Thank you for standing by. My name is Kathleen and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Codere Online Second Quarter 2024 Financial Results. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Guillermo Lancha, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thanks, operator and welcome everyone to Codere Online earnings call for the second quarter of 2024. Today you will hear from our CEO, Aviv Sher and CFO, Oscar Iglesias, our Executive Vice Chairman, Moshe Edree will also join us in the Q&A section. Before turning the call over to Aviv, I’d like to remind everyone that during this call we will be referring to a presentation we uploaded to our website earlier today, which includes non-GAAP preliminary and audited financial metrics such as Net Gaming Revenue or adjusted EBITDA, for which you can find reconciliations in the appendix of the presentation. Please note that all growth rates discussed during this call are year-on-year comparisons, unless noted otherwise. Let me also remind you that our accounting information is prepared under IFRS accounting standards, and that throughout this presentation, all monetary figures will be in Europe, unless expressed otherwise. Finally, please note that our replay and transcript of this call will be available on our website at codereonline.com where you can also sign up for our investor email alerts. With that, I will go ahead and pass the call on to Aviv

Thanks Guillermo and thanks everyone for joining us today. I’m once again pleased to report strong set of earnings for the second quarter and to share our expectations for the remainder of the year. With two quarter behind us this year is poised to be a pivotal, pivotal one in our company history, as we expect to achieve profitability in our third year post this pack. So jumping straight into the highlights of the second quarter of 2024 on Page 8, we delivered €54 million in net gaming revenue more than €15 million, or 13% above Q2 2023, this was also a sequential uplift versus the €53 million in Q1 thanks in part to the busy sports calendar with the Eurocup and Copa America. In terms of product mix, the contribution from our casino segment reached a record high of 59% of total net gaming revenue in the quarter, and continues to be the key driver behind our goals as we not only acquire more customers in this segment, but also continue crossing spot betting customers over to the casino. This was particularly relevant dynamic this quarter where customer remained engaged with us, notwithstanding the generally favorable sport results they enjoyed, especially here in Spain, with Real Madrid winning the Champions League and Spain winning the Eurocup, this growth in net gaming revenue was driven by a 20% increase in average monthly spend per customer, €225, together with a 16% increase in the number of average monthly active customers. In terms of customer acquisitions, we had 73,000 1st time depositors and in average of €236 CPA. As we have discussed in prior quarters, our increased focus on casino first customers acquisitions in Spain and in Mexico is the main driver behind the increase in CPA, but the spend we see from customers in this segment is both higher and more stable, leading to a better returns on investment despite the higher level of upfront investment. Oscar will cover our improved outlook later. So we will conclude with my remarks with a quick mention of the changes we’ve done in the board during July, June. As previously disclosed, we have 3 new board members joining us recently, an existing board member. An existing board member, Gonzaga Higuero, will be succeeding Pat Ramsey as Chairman going forward. We look forward to working with Gonzaga in his new role and would like to thank Pat, who was recently named to the Board of Directors of Codere Group, for his support, dedication and contributions over the past two and a half years. With this, I will now turn the call over to Oscar to cover the financial highlights of the quarter and our revised 2024 outlook.

Thanks Aviv. Turning now to the financial performance for the quarter on Page 10. Consolidated Net Gaming Revenue grew by 39% to €54 million. This growth was driven primarily by our Mexican business, which continued to outperform our internal expectations with growth of 57% to €28 million. In Spain, meanwhile, we also continue to deliver significant growth, with net gaming revenue up 25% to nearly €22 million. Adjusted EBITDA was positive €1.3 million in the second quarter, nearly €6 million better than in the second quarter of 2023 and included a contribution of €6 million from our Spanish business. As a reminder, our country level results now include certain expenses that in the past were classified as undistributed B2B expenses, so the comparisons versus prior year periods are hard if we were to adjust Spain’s adjusted EBITDA on the prior year period, for example, to reflect the same allocation of expenses, adjusted EBITDA on the current quarter would have grown 34% instead of the 5% reflected in earnings deck. Separately and for a second consecutive quarter, Mexico contributed to this improvement with a positive adjusted EBITDA on the quarter versus the negative €2 million in the prior year period. Undistributed B2B expenses, meanwhile, decreased by €3 million, primarily due to the allocation of certain expenses to country level results, looking now at our PNL on Page 11, the nearly €6 million improvement in adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter was primarily driven by the €15.3 million increase in net gaming revenue, partially offset by a higher level of marketing and investment than would have otherwise been the case leading up to and around the Eurocup and Copa America tournaments, which took place in the back half of June and front half of July. Turning now to Page 12, the increase…

