Welcome to the Catena Media Q1 2023 report presentation. For the first part of the presentation, participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions and answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing star five on their telephone keypad. I will hand the conference over to the speakers, CEO Michael Daly and CFO Peter Messner. Please go ahead. Good morning. I'm Michael Daly, CEO of Catena Media. I'm joined by Peter Messner, our group CFO. This is our Q1 2023 interim report. Today, we'll cover the Q1 highlights of the group, focusing on continuing operations, thus discounting the impact of assets divested between Q3 2022 and early Q1 2023. The information for full company, including now divested assets, as well as the breakout of continuing operations, are all available in our full report. The North American business and exploiting the high-margin opportunity there is our strategic focus, as determined by our 2022 strategic review. In Q1, North America made up EUR 28.9 million of the total company's EUR 35 million in revenue, 83%, at an adjusted EBITDA margin of 67%, helping drive the entire organization to 59%. I am very pleased that our leverage ratio is now at 0.44, which we consider to be a good place in today's high-interest environment. Peter will talk more about this later in the presentation. In Q1, North American revenues were at EUR 28.9 million, up from Q4 of EUR 21.5 million, a 35% quarter-on-quarter increase from a strong Q4, but was down year-over-year by 2% with an exceptional comparable for us given the early performance of New York and Louisiana in Q1 2022. This Q1, we saw successful launches in Ohio and Massachusetts, one early in the quarter and one later. We are very proud of the work there by our teams and look forward to both during the fall and their first full NFL season. During the quarter, we did see an uplift in North American casino by 8%, with direct contribution from our current media partnership with Advance Local supporting this. In total, North America's adjusted EBITDA was EUR 19.4 million, representing a local margin contribution of 67%. For the group, our continuing operations grew to EUR 35 million from EUR 27.4 million in Q4, growth of 28%, but down year-on-year by 5%. Continuing operations equaled EUR 20.5 million in adjusted EBITDA, down on last year with the continued investments in North America and the aforementioned media partnerships. The aggressive cost management and focus in rest of world businesses mentioned in Q4 led to strong profitability improvements in the UK and Italy. These are our two core country markets now for Europe. This moved our adjusted EBITDA margin from rest of world to 49% from 45% last Q1. Our small but growing esports business further expanded in Brazil and Japan during Q1. This, like APAC and LATAM, are future growth areas we are making investments into now. I'll now turn it over to Peter for a deeper look at the numbers. Many thanks, Michael, welcome to our Q1 2023 earnings call also from my end. Starting with our segments, we had a slight revenue dip due to challenging comparatives. The sports revenues from continuing operations accounted for 62% of group revenue during the quarter and decreased 5% year-on-year. That was the net result of two developments. Firstly, the North American sports revenue that decreased as expected due to the strong comparables from the launches in New York and Louisiana, as Michael just mentioned. Secondly, a very strong performance in the core European markets, which are the U.K. and Italy, that have been driving the sports revenue increase of 5% in the rest of the world. Sequentially, as compared to the previous quarter, the final quarter of 2022, total sports revenue from continuing operations increased by 54%. In the casino segment, revenue from continuing operations decreased by 5% year-on-year and was flat versus the previous quarter, the last quarter of 2022, while the adjusted EBITDA margin improved to 61% year-on-year. In there, the casino revenue in North America increased by 8% year-on-year, and that was driven by both the media content partnerships and noteworthy here, the NJ.com deal, but also Ontario that launched during the Q2 last year. Turning over to the cost development in the group and the cost optimization measures that Michael also mentioned before. As shown in the previous quarter, the cost base for our continuing operations in the main cost lines of direct cost, personnel, and other operating expenses had a very different development depending on the geography where you look at. In North America, on the one hand, the total cost increased by 46% as compared to the Q1 last year, and only slightly around 3% versus the previous quarter. That is all the result of the growth investments that have been done and that we talked about in the previous quarters, in order to prepare for the future state openings in North America. That North American cost base now accounts for 66% of the total group cost from continuing operations. The total group direct cost rose to EUR 4.1 million due to media and other influencer partnerships in North America. The North American part of these direct costs is EUR 3.9 million, or 96% of the group's direct costs. In the rest of the world and the shared central operations together, the total cost decreased by 40% as compared to the Q1 last year, and sequentially, as compared to the last quarter last year by 15%. As Michael mentioned, this is due to the European restructuring and cost optimization measures that we have been taking and announced last year. All in all, and considering that underlying cost transformation towards North America that has a higher cost, the group's adjusted EBITDA margin for continuing operations was 59%, which is only one percentage point below last year, despite the strong growth investments that we have in North America. How does that look like on the balance sheet? The company has a very solid financial position. As of the end of March, the total assets were EUR 342.9 million, and total equity was EUR 245.7 million, including the hybrid capital securities, that amounted to EUR 43.9 million, net of EUR 8.6 million, so in a net amount of EUR 