Hi, and welcome to Kindred's Q2 conference call. My name is Erik Lindahl, and I'm an equity research analyst with Nordea. I will be moderating the Q&A session here after the presentation. If you wish to ask a question during the Q&A session, please put it in the webcast or phone in to the telephone conference. All right. With that said, I'll leave it over to CEO Henrik Tjärnström. Take it away, Henrik. Thank you very much, Erik. Thank you very much. Warm welcome everyone, to a sunny Stockholm. Summer temperatures are really here. That is extremely good. We're looking forward to the autumn season. First, the Q2 report and presentation. When we stood here a year ago, we were reporting a quarter where we had seen a very sharp decline in the sports activity at the beginning of the quarter due to the COVID cancellation of sporting events. As a consequence, we saw a shift, at least temporarily, onto our other product segments within the group. Later on in the quarter, as the sports schedule resumed, the activity within the other product segment remained very strong and has remained so pretty much since then. Also the sports event have returned, and during the third quarter last year, we saw a peak season of sports throughout the third quarter, which was unusual considering the normal decline in July and August period did not happen. It was the events that was pushed over from Q2 into Q3. Still, when we look at this year, we've been very pleased with the activity and developments, and the casino and other products segment have remained really strong. As a consequence, we can report a third consecutive all-time high in the casino and games revenues, but equally, a fourth consecutive all-time high within the total active customer base. Those numbers are really strong, and we're very pleased with that development. I will be delighted to walk you through the Q2 presentation now. First, I would like to deliver a big thanks to the whole Kindred team and all the employees that walked the extra mile during this eventful last year, making these strong numbers possible. Thank you very much. The outline of today's presentation is as follows. We will start looking at the Q2 report highlights and some financial numbers. We look into the business overview, some of the underlying fundamentals. I'm sure you've all read the report and the detailed numbers already by now. We're more than welcome to walk you through some of the underlying facts and figures and reasons making these strong numbers possible. We look at the trading update that we published in the report this morning as well. We round off with a summary. When we look at the key highlights and especially some of the real key highlights from the report, we're very pleased to report a very strong growth in the Gross winnings revenue of up 55% as reported in GBP, and 57% as reported in constant currency. That is a very strong development. If we look at the underlying or in fixed currencies, we would have had a new all-time high also in Gross winnings revenue of around GBP 370 million. Really strong for a second quarter report. Also, when we look at the locally regulated share of revenues, they came in on close to GBP 215 million for the quarter and stands for 59% of the overall Gross winnings revenue. It's been a solid growth in profitability as well from the locally regulated market. On a more anecdotal note, if you look at the full quarter of Q2 last year, as a group, we had GBP 235 million of revenues, and this year the locally regulated markets alone amounted to GBP 215 million. Actually now the locally regulated market is not that far off what was the total group last year, and that also highlights the strong growth that we're seeing as a business, and we are very pleased and proud about that. The underlying EBITDA has remained very strong. We came in on GBP 114 million, up 121% compared to the same period last year. Really strong conversion down the P&L, converting the strong growth on top line into even stronger development on EBITDA and more on that later. Free cash flow came in on GBP 82 million. Active customers, a new all-time high, as I mentioned, fourth consecutive all-time high of 1.91 million active customers for the quarter, up 45% year-over-year. The net cash position stood at GBP 191.5 million after the quarter, and that's up from GBP 175 million sequentially at the end of the first quarter. That should be reminded that includes the consideration for the Blancas acquisition of GBP 25 million, but also the GBP 41 million distribution to the shareholders in form of both cash dividend and share buybacks during the second quarter. Very strong cash position for the group. The strong growth and strict focus on scalability has led to a very strong growth and delivery on the underlying EBITDA margin of 31%. If we look at it more into perspective and looking especially over more developments over the last couple of years, and to put the strong growth into perspective again in another picture. We can see here the 55% growth in gross winnings revenue in the quarter. Now for the first six months, we stand on GBP 716 million of gross winnings revenue. Very strong development and of the two quarters this year, we're close to what we were of the three quarters of last year. Really strong growth. It can be seen also that from Q3 last year onwards, we've had really strong development as a company. Of course, when we combine that very strong delivery on the top line and the growth that has firmly returned for the group, and combine that with our dedicated focus on cost control, that yields a very good scalability effect, and cost as a percentage of the revenues have declined across the board in the P&L, as you can see on this picture. That is very strong and very positive. Also, as you can see here on the CapEx element, completely as normal. Also now due to COVID situation, the CapEx last year was relatively low, and now it's slightly higher, but that's perfectly normal and also in line when we increase our focus on tech and differentiation that we see an uptick in CapEx, but still within very reasonable levels. Another really benefit of the scalability and the delivery as it drives improved profit conversion down the P&L. That you can truly see here now in the EBITDA numbers. If you look on a similar, as a previous one on Gross winnings revenue and the development over the last couple of years, we see an even clearer trend now the last four quarters where we see a really strong delivery on EBITDA. Now, as I said, up 122% year-on-year. For GBP 212 million now for the first six months of 2021. Again, very strong development and very positive for the shareholder value creation. If we look at the business overview and look at some of the more underlying facts and figures, something that we have normally not talked that much about historically, has been the strategic work that we do and what's underpinning our deliveries. One of the strong enablers for us to be able to outgrow the market consistently for many years have been that we have a very strong team internally in the group, but also that we have a clear strategic direction and that we work towards. The more detailed plans in the strategy is something we keep very close to our chest, but we want to take the opportunity to explain to the market some of the larger elements that comprise our strategy and how it all kind of fits together with what we're delivering also on the numbers perspective. When we look at the