Welcome to Asmodee Q1 Report 2026-2027. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions- and- answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key five on their telephone keypad. It's also possible to admit written questions in the chat. Now I will hand the conference over to CEO, Thomas Kœgler, and CFO, Andrea Gasparini. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our presentation of Asmodee's first quarter results for the fiscal year 2026-2027. We have made a very strong start to the new fiscal year, delivering double-digit growth in both sales and earnings, while continuing to strengthen our profitability and generate healthy cash flow. What is particularly encouraging is the breadth of this performance. We deliver growth across categories, geographies, and our publishing portfolio with both our own studios and our publishing partners contributing to a very strong start to the year.
With that, let's look at some of the commercial highlights from the quarter. Let me start with Board games, which were one of the key contributors to our strong performance this quarter. We delivered double-digit growth with all continents contributing, reflecting the strength of our diverse portfolio, which combines evergreen franchises with successful new releases and expansions. Our evergreen franchises continued to perform very well, led by titles such as Catan and Dobble Spot It, with recent releases, including dnup, The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship, and Cozy Stickerville also contributing to growth.
Expansions for Harmonies and Heat further supported the quarter, demonstrating our ability to continue growing both established franchises and new titles across multiple markets. Turning to Trading Card games, this category also delivered another very strong quarter, with robust demand across our portfolio despite a demanding comparison with last year and the World Cup. Growth was supported by successful releases across several leading franchises. Pokémon, once again, delivered a very strong performance. Magic: The Gathering continued its strong momentum alongside Riftbound, the League of Legends TCG, which also saw the rollout of its French edition. Star Wars: Unlimited also contributed to the category.
Last week, we held the second edition of the Galactic Championship, the international competition crowning the best Star Wars: Unlimited players. The event saw over 3,000 visitors from more than 35 countries gathering and engaging with Star Wars: Unlimited at the center of their experience in Las Vegas. For those interested, we've also included an overview of the trading card games release schedule in the appendix. It provides a good illustration of the diversification of our catalog, as well as the strong cadence of launches we've seen across the category over the past year. Alongside the strong operational performance, we continued to execute on our strategic priorities during the quarter.
The integration of ATM Gaming has started well and is progressing in line with our expectations. Beyond the acquisition itself, we have already begun deploying our distribution model across additional markets, and we are pleased with the initial commercial performance of the business. We also completed the acquisition of the full publishing rights for Time's Up!, further strengthening our portfolio of owned intellectual properties. Our other recently acquired IPs also continued to perform well. We launched Zombicide's first crowdfunding campaign as part of Asmodee.
Over 11,000 fans committed to the campaign for a total of more than EUR 3 million. This demonstrates the continued strength and engagement of Zombicide's fan base and the first success of our crowdfunding team. Beyond our portfolio, we continued investing in the long-term development of the tabletop gaming category. During the quarter, we published the first Kantar x Asmodee [Tabletop] Game Barometer, providing new consumer insights that reinforce our confidence in the long-term attractiveness of the market.
We also continued to broaden our trading card games portfolio through the new distribution partnerships and additional lines, including the new Naruto [Trading] Card Game from Bandai. These further diversify our offering and reinforce our position as a leading partner for TCG publishers, with additional new distribution opportunities expected in the span of the current fiscal year. Looking ahead, we remain excited about our upcoming release pipeline and continue to see attractive opportunities to grow both organically and through disciplined partnerships and acquisitions. Turning now to the quarter as a whole, we delivered net sales of EUR 422 million, representing a growth in excess of 20%.
Performance was broad-based across the business with growth across publishing mix, categories, and continents. ATM Gaming also delivered a strong start of the year in line with our expectations. This strong commercial performance translated into significantly improved profitability. Adjusted EBITDA increased to EUR 61.9 million with the margin expanding by 330 basis points to 14.7%, reflecting the scalability of our business model together with continued cost and inventory discipline.
At the same time, we generated healthy free cash flow, enabling us to further strengthen our balance sheet and credit profile, maintaining financial flexibility despite the acquisition activity made in the quarter. With that overview of the quarter, let me now hand over to Andrea, who will take you through the financial performance in more details.
Thank you, Thomas. Good morning, everyone. Let me begin with our sales performance for the first quarter. Net sales reached EUR 422.1 million, representing growth of 20.9% or 20.2% organically. Exchange rates had no material impact during the quarter, whereas perimeter changes contributed to 0.7 percentage point, reflecting the addition of ATM Gaming. Let me briefly explain the ATM contribution. As a reminder, we finalized the acquisition of ATM on April 8th, triggering a change in perimeter.
