XLMedia performs well, works to recover casino assets

Global digital performance publisher XLMedia updated the market on its trading for 2020 on Tuesday, reporting that for the full year, it was expecting to deliver revenue of about $54.5m (£39.85m), up from $27.7m year-on-year.

The AIM-traded firm said adjusted EBITDA would come in at around $11.5m for the year ended 31 December, rising from $5.1m.

As it had detailed in its first half results in September, the company said it was pursuing a multi-track approach to recovering its casino vertical, where a number of sites were penalised by Google in early 2020.

That process was being carried out in conjunction with a “fundamental rationalisation” of the asset portfolio, significantly reducing the overall number of sites and upgrading the quality of those remaining, with a concentration on highly-engaging content and enhanced functionality to drive increased traffic and build consumer loyalty.

“The approach to recovering the casino vertical is an orderly combination of submitting to Google for reconsideration certain sites which have been rebuilt in-house or in conjunction with a partner; developing some entirely new sites, where this is the better strategic option; de-indexing sites which are immaterial and may have a negative impact on the authority of the premium websites; and disposing of sites which no longer fit with the direction of the business,” the board explained in its statement.

“We have now completed the core development work on all the rebuilt sites we will take forward and have commenced the submission process to Google for reconsideration.”

To date, the firm said it had been successful in having the penalty removed for three of the 10 sites it was looking to recover, being Casino.pt, Casino.gr and CasinoKiwi.co.nz.

“Learnings from both successes and initial rejections are being applied to the ongoing refinement of the remaining sites and we will resubmit those sites in due course.”

XLMedia said it would provide a further update on the casino recovery process with its Financial Results for the year ended 31 December, on 13 April.

At 1132 GMT, shares in XLMedia were down 6.76% at 33.1p.