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M&A Announcement

Dec 9, 2020

Speaker 1

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for standing by, and welcome to today's MTG Investor Presentation. At this time, all participants' lines will be on a listen only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session.

Speaker 2

I must

Speaker 1

I would like to hand the conference over to our first speaker of the day, CFO, Lars Thorstensson. Please go ahead, sir.

Speaker 2

Thank you, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to this investor update related to the recent and very exciting announcement made by us yesterday night. My name is Lars Thorstensson, and I'm CFO and Investor Relations at MTG. And today, I'm joined by Maria Reddin, our Group President and CEO and also Arnd Benninghoff, Executive Vice President of Gaming and Esports. We will start with a formal presentation followed by a Q and A. So please keep in mind, questions are only enabled for those participating through dial in.

Our webcast is listen only. So without any further delay, please, Maria, the floor is yours.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Lars, and good morning, everyone. We are very excited about hosting this call today and to walk you through our news release about the Hatch acquisition yesterday and similar also to walk you through the transaction announced Monday relating to our increased ownership in InnoGames and creation of the jointly owned gaming holding company. Before going into the details of the gaming holding company and Hutch specifically, I would like to make a short recap of our strategic priorities for everyone's benefit. So let me start by sharing my thoughts on MTG's vision and priority. So if you can move to the next slide, please.

MTJ's vision is to be the home of esports and gaming entertainment. We want to deliver value through our buy and build strategy, focused on organic growth and strategic M and A in both our esports and gaming verticals. As part of our Q3 results, we conclude on our strategic review. While the creation of the 2 separate equity stores remains our long term goal, for the foreseeable future, we intend to retain both verticals within MTG and concentrate on building the value, both on organic and through acquisition basis. Moving on to the next slide.

We're having a very strong starting point. We operate in 2 of the fastest growing segments within the entertainment industry, esports and gaming, and we have a clear growth strategy within both segments. Like all others, COVID-nineteen has impacted our operations and quite adversive so between the two segments. Though through the work done within our teams and the operations, I feel very strong that we stand stronger than ever with a clear focus on operation execution that lies ahead of us as well as the strategic M and A opportunities that will drive shareholder value going forward. If we then move slide again, France is clear that we want to accelerate our M and A agenda to complement our organic growth.

I believe that we are strongly positioned to participate in the ongoing consolidation in the gaming market and with a clear focus on quality assets within the cash flow to the mid core genre, and equally important, with a good culture of risk from the organization wise. Further, with the Monday's announcement and with the creation of the joint owned gaming holding company, we're also improving our synergetic approach in respect to user acquisition, live ops and BI, which complements our decentralized operating model. For us, it's extremely important to be the best home for great entrepreneurs. And before I let Arnd talk about the fantastic entrepreneurs behind Hutch and the company that they built, I just want to briefly talk about the transaction announced Monday. If we move to the next slide.

On Monday, we shared with you the increased ownership in InnoGames through the utilization of one of our call options. InnoGames have had a fantastic performance for this year and equally has a very interesting pipeline on new games in development. More strategically important, we further agreed with the founders and commensurate to the buy up in ownership to combine the remaining shareholders in a newly created gaming holding company that will hold 100% of our existing gaming company and will be the acquiring entity for the new acquisitions within gaming. This in order to maximize the synergies within the gaming vertical. So the table is now set to create a world class gaming company.

And with that said, I would like to leave it over to Arne and let him give you an intro to Hutch and the team behind us.

Speaker 4

Thank you, Maria, and good morning, everyone. Over the last 3 years, we have been screening the games market quite intensively and we have been active in all key M and A processes. We look at over more than 250 companies. But with Touch, we have now found a highly unique games company, an ideal partner in our efforts to build a gaming powerhouse. So, why is such so unique?

I mean, they're chasing a big vision to build the biggest automotive community on mobile and they're clearly set really to become the category leader in mobile racing games. The active and the highly attractive mid core driver, targeting an underserved racing sports games market. They are highly they're a highly innovative team that are able to lead this genre development through innovation. Their portfolio is nicely diversified with 3 titles in growth mode, which is never seen before and 2 more in the development pipeline. They have very strong financial profile with a high profitability at this growth stage and a high top line growth as well.

So they're really best positioned to become here the category leader. But let me introduce you to this WASF diamond. Next slide please. Hutch is a London based mobile free to play mobile games developer focused on racing games. The top three titles are Formula 1 Manager, Top Dries and Webber Racing, all are in an early growth phase with large future growth potential.

