SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Publishing its unaudited full-year 2018 results, Stockholm-listed online gambling firm Kindred Group Plc said it has increased confidence in its future prospects after overcoming new industry challenges and increased regulatory demands.
Updating the market, Kindred closes 2018 trading reporting record levels of customer activity across its verticals, as Q4 2018 group revenues hit a further ‘all-time high’ of £250 million (Q4 2017: £238m).
Kindred notes that despite its strengthened revenue capacity, its Q4 top-line metrics would be set against ‘an exceptional fourth quarter of 2017 sportsbook margin’ resulting in ‘very tough period comparatives’.
Furthermore, the Stockholm enterprise would report increased period betting duties of £44.5 million, leading to a Q4 2018 EBITDA of £59 million (Q4 2017: £74.5m),with Kindred declaring Q4 profits (after tax) of £39 million (Q4 2017: £50m).
Despite its tough like-for-like Q4 comparatives, Kindred declares a further year of sustained growth, as the operator records full-year 2018 group revenues of £908 million (FY2017: £751m) combined with a corporate EBITDA of £204 million (FY2017: £185m).
Closing 2018 unaudited accounts, Kindred anticipates delivering group profits (after tax) of £131 million (FY2017: £117m), with its board announcing that it will pay investors a ‘proposed dividend’ of SEK 5.92 per share.
Updating investors, Kindred Group Chief Executive Henrik Tjärnström details that 2018 has been a transformative year for all industry leaders, who now operate in a much-changed global betting/gambling landscape.
Confident in Kindred’s future prospects, Tjärnström’s executive team will continue to focus on strategic regulated market expansions, led by sustainability and social responsibility initiatives.
Supporting Kindred’s future growth strategy, Tjärnström outlines that Kindred has developed as online gambling’s most diverse enterprise ‘operating in 20 different languages in more than 100 countries’.
This January, Kindred successfully went live under the new local licence in Sweden with the brands, Unibet, Maria Casino, iGame, Storspelare and bingo.com.
Tjärnström said: “On 1 January, we successfully went live under the new local licence in Sweden with five of our brands and we have also continued to lay the foundation for the USA early this year with the agreement in Pennsylvania.
“Always planning ahead, the Group prepared for the opening of the Swedish market and enlarged the customer base through bonus offers and marketing investments already from the start of the World Cup last summer.
“During the first six weeks of 2019, we awarded our Swedish customers with one additional bonus under the terms of the new licensing system, which resulted in new depositing customers up by 166 per cent and active customers up by 97 per cent over the last 90 days. As expected, we can now see the bonus expenditure tail off.
“For the period 1 January to 10 February 2019, the daily average Gross winnings revenue in GBP was 17 per cent higher (18 per cent in constant currency) than for the full first quarter last year.”
