Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for standing by, and welcome to this MTG investor presentation. At this time, all participants' line will be on a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. At which time, should you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star and the number one on your telephone keypad, and wait for your name to be announced. Please advise all that this conference is being recorded today, Wednesday the 9th of December, 2020. Without any further delay, I would like to hand the conference over to the first speaker of the day, CFO Lars Torstensson. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you. 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 Torstensson, and I'm the CFO and Investor Relations at MTG. Today I'm joined by Maria Redin, our Group President and CEO, and also Arnd Benninghoff, the Executive Vice President of Gaming and Esports. We will start with a formal presentation followed by a Q&A. Please keep in mind, questions are only enabled for those participating through dial-in. Our webcast is listen-only. Without any further delay, please, Maria, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Lars. Good morning, everyone. We are very excited about hosting this call today and to walk you through our news release about the Hutch acquisition yesterday, and similarly also to walk you through the transaction we 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. Let me start by sharing my thoughts on MTG's vision and priority. If you can move to the next slide, please. MTG'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&A in both our esports and gaming verticals.
As part of our Q3 results, we conclude on our strategic review that while the creation of the two separate equity stories 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. Move on to the next slide. We're having a very strong starting point. We operate in two 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-19 has impacted our operations and quite adversely so between the two segments.
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&A opportunities that will drive shareholder value going forward. If we move slide again. For us, it's clear that we want to accelerate our M&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 casual to the mid-core genres, and equally important, with a good culture fit from the organizational-wise. Further, with Monday's announcements and with the creation of the joint-owned gaming holding company, we're also improving our synergetic approach in respect to user acquisition, LiveO ps, and BI, which complements our decentralized operating model.
For us, it is extremely important to be the best home for great entrepreneurs. 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 so far this year, and equally has a very interesting pipeline on new games in development. More strategically important, we further agreed with the founders in 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 companies and will be the acquiring entity for the new acquisitions within gaming.
This in order to maximize the synergies within the gaming vertical. The table is now set to create a world-class gaming company. With that said, I would like to leave it over to Arnd and let him give you an intro to Hutch and the team behind it.
Thank you, Maria, and good morning, everyone. Over the last three years, we have been screening the games market quite intensively. We have been active in all key M&A processes. We looked at over more than 250 companies. With Hutch, we have now found a highly unique games company, an ideal partner in our efforts to build a gaming powerhouse. Why is Hutch so unique? I mean, they're chasing a big vision to build the biggest automotive community on mobile. They're clearly set really to become the category leader in mobile racing games. They're active in the highly attractive mid-core genre, targeting an underserved racing sports games market. They are a highly innovative team that are able to lead this genre development through innovation.
Their portfolio is nicely diversified with three titles in growth mode, which is never seen before, and two 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. They're really best positioned to become here the category leader. Let me introduce you to this rough diamond. Next slide, please. Hutch is a London-based free-to-play mobile games developer focused on racing games. The top three titles are Formula One Manager, Top Drives, and Rebel Racing. All are in an early growth phase with large future growth potential. None of them is older than three years. Additionally, Hutch has a promising new games pipeline with titles planned for launch in 2021 and 2022.
Hutch has also demonstrated, as you can see in the middle of the slide, an impressive growth over the years, with sales growing by 158%. 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. A 25% margin already now in such a growth phase. There are 30 live games, but the top three games are driving the revenue. This is all led by a highly experienced management team. If you go to the next slide, please. They all know each other from Sony PlayStation, some have been with 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've 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-core knowhow in LiveO ps and marketing in InnoGames, we can help them to accelerate. Let me show you how Hutch has become a champion in mobile racing. Next slide, please. Hutch drives innovation in mobile racing through combining different proven game mechanics, like collecting, strategy, and racing. The three growth games are all younger than three years. They're still in early growth phase, as I said, with a huge growth potential. 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. Formula One with roughly 35% of the revenue, and Top Drives on the same level.
