Interactive
Sweden – Kindred shows growth of two per cent during fourth quarter
By Phil - 22 January 2024
As a result of La Française des Jeux SA’s announcement of a recommended public cash offer for Kindred Group has released its fourth quarter results. During the fourth quarter of 2023, Kindred saw continued strong performance in several key markets, while Relax Gaming’s business continues to show encouraging growth and proof of its scalable business model. Total revenue for the fourth quarter (B2C and B2B) amounted to £312.9m, an increase of two per cent compared to the same period last year.
The increase over the corresponding period last year was particularly driven by growth in the Netherlands, the UK, and Romania, as well as in the casino segment. Regulatory measures in Belgium and Norway continued to impact adversely on overall growth.
Casino & games continued to show encouraging performance with gross winnings revenue increasing by five per cent compared to the same quarter last year. Despite a challenging start to the quarter with historically low sports betting margin in October, Sports betting Gross winnings revenue reached £114.9m with a sports betting margin after free bets of 9.9 per cent.
The share of Gross winnings revenue from locally regulated markets amounted to 82 per cent for the final quarter of 2023.
Underlying EBITDA for the fourth quarter of 2023 amounted to £56.8m, which represents an increase of 45 per cent compared to the same period last year whilst the underlying EBITDA margin increased by 5 percentage points to 18 per cent. This was predominantly driven by the increase in revenue, which is a testament to the Group’s scalability, as well as significant focus on cost optimisation. Furthermore, there was a notable increase in contribution from Relax Gaming which showed an adjusted total revenue growth of 33 per cent and an underlying EBITDA contribution of £7.4m.
Underlying EBITDA for the quarter includes a negative underlying EBITDA contribution from the North American market of £6.1m. Excluding the impact of North America, the underlying EBITDA margin for the quarter was 21 per cent.
As communicated in Kindred’s Q3 report in November last year, Kindred anticipates the full year 2024 underlying EBITDA to reach £250m.