different elements of the strategy, we have identified five key areas that we're working very hard on now for the coming three years. That is underpinned by an increased focus on product and customer experience, which is extremely important to deliver a best experience for the customer, and also in a differentiated way. Here, the Relax acquisition really comes into this area of the strategy. More on that later. Another area where we focus a lot and have been top of the agenda for many years is our relentless efforts within sustainability and keeping our market leading position within this very important area. Here, the Journey Towards Zero comes in as a very important element. Also to achieve scalability and also to the operational efficiency through our excellence in platform is another key area, and this is a fundamental driver of the scalability that we've shown conversion from top-line to the EBITDA development and profit generation. Those core strategic enablers underpin the work that we do in the different geographies and the regional markets, and that is sort of comprised out of two elements in the strategic plan to really secure a strong performance in our core engine, but also over the coming 3 years to firmly establish Kindred in the U.S. market, and that we also deliver more information about later in the presentation. With this core strategic enablers underpinning a very balanced portfolio markets, we have the ambition to really have strong profits from locally regulated markets. Positively, we are happy, as we also disclosed already last year, that we have made good progress already during 2020 in this direction, we will continue to focus on that very much for the coming three years. As I said, one of the elements underpinning the regional and country markets is the increased focus on product and customer experience. As I said, this is where Relax acquisition really fits into the plan. As we said and announced on the 2nd of July, we're extremely pleased to welcome the whole Relax team into the Kindred family and really making sure that we utilize all the benefits and potential that combining a market- leading B2B supplier with a market- leading B2C operator will really create a really strong group within our sector. Today, Relax is an award-winning B2B multi-product provider, driving innovation in gaming and iGaming software and content, as we say here on the heading. Of course, if we look back on where Relax come from, it all started in 2010. When Relax was created as a spinoff from the iGame Group in 2010. Since then Relax was focusing on 2 areas really. Relax was focusing first and foremost on the platform, a tech company at the core focused on technical platform enabling for studios and game supplying partners to really have a good and market-leading platform to integrate into. Then Relax really taking care of the integration into the operators, which was quite cumbersome and is cumbersome for smaller studios and operators who don't have that bandwidth. That of course, was a lot of hard work and focusing on developing this technology and making these integrations as smooth and easy as possible and fast. Of course, gradually the team has developed a very good and market-leading ability to do these integrations through API processes into the different operators. By accumulating these aggregations and in parallel working together with us in Kindred Group from 2013 to create our own proprietary poker network and also on bingo since 2015. Those kind of poker and bingo revenues have been enabling Relax to focus on the aggregation in parallel, and that combined has led to a network effect where Relax have been accumulating integrations towards operators, but also at the same time accumulating integrations towards game studios. When in 2017 they reached that inflection point when the network got to a certain size, they also decided to go into own casino production. That's what you can see on the left-hand side of this matrix. Of course, when they do that's when they get full scalability by having multiple integrations and a very broad portfolio of games. They create a critical mass, and that's really enabled Relax to really get good return on their own games production. That's what we can see also in the numbers. As you can see here, it's around 240 employees today and headquartered in Malta with 4 main hubs in Malta, Estonia, Sweden, and Serbia. The growth rates on the different segments you can see here is also reflective that the bingo and poker are relatively more mature, albeit that poker is growing very strongly still because it's a market-leading opportunity. Also the own games production is what really been growing fast over the last couple of years and is expected to continue in that direction. We've highlighted the strategic rationale already at the announcement of the acquisition. We highlight some of them here on the left-hand side. This is truly a win-win situation for both Relax and the Kindred B2C business. We also have a great opportunity to take Relax into bigger geographical footprint. For example, the U.S. market, which is a great opportunity for us in the B2C side of the business to be able to get better content and more personalized, but also for Relax, of course, to get better scale and size and reinvestment opportunities into the products which will drive the other B2B customer segments. Really by acquiring the remaining 66% of Relax, we create also a separate arm within the Kindred Group in B2B and complementing the strong B2C side that we have. That you can see also here on the numbers side and the development of Relax for the last couple of years. You can see here where the bingo and poker have remained relatively flat over the years, albeit growing slowly, but the strong growth has really come from the casino segment as a combined then for Relax, it's been growing with 39% compound annual growth rate year-on-year from 2017 to the last 12 months of May 2021. That of course also as it's a highly scalable business model, and by adding more content where a lot of the integrations are already done, it's a great conversion down the P&L for Relax and the profit increases are coming on the consequence of that, an expansion in the EBITDA margin. As we highlighted on the 2nd of July, the EBITDA margin for 2020 was 39%. Now for the last 12 months to May, it had already increased to 42%. As you can see here, 270% compounded annual growth rate in the EBITDA from 2018 to 2020 numbers. Really strong improvement in the profitability. Over 170 integrated operators, 2,500 games in the portfolio, adding sort of 90 games per year from the third-party partners combined then with their own 20 to 30 games per year, Relax really have what it takes, and it's a market-leading B2B games supplier across both casino but also poker and bingo. Another thing that we've been working very hard on in the company for many years is the conversion or transition of the group from.com to.country. That work has remained, and we're very pleased to report that here as well, that the ambition to grow locally regulated markets faster than our.com markets have yielded results continuously. As you can see here, our locally regulated markets have grown with 53% from 2019 to the last 12 months now of Q2 2021, while the other markets have grown with 44%. Overall then as a group, we have grown 49% year-on-year, which is really fast, and in comparing to our competitors, we see that we are one of the fastest-growing company, if