Rebel Racing has just been launched end of last year and is still optimization phase. All three games are nicely growing and have huge upset potential, s pending more on marketing and also doing more LiveOps , releasing more content. The fourth game, which is now in development, will be launched in the first half of 2021, is Puzzle Heist. Puzzle Heist is a combination of a match-three mechanism and RPG, addresses even a broader audience, and can onboard also more casual players. They're inspired by Fast & Furious and Grand Theft Auto, with a huge potential. The fifth game is also in development, which might be launched then in 2022. What is also remarkable about Hutch is their fast time to market. Within one year from the concept idea to full commercial launch is really unheard of.
Now with this well-balanced games portfolio, they will continue their strong growth. Next slide, please. When you look at the top 10 racing games, we haven't seen any company which has three games under the top 10. Hutch is clearly well-positioned to become the category leader here in mobile racing. Again, through the innovative approach of combining different game mechanics, they can address broader audiences and pull them into their games. Next slide, please. Hutch 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 One as a manager game combining racing elements and strategy elements, then Top Drives, a classic collecting game with racing elements, and then Rebel Racing focused on racing.
They have shown exceptional KPIs, have a strong growth potential, offering for the community emotion hooks into the games. Next slide, please. The addressable audience is even much bigger since they are also targeting all automotive fans. If you look at the reach of those franchises like Formula One, close to 2 billion fans. Also we have our esports audience. Here, we can leverage our esports infrastructure in ESL, where we are already running mobile esports leagues for racing games. 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 a really unique asset, Hutch has a deep knowhow in attractive niche category mobile racing, growing by 27%.
It's a very unique combination of a highly profitable growth company with three growth games in an early growth stage. They have a world-class IP with Formula One. There's huge synergy potential with our other mid-core company, InnoGames, where we can help them in UA and LiveO ps. That's why we believe it is a very attractive investment and exactly what we were choosing to do after three years screening the market to introduce a new cornerstone asset for our games portfolio. Our games portfolio, by adding Hutch, 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. As the next phase, we have the introduction phase. Still Rebel Racing from Hutch is in the introduction phase.
We have games from Kongregate, which are in the introduction phase. Then the most important phase, where we see popular growth, is the growth phase with Rebel Racing, Formula One, and then games from Kongregate. At the end of the growth phase, we have Forge of Empires and Elvenar, which have shown strong growth in 2022. In the establish and harvest phase, there it's all about the craftsmanship in LiveOps , releasing fresh content, doing safety events, and developing new features. Plus, our best-in-class UA platform in InnoGames helps us to further scale these games. Now we have a highly profitable, nicely balanced portfolio in our games vertical. With that, I want to hand over to Maria, who will introduce you to the deal terms and show you the financial impact on the games vertical through this acquisition.
Thank you, Arnd. To summarize the transaction, we believe Hutch, to Arnd's point, is a quite unique asset with three live games in the early growth phase, hence its attractive growth profile, 158% sales growth quarter Q3 year-to-date, also the positive outlook going forward. Even though games are in the early growth phase, i.e., we do put a lot of investment into marketing, the company produced strong EBITDA margins. As capitalization rates are quite conservative, it is important to note as well that there is little leakage between EBITDA and EBIT. On top of this, as Arnd also presented, Hutch has an exciting pipeline of new games to be launched in 2021 in an early development of a game that is potential to be launched in 2022.
As a part of this transaction, we are paying an upfront payment of $275 million, predominantly in cash and a smaller 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 earnout component of approximately $100 million, which is to be paid over the next four 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. 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 move to slide 19, then we can look at the combined financial statement and to see the impact of Hutch.
As you can see, Hutch has not only significantly diversified our games portfolio, to Arnd's point, but it also improves 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 SEK 2.5 billion, with a margin of 28%, or SEK 718 million in adjusted EBITDA margin. This on back on 35 released titles, and yet seven more in the pipeline. If you move to the next slide, just want to have a quick recap before we go to the Q&A, what we actually talked about today. What we announced Monday is that we increased our ownership in InnoGames by 17%.
