Hacksaw AB

Hacksaw AB

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Nov 03Next Earn

Q2 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptJuly 21, 2026

Operator

Welcome to Hacksaw's Q2 earnings call for 2026. During the questions-and-answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key 5 on their telephone keypad.

Now I will hand the conference over to Group CEO Ana Vrabic Verdir and Group CFO Mikael Rahm. Please go ahead.

Ana Vrabic Verdir

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for dialing in today for our earnings call for the second quarter.

I will start by commenting on our Q2 performance before I hand over to Mike for a closer look at our financials. After that, I will continue with key takeaways, and as this is my first earnings as Interim CEO, I will elaborate a bit on my reflections from these past months.

After that, we will open the floor for questions. I'm very pleased with a strong performance in Q2, both operationally and financially.

It's another great quarter that we can add to the solid track record we have been delivering to the market. New business continues to be strong.

We closed 106 deals, 63 of which were with new clients. Some of the deals mean provision of our games to operators in new locally licensed markets, including Slovenia and Paraguay.

As a result, our games are now offered in more than 40 locally licensed markets. We continue to capitalize on new market opportunities with existing clients and by expanding our client base.

We launched 17 new games in-house, a remarkable performance by our team. Additionally, 17 games were developed by partner studios on OpenRGS.

We welcomed two new independent studios in Q2, and this brings the total number of studios on our platform to 11. We secured an Alberta registration following Q2.

That's an important milestone for the business in North America. Alberta represents an exciting new opportunity for the iGaming industry, and we're now well-positioned to offer our portfolio of games to the operators as the market regulates.

Revenue amounted to €59 million in Q2 and a total of €224 million during the last 12 months. That equals 37% growth adjusted for FX.

All growth continues to be organic. Our estimate for the company's global market share remains to be a low single-digit percentage, and the numbers we delivered this second quarter once again demonstrate the opportunities we have in the industry.

Our adjusted EBIT margin was 82% in Q2, and the same, 82%, is our adjusted EBIT margin for the last 12 months. The company continued to demonstrate significant cash generation, with operating cash flow growing by 60% year-on-year and by 38% adjusted for one-time items in Q2 last year.

Free cash conversion rate over the last 12 months amounted to 91%. I will now give an operational update.

On this slide, we see the in-house games developed over the last 12 months. During the second quarter, we have continued to expand our team, and in turn increased our release cadence to five games per month.

Five games per month should be seen as a normalized level and may deviate from quarter to quarter. In this same context, we released 17 games in Q2, an impressive demonstration by our team of both scale and execution.

We expect to continue increasing the release cadence over time. The operators highly appreciate that we have a lot of content that we can now target different audience with, and the more content we have, the more important we become as a Tier 1 supplier to the operators.

Other studios released 17 games during the quarter, and 108 games since we opened the platform to third-party studios. As stated during our previous quarters, the cadence of games developed on OpenRGS may fluctuate slightly quarter over quarter because several studios are developing games in parallel.

We expect to also increase the release cadence on OpenRGS over time. Our OpenRGS platform continues to attract a lot of interest from third-party studios.

In Q2, we welcomed Good Times Studios and Aloha Gaming on OpenRGS. We expect to onboard additional studios over time.

At the end of the quarter, we had 354 games in our portfolio, up from 241 one year ago. The daily number of rounds over the last 12 months was 30% higher than during the preceding 12-month period.

Important to remember here is that the revenue does not increase in direct proportion to rounds, as average bet size differs across markets and over time. Player outcomes also fluctuate around the mathematical average in the short term.

In addition, our take rate on gross gaming revenue varies depending on the mix of clients and jurisdictions. As a result, the relationship between rounds and revenue will vary from period to period.

Our revenues for the last 12 months grew by 31% in Q2 and by 37% adjusted for FX, underscoring our continued strong trajectory. We note that revenues from locally licensed jurisdictions have continued to grow.

This is to some extent a consequence of new markets regulating. All in all, it was a quarter of continued high growth and delivery of our strategy.

With that, handing over to Mike to go through the financials.

Mikael Rahm

Many thanks, Anna, and hi, everyone. Let's take a closer look at the numbers for the second quarter.

Revenues amounted to €59 million, which was up €14 million or 31% versus last year. Similar to Q1, revenues for Q2 were negatively impacted by FX movements compared to the same period last year.

On a constant currency basis, the Q2 revenue growth was 33%. This growth is, as we mentioned, entirely organic and primarily coming from addition of games released and continued growth in our customer base.

Now, our internal view is that we were overall neither positively nor negatively impacted by the FIFA World Cup, but it was very much business as usual during this period. Moving to the expense side, for Q2, our adjusted operating expenses amounted to €10.9 million, which was up €2.5 million compared to last year, and reflected the following drivers.

