Good afternoon. Time to start our call. Thank you for joining us today. Magdalena Kupiec. I'm responsible for investor relations in People Can Fly Group. Today with me, Sebastian Wojciechowski-
Hello
... our CEO, and Michał Sokal , our CFO.
Hi, how.
Today we are going to discuss third quarter and nine months financial results. As always, presentation first, then we'll move to Q&A session. Seb, please start.
Thank you. Thank you, Magda. Once again, welcome to PCF investors call. Let's start the business update with our portfolio. Under our work-for-hire model in which we engage with external publishers, we are currently working on the Gemini project. As you know, we've been working with Square Enix since 2016. Gemini is our second joint project with the publisher after Outriders. Dagger, Victoria, and Red are developed as self-finance projects, may eventually be switched to the work-for-hire model when we negotiate, you know, good deals with publishers. We are holding talks with potential partners. When those discussions conclude in the form of a publishing agreement, we will communicate it via account report. Next self-publishing project is Bifrost, which is being developed by our team in North America.
The fifth ongoing project is a VR project code-named Thunder. Our subsidiary Incuvo has been developing this project and adapting one of our IPs for virtual reality. The pre-production has been concluded, and the project moved to the production stage. It is scheduled for launch at the end of next year. Summing up, what has already been said, the group's existing game development portfolio consists of seven projects, one being developed on a work-for-hire basis, and the rest being currently financed by PCF. Two VR projects are in production phase, four projects are in the pre-production stage, and one, Red, is still at the concept stage.
To support the management of our multi-game pipeline, we are working to advance the PCF framework, our proprietary add-on to Unreal Engine technology. PCF framework involves both structural and technological engine improvements focused on making our game development process even more efficient and creative. Let me add that this effort, efforts are even more important now that a new version of Unreal Engine has been launched. As for PCF, full migration to UE5 should be completed by the end of this year, and work on the PCF framework will continue in the coming years. Let's move to the next slide. This is a quick update on PCF main assets, so our aviators.
We now operate from 7 main locations around the world, and additionally, through our subsidiaries, so Game On in Montreal, Canada, and Incuvo in Katowice, Poland. Our worldwide team has been growing. At the end of 2020, it was 281 people but expanded to nearly 500 at the end of last year. Today, our group has a total headcount of over 600 employees and individual contributors. A third of all of our aviators is based in North America. In addition to all physical locations, we also hire employees in a fully remote work model, moving to this model in previous locations, like for example, Chicago, or while establishing PCF's foothold in new locations such as Toronto, Canada, and before war in Lviv, Ukraine.
This concludes business update, and Michał, CFO, will walk you through financial results.
Okay. Thanks, Seb, for this. Let's begin with a short explanation. Please note that some financial data included in this presentation has been rounded. For this reason, the sums or values in the columns or row of some charts may slightly differ from the total given for that column or row. Getting to the numbers. Our consolidated revenue for the three quarters ended September 2022 remained largely unchanged year-on-year and stays at the level of PLN 131 million . Consolidated EBITDA fell 27% and adjusted consolidated EBITDA declined 20% year-to-year. Our financial performance for the nine months to September 2022 was affected by several factors. The most important was the end of the cooperation with Take-Two Interactive, our previous partner on Project Dagger, which has been switched to the self-publishing segment.
Additionally, it is worth mentioning the acquisition of Incuvo, which took place in December 2021, meaning that the comparative base does not reflect the studio results for 12 months. Similarly, the acquisition of Game On, which took place in May 2021, meaning that the comparative base does not reflect the studio results for 5 months. Efforts to build the PCF Group in-house self-publishing capabilities, as announced during the IPO, as well as increase in overheads, among other things, development of structures and back-office employment increase in order to provide support for upscaling PCF business development, recruitment costs, and acquisition of new hires. We can underline here the significant organic employment increase in 2022, almost 120 FTE net, including rotation. It is also worth mentioning effect of PL, PLN/USD exchange rate.
PLN weakened during 2022, and it negatively resulted on our overhead costs in North America. Next slide, please. Events discussed earlier had an impact also on our statement of financial position. As work on our self-publishing products progresses, their costs are allocated on the balance sheet, and specifically, they are recognized under development work in progress. As of September 2022, they amounted to almost PLN 96 million. Their growth is directly correlated with the number and size of the self-publishing development team. The decline in contract asset was a result of the end of cooperation with Take-Two Interactive Software. At the end of December 2021, we valued 2 work-for-hire contracts. As at the end of the third quarter, we valued only one contract, and currently, this valuation is amounted to almost PLN 20 million.
Anticipating your questions, I might at this point say a few words about our liquidity position. We cannot deny that PCF will need substantial funding to cover future expenditures on the projects. We are considering several solutions to raise such funds. As it was said earlier, we are holding talks with publishers around the world for new work-for-hire cooperation. Engaging which one or two of them for some projects in our pipeline is currently a priority for PCF. Discussions are underway regarding Victoria and Dagger projects. The second potential option is debt financing. Also please remember that PCF has a significant available cash balance amounted to PLN 150 million as of the end of September. On this slide, we present the split of PCF revenue into three streams: development work, self-publishing and royalties.
Although we ended our cooperation with Take-Two this year, cumulative revenue for the nine months of 2022 stayed almost at the same level. In the 2nd and 3rd quarter of 2022, our revenue included the amount grossed by the self-publishing segment. We owe it to our subsidiary Incuvo, following the relatively successful launch of Green Hell VR. For the nine months of 2022, this revenue from Green Hell VR amounted to PLN 14 million . Please look at the chart on the right-hand side, which shows split of our revenue by quarter and by segments. Below you can also find adjusted revenues by the value of subscription warrants granted to Square Enix. Next slide, please. Here you can find our revenue under work-for-hire agreements broken down into, A, game development, and B, outsourcing revenue.