We've further done with the remaining shares, rolled up the remaining shareholdings, and launched a new company together with the InnoGames founders, a gaming holding company that is to be the acquisitive entity going forward within the gaming entity. Yesterday, within the newly established gaming company, we actually executed the first transaction with the acquisition of Hutch. With that said, I'll hand back over to Lars.
Thanks, Maria, that ends our presentation. We are now ready to take any questions that you might have. Operator, could we have the first question, please?
Once again, to the participants joined over the phone line, should you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad and wait for four name to be announced. Should you wish to cancel it, you may press the pound or hash key. Once again, to ask a question, please press star and one. Sir, your first question comes from the line of Tom Singlehurst from Citi. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Oh, 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. I'm just interested on the sort of level of integration you guys are aiming for medium-term in the sense that with the earn-out structure, will you be keeping Hutch essentially separate and independent within the group, and is that going to be a key part of the model going forward? I suppose linked to that, I'd just love a sense of cadence for these type of transactions. As I say, signals that you're much more on the front foot and more proactive, 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? Thank you.
Thanks, Tom. I'm actually going to repeat because of the quality of the line. First of all, thanks for the digital flowers on the transaction. The first question is level of integration between the companies now part of the new gaming company. The second one is that we are now more proactive in the market when it comes to M&A activities. Is this deal a one-off or would the market expect more activities from MTG? I guess we could start with you, Maria, and then, Arnd, you could step in if there are additional flavors that should be shared.
Yeah.
Please, Maria.
Yeah, thank you, Tom, for the congratulations. Much appreciated. If you look at the level of integration, what is important for us is to find great companies with great founders that are committed to continue to drive these companies in a successful way. 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% of all the assets. There is a lot of center of excellences in our different portfolio companies. Of course, we want to make sure we utilize that and share that knowhow and best practice between the companies.
That's how we will ensure that we reach the synergies to continue to keep the founders and the entrepreneurs accountable and mandated 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 knowhow in our best practice centers that we have. That's how we will run it, and that should, in a perfect world, of course have a positive earnout structure and also have a positive result for us. It's a win-win scenario. I think that is the first question. If you go to your next question, of course, we've done two big transactions, to be fair, on our accounts this week.
We do believe that the Hutch acquisition is a transformative acquisition for us and marks sort of a new era on what we're trying to do. It's quite important for a strategic growth driver for us. We would continue to screen and scout for great gaming assets that go to that thing, and we will continue to also screen what we can do on the esports side to further accelerate the growth on the esports side. We are not stopping down. I'm not going to give an indication on how many, how sizes that they are. Where there are great opportunities, we will of course try to be there and look at them.
Thanks, Maria. Tom, do you want to follow up?
Yeah, one follow-up, if that's okay. 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 sort of getting the necessary shareholder approvals. More broadly, longer term, should we see equity as being much more part of the mix when it comes to deals of this type?
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.
Yeah. I think each transaction is unique in its own merits on how you set up the structure. What is important for us is that you bring on a long-term commitment and alignment between MTG and the 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. With the newly created gaming holding, that could be one way, or an MTG share could be another way.
Okay, Tom, any follow-up on that?
No. I was going to say, and part of that might be at some point equity in the MTG Gaming AB. It could be equity at that level as well as group level.
Yeah, that's correct.
Perfect. Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you, Tom. Operator, could we have the next question, please?
Yes, sir. 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? We will proceed to the next question.
Let's go to the next question.
Thank you, sir. The next question comes on line of Oscar Erixon . Please go ahead, Oscar. The line is now open. Please go ahead.
Thank you. That should be me.
Oscar.
Yes, can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear, Oscar. Good morning.
Great. Good morning, guys. First of all, a question on Hutch here. If you could talk a little bit about the synergies that you see between perhaps InnoGames, Kongregate, and Hutch. What are sort of the low-hanging fruits? What can be done better? What sort of growth potential do you see in the next sort of three, four years?