First, our personnel expenses continue to increase as we continue to invest in new talent, primarily within game development and distribution, in order to capitalize on the market opportunities and enable continued revenue growth. We will continue to invest in talent, an investment that gives us the best possible return given the opportunities we see.

This was partly offset by increased capitalization of development expenses. Also note that we from this year accrue for annual bonuses throughout the year instead of expensing them all in December, and this impacted Q2 by €0.3 million.

Second, our other operating expenses were up, driven by the continued growth and development of the business. Finally, depreciation and amortization increased, primarily related to the continued investments in capitalized game development expenses.

Although our cost of services sold were stable in this quarter versus last year, we continue to invest in our OpenRGS revenue stream, which increases our revenues and profit in euros, but slightly reduces the average margin over time. OpenRGS remains below 10% of revenue, and should this materially change going forward, we will provide additional information in due course.

Our adjusted EBIT for Q2 amounted to €48 million, which was up €11 million or 31% versus last year. The EBIT margin for Q2 was 82%, in line with last year and with recent quarters.

During the quarter, we accrued for severance pay relating to the former Group CEO under items affecting comparability. Now, moving further down the P&L, financial items improved due to both improved treasury management and to lower FX losses.

In terms of tax, our effective tax rate for Q2 was 5.1%, compared to 6.5% last year. This all leads to our net income for Q2 amounting to €46 million, which was up €14 million or 43% versus last year, and our fully diluted earnings per share reached €0.158.

Now, if we look a bit closer at cash flows, our Q2 cash flow from operating activities before changes in working capital amounted to €43 million, and was up 32% year-on-year. Changes in working capital were cash flow neutral in Q2, which was an improvement to last year by €6 million.

However, last year, changes in working capital included negative one-time items relating to the dividend payment in that year totaling €4 million. This gives that our total Q2 cash flow from operating activities therefore amounted to €43 million, which was up 38% year-on-year when adjusting for the one-time items incurred last year mentioned earlier.

Our free cash flow for the quarter reached €40 million, which is 34% higher than last year when adjusting for the one-time items incurred last year mentioned earlier. We maintained a very strong free cash flow conversion rate of 91%.

This metric shows our ability to convert profit into free cash flow, and is calculated as free cash flow for the last 12 months divided by EBITDA for the same period. Also, our Q2 CapEx of €3.5 million increased given our continued investments in game development.

This mostly comprises capitalized expenses relating to the development and certification of new games and functional improvements to our technical platform. We made no major investments in tangible assets during the quarter.

Finally, in terms of our financial position, it continues to be very strong, and we further improved our cash balance during the quarter, adjusting for the €116 million dividend paid in May this year. Our total cash and cash equivalents amounted to €99 million at the end of June, compared to €176 million at the end of March and €53 million at the end of June last year.

We still have no interest-bearing debt. That's it for my comments, back to you, Anna.

Ana Vrabic Verdir

Thank you, Mike. I feel privileged to be a part of a fantastic team performance in the quarter, including strong release cadence of games, both in-house and via OpenRGS, increasing the total number of studios on OpenRGS to 11, business opportunities continuing its strong performance with 106 deals signed, our games now being made available in more than 40 locally licensed markets, Alberta supplier registration secured after the end of the quarter, last 12-month revenue growth of 37% adjusted for FX with 82% EBIT margin, and maintained high free cash conversion of 91%.

Entering as the Interim Group CEO gave me an opportunity to witness the day-to-day dedication behind our success, nicely demonstrated in our solid Q2 results. As we have said before, we operate in a large, growing, and global market.

All in all, this makes me comfortable in our ability to continue delivering on our business strategy going forward. With those words, I hand it back to you, operator, for questions.

Operator

If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 6 on your telephone keypad.

The next question comes from Martin Arnell from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.

Martin Arnell

Good morning, Anna and Mikael.

Mikael Rahm

Morning.

Ana Vrabic Verdir

Morning.

Martin Arnell

My first question is about the release cadence. You mention it a lot as a growth driver in this quarter, and in the coming quarters of this year, should we expect a similar game release cadence, like five per month or a little bit more?

Is that fair?

Mikael Rahm

That is fair. That's our our new normalized level which we actually sort of executed during this quarter.

Yes. That's that's the sort of normalized level going forward.

Yes. It would mean Sometimes it would be Sometimes it would be probably It could be higher lower, but some it should be at least at least five per month.

Martin Arnell

Is it similar also for the partner studios on OpenRGS? You had a similar number of new releases there as well.

Mikael Rahm

There, it depends on both sort of how many studios we can add, and then also their release cadence, because it's 11 studios in various states, to speak, or development phase, and over time their release cadence per studio will also increase.

Martin Arnell

Okay. Thank you.

If we look in Q3 now where we are, you had this significant jump of revenue between Q2, Q3 last year of €7 million, and so your comps are turning a bit tougher here. Do you still expect that the growth trend that you're on here could continue in Q3, or is it fair to assume, all else equal, that you're going to see growth slowing down a little bit in the Q3?

