Good morning everyone, and welcome to EG7's second quarter earnings call. My name is Robin Lundell, and I will be your moderator during this call. With us today, we have Ji Ham, CEO, and Fredrik Rüdén, Deputy CEO and CFO, who will guide you through our Q2 earnings release. We will round up this presentation with a Q&A session, and if you have any questions, you can email them to the investor relations email. With this, I hand it over to Ji.
Thanks, Robin. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us this morning. We will start with the highlights for the quarter and some updates on releases coming up for Q3 as well. And then Fredrik will go through detailed discussion relating to financial performance for the quarter. Then, as Robin mentioned, we will go through the Q&A session. Let us start with the numbers. Next slide, please. For the second quarter, net revenue came in at SEK 475 million , which is 25% higher from last year, 30% growth in constant currency. Adjusted EBITDA at SEK 99 million compared to SEK 37.5 million last year. The margin improved by up to 21% by 1,100 basis points from 10% last year. Net profit came in at SEK 42 million , and EPS at SEK 0.52. Operating cash flow was SEK 120 million .
This number does include working capital benefit at Fireshine for developer royalties that have to be paid in the third quarter. So if we exclude working capital movement, we are looking at operating cash flow of SEK 94 million . Next slide, please. Every business unit for this quarter grew adjusted EBITDA from last year. Fireshine, with net revenues coming in at SEK 160 million . That is 127% local currency. Adjusted EBITDA came in at SEK 53 million , compared to SEK 3 million last year. Far Far West was the key driver for Fireshine, sold over 1 million units in the first couple of weeks of release. Early access PC title on Steam, and players are really enjoying and loving the game. It is currently sitting at 96% overwhelmingly positive rating on Steam, which is amazing.
We expect Far Far West to be a nice contributor beyond 2026 as well, as the current plan is 1.0 release on PC and all the consoles planned for 2027. Back catalog sales also contributed nicely for Fireshine, led by Core Keeper. For Big Blue Bubble, net revenue came in at SEK 71 million , that is 21% higher compared to last year in local currency. That represents growth for Big Blue Bubble for the first time in five quarters, which is nice to see Big Blue Bubble trending back up, growing from year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA came in at SEK 35 million at 50% margin. The combination of Clubbox feature that Big Blue Bubble released earlier this year in collaboration with number of influencers have been a nice combination, working really well.
T-Pain concert that happened in Q2 was a nice success, and there is more coming with ''Weird Al'' Yankovic content coming next, and additional content with influencers, and additional engagement plans coming up for the rest of this year. Piranha net revenue for the quarter came in SEK 33.5 million . That is up 53% local currency. Adjusted EBITDA of SEK 13.1 million , compared to SEK 12.5 million last year. DLC number eight for MechWarrior 5: Mercs, Chaos Reign, shipped in May, and that was a nice driver for them for the period. With the loyal player base for MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, DLCs continue to prove that they deliver consistent performance, and with each release, it has been quite steady and profitable. So content model that is currently working really well for Piranha, we intend to continue with this. We expect stable revenues and profitability with this plan going forward.
For Daybreak, net revenue came in at SEK 185 million , essentially flat compared to last year in local currency. Adjusted EBITDA of SEK 8 million compared to SEK 2 million last year. Second quarter is a seasonal low for Daybreak annually due to the timing of its content releases as well as revenue recognition timing. But highlight for the quarter did include Palia reaching a major milestone of 10 million lifetime players. Also released the Royal Highlands expansion in May, achieving its highest peak monthly revenue since our acquisition. The rest of the live service portfolio for Daybreak is steady, performing nicely, and Q3 should be showing a nice rebound, as is typical from Q2 seasonal low. Petrol not highlighted here, but nonetheless, back to profitability and contributing positively to the group.