Thank you, Oscar. Good question. When it comes to synergies between the three existing companies within the gaming holding, Arnd, would you like to elaborate a little bit on the benefits of working together between Hutch, Kongregate, and maybe especially InnoGames?
Yes, sure. Thank you for the question. Since Hutch is active in the mid-core genre, the InnoGames team has been involved in the due diligence. The key findings were super positive that, A, there's huge upsell potential on marketing to spend more based on InnoGames' predictive LTV model, where they can calculate an LTV, lifetime value of a user, which we've acquired over three years. They can spend much more than most of competitors. In Hutch's case, they calculate the LTV so far based on 100, 180 days up to 250 days only. Much shorter, but they still have very strong return on advertising. That's a solid base to do much more higher UA spend, and also to use InnoGames platforms and systems for UA spend. 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. Once the game is live, and since all three games are really in early growth mode, also compared to InnoGames, if you look at Forge of Empires, which is six, seven years old, still nicely growing through LiveOps . Here, Hutch will benefit from the LiveO ps playbook and best practice exchange with InnoGames. Again, this is a matter of centers of excellence where the companies, InnoGames and Hutch, would collaborate. Here we can help them to do more live events to also scale with the studios, since their studio team are much smaller than InnoGames. We have the knowledge base we should build up, and then Hutch can benefit from this and improve their LiveOps and further scale the game.
These are the two main areas, and we focus here the synergies on the two mid-core companies.
Thank you, Arnd. Oscar, I'm sure you would like to follow up there.
Yeah, thank you. That's very helpful. Another question on sort of M&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? What can you say about sort of the pipeline here of acquisitions going forward? Because you've shifted the strategy quite recently back to buy and build. What does the pipeline look like? What does the competition look like, if you will? Thank you.
Thank you, Oscar. Looking at the M&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 Arnd can build on your answer.
Yep.
Please, Maria.
Yep. 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. I think that we've seen also the last sort of six to nine months an increased competition within. I think what's important for us is to continue to focus on the type of companies that we want to acquire, the segment which we very clearly specify, which is mid-core and casual, and then to be the greatest home of entrepreneurs. I think that that's what makes us extremely happy that we were able to buy the Hutch team because we saw a mutual fit from both parties about when the culture, the values, and what we together wanted to do.
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 onboard.
Arnd, would you just generally elaborate on the M&A pipeline as well and on how things are looking? Yeah.
Although we have done a strategic review of the games vertical, we always have been active in processes and learn. For us, it's always important that our concept is best home for entrepreneurs, resonate with the founders, because these are exactly teams we're looking for, who are long-term committed and appreciate our vertical operating system. We have a pretty strong M&A pipeline with a shortlist of probably 15 companies we are constantly working with and updating our contacts. This tunnel is pretty solid, and as I said, we are continuously screening also new companies. Our sweet spot is here exactly like Hutch founded a company. Sometimes we have VC investors, but most of the companies are really controlled by the founders. Exactly this is the right trajectory. We're looking for profitable, well-balanced portfolios in mid-core and casual. These are our investment criteria.
Thank you, Arnd. Oscar, do you want to follow up?
No, thank you. That's it from me for now at least. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Oscar. Operator, we could have the next question, please.
Thank you, sir. Next question comes from line of Erik Lindholm from Nordea. Please go ahead, Erik. Line is now open.
Yes. Hi, guys. Can you hear me?
Yes, we can, Erik. Good morning.
Good morning. Yeah. 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?
Thank you, Erik. 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 UA spend, so to speak, and what sort of returns we get.
Yeah. No, I think that Arnd mentioned this as part of his presentation. If you look at InnoGames, I think what we told about them is that they do marketing on back of two or three years ROA 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 their return on ad spend in a much shorter timeframe between sort of 180 to 250 days, the proportion of revenues is of course much lower. 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 on both return on ad spend and so forth and predictability models.
