Good morning, and welcome to Embracer Group's fiscal Q1 presentation. My name is Martin Arnell, and I'm an equity analyst with DNB Markets in Stockholm, and I'm here to moderate the Q&A session after management's presentation. Today's presentation will be first a wrap-up of the quarter, followed by a Q&A, and then management will go through the acquisitions that was announced this morning, followed by a second Q&A. With that, I want to hand over to the CEO and founder Lars Wingefors of Embracer and Johan Ekström, the CFO.
Thank you, Martin. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Karlstad, Sweden. I'm glad to report another stable quarter alongside some of our most exciting acquisitions ever. As anticipated, the first quarter was quiet, albeit a record quarter for the group in financial terms. Net sales in Q1 grow 107% year-over-year to SEK 7.1 billion. That is, -12% organic growth. Adjusted EBIT grow 3% to SEK 1.3 billion with an adjusted EBIT margin of 19%. The operational performance was largely in line with management expectations. The PC/console game segment had a low low release activity and tough comparisons from the release of Biomutant last year, and back catalog sales was the main driver. The only new release with a notable financial contribution was Evil Dead: The Game. The mobile game segment performed strongly, growing by 20% organically.
The tabletop game segment grew 6% pro forma, taking market share. We today reiterate our adjusted EBIT forecast for fiscal year 2022/2023 and next fiscal year, 2023/2024. In this fiscal year, we expect an adjusted EBIT of between 9.2-11.3 billion SEK, and next fiscal year, we expect adjusted EBIT of 10.3-13.6 billion SEK. This excludes pending acquisitions of Eidos-Montréal, Crystal Dynamics, Beamdog and these deals announced this morning. Looking into adjusted EBIT breakdown of the year, we expect Q2 and Q3 to be clearly stronger than Q1, somewhat in Q3's favor, driven by both new releases and seasonality. Q2 is supported by the reboot of Saints Row and other notable platform deals.
Further, we expect Q4 to be the clearly strongest quarter of the financial year, driven by a few strong releases, including a long-awaited AAA title, now expected in Q4 and to be announced soon. For the remainder of the year, we expect to notably outgrow the rest of the market with the overall organic growth of 20%-35% for the full financial year for the full group. I'm very proud and thankful to our finance team, led by Johan, and advisors for finalizing the largest IFRS conversion projects ever in Sweden ahead of original timeline. This is an important milestone in constantly improving corporate governance in our group. The process to change the listing venue to the main market at Nasdaq Stockholm by the end of the calendar year remains on track. We are also introducing new sustainability goals today.
After an extended period without major releases in PC console games, we are now entering a new phase of higher release activity. The reboot of Saints Row hitting physical and digital stores on August 23 will be one of the most important releases in this fiscal year. Excitement for the game among fans is building up, and we will hear more about that very soon in this presentation. THQ held a well-received digital showcase last Friday, announcing a reboot of the iconic horror franchise, Alone in the Dark, and more than 10 other titles. Next week, there is Gamescom, and we expect a strong line-up of both new products and a varied business development schedule.
In total, we have 222 games in our games development pipeline, including at least 25 AAA projects planned for release until March 2026. Looking at our financial position, we have a total of SEK 20 billion in cash and credit facilities as of this morning. We continue to have conversations with several industry players about supporting our long-term strategy, either through investments or partnership. We continue to grow our organic investments into our games development pipeline with a record of SEK 1.1 billion invested into games development. That will drive the organic growth of the company for many years to come. On the short term, this, however, contributes to the negative free cash flow in the quarter. We do expect a strong free cash flow for the full fiscal year, reducing the leverage of our balance sheet.
This morning, I was excited to report five acquisitions, including the IP rights for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. On an aggregated basis, the transactions will have a material impact on Embracer and fulfill financial and strategic objectives. From a financial perspective, the transactions on a combined basis will be accretive to earnings growth, to Adjusted EBIT margin, to cash conversion, as well as to earnings per share and free cash flow per share. Strategically, the transactions further strengthen and diversify Embracer's portfolio with profitable IPs and franchises. In particular, The Lord of the Rings, one of the most iconic IPs around the globe, and the entire Middle-earth universe offers a significant growth opportunity within PC, console, mobile, and tabletop games.
Finally, summarizing all this information this morning, I'm pleased to announce a new operating group, Freemode, and we will soon welcome, or in a while in this presentation, welcome the CEO Lee Guinchard on stage. Finally, I would like to send a congratulations to Koch Media that finally changed their name to Plaion. With that said, I would like to show a slide for you that shows our continued growth ambitions. Now looking on the left-hand side, we can see the financial growth on a trailing twelve- month basis. The group has shown a strong growth in the past four years, both operationally and financially. The headcounts has increased from 1,700 four years ago to almost 14,000 as of the end of June.
In the same period, the number of studios has increased from 10 to 120. The pipeline of new releases from 51 games to 222, while also growing in average project size. Financially, in the same period, sales has grown notably, and on trailing twelve months basis, we have been reporting now sales of more than SEK 20 billion and adjusted EBIT of more than SEK 4.5 billion. For us, it's full speed ahead. We believe that we are well-positioned to continue to outpace the market growth in all of our four business segments due to the investments we have made into our pipeline and the growth potential for our existing products and services. Let's dig into the segments. Before I'm digging into the segments, I would like to inform you that we actually are reporting under the segments as of this morning.
We have four business segments. This is operating groups by segment. PC console games. We have mobile games made up of DECA Easybrain. We have tabletop games that is made up of Asmodee, and then finally, entertainment and services that is made up of, Plaion and Plaion Pictures, Dark Horse, Freemode, and a number of other businesses. Let's dig into PC and console games segment. The PC and console games segment had a low release activity and tough comparisons from the release of Biomutant last year, and back catalog sales was the main driver. Again, the only new release that had a notable financial contribution was Evil Dead: The Game. Other notable releases in the quarter were Songs of Conquest, which received a lot of positive attention from both fans and critics.
We had MotoGP 22 from our Italian studio Milestone that got very positive feedback, as well as MX vs. ATV Legends developed by Rainbow Studios. The revenue contribution of MX vs. ATV Legends is expected to be long-term. This reporting quarter, it's only included two days of sales since the release. However, that performance was below our management expectations. Looking at the Adjusted EBIT for a segment, it didn't grow year-over-year. It declined because of the comparison quarter of Biomutant, and the lower margin is mainly due to product mix with lower margin development revenue and a higher share of publishing titles. Finally, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands are a success, and we are expecting to receive royalties as the financial year progresses.
If you look at this slide, I think it's very interesting to look at the top 10 back catalog titles of share of sales, meaning our catalog titles are widening constantly, and the wide catalog above the top 10 back catalog titles are now representing 67% of the back catalog sales in the quarter. If you look at the titles, the top 10 titles, you recognize a lot of names we have been talking around on these quarterly presentations before. Star Trek Online, Borderlands, Wreckfest, Risk of Rain 2, the enormous success of Hot Wheels Unleashed, Deep Rock Galactic, Neverwinter, Insurgency: Sandstorm, Valheim, the raving success from last year, and Metro Exodus. Without further ado, I'm very happy to welcome Paul Nicholls online.
Hey, Lars. How are you?
I'm great. How are you?
I'm very well, thank you. Thank you for inviting me, and to tell you a little bit about Saints Row. There is our glorious launch key art up there that we're very proud to show you today. We can't believe that we're actually only five days until we're unleashing Saints on the world and preparing for the biggest and most ambitious Saints Row is ready, and it's primed for takeoff. I'll run through a little bit of what we're up to over this launch, this launch period. If you'd like to go to the next slide, that'd be great. Thanks. We've been busy over the last couple of months, as you can imagine.
We've successfully launched the Boss Factory, which is our best-in-class customization demo that allows you to create your own boss and have it ready in the game for day of release. We had a fantastic response. We had 1.3 million downloads of the demo, and with social media sharing at the center of the demo, we generated an amazing 374 million impressions. Through social media, we had 63,000 mentions across all of the social media channels. It was a great result. The amount of bosses that we saw the community and our fans create was fantastic, and they were really diverse in every single way, so we can't wait to see some of these bosses in the game. There was also a few Lars in there that were created, I don't mind telling you.
I would have shown them today, but it might have risked my future career prospects if I had done. I may share with you them offline some day, Lars. We had our hands-on preview. We held local previews worldwide, London, Sydney, Paris, Milan, of course, Vegas. The response was really positive. It was great to witness the press at last getting hands-on and playing it and experiencing Saints Row in a full Saints Row style, and we had some really great quotes that we got from that event. The activity to date, and that's just a bit of it, there was lots more of other trailers that we released over that period of time but has really put our pre-orders in a strong position.
Two weeks out from launch, we're at 118% of our track to date pre-orders. That's given us a lot of confidence as we come into these final two weeks of launch from this period. We've now kicked off our global marketing campaign. If you can go to the next slide, please. We're pulling all of our big marketing levers across social media, digital media partners, trade marketing, first party. We've activated our full lifestyle and gaming influencer campaigns, as well as our big out of home, as you're seeing here.
Under premium underground in the U.K., primary billboard sites in the U.S., tram skins in Sydney, we've got Saints Row influenced food trucks touring many select cities around the world doing the most amazing food. Our final review copies have gone out, and we can't wait to hear what the press are going to say about the game come when the embargo lifts. I thought I'd take the opportunity. We've got a really robust TV and VOD campaign worldwide. We've got a couple of TV slots to show you now, a full gameplay and a live action. I'll let those roll now. Enjoy them. It's about a minute, and I will see you on the other side.
Thank you, Paul.
Out of nowhere, this fool with a bazooka straight up nukes the whip, hails a jet, then straight up bounces. These two weirdos punch each other in the damn mouth. She struts her stuff and strips down. I was like, "Bam." I see these little aliens out here running amok like a bunch of Gila monsters with their heads cut clean off. Straight off the roof, all flying squirrels. Now that's one hell of a take down. You ain't seen nothing yet. What are the rules for breakfast today? What are the words of love that you say? I need to let my hair down and throw up like a. What are the rules for breakfast today? Hit up my whole life. When they shot down, get down twice. Ain't no stopping me tonight. I'ma get all the things I like. I can feel up my whole life.
Come get it from me.
Okay, thank you, Paul. I think we're all super excited for the feedback from everyone when the game is releasing next Tuesday.
Yeah, we can't wait. We're super prepped, ready to go, and we just can't wait for the game to be in the hands of the gamers and hear what they're going to say, see their videos, see what they're up to. It's going to be a wild ride.
Thanks, Paul. Well done.
Thank you.
Let's move on to Stockholm and the team from Coffee Stain North.
Hello, Lars.
Hello
Thank you for having us.
Hello.
Hello.
