– Rising revenues and customer figures in third quarter of 2013
– First Annual General Meeting with large majorities for all agenda items
– Successful capital increase with net issue proceeds of around EUR 17 million
– Test winner among online lottery providers
(Hamburg, 7 November 2013) Lotto24 AG remained firmly on course for growth in the third quarter of 2013: the number of new customer registrations rose to 71 thousand in the third quarter of 2013 (Q2 2013: 52 thousand), taking the total to 168 thousand. There was also further strong growth in billings and revenues in the third quarter of 2013 to EUR 9.0 million (Q2 2013: EUR 5.3 million) and EUR 0.8 million (Q2 2013: EUR 0.5 million), respectively. After the first nine months, billings therefore amounted to EUR 16.3 million (six months 2013: EUR 7.3 million) while revenues reached EUR 1.4 million (six months 2013: EUR 0.7 million). This positive trend owes much to the expansion of marketing activities, such as adding Google to the company’s search engine marketing in the third quarter of 2013.
As expected, earnings are still dominated by start-up costs (especially for new customer acquisition activities), and consequently EBIT in the third quarter of 2013 amounted to around EUR -3.8 million (Q2 2013: EUR -3.1 million). After the first nine months of 2013, EBIT thus decreased from around EUR -4.5 million after the first half-year to EUR -8.2 million.
Foundation laid for future growth
The first Annual General Meeting of Lotto24 AG as a listed company was held in Hamburg on 7 August 2013. Approximately 62% of voting capital was represented and all items on the agenda were approved with majorities of over 96%. Amongst others the Executive Board and Supervisory Board proposed cancelling the existing Authorized Capital and replacing it with a new Authorized Capital.
A further important milestone for Lotto24 AG was the rights offering conducted in September, during which the total number of shares issued by Lotto24 AG increased from 13,973,904 to 19,962,720. By issuing all 5,988,816 new shares from Authorized Capital on offer, the company was able to reach the targeted net issue proceeds of around EUR 17 million. In the course of the rights offering from 12 to 25 September 2013, subscription rights for around 99.9% of the new shares on offer were exercised.
The net proceeds from the capital increase are to be used for marketing activities aimed at accelerating new customer acquisition and for the further development of the company’s brokerage platform. The latter is aimed at widening the product portfolio to include further lotteries and expanding services for state-licensed lotteries.
‘We are delighted that we could meet our expectations for the third quarter – a strong increase in registered customers, billings and revenue,’ states Petra von Strombeck, CEO of Lotto24 AG. ‘The capital increase has provided us with the funds to invest even more heavily in marketing in order to extend our position as the leading German broker of lottery products via the Internet. Naturally, it also helps that Lotto24 has just been named ‘Best Online Lottery Broker’.’ The German test portal »Getestet.de« ran a comparison test between six online lottery brokers in October 2013, which www.lotto24.de won with a score of 1.6 (good).
The complete nine-month report is published on the website of Lotto24 AG in the Investor Relations section: www.lotto24-ag.de
Conference call on the nine-month results:
The Executive Board of Lotto24 AG will be explaining the figures for the first nine months of 2013 and the current course of business in a conference call taking place today at 9 a.m. All interested analysts, investors and journalists can attend by calling the following number: +49 69 247501893.