Mikael Rahm

We don't really guide per quarter. Our view is that long term our ambition is to grow by 30% or more.

That's still very relevant. As we've said before, it can definitely fluctuate quarter-to-quarter.

Q2 Q1 this year we grew 37% FX adjusted.

Martin Arnell

If you had seen any major change of trends in the first half or in the first weeks of July, would you have commented on it then, I guess?

Mikael Rahm

We don't really sort of comment on intramonth performance. The first half showed really strong momentum.

Martin Arnell

Yeah. Great.

I have also a question on your cost base. There was a step-up of personnel expenses.

I guess, as you mentioned, it relates mostly to recruitment of new developers. Are you comfortable with that level, or should we see further step-ups throughout the year?

Oh,

Mikael Rahm

no, the best bang for the buck, to speak, for us is to invest in new people and invest in future revenue growth. We continue to invest in both game development, but also in distribution.

Yes, that is something we see to continue.

Ana Vrabic Verdir

Maybe just to add, we invest responsibly, we invest in a pace that we can maintain our company culture, which is extremely important for us.

Martin Arnell

Thanks. My final question is on your agreements.

You signed a lot of agreements both with existing clients and new clients. Is it global?

I see a couple of press releases, we can follow that. Overall, how would you summarize the new business that you signed, and what effects do you expect from that?

Yeah.

Ana Vrabic Verdir

What we like to highlight is that we are as diversified as possible, and that applies to both games, markets, and clients. If you look at the number of deals, it's pretty high, but meaning that we have entered both new markets, signed new operators, and continued strengthening our relationships with existing clients.

We see that. We hope that there will be a very positive effect, but we cannot comment on any quantification.

Mikael Rahm

Many of these operators are also new startups, it's really hard to say who will be the winners and who will not be. It's really hard to quantify sort of the impact of any one deal.

Martin Arnell

I understand. Thanks.

That's all for me. Thank you.

Mikael Rahm

Thank you.

Ana Vrabic Verdir

Thanks.

Operator

The next question comes from Hjalmar Ahlberg from Redeye. Please go ahead.

Hjalmar Ahlberg

Hi, everyone. Good morning.

A follow-up question on the release cadence here up to five games at least per month. What do you see from operators?

Are you able to kind of push all these five games fully when you release them, or do you see any kind of limitations in terms of operator demand, to say?

Mikael Rahm

We have a very close dialogue with operators in terms of roadmap, and so no issues whatsoever in terms of releasing more games. Others are releasing a lot more games than we are, there's still definitely room for new games.

Hjalmar Ahlberg

Understood. Also on the OpenRGS here, you mentioned that you continue to see high interest from third-party studios.

Do you think you can kind of step up the pace on the number of studios added per quarter, or you expect it to be roughly the same in the coming quarters?

Ana Vrabic Verdir

This will very much depend on the quality of studios that we are talking to and our continuous dialogue. It's difficult to quantify whether this will be more than what we have said previously.

If we see good opportunities, we will make sure to enter new partnerships.

Hjalmar Ahlberg

Also a question on the CapEx here, which was up a bit in the quarter. Is that also related to kind of increased game development, or is that a pace that is fair to assume in the next couple of quarters based on the current release cadence?

Mikael Rahm

It was a bit higher this quarter, mainly because of certification expenses for new markets, but also that we have stepped up game development expenses in itself. Also that the game certification actually was a bit higher this quarter.

Hjalmar Ahlberg

All right. Maybe a follow-up on Martin's question.

Don't know if you can comment any further, but looking at seasonality maybe in H2 this year compared to last year, is there any difference there? Is that something you can comment on?

Mikael Rahm

It's so hard to estimate seasonality. I expected Q1 to be a bit softer than it came in, really, really strong.

Overall in the industry, we see that second half is higher than first half, especially Q4.

Hjalmar Ahlberg

All right. Also, I don't know if you can comment that much on that, but in terms of new CEO or recruitment of a permanent CEO, is the progress ongoing there?

Anything you can comment on that?

Ana Vrabic Verdir

No. This is a process that our Chairman is entrusted with, whenever there is any update, he will be communicating to the market.

Hjalmar Ahlberg

Okay. Understood.

Also a question, increasing your number of games released, you're seeing more games from third-party studios. How do you see competition developing, or do you see other studios catching up, or maybe other larger studios catching up on your RGS, or anything you can add there would be interesting to hear?

Mikael Rahm

Nothing that I'm aware of that we have seen. No, I couldn't really comment on anything new there.

Hjalmar Ahlberg

Right. Perfect.

Just a final question, maybe if you have seen any kind of changes in regulation or anything in that sense that's worth mentioning that could be interesting or important to know going forward?