not the fastest-growing company, and especially of the larger operators. That gives us confidence to say that we're continuing to take market share, and that is completely in line with our plan. We're also very proud to show here the absorption ability we have managing this transition in the best way possible for the shareholder value creation, where you can see that albeit that betting duties have continued to increase as a consequence of the transformation. At the same time, we have been able to keep improving our EBITDA margin. Now, for the third consecutive quarter, we had an EBITDA margin over 30% for the overall group. Really positive development for Kindred. As I said, also a new all-time high in active customers. With this graph, we want to highlight this fourth consecutive new all-time high for us from Q3 to Q2 now 2021. We have had consecutive beats of the all-time high. Of course, very positive. At the same time, the ARPU levels have remained fairly flat. If we look at the compounded annual growth rate from 2011 to 2021, for the last 10 years, we have grown active customer base with 20.3% year-over-year over that period. At the same time, the ARPU have only increased with 3.8%. Again, we're proud to say that is, in our opinion, the sustainable way of growing the business by growing number of actives rather than growing the ARPU. Here we can also see that it's relatively less, if any effect, coming from the COVID situation on the ARPU levels also for Kindred Group. Very strong development on number active, which of course also bodes really well for the peak season coming up now in Q3 and Q4, and then into next year, where we'll also have the combination of 2022 with the World Cup in football happening towards the end of the year. As we say, also regarding the normalization of COVID and the gradual happening of that, we see here, again, the new all-time high in active customers, which indeed have been very positive. Strong performance in casino and games also, despite the strong sports focus during the second quarter, and also that we have had a high sports book margin during the second quarter, and more on that later. Really strong, again, a new all-time high in the casino games segment as well. Sports book turnover, as is kind of normal in the second quarter that it drops, albeit that we had the Euro championship coming into the quarter as well. It was also affected by the strong margin, in a sense. Where there is a strong margin, it has an impact of cooling off on the turnover element. If we combine the turnover and the margin, we still generated our second-highest quarter ever in sports book gross winnings revenue. Indeed, very positive, albeit that on the face of it, turnover might look a bit low. If we look at the product segment update, again, now in the second quarter, we have returned to a more normal split between the different products, where sports came in on 47% and casino on 49%, and poker and bingo in the other areas, sharing the remaining 4% to 5%. This is more back to a normal split between the products that we've seen in previous quarters. As you can see here, as expected as well, the growth in sports was the strongest by far, also because of the COVID cancellations during last year. Still, despite that, casino growing very strongly on up 18%. Poker declining slightly because poker was the product that benefited the most from the sports cancellations last year. Also as that mostly impacted the French market, where it's pretty much sports and poker available. The other segment increased with 13%. If we look at the UEFA EURO 2020 in more isolation, this is numbers that we have provided in connection with previous tournaments, and we wanted to do that again today. As you can see here, and put things into perspective, it was a very big tournament and event for us. Perhaps not as big as we potentially expected, but it's always hard to predict exactly how big these kind of events will be. We've also picked up from media companies that the interest around the UEFA EURO 2020 was perhaps not as big as they expected as well. I think it comes down to the COVID situation, but also that it's been a very busy sports schedule now for the last 12 months, and that could potentially lead to some of the slightly perhaps lower than expected. Still, one of the largest events for us ever. We can see here that seven out of the 14 top events for us was replaced by events from the Euro Championship. Indeed, very strong development. Of course, it partly ties in also to the size of our different markets and how far they reached in the tournament as well. Still, a good tournament, solid margin, good activity, and strong gross winnings revenue generation. GBP 25 million of the close to GBP 34 million fell into the June and Q2 period. In a sense, only GBP 9 million came into the July and the Q3 period, which is again coming into the trading update later on. To look at the COVID situation and how it impacted sports, as I mentioned in the beginning, last year, we saw a big impact from the cancellations of sports event from middle of March onwards. That led to looking at this 30-day average daily Sportsbook turnover graph. You can see that it starts to tail off at the end of Q1 last year and into Q2. What happened was basically that these events were sidestepped and into back end of Q2 or into Q3. Basically now when we look at this year in Q3 and the trading update again, we're comparing to a period where we had very high activity last year, pretty much peak season, where the Premier League and a lot of major football leagues in Europe was being concluded. We also had the Champions League playoffs taking place in August. As I said, pretty much from June last year till today, we've had a very high sports schedule, and that can be seen in these numbers. This year as well, we've seen a very strong development, as expected, dipping down slightly towards the end of the quarter when this space being created between the normal league season and the European Championship. Then it's a big pickup towards the end of the quarter as a result of the big event from the EURO 2020. When we look at the margin, as I mentioned with France and also on the previous graph where France was the biggest impacted market, and that is also reflective here in the overall margin. As last year, when there was all but nothing from France, we had also a cooling off effect on the overall margin, during the second quarter from that effect. At the same time this year, when France was in full swing again, and also the French team made good progress and won a lot of matches and eventually got eliminated on the 28th of June, we saw a strong contribution to the Sportsbook margin, and the margin came in on 10.7% of the free bets for the full quarter, again, the Euro Championships contributing to this upward trend, but also the French market. We have historically talked about the long-term average, and as we're showing here, the current long-term average, if we look from 2018 to 2021, it's now 9.1%. That needs to be taken into consideration as well when looking at the overall Sportsbook margin of the free bets. As we say, in recent year, the average sports betting margin has increased due to the fact that the French sports and our success in the French market has really pushed the margin upwards because it's a condition in the French regulation that we have to have a capped payback ratio to customers of 85% over time, which means that we have to