Welcome to Karlstad.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
I heard you were going to run a trailer from our game before we get to talk a little bit more about it.
Sure. Let's see if we can get this trailer up and running. Hilarious.
Yeah, there you have it. Pilgor the Goat is coming back finally. We released the original game in 2014 and are still supporting that and continued supporting that. The fans of Pilgor had to wait almost 10 years for a sequel of the game. It's coming out in November 17th, exclusively to PC on Epic Games Store, and on PS5 and on Xbox Series X and S. We're really excited to very soon be able to share gameplay from the game on the Gamescom Opening Night Live on the 23rd of August. It's going to be really exciting. Press and gamers will also get their first hands-on with the game. We're really looking forward to that.
Even though we announced the game only in the beginning of June this year, our social media channels have been exploding with people coming to them. Our TikTok, for example, has more than 500,000 followers already with 4.7 million likes. People seem to be excited still about goats in general, I guess. I'll let our creative director, Santiago Ferro, tell you a little bit more about the game. Hopefully you have a slide for us that we can show at the same time.
Sure.
Yeah, just like a quick overview of what Goat Simulator 3 is. The big new feature is online multiplayer. You can play up to 4 players and wreak havoc in this big sandbox world and just have fun together or annoy each other. It's all up to you basically. One unique feature for the multiplayer is what we call mini games, which is unique rule-based games that you can start from wherever in the world. We have like Hoofball, which is basically soccer, but with goats, Floor is Lava, King of the Hill, and so on. They really put your goat skills to the test and have fun.
In classic Goat Simulator style, the world is just a big open sandbox, and there's a lot of destruction, a lot of secrets, quests, and yeah, just a lot of things to get you sidetracked and just play around with. This time we've really focused on building a fragile world with a lot of destruction and chaos. We've added different elements like fire, electricity, oil that changes the way the world and how you play and interact with this world. Lastly, we've totally revamped the customization system to let you fully express yourself as a goat. This time around we have seven different slots that you can change, like the head, the back, your feet, and so on.
All these gears can have different abilities or they're just cosmetic, and the abilities can also combine with each other and create these weird, unique combinations which, again, enhances the creativity and chaos and all that kind of fun stuff. Of course, you can change the different types of goats. If you're tired of the regular goat, you can be a tall goat, or as some people call them, giraffes. We have 11 different types of these types of goats. Yeah, we're super excited to show more and release the game and see what people do with the game. Yeah.
Thank you so much. I think we're all super excited. I can't wait. I can't wait for the opening show at Gamescom next week. Thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Let's move on to the segment of mobile games. The mobile game segment reported strongly year-over-year, growing 20% organically. The growth was lower compared to the previous quarter, partly due to the platform deal we made in the previous quarter and moderating market growth, but mainly in line with management expectations. Operational EBIT amounted to SEK 277 million, yielding a 19% adjusted EBIT margin. The decrease in adjusted EBIT margin compared to last year is mainly explained by higher user acquisition cost in relation to 59% of net sales, as well as the addition of CrazyLabs, which has a lower margin profile. The mobile game segment is expected to continue its growth through investments in live operating games, improvement of current titles, user acquisitions, and most importantly, through upcoming releases.
It's too early to draw any conclusions based on Google's forthcoming policy and restrictions for ad placements in Android apps. However, the policy will be effective as of September 30th, this year. These developments will be monitored closely, and both DECA Games and Easybrain are working proactively to mitigate this topic. Without further ado, I would like to move over to Müge. Welcome to Sweden.
Thank you, Lars. Good morning, everyone. It's my pleasure to report on Asmodee's sales performance and business highlights for Q1. As a point of reference, let's just please bear in mind that the reported sales for Asmodee in Q4 21/22 only took March into account as Asmodee joined the Embracer Group at that time. Starting with sales performance, net sales amounted to SEK 2.7 million. That represents 6% growth during the quarter on a pro forma basis compared to the corresponding quarter last year. Our sales had a strong momentum, driven by high demand, especially for trading cards, in spite of the periods typically being seasonably weaker. Our sales grew both in Europe, I shall say particularly in France and the UK, and North America.
Our online board games and video games also contributed to growth. On an operating EBIT level, the adjusted EBIT amounted to SEK 445 million. That yields a 17% adjusted EBIT margin. The growth of profitability versus last year is primarily driven by the timing of investments in people and structures. As you know, while Q1 has been dedicated to the successful integration of Asmodee into the group, we've been able to reorganize some internal projects across upcoming periods. The Q1 sales performance was supported by our bestseller lines and also the quality of our most recent releases. Let me give you some examples. So, Clover from our Repos Production studio was named Party Game of 2021 at BoardGameGeek's annual awards.
Stella – Dixit Universe from Libellud was runner-up in the same category, while 7 Wonders Architects came third in the Light Game of the Year category. We also saw major developments in Q1 towards interactive gaming with the digital version of the bestselling Exploding Kittens card game launch on Netflix gaming platform, as well as the release of our bestseller Catan on Board Game Arena, you might recall our global online board gaming platform that ranked number one overnight in number of hours played, actually. Speaking of transmedia developments, during the integration of Asmodee and Embracer Group, a total of 15 projects have been identified whereby Asmodee's IPs are being evaluated for collaboration and development with other operating units. We are thrilled.
To conclude on this first full quarter as part of Embracer, Asmodee announced in May a new studio named Access+. The studio is one of Asmodee's ESG initiatives that aims at studying and promoting the benefits of board games to all members of society. Working with healthcare professionals, the Access+ teams are developing a line of inclusive games accessible to a wide spectrum of people, including those living with cognitive disorders. The first games will actually hit shelves in late Q2. Transitioning to the current quarter, Q2, we've been delighted to welcome our fans back in person at Gen Con, a leading U.S. board game consumer show that gathered around 50,000 consumers this year.
Consumers particularly enjoyed Twilight Inscription from our Fantasy Flight Games studio, with early copies sold out in less than one hour during the show, as well as our Netflix series of games such as Squid Game, Stranger Things, and so on. Also in July, our global online board gaming platform, Board Game Arena, engaged hundreds of thousands of players around the Summer of Games, an event that saw one new game released each day in July on the platform, so 31 in total. Finally, in Q2, six novels will be released by Aconyte. Aconyte is Asmodee's fiction novel arm, including two Marvel IPs and two Asmodee-owned IPs. I think with that said, that's about it for now on Asmodee's news. Hope you stay tuned. Back to you, Lars. Thank you.
Thank you, Müge. We are so excited to have you on board and can't wait to see you soon again.
Thank you so much.
Moving to Entertainment and Services, our last segment of the day. The segment grew 44% year-over-year, driven by the acquisition of Dark Horse, which performed in line with management expectations. Pro forma growth was -12%, while margins declined year-over-year. It's mainly explained by lower activity in terms of third-party games released within Plaion publishing, the previously Koch Media physical distribution arm. During the quarter, The Umbrella Academy Season Three, based on Dark Horse comic book series, made its debut on Netflix. After the quarter, Dark Horse Entertainment announced that its partnership with Netflix has been extended for several years, giving Netflix options on filming rights based on Dark Horse IPs. Finally, Plaion Pictures won two of the main awards at the Cannes Film Festival. Looking little bit more into the market.
The global games market is predicted to generate $197 billion in 2022, a growth of 2% year-over-year. This represents a slight downward revision of previous 2022 forecasts that were 5% year-over-year, mainly driven by a lower forecast for console games. The market has somewhat headwinds from inflation, pressure on consumer spending, and remaining pandemic effects like hardware shortages and new release delays. That said, there are several factors currently adding momentum and stability to the games market. It's both accessible and affordable with increasing revenue from platform deals, subscription models, and the high growth areas such as VR. According to data from IDG, the games market is expected to gain share versus other entertainment sectors 2022. The long-term growth prospects remain strong.
The games market is predicted to continue its growth in subsequent years, reaching $226 billion in 2025, which is a 5% CAGR between 2020 and 2025. With that said, I would like to hand over to Johan.
Thank you, Lars. If you look to our P&L for the period, it's now split by segments. As said, we have a record high net sales in the quarter, SEK 7.1 billion, growing with more than 107% versus last year. The main drivers of the nominal growth is the addition of Asmodee, Dark Horse, and CrazyLabs, and also favorable effect from a weaker SEK versus US dollar and euro. If you look at the profitability in the period, adjusted EBIT SEK 1.3 billion, yielding a 19% EBIT margin. It's lower than the same period last year, mainly explained by a segment mix shift from PC console to tabletop and mobile games.
If we look at the individual segments and start with PC console, we notice that the EBIT margin is 26% in the quarter, lower than last year. The main reason for this is that last year we had the release of Biomutant, which was very successful. This year, there was one notable release in the quarter in Evil Dead. I said earlier here, MX vs. ATV only contributed a couple of days in the quarter. We can also note that there is a higher share of publishing revenue or publishing titles in the quarter compared to last year. Mobile games, solid growth in the quarter, growing with 20% organically.
The lower EBIT volume in the segment is mainly explained by a higher share of user acquisition costs in relation to net sales in the quarter. Solid performance of Asmodee, as we heard Müge talk about, growing with 6% in a flat market, generating an operational or adjusted EBIT of SEK 445 million in the quarter. For entertainment and services, profitability is lower compared to last year, and the main reason is that there were no larger releases in the quarter for Plaion publishing, part of the segment. Adjusted EPS on a fully diluted basis was 0.96 SEK per share in the quarter, and on an undiluted basis, it was 1.04 SEK in the quarter. Yes.
We are very happy to release a report that is under IFRS, and it's been a large project, and we just like to take a moment to thank everyone that has been part of the project, both here in Karlstad and also out in the organization, internal as well as external resources. The transition to IFRS is a key milestone in the project of changing listing venue to Nasdaq Stockholm. It doesn't change the way we conduct our business, nor the way that we follow up on our underlying business performance. The best way to understand the underlying operational performance of Embracer is through adjusted EBIT, which was previously called operational EBIT. The transition to IFRS has only had an immaterial effect on adjusted EBIT.
The definition is quite a bit different, as we will see later when we go through the bridge. Due to accounting treatments of earn-outs in IFRS, we have added a new APM to the report called Adjusted EBITA to get the relevant measure of the underlying cash flow generation of the business. As you have seen throughout the presentation, we are also glad to report net sales and adjusted EBIT by segment. In the report, we also have additional information relevant for the specific segments to understand performance as well. It's a big quarterly report that was released today, and there's a lot of information in it. I would say that we have an overview of what the transition to IFRS has meant on page five.
