don't know that there is a clear trend as of yet. One month looks different from the next, but it really depends how the news cycle shifts there and a lot of the press that has been talking about gambling moves off to talk about the other things where they never talk about gambling, and that allows us to do what we do there. I think that's over this next quarter that's going to remain shaky there. North America is going to be very strong. We have the new states of New York, Louisiana, and Ontario for sports betting.
We don't have a state launching particularly and known to be definitely launching in September, but we have Kansas coming in, so that's another bolster into the Q3 or Q4. North America's looking strong. Yeah, September's a hard comparable with a state launching the first month of sports season, a state the size of Arizona with 20-ish operators. I'm very, very bullish on the North American forecast for the rest of the year. Let's not forget the World Cup. We're gearing up for that in many of our other markets 'cause most of the other markets follow that sport. That's a Q4 event. I expect Q4 will look very strong. Don't know if there's anything else to add, Peter, on risks?
No, just to put in a question that also came in here in the chat that maybe fits into that as the remaining part of the year looks particularly strong from a North American perspective. The question was: Is North America going to be 2/3 or even more of total group revenue? Well, we cannot really state how that is going to look like, but naturally, North America already contributed almost 2/3 in the first quarter. That was in relation to a launch in both New York and Louisiana. Very clearly following the trends that we have seen over the past years with an increase over the years from 18% to 1/3 to 1/2 and now to more than 1/2, that is definitely of course the direction that we are going to.
It also depends on the outcome and the consequences of the strategic review, which is a little bit too early now to share. What is the future set up in Europe? For example, what are we focusing on there, from a margin perspective, from markets, as Michael mentioned that before, that will naturally have an impact on the relative shares in our group.
All right. Thank you. I have a final one if that's okay.
Go ahead.
Exceptional, yes.
All right. Yeah, all right. I'll go ahead. The partnership you announced with NJ, I believe that Better Collective had that partnership before you. Is that correct?
That is correct.
Yeah. Okay. Did you make, like, a higher bid, or did they, their contract expire? Can you share that?
What I can share is that we didn't break a contract with someone else. We came in at the end of a contract period and had negotiations, and both parties, ourselves and NJ.com's owners, decided that the relationship with Catena was a better relationship to go forward with. I'm not gonna comment on financials in there and the like, but we were very happy to get that and with a good partner who has opportunities in other states and, you know, each state is going to be its own way competitive. This starts for us to prove out how these partnerships might work in states where we particularly also have strong organic products. That's been the balance for us in how to explore this, and we will be looking at that going forward.
Some of our competitors, at least until some recent acquisitions and the like, didn't really have strong organic products that they had built in many of these markets, so publishing made more sense for them in the early game. We're in the mid-game now, maybe in some of those states, and so it's time for us to start on some of these.
All right. Thank you very much. I think that was all for me.
Great. I will just before the next one is piling up, in relation to exactly that content partnership, we have a question here on the chat about, well, what we are looking at and how one should think about the contributions and even the approach here versus moving with our own brands and assets from a competition point of view. I think as Michael indicated, we haven't previously focused a lot on that. The mere reason is if you go into a content partnership as well, you will have a revenue share with that content partner for very obvious reasons. You don't get everything into your own wallet, but everybody brings the assets to the table.
We, for obvious reasons, bring in our expertise on the content side, on the search engine optimization, everything that relates to affiliation because we are the experts there. A media outlet will bring their asset in, which is the website with its traffic and the potential audience. It wasn't necessary for us really based on the very organic strength that we have with our own assets in various markets, and that might differ to competitors who like to get into a certain market without having built up over the years strength in their own organic assets. That is a little bit the answer how this pans out now going forward. That might differ from state to state, depending on how strong your search rankings are with your existing assets. Is there anything else that we would like to add here?
I think that speaks well to it.
Very good. I think, operator, we can go to the next one in the line.
Gentlemen, there are no further questions on the audio side. I'll turn it back over to you all for any web questions and final remarks.