take a 15% margin. By default, that has an upward pull on the margin. Again, it's important to look at margin combined with turnover, and we're working very hard to optimize the margin rather than maximizing it. That is, again, with the 2nd highest Sportsbook revenue quarter ever when we're combining the margin and the turnover. If we look on the regional update and go into that, Western Europe continues to grow very strongly and strongest of the regions, up 74%, also due to what I said with France coming in this year compared to last year when there was very limited activity from the French business. Still also very encouraging to see that the Nordic region is back on strong growth, up 26% year-on-year, and then also the CES region up 33%. Very strong growth, also in the other 14% up. Strong growth across the different regions. On the U.S., we continue to build for the future in the U.S., completely in line with plan. We have always been clear that this is a long-term project for us, and we see a great opportunity for Kindred and our shareholders, and we're fully confident and remain fully confident that we have what it takes to make it also in the U.S. We like to draw conclusions or analogies with the U.K. market, where we came in perceived to be quite late in the process, but have made great progress and over time has converted that into a great shareholder value creation, and we're fully confident that the U.S. will follow a similar pattern over time. In the second quarter, the Gross winnings revenue amounted to 5.8%, and that's an increase of 8% in constant currency from the second quarter last year. That's after us making conscious decision to focus on bonus incentives for the customers, especially in connection with the launch of Virginia on the 28th of April. If we look at the Gross winnings before bonuses, that increased actually 35% year-on-year in local currency. That gives a more true picture of the underlying growth. That was also driven then by a significant increase in active customers and the Sportsbook revenue. We're very much in the growth phase and focusing on growth rather than profitability for the time being in the U.S. Of course, also encouraging to see that the EBITDA contribution, sort of the negative contribution reduced from the first quarter into the second, for the quarter. For the last 12 months, the contribution amounted to GBP 28 million or just over $38 million in constant currency or in local currency for the U.S. market, which again highlights the opportunity that we're only scratching the surface and we're still making a meaningful addition to the group. We remain confident that the U.S. market has what it takes to become one of our largest markets over the coming couple of years. We've also worked very hard now, and the team on the ground, especially in the initial phase, to secure market access deals, but then also to launch in the different states. Now we're doing a lot of work during the slower low season in the U.S. to focus on the fundamentals. For example, updating our creative concept and the communications and marketing mix, and working actively to improve also the campaign tracking and other fundamental parts of the business to be ready for the start of the peak season in the U.S., coinciding with the NFL or the American football season starting at the beginning of September. On that point, the initial focus, as I said, has been very much for the local team to really go for securing the best possible portfolio market access in the different states, but also to launch and make the first phase happen in the different states. Similar to the U.K. market where we launched in 2012, we gradually work on all the details and underlying fundamentals and when the pieces come together, that's also when we would expect to see a marked increase also in our growth abilities. We continue to expand our footprint through a selective state-by-state approach. We're expecting to launch in two more states now during 2021. We're expecting to launch both in Iowa but also in Arizona now during the third quarter. That we very much look forward to. We're also utilizing the U.S. team to really focus on other opportunities as well, ancillary areas like the Canadian market where Ontario's now talked about opening up for licensing and starting from the first quarter of next year. That will be, of course, very positive as well. The Journey Towards Zero remains intact, and we reported our numbers the other day. For the second quarter, we came in on 4.3%, a small increase from the Q1 numbers. This short-term fluctuation is what we expect and what we have been transparent on before. The long-term trend, though, remains intact, and we're very confident as well that we have a good progress towards zero come the end of 2023. This is really what we focus a lot about on top of the agenda for us and our sustainability work. We also have a slide later regarding Sustainable Gambling Conference that will take place now on the 5th of October. This year the focus will be safer gambling, a shared responsibility, but more on that slightly later. The uptick of tools have improved from 76.6 to 76.9, so a small increase, but albeit in the right direction. The effects have remained fairly small impacts during the quarter. As you can see here, as I mentioned, a GBP 6 million decline in the gross winnings revenue line, but small impact on the bottom line. This is more for the more detailed analysis and effects across the business. We look at the trading update and the solid start of the third quarter. It started well, in our firm opinion, with the daily average for the first 18 days being 15% higher in GBP or 20% in constant currency, compared to the full quarter's average for the third quarter in 2020. The growth is against a tough comparable period in Q3, as we showed here previously, where it was a full activity quarter within the sports where the leagues were concluded and also the Champions League. That is also this summer ended last year and was pretty much no gap between the end of the last season's leagues and the start of the 2020-21 leagues. We build a solid foundation for continued growth based on our record high number of active customers. Of course, we come into the third quarter now with a much higher base than we had last year, and we're very confident for the end of the third quarter and also now into the peak season of Q4. We're very pleased with the trading update, up 20% in constant currency for the start of the quarter, given the tough comparatives from last year. If you summarize, strong Gross winnings revenue growth 55% up with the focus on scalability and cost control. We've seen a very good conversion down the P&L. EBITDA up 121% to GBP 114 million. Locally regulated markets came in on 59% of closer to GBP 115 million. We see a strong cash flow generation continuing, GBP 82 million in the quarter. Active customers, new all-time high, 1.91 million customers. Bodes well for the peak season coming up and next year. Net cash, strong position in the balance sheet and also the share of revenues coming from high-risk players came in on 4.3% for the quarter and remains a firm focus for us also going forward. With that, I welcome Erik back for the Q&A session. In the meantime, when Erik is walking up, again, with the Sustainability and Sustainable Gambling Conference taking place now here and sort of online again this year on the 5th October. Please save the date for that important event for the whole sector. Hi, Erik. Perfect. Hi. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you, Henrik. All right. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please put it in the chat, in the webcast, or dial into the telephone conference. I'll start with a few questions of my own. here. You elaborated a bit on the trading update here for July and the drivers behind that. Is it possible to give any more color as to what's driving that? Maybe a bit of a hard question to answer. Yeah Would you say that it's fair to assume that you continue on this high level of growth throughout the Q3? No, I fully appreciate that. Also we have to remember that it's a relatively short period of time as well. We're looking at 18 days, and the quarter is going to be sort of 90+ days. It is a relatively short period. We have to remember as well that as we showed here also on the Euro Championship slide, that it's a relative small part of the Euro Championship that fell into the Q3 period. Only just under sort of GBP 8.9 million for the July period. That after the Euro tournament and this period since then, it's as low activity as we get for a two-year period, really. It is against also the tough comparatives of last year when it was full swing. It had been very limited sport for a long time. There was a lot of activity and interest within sports. We were in the beginning of this long phase of peak season for sports, and so we're comparing to tough comparatives and still up 20%, I think is strong, and we're very confident about our activity levels and the momentum we carry into the peak season coming up now at the end of this quarter and then into Q4. All right. You touched on the sportsbook. Have you seen any sort of difference in the casino activity now heading into the end of Q2 perhaps, and reopenings and the warm weather and everything into Q3 as well? We haven't really seen any tangible signals or indicators of a decline from COVID normalization in our numbers yet. There is a normal seasonality pattern, as you say, that's happening now at the end of the second quarter and into the third quarter as well, especially with the Other Products segment. That's again why we're very pleased to see that we can report another all-time high in the casino activity and revenues. That is, of course, very strong. If any market is potentially the U.S., where they are probably ahead of the curve in the normalization phase, where the land-based casinos have been fully reopened, and as you can see, the other day when the final of the NBA season and the playoffs that there was 60,000 people outside the stadium in Milwaukee. That would be what you would expect to see here in Europe still. I think if anything, they are probably a little bit ahead of the curve. Right. Are you seeing sort of a slowdown in activity then in the casino in the U.S., or? I think potentially what we looked at last year with our April-May phase in perhaps some states like Pennsylvania, where we saw a very high uptick in the casino, that was probably partly due to the COVID- Yeah closures of the land-based outlets. Now when that's happening, it has some effect, but still being up 35% in gross winnings for the U.S., we're very pleased with, and we're continuing to build the foundations for our long-term success there. Okay. Looking at the European markets, are there any markets that stand out as particularly weak or strong in terms of casino activity and maybe also the sportsbook at the end of the quarter here? No, it's been strong development similar to Q4, Q1. We've seen strong momentum into all markets and segments as well. Nothing yet to be seen. As I said, we have a seasonality effect now that is completely as expected, and then we'll be building up for the peak season coming up. No, nothing yet from that, and we'll have to return on that in the coming quarters if there is any sort of tangible effect. We're very confident to say that we strongly believe that some of the customers that we have got, perhaps on the benefit of the situation, has remained with us as well, and we've proven that in our numbers now. I think it's fair to say that some people were expecting that the marked increase in Q2 last year would be temporary, and it would be fading off in Q3, Q4, or into this year. We've consecutively shown good momentum within the Other Products Segment, which tells me that there's more of a long-term shift here. All right. Perfect. You talked a bit about marketing expenses. obviously being quite low in relation to net sales in the quarter. Do you still stand by the earlier guidance that marketing expenses would be slightly below 25% for the full year? Yeah 21% in Q2, what do you see here? Yeah. No, very good question, Erik. On that point, as we highlighted in the Q1 presentation, we then believe that the COVID normalization would start to happen sooner in a sense, we would see an increase during the second quarter and third quarter and fourth quarter consecutively. That would push what was 21% then upward towards the 25% mark. As you see now, as we've had such strong development on top line, as a consequence, the reinvestment percentage comes down a bit. As expected, the marketing spend throughout the quarter was back-ended towards the Euro Championship. In June, we had a higher percentage than we had for the full quarter, as expected. For the full year now, the guidance we've sort of taken down a bit to perhaps being more around a couple of percentage points below 25% rather than below 25%, because we see that this situation is remaining, and we're having a positive momentum as well. That is a slight change in the guidance on that point. Okay. Given what we're seeing here heading into July, is it fair to assume sort of 21% in Q3 as well, or? Normally, we would still expect that it's a gradual increase. Okay from the 21 in both Q1 and Q2, and then that's the same with June and sort of into the second half of the year, there will be gradual increase. Take us up towards that couple of percentage points below 25 for the full year. Perfect. All right. On the U.S. then, sort of now with maybe slightly weaker than I expected, at least, development into Q2, and some tech issues in New Jersey and so on, how's the progress going in terms of launching the new platform? Do you see that having on your development here into the second half? As we highlighted in the report as well, we believe a fundamental part for our long-term success in the U.S. will be to bring our own technology to bear and give the team the same tools that we have and be able to put the weight of the group behind the U.S. team longer term in the U.S. That's something that we're working on, and that is coming. That we are confident with. What you can also see, and I mentioned it in the presentation as well, is that the effects in New Jersey, for example, we saw more bit of a challenge in Q1 and the start of the year. That has to some extent remained, but as a consequence, we've also scaled back on the marketing investments. I would say protecting the EBITDA contribution in the U.S. as well, which sort of improved from Q1 now to Q2. We're remaining in an investment phase across the four states we're live in now. When we add two more states, they will of course also be in investment phase towards the end of the year. We're really working hard to find the right balance between investing in time with the brand and the fundamentals and not over-invest, but not under-invest either to be able to seize