There are a lot of details further on in the report, showing bridges, taking you step by step from K3 to IFRS. Should there be any questions related to this, or anything else, you're more than welcome to reach out to our ir@embracer.com email address. Looking at the bridges. We have adjusted EBIT and adjusted EBITA. One important thing is that within IFRS, if there is an explicit or implicit condition that the sellers should remain employed during the earn-out period, it will not be part of the contingent consideration or part of the purchase price under IFRS.
Instead, it's expensed as it is being earned and treated as a personnel cost within the P&L. We definitely believe and think that this is an acquisition-related item, which is why it is excluded when establishing the adjusted EBIT and EBITDA. When it comes to transaction costs such as due diligence, financial, tax, commercial, legal, under IFRS, these are expensed as they occur. This is also an acquisition-related item that is added back when calculating adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBIT. Worth noting is that it's only the transaction costs that are being added back to adjusted EBITDA only consists of transaction costs for deals that have been closed. Looking at the amortizations, they are SEK 7 billion lower in IFRS than it was in Q3 looking at the previous fiscal year.
The reason for this is that there are no goodwill amortizations under IFRS. There still are acquisition-related amortizations within IFRS related to acquired surplus values such as IP rights and brand names, trade names, which is excluded when calculating adjusted EBIT. At the end, the adjusted EBIT for last fiscal year under IFRS, as you can see, is approximately SEK 4.5 billion, and the difference compared to Q3 is immaterial. It's a bit higher, mainly related to the implementation of IAS 16 for leasing, and also relating to revenue recognition for durables for certain mobile games.
Just to elaborate a bit more on the SEK 4.2 billion relating to contingent considerations that's not classified as part of the purchase price, this is related to the three largest acquisitions that we made within PC and mobile over the last two years. Moving ahead to the balance sheets and looking at earnouts, number of shares, and adjusted earnings per share. The considerations that are to be settled in cash and not treated as part of the purchase price is excluded from the financial liability under IFRS. Under IFRS, the financial liability will be SEK 4.8 billion, or is SEK 4.8 billion. Under Q3, you include them all, so there you would have SEK 8.2 billion.
If you look at the obligations that are to be settled with shares, either shares already issued or shares to be issued in the future, the amount of shares is lower under IFRS compared to Q3, mainly related to that part of the purchase price under IFRS would be excluded from part of the purchase price. Under Q3, you would include all shares in the share count as they are part of equity when they are issued and as a provision when they are to be issued. Finally, looking into the average share count. The average number of shares diluted under IFRS for last fiscal year would be 921 million. Under Q3, it will be 1,086 million, so a lot higher under Q3.
The reason for this is that earnouts that are not considered to be part of the purchase price under IFRS are earned over time. Also, that you need to look at each individual earnout agreement to see if it should be classified as a part of equity or as a financial liability, depending on if the fixed criteria are met or not. Finally, looking into how we calculate adjusted earnings per share. We start with the net profit for the period, which is SEK 1.1 billion, for last fiscal year. We add back acquisition-related items that we just described under the establishment of adjusted EBIT. We remove any acquisition-related items that are part of the financial net. Last year, they were positive, so they will be removed as SEK 2.5 billion.
We also need to consider taxes on the adjustments, which is SEK 276 million. Important to note is that not all adjustments are taxable, hence the tax effect is only calculated on the adjustments that are taxable or as a tax effect. This would then result in an adjusted net profit for the period of SEK 3.9 billion. We use the higher share count, under or where you include all shares that are outstanding and also, the maximum amount of shares that need to be issued or could be issued in the future to settle the obligations. The adjusted EPS on a diluted, fully diluted basis, for last fiscal year under IFRS is 3.61. Okay.
Looking into the cash flow for the period, we continue to invest into organic growth opportunities, so in total SEK 1.2 billion invested into intangible assets. The vast majority, 1.1 of this is related to investments going into the games development portfolio. Looking at free cash flow generation pre changes in net working capital, it's positive, close to SEK 500 million for the period. We have an increased working capital in the period of SEK 1.2 billion, so free cash flow after changes in working capital is negative minus SEK 800 million. The change in working capital is mainly related to the buildup of inventory within the tabletop segment, before they enter into their peak season, which is Q3. That was approximately SEK 0.8 billion.
The remaining amount of 0.4 billion SEK is related to an increase in net of other operating receivables and liabilities, mainly related to payments of trade payables, but also deals that we have had that was not cash in June, but where cash was received in July instead. At the end of June, the net debt amounted to SEK 11.5 billion. Available funds, as Lars said today, is twenty billion SEK. Looking ahead, we expect to generate a strong cash flow for the remaining part of the year, driven by an higher expected adjusted EBIT. We feel confident that we will reach the financial leverage target that we have of 1x adjusted EBIT, or at the end of this fiscal year.
Very, very happy to welcome HSBC and Svensk Exportkredit to Embracer Group of relationship banks. They joined at the end of June, joining or extending the group of Nordea, SEB, and Swedbank. Now they are five. They joined as we entered into an amendment agreement at unchanged terms for two unsecured long-term credit loan facilities that mature in 2024 and 2026, increasing the facilities with SEK 5 billion, replacing the SEK 4 billion facility that we communicated in May. Project ROI. Looking back, I should say, we still see a solid return on investment for our games development projects, three times the investment amount in average.
We should bear in mind that this is done on a cash flow basis, so the chart is a bit harsh on titles that are released late in the quarter, as you would only have a couple of days of contribution, but you would have the full investment cost in the denominator. Now the sample is 54 projects, and the basis for selection is sales above SEK 40 million or investments above SEK 40 million. As said in the beginning, we reiterate the guidance for this fiscal year and the next fiscal year. For this year, the guidance is between SEK 9.2 billion and SEK 11.3 billion. Next year, SEK 10.3 billion to SEK 13.6 billion at the Adjusted EBIT level. The market growth that we saw in May was 5%.
Now we are looking at 2% sub growth. Looking at the different segments, PC/Console, we expect to have a strong organic growth in the year, driven by releases and in terms of accumulated investment values, we expect to have at least three times more investment value released this year compared to last year. Also containing 2 AAA releases, and in addition, we have several AA, single A, and indie titles on the slate for this fiscal year. Platform deals drive profitability, also adds predictability to profits. Mobile, we expect an organic growth well above the market, driven by the increased utilization of existing platforms, fueled by current and future funds going into user acquisition, as well as planned releases of new titles.
Within tabletop, we expect to grow our adjusted EBIT with at least 10% over last year. Looking into the phasing, to sum up, we expect notable seasonality to affect the phasing of board game segment, mobile segment, and the back catalog part of the PC/console segment. Q2 and Q3 will be clearly stronger than Q1, and in favor of Q3. Q3 will be higher than Q2. It's driven by seasonality and re-release slates. Super excited about the reboot of Saints Row in Q2, as well as notable platform deals. Last but not least, we expect Q4 to be the clearly strongest quarter of the financial year, driven by a few strong releases, including a long-awaited AAA title now expected in Q4 and to be announced soon.
Thank you, Johan.
Yes.
Now let's head over to sustainability before we're moving into the Q&A. Let's welcome Emma Ihre on stage.
Thank you. Thank you, Lars. My name is Emma Ihre, and I'm Head of Sustainability, working together with Karin Edner and the rest of the team at the head office, so in Karlstad and in Stockholm. Why is sustainability important for Embracer? Why do we care about sustainability or if you like to call it ESG? We care about it 'cause we are human beings, and we have a responsibility for other people, for the planet, and for the future. That's the first reason why we care about sustainability. As well, we invest quite a lot in sustainability and ESG 'cause there is no lack of legal requirements. Of course, it's kind of a minimum standard to follow the law, and it can be very costly to breach laws.
We don't wanna waste our money, and we don't wanna waste your money. We wanna invest them in our business and in new companies, not in paying fines. As well, we have high expectations from our stakeholders, and that's stakeholders like our employees, customers, and investors. To summarize, it's about values. We wanna act in line with our values, but it's also very much about risk management, to map our risk and to manage them in an excellent way. It's also about business development, to develop our business, so we do good for people, the planet, and earn money at the same time. Embracer Group is providing the market with great games, great entertainment, and that's our business, and that's where sustainability, our sustainability work starts.
To be successful in the long run, we have to think and act broader, more long-term, so we can provide the world with even more entertainment and great games, and to create even more value to our stakeholders, and to give back to society. That's our way of looking at sustainability and our strategy. These are some of the most material sustainability issues for our industry and for Embracer Group. It's diversity and inclusion, responsible content, and as well, healthy gaming. Our board has, based on our decentralized business model, our sustainability framework, and the most material sustainability issues, set three sustainability goals. The first one is to double the number of female studio heads by 2025. The second one is to reduce carbon emissions by 45% by 2030.
The third one is that all operative groups will set their own sustainability goals. They know their market, their business, so they're gonna set their own goals during the coming year. To set sustainability goals is a way to communicate, to show our ambition and direction. But it's that's just one of many tools. As well we have partnerships with different NGOs, like with UN Global Compact and other NGOs. We have collaboration within our industry and with other private companies. As well, we have tons of ambitious policies that we are implementing, and many of them is about ESG or sustainability. That was it for me. Thank you.
Thank you, Emma. Thank you so much. Without further ado, let's head over to just a very, very short M&A update. I know we're running a little bit over time here, but there is many important topics today. We believe it's important to continue expanding and investing into the ecosystem that attracts and retain talents. Creates synergies, enables great people to realize their high ambitions. If you look at this slide, you can see our current pending acquisitions and this morning announced acquisitions. We are expecting to close the notable acquisition of Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal, Square Enix Montréal very soon, as well as Beamdog in Canada.
If you're including the announced acquisitions this morning, post-closing, we will be up to 120 game development studios and taking the total headcounts engaged to more than 15,000. We continue to have a strong funnel of M&A opportunities to support our long-term growth ambitions. There is a lot of bolt-on opportunities adding fantastic IPs and game development studios, for example, into the group, and we will continue to execute on that strategy. Let's head over to Martin before we will.
Okay. Thank you, Lars and Johan for that presentation, and we'll kick off the Q&A now. Then I think there's maybe some more presentations coming, followed by a short Q&A after that as well. But to start with questions on the quarter, just you mentioned that this is another stable quarter. Is this the final time you're gonna say that, when we're moving into the second quarter, do you think?
No, I think, you know, looking at the word stable, it's relating to our expectations and, you know, our expectations are wide. I think in general, more or less all companies are delivering according to our expectations, that's why we had a stable quarter.
Mm-hmm. You added that Q2 will be significantly above. You changed a little bit in the phasing of the coming quarters and expect a very strong end to your fiscal year with the Q4. That's correct?
Yeah. That's mainly driven by the movement of one significant release that previously was scheduled to be in the third quarter, moving to the fourth quarter.
