SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Catena Media has initiated emergency cost optimisation measures to offset quarterly revenue headwinds.
For Q1, the online gambling information company reported €9.8m in revenue. This was a decline in both YoY (Q1 ‘24: €16m) and QoQ (Q4 ‘24: €10.2m) results.
Adjusted EBITDA was €900,000 ending March (Q1 ‘24: €1.9m), constituting a QoQ decline when pitted against Q4’s €1.5m. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 9% (Q1 ‘24: 12%) against 15% in Q4.
In its home market of North America, Catena reported Q1 decline in revenue to €8.8m (Q1 ‘24: €14.3m) compared to the €8.9m in Q4.
The decline following a period of growth was attributed to the company moving its revenue mix towards subaffiliation, which offers lower gross margins, in combination to a “modest increase in personnel expenses”.
Cost cuts equals job cuts
Catena has tackled the decline across its margins by announcing cost optimisation measures, one of which includes the removal of a ‘management layer’ that will affect 50 full-time and contractor roles – in an effort to “speed internal agility”.
The company said that this measure will add up to around 25% reduction in headcount across operations, equating to an annualised cost reduction of between €4.5m and €5m.
Further technical consolidation changes will contribute to an additional savings around €800,000 per year.
Manuel Stan, Catena Media CEO, said: “Our Q1 results show we still have substantial work ahead to fully stabilise the business and rebuild profitability. Revenue was only marginally lower than in Q4, signalling that the steep declines of past quarters may now be behind us.
“Yet it is vital that we protect margins, and we have therefore taken strong action that I am confident will see costs decrease in absolute and relative terms in the coming quarters.”