The main takeaway from this particular slide is five businesses, all of which are performing nicely and improving their performance. Next slide, please. Hey, Robin, I think it says no slide is being presented currently. Can we go back to slide four? There we go. Thank you. All right. Q3 is off to a great start. Fireshine published Denshattack! on July 15th, released across PC and consoles, and it is over 100,000 units sold and 250,000-ish Game Pass players currently enjoying the game. It is sitting at 98% overwhelmingly positive rating on Steam. Fireshine is really establishing itself with a solid track record of consistently delivering high quality indie titles. Core Keeper is rated 94%. Far Far West is at 96%. Now Denshattack! at 98%.
With these types of consistent track record of bringing high quality, highly rated games to market, Fireshine is successfully establishing itself as one of the leading indie publishers in the marketplace. Another title that came out during the quarter so far in third quarter, EverQuest Legends, developed by Game Jawn and published by Daybreak, released on July 28th. It is a more casual and approachable version of EverQuest. It is also single-player friendly. Target audience for this particular title is the former EverQuest players who want to re-experience the EverQuest, but at their own pace without relying on other players. So that is the reason why this is more solo-friendly, single-player-friendly type of game.
Game has been very well received, and EverQuest Legends has enjoyed strong start to its life, with former players coming back significantly in volume and highly engaged, and the team is working hard to continue to provide compelling content.
The idea is to be able to establish this title as another long-term live service, next to EverQuest and EverQuest II, for the overall EverQuest franchise for the long haul. Next one is Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2. It is our biggest premium title for the year. It is releasing on August 25th, six days from now. Some additional details relating to this. It is a sequel to Aliens: Fireteam Elite that released back in August 2021. It is a third-person action shooter based on the iconic Alien movie franchise from 20th Century Studios. Co-op gameplay, so you have single-player up to four players that could enjoy the game, and it is going to be cross-play across all the platforms at release.
It is built to be playing with friends and having a lot of fun, being able to live out the colonial marine fantasy, fighting against the iconic Xenomorphs and other type of creature from this particular universe. High action, high octane, lots of team play that is highly dynamic that we are really looking forward to having the players enjoy, and that is coming out in the next six days. It is a double-A title. It is not a triple-A title. It is a solid co-op shooter. It is meant to be competing against more of that AA title versus the big AAA titles, but in terms of the gameplay, in terms of the overall combat and everything else that the team has been able to design and create, we are very proud of what they have been able to do.
Really looking forward to getting this game out finally for the player base to be able to enjoy. Platform and pricing-wise, it is releasing on Steam, Epic, PlayStation, and Xbox first on August 25th. Then the plan is to be able to bring this title to Nintendo Switch 2 over the next number of periods later this fall. Base game pricing is at $50 U.S., and premium SKUs priced at $70. The studio that developed this is Cold Iron Studios. Daybreak is the publisher. The transaction, as proposed and approved by the shareholders at the Annual General Meeting a few months back to acquire Cold Iron, successfully closed yesterday on August 18th. Now Cold Iron development team, all its tech, IP contracts, everything, will be moving over to Daybreak under the same umbrella.
This addresses the conflict issue that has been out there, and now Daybreak will have full control over development and publishing of Cold Iron's titles going forward. That is the summary discussion for Q2 and what is coming up next. Now Fredrik will take us through the financials in more detail. Fredrik, over to you.
Yeah. Thank you, Ji. Next slide, please. It shows no picture, so if you can go back. There you are. In the second quarter, net revenue reached SEK 475 million, representing an FX neutral organic growth of 30%. Both Daybreak, Big Blue Bubble, Fireshine, and Piranha all delivered organic growth in local currencies. The headwind currency was SEK 19.1 million in the quarter, and LTM net revenue was SEK 1.6 billion, and adjusted EBITDA margin was 18%. Both these KPIs improved from previous quarter, and specifically with the release of Aliens in Q3, net revenue is expected to continue to improve for the remainder of the year. Next slide, please. More predictable revenue comes from the live service and back catalog titles. Net revenue from this portfolio increased 9.5% to SEK 325 million, corresponding to a strong organic growth of 17% in stable currency.