We'll come back to those big releases in just a while. In the quarter, there's you know, notably high UA spending in mobile. I think it was 59% of your sales. It seems sales growth is slowing a bit there in the mobile segment. How confident are you with the investment initiatives in the mobile business?
First of all, I'm confident that we have a world top-class management team that are able to understand the dynamics of their businesses and how the user acquisitions. They have the green light to invest as much as they can for the maximum long-term organic growth rather than creating short-term profits. The alternative, we would have to slow down the user acquisition to generate more cash flows and profit on the short term, but that will hurt the business on the long term, and that's not how we operate our business.
A large share, correct me if I'm wrong, in your mobile business is driven by advertising. Given where we are today in the macroeconomic environment, you commented a bit in the report that the market has slowed. Where are your views here in the current environment and going into the fall regarding that?
I think we have seen you know, major brands and some kind of other advertisement players being more cautious on the market. That is somewhat hitting the prices paid for advertisement. At the same time, it's a bit lower user acquisition spend. It's basically the difference between them that generates the profit, so it's a quite complex material to understand. I would like to look at this as a positive, that there is opportunities to take market share and to invest more into the long-term growth.
On that topic, the macro climate, if you look at it in a wider perspective, incorporating the PC and console into this and the lowered market forecast that we're seeing out there, despite all of that, you reiterated your guidance. Sort of how confident can you be that, in that reiteration, sort of, if you understand what I mean?
Yeah, I understand your point. Obviously we are also affected by the general market. Again, we need to remember that the absolute bulk of our growth is driven by the execution of our new releases in the PC console segment. We are confident about that release slate and the performance of those titles, and that's why we are able to reiterate even though there is a little bit slower consumer spending.
Okay, fair enough. I remember from the last presentations, you mentioned that in this EBIT guidance range, you are incorporating potential risk for delays. Did you also incorporate potential market weakness and economic turmoil in that guidance?
There is always a wide range of performances and somewhat you discount various forecasts and budgets you are getting from your various companies. Some people are always sandbagging, and you know there is quite an upside, and some are somewhat always, no matter the economic climate, very positive. I think that is the critical point for us to understand.
Mm.
I'm not overly concerned about this slower spending, you know. It's a marginal effect. Gaming is a fantastic market. I'm bullish on the long-term prospects of the gaming market, and I think it's the superior way of entertainment. I think looking into our business, you know, we are still continuing building on the long term again, and I think the return on investment continue to reinvest into organic growth as much as we can, hence the lower cash flow generation we had this quarter.
In PC and console, if you could help us understand change in margin dynamics a bit. Over last year, there was quite a big change in the margin. If you could just help us elaborate on the most important drivers of that.
Well, I think Biomutant was actually, according to management, a great success last year, and it was an owned IP with a fairly low development cost that generated a lot of EBIT. If you look at Evil Dead, it generated okay revenues. It was a success, but it had lower margin profile, both royalties as well as the development spend. That's one difference that made actually a significant difference in the margin.
Okay. There's nothing, no other major changes?
No, there's other title.
Yeah.
You know, look at last quarter, we had Valheim.
Mm
Continuing performing. We had a number of other titles that, you know, that were hot.
Yeah
or more hot than today.
Yeah. Okay, before we just a couple of questions on the big games pipeline. Johan, the IFRS project, are you happy that it's over?
Yes, it feels really good. Super happy that we have released the report and that the implementation phase is done and that we will obviously, it's a continuous process to uphold it and continue with IFRS. It was a massive or very large project and a lot of internal and external resources spent to get it done. Yes, I'm happy.
What was the main challenge, if you have to mention one?
I think the main challenge, yes, is really, it's a big group of companies. You know, I think it's overall, I mean, 300 legal entities worldwide. What you are doing is that you need to do a very thorough job of gathering data and information from each of the separate entities and then evaluate it and interpret how IFRS rules will affect this. Even if it won't affect it, you still need to do it, document it, and have a process for continuing to gather it. I think that's a big part. There are more information that is gathered and presented externally.
That's also. I mean, the size of the external reporting is larger, which means that we are disclosing more information, and we need to process that information.
There were no main big expectations when you summarized the cash flow at the end of the day?
Sorry?
There were no main surprises when you summarized the free cash flow at the end of the day?
No. I mean, the important KPIs for understanding Embracer remains the same. On a reported basis, I think there was a surprise that part of the earn-outs or continuing considerations should flow through the reported P&L. Nevertheless, it's an acquisition-related expense, and it doesn't affect the adjusted EBIT.
Mm.
That was very complex, and we have done a lot of acquisitions. Each acquisition you negotiate in the best, you know, to have an agreement, and they all are different. It's very complex material.
Mm-hmm.
As Johan said, it was 2, 3 companies that had specific terms that gave this effect now under IFRS.
Okay. Thanks. We have a lot of incoming questions here as well. I'm gonna have a look in the iPad for those in just a minute, but I want to ask you first on the big games pipeline. Saints Row, obviously you're excited there's only five days left for this very hyped game. There have been some other media talks during the quarter about another of your big games that you have transitioned between your studios. Are you okay to comment and give us a bit more flavor on that one?
No, I think it's always things happening in our AAA pipeline and one project has been moved from one studio to another, but we expect that game to hold the quality bars. Overall the pipeline is, you know, not talking about that game, but talking about overall pipeline is obviously four years ahead, ish, so there's still movement within that pipeline, but we feel confident about those projects.
Can you confirm that game I was referring to was not part of your full year guidance this fiscal year?
I can't confirm whether, but I don't think it's a wrong assumption you're making that, but I can't really give-
Okay
Too much color on that.
You have clarified that you have two AAA releases in the guidance for this year. First obviously being Saints Row, and then the second one is the one that you don't mention the name, but we think we all know what it is. I expect, is it fair to assume that that's part of your comments on the phasing with a significant increase in Q4?
Yeah, I think that's a good assumption, and I actually super excited about that game. It's been developed for a very long time, but it looks bloody good.
Okay. Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, we're waiting for the royalties. I guess you are as well. Can you comment anything more about the timing of this? Is that-
I think in general, Tiny Tina is a great success for both Gearbox and Take-Two. They now established a new IP, and it continues to have great engagement from gamers, and I'm confident that Gearbox will have royalties coming through, sooner rather than later.
Okay. Before I let in the questions from the iPad here, maybe I would like to turn to the audience here in Karlstad. We have maybe 30, 40 people here, and is there anyone that would like to ask a question? Please raise your hand. I think we have a microphone, so we will hear you. Okay. We'll go into the questions from the iPad then. Start off with a question from Simon Jönsson with ABG. He's asking, you expect 2 AAA releases this year, and you said that 1 of the group's AAA games have transitioned to another studio. Is that 1 of these 2 games expected this year, or when is that game?
No, it's not one of those two games.
Oh.
I think it's kind of the same question you have said.
Exactly. Yep. On Asmodee, this is also from Simon Jönsson. Could you please comment on the seasonal pattern for working capital in Asmodee? We saw a buildup in inventory this quarter. What's behind that buildup, and when can we see inventories reducing?
For the tabletop segment of Asmodee, the seasonal pattern is that our fiscal Q3 is definitely the strongest over the year, and that the cash flow will follow that as well. We expect strong cash flows in the second half.
End of the year, Q3, maybe beginning Q4. Where we are now, we are building up going into this period, so more or less investments going into working capital where we are now, and we expect to get the benefits in Q3 and Q4.
Okay, thanks.
It was absolute bulk of that inventory build-up and working capital build-up. Oh, it was a large amount, SEK 800 million.
Our next question is from Frederic Nassauer. He's asking, "Could you please explain the PC console margin drop? You mentioned higher customer acquisition costs. Is that the reason, or does it also come from Saber having to shift its cost base out of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus?
On the PC and console, the margin shift is driven by the mix of the products in the quarter. Biomutant had a very high margin and a high contribution last year. Basically, if you have more titles with higher development spend and more royalties, you will have a lower margin. The margins will vary over the quarters. Hopefully when you have margins or titles with your own IPs, such as Biomutant or Saints Row or other titles, you would have a lot higher margins, basically.
Mm-hmm.
If the development spend are reasonable. It's not really relating to any of the other questions he had.
Next question I have is from Lukas Ege. He's asking, "You reiterate the guidance for the coming years, while at the same time made acquisitions that are expected to add material to Adjusted EBIT during the coming years. How should we interpret this in terms of organic guidance? Has that been lowered since a year ago?
I think it's two separate things. The acquisitions announced will be added to the financial guidance, on top of the existing guidance, so it's not relating to that.
Yeah. Thanks for clarifying. Another question from Lukas Ege is, "How should analysts think of the mobile revenues in terms of steady-state growth and UACs?
Sorry, how we should think about the steady-state of?
Growth in the mobile revenue, long-term mobile growth revenue, and UAC spending.
Yeah, when I look at the business plan, I see growing revenues and profitability from both or from all our mobile businesses, mainly driven by Easybrain, and but as well as CrazyLabs, and I'm confident they're able to deliver. There will always be, you know, quarters with variances, but I'm confident about their ability to outgrow the market.
Okay.
I know, Martin, we have a lot of people.
Yeah. Okay
from America waiting.
All right.
I love having these Q&A sessions, but perhaps we should wrap this up to have some Americans. It's the middle of the night there and...
Sure. Maybe we should just kick off with that right now, and I know there's time for some questions after that presentation as well.
Great. Let's jump on to the acquisitions.
Thank you.
Thank you, Martin. Let's jump on to the presentation of Freemode and a number of M&A activities this morning. I like to start to say that we are disclosing the financial impact and purchase prices as a combined information this morning. Looking at the financial impact from acquisitions on a pro forma basis, the acquired companies would have between SEK 1.8 billion and SEK 2.1 billion in net sales contributed this year, and between SEK 550 million and SEK 750 million in Adjusted EBIT contribution on a pro forma basis. Now, we're expecting the bulk of the transactions expected to be closed in the end of this quarter, end of September or early in next quarter.
Next year, we're expecting growth, net sales of SEK 2.1-SEK 2.4, and contribution of Adjusted EBIT of SEK 750-SEK 950. In the year of 2024/2025, we see a significant uplift from these businesses that they're able to generate between SEK 3-SEK 3.5 billion in net sales with the Adjusted EBIT of SEK 1-1.5 billion. Also worth pointing out in these acquisitions this morning, they have a strong free cash flow generation before funding costs. It's expected to be in the range of 70%-80% next year and to be in the range of 85%-95% in the future years.
