The Kindred Group has announced ambitious plans to increase its annual revenue by 27% in the next three years. Unibet’s owner has set an annual revenue target of $2.75 billion, an increase it plans to achieve by growing in existing markets – Australia, Europe, and North America.
The Malta-based and Stockholm-listed group also wants to hit an EBIDTA target of 21-22% and 75-100% of free cash flow by 2025.
Drop in Revenue Due to Licensing Problems in the Netherlands
The Kindred Group’s 2021 revenue was $2.16 billion. However, rather worryingly, Unibet’s owner saw a 32.2% drop in revenue for the first half of FY 2022. That brought criticism from Corvex Management, the largest shareholder in the group. There were even reports that Corvex people got in touch with potential buyers and betting operators to see if there was interest to sell the business.
In a statement, the group said that Kindred operated a portfolio of markets that were in “different stages of maturity.” That allowed the group to benefit from two things – the underlying market growth and additional gains in market share.
The group tipped that the Netherlands would be “an important contributor” in the coming years. Kindred re-entered the Dutch market after a nine-month hiatus because of licensing problems. The group said that it expected other European markets to grow too.
An Australian Market Share Increase and Strategic Investments
In Australia, where the group operates through the Unibet brand, Kindred expects a market share growth of 7% each year until 2026.
More strategic investments and a Kindred sports betting platform are two other priorities for the group. For instance, Kindred recently bought Relax Gaming, a world-renowned gaming provider, an investment the group will instantly try to benefit from.
Henrik Tjärnström, Kindred Group CEO, said that the group was “a driving force of transformation” in the sports betting and gaming industry and that it was successful because it was able to operate in complex and locally regulated environments. And now that the group had the “critical building blocks in place,” Tjärnström was sure they were on the right course.
He was also happy that progress was made with the Kindred sports betting platform, and that he expected the sportsbook to go live around the end of 2023.
Largest Kindred Shareholder Might Want to Go in a Different Direction
One thing that might worry Tjärnström, though, is that the group’s largest shareholder asked the Kindred board of directors to sell the operator in August. Corvex Management also wanted to have a say in who will be nominated for the next board.
Keith Meister, the founder of Corvex, said that they were happy to work with Kindred chairman Evert Carlsson and other Kindred shareholders, but insisted that the nomination committee should nominate directors that would maximize the value for all shareholders in the group.
Take a look at how they plan on expanding in our comprehensive Unibet review.