Thanks, Oscar. Before we turn to Q&A, I would like to thank the Codere Online team, as always, for their hard work to deliver these strong results, and for their effort to present earnings a month early in the newsroom. As we look out to the second half of the year, we remain fully focused on execution and are confident that we will continue to meet our goal of delivering sustainable and profitable growth, as always, thanks to the investors, analysts and other market participants for your interest and support, we look forward to speaking to you again soon and wish you a pleasant summer break. With that said, I will turn it back to the operator to open up the call to Q&A.

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Jeff Stantial at Stifel. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, Aviv. Oscar thanks for taking our questions. Maybe starting out here on the newly introduced foyer ‘24 EBITDA guide, now that you’re through Copa and Euro’s and add some greater visibility into plan marketing spend, I was just hoping to get some updated thoughts on how you see the underlying margin expansion algorithm from here, based on customer acquisition volumes and the return on the UA spend that you’re seeing currently. How do you think about leverage, throwing the PNL, going through the PNL? Maybe, looking out beyond this year, into 2025 and beyond, is there a rough, even flow through level that we should be anchoring to, keeping in mind opportunity to turn the marketing spigot back on here and there just any thoughts you could provide there on the margin expansion path from here would be helpful? Thanks.

Hi, Jeff. Thanks for the question. I heard the word algorithm in there. So I don’t know if I should pass the call pass the question over to Aviv or not, but I think, I think it’s a little bit early Jeff for us to give, let’s say, longer term expectations in terms of where kind of the blended margin, or country level margins on the EBITDA front could play out. Obviously, we’re already delivering significant EBITDA margin. A significant and healthy EBITDA margin in Spain and Mexico is really, really the market where and again, we post U.S. SPAC, we really started to invest heavily in Mexico, and we’re starting to see, I would say, over the last 1.5 year, the benefits of that early upfront investment, post U.S. SPAC and the unit economics have done nothing but improve in that market. That said. Mexico is a market that has a disadvantage from a gaming tax rate versus Spain, it’s something like 9, 10 percentage points. So it’s never going to be at that same long-term EBITDA margin that Spain will be all else being equal. So I think we’re optimistic for the – optimistic for the back half of the year. I think as we start generating positive EBITDA on Mexico, obviously we have to monitor, FX impacts, versus internal expectations the Mexican this has been a little bit over the – all over the place. After the elections in early June, it devalued 5%, 10% that strengthened a little bit. It’s now back on a devaluation track and we have U.S. elections later this fall. And the last time we had, elections, the last couple times we’ve had elections, it always has the potential to have a significant impact on the – on the Mexican business. So I’d be hesitant to give any kind of real guidance in terms of margin expansion. Other than that, the underlying unit economics of the business are healthy. We continue investing and focusing on what’s working, and hopefully that will continue. I don’t know Aviv, if do you want to talk a little bit about the competitive landscape, because that obviously is the other side of the coin here.

Yes, the competitive landscape in Mexico is getting tougher and tougher. We have new competitors coming in, new international competitors with a lot of money looking into this very lucrative market, at least from a TAM and GGR point of view. So we expect to try and increase our market share and defend it with more marketing budget in order to keep our self in the position that we are currently in Mexico. In Spain, I think more or less it’s a steady state, because we cannot advertise more because of the advertising ban. We do see some good investments on the casino front, but again, very hard for us to go over there. So we continue to focus our efforts in marketing, both in Spain and Mexico and then on the satellite sites right now, we are focusing on, on keeping, keeping them on a healthy, on a healthy state, and being able to break the break even with them and even a small profit. I think, up till now, if you are looking for more hints, I think we more or less the beginning of the road show. When we started with the investors and the dispatch, we gave like a map where we want to be. I think up till now, we kind of delivered, and hopefully in the future, we continue to deliver according to the 5-year plan.