Looking at the transaction details, the aggregated upfront purchase price amounts to SEK 6 billion, of which SEK 4.2 billion is paid in cash at closing. SEK 1.3 billion in cash is paid in twelve months, and SEK 500 million is paid with Embracer B shares. The likely total deferred consideration linked to achievement of financial and operational targets over up to seven years amounts to SEK 2.2 billion, of which 1.5 billion will be paid in cash and SEK 700 million will be paid with shares. The likely total consideration for the acquired businesses amounts to SEK 8.2 billion. The size of the upfront considerations for the five announced acquisitions is in descending order: Middle-earth Enterprises, Tripwire Interactive, Limited Run Games, Tuxedo Labs, and Singtrix.
In addition to the 5 announced acquisitions today, Embracer has entered into agreement to acquire another company within PC/console gaming. The purchase price for this is undisclosed. Acquisition is in the range of being among either for the third or fourth largest of the transactions. Right. Let's welcome Lee Guinchard and Martin Lindell on stage. Gentlemen. I hope you slept a little bit now, Lee.
Nope.
Regardless, you're on stage and here is the pointer.
Hi. I'm Lee Guinchard, the CEO of Embracer Freemode, and next to me here is my partner in crime, Martin Lindell, who'll be helping me with the presentation today. Freemode is a global ecosystem of independent operating companies exploring broader opportunities in gaming and entertainment. As you can see from the slide, we've hit the ground running with a very global ecosystem. After our three new additional transactions which are announced today close, we'll have 580 employees, three studios, 14 companies, of which 11 are independently operated over six countries. I've just got to get some water. Okay. To understand Freemode and how broad it is, we kind of have to look at the operating areas, you know, that the companies, the 11 operating companies, operate in.
We'll start with the new area of Classic and Retro, one of Martin's favorite topics. As you can see today with the Limited Run Games news, that would be a pillar within that area. E-commerce and community is also something that's core to a lot of our businesses going forward. We have two world-class e-commerce companies that are very heavy in the community space that drive those e-commerce businesses. Devices and gear, an area very close to my heart, of which I've probably spent two-thirds of my working life in. That means many things, of course, devices, game-focused experiences.
Okay.
Remember the old Guitar Hero days, those kind of experiences, and then just general devices. You can never digital download a device to play a game, not yet. Maybe in 20 years, who knows? Game development, you know, you're not gonna really have a gaming company that doesn't have a focus in game development. We have three studios there, of which two of them are heavily involved in retro classic services. We have businesses in the service sector that are servicing the video game business in general. Then the last mode is new idea and tech incubation. That's a small group that sit with us in Livermore, California, that basically you just prototype, look at things. You know, we hope that some of those ideas turn into real businesses.
If they don't, they may turn into tools that help the rest of the business. I also think talent, you know, from that group could actually be a group feeder system for us here at Freemode. From the areas of operation, this is kind of like our roster of companies, and then, you know, for ease of digestion, as it were, you can kind of see what areas these companies operate in right now. That's important for us 'cause as we're supporting these companies, we of course need to support them with the right resources as well, and we need to understand every part of the business. I think that's a nice clean overview of that. What does Freemode do? Of course, we believe that we've got an ideal balance of independence and empowerment for our independently operated businesses.
We supply them with world-class operating support, and we're there for the companies through the challenges and also for scaling as well. A lot of the businesses that you'll see are kind of small to medium sized, and you know, sometimes when you need to scale, you need help. We're there to help these businesses scale and grow in a sense. Of course, the ecosystem. We're now the eleventh operating group in the wider ecosystem of Embracer, so we're proud to be there. Now I'm gonna hand over to Martin.
Thank you, Lee. One of the core tenets in Freemode is Retro and Classics. I would like to start to say, maybe for us here it's obvious, but games are culture. Preserving that culture is very important. It's part of building the heritage for us as an industry. Also nurturing these classics is also an opportunity, so that is why we built this strategy around Retro and Classics. Formulating that vision is preserving the past to build a bridge to the future of games, culture, and lifestyle. What makes Retro and Classics special? As gamers get older, they want to relive the experiences that they once played. Today it's 30 years ago since the Super Nintendo launched in Europe. It's 40 years ago since the Commodore 64 saw the light of day in North America.
This means we have several generations of gamers that have grew up with games, and they still continue to play games today. They have fond memories of a lot of these games, and they are waiting for some of the games to come back, to be revived in new versions or just being accessible again because maybe you don't have that old Commodore 64 anymore. There's another aspect. Over time, players also love to embrace the uniqueness of classic games. We're talking about pixel art graphics, chiptune music, and this is something that also new modern games are embracing. An example is Wanderling from Bitwave or Huntdown from Easy Trigger. Games are inspired by classic games, but for new platforms.
We see a genuine interest, this is shown through an increasing amount of podcasts, documentaries, books, and videos about classic games and their origin. It's also a bustling, diverse scene. The audience is made up of everything from you can see U.S. Generation X female gamers that are like that like classic arcade games as a category of games. We also see young emerging retro players that are growing up watching classic games on YouTube or even getting their parents passing on the interest to them. This is the core business areas we're operating in. Worth to point out, this Toaplan is an iconic arcade games developer that is managed by Tatsuya. We are looking at a number of areas of opportunities, it could be through partnership, collaborations, or by acquisitions.
There are many games that players are asking to come back or be reintroduced, and there are many ways to do it. The first one is simply republishing a classic game. It still requires a lot of work getting a good representation of the original game, curation with quality-of-life updates, such as quick saves or adapting to modern controller standards, remastered graphics, or new features. The bigger investment is in remakes. That's when you make a major overhaul of a game. You take an original game, its story or characters, but you rebuild it from the ground up with new graphics, new gameplay, like a modern interpretation. We have sequels, which is a direct continuation of a classic game.
This could be in the shape of a remake, meaning a bigger budget, or actually staying more true to the original game. This is a matter of player expectations. What are their expectations, and what do they think about the games? There are many ways to experience classic games today. There's the convenience of mini consoles that you hook up with built-in games. There are services where you get instant access to games. To mention the Toaplan example, a lot of these games are now republished on modern platforms. They are available as collectible cartridges to classical consoles. You can actually buy them for example, Toaplan games from Mega Drive. They are in mini arcades or mini consoles like the upcoming Mega Drive Mini 2, the Astro City Mini V, or the Egret II Mini. They're also coming to PC via Bitwave.
All these paths, they have in common that we are making fan favorites available again and carry on that heritage into the future.
Thank you, Martin. Lee, I know you had a video, a very short one, and I think we should see that about Freemode before jumping into the first acquisition this morning.
Sure.
Lee.
Yes. Where are we going?
You have some American friends waiting.
Yes.
Quite a few, actually.
I know. Look at them, they're all lined up there. Where are we going first? Are we going to Apex, North Carolina?
I think we are.
Yes. Here we go.
Josh, Douglas, are you online or are you asleep?
Both.
We are here. Yeah.
Woo-hoo.
Fantastic. I'm so glad to finally be with you here today. We have been talking for, is it three years now?
It's three years.
I think it's. Yeah.
He, he's been stalking you for three years. Good.
Welcome to the group, guys. Let's jump into the presentation.
Awesome. We're Limited Run Games. We were established in October 2015, and we're based in North Carolina in the United States. We're kind of right near Epic, that's our big gaming landmark. We're a team of 69 people, and we are a collector-focused publisher of physical video games. We've been, you know, manufacturing, distributing physical games for the last seven years, and we've published over 1,000 physical games, and that's, you know, the unique games. We've done far more actual physical SKUs. We've done enough physical SKUs to have released a new product basically once every two days for our entire existence, which is a pretty crazy pace. We have worked with pretty much companies of every size, small and large, publishers and developers alike. We have worked with huge IPs. We've worked with small games, I mean, everything in between.
We have a strong brand with a big following online. We've got 400,000 unique paying customers. We've got a social media following of over 200,000 people. We have a retail store called Limited Run Retail that we opened recently, and our grand opening attracted over 1,000 people, and they were lining up for multiple days waiting to get in. Our sales channels are mostly direct to consumer through our own website, but we also have recently started doing some distribution into full retail. Douglas?
Oh, sorry. My screen delayed.
You really are partly asleep over there.
... yeah, I thought you got muted, and I was like, "Oh, what happened?
No
Anyway.
Waiting for you.
Some of Limited Run's biggest hits have included Shantae and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge. With Shantae, it was one of our re-releases of the original Shantae game on Game Boy Color, which with us had sold about 13,000 units, which is 3,000 units more than the game had sold when it originally released in 1998. That clearly showed there's still demand for retro games as well as just bringing back some old IP like Shantae in its original form. With Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, this has been our top selling game. It was also one of the best-selling games on Amazon for several days. We released this on Switch and PlayStation 4. It's been one of the, you know, top first party Nintendo releases, and it's been astronomical to see how well it's done.
Technical issue.
The, uh-
Oh.
Next slide.
Go, go, go.
We'll wait for that to kind of catch up on my screen, but our next slide is a list of our popular titles. It kind of shows a lot of the big games that we've worked on over the years, and this is just kind of a small fraction of the releases we've put out. We've done things like Command & Conquer, Castlevania, Streets of Rage, Psychonauts, Star Wars, Stranger Things, Contra, Turok, Scott Pilgrim, Doom, Power Rangers, Metal Slug. We've worked on, you know, the whole range of titles in the industry and released a whole lot of games. It's been a pretty incredible journey to be able to get to interact with these IPs that were very meaningful to me growing up, like Star Wars. I mean, that was a dream come true.
Getting to do these things has been incredible, and getting to make these physical packages for collectors and fans has been a really great experience for me, and I've loved doing it every step of the way.
Do I dare touch it again? There you go.
Cool. Yeah. With Limited Run, we have started global expansion and obviously some retail initiatives. One of the ones that we started in Japan recently was Super Deluxe Games, and it's a joint venture between Limited Run and our good friends 8-4 in Japan, who are considered one of the top localization companies in Japan. They've been in the industry for a very long time and are good friends of ours. Another partnership we are starting to explore and, it makes it even greater to be part of the Embracer Group now is with Clear River Games. We're looking to expand into Europe which will allow us to have further distribution in Europe and that will include direct to consumer and retail options and hopefully provide better opportunities for our European customers.
A pet project of ours that we're extremely excited about that we launched earlier this year was our Limited Run Games retail store. We opened that on April 30, 2022, in Cary, North Carolina which is local to us, and it serves as a great community building space and showcase. We're gonna hold plenty of events throughout the year and also sell a lot of our releases as well as a lot of retro stuff, and it's something I encourage everybody to check out at least once if they can.
Carbon Engine is an in-house emulation engine that we've been building over the last two years that is an ultra-accurate emulation engine that allows us to re-release classic games on modern platforms. This is, you know, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, plenty of others, and we're able to take those and very quickly and rapidly develop high quality, ultra-accurate ports to modern consoles like Switch, Xbox, PlayStation, and PC. So far, we've done a few games. On the market right now is Shantae and River City Girls Zero, but we have three more that are coming soon. We sold Bill & Ted's Excellent Retro Collection recently. We've also announced back at our E3 showcase, A Boy and His Blob, a retro collection for that, and Xtreme Sports which is another game from WayForward who are good partners of ours.