Also the fact that you can diversify the channels that you're using because InnoGames have a much more sophisticated and a broader range of channels that they use. 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. We will only scale it to the extent that the games can actually manage.
Erik, do you want to follow up?
Yes. Thank you. Yeah, a question on the IDFA changes here. How do you think Hutch 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?
Thank you, Erik. IDFA and the impact on Hutch, I think, Maria, you could also elaborate on that one.
Yeah. 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. Again, coming back to the collaboration between the different portfolios, what has already been started, of course, the discussion between Hutch and Inno, given that they both work and operate in the mid-core segment. That's why, I mean, on the bigger 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 we'll see very little or no impact. I mean, that is still to be seen, but we feel well-prepared on our side.
That will also, I mean, the synergies will facilitate on this, the collaboration.
Thanks, Maria. Erik, do you want to follow up?
Yeah, sure. One more question here. 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 much weaker? Yeah.
Thank you. Racing genre is 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 that Hutch is in particular, if that's all right. Arnd?
Sure. Based on our experience in InnoGames and Kongregate, where we have seen different corona impacts, we have not seen such a strong spike through 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 a big boost of corona. That was important for us also to initialize or to understand if there's any corona effect. Racing itself, since this is really a crossroad of passionate automotive fans, and then in just evolving mobile racing game genre, 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 are we going to see in the game's mechanics and game's quality.
Hutch coming from AAA development, having done development for console and PC games, that's where you can see in the polish and high-quality games. I think that's why I think it's super solid foundation, and now it's more about working with the community and then focusing on LiveOps and UA.
The other one also, Erik, 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 then with new games being launched in 2021 and 2022 makes us feel comfortable about the growth profile of the company as well.
All right.
Would you like to follow up, Erik?
Yeah, 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 Hutch outgrows this genre growth for 2021?
Erik, that's a great question. We're going to avoid guiding on Hutch for 2021. We have provided, as you know, just a little bit of a glimpse into next year. I think that is where we're going to stop today, unfortunately, Erik. Let's continue to discuss the company.
Yeah, sure.
Yeah.
Thank you. That's it from me.
Thank you, Erik. All good questions. Operator, do we have any more questions available?
Yes, sir. No further question at this time. Please continue.
Okay. In that case, thank you very much, everyone, for joining today's call.
Sorry. We got a follow-up question from Matt. Matt, please go ahead.
Good morning, Matt.
Matt?
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you, Matt.
We can hear you now, sir.
Okay. This is Martin Arnell 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 nine-month progress. You say mid-teens multiple for next year on the initial consideration. At the first sight, that signals fairly limited growth next year, if we look at the implied results next year based on that communication.
Okay. Thank you, Martin. If you're wondering a little bit about the growth outlook of the company, I think it sounded like there was a little bit of a misunderstanding on the indication for next year that we have. Martin, if I may ask you if you could mute your phone because we have a little bit of background noise. When it comes to our indication for next year, Maria, could you just clarify for Martin so he gets the different picture?
Yeah. No, I think the indications that we said, I think Arnd provided some of the basis for the foundation for growth. I mean, you have three games in early growth mode. You have one game to be launched in sort of early 2021. Those are the foundation growth. We do see incremental synergy potential with a cross-collaboration between InnoGames and Hutch, where we can drive more UA on both LiveOps , which will further positively impact growth, we believe. The only thing that we said in the outlook was to say, if you look at the implicit EBITDA multiples for next year, on the back of the growth projection that we see, it should be in the low teens.
We do believe that we would rather see top-line growth and absolute EBITDA growth than any margin expansion, given that we would like to ramp up marketing.
Okay. Thank you, Maria.
Thank you, Martin. We can, of course, follow up in more details afterwards as well, Martin, for your benefit. Operator, do we have any more questions?
No questions, sir. Please go ahead.
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 PR, Oliver Carrà, as well. With that said, have a great day, and stay healthy, and speak soon. Take care, and bye-bye.