Mikael Rahm

No, not in the last period. In the beginning of the year and the end of last year, there were a few European markets that tightened, but, no, nothing in the recent period.

Hjalmar Ahlberg

Okay. Thank you very much.

Ana Vrabic Verdir

Thank you.

Mikael Rahm

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Jamie Bass from Citi. Please go ahead.

Jamie Bass

Morning, Anna. Morning, Mike.

Thanks for taking my questions. I have three, please.

I'll go through them one by one. The first one is just I didn't see anything on any activity from Hacksaw Ventures, could you just sort of walk us through why there was nothing there?

Was there just nothing that you saw as an attractive opportunity in the quarter?

Ana Vrabic Verdir

Yeah. Again, we just launched Hacksaw Ventures in Q2.

This is something that we see, again, as an opportunistic opportunity, we will be investing responsibly. Like we said, we don't expect any major capital allocation that would affect the group, but when we see new, good studios where we see potential, we will make sure to onboard them and communicate our investments to the market.

We're constantly monitoring and in dialogue with different studios.

Jamie Bass

Absolutely. Then on Alberta, obviously it's after the quarter that you've secured the license.

Could you give us some color on whether you expect that to be sort of material for FY '26, or is this just a smaller, incremental market?

Ana Vrabic Verdir

Again, that's difficult to comment on because, as we enter every single market with an operator. At the end of the day, it depends on how our games perform, how these operators push them, and what the player preferences are.

Again, what we have said previously, we should not be impacted by a single market, not positively nor negatively, but, again, we just see it as a great opportunity to continue growing.

Jamie Bass

That makes sense. Then I guess the sort of close from that is my final question on, you've obviously signed a whole load of deals with existing and new clients in the quarter.

When you look at the roadmap moving forward, do you see any sort of material gaps where you can sign single, large agreements that could be incremental at the group level, or do you see it as sort of potential just to consistently sign smaller deals that over time build?

Mikael Rahm

That's really hard to comment on. Deals definitely vary in size, it's really hard to comment on future deals.

Jamie Bass

Fair enough. Okay.

That's everything from me. Thank you.

Ana Vrabic Verdir

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Jack Cummings from Berenberg. Please go ahead.

Jack Cummings

Good morning, both. My first question is just on some of the KPIs.

I think this quarter the GGR from top 10 games increased to 49% [where I think in?] Q1 it was 43%.

Kind of what drove that reconcentration? Was it that there were kind of hit games in the quarter?

Anything you could comment on there would be helpful. No, so

Mikael Rahm

as we've commented earlier, diversification has definitely improved over time, and that's also the long-term trend, both in terms of per game, per operator, per market, and geography and so forth. However, in any given period, as you see, there are many moving parts in our revenue model.

In any given short period like a quarter, there can be fluctuations. I would say that there's no underlying trends to this, but that's just how the quarter ended up.

Jack Cummings

Okay. Thank you.

Then my second question was with respect to the release cadence, clearly moving to five a month. What has enabled the step-up?

Is that the investment in headcount? Is that investment in the platform?

Is that using more AI within the business? Kind of what's driven the confidence in that increased release cadence?

Mikael Rahm

I would say that from December '24 to December '25, we almost doubled in size in terms of headcount. A lot of that was in game development, and then it takes a few months for a developer or a person in the game development process to come up to full speed.

That's what we see now. The capacity sort of is a bit delayed in terms of recruitment.

Jack Cummings

Okay. Perfect.

That makes sense. My final question is just on cash.

Obviously, you paid the dividend in Q2, but the cash pile is close to €100 million. Your market share, as you mentioned in the opening remarks, is at low single-digit rates.

What is the outlook like and the appetite from management for potential M&A? Do you think there are potential opportunities out there that the business could explore given the growing cash pile?

Thank you.

Ana Vrabic Verdir

We're not looking into any transformative M&A long term. Like we said, we are focusing on growing organically and making opportunistic investments in these ventures.

Apart from that, we don't see any transformative big M&A coming up anytime near-term. No, so,

Mikael Rahm

our main capital allocation policy is to distribute back 75% or more to shareholders, either through dividends or share buybacks, and that's continuing.

Jack Cummings

Perfect. Thank you very much.

Ana Vrabic Verdir

Thank you.

Mikael Rahm

Thank you.

Operator

As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad. There are no more questions at this time, I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions and closing comments.

Ana Vrabic Verdir

We're just going to go through the questions here. There is a question on the view on the buybacks.

As we said before, the board has been given the mandate to execute the buyback at the AGM, but we are supervising market conditions, so that will depend on both the liquidity and the share price.

Mikael Rahm

Sorry, just looking through the questions here. Buybacks.

No, I think that we have covered most of these questions.

Ana Vrabic Verdir

Yeah. Good.

I would like to thank everyone for the questions, and see you in the next quarter.