None of them is older than 3 years. Additionally, Touch has a promising new games pipeline with titles planned for launch in 2021 2022. Hatch has also demonstrated, as you can see in the middle of the slide, an impressive growth over the years, but say it's growing by 158%. But what is also remarkable is the high EBITDA margin and that there's only a small gap then to EBIT, which we haven't seen in any other games company. So a 25% margin already now in such a growth phase.

There are 30 live games, but the top 3 games are driving the revenue. And this is all led by highly experienced management team. If you go to the next slide please. They all know each other from Sony PlayStation, some have been as other racing game developers. They have built a stellar corporate culture and created an exceptional transparent team spirit.

This is a great fit with our approach of building the best home for entrepreneurs. The reason why they have chosen to partner with us is they are long term committed. They want to run Hutch as an independent entity. At the same time, based on our mid con know how in live ops and marketing in Innogames, we can help them to accelerate. But let me show you how Hodge has become a champion in mobile racing.

Next slide please. Hutch drives innovation in motor racing to combining different proven game mechanics like collecting strategy and racing. The 3 growth games are all younger than 3 years. They're still in early growth phase, as I said, with a huge growth potential. And which is also very unique is that they have not a single game dependency.

Next slide, please. As you can see here, the revenue is equally allocated. So Formula 1 with roughly 35% of the revenue and top drives on the same level. Web racing has just been launched end of last year and is still optimization phase. All three games are largely growing and have huge upside potential to spending more on marketing and also doing more live ops releasing more content.

The 4th game, which is now in development, will be launched in the first half of twenty twenty one is Puzzle Heist. Puzzle Heist, a combination of a Match 3 mechanism and RPG addresses even a broader audience and can onboard also more casual players. They're inspired by Fast and Furious and Grand Theft Auto with a huge potential. And the 5th game is also in development, which might be launched then in 2022. What is also remarkable at such is that fast time to market.

Within 1 year from the concept idea to full commercial launch is really unheard of. And now with this well balanced games portfolio, that will continue this long growth. Next slide please. When you look at the top 10 racing games, we haven't seen any company which has 3 games under the top 10. So HACHS is clearly well positioned to become the category leader here in mobile racing.

And again, through the innovative approach of combining different game mechanics, they can address broader audiences and put them into their games. Next slide please. Hatch is uniquely positioned here in the mid core market. If you look at the graph, you see on the left side more casual games with their games Formula 1 as a manager game, combining racing elements and strategy elements then Top 5, a classic collecting game with racing elements, and then while we're racing focused on racing, they have shown exceptional KPIs, have a strong growth potential and offering for the community motion hooks into the games. Next slide please.

But the investor's audience is even much bigger since they are also targeting all automotive trends. And if you look at the reach of the franchise like Formula 1 close to 2,000,000,000 fans. And then also we have our esports audience. And here we can leverage our esports infrastructure in ESL where we are already running mobile esports leagues for racing games. And now we can support hutch growth through esports tournaments, which will just increase retention and engagement of the users.

Next slide please. To summarize the investment rationale and why we believe this is really a unique asset, touch has a deep know how and attractive niche category mobile racing growing by 27%. It's a very unique combination of a highly profitable growth company with 3 growth games in an early growth stage. They have a world class IP with Formula 1 and there's huge synergy potential with our other mid core company, InnoGames, where we can help them in UA and LiveOps. So that's why we believe it is a very attractive investment and exactly what we were chosen to do after 3 years feeding the market to introduce a new cornerstone asset for our games portfolio.

Now our games portfolio by adding Hatch is now nicely diversified. Please to the next slide. As you can see here, on the left side, you have all the games in production and development where we have a nicely filled funnel. Then as the next phase with introduction phase and still web racing from Hutch is the introduction phase. We have games from Kongregate, which are in the introduction phase.

And then the most important phase where we see popular growth is the growth phase with Webber Racing, Formula 1 and then games from Kongregate. And at the end of the growth phase, we have Forge of Empires and Elvenar which have shown strong growth in 2022. And then in the established and harvest phase, there it's all about the craftsmanship in live ops, releasing fresh content, doing safety events and developing new features. Plus, our best in class UA platform in Inogames helps us to further scale these games. So now we have a highly profitable, nicely balanced portfolio in our games vertical.