Okay. That’s perfect. That’s really helpful and a great segue into my follow-up question, which was going to be on your Mexico operations. There’s been some speculation that the transition to a new president could ultimately lead to some more formal gambling regulation, just given that the president elect of the history of working with the industry on some various initiatives, Oscar or Aviv, curious, just to get your perspective here and to the extent you do ultimately see some regulatory reform in the market, how do you think about potential implications to your business, whether positive or negative? Thanks.

I will answer in a very high level, because everything that we are hearing is merely speculation. President is still not in power. We didn’t see what she’s going to do exactly. We also hear rumors and things moving, but nothing official. In general, my view is that a formal regulation will only benefit us, since we are locally present there. We’ve been there for many years. We know how to work with the regulated market, that everything is clear right now. The Mexican regulation is a little bit ambiguous and relies on very, very old rules. So I think any regulation that will come a modern regulation will help us and will benefit us as a big operator in this market, and hopefully we can contribute in the process and help them to get to an efficient regulation that eventually will generate more tax money and will be a safer environment for the players.

Okay, that’s great. Thank you, Aviv. Then, if I could just squeeze in one more quick one here, yes, Oscar, is there any way that you could quantify the overall contribution to Q2. The Q2 and, even July as well as you can from the Copa America and the Euro’s. And then, similarly, is there any way to decide the hold impact from Spain winning the Euro’s, Rio winning Champions League, Carlos winning Wimbledon and Roland? Just, any sense there to help us calibrate your Q3 and next year estimates would be helpful. Thank you.

Yes, I think in there definitely was a margin impact, and in particular in Spain, I would say, almost, almost exclusively in Spain, the sports side, and that was true in June and the first part of July. I mean, happily, what we’re seeing is a good dynamic on the casino side. So it’s, it’s hard to quantify and put numbers behind it, but, but when more we’re returning more money to the customers on the sports side, having the strong, strong casino business, and again, for the subset of customers that play across both channels, we’re then seeing greater activity on the casino front. So, so the interplay between those two verticals that that we’ve always understood, I think, is even more important in the context of some of these major sporting events, when we’re having some, let’s say, the favorites win or specifically the dynamic here in Spain, which is there there’s a bias to bet in favor of Spanish sports figures or Spanish teams. So I don’t want to put a specific figure on that, but I would say just in terms of margin off whatever would be our regular targeted margin, we probably lost 3 to 4 percentage points there, so still a positive contribution, which was then more than compensated versus internal expectations on the casino front.

Great. Very helpful. Thank you both. I’ll pass it on.

Thanks, Jeff.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Sigdahl of the Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Please go ahead.

Hi, good day, guys. Congrats on another strong quarter. Maybe just staying on the topic of Eurocup and Copa. Any other notable trends besides kind of win rates and, Spain winning, whether it be bent builders, parlays, anything relative the last time these tournaments were held?

Aviv, do you want to talk about that builder, some of the new product.

Yes, so, so from product perspective, I think right now, our sport product is in-line with, let’s call it an industry standard. We even added for the Eurocup bet builder live features, which not all the competitors have. I – we still don’t see big movements into new product features. It’s more supplemental to the current betting behavior that we see in the sports to tap into what Oscar said in the previous question. I think those winnings of Spain for us as a company, and we stated that in the speech before, since we are already with 60% of the NGR relying on casino those events, although are fun and we see impact, are not so impactful in the in the revenue stream itself, maybe a few point of percentage up or down. And we are more stable now, and hence easier for us even to focus the future in a better way. So in terms of betting behavior, we didn’t see anything big in a change from a product perspective, we see how people are engaged. We also now learn that if they are winning, they stay engaged with us for entertainment purposes and spend some money in the casino, whether it’s a roulette, blackjack or slots a little bit. So overall, I think the trends are healthy and stable for us. In that sense, it’s not that the one winning of Spain or Alcaraz or Real Madrid will move the needle for us.