Over the past five consecutive quarters, this portfolio has, on an LTM basis, had an accelerated organic growth in stable currencies, increasing from 3% in Q2 2025 up to 12% in Q2 this year. This is a good indication how we perform in a longer perspective. Over the last 12 months, net revenue amounted to SEK 1.6 billion, of which SEK 1.3 billion derives from the more predictable revenue base. Next slide, please. Daybreak is the largest contributor to net revenue, generating SEK 185 million. This corresponds to a small organic growth, 0.3% in local currencies. The underlying operational growth in Q2 comes from Palia, EverQuest I and II, and DC Universe. The adjusted EBITDA was SEK 8 million, corresponding to 5% EBITDA margin. Big Blue Bubble's net revenue increased 17% to SEK 71 million, corresponding to 21% organic growth in local currency.
Since the introduction of the cooperation of driven influencer strategy, Big Blue Bubble has continued to deliver sequential increase in net revenue between quarters. The latest cooperation with "Weird Al'' Yankovic was recently announced, and this strategy and other initiatives give us comfort that Big Blue Bubble will continue to perform well. This gave an adjusted EBITDA at SEK 35 million, which means that Big Blue Bubble is contributing higher EBITDA than Daybreak from being at the same level in Q1. Next slide, please. As already mentioned, Fireshine had a great quarter driven by one strong early access digital release of the game Far Far West. Net revenue was SEK 160 million, where Far Far West contributed with SEK 118 million. The EBITDA margin was 33%, delivering an EBITDA at SEK 53 million, which further highlight the scalability in Fireshine's digital business module.
Fireshine contributed above any other business unit's EBITDA this quarter. Petrol generated its lowest net revenue over the past 12 months, but managed to stay profitable given its commercial focus and the business optimization efforts carried out. Net revenue was SEK 26 million and EBITDA was positive, and Petrol continued to secure some important contracts in the quarter and continues its effort to diversify the portfolio outside the traditional gaming market. Next slide, please. Piranha delivered a net revenue of SEK 33 million, corresponding to 46% growth. Adjusted EBITDA was SEK 13 million, corresponding to a 39% margin. A strong quarter for Piranha following the successful launch of the eighth DLC for MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, and the cost reductions effective from the second quarter also impacted the level of capitalization. This is the reason why the EBITDA margin remains the same as in the first quarter.
Meanwhile, the annual cash flow is improved by approximately SEK 15 million. Next slide, please. Now it says no picture again. Yeah, there we are. Our financial situation remains solid. Operational cash flow increased SEK 121 million, which is SEK 143 million improvement from Q2 last year, of which SEK 65 million derives from working capital fluctuations, timing effects, if you may say so, and SEK 78 million from operational improvements already mentioned. We invested SEK 64 million, which is down from SEK 73 million in Q1, and the SEK 73 million is then adjusted for, is excluding the SEK 101 million settlement for the remaining earn-out to the seller of Daybreak, which we did in Q1.
Net debt was SEK 3.6 million. The cash box increased to SEK 344 million, but is following the strong quarter by Fireshine, a bit boosted by SEK 78 million in accrued royalties to be paid in Q3. Together with the unutilized rolling credit facility of SEK 100 million and the bond frame of SEK 1 billion, EG7 has plenty of financial strength going forward. By that, I hand it over back to you, Ji.
Thanks, Fredrik. Now for our closing remarks, let's go to the next slide, please. Once again, it's a blank slide. Yep. There we go. Thank you. Key takeaways, we got five points here to summarize with. The first one is that Q2 was a strong quarter on all headline measures. Net revenue was up 30% constant currencies across on a consolidated basis. Adjusted EBITDA was up 165%. Net profit came in at SEK 46 million. Secondly, we have strong growth from multiple business units. Fireshine led the way with 127% net revenue growth, but wasn't the only one. We had Piranha growing at 53% and Big Blue Bubble delivering 21% growth as well. Third one, every business unit was profitable in the quarter.