And with that, I want to hand over to Maria, who will introduce you to the de terms and show you the financial impact on the games vertical through this acquisition.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Arndt. To summarize the transaction, we believe it's quite and I believe Hutch, to Arndt's point, is quite unique asset with 3 large gains in the early growth space, hence its attractive growth profile, 158% sales growth quarter Q3 year to date and then also the positive outlook going forward. Even though games are in the early growth phase, I. E, we do put a lot of investments into marketing, the company produced strong EBITDA margins and as capitalization rates are quite conservative, it's important to note as well that there is little leakage between EBITDA and EBIT. On top of this, as Arian Dalton presented, Hutch has an exciting pipeline of new games to be launched in 2021 and an early development of a game that is potentially 2.

As a part of this transaction, we are paying an upfront payment of $275,000,000 predominantly in cash and a smallish MTG share component. Back on the growth profile, we are looking at a valuation in the lower teens in respect to the EBITDA multiple in 2021. There is further an earn out component of approximately $100,000,000 which is to be paid over the next 4 years on back on the financial performance of the company. This is to ensure the long term commitment as well as alignment between MTG and the founders. Also, with the creation of the gaming holding company, we are well positioned to realize the synergies between Hutch and the other gaming companies in the portfolio.

If you then move to Slide 19, then we can look at the combined financial statements and to see the impact of Hutch. As you can see, Hutch has not only significantly diversified our GAAP portfolio to Arndt's point, but it's also improved our financial profile in respect to more diversified revenues and also accelerate growth profile while sustained margins. The newly combined gaming company will, for Q3 year to date, report net sales of around DKK 2,500,000,000 with a margin of 28 percent or DKK 718,000,000 in adjusted EBITDA mark. This comes back on 35 release titles and yet 7 more in the pipeline. So to move to the next slide, just want to have a quick recap before we go into the Q and A, what we actually talked about today.

So what we announced Monday is that we increased our ownership in Inogenes by 17%. We further done with the remaining shares, rolled up the remaining shareholders and launched a new company together with the InnoGames founders, gaming holding company that is to be the acquisitive entity going forward within the gaming entity. And then yesterday, within the newly established gaming company, we actually executed the first transaction with the acquisition of Hutch. So with that said, I'll hand back over to Lars.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Maria. And that ends our presentation, and we are now ready to take any questions that you might have. Operator, could we have the first question, please?

Speaker 1

So your first question comes from the line of Tom Syngelhurst from Citi. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Thank you. It's Tom here from Citi. Congrats on the deal. Very exciting to see you guys on the front foot. A couple of questions.

The first one is, I'm just interested on the sort of level of integration you guys are aiming for sort of medium term in the sense that with the earn out structure, does this will you be keeping Hutch essentially sort of separate and independent within the group? And is that going to be a sort of key part of the model going forward? And then I suppose linked to that, I'd just love a sort of sense of cadence for these type of transactions. It's, as I say, signals that you're much more on the front foot and more proactive. But should we see deals of this size coming through much more regularly from here on in?

Or is this a one off step, do you think?

Speaker 2

Thanks, Tom. I'm actually going to repeat because of the quality of the line, but and first of all, thanks for the digital flowers on on the transaction. The first question is level of integration between the companies now part of the new gaming company. And the second one is then that we are now more proactive in the market when it comes to M and A activities. Is this the one off?

Or would the market expect more activities from MTG? I guess we could start with you, Marie. And then Arnd, you could step in if there are additional flavors that should be shared.

Speaker 3

Please, Marie. Yes. And thank you, Tom, for the congratulations. Much appreciated. But if you look at the level of integration, what is important for us is to find great companies with great funders that are committed to continue to drive these companies in a successful way.

So that's the foundation where our model starts with. That means that we are going to continue to run a decentralized model. At the same time, why is the gaming holding so important this past Monday that we announced? Well, it actually creates a perfect alignment between us because now you're going to have one holding company owning 100 percent of all the assets. And there is a lot of center of excellence in our different portfolio companies.

And of course, we want to make sure we utilize that and share that know how and best practice between the companies. So that's how we will ensure that we reach the synergies to continue to keep the founders and the entrepreneurs accountable and managed to run their business and continue to run their business in the most successful way that they've done, but to accelerate that through the knowledge and the know how in our best practice centers that we have. So that's how we run it. And that should, in a perfect world, of course, have a positive on our non structure and also have a positive result for us. So it's a win win scenario.