Yes. Thanks. Then just switching over to CAC continues to move higher in the quarter. How much that is the competitiveness you mentioned in Mexico, versus just seeing higher spend proactive and allowing you to be more aggressive on the customer acquisition side, to target those higher LTVs.

What we see because, because we are aiming to buy more casino first customers, they cost us more because there are the TAM of casino is smaller than sports. We do see increase in media prices, still not significant enough. It’s more significant that we moved our buying strategy to be more casino oriented, so it’s more expensive for us to find and purchase those casinos players eventually ending with, of course, higher LTV and more stability over time. I think this is more effect currently. Currently, I’m saying currently, because we do see our competitors coming into Mexico and prices of the media going up. But currently it’s strong, a stronger effect of our aim to target casino players, then the media prices goes up, but there is a contribution still. I think it’s a marginal but it’s there. It’s you’re correcting that analysis.

Yes, a little bit of both. It’s a little bit of both. It’s definitely a little bit of both. Every year it seems like we’re talking about different competitors that are coming into the market that we’re monitoring to see how they behave, but there’s definitely more interest. I mean, some of the revised market forecasts that an HTC or others are putting out, I mean, I think it’s starting to get on everyone’s radar, given the existing size of the market. In some cases, well, I think in most cases, I think people believe that Mexico is already bigger than Spain, and the market forecast, in terms of the growth potential in the market, is significant, so I think it’s starting to catch everyone’s attention.

Yes. On a side note, the Copa America and the Eurocup prices went a little bit higher than previous years on those two events. Copa America was less interesting for us because Mexico lost quite early in the stages, but still, the media was a little bit more expensive with those events.

Last one for me, just any update on your – guys, thoughts around Peru?

This is a strategic, we were looking at Peru. I think we were looking at Peru, it’s important to say we were looking at Brazil as well. I think right now where we are at company level, after looking at all the possibilities and things that we are able to do, I think we continue to focus on our core markets. We still have a lot of room to go out there. And right now, in the short-term, we don’t see ourselves opening any of those new markets and in order to compete and put a lot of money into them, where we can still invest very effectively in the two core markets that we are operating, this is – was maybe a short-term decision that we make again, probably at the end of the year, we will look at it again. We see a lot of competitors. Now our street is coming into Peru. We see a lot of money pulling in. We made evaluation of this market. We think it’s going to be interesting, but at this moment, not interesting enough, more than Mexico and Spain.

I think our most – just to add to what Aviv said, Argentina is still something, a situation that we are monitoring and could be of interest up to us. Given that the fact that we have already a stable team operating in the city, we just launched in the Province of Mendoza, we have the River Plate sponsorship. So – and significant synergies to the extent that we can find our way into a license in the Province of [indiscernible] given that our retail parent is the leader in that market with something upwards of 40% market share. So, I think Argentina is probably the one that, if there is an opportunity to do so, and in a way, that makes sense for us, we would be looking to commit resources to before any other expansion market where we don’t have existing operations or capabilities.

Thanks guys. Good luck.

Thanks Ryan.

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Kupinski of Noble Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Thank you for taking the questions. And let me offer my congratulations as well in the quarter and the positive adjusted EBITDA. My question is really related to your guidance in the second half, particularly given the trajectory that you have done in the first – this particular quarter, it seems like your guidance might be a little conservative. I know that the sports calendar gets a little lighter, but I was wondering if you can just give a little color on your thoughts in terms of the marketing spend and where you planned to, like you said, have a little bit of wiggle room. If you could just add a little color in terms of what your thoughts are, in terms of the trajectory and in particular, Spain and Mexico, and if you are planning to spend a little bit more heavily in some of more developing markets, like you just mentioned, Argentina, this is kind of a broad question about the second half.

