Acquisitions drive CentralNic’s revenue

CentralNic Group plc (AIM: CNIC) announced an update on its trading for both Q4 and FY 2019. CentralNic nearly doubled its revenue in 2019 to US$109 million.

Trading update highlights

• CentralNic’s unaudited revenue for the financial year 2019 was US$109 million, up 95% from US$56 million in financial year 2018 (converted from GBP 42.7 million); Q4 revenue was USD 32 million
• Unaudited Adjusted EBITDA* increased by 95% to US$18 million in financial year 2019 as compared with US$9.1 million in financial year 2018 (converted from GBP 7.0 million); Q4 Adjusted EBITDA was US$5 million
• Team Internet contributed US$1.9m in revenue and US$0.4m of EBITDA to Q4 and FY2019. The unaudited net debt position as of 31 December 2019 was US$76 million, reflecting the issuance of an additional tranche of a €40 million bond on 23 December 2019 to finance the acquisition of Team Internet AG on 24 December 2019, being in line with the Company’s guidance on leverage given on 15 November 2019
• Unaudited financial revenue for financial year 2019 was in line with consensus** and the Company finished the year ahead of market consensus in Adjusted EBITDA***.

Ben Crawford, CEO of CentralNic, said: “I am delighted that CentralNic has again nearly doubled its revenue in 2019, repeating this achievement in five out of the past six years. This has been achieved through a combination of earnings accretive acquisitions and steady underlying growth across our businesses. This result is particularly pleasing as the four acquisitions we completed in the course of 2019 will only now unfold their full year impact.”

Notice of results

CentralNic expects to release its final results for the year ended 31 December 2019 in the week commencing 27 April 2020.

* Excludes share based payments expense, acquisition costs, FX effects and exceptional items
** Market consensus for financial revenues is US$107 million
*** Market consensus for EBITDA is US$17 million