We've got plenty more in development, and some of them are with very big companies, so we're excited to reveal those over the next year or so.
Okay. That's back to me now. The acquisition rationale. Of course, this aligns perfectly with our ambitions in retro, classic, and heritage. As I said earlier, it's a concrete pillar slap bang in the middle of it. The Carbon Engine as well unlocks vast historic catalogs for the Embracer Group IP as well as the wider industry. As I said, you know, these guys do it from the engine right the way through to in the customer's hands, so every step of the way. I think also the worldwide expansion of Limited Run Games. You know, we've got our, you know, as Douglas said, we have our Clear River Games, but we also have some great synergies with other areas of the group as well.
I mean, there's already work going on with Game Outlet as well, and the guys at Bitwave Games. So that's, I think, from me. I just wanna welcome you guys to the group. I spent a couple of days out with you a number of months ago, and I was just blown away with the team, the way you operate together. It's like I described it as like some family of like 30-35-year-olds just sort of hanging out and working on this crazy kind of timeline of bringing these games out. It was absolutely insane. I love my t-
We all love what we do.
Yeah.
We're all big collectors. You can see behind me I've got tons of stuff, so you can see collecting's just in my nature. Same thing with Douglas, you know. He's got statues behind him and, you know, loaded stuff. These are our offices, you know, so just imagine what our homes look like. We love what we do, and we're super excited to be part of Embracer and get to work with the IP that you have and bring our games and collector's editions to more people throughout the world. It's gonna be an awesome journey.
Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity, Lars and Lee and everyone else at Embracer Group. It was a pleasure having you here, Lee, and we hope to see you more often.
Cool. Are you sure?
Thank you, gentlemen.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Right. Let's move on to the next one that we announced this morning that we are super excited about.
Yes. I'd like to introduce Andy Jones who's
Hi
SVP of Strategic Products at Asmodee. Asmodee have been kind of central and pivotal in actually bringing this to fruition. I'd just like to thank everybody at Asmodee, including Andy, Steve, and Andrea. Again, unbelievable. Tom and Fredrica from The Saul Zaentz Company who live, breathe all things Middle-earth. I mean, Embracer Group is proud to acquire the IP rights to one of the largest, most enduring iconic fantasy properties in the world, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
Could I jump in?
You can
Just to say.
Come on.
... personally, hi, everybody. I'm absolutely delighted and over the moon to take part today on behalf of Asmodee as part of the Embracer Group. You know, as well as being proud to acquire the IP rights, I am, and we all are just absolutely delighted, you know, geeking out on it, to be honest. It's a dream come true. Fredrica and I, we've known and worked with each other for about, must be 20 years now. We've discussed life, the universe, and everything Middle-earth in offices, shows, restaurants, and bars from Nottingham to San Francisco, and just about everywhere in between.
I'd like to say that I've really always looked forward to visiting Berkeley, whether that's meeting Fred and Tom, or the rest of the Middle-earth Enterprises team. I've always felt welcome, so many thanks for that over the years. As well as the people, you know, as business partners, I've found Middle-earth Enterprises always open to suggestions, totally knowledgeable around the worlds and the IPs, the works, and of course being very firm but very fair, you know, every time we come up, we've come up with some crazy new idea.
I would say, you know, my history is that you guys have been ideal licensors and partners, to be honest, especially because of your obvious passion for all things Middle-earth as well. The fact that the team are great people who are really into what they do really helps. It really does. Personally, the chance for me to work with Middle-earth, both on, you know, working with Middle-earth both on the literary and movie characters, it was a dream come true, 22 years ago now, and it remains so for me today. In fact, I could say that discovering The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in my school library, together with a love of model soldiers and games, is largely responsible for my career to date, to be honest.
Of course, sitting at Asmodee with our Living Card Game and Journeys in Middle-earth board game, Asmodee is a strong and established partner already for Middle-earth with over 100 releases to date. Now the opportunity to welcome you, Fred, and the team and me into the Embracer family is perfect. I just could not be happier today.
Thank you, Andy. The feeling is mutual. We've had a great friendship and a great working relationship, and I was really pleased to be able to tell the team, the small team that we are, that we would be joining you all. Games Workshop, and then at Fantasy Flight, and then Asmodee have been some of our favorite licensees to work with, and the feeling is mutual. You know, you are like family and in the best way, and you all have a great passion too for the property. With the prospect of being sold, many of us were concerned, and then really thrilled. I'm thrilled to be here, even though I thought I was gonna fall asleep. I didn't.
We're just excited to join you all.
Great. I'd like to bring in Tom now, to kind of go through the summary of rights because,
Sure
you know it all.
Hello, everyone. I'm also delighted to be here. I've worked with Middle-earth Enterprises for a very long time, and it's really heartening to see this transaction on the verge of closing because it really, as you can tell from Fredrica, the team is just so excited about it, and it's nice to see such a nice outcome for them. I'm here to give you a quick overview of the rights held by Middle-earth Enterprises in case you're not already aware of it. I should say, because we get a lot of questions about this, that Middle-earth Enterprises is not the Tolkien Estate. The Tolkien Estate controls the book publication rights for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and the other Tolkien works.
The rights that Middle-earth Enterprises has include, most relevant for this group, video games and board games, tabletop games, et cetera. We have film rights, including having licensed the New Line Cinema Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films. A wide array of merchandising rights, including for hotels, restaurants, other services, clothing, all manner of products, and services, with limited exceptions. We jointly control with the Tolkien Estate the right to develop theme parks based on the works. We also have the right to adapt The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit for stage productions.
While our current rights are limited to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, we do have matching rights with respect to Tolkien's other works that relate to Middle-earth, including most notably The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales. How did we get here? We're happy to walk you through how the Saul Zaentz Company came to acquire these rights and what we've done with them over the last 50 years or so. Fred, do you wanna kick it off?
Sure. It was really a lucky happenstance when Saul Zaentz worked with Michael Douglas to make One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It was so successful, it was distributed by United Artists and won a number of Academy Awards. United Artists was excited to work with Saul again and said, "You know, what's your next film?" He said, "I don't know, but it's gonna be based on a book, I'm sure." 'Cause he was an avid reader, and they said, "Well, you know, we have these books, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Have you heard of them?" He's like, "Yes." "Do you wanna buy the rights, the film rights?" He said, "Yes." The company acquired those film rights in 1976. UA had acquired them in 1969 from Professor Tolkien.
It was thrilling. The rights came with Ralph Bakshi, who was already working on the animated feature, and we released the animated feature in 1978. It didn't receive the kind of economic, commercial success that everyone had hoped for, and so the second part of it was never released, but that's something else to consider. Then years go by, and things happen, and we release a film called The English Patient, which was distributed by Miramax, and then all of a sudden there's more interest in these rights for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, and New Line Cinema enters the picture, with Peter Jackson and Mark Ordesky. The tremendous success of those films really changed up the world for all of us once again.
These books, as you know, have had an ebb and flow, but always, the interest in them always increases. When they were written, the author never thought he would, you know, he didn't think that he was gonna have the success he did, and his publisher didn't either. This, I think, we're second in the world to the Bible. There's just, there are fans everywhere. We're in – the books, I should say, are in 75 languages. I wanna distinguish between us and the estate who own the publishing to the books.
All the great adaptations of the books, whether it's the films or things not film related like The Lord of the Rings Online or the stage plays or some of the games that'll be coming out in the next few months, are all from the literary works rather than from the film assets.
Yes, then most recently, we have the Amazon series, which is about to launch in just a couple weeks, which is based on both the New Line Cinema films and the books, the underlying books. It's a combination project of sorts.
Good. Yep. September first. Now we're with you guys.
Yes.
That's exciting.
We are so excited. I'm only 35 minutes from you when I'm home, so I can come and visit you whenever I want, or whenever you want.
Yeah. Yes, you can.
Exactly. Okay. Again, the rationale for us here, I mean, again, this is totally in line with the Embracer's IP-driven transmedia strategy. I mean, it fits, again, straight bang in the middle of this, yeah? Middle-earth Enterprises will be part of Freemode and will continue to be operated by the team in California, so that's fun. From my perspective, coming obviously from gaming, I think this is huge for us as a company.
Of course, you know, we have our existing licensees doing existing projects, but I think if you look, you know, at the talents we have here at Embracer Group with the, you know, the other operating groups, and just the most diverse development talent, I think when we start looking in the medium and the long term here, I think this is where this starts to get very interesting for us. And again, I think this is. You've had the rights for Saul Zaentz for 50 years. If you think, what can we do with it in the next 50 years? Yeah. Like, your mind starts to boggle, and we all go crazy when we think about that, so.
I think, you know, from my perspective, to build new experiences and stories that delight fans for the next 50 years, and hopefully as much of that can be Embracer talent. Of course, we also respect our other partners in the wider industry who, again, you know, have also got many talents and do this property justice as well. Andy, I'd like you to just go through some of the rationale there on Asmodee and maybe the last two points.
Sure
because, you know more about
Well-
games than I do in that sense, so
Thank you. Thank you. I'm not so sure about that, but, I mean, actually, yeah, the acquisition rationale, I'd kick off by saying actually I've got a bit of a confession, and I think it kind of goes to the import of what we're talking about here. It's just that I struggle a little bit actually when describing Middle-earth as a property or a franchise. I know it is, but it feels, that feels a little like describing Shakespeare as someone who wrote plays. You know? These works, they're the original giants of fantasy, continuing to inspire generations, and opportunities like this are really, really rare. So I just wanted to get that off my chest that, you know, I couldn't be more excited.
I remember a while ago when Lars asked me what do I think about the idea of acquiring these rights? The summary on the page here, you can see that across all areas of the Embracer Group, there are many great fit opportunities from, you know, interactive games, as Lee's described into tabletop games where, you know, one of our watch words at Asmodee is we have a game for every gamer. From board games to card games, to role-playing games, to dice games, every form of tabletop games. You can see that The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit would just fit right in. It's absolutely perfect.
you know, we're already an established long-standing partner with board games and card games and many, many more to come. But then the opportunities are there for further media projects, whether live action or animated, together with a very wide variety of consumer products, location-based entertainment, theater productions, many, many more great fit products and experiences that we are sure are gonna thrill and delight Middle-earth fans of all ages the world over. When I look at this list, I actually honestly believe, I don't think there is another group that can cover all of that. I really don't. You know, it, Embracer is the perfect home. I really do believe that. It's worth emphasizing that, you know, we know that Middle-earth Enterprises has some very strong and well-established partners already.