the long-term opportunity. Again, we take comfort from what we have done in the U.K. and other markets as well. We have experience to fall back on in that sense. That makes me confident to say that we have what it takes to long term be successful in the U.S. This is not something that's going to be done in one quarter or another. It's a long-term project, and we're very determined and stubborn, and we know that we will get there in the end. All right. Now with launch in Virginia, have you seen any sort of differences compared to launching in the other states and maybe some learnings where you had in those states that you could carry on into Virginia? Has the experience been any different? Yeah. In Virginia, we choose a slightly different launch strategy to what we had in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. We choose more of kind of trying to meet competition on the customer incentive side. As a consequence, that's also what we show there, that customer incentives increased quite a lot, and that have an impact of course, on gross winnings revenue as bonuses are netted off before gross winnings revenue. The gross winnings revenue contribution from Virginia was very small or even negative during the quarter as a consequence of that. We're very pleased with the launch and the intake of customers and the activity, and also improved the quality of the database that we're building. As you say, we're trying and testing in the different states, seeing what works. Overall, we're focusing on the fundamentals that we know works, that we need to be local, we need to have a differentiation on the product side and work relentlessly across all the touchpoints for the customers. That's again, what we strongly believe that our own technology will help us a big step in the right direction. Yeah eventually there as well. All right. I think I have to open up for questions in the telco soon. Yeah. I'll finish off with two just hot topics. Yeah during the quarter here. In both the gray listing of Malta from the FATF. tax rate proposal here. How do you see sort of that developing and affecting Kindred and yeah, any comments would be helpful? Yeah. No, absolutely. The gray listing per se for us as we are a global group now, we have our headquarter in Malta. For us it's of course extremely important that Malta takes the necessary steps and actions to improve the situation. We're confident, and we're seeing that they're doing that, but they of course need to push through to the complete solution on that and take themselves off that gray list as soon as possible. In the meantime, of course, for us, it's more about the reputation of the sector and the negative impact these kind of gray listings can have on that, and that we take extremely seriously, and we are pushing Malta ourselves as well in that direction to improve and correct what shortcomings they might have. From an operational point of view, it's very limited impact. We operate in the group as an international group and very limited effective, no effect really from that point of view. When it comes to the global tax, we have been operating also as a global company for many years. We have very sophisticated transfer pricing and detailed transfer pricing agreements in place across all the different subsidiaries within the group. We have been for many years adopting to what is happening now really in a sense, and by making a markup on those sort of costs that we're generating in the different markets and paying local corporate tax on those already. We were paying close to 15% as a group already last year, and we've been gradually harmonizing towards that level over many years. Again, it's some time off still when it's happening, or if it's happening, and how it's happening. For us, we've been developing in this trend for many years already. Perfect. I think with that, we'll open up for questions from the telephone conference. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you do wish to ask a question, press 01 on your telephone keypad now. That is 01 to register for a question. I have a question from the line of Marlon Värnik from Pareto Securities. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning, Henrik. Hello, can you hear me? Can hear you. Good morning, Marlon. Yeah, good morning. Just a few follow-up questions there. First on Q3. Clearly the activity will pick up significantly here towards end of the quarter with the leagues starting off and so on. Can you give some flavor on how we should view the activity here for the first half of July compared to, for example, September? If you can give some comments on the trading margin here on the start of July. No, we haven't disclosed those numbers in the report. We cannot go into those kind of details, Marlon, unfortunately. As I said, it's a relatively short period of time, and exactly as you say, we're fully expecting when the league season kicks off now towards the middle of August and onwards, that we will have the benefit of this higher base that we carried now from Q2. We will have that benefit, and that's what we have seen in historical years of championships. That if there's a big benefit of the tournament, is that we're coming into the next peak season with a much higher base. We stand to benefit from that in Q3 and Q4, and we're expecting that this year as well. Also now, when we're starting to see a more normalized pattern of seasonality post-COVID, that will be good for everyone as well, because it is a little bit comparing apples and pears now with the 2020 period. That distorted things last year, and it distorts things to some extent this year as well. Full respect that it's a bit hard to keep track. I think that graph with the sports turnover and stuff is very highlighting the push from Q2 into Q3 that we saw last year. Of course, that's the comps we're meeting now. All right. Thank you. Follow-up on the reopening here. You said you're not seeing any signals of a negative reopening effect yet. How do you measure it? How do you know it's the weather and not, for example, the reopening effect? Yeah, it is a good question, and it is quite hard to tell. When we're growing this fast as we're doing as well, it's a bit difficult to tell exactly what's what, as you say, with seasonality and weather and all the different aspects. Now after such a long period of peak sports, that it's some perhaps fatigue to some extent and have potentially had an impact on the Euro tournament as well. We're looking very carefully and closely into the different KPIs where we could see an indication of this COVID normalization. Again, I'm confident to say that we strongly believe that some of the customers that perhaps found us during the last year have chosen to remain as well. That's also reflective in the numbers that it wasn't just a temporary increase in other products in Q2 last year. It's been sustained for the last year and remains strong, that, of course, also positive coming into now more the winter season with more indoors and more peak season for us. All right. Just a last question to follow up on the marketing. You lowered now the guidance to a few points below 25% for 2021. As Erik said, you expected just below 25%, I think it was a Q4 for 2021. What's the reason here? Is it the delay of COVID, or is it top line performing better than you expected here in 2021 than you thought in Q4 2020? It's a combination of the two. It's the same pattern that we see now in Q3, Q4, and also Q1 and now Q2 that