Since closing, our teams are taking care of the studio and the onboarding is moving on according to plan. For example, the internalization of the distribution in France was done in end of May, and we have successfully entered in the Netherlands and in Belgium. From an accounting point of view, this is relevant because during the quarter, ATM primarily sold to Asmodee distribution entities rather than directly to external customers.
Under consolidation rules, those intercompany sales are not recognized until the product reach the external customer. On a standalone basis, ATM generated around EUR 10.5 million of revenue during the quarter, in line with our expectations. To summarize, around 1/3 of ATM Q1 sales was recognized in Asmodee consolidated net sales and around 2/3 is sitting in inventory within our distribution network and will flow through to consolidated net sales in the future. Importantly, this is a timing effect, not related to consumer demand. Sell-out at retail of ATM product exceeded 60% in Q1 versus Q1 last year.
This inventory in our views is expected to rotate quickly. Board game grew by 16% with around 40% of the growth coming from games published by Asmodee, supported by evergreen titles, expansion, and new releases. ATM Gaming acquisition contributed approximately 20% of the growth and around 1/3 came from distributed board games. Growth was broad-based across geographies and further supported by the continued normalization of retailer inventory levels in the U.S. and growth in long sellers, including the release of CATAN – On The Road.
Trading card games deliver another very strong quarter, with sales increasing by 23%. Looking at the mix, partner published games increased by 27%, driven by the continued strength of distributed TCGs. Games published by Asmodee Studios increased by 1.8% on a reported basis and were broadly stable organically. The strong Board game performance was offset by the timing of the latest Star Wars: Unlimited release, with the greater share of sales recognized in the second quarter of this fiscal year compared with the first quarter of last year.
Finally, the other category benefited from growth on Board Game Arena and licensing activities. Moving to profitability, we delivered another strong quarter with adjusted EBITDA increasing by 55% to EUR 61.9 million. The primary driver was, of course, the strong sales performance, but at the same time, we continued to benefit from scalability of our operating model as higher revenue translated efficiently into earnings.
The addition of ATM Gaming had a limited impact on EBITDA due to the temporary timing effect already mentioned. From a cost perspective, lower inventory allowances as a result of improved inventory management and lower royalty costs contributed positively during the quarter, while we maintain disciplined control over personnel cost and other operating expenses despite continued investment in the business. As a result, the adjusted EBITDA margin increased by 330 basis point, reaching 14.7% compared to 11.4% last year.
Importantly, our last 12 months adjusted EBITDA margin has now increased to 17.5%, moving us another step closer to our medium-term ambition of achieving an adjusted EBITDA margin above 18%. Finally, below adjusted EBITDA, items affecting comparability amounted to EUR 1.3 million, reflecting tariff refunds on previously paid duties. We expect to benefit from additional tariff refunds in the coming quarters.
Turning to cash flow, we generated EUR 37.5 million of free cash flow after income tax and lease payment, compared with EUR 24.7 million in the same period last year. This correspond to a free cash flow conversion of around 61%, broadly consistent with last year. The improvement was primarily driven by higher adjusted EBITDA, partly offset by our income tax payment, reflecting the stronger earnings performance. Working capital development is expected, moving as expected for this period of the year.
We saw the usual seasonal inventory build up ahead of future sales, together with the higher trade receivables reflecting the increase in revenue. This movement was substantially offset by higher trade payable, resulting in an overall neutral working capital development for the quarter. Finally, let me turn to balance sheet. We ended the quarter with the net debt to adjusted EBITDA of 1.6x before M&A commitment and 1.7x after M&A commitment.
Both ratios improving compared with the same period last year. The improvement reflected the combination of higher last 12 months EBITDA and continued healthy cash generation, which more than offset the cash outflows associated with the acquisition of ATM Gaming and the remaining stake in Exploding Kittens. At quarter end, cash and cash equivalent amounted to EUR 196.5 million. While lower than last year due to the acquisition activity, our liquidity position remains strong.
During the quarter, we also further strengthened our financial flexibility by establishing a new EUR 20 million unsecured committed credit facility, alongside with our existing EUR 150 million RCF. Following the end of the quarter, all three credit rating agencies upgraded our rating by one notch. We now hold the ratings of BB with stable outlook from both S&P and Fitch, and Ba3 with a positive outlook from Moody's. These upgrades reflect the continued strengthening of our financial profile and provide further validation of the progress we have made over the past year. With that, let me hand back to Thomas to conclude today's presentation.