35.3 million. That resulted in an improved equity to asset ratio of 72%. The amounts committed on acquisition that we show of EUR 4.6 million, which is the equivalent of $5 million, relate to our Lineups.com acquisition and the final payment there. That was by now settled in early May this year. With that, there are no further payment commitments in relation to previous acquisitions. Borrowings amounted to EUR 75.4 million and comprised our corporate bonds, the bank term loan, and the revolving credit facility. Out of that, EUR 8.3 million, which relates to the bank term loan, is to be repaid within 12 months. By the end of April next year, the bank term loan will be fully repaid. The net interest-bearing liabilities totaled EUR 23.1 million, that results in the leverage ratio that Michael mentioned of 0.44, which is half of where it was at the end of last year. The cash and cash equivalents at the end of March were above EUR 50 million, at EUR 52.4 million, also with the contribution of the first payment in relation to the AskGamblers sale that was received at the end of January. The group expects to be in a net cash position already in the H2 of this year. Talking about achieving a net cash position, I'd like to turn to a final slide from my end, where I would like to summarize the development of cash flow and capital usage in the past 13 quarters since the start of 2020. As a reminder, Catena Media runs a very high-margin business, and that translates into a very high cash generation. During these past 13 quarters since the beginning of 2020, the cash flow from operating activities amounted to almost EUR 185 million. How has that been used? Well, quite in a well-balanced way in terms of that capital usage. Around EUR 23 million so far have been spent on share buybacks. That translated into roughly 4.7 million shares that have been repurchased and to the largest extent, canceled by now. Further, the company invested into future growth with around EUR 17 million or $85 million that have been spent on two very significant acquisitions during 2021. That was Lineups and the i15 Media asset acquisitions, both for the North American market. They explain also the increase in the net debt, as you see in the chart on the right, between March and September 2021, because cash has been used during that time period for the initial payments in relation to these acquisitions. In the summer of 2020, the company issued hybrid capital securities and related warrants. The securities had a nominal value of roughly EUR 66 million. They are treated as equity, and that kickstarted the entire path of significantly reducing the debt in the company. The current balance of these hybrids is around EUR 44 million, and these hybrids can be used as a set off in the payment of the subscription price when the warrants are exercised. The net debt or the net interest-bearing liabilities have reduced by 85% from roughly EUR 150 million in the beginning of that period, at the beginning of 2020, down to the EUR 23 million that I mentioned before. As a result, the leverage also heavily, significantly improved from almost 3.5 to below 0.5 as of the end of March. Again, we expect to achieve a net cash position already during the H2 of this year. With that, I hand back to Michael. Thank you, Peter. The outlook and events after the quarter. First, I'd like to welcome Erik Edeen as interim CFO starting next week. Erik has worked with Catena Media previously, and we look forward to working with him again during this period while we transition from our current CFO, Peter, who we wish well on his future endeavors and thank him for his time with Catena Media. Peter's rigorous focus on controlling our costs and debt helped greatly in putting us in the strong financial position we are today, and only getting stronger. As I stated during our Q4, we will continue to expand our media partnerships going forward as we identify those that will contribute to the company's performance, such as we have now done adding the Lee Enterprises deal to our future mix. We look forward to working with that team in the future in further growing our national reach over the coming months and years. Our April performance was lackluster compared to 2022, down 12%. Last year's launch of Ontario for both sports and casino made for a tough comparable in an otherwise quiet part of the North American calendar. Last year, 2022, we were up 46% from 2021 in April performance, thanks in part to that launch. This was a launch month last year, April might not be as reflective for the trajectory for the remainder of the quarter. North America and the high margin business we can continue to develop there is the company's core focus. We are active in 25 states and provinces. 49% of the North American market by population is now addressable with our sites and the growing reach we gain from partnerships like those with Advance Local and now Lee Enterprises. The casino market is still even more nascent at only 16% of the population addressable today. As we've seen North American operators report that a casino player can be worth five or more times the value of a sports player in North America, we see great long term potential here. We see in the short term limited state development with Kentucky due to launch sometime later this year. There are a number of other potential states that are candidates for 2024 for up to another 27+ million population. With the upcoming U.S. election cycle, state and national, of which the campaign processes have already begun, it is likely there will be a slowing in the launch calendar until we get through what is likely to be the most contentious election cycle in U.S. history. This makes for a somewhat unpredictable launch calendar near term. The good news is, after the dust settles in late 2024, there are many more states to go, and there have been many additional states already starting debates on adding this business to their revenue streams. The 2025- 2030 period, it looks like it could be a full second wave, moving us up dramatically from the 49% in sports betting and the extremely small 16% of online casino. Strategic direction update. While timing of state launches remains