we have seen that we get more bang for our bucks. We get more share of voice for relatively less money, but we're also driving through the fruits of all the hard work that we've done across the customer experience and the platform. We're also benefiting from that. It is a combination of also with the COVID situation and the pressure in overall marketing is lower than it was pre-COVID, and that's continuing to have an effect as well. It's a combination of the two. As you said, we're expecting a gradual increase still throughout the year. That's what I said, we're taking down the guidance a couple of percentage points now for the full year 2021. Lovely. That was all from me. Thank you, Henrik. Thank you, Marlon. Our next question comes from the line of Martin Arnell from DNB Markets. Please go ahead. Good morning, Henrik. I just want to follow up the questions on Q3 trading and how we should look at the near-term outlook. I think you circled around the answer here a bit. I guess it's fair to assume acceleration throughout the quarter in a normal year without the football Euros or World Cup. Here you have football Euros, which should have boosted the activity in July. How should we think about the remainder of Q3? Is it acceleration, stable, or deceleration? We would expect an acceleration now when the peak season picks up from middle of August onwards. As I said, then we're expecting to draw benefits from this high active base that we've carried through now from Q2 with the new all-time high in active customers of 1.91 million customers. Significantly higher, up 45% year-on-year, That is still when sports had returned towards the end of the quarter. Now we're very confident for the long-term progress and opportunity. We're not worried by that. It is a low season right now in this third quarter, That will pick up as the sports seasons comes back, That we're fully confident of. Thank you, Henrik. That is very clear. Second question I have is on the marketing to sales discussion here. You're saying now a couple of% below 25%. Is that the same as slightly above 20%? It would be slightly above the midpoint between 20% and 25%, if I do my math. As I said, we saw in the beginning of the year, we were expecting a need to gradually increase the marketing throughout the year so that we would come in on average for the year, just below 25%. We've taken down that a couple of percentage points now because of the situation and investing wisely in the business. We of course, had a very strong growth, as was indicated on the previous question here as well, but also that we're getting a very good return on what we're doing. As we said before, we're continuing to increase our share of voice, we're not under-investing. In absolute terms, we have been increasing our marketing spend significantly year-on-year, and that also need to be considered. It's just that with this kind of high growth rate in top line, a percentage of that growth becomes quite big money. That is also, of course, as we've always had the ambition long term to push marketing reinvestment percentage down as we grow in size. In some ways, this has accelerated that development over time. We're expecting to increase slightly towards the end of the year to take us up from where we are now on 21% towards this 2 percentage points below 25% for the full year. Sure. I guess it depends on where you are on the top line and how growth is progressing there also. Also a question relating to this discussion. You did more than GBP 200 million EBITDA in the first half of the year. Do you have a realistic ambition to increase EBITDA in the second half versus the first half? We will have to return on that at the time of the Q3 and Q4 reports, as we're not providing any forecasts. We will have to wait with that until then. Yeah. Okay, thanks. On the Relax acquisition, when is that consolidated exactly? The beginning of the fourth quarter or around that time. That's when we're expecting that to happen. We're all ready today. We are 33% shareholder of Relax, so we have part of the business in the numbers already, of course. The full completion is expected to happen then on the transaction. Yes. Okay. Thank you. My final question is on, I remember when you announced Relax, you said that it doesn't change your distribution plans for 2020. To me, it looks like you have a lot of distribution left here. How should we think about the potential for further buybacks going forward? Yeah, I would keep my eyes open. The board got the approval at the EGM for renewed buybacks. When they have more information on that, they will make an announcement. We communicated a clear ambition in the distribution policy by having a stable cash element, and then on top of that to do share buybacks to make the average redistribution to shareholders be on average or around 75% over time. We'll come back when we have more information on that. Thank you, Henrik. That's clear. That's all from me. Thanks. Okay. Thanks, Martin. Our next question comes from the line of Oscar Erixon from Carnegie. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning, Henrik. Tempted to ask about the trading update, I think that's been answered already. Instead, some cost-related questions here. Starting actually with the Western European online casino performance. Continued strong performance and also strong gross profit development. Could you say something about what markets are driving it, and what do you see ahead for H2 in your key markets, please? Thank you. Now we've seen strong development across the different countries in the Western European region. As you know, in the U.K., we have both Unibet and 32Red, and they've been both performing strongly for a long period of time. That is, of course, helping as well. We've seen strong development across the different markets there. Understood. On the U.S., slower performance here in the first half. It's in line with the trending in Q1, of course. What's the timeline for your own platform launch in the U.S., which seems like an important step? Is it still the end of the year? Would that change your strategy and investment pace in 2022? No. It's something we're working on now, and first to get the platform ready for regulatory certification as a first step, and then gradually sort of roll it out in both the new states then and also kind of the existing states where we're already live in a sense. We'll revert when we have more tangible dates to talk about on that. It's been a part of our long-term plan, as we've been transparent on since the beginning, that is a strong ambition. We, of course, also have to be minded about the kind of re-regulation that we saw here in Sweden first and also now the Netherlands, Germany. There is a lot of regulatory work to be done on the platform as well. That is partly been why it's taken perhaps a bit longer than originally envisaged, but it's something we're working hard on internally, and we'll revert when we have more concrete dates on that. Great. Quite strong cost control here again in Q2. You've already touched upon your marketing guidance quite a bit. On the other sort of operating costs that's still good here in Q2. What do you see ahead for H2? Notice you're recruiting quite a bit. If you could shed some light on that, would be appreciated. Thank you. Very good question. Overall, we've done a lot of work on our cost base and organization over the last couple of years, and that is bearing fruits in a sense on the scalability effects and