Thank you, Andrea. To conclude, we've made a strong start to the 2026-2027 fiscal year. Growth was broad-based across both our own games and distributed games, across Board games and Trading Card games, with all continents contributing to the performance. That, again, continues to demonstrate the strength of our diversified business model and the resilience of our portfolio. Alongside the strong commercial performance, we delivered a significant improvement in profitability, healthy cash generation, and continued to strengthen our balance sheet and credit profile.
At the same time, the integration of ATM Gaming is progressing well and in line with our expectations, with multi-territory deployment of our dual distribution playbook. Looking ahead, while we continue to monitor the macroeconomic situation closely, we believe we are well positioned to navigate the current environment. We continue to expect growth across both board game and trading card games, supported by a strong release pipeline and by new partnerships.
We also look forward to the Pokémon's upcoming 30th anniversary activations. Finally, we remain firmly on track towards our medium-term ambition of delivering an adjusted EBITDA margin of above 18%. With that, thank you very much for your attention. Andrea and I would now be happy to take your questions.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Simon Jönsson from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Hope you can hear me well. Congratulations on strong numbers here. My first question is on the underlying Board games growth in the market. If I remember correctly, you said last quarter that both U.S. and Europe markets, that they were growing in the mid-single digit range. My question is that still true, or have you seen any shifts in the market momentum for Board games? Also in terms of your market share and what you have seen in terms of sell-in versus sell-out volumes.
Thanks, Simon. We have effectively had very strong performance in board games. The market has grown in the past quarter from what we monitor in the mass market slightly above mid-single digits. We've delivered above double-digit growth in the same quarter. It's a very strong performance from Asmodee. We expect it to continue.
All right. Thanks for that. Very clear. On trading cards, Star Wars: Unlimited, of course, holding back here a bit, especially if you look at the internally published games. Maybe you said something about it that I missed, but could you maybe quantify the effect of Star Wars: Unlimited here in this quarter? What is the loss of sales compared to last year? What is the timing effect of lower sales this quarter that you expect to come back next quarter?
Yes, there is roughly EUR 10 million of revenue that is transferring from Q1- Q2 related to Star Wars: Unlimited.
All right. Very clear. Thanks for that. Just a final one from my side, maybe a bit tricky to answer, but it's on the operating leverage. Of course, significant here due to the weaker seasonality for Board games. If we look at the coming quarters, when you start to meet also more difficult comps on the profitability level, should we still expect there is still potential for trading cards to contribute positively to operating leverage if these sales volumes continue at these levels?
Well, we expect the operating leverage to continue improving in the coming quarters, both coming from the scalability and the growth. Of course, also of the strong dynamics of the games published by the group that we see. If you add to this the acquisition of ATM Gaming and the margin it generates, finally, the trading card games will continue to accompany that improvement.
All right. Thank you for that. That's all for me.
Thank you very much, Simon.
The next question comes from Jacob Edler from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, Thomas and Andrea, thanks for taking my questions. I have a couple of questions. Starting off a bit on the ATM kind of sell-in or sales recognition commentary here because you recognized as part of Asmodee sales 1/3, as you talked about. My guess is that what you have recognized is mostly the Amazon sales part within ATM.
When I just think about the current quarter being Q2, should we expect a small kind of catch-up from this delay as you are taking over the distribution agreements? Or will this be kind of a more prolonged effect where there will be a two-month lag or something between how ATM was recognizing revenues previously relative to how it now looks in Asmodee?
Yes, very good question. I confirm, I agree that most of the sales recognized at consolidated level were direct sales. Those that are still intercompany sales should unfold, and the magnitude and the proportion between direct sales and what has been eliminated is due to the fact that we open actually quite big market, including France, the Netherlands, and Belgium. Those markets need some inventory build-up in the short term. As you remember, when we communicated the acquisition ATM, a bit more than half of its turnover was generated through direct sales. That's the business model. Again, in Q1 it's still a bit offset by the magnitude of these new geographies that we have opened.