uncertain in the near 2023- 2024 period in North America, we see continued growth across the next few years there. We have thus set a North American organic revenue target at $125 million by the end of 2025, a 12% consolidated annual growth rate from 2022 through 2025. We will do that while maintaining a North American adjusted EBITDA margin above 50%. While we are in a slower phase of the North American launch cycle, we will continue to expand our businesses by increasing traffic via media partnerships, expansions into other forms of performance marketing, and a few other initiatives already underway. At the same time, focus on cost optimization will ensure high profitability while still ensuring we are ready to dominate in future state openings. Catena Media is in a solid financial position, has a core business that delivers strong cash flows, and will be net cash positive later in the year. We're in a position that allows our organization to consider the best ways to deploy this capital when others might be focusing on larger and larger interest payments from growing debt at rising rates. We have the possibility to consider share buybacks, dividends, as well as many other strategic opportunities that could mean further meaningful acquisitions in the Americas, among other opportunities. Key takeaways. A high profitability in Europe due to cost optimization measures taken there. We've updated our strategic direction for 2025. We are expecting a net cash positive position in the H2 of 2023 and a strong financial position to leverage strategic opportunities going forward. With that, I will turn it back to the operator for questions. If you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial star five again on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Oscar Rönnquist from ABG. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning, guys. My first question would be on just the financial target. Just to be clear here, the 12% organic growth or annual organic growth target that you gave us. You say that you maybe wanna pursue some M&A in Americas as well, but the EUR 125 million, that is supposed to be reached by just organic measures. Is that correct? That is correct. We are expecting EUR 125 million from the organic measures, which include state launches and the media partnerships, for example, but not from M&A activities which could further bolster the business. All right. Perfect. Then just because you are emphasizing the state launch's contribution, right? In the latter part of 2024 and maybe in all of 2025. Would that mainly CPA still, or are you seeing any changes going for revenue share? It's been a mix in North America. We have been moving towards revenue share with a number of operators. However, ourselves and the market in general, competitors, et cetera, have been forced to reconsider some of that in certain states, such as Massachusetts, which did not allow revenue share. Now New York has a measure where they will pull back on allowing revenue share, it looks like, and only keep CPA. It's going to be a mix still going forward. We believe long-term revenue share will develop across the states, but it is going to remain a mix, and in certain states it will be only CPA for a period of time. All right. Perfect. Let's see. Also, yeah, in the margin target of exceeding 50%, that is not including central cost. What are you expecting in central costs during 2025? You, you cut the rest of world and Europe including also central costs by 40% year-over-year I think. What do you expect that to arrive at in 2025, if you could quantify that a little bit? Peter, do you wanna take that? You're our new Peter. It depends, Oscar, of course, a little bit on that further strategic trajectory. As we previously announced to the market, there may still be an interest in certain European assets of the business. The way how the business is built up is where you have central operations, and that's why we have called them out previously in our segment reporting as well. That is providing services and therefore supporting the various businesses and the divisions, North America being one of them, APAC and Japan being another one, and the European business being a third one. Depending on that development until 2025, that has an impact on how that central operational hub is going to develop, whether it is needed in its entirety of the services to the very different divisions or whether that can be further streamlined and being made much more efficient. It is a function a little bit of that strategic trajectory that we will see. If it is only supporting the key divisions, and also as we see that today, there is still the possibility of doing further measures. What you have been seeing now is the first result that we announced last year in the cost restructuring of the European business that only started to be effective now in the Q1. The 40% cost improvement on a year-over-year basis, that is to continue and continue to be seen, but we will find more efficiencies over that period. Okay, brilliant. Just the next one on paid media. We've seen some competitors of yours, doing quite well in the paid media division. What is your rationale behind not focusing on that as much as others are doing? They are doing quite well in terms of growth and also now in terms of margins recently. We have been doing paid media internal organically, to a small level and making sure that we understood how the model would be profitable. 'Cause you can do paid media, and you can do paid media profitably. Again, as you note, many of us have been figuring this out. Now starts our further investment, I expect, into that in the coming months and quarters. You'll see that portion of our business start to expand as an opportunity for us. Perfect. Perfect. Thank you. just the last question on, as you say, you have pretty strong financial position and maybe a net cash, in the latter part of 2023. In terms of capital allocation, do you see a lot of M&A opportunities, or should we rather see a buyback program being implemented anytime soon? I think we see all of the above as options at this point. There is definitely M&A opportunity in the world today in North America, Latin America, other parts of the world, both in media creative as well as technological advancements in order to further develop our platforms and our teams. Those are absolutely opportunities. We have to balance those, and this is part of what we do with our board and what's in the best interest of the shareholders between that and share buybacks or dividends or whatever may be decided. We have our AGM coming up when a new program may pre-presented, and those are what have to happen in order to do additional share buybacks after the next few days. We'll look through all of these things. We'll wanna have all those tools in our toolbox, and at the right moments, we will deploy each of those. Perfect. Thank you very much. That was all for me. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad. There are no more questions at this time, I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions and closing comments. Looking at some of the written questions, I see questions around share buybacks, which we asked when we're going to resume. Obviously, we had our quarterly report now. That puts us in a period where between now and our AGM, we have some couple of days. From there, the AGM has to then approve a new program. That will be the process going forward for share buybacks as a potential. We have to be authorized to do so, and then the board will evaluate the timing and appropriateness, as I said to the last question, on that versus M&A opportunities, et cetera. More will be forthcoming on that front. Other question I see is, you mentioned a bunch of strategic alternatives going forward, everything from sale of company, the assets to share buybacks, dividends, et cetera. What path is your actual focus? As a management team, our focus is on driving the value of the company that is working on the North American opportunities, cost optimizations that we've spoken to that continue across the organization at all levels in order to optimize this business. We are very high margin, and our intent is to remain that way. Meanwhile, management with our board, with engagement with Carnegie, et cetera, are evaluating all the other strategic opportunities out for the company. That is above the management level in many ways, except for some of our senior managers. The rest of the team is focused on maximizing the current business we have in a go forth strategy. Meanwhile, we continue to look at all the opportunities on the table in what is the best path for us and our investors in terms of the assets we have, the markets we're in, and where we're listed. Peter, do you see any other questions that you'd like to comment on? While I understand, and we all understand there is a lot of focus on share price and the like, I ask, of course, for that appreciation that we cannot comment on share price developments as management. However, interesting questions in terms of that shareholder value, and you, Michael, have precisely responded on that. How do we create shareholder value? That is one of the reasons why the company went out yesterday, of course, with the new financial targets or the reconfirmation of what are these targets. From a long-term perspective, even if there might be in the short term for this year, a slower pace of steep launches, there's still the commitment and the exciting opportunity for so much more business that can develop. One question or area of questions around is the competitive element of growth and that trajectory. That is a particularly interesting one. There's still a lot of potential for Catena Media when it comes to further broadening on the strategic perspective, and that will be part of the path to 2025, and Michael talked about this when it comes to media partnerships, paid media measures and the like, which is still organic from a perspective of not dependent on acquisitions or M&A. The company so far has focused a lot on these very high margin opportunities that North America had. As a result of that, the growth rate was a very different one. That was a trade-off that was very consciously taken in order to increase the profitability of the business and therefore the cash generation to be better prepared. The current market environment is confirming that that may have been the very right strategy to do so. Going forward, however, there are great top-line possibilities because whereas maybe certain competitors have invested so much more early on in media partnerships, we still have that potential to maximize going forward. The growth rates in a certain period of time would not tell the entire story from a long-term perspective, and there's still potential for our company to further develop in that area. Another question I see is someone's asking why are we not interested in Latin America anymore? I think that's a false impression. We are absolutely interested in Latin America. Latin America is a future growth area for us. We are investing in the teams and the products there. It is very small, so you don't hear us talk a lot to the investment community. Same thing with, as well, I mentioned on the call briefly, esports. There are a number of things we have in the works for future market developments, but they are not relevant to today's top and bottom line, really, but they are major developments and also potential opportunities for strategic acquisitions or other such partnerships. Those are things that we are looking at and working on. We just don't have significant value to the market at this point. I'm not sure I see any other questions unless you do, Peter, that, we can comment upon. No, not really. I think you mentioned on the share buybacks just to confirm that. Based on, as we have published now our report, share buybacks are possible again. As Michael mentioned, in order to go into the next period after the general meeting, there will then be a new mandate that is required from shareholders. As of today, share buybacks are to be resumed. With that, seeing no more questions to comment upon, I think we will call the end to this quarterly report update. We thank everyone for their time and attention, and we look forward to speaking with you at the end of Q2. Thank you. Thank you very much. The meeting has now ended. Goodbye.