Yes. Maybe I can start and just splitting the guidance between the revenue guidance and the adjusted EBITDA. On the revenue side, I think the only thing that’s keeping us a little bit cautious, looking at the back half is what could happen with the Mexican peso. As you know, this is already over half of our the top line in our business, and any significant devaluation, the Mexican peso could affect our trajectory going out to the balance of the year. That said, obviously the cost structure is also peso-denominated, so we would be more hedged from an EBITDA standpoint. And as you say rightly, on the EBITDA front, I think it’s just maintaining that flexibility in the event that we see opportunities, and opportunities always do arise. It’s across one or both of our core markets to be in – to be able to invest a little bit more than maybe what we have planned internally. Obviously, this is always in coordination with our Board of Directors, but I think there always are opportunities, so we want to keep a little bit of wiggle room there. I think it’s less the case that it would be Argentina. I think Argentina is more we are setting our sites to more like a 2025, in terms of if and when we would be deploying additional monies in that market, if it makes sense for us to do so. It would be more if opportunities come up in Spain and Mexico. In the front half, we are spending something like €22 million, €23 million on average. Last year we were spending about €20 million a quarter, other than the fourth quarter, which is always a higher spend quarter, a lot of events, a lot of activity, and we spent €25 million. So, hopefully the guidance is conservative, but we think it’s appropriate given what we are seeing today and how the business is performing.

Thanks for that color. And just one quick follow-up, I know that you have cash, and obviously now you are looking at your more maturing markets, like State of Mexico, positive EBITDA. I was wondering, does it become a prospect that the company would look at M&A and some of the competitors that may be struggling a little bit, but may offer an opportunity to kind of get a little bit better foothold in some of the developing markets, I mean is that a possibility?

I mean just, maybe I will kick it off and then Aviv if you want to jump in. I mean I am a finance guy, and I think that that to the extent it’s always a question of price and structure, but if there is good opportunities, M&A opportunities in the market, and it makes sense for us as a company, and it makes sense for our shareholders, then I think we obviously would be pursuing that. I don’t think we would ever close the door on M&A. I think it’s easier, Mike, as you have pointed out, now that we are inflecting to profitability, and we have more visibility over, let’s say that trough cash position, again, all else being equal, which is significantly more than 3 years back when we had our investor plan where we thought we would be 3 years forward. So, I think now is a better context to be thinking about those things. But we are not going to do any deal that doesn’t – that isn’t compelling, that doesn’t make sense for us as a company. Aviv, anything else you want to add on the M&A front?

No, I think M&A in general, for any company at our position should be interesting, should take us with another big block to the next level. We see opportunities coming in. We didn’t see any interesting one so far. We have a very good team for M&A, Oscar and his team, they know what they are doing. So, we are constantly looking into this, but it’s not part of our short-term strategy. There is some deal flow coming in. We think with the little cash that we have, I know it looks like a lot, but with the little cash that we have, maybe we can do something interesting. We look, especially in the core markets that I mentioned before, but in the short-term, it’s not something that we have on the table, but we keep looking for that.

Thanks for that. If I could slip one more quick question in, previously you mentioned that you were monitoring the situation in Spain after the Supreme Court overturned some restrictions, and I was wondering if there is any updates on that and how things are playing out.

No, actually, there is no real updates. We think that, eventually what the Supreme Court gave us back, the possibility will come back as a law, and maybe next year, it will come back to the situation that was before. We all the time keep close look on the Spanish regulation, which changes constantly. I already commented in different panels about it. It’s – I can’t say it’s hard to follow, but it’s becoming more and more strict. Hopefully, it will stop at some point. Right now, from a development point of view, we need to do heavy, heavy development just to change all the reporting modules to fit the new regulation demand. So, it’s heavy lifting there in the regulation, and we are doing our best to follow it up. I don’t think from the Supreme Court point of view, nothing changed. I think eventually the Parliament will come back with the law and bringing things to where they previously were.

Thank you for that. That’s all I have. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Hickey from Benchmark. Please go ahead.