So I think that is the first question. And then if you go to your next question, of course, I mean, we've done 2 big transactions, to be fair, on our accounts this week. And we do believe that the Hush acquisition is a transformative acquisition for us and marks a sort of a new era on what we're trying to do and it's quite important sort of strategic growth driver for us. We would continue to screen and scout for great gaming outlets. That goes to a saying, we will continue to also screen what we can do on the e accelerate the growth on the e sports side.

So we are not stopping down, but I mean, I'm not going to give an indication on how many, how sizable they are. But where there are great opportunities, we will, of course, try to be there and look at them.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Rion. Tom, do you want to follow-up?

Speaker 5

Yes. One follow-up, if that's okay. And forgive, I suppose, the simplicity of the question, but I just wanted to understand the sensitivities around using equity. I guess, in the very short term, it's a question of getting the necessary shareholder approvals. But the more broadly, longer term, should we see equity as being much more part of the mix when it comes to deals at this time?

Speaker 2

So the question then is around the structure of the transaction and how that could potentially change over time. I think that's also a question for you, Maria, to elaborate on.

Speaker 3

Yes. I think each transaction is unique in its own merit on how you set up the structure. What is important for us is that you bring on a long term commitment and alignment between NTG and founders. In this instance, we use the MTG share and that also creates an alignment between us and the founders. Going forward, I think that in one way or another, you should probably expect us to utilize an equity component because I think that is a quite interesting way.

And with the newly created gaming holdings, that could be one way or an entity share could be another way.

Speaker 2

Okay, Tom. Can you further up on that? Or are you

Speaker 5

No. I was going to say, and part of that might be, at some point, equity in the MTG Gaming AB. So it could be equity at that level as well as group level?

Speaker 2

Yes, that's correct.

Speaker 5

Perfect. Very clear. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Tom. Operator, can we have the next question, please?

Speaker 1

Yes, our next question comes from the line of Matt Singh. The line is now open. Matt, please go ahead. Matt, maybe you're on mute. Matt, can you check your phone if it's on mute?

Or we'll proceed to next question.

Speaker 2

Let's go to the next question.

Speaker 1

Thank you, sir. Next question comes from the line of Oskar Alexsson. Please go ahead, Oskar. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Thank you. That should be me.

Speaker 7

Yes, can you hear me?

Speaker 2

Yes, very early, Oscar. Good morning.

Speaker 6

Great. Good morning, guys. So first of all, a question on Hutch here. If you could talk a little bit about the synergies that you see between perhaps Inter Games, Kongregate and Hutch. What are sort of the low hanging fruits?

What can be done better? And what sort of growth potential do you see in the next sort of 3, 4 years?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Oscar. Good question. So when it comes to synergies between the 3 existing companies within the gaming holding, Arndt, would you like to elaborate a little bit on the benefits of working together between Hatch, Congregate and maybe especially Indo Games?

Speaker 4

Yes, sure. Thank you for the question. Since Hach is active in the mid core genre, the InnoGames team has been involved in the due diligence. And the key findings are super positive that, A, there's huge upside potential on marketing to spend more based on InnoGames' predictive LTE model where they can calculate an LTV lifetime value of a user, which you've acquired over 3 years, they can spend much more than most of competitors. In Hatch case, they calculate the ATV so far based on 100, 180 days up to 250 days only.

So much shorter, but they still have very strong return on advertising. And that's a solid base to do much more higher UA spend and also to use InnoGames platforms and systems for UA spend. And so that's one synergy area where there will be a collaboration between InnoGames and Hutch. The second one where we see a huge upside potential is the live operations of the games. So once the game is live and since all three games are really in early growth mode, also compared to InnoGames, if you look at Forged in Empires, which is like 6, 7 years old, still nicely growing to LiveOps.

So here, Hatch will benefit from the LiveOps playbook and best practice exchange with InnoGames. So again, this is a matter of centers of excellence where the companies, InnoGames and Touch would collaborate. Here we can help them to do more live events to also scale with the studio since their studio team are much smaller than InnoGames. So, we have a knowledge base which will get up and then Hatch can benefit from this and improve their Livefox and further scale the game. So, these are the 2 main areas and we focus here the synergies on the 2 mid core companies.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Arnd. Oscar, I'm sure you would like to follow-up there.

Speaker 6

Yes. Thank you. That's very helpful. And another question on sort of M and A in general. First of all, what sort of competition are you seeing now, this being partly VC owned?

Are you seeing tough competition for targets? And what can you say about sort of the pipeline here of acquisitions going forward because you've shifted the strategy quite recently to back to buy and build. What does the pipeline look like? What does the competition look like, if you will?

