Jumbo hails acquisitions impact as revenue and net profit rise in H1

The group completed the purchase of Canada-based lottery management provider Stride Management in June last year, while it also added UK external lottery manager and digital payments business StarVale Group to its portfolio in November.

Jumbo said it had already felt the benefits of the acquisition in the first half, primarily within its managed services business, where both revenue and total transaction value (TTV) – the gross amount received from the sale of goods and services rendered in the period – climbed year-on-year.

“Stride has made a meaningful contribution to group earnings and we are pleased to have completed our acquisition of StarVale in November 2022,” Jumbo’s chief executive and founder Mike Veverka said.

“We continue to be impressed by the quality and growth potential of these businesses and the integration process is now well underway. The strength of our balance sheet, strong cash generation profile and debt headroom provide significant flexibility to support further growth.”

First half

Analysing Jumbo’s performance in the six months to 31 December, revenue for the first half amounted to AU$62.4m (£35.3m/€40.1m/U$42.4m), up 18.1% year-on-year.  

Breaking this down, lottery retailing revenue accounted for $50.1m of all revenue, a rise of 7.2% on the previous year, while managed services revenue rocketed 260.7% to $8.0m on the back of the Stride and StarVale acquisitions.

Jumbo also noted $23.3m in software-as-a-service (SaaS) revenue, up 8.2% year-on-year, though $18.9m of this was attributed as inter-segment revenue. Direct revenue from the SaaS segment was $4.3m.

TTV for the entire group was 27.2% higher at $4167.0m, with $253.3m from lottery retailing segment, $97.2m from SaaS and $66.6m managed services.

Turning to spending and cost of sales amounted to $9.9m in the first half, while the primary operational outgoings were administration charges at $23.1m and marketing costs at $4.3m. Finance expenses were $333,000, which left a pre-tax profit of $24.9m, a rise of 4.4% on the previous year.

Jumbo paid $7.7m in tax and also accounted for a $902,000 foreign currency translation loss, which resulted in a net profit for the half-year of $16.3m, a 1.2% increase from $16.1m in 2021. In addition, statutory EBITDA was up by 6.9% to $30.2m.