At the Embracer Group, we have a long history of strategic partnerships, and long may all of that continue. Moreover, back to Lars asking me, I kind of felt a bit put on the spot, but my initial reaction was, "You know what? Embracer is a business about fostering worlds of imagination and creativity in whatever we do." Fundamentally, that will fall down into two camps, I would say, of science fiction or fantasy. Middle-earth, let's be honest, Middle-earth is the biggest, oldest, most enduring and influential fantasy world, bar none. Bar none. Yes, of course, we should seize this opportunity because anybody who's interested in fantasy will touch The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit at some point on their journey. I believe that's absolutely inevitable.
Talking about the acquisition rationale, you know, the world of Middle-earth The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, is vast, both in its legacy and in the future potential for the Embracer Group. I do think the strategic rationale is very clear, it's compelling, and it's very, very, very exciting. You know, our journey in Middle-earth is just beginning. Yeah, absolutely fabulous, and I'm just delighted to be here and part of this.
Okay. Well, thanks. Thanks for that, Andy. I think we are done now, so I'd like to say goodbye for now, and I'll be out to see the Berkeley folks when I get back, and we'll be talking more about the future, and how much fun we're gonna have together.
Look forward to it, Lee. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks, Andy.
Welcome to the group.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
Right. Thank you, Lee. Thank you.
All right. Thanks.
Let's head over to some other parts of America. I hope they are awake. It's a bit early in the morning, I imagine. Alan?
Yep, I'm awake.
Oh, fantastic. Matt, are you there as well?
I am here. I should have slept a little longer. Not that it wasn't exciting and interesting, obviously it has been, but I can always watch the reruns, you know?
Well, I'm glad that you're staying awake and could share the news with us from this morning. Why don't we jump into the presentation.
Sure. We'll make sure that we're as quick as we could possibly be, so those that wanna sleep can sleep, and those that wanna work can work depending on where you are in the world. I just wanna say a brief welcome to Tripwire. This is a deal which has been in the making since before I joined Embracer. Tripwire played a huge role in Saber's success, and really in many respects set us up for our own acquisition through our partnerships, and through the relationships that I have, you know, that I've had with the founders. It's an absolutely fantastic company.
I like to think of it as one of the remaining great independent developers in the world, and I'm just super excited to have, you know, to have Alan and his team as part of our group at Saber and part of the larger Embracer Group. You have my word, and Lars, you know, that I preach synergies more than anybody. We'll be attacking that Lord of the Rings license, finding opportunities there. Probably, yeah, there's probably gears already, you know, turning in Alan's head about the things that he would like to do here. Between that and, you know, their own IP such as Killing Floor and Maneater and Red Orchestra and Rising Storm, which I think I finally got right 'cause normally I say Rising Storm, Rising Orchestra and Red Storm.
It's good that even at five in the morning I can finally get something right. I'm gonna just turn it over to, you know, to Alan and let him talk a little bit about Tripwire. I know he's gotta be exhausted too. I don't know if you're in England or in Atlanta right now, but you're probably jet lagged and if you are, so I'll let you get to it and we'll move on to the next one.
Thanks. Thanks, Matt. Thank you. Thanks for those kind words. Really appreciate it. Yeah, I'm in Atlanta this morning. I'll be in some other place tomorrow. Let's crack through before we all collapse in a heap. This is a company that was formed best part of 20 years ago out of a mod team. It's the mod team that won the first Make Something Unreal contest. Bootstrapped in 2005, and went on to be one of the very first non-Valve IPs on Steam with Red Orchestra, the first Red Orchestra game. That team now, you'll see it listed here, probably about 120 years of experience in the video game industry between that team listed there.
For those concerned about diversity, I'll just point out that a full 50% of the C team is female. Looking at the IP and everything we've generated there, everything we've done has been with our own money, the profit we made going just getting turned back into new titles. As Matt said, the original Red Orchestra went on to Killing Floor, which was a breakout hit back in 2009. Red Orchestra II in 2011. Rising Storm, breaking out from the Red Orchestra franchise. Killing Floor 2, and let's be clear, Killing Floor 2 is a title now with over 30 million owners across all platforms. Breaking out into a different direction with Maneater. For a change, we decided we're not gonna shoot people, we're gonna eat the people who shoot people.
That was. That's all been great fun. We now produce our titles across all major platforms. Let's skip forward, Matt, or whoever's got the controller.
You skip forward, are you skipping forward, are you skipping over me? 'Cause we can do that too. I'm good. Whatever makes you happy.
Okay.
Are we on strategic rationale or are we?
No, we're not.
continued go up to
We're talk-
Okay, go ahead.
Pay attention. I know it's late or early or whichever it is. Okay. two to three years ago we spun out our own publishing division. That started off with some smaller titles but really hit its stride recently with Chivalry 2. The whole rationale for this publishing division is to really support those who've followed in our footsteps, independent developers with great IP, those who will be best served by a publisher with a very developer-centric mentality. Someone like us who has all those years of experience that can use that experience to help developers make the very best title they can possibly make for all our benefit. You know, Espire 1 out on VR a couple of years ago, top 10 seller on the Quest in its launch year.
Look at Chivalry 2, 1 million units in five weeks flat, from launch. You know, these are great games, and there's more to come. We're doing the sequel to Espire, which launches later this year. Deceive Inc. launching early next year. Now we're really looking forward, especially working with Saber and with Embracer on both of these on our own internal IP, the opportunity to really change up the cadence that we've done over the years. You know, bootstrapping and self-funding limits you dramatically. We're really looking forward to the opportunity to accelerate on the cadence of producing our own IP, and cranking that out the door, as well as adding new IP to that stable. Similarly, with the publishing division, the opportunity to dramatically accelerate.
Rather than doing, you know, 1 title a year, we need to be getting up to, you know, many titles a year, 5, 6 titles a year of the caliber of Chivalry 2, Espire, and Deceive. You know, let's make the point there, it says at the bottom there, our style of publishing is particularly geared up to make sure that we have long-term partnerships with those developers. Espire is the perfect example. Did the first game with them, but they came back wanting to do the second one. The first one was so good we had no qualms about doing the second one. Okay, skip onto the third slide, please. Just talk briefly there. I mean, the headline's been continued growth to sustain a relentless pace.
We have, if you look at the cadence we've managed purely off our own bat over all these years. Also keep in mind, we somewhat pioneered doing seasonal content updates all the way back in 2009. You know, what today is looked at as being either games as a service or live ops. You know, there's a whole other area where we can get massive synergies with the Saber group. The opportunity to really turn the handle more and more effectively on doing live ops for all our titles and for published titles. You know, we just want to see ourselves accelerate. You know, we have all the properties, and we have the opportunity to create more properties.
We can bring a lot more into the publishing division, and are really looking forward to doing that, so we can just now really get our foot on the gas. I think that's everything I need to say, Matt. Over to you for the killer.
The killer. Well, look, you know, I always find it hard to talk after somebody with a British accent because they just sound so stupid with my American accent. But I'm gonna try my best to follow that up with some relevant information. Look, I can tell you that this is a no-brainer, the strategic rationale on this one. I mean, this is the type of acquisition that Saber has done and that Embracer did when it acquired Saber. This is all about taking one of the best and most talented groups in the world and giving them the freedom to. Basically we're taking the handcuffs off, you know? I mean, when you're an independent developer, what do you do?
You run on that treadmill, you try to keep the lights on, right? You focus on what's going to happen at the end of the year, and how much money do we have left in our account? What can we do? You're always limited in that capacity. I mean, Tripwire has proven time and again they can create fantastic IP. If you look at a game like Killing Floor, which I would imagine would have a future treatment of some kind or another that may or may not happen.
No comment.
... if you look at... Huh?
No comment.
What's that? If you look at Maneater, which was a fantastic game, and actually was a great partnership with Plaion. Right? It's Plaion. I pronounced that right.
Yep.
That one I should know. It was Koch, or however you were supposed to pronounce it that I won't say. They were, I mean, we had some great partnerships and some great internal synergies already with some of the groups within Embracer, and so we'll be able to expand on those things. Really we also, it's worth mentioning that our plan is with Alan to help in his ambitions to acquire studios that he's already worked with and that he'll be working with in the future, and I think we're probably gonna have that conversation. Well, we still need to. Well, we've signed.
We still need to close, but look, there's a reason that it took so long to get Tripwire signed and done, and it's because Tripwire was doing amazingly well on their own. This was finding the right time and the right place, and the right figure to make this deal done and to get it done. We're very excited about the prospects for the future. I don't wanna bore everybody, so we have one more acquisition to announce and so, I'm just super excited to be, you know, to have a team that's basically that I can fly down on my own plane to visit any time I want. That's fantastic.
Thanks, Matt.
Thanks, Matt, and very welcome to the group, Alan.
Thank you.
Looking forward to meet you finally one day. Okay. Matt, let's jump over to the acquisition of Tuxedo Labs. A bit closer-
Awesome
to Karlstad.
A bit closer, yes. This will be Saber's actually second studio in Sweden. I know that Dennis is a humble guy, and so the PowerPoint calling him a technical genius might make him blush. The Swedes are known for being very modest unlike the Americans. I think in this particular case, we can make the statement with all certainty that Dennis is a unique talent in the game space. Saber has, and 3D Realms, which we own, have experience working with Dennis when he was doing Meqon back in, I think it was 2005. I don't know, remember when it was, but it was a long time ago. I had more hair and less gray hair and no money in the bank account.
I'd never been able to have done what we're doing today, which is fantastic that we're doing it now. Dennis has been a pioneer in the area of game physics. He's building a team with Marcus in Malmö to basically exploit that very unique capability that I mean I would be. I don't know. Once again, I know the Swedes always don't like it, but he's like a unicorn, Dennis is. You know? He's something special about what he does. I think what he's built with as on a as a technology foundation has Minecraft-like potential in terms of the way we can expand this thing, or Roblox, whatever you would use for it.
We think it could be a real platform. I think this is one of those companies which is a hidden gem, and frankly, I'm pinching myself that we were able to, you know, get these guys to agree to join us. I'm sure it was Lars' charm when they came and visited us in Karlstad, and I had little to do with it.
Matt?
at least I can take credit for pointing out the opportunity and trying to make that happen.
Sure.
Welcome to both of you guys. You know, just a little brief background. I know you know about what you do and I think I've already given the rationale. I'll give a little more.
Dennis and Marcus, are you online?
Yes.
Yes.
Fantastic. Welcome.
Thank you very much, and thanks a lot for having us here today. Just a little background. I am the founder of Tuxedo Labs, and it started as a solo project actually, many years ago. Over time it's been growing to a team of six people. We are a very technology-focused company. We want to let technology be, like, the centerpiece and kind of build the game around that instead of the other way around. We also make all technology in-house, which I think is quite unusual these days for a company this size.
