Classification of NuWays AG to ZEAL Network SE

Company Name:	ZEAL Network SE
ISIN:	DE000ZEAL241
Reason for the research:	Update
Recommendation:	Buy
from:	20.12.2024
Target price:	EUR 60.00
Target price on sight of:	12 months
Last rating change:
Analyst:	Henry Wendisch

Early X-Mas present for shareholders, guidance raised again

FY'24 sales should arrive between € 175-185m (eNuW old: € 170m), whereas EBITDA should range between € 55 and € 59m (eNuW old: € 45m). This corresponds to an € 17m increase over the old sales guidance and a € 13m increase over the old EBITDA guidance, implying a strong incremental EBITDA margin of 75%. At mid-point of the new guidance, this implies Q4 sales growth of 100% and an EBITDA expansion by 130% yoy, highlighting the strong Q4 performance.

The record and historically unprecedented 7x peak and consecutively rolled-over jackpots (vs. 5x in 2023 and 6x per 9M'24), which put Germany in a never seen before lottery fever, explains our € 11m top-line underestimation. Consequently, we raise our Q4 estimates for MAU (eNuW: 1.5m old vs. 1.6m MAU new), average pay-in per user APPU (eNuW: € 51.40 old vs. € 56.60 new) and lottery billings margin (eNuW: 16.3% old vs. 17.3% new) above our previous assumption. As we model with statistically average jackpots, these KPIs should normalize again going forward. Regarding EBITDA, by adding the € 11m of underestimated sales and keeping our Q4 OPEX estimate mainly unchangend, we arrive at our new FY'24e EBITDA estimate of € 57m (+ 75% yoy).

Additional to that, a key highlight should be the acquisiton of new customers during the peak jackpot time. Previously, we anticipated a user intake of 400k in Q4, which now seems too low. Therefore, we now expect 590k users to have registered during Q4, which would imply a staggering 1.4m new registrations (+134% yoy) for FY'24e. This bodes extremely well for the future, as the larger customer base (with its extremely loyal and steady spending behaviour) expands the revenue base even more. On average, 1 of 4 registrations becomes a monthly active user (MAU). Given the overall elevated online marketing activity during black and cyber week, we expect a slightly higher, but a still very attractive Q4 CPL of € 40 (FY'24e average: € 37, -19% yoy). To put this into perspective, we calculate a marketing ROI of 34% (net income effect per user divided by effective customer acquisition cost) for FY'24e (vs.
20% in FY'23), highlighting the improving and value accretive marketing operations. - see p.2 for details

Against this backdrop, we maintain our positive view on the stock and reiterate our BUY recommendation. Furthermore, we leave our FY'25e and beyond estimates unchanged, explaining our unchanged PT of € 60.00, based on DCF.

You can download the research here: http://www.more-ir.de/d/31579.pdf
For additional information visit our website: https://www.nuways-ag.com/research-feed

Contact for questions:
NuWays AG - Equity Research
Web: www.nuways-ag.com
Email: research@nuways-ag.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nuwaysag
Adresse: Mittelweg 16-17, 20148 Hamburg, Germany
++++++++++
Diese Meldung ist keine Anlageberatung oder Aufforderung zum Abschluss bestimmter Börsengeschäfte.
Offenlegung möglicher Interessenskonflikte nach § 85 WpHG beim oben analysierten Unternehmen befinden sich in der vollständigen Analyse.
++++++++++