are of course very good. At the same time, we also, on your previous question, to enable us to seize the opportunities we see in the different markets and places, we also need to continue to build our structure capital, and that's what we are doing, as you say, with the recruitments and increase in headcount as well as you can see from the report. Of course, that will translate into cost eventually. Also we are focusing very much on the most important areas, in a sense, where tech and tech differentiation is top of the agenda. Doing that in a smart way, which of course leads to more CapEx as we also showed in the report here today. We're increasing and we are expanding, but we're doing it consciously and cautiously and we're also doing it in the most important areas, in a sense, to remain very sort of prudent in that sense. We need to increase, and that's what we're doing in a conscious way. Perfect. Just a final question actually, regarding the marketing guidance there. Typically, the pattern is after sort of a championship quarter that you reduce marketing quite a bit and capitalize on the strong user inflow from Q2. Should we expect marketing here in H2 to be more back-end loaded towards Q4? Thank you. That is normal and most likely to also what will happen this year. For us, again, with the COVID situation, and it depends a bit on what's happening around us as well and what we need to do when it comes to getting the sufficient share of voices in a sense as well. As we say, we gradually expect marketing now during Q3 and Q4 to increase, so to take us up from the 21% towards this couple of percentage points below 25%. That of course means that for the Q3 and Q4 period, we're expecting to see a sort of above that guidance to get to the guidance in a sense. We'll come back of course in time with the Q3 presentation as well and give you an update on that. That's what we're seeing right now. Very clear. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Erik Malmberg from ABG. Please go ahead. Hello. Morning, gents. Just on the casino side, if you could just elaborate a bit on the month-over-month development during the quarter and whether June activity, how much lower that was versus April? We haven't provided that level of detail, Erik, so we can't go in on that now. We said in time with the Q1 presentation on the 28th of April that we had seen a strong start of the quarter then, which is expected because it's the end of the sort of peak season from the winter and the finishing of the leagues. It's an expected, as we could see here on the Sportsbook turnover as well, there is a kind of a slower period in the middle of the quarter when the leagues have come to an end and there's a gap between the tournament start. As we focus a lot on the combined players, we have sort of activities tilted towards the beginning and the end, in a sense, in a quarter like this. Just on casino, if you look here for the second half, do you think that you will be able to at least maintain Q2 levels throughout the year? I'm sure there will be some reopening effects. Just your thoughts on that. As I say, we are working very hard internally to secure that whatever customers we have got in the last year, that we're keeping them engaged and active within the company and utilizing the products continuously. Again, we will have to come back to this, but we're not seeing any effects yet, at least from a normalization. Normalization is still happening around us. We'll come back. As I say, we are seeing a normal seasonality step down right now. We're expecting that to be replaced with a normal seasonality step up in a few weeks' time. We will have a very good period then with a World Cup in football also at the end of the next year. Basically from then pretty much until the summer of 2023, albeit that will be a gap in the summer, a short one, where that will happen. It should be a very good activity, especially from a sports point of view. That normally is as we're focusing, especially Unibet brand being our biggest brand, that should also bode well for the other product segment. Got it. If you could give some flavor on the U.K. side of the business, which has been a massive outperformer the past couple of quarters. Just activity-wise, if we compare Q2 versus Q1, what do you see there? No, we haven't given that level of detail in the report again. Again, we have seen a strong development across the markets in the Western European segment. U.K. has been on a good trend for many years, as we highlighted also in time of the Q1 presentation. That momentum is positive. Got it. You don't see the same sort of step down as some of your international peers, which have cited that they've seen quite some reopening effect in the U.K. You don't see any sort of those tendencies there in Q2? No. Again, as I said, we are not seeing any sort of tangible KPIs that is a clear indication of normalization. We rather see an expected decline in the activity levels right now. That could just as well be normal seasonality pattern. Again, we will have to come back later on if and when we see more tangible normalization effects, but nothing so far that is clear. Got it. That is all from me. Thank you. Thanks, Erik. There are no further questions at this time, so I hand back to the speakers for any closing remarks. Perfect. I think we have two questions from the webcast here. Okay that I'll forward before we close here. Do you expect any sort of special revenue growth thanks to the Olympics that are taking part now in Q3? Yeah, the Olympics is a good bridge normally into the peak season, but it's normally not the major sports betting event as such. It's a good bridge into the peak season to carry the momentum from the Euro Championship into the autumn. We'll definitely try to use it as much as possible. Of course, there's tennis tournaments on an ongoing basis as well that's continuing throughout the summer and stuff. It's not like it's all dead, but it's lower activity now normally than it is in a peak season. There is some, and we'll utilize them as much as possible, of course. Yeah. I guess the final question then, how have your German revenues been affected here in Q2 by the online casino restrictions? Yeah, do you see any sort of change to that now that they are regulating and et cetera? Yeah. Germany is low single-digit percentages of our revenue. It's a relatively small market in the scheme of things for us. We have remained compliant throughout since 2012 in Germany. We're looking forward to Germany as a long-term opportunity. We are compliant and ready. We've seen a decline in the casinos as anyone else. Again, for us, it's a benefit that it's such a small part of the business. It doesn't notice really in a sense. Long term, we're confident that the regulations will improve. That will be to the benefit of those who are being there in a sense. In the sports area, we've seen positive developments as expected. We have been building brand there with the Unibet brand for a few years. We're optimistic about that long term. Right. I think we're a bit over time here. Yeah. Yeah, I have lots of questions left, but I think we'll finish it there. I'll hand it over to you for some closing remarks. Okay. Thanks, Erik. Thanks, Erik. Yeah. Thank you very much, everyone, for coming today and participating in the webcast and everything, and we really hope that you get a good summer, and stay safe, and look forward to see you in October. Thank you very much, everyone.