Everyone showed increased EBITDA year-over-year, some more than others, but the overall portfolio performing very nicely, resulting in adjusted EBITDA margin expanding by 1,100 basis points to 21% for the quarter. Four, Fireshine is building a leading indie publishing business. Core Keeper, Shadows of Doubt, Far Far West, Denshattack!, and just recently released Duskfade . Fireshine's track record of delivering high-quality indie titles is up there with the best of them. Along with that, Fireshine's back catalog sales continues to build, which should be providing nice long-term baseline cash flows for Fireshine. Really exciting to see the continuing success and growth with Fireshine here. Five, Q3 is off to a busy and exciting start. Denshattack! and EverQuest Legends are released. Next up is Aliens: Fireteam Elite in six days, our biggest premium title for the year.
After that, My Singing Monsters' 14-year anniversary content, coming up with exciting new content line-up for continuing to drive the strong performance year to date through third quarter and fourth quarter as well. All in all, Q2 was a solid quarter, and Q3 is off to a nice start. That concludes our presentation. With that, we can move on to Q&A.
All right. Thank you, Ji and Fredrik. I will start off with a question here from Hjalmar at Redeye. Profitability was up in Daybreak year-over-year, but down quarter-on-quarter. Is this seasonality related or anything else impacting?
Daybreak has a seasonal impact where second quarter tends to be the low quarter for the year. There's a couple of factors that go into it. Q4 typically is our highest quarter, where some amount of revenue from Q4 does get deferred for revenue recognition purposes into Q1. So Q1 ends up being a bigger quarter because of revenue benefit that's rolling over from Q4 the prior year. So sequential comparison from Q1- Q2 usually shows a decline. That's one. Secondly, content updates that are coming out in Q2 typically is a little bit lighter compared to some of the other quarters. Combined with this revenue recognition timing issue, you see Q2 being a little bit lower.
Additionally, we did have marketing spend, et cetera, that did go out for Palia and a number of other content updates, some of which the revenue will be recognized in Q3. So there's a little bit of that deferral mismatch there as well. So those are what's contributing to what seemingly is a lower EBITDA number in Q2, but some of that benefit will be coming into play as that gets recognized in Q3.
Right. Thank you, Ji. Another question from Hjalmar. Can you share anything about total wish list for Aliens on all platforms?
Yeah. We are not disclosing that, but it is on a nice trajectory and has performed better than the first title. There is data that we have made available for how the first game has done. The first game, 3.7 million units life to date, and then additional close to 5 million engagement from Game Pass as well. Compared to how the first game, in terms of how the wish list built for that first game, compared to how we are building now, we feel we are ahead of it, with a nice momentum going into the release next week.
All right. Thank you, Ji. Another question from Hjalmar. You mentioned marketing costs in Daybreak for Aliens. Can you comment if this had a notable impact on EBITDA?
For Q2, not significantly. Q3 is where most of our marketing spend will be spent, along with the prepping for release leading into it, and then as we are releasing. Some amount, but not a significant amount for Q2.
All right. Thank you, Ji. Another question. What platform mix do you expect for the game? More consoles than PC?
Yeah. Based on the data points we have from the first game, Steam PC tends to be the biggest platform amongst all the other console platforms. We expect the same for the second title.
All right. Thank you, Ji. Another question from Hjalmar. You mentioned positive early reception of EverQuest Legends. Can you comment anything on the financial effects? Will it have a meaningful impact on Daybreak in Q3 or any cannibalization from EQ I and II?
Yeah. We expect it to contribute nicely to our Q3 figures. In terms of its performance, we are happy with how it is performing. There is definitely some level of players that are playing EverQuest as well as EverQuest II that are trying out EverQuest Legends. Our expectation has always been when you combine EverQuest and EverQuest Legends, 1+1 may not equal two. It may be slightly less than two, but 1+1 will be higher than EverQuest just being one on its own. On a combined basis, we look at the overall franchise performance, EverQuest, EverQuest II, and EverQuest Legends. On a combined basis, it is performing significantly higher prior to EverQuest Legends release.
All right. Thank you, Ji. We have another question regarding Far Far West. What's next for Far Far West? Any content updates planned for H2 2026, or is it fair to assume V1 out during 2027?
