It's a full house over at bingo operator Stride Gaming (STR), which has grown its foothold in the UK gambling market with three more acquisitions. The group spent £70.2m on 8Ball, Netboost Media and the Tarco Assets, meaning it now boasts a 25 per cent share of the UK online bingo market. Chief executive Eitan Boyd said the group would continue to be acquisitive and may even look for companies that would give it access to other types of online gaming.
While these three purchases didn't affect the financial year under review, its InfiApps acquisition did have bearing. It brought in £12.8m of revenue, but even with this excluded, group revenue still grew at an impressive rate of nearly 26 per cent. Mr Boyd also says 51 per cent of gross sales now come from mobile devices. While player sessions on such devices are shorter, gamers apparently return more frequently, resulting in a net benefit from the growing transition to online devices.
Analysts at Canaccord Genuity expect adjusted pre-tax profit of £18.5m for the year to August 2017, leading to adjusted EPS of 23.2p, compared with £11.3m and 19.1p in FY2016.
| STRIDE GAMING (STR) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD PRICE: | 248p | MARKET VALUE: | £167m | |
| TOUCH: | 244-252p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 288p | LOW: 215p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 1% | PE RATIO: | na | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 103p* | NET CASH: | £13m | |
| Year to 31 Aug | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012** | 0.9 | -1.6 | -3.2 | nil |
| 2013** | 7.3 | -1.9 | -3.8 | nil |
| 2014 | 8.5 | 0.8 | 2.7 | nil |
| 2015 | 27.8 | 360 | 0.9 | nil |
| 2016 | 47.8 | 131 | -0.8 | 2.50 |
| % change | +72 | -64 | -179 | - |
Ex-div: 5 Jan Payment: 1 Feb *Includes intangible assets of £73.6m, or 109p a share **Pre-IPO figures | ||||
