AskGamblers changes hands for €15M

maxd

Head of Complaints (PABs), Senior Forum Moderator
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Catena Media acquires the award-winning affiliate AskGamblers.com for EUR 15 million :

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As readers will know we had reported that Catena -- aka "guys with deep pockets" -- had been shopping for sites at ICE earlier this year (see Link Outdated / Removed, paragraph begins "Lesson #1 ...").

(Thanks to a little birdy at ThePogg for letting me know the news. :) :thumbsup: )
 
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Seems a lot of money :eek2:

Wouldn't recommend AskGamblers to friends or family because so many of their 'UK players welcome' casinos are not licenced and if you are silly enough to deposit you will be faced with error messages such as 'You are connecting from a country which we are not accepting wagers' or 'Country restricted' By then it's too late!

Compared to CasinoMeister where you can actually see genuine player experiences and the rogue reports - I know which one benefits the player more rather than their own pockets!
 
I'm sure it was worth the prize, and they are established enough so that won't be a problem. It's great that the staff will be able to stay but I wonder what changes will be made.

I do not like that Catena company already. I think I need to find out what more they are doing. I suspect it's one of those companies who are doing retaining works for casinos.

Others are buying up casinos but who controls the market more than these big affiliate sites.

I'm happy Bryan/CM isn't for sale;)
 
Yes, at ICE they offered me 2 bottles of lager and a packet of salt and vinegar but after an hour of hard thought I declined politely and struggled on with my site, at which point they added a square of chocolate Rice Krispies cake. Tempted, but the free cans of 'Energoonz' energy drink Petter from Play N Go gave me earlier had bolstered my illusion of wealth so legged it back to the DLR for a train back and never gave them an answer.
 
All about the traffic and value of the affiliate accounts. But risky putting that much into one affiliate site I agree, as google could sneeze and it's rankings could dive south.

We don't know the math. With 15m Euros you would struggle to yield 6% per annum in income, and that would be with risky venture capital or buying and renting property.

We could surmise the 250000 players, even if they each only yield 10 quid a year, is a 16% annual return before costs.

With that volume they'll also be on the higher 40-50% affiliate payment top of the ladder, and won't be concerned by sites like Hills and Sky with minimum FTD new player requirements.

Then we have a hidden strategy - maybe by aggressive acquisitions they could be aiming for a monopoly and thus the ability to use their size to negotiate greater rakes.

Who knows?

People with 15m to invest don't usually piss about.
 
AskGamblers’ sales in the first quarter of 2016 amounted to approximately EUR 810,000 with a profit margin surpassing 80%. The revenue stems from organic traffic under revenue sharing agreements and is expected to generate at least 25,000 new depositing clients each year. Revenue will accrue to Catena Media from and including 1 April 2016.

Totally valid to pay €15m for these kinds of revenues. €810,000 in sales for Q1/16 with a profit margin of 80% is incredible. Additionally it's still growing dynamically so on stock markets these kinds of companies are traded with a P/E ratio of 20+ depending on how dynamic the growth of the market is. The P/E ratio of AG is around 6. Even €30m would be a valid prize IMHO.
 
Well Catena has a market cap of €250 000 000 and a lot of money in the bank since they made their IPO in Janyary this year. I guess they have to spend that money on something.
 

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