Please remember that in the case of outsourced services, the group retains only a small margin. The two revenue streams are presented separately because sometimes revenue growth is not accompanied by EBITDA growth if the former is driven by outsourcing-related sales growth. Outsourced segment stays quite stable since 2021, with turnover between PLN 1 million-PLN 3 million. This slide shows EBITDA values for the last three years. In the nine months ended September 2022, PCF Group generated PLN 40.3 million in EBITDA. As I mentioned before, its decrease was mainly resulting from the end of cooperation with Take-Two, what results in discontinuation of revenue recognition and margin on Dagger project.
On the cost side, EBITDA was affected by lack of Incuvo and Game On acquired in 2021, full consolidation of general and administrative expenses in 2021, unlike to 2022, and an increase in employment across the group, including the back office structures. With the reference to the previous slide, this one shows the adjusted EBITDA values for the last three years and their quarterly comparison for years 2020, 2021 and 2022. We also present our consolidated EBITDA adjustment for the nine months, and there was only one adjustment. In accordance with the IFRS, our quarterly financial statements include the fair value measurement of the subscription warrants. In the nine months ended September 2022, the resulting evaluation reduced our EBITDA by PLN 1 million. Our adjusted EBITDA for the nine months came at the level of PLN 41.3 million.
This was the last financial slide. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Michał. Now we are waiting for your questions. We can start Q&A session.
Hello, guys. It's Michał Wojciechowski , Ipopema. Do you hear me?
Yes.
Yes.
Okay, maybe I will start. Maybe the first question on transfer to Unreal Engine 5. It's taking, I think, quite a long time. Is it in line with your expectations, or it is longer than you expected? What could be the reason for such situation?
Those transitions or migrations are always hard to predict because this is a completely new technology, maybe not completely, but a new technology. It is taking quite a long time, probably longer than we expected at the beginning. The reason is very simple. New technology, no one had was able to see how the change of technology will affect the already existing game code and all the relationships with between the code and content. This is just taking more time.
Unfortunately, as always, switching from one version of the engine to another is just a very, a very hard topic, and it's also a task, and it's also related to the fact that the engine usually is not quite ready to be implemented for the games when it is launched.
Okay. Maybe one more on that. If I remember correctly, you were aiming for entering production stage for two major projects this year. How it looks right now? What's the target for production stage?
We are not going to enter the production stage this year, because that would mean basically entering the production next month, which will not happen.
Mm-hmm.
we are on the good path to enter production for the biggest project at the beginning of next year.
Okay, and-
Next year.
Okay. You noticed, I think, substantial increase in revenues, contract revenues from Europe. Is it related to, let's say, stage of production or it is some kind of one-off?
No, there is no one-off. It is just related to the size of the development team working on the project now.
Okay. Maybe last one from me. You have right now three pre-production titles without a publisher and one conceptual level project. Are you thinking about changing your approach to ratio of self published projects to projects developed with publisher, or there is no change in your approach in this area?
No, there is no change. Meaning that obviously we are now skewed more towards self-publishing projects, but this is not our intention. We are actively trying to find publishers for two of the three projects that are currently self-financed by PCF, so Project Dagger and Victoria.
Okay. That's all from me. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Who's next?
Kacper Kopron , Trigon. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yes.
Hey, Kacper.
Yes. I have a couple of Dagger related questions. First of all, can you comment on development process and the workflow in Dagger project? I mean, did the team stay the same or did some of the key developers leave due to the termination of contract with Take-Two ? Can you say something more about the process?
Sure. The team is the same size. It's about 100 people. Half of those, this team we allocated to other projects to kind of speed up the development processes on those projects and at the same time to allow ourselves a bit longer time to finish the pre-production on this project and also discuss terms and of the collaboration with potential new partners. When it comes to attrition, I would say it's on the same basis as for any other project in our portfolio. We haven't seen any abnormal attrition in the Dagger team.
Okay. Second part of the question, when should we expect decisions on the publishing model for the Dagger Project and other games, in the concept? In the concept phase. Will it be in the first half of 2023?
For production, because We are not offering games in concept phase, which basically is Project Red to publishers, because it's too early. We are discussing only projects that are in pre-production, so Dagger and Victoria. Obviously those discussions are taking, you know, as much time as it takes. It is unfortunately a very long project. The budgets are substantial, so it takes time.
Okay. That's it for me. Thank you.
Yep.
Thank you, Kacper. Waiting for next question.
Hi, this is Marta Jezewska-Wasilewska from Wood. A question from me regarding the overheads. In first quarter we saw some further QoQ increase. You stated also that with the growing scope of operations, you need to ramp up with back office structures and so on. Should we assume that 2023 would be another year of further building those structures or the current level at circa PLN 15 million of SG&A quarterly is already a fair value? What should we thinking about 2023 and growing scale of headcount probably with products entering production phase and so on?
I think that from the back office standpoint, we are almost done when it comes to scale up of the operations. We are talking about really, you know, individuals that we are looking for. At the same time we are expanding our publishing team, and that's something that you can expect in 2023. Obviously, our strategy requires us to build a strong publishing machine that will be able to publish all the games that we have in the pipeline. That means that there will be additional push on the publishing side.
How many people do you currently have in publishing?
it's too easy... You know, that is too detailed question, but
Okay
... we need to expand this team, to be able to service our games the best, we can.
Okay, thank you. That's all on my end.
Yep.
Thank you, Marta. Do we have any other questions? I think everything is clear. We can conclude this call quite quick. Thank you very much for joining us today.
Thank you. Thank you.
And if-
Thank you for coming.
if any further questions gonna appear, please contact me. You've got my number.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Bye-bye.
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Bye.