Hey Aviv, Oscar, great quarter guys and congrats on growth in Mexico. I guess that’s the first topic here. Just curious, if you have a sense now of your market share in Mexico, and when you look at your NGR growth, nearly 60% in the quarter, if you can sort of balance that growth between growth that you are seeing in the Mexican market and growth may be that you are seeing in share gains, that’s the first topic. Second topic on competition, it sounds like it’s getting more competitive in Mexico. Not new news, but growing. On that front, do you feel like your products in the Mexican market is strong enough, relative maybe some of the new products coming in, and how you think about sort of innovation on the product side over time to remain competitive. The third topic is just cash flow, nice to see, but just curious, cash flow on the quarter, your thoughts on cash flow for ‘24 and how you think it trends moving forward? Thanks guys.

Aviv, do you want to take the first two and I can address cash flow?

Yes. Listen, it’s very hard for us, and we are doing a lot of efforts to try and estimate the size of the market. We get a lot of numbers from a lot of sources, but there is no official number for the size of the market. We think that we have a market share of low-double digits compared to our biggest competitor over there, that we think controls most of the market, with a huge market share of above 60% and so it’s very hard for us to estimate the size of the market, we get a lot of number. We are – of course, we are growing. We are not sure exactly if the market – if we are not just growing with the market, we think we are performing a little bit better, not a lot. Let’s say, if the market goes every year 20%, maybe we are doing 25%. I think the market, by the way, goes more than 20% a year in Mexico. And our biggest competitor there is heavily invested into marketing. So, it does – it grows the market, and now more international competitors come in, so the market will continue growing. And I think our product is well established. We have a few advantages over our competitors. One of the main advantages is that we are still a local company. We have local presence. We have points to cash-in and cash-out in our retail location, which gives us an advantage. We have some local knowledge utilized into the platform. And let’s say we have knowledge coming from the retail about the game selections and what the players like, more or less. And we are utilizing all this knowledge into the product. I think we have in our sleeve a couple of more products, not so innovative, but I think will increase our reach to new audiences, and will enable us to compete a little bit differently and not directly with the same sport product [indiscernible]. So, I think we have a few tricks that we can still pull, and we are working on that. So, I think overall, looking in the next couple of years, we are well positioned with a good platform, a good platform partner in the Mexican market. And I think it will help us to get to the LTVs that we want, and eventually to the results and to the P&L that we want, so.

I will only add to that, Aviv, on the product front that the payment integrations that we have done, I think it’s been a lot of work over the last 2 years, 3 years to really improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of those payment options that we offer customers for deposit and withdrawal. And I think that we have done an excellent job, and we spent a lot of time on that internally, and it’s critical to that customer experience, and ultimately that retention of existing and new customers. So, I think there, we have made a lot of headway. On the cash flow front, Mike, I would just point out, beyond just producing positive adjusted EBITDA, cash flow is – there is other components there. And again, we have third-parties that provide platform services to us across our jurisdiction, so we don’t have that technology in the perimeter. So, we don’t have much in the way of CapEx, but we do spend a lot of time and manage very carefully our working capital position, and spend a lot of time managing and structuring, and it’s any multinational and operating in different jurisdictions. It’s not just the gaming tax frameworks, but all the different elements of corporate income tax that have to be managed and structured properly in accordance with all the rules and regulations in place. So, I always talk about in the sessions that Guillermo have, one on ones with investors and analysts, that though the holy grail of converting adjusted EBITDA to free cash flow, right. One for one, it’s not achievable. There is always corporate income taxes that you have to pay across jurisdictions, even during periods, sometimes when you are loss making for a number of different complex rules that apply in every jurisdictions, its own world. But we spend a lot of time on that, and I think it’s a critical element of value creation. It’s the top line growth. It’s the flow through the EBITDA, and then it’s the conversion of that EBITDA to cash flow.

Thanks.

Thanks Mike.

[Operator Instructions] There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference back over to Mr. Guillermo Lancha.

Okay. We don’t have any questions coming in through the webcast either, so we will leave it here. Thank you everyone for joining us. If you would like to follow-up on any of the topics we discussed, feel free to reach out to Oscar or myself, and if not, we will talk again in November with our Q3 results. Thank you everyone.

Thanks everyone.

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today’s call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.