Speaker 2

M and A climate, currently the competitive level when it comes to transactions and also how our current pipeline is looking like, I would say that, Maria, if you start and then Arndt can build on your answer.

Speaker 3

Yes. No, absolutely. I think that coming out of the COVID last couple of months, I think it goes without saying that gaming is a highly attractive segment to operate in. And I think that we've seen over the last sort of to 9 months an increased competition within. But I think what's important for us is to continue to focus on the type of companies that we want to acquire, the segments which we've very clearly specified, which is mid core and casual, and then to be the greatest home of entrepreneurs.

And I think that, that's what makes us extremely happy that we were able to buy the Hatch team because we saw a mutual fit from both parties about Multicultural, the values and what we together wanted to do. And hopefully, that is also a positive signal out to the market and the great entrepreneurs out there that we have great teams that want to come on board to our family, and that's what we continue would like to on board.

Speaker 2

Arth, would you just generally elaborate of the M and A pipeline as well on how things are being done?

Speaker 4

Although we have done a strategic review of the game strategy, we always have been active in processes and learn. And for us, it's always important that our concept is best for entrepreneurs resonate with the founders because these are executive teams we're looking for, who are long term committed and appreciate our vertical operating system. We have a pretty strong M and A pipeline with a short list of probably 15 companies. We are constantly working with and updating our context. So this funnel is pretty solid.

And as I said, we are constantly continuously screening also new companies. And our sweet spot is here exactly like Hutch founded a company. Sometimes we have. We see investors, but most of the companies are really controlled by the founders. And exactly this is the right trajectory we're looking for profitable, well balanced portfolios in mid core and casual.

These are our investment criteria.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Arndt. Oscar, do you want to follow-up?

Speaker 6

No, thank you. That's it from me for now at least. Thank you very much.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Ocja. Operator, we could have the next question, please.

Speaker 1

Thank you. So next question comes from the line of Erik Olindholm from Nordea. Please go ahead, Erik. Line is now open.

Speaker 8

Yes. Hi, guys. Can you hear me?

Speaker 2

Yes, we can, Erik. Good morning.

Speaker 8

Good morning. Yes, so looking at the Q3 year to date numbers, what sort of levels of UAC to net sales did Hutch achieve a bit strong growth with? And what sort of return is Hutch seeing on this UAC?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Erik. So if I hear you right, it's a question around user acquisition cost in relationship to total revenues. We don't disclose that level of detail, but maybe we could elaborate when it comes to the general level of U. A. Spend, so to speak, and what sort of returns we get.

Speaker 3

Yes. No, but I think that Arnd mentioned this in his as part of his presentation. I mean, if you look at InnoGames, I think what we've told about them is that, I mean, they do marketing on back of 2 or 3 years raw levels, which means, of course, they have a quite high proportion of their revenues as a sort of direct marketing cost. If you look at Hutch, given that they actually calculate the turn of ad spend in a much shorter time frame between sort of 180 to 250 days, the proportion of revenues is, of course, much lower. And that's also where we see an upside, both in that we could actually increase that spend through actually adding the Innogames sort of modeling, I would probably call it, to calculate, I mean, both return of support and predictability model and then also the fact that you can diversify the channels that you're using because InnoGames have a much more sophisticated and broader range of channels that they use.

So today, I would say that it is relatively low for being a mid core asset, and we do believe that there is an upside to proportionally increase that to some extent. So we will only scale it to the extent that the games can actually manage.

Speaker 2

So Erik, do you want to follow-up?

Speaker 8

Yes, yes, please. Thank you. So yes, a question on the IDFA changes So how do you think the Hodge portfolio is positioned for the upcoming IDFA changes from Apple? And will this sort of change the way you think about marketing channels here for Hutch?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Erik. So IDFA and the impact on Hutch, I think, Maria, you could also elaborate on that one. Yes.

Speaker 3

I think that no one knows exactly how the IDFA can and will implement. But I think that given that we have not pushed it, but Apple now pushed it forward, we've got much, much more time to prepare and that is something that has been done on a good level within InnoGames. And again, coming back to the collaboration between the different portfolios, what has already been started is, of course, the discussion between Hutch and Inno, given that they both work and operate in the mid core segment. So that's why, I mean, on the biggest scheme of things, we're comfortable with it and that we're comfortable that we'll find a working around of it. But it's impossible to say whether you will see very little or no impact, I mean, or that is still to be seen, but we feel well prepared on our side.