The primary focus for the team is V1, so 1.0 is where a lot of focus is going because that's when the game would be coming out of early access. Along with that, it would be being released across all the other consoles as well. Major milestone that they're aiming for. Of course, they do want to continue to service the existing player base, so there could be additional content update, but primary focus, significant majority of the effort is going into prepping for that 1.0 release.
Right. Thank you, Ji. Another question. What do you expect for investments in Q3, excluding the Cold Iron acquisition? Is Q2 a normal run rate?
The investment size for Q3, excluding Cold Iron. Fireshine is the one that's investing into additional publishing titles, and we have some small amount of investment that's going out from Piranha for continuing DLC development for a future title, and a few other investments that are being made for R&D relating to potential new titles that are being made at Big Blue Bubble, as well as Daybreak. But comparing Q2 to Q3, if we stripped out investment that's going into Aliens: Fireteam Elite, we expect that number to be generally similar because of the ongoing investment that Fireshine is making into additional titles that they're securing.
Right. Thank you, Ji. And another question. With Cold Iron now being a part of the group, how do you see Cold Iron contributing to EG7?
Yeah. So I think there's a number of ways that we expect to benefit from Cold Iron being part of the group. So, the games that they've developed the last two, right, so Aliens: Fireteam Elite, as well as a new game coming out. There's been significant investment that went into building out all the gameplay, all the systems, all the combat, et cetera, that we want to be able to harness for anything new that we do going forward. Where a lot of those types of gameplay systems and features could be utilized for other types of games that we have in mind, including to the extent we're able to deliver a nice success with the second title. There could be additional opportunity with the franchise going forward as well.
So we look at Cold Iron's contribution going forward as the expertise, tech, and the foundation that's been built relating to a very specific type of gameplay that Cold Iron specializes in, that we want to be able to leverage that for continuing content development along a similar type of game. As we talked about in the past, we're big fans of being able to continue to refine what works, so 80/10/10 models. So we want to be able to continue to build on that with Cold Iron's tech and gameplay specialization. So we expect to utilize those skill set tech and assets to be able to, whether it's applying to a game like an H1Z1 or additional Alien title, that's what we're looking forward to be able to do.
Right. Thank you, Ji. And we have another question from Steven. How does Big Blue Bubble view the balance between continuing to build on the successful My Singing Monsters franchise and developing additional sources of revenue?
Yeah. They are always exploring new opportunities, but it is a bit like a portfolio management in terms of managing our personal investment portfolio, right? The lowest risk for them is to continue to invest in My Singing Monsters, servicing the sticky audience that they have, which has proven to be quite good in terms of revenues as well as profitability and ongoing retention and engagement of that user base. They will continue to be doing that. But additionally, utilizing the same knowhow expertise that they have been able to build with My Singing Monsters, they are exploring other types of game that leverages that type of mechanic. Those types of efforts are going on. Of course, some of those are prototypes. There has to be a lot of testing before they decide whether some of those could come to market or not.
But if you are looking at it as a portfolio as to how much time and effort is going into new versus My Singing Monsters, significant majority is still going into My Singing Monsters. As we have seen, a Clubb ox feature that they just released earlier quarter of this year, brand-new feature that was not there last year, now it is there. And what we see is that even though game is turning 14 years old, investment in the existing title with a captive audience that they have been able to continue to satisfy, new ways of engaging with the game has significant upside. It is always balancing that. There is not a perfect answer, but nonetheless, the team, of course, always wants to be trying something new. And they are doing that.
And to the extent we are able to take some of those prototypes to a stage where we feel like, Hey, these could be commercially successful, then we would be disclosing those and bringing those to market. But for now, I would say a significant majority of their time and effort is going into continuing to build and improve on My Singing Monsters, because we believe that there is more upside there.
All right. Thank you, Ji, and thank you, Fredrik. I think this concludes our Q&A session. If anyone has any further questions, you can reach out to our investor relations email. Thank you everyone for listening in, and have a good day.
Great. Thanks, everyone.