Yep. Very clear. I just have two questions on TCG, starting a bit with Pokémon, this is more of a kind of a philosophical discussion. We've been used over time that Pokémon has had these kind of three-year cycles, right? The last year was kind of the third year of the cycle, many thought that this would be the start of a new kind of generation, right? It feels like Pokémon has gone forward with the transitionary set being kind of Mega Evolution, also the third year anniversary this year. I believe that the new game, which typically starts the next cycle, is coming out next year. Are you getting some senses that The Pokémon Company are kind of actively trying to reduce the cyclicality of these cycles?
Yes, that's what we get from our exchanges with them. As you duly noted, Mega Evolution is an intermediary set that will last for two years. The next generation being launched next year with the new video game. I do think that it's a strategy, it's also the strength of the franchise where consumers are more and more engaged every single day, thanks to the amazing job that The Pokémon Company is doing across all the types of entertainment provided by this, including the trading cards.
Yeah. Good. I just have a question on the quite newly press released partnership here with Bandai regarding Naruto. It obviously has a large fan base, maybe one can draw some parallels, I might be mistaken here, to One Piece, given the partnership you already have had there. What kind of potential do you see in the Naruto TCG, what should we compare it to in terms of newly released TCGs here the last couple of years?
We do not communicate on the potential of the partnerships in details. As you duly noted, Naruto is one of the strongest manga franchises in the world. Will it be comparable to One Piece? Probably not at the start because when you launch, you expect a ramp-up, One Piece has multiple years of history. I would say that we expect it to be a strong addition without additional comments.
Yeah. Great. Last question on my side before I open to the queue, but the tariff refund was roughly EUR 1 million here in this quarter, which you adjusted for in adjusted EBIT. Can you give any more flavor? Should we expect it to be a bit larger here in the coming quarters, or how should we view it?
Yes, we expect additional refunds in the coming quarters, with probably the largest part currently expected in Q2. Even if the timing is still subject to the administrative process. We will report on the amount as they are confirmed in future quarterly reports. As you've noticed, yes, we put it as an item affecting comparability to do not change in the way we communicated the underlying profitability of the business. So it's a one-off positive this year.
Very good. Thank you for those answers. I'll open to the queue.
Thank you, Jacob Edler.
The next question comes from Adrian Elmlund from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, guys, and good morning from my side as well. I think I have two major questions here. First one on the ATM Gaming. My question is, could you explain if there are any material changes to the gross margin or albeit the EBIT margins now that you moved the distribution kind of in-house? Is there any changes there, or does it continue like it was before the acquisition?
Not at studio level on a standalone basis. The profitability is in line with the past, the EBITDA margin that we communicated in the press release. On a standalone basis, there are no changes. The internalization of distribution contract is also consistent with past practices between studios and us.
Right. Okay. Fair enough. Another question, kind of a follow-up on the question before regarding the kind of outgoing of board games compared to the market. Is this sort of structural, or do you include the ATM acquisition revenues here?
The ATM acquisition contributed in a relatively limited way to the growth, as Andrea pointed out, only 20%. The rest is structural from the market across all geographies on the board game side, as we did say, and with the past U.S. situation that we were experiencing in the last fiscal year being clearly behind us today with very strong dynamics, both in terms of sell-in and sell-out from a consumer basis.
Very well. That was all from me. Thank you.
Thanks, Adrian.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Rasmus Engberg from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Actually, I have just one remaining here. With regards to the margin target, do you think that is within reach for this year?
As we said, yes, it's within reach. It still comes with many things to deliver on the year to go, it will come from our organic business model as well as value accretive contribution of the M&A.
Just to follow up on the comment you gave on Star Wars: Unlimited, the transfer of EUR 10 million, that's high margin revenues, right?
Oh, yes it is.
Except for the royalty.
Yes, exactly. It's a game published by our own studios in the higher range of gross margin, to which you need to remove the royalties.
Okay. Thanks.
Thank you very much, Rasmus.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Ricardo Chinchilla from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning. Thank you so much for taking my questions. I wanted to start with the Pokémon 30th anniversary. You continue to highlight that the anniversary is going to be a key event for the category. Relative to previous major Pokémon milestones, are you seeing any difference in retail ordering behavior, allocation requests, or inventory positioning that will increase your confidence in the demand related to this event?
We see a very strong demand. If we look also historically, all anniversaries has been quite successfully handled, both by the activations that The Pokémon Company has organized and the execution that we do provide in terms of product availability and sales into retail. Cutting it short, it means that we look at the upcoming quarters with strong confidence on the Pokémon side.