And that will also, I mean, the synergies will facilitate on this, the collaboration.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Maria. Erik, do you want to follow-up?

Speaker 8

Yes, yes, sure. One more question here. So just I mean, the racing genre has been on fire here in 2020. Do you think there is any risk that this sort of comes from only a COVID boost and that 2021 will be weaker here?

Speaker 2

Thank you. So raising genre as a popular genre across the pandemic, I think maybe Arnd you could start with elaborating on the growth opportunities within the racing genre in general, but Hachis in particular, if that's all right. Arndt? Sure.

Speaker 4

So based on our experience in Innogames and Kongregate where we have seen different corona impacts, we have not seen such a strong spike to corona in March, May or June in Hutch. It's a really very constant ramp up of the games since last year September, October and not really an epic boost to corona. So that was important for us also to neutralize or to understand if there's any corona effect. Racing itself, since this is really a crossword of passionate automotive fans and then just evolving racing mobile racing games, Joel, I think has huge growth potential. And I think it will continue to grow, as I said, by 27% next year and driven by innovation because so much more we're going to see in the game is mechanics and games quality.

And Hajj coming from AAA development, having done development for console and PC games, that's what you can see in the polish and high quality games. So I think that's why I think it's super solid foundation. And now it's more about working with the community and then focus on life ops anyway.

Speaker 2

And the other one also, Eric, that could be we have talked about it today already on the call, but of course, it's the young portfolio that Hutch is also sitting on, which is early in the growth phase and have a very strong growth trajectory in combination with new games being launched in 2021 and 2020. So we make us feel comfortable about the growth profile of the company as well. Would you like to follow-up there?

Speaker 8

Yes. Maybe a final question there. You mentioned 27% growth for the genre next year, if I understood you correctly. I mean, should we expect then that Hatch outgrowth this genre growth for 2021?

Speaker 2

Erik, yes, that's a great question, but we're going to avoid guiding on Hatch for 2021. We have provided, as you know, just a little bit of a glimpse into year. I think that is where we're going to stop today, unfortunately, Eric. But let's continue to discuss the company.

Speaker 8

Yes, sure.

Speaker 2

Yes.

Speaker 8

Thank you. That's it for me.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Erik. All good questions. Operator, do we have any more questions available?

Speaker 1

Yes, there are no further questions at this time. Please continue.

Speaker 2

Okay. In that case, thank you very much, everyone, for joining today's call.

Speaker 1

We've got a follow-up question on some math. So Matt, please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Good morning, Matt.

Speaker 1

Matt?

Speaker 5

Hello? Can you hear me?

Speaker 1

Yes, we can hear you.

Speaker 7

Okay. This is Marcin Arnold at DNB Markets. Hi, guys. Could you just help us understand the implied expectations for next year. I mean, we have a fairly good understanding for this year given the rolling 9 month progress.

And then you say mid teens multiple for next year on the initial consideration. And at the first side, that signals fairly limited growth next year if we look at the implied results next year based on that communication.

Speaker 2

Okay. Thank you, Martin. If you're wondering a little bit about the growth outlook of the company, I think you it sounded like there was a little bit of an understanding on the indication for next year that we have. And Martin, if I may ask if you could mute your phone because I have a little bit of background. But when it comes to our indication for next year, Maria, then could you just clarify for Martin so he gets the simple picture?

Speaker 3

Yes. No, I think the indications that we said, I think they aren't provided some of the basis for the or the foundation for growth. I mean, you have 3 games in early growth mode. You have one game to be launched in sort of early 2021. And those are the foundation growth.

We do see incremental synergy potential with the cost collaboration between InnoGames and Hutch where we can drive more UA and both live ops, which will further positively impact growth, we believe. And the only thing that we said in the outlook was to say, if you look at the implicit EBITDA multiple for next year, on back of the growth projection that we see, it should be in the low teens. And we do believe that we would rather see top line growth than absolute EBITDA growth than any margin expansion, given that we would like to ramp up marketing.

Speaker 7

Okay. Thank you, Marja.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Martin. And we can, of course, follow-up in more detail afterwards as well, Martin, for your benefit. So operator, do we have any more questions?

Speaker 1

No questions, sir. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Thank you. In that case, we're going to conclude today's presentation. As I mentioned, for any follow-up, please just reach out directly to myself. Or if you are a member of the press, please reach out to our Director of ER, Oliver Kara as well. With that said, have a great day and stay healthy and speak soon.

Take care

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