Teardown, which is a sort of a sandbox heist game based around this destructible voxel technology, came out almost two years ago in early access on Steam, and we hit the 1.0 release in April this year. It's done very well on Steam with 96% positive reviews, and has sold 1.2 million copies so far. What excites me really the most about Teardown is the modding community. We have a very active modding community, and we took that decision pretty early on to actively add and support the modding to the game. It's just amazing to see all the new content that comes out every day that people add.
We also see a lot of people coming to the game and playing the game just for the user-generated content. It's almost become like a platform of sorts for voxel-based games and experimentation around voxel-based games. It's really fun to see all the creativity that goes into that, and it's definitely a direction we wanna explore further. I'm really happy to be part of Saber and Embracer. Saber has been huge fans of the game for a long time, and I think we share a lot of the same vision both for physics-based gameplay and voxel technology.
I'm also personally very happy to finally be able to focus on technology again, which is what I love the most, and handing over the business side to Marcus, who's been with us since the beginning of the year as a project manager, and he has a lot of experience running a game studio, and the studio that we're building up here in Malmö. I think together with Saber and their expertise in a lot of things and the resources they bring in, it's gonna be really fun to see where this will take us.
Yeah. I think Dennis has summarized it very well. The enormous potential we have with our tech and our voxel engine is kind of amazing, and I think we share this with Saber and Embracer. I think together we can reach new audiences that we would never be able to on our own, and we can create amazing new stuff that I think will be groundbreaking. I'm very eager to get started and see what we can create in the future.
We already are.
Yeah.
You know, I think it's amazing what you've been able to do. To sell the number of units that you've sold with no marketing whatsoever, with a small team. We're just salivating at the prospects for what we can do with Teardown, because literally Teardown is just on one platform right now, and there's huge opportunity to move that. There's no multiplayer, right? I mean, I'm not gonna announce all of our plans, but the point is there's tremendous potential even to take your existing product and to monetize it in crazy ways at huge margins. Then there's what comes next.
What comes next, there's a lot of what I'm trying to see through, you know, Dennis's mind right now as I'm looking into Zoom to try to figure out what he's got in there. I know whatever it is, it's going to be revolutionary. I can tell you, I've spoken to some of our biggest partners, and they've expressed tremendous excitement about the possibilities for what we wanna do. I know this is a very American thing to do, you know, to mention, you know, games like Minecraft or Roblox in the same sentence, but that's the half of what we can do and the platform that we can build. The user-generated content is a massive component to that. I'm super excited, and I think that's the only rationale we need.
Not only that, but you know, I'm in Sweden a lot, so it's an easy trip to see you guys, and I'm happy to do it, and I'm looking forward to it. You know,
Me too.
Welcome. Yeah. You're welcome.
Thank you.
I guess it's-
Dennis.
Thanks.
Dennis, Marcus, very welcome to Embracer Group, and Saber. Matt, thank you so much for staying awake. We are a bit over time, and sorry, everyone, but I think it was relevant. It was a lot of information this morning for you all to understand and listen to the information given. I think we will leave America and Malmö and head over to the final bit of this and have a bit of Q&A on the M&A side.
You need me, Lars, for this? I can stop.
That's fine, Matt. Now you can take a seat. This will be quite a short Q&A on the M&A side, because time is 11:40 A.M.
I know what it is, Lars. You just don't want me to say anything inappropriate, so you wanna get me off the call.
You never do, Matt. You never do. Have a good sleep.
Sure.
Thank you.
Thanks. Thank you, guys.
Thanks.
All right.
Okay. Welcome back to the final part of this presentation, the final Q&A. I know we're running a bit over time, but maybe we can spend some 5-10 minutes before we wrap it up. How excited are you about all of this? I mean, there's so many questions that we could ask. How long have you had eyes on the Tolkien rights, for example, to start with?
Well, I think we all know Tolkien, and I think we all have been, you know, playing the games, reading the books, and watching the movies. This opportunity came about, I think, like half a year ago. It's been a complex process. You know, I think we wouldn't, you know, be able to do it. It was a complex situation, and I can't go into the details that actually made, I think, Embracer the perfect buyer of this, and also to integrate them into this group rather than this ended up elsewhere. I think with the strategy of Embracer, we are sometimes. I wouldn't call it the preferred buyer, but I would say it's a bit easier to make transactions because there's a lot of other relationships that could be very complex sometimes.
There have been a lot of incoming questions about how it is structured, you know. Can you clarify what are the rights? Can you share any more sort of
I think the rights is quite fairly clear in the presentation and in the press release. You know, there is 50, close to 50 years of work, and contracts and trademarks, and there is thousands of trademarks filed, you know. There is a lot of, obviously, legal history of this. There is a lot of external business partners, both existing products on the market and upcoming products, including gaming. I would like to highlight that you know, this will be a standalone business, and it's important that we're keeping those great relationships and are very professional, and this is including, obviously, all other gaming companies that have or are making projects. Hopefully, we've been showing the industry that we're able to keep, you know, our own business separate from from external relationships.
Because if you look at Embracer, you know, we are part of the industry in a way, a bit different than other gaming companies. For us, it's just critical to have that relationship. That's important to highlight.
Is it possible for you to share any sort of concrete plans, what product you're gonna be able to do from this, from a transmedia perspective?
I think it's too early. Obviously, there is tons of ideas. You know, in the respect of the property and our teams, everyone, I think if you do something on this property, you need to be world-class long term. You need to have an amazing plan. So that's—it's not something you do over, you know, over a few weeks. We can just see there's, you know, enormous interest, there's tons of opportunity. I think one other thing I would like to highlight is, you know, having such iconic brand open up a lot of other opportunities for the group, for people obviously recognizing that we have this IP and would like to work with us and including, you know, both external developers, but also to work on something on the long term.
As Lee said here, what could we do over the next 50 years on this property? Because games are you know, takes a long time to make, they're expensive, you put all your energy into it, and you want to be able to use that assets for a very long time. That is obviously easier if you own and control the IP.
Maybe a question to you, Johan, in all of this. You know, you have a couple of deals now that you are yet to close. How much of this contribution that you commented on this morning, the number do you think we'll be able to consolidate in this year?
I think there was some color on that in the press release. Obviously, it depends on when closing actually occurs. The color from the press release is about half, I think. Yeah.
Yeah. We're expecting it to close roughly end of this quarter, early next quarter.
Mm-hmm.
It's filings, so you can't really know exactly. You know.
Mm-hmm
Roughly half potential of the pro forma will actually legally be accounted for.
I noted that Freemode also included Embracer's first studio in Japan. Is that the market that you would like to expand in further out in the future?
Well, I love Japan and the Japanese culture and games development. You can argue they are like the foundation of many of the most iconic IPs in the world. But in respect of the culture, it takes time to understand, build relationship, build trust. Karlstad is also a bit distant from Tokyo. You need to have the time to actually, you know, spend time there. Now we're having a number of people from the group working there, but still there is enormous potential. We'll take this slow, step by step, and hopefully we can show what the people and the industry like to see. With that respect, we can hopefully bring more developers into the group.
There was one acquisition that was not yet disclosed, but you still commented on it. I just wanted to know, is that undisclosed acquisition part of the numbers that you provided?
Yes.
Okay.
They're included in the purchase price and the financial impact.
I guess you hope to be able to announce it in the near term or?
Let's see. At the moment we will not specifically announce that acquisition for commercial reasons and fantastic.
Mm-hmm
People, company.
Yeah.
There is various commercial reasons that you might one day just understand.
Yeah. I know we should close it here shortly, but just some final ones. I think I read in the report this morning that you mentioned that sort of sellers' expectations in general have actually been revised now. If you would like to share some more color on that and what you expect going forward.
You know, there is a lower activity. I think for quality companies that have strong cash flows, strong IPs, there is still a strong market, I would say, with the competition. Perhaps there is a slight decrease in expectations. On companies that are not that core for many and doesn't really have an edge, or they have a need for capital, I think it's much lower valuations. At the same time, you know, we are not acquiring EBIT. We are acquiring great companies, IPs, and so on. For example, in mobile, there is quite a lot of assets available.
Mm-hmm. Is it fair to say that you view this as an opportunity, and you will try to grasp that opportunity? I know you have a leverage target, that, you know, could you go above that, temporarily? For how long could you do that, Johan?
Yeah. The financial target we have is that, I mean, we should be at 15% forward-looking Adjusted EBIT. For the right inorganic growth opportunity, we can go above that, but then we need to see that we are able to reach the target in the medium term. As said during the presentation, the free cash flow or the cash flow generation that we expect this year, we expect a strong cash flow generation. With the deal or excluding the deals that we just announced this year, we expect to be at the target for the end of this year.
Obviously we also disclosed that these are cash flow generating companies that is coming in, also bringing EBIT, of course.
Okay. Thanks. Just finally, you know, the next step here in the consolidation trend in the overall market space, any trends that you would like to share that you think will happen here going forward?
Wow. Trends. We are in so many segments. I think it's, you know, obviously PC console is close to my heart and I think it's an enormous excitement around the new consoles. I think the whole industry is going to Gamescom next week. There is, you know, an enormous amount of business development activity across the industry. I think people are excited about subscription programs, streaming, as well as the more traditional channels. I think in general, I think back to basics, I would say. Less talk about blockchain and then NFTs, thank God. No, I prefer to talk about the real games and gaming experiences.
On your real games, your games has a lot of following and fans, and one of the questions that we have received tons of is your game "Marvel's Avengers." So I just have to ask that question since there's so many sending that in. You know, can you talk about the future for that game?
You know, it's you know, one of the things with external licensing partners, without commenting on that game in particular, it's sometimes hard to talk about around external licensed IPs. In respect of those licensing partners, we need to keep that way. I'm sure whomever it is within our group or externally from our group will share information when relevant. I'm looking forward to closing the acquisition of Eidos-Montréal, Crystal Dynamics soon, hopefully very soon.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks. My final question before you can wrap it up is just I noted in the report you wrote that you continue to have conversations with potential partners and investors, and sort of what are you looking for and.
You know, we are on a journey, and we need long-term supporting shareholders. As I've been stating before, we've been having conversation with a number of strategic industry players over a number of years. There is a number of active dialogues, you know. If there is a relationship, whether is it partnership or partnership and equity remains to be seen, but I'm confident that we one day will bring in some more sizable partnerships or shareholders. It's hard to give a timeline on that.
Mm-hmm.
There is an increasing interest of working with Embracer.
Okay. Thank you both, Lars and Johan, and thank you all for sending in good questions. I'm sorry we couldn't ask all of them, but maybe you can reach out to the IR team and Oskar to follow up. Thanks for today, and good luck.
Thank you, Martin.
Thank you.