Got it. Your trading card business appears to be increasingly diversified now with Pokémon, Magic, One Piece, Riftbound, Star Wars, and Naruto. How do the concentration of sales among your largest franchises has evolved over the last 12 months, and earnings volatility from the category is structurally lower today compared to, let's say, a year ago?
We see growth across most of the TCGs. After that, when you compare one quarter to another the same year, you can have slightly more, slightly less releases. This does drive within one quarter the difference. But what's important is that we continue to diversify the portfolio of TCGs that we distribute. I would say that alongside the very strong performance of Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering, we are also adding, as we did say, additional lines that we distribute that all contribute to the growth. For us, it makes us more diversified and stronger for the future.
Got it. Last one for me. Your EBITDA margin has now reached 17.5% on an LTM basis, very close to your medium-term target. Can you just comment on which factors drove this stronger than expected progression this quarter? And should investors view the 18% as a milestone or as a level from which further expansion remains achievable? Thank you.
As we have communicated until now, it's a medium-term target that we are confident in our ability to reach fairly soon. Beyond, I would say that we will communicate in due time on our ambitions.
Thank you so much for taking my questions.
Thanks, Ricardo.
The next question comes from Martin Arnell from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. I have a question on your outlook comments. You expect continued growth in Board games and TCGs. Based on your pipeline and momentum, would you say that you expect games published by Asmodee Studios to return to organic growth in the coming quarters?
Yes, most definitely. As we had hinted, we were expecting Q1 to be still decreasing this quarter because of the timing effect on Star Wars: Unlimited. If you look actually, even despite this, it is broadly stable year-over-year, which means that the rest is growing significantly, and we expect it to continue in the upcoming quarters.
Perfect. Okay, thank you. Then a minor question on cash flow in the coming quarters. Do you expect a normal seasonal working capital, or is there anything we should watch out for?
No major changes compared to previous years, subject, of course, to higher volumes that might be handled.
Perfect. My final question is on your market share. I remember a little bit more than a year ago, I think you had 10% market share in tabletop globally. What would you say, have you exceeded that level now, or where do you think you are today?
Well, what we see is that given the current sell-out, because we measure the market share based on the consumer sell-out, is that our market shares have continuously improved across Europe and North America in the recent months.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Martin. We have a few written questions. First question, I will read them out loud. Congratulations on the strong quarter. Can you please discuss your crowdfunding strategy in more detail and its impact on cash flow, R&D cost, and potential goodwill or badwill from consumers? What will be the advantage or disadvantage to internally fund projects? The crowdfunding strategy is complementary to our traditional go-to-market strategy, going through retail.
What's important here is that, first of all, crowdfunding is a consumer engagement strategy. It's a way of marketing products and reaching consumers and increasing their engagement ahead of the product release. It's designed for specific products that often might have a limited potential in traditional retail. The second part is on its impact, where you recognize the cash flow when the campaign is completed, then you recognize the revenue and associated profits when the campaign is shipped a few months later. In terms of working capital, it's quite positive.
Again, I would say that part is a nice to have. It's not why we engage into the strategy. It's because it enables us to bring products that otherwise would probably not exist or not reach consumers in the same magnitude. We have a second question, which is, can you discuss what your hopes are with the acquisition of ATM Gaming? We have communicated an acquisition that we expected ATM to contribute around EUR 50 million in revenue and EUR 25 million in EBITDA. Based on what ATM is currently delivering, we maintain our expectations.
Those are strong expectations because if you remember in the past calendar year ending December last year, ATM Gaming delivered EUR 17 million in adjusted EBITDA, we expect it to grow to EUR 25 million. The last question we have is, "How do you make sure you have enough product for the 30th year Pokémon anniversary? There is only so much available production capacity." You're actually right. We are not managing the manufacturing, it's The Pokémon Company. Our role is to make sure that the products that we do get in inventory are being shipped to the consumers according to shipping rules so that everybody gets a share of the products.
We have one final question, which is, "In TCG, can you give us an indication of which game is growing more, and how much does Pokémon represent of total TCG sales?" We do not comment on the contribution of individual products, but as I did say previously, all product lines are contributing positively, which continues to, as I said, diversify our sources of revenue on the TCG side.
I think that we are through the written questions that we received. With this, I would like, first of all, to thank all of our teams, the gamers, the players in our partners across retail, publishing and licensing for their continued support in keeping us inspired and growing. Thank you all for joining us today, I wish all of you an enjoyable summer period. Thank you very much.