Sure. I think we see a few around share buybacks and questions about what's going on that and how that relates to the strategic review, cancellations, etc . Share buybacks are now approved by our AGM, so we have the capability in our toolbox to do so. We are in a strategic review for assets potentially for sale, as well as streamlining of other assets. I think that has a dramatic impact on the plan going forward, and until that is at least made clear, then us doing share buybacks is not going to probably happen in the very near term. Then that leads to the cancellation, and that's again when we start buybacks, we still have a percentage of we can do before reaching that 10%, and then we look at cancellations.
You know, there's a question out there, do you use those for M&A? I don't know. I don't know that that is the most prudent thing we could do at this period given where stock stands. Again, we'll evaluate that as we go through the strategic review and get the next steps and make those more clear to the markets. The strategic review has many moving parts, and that's gonna be a few more weeks to clarify.
Yes. The clear answer is share buybacks will not start immediately, but they may start at any point when we come to conclusions in the strategic review as well. The cancellation is an item where there is an intention to do that, in order to make full use of the authorization to buy back the equivalent of a 10%, shareholding in ourselves. We currently hold 5.6%, so logically, we could only buy back the remaining 4.4 percentage points. Again, also from a cash perspective, this is dependent a little bit on the outcome of the strategic review, maybe a disposal of certain assets and then an overall review of what is the best, the best capital usage at that point in time. It's a little bit too early to already go in here right now.
On other questions, I see one about the rev share in the US. I think we spoke to that and the timing related. That's going to develop. We're in negotiations. The operators are starting to come to the table with serious discussions. That's the first step in this. It will remain CPA for a while. A transition is always something we have had concerns about how we would transition from CPA to rev share would go too fast or too slow. I'm very happy with the developments and the work by the teams there from our side and the operator side to have real meaningful discussions around long-term revenue share opportunities.
Can you elaborate, Michael, maybe a little bit on Ontario and the outlook there from a comparison perspective and how important is Ontario in the entire pool of states that we have?
Sure. Firstly, let's be clear for other Canadians that Ontario is not a state.
Yes.
It's a province of another country. Ontario is a market of 14, 16-ish million, so a little smaller, same size-ish Michigan, which has been very strong for us. It's similar to Michigan that it's sport and casino. Now it's a new country. Yes, they follow NFL cycle. They also have hockey in Canada, which we came in at the very end of last year is when they launched, or when they launched at the end of their season. Ontario is going to be very important for us. It's the first province. It's got casino. Casino builds over time. Ontario has already been contributing very well in what are the slower sports season here in the middle of the summer. I expect that will continue to grow. Very interested to see how it performs in the NFL season because we've never worked with a Canadian province before.
The greater wide market transition that started some of the initial bursts from being slower was slow, but the operators are there now, and there is competition, and competition is going to be a good thing for an affiliate. I'm hopeful that maybe some of the marketing rules might be reconsidered over time, 'cause those are limiting in allowing a fair competition, I would say, within the marketplace. Regardless, there is a place for us as an affiliate there, and I see strong growth over the coming years in Ontario and likely other Canadian provinces that we have never even referenced.
Yes. The only difference to many U.S. states is in fact very different marketing restrictions that we have seen from the very start, hence why we commented on that already in the trading update of the Q1 report and now again, that the start was slower than we expected. Nevertheless, Ontario made a meaningful contribution during that quarter, but that shouldn't just reduce that perception. Marketing restrictions may change over time. We have seen this in Europe as well, that it could go even either way. That is a learning effect, likely in Ontario. It's too early to say in which direction that goes, but has to be observed.
Was one question in relation to our strategic review and potential disposal of assets or selling off of certain brands and, as we mentioned, potential additional bidders in that. When we announced this on the 20th of May, there was a certain interest on the market. Of course, we passed a little bit more time. There is more interest on certain assets. We are in that process. There are lots of talks going on, but at that point we cannot comment more on that. There is continued good interest. I don't know that I'm seeing much else, Peter, that we haven't covered.
Yes. I think with that, unless, operator, there are any more questions, I think we'll round up for this quarterly report.
I'm showing no further questions on the audio side.
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Goodbye. Thank you.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. We thank you all for attending today's presentation. You may.