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“ Matejic suggested the lessons GiG learned from AskGamblers and other M & A deals goes to show the integration of another set of affiliate brands holds no fear for the business ”
was said at the time but rather because of a to-and-fro between Catena Media and GiG after the deal was done .
THE DALY GRIND
On the early part of Catena ’ s call with the analysts in November , CEO Michael Daly stuck rigidly to the script . The divestment , he said , was about “ streamlining the organisation and equipping us for the next chapter in our story .”
He added , “ The plan formed during that review was about focusing the organisation on stable regulated markets to drive sustainable growth in our business over the long term .
“ As part of that , we have evaluated various markets for stability and growth potential and weighed that against the benefits of divesting assets in those markets in order to improve our own financial stability . With the divestiture during the quarter of the UK and Australia businesses and post quarter of the Italian casino and sports businesses , we now complete the divestment actions laid out by that review .”
However , it was his latter comments , which he made in answering a question about the AskGamblers deal , that were of more interest .
When asked about GiG ’ s comments from its own call with the analysts a week or so before , which suggested the company was having a lot of success in turning the AskGamblers business round , Daly went on the defensive .
“ I don ’ t know that I can comment particularly on what they are doing ,” he told the questioner . “ I know when we had AskGamblers , we were continually being sent letters from countries that said that our operations were targeting those countries and we were turning them off .”
He said that Catena had contemplated retargeting such grey and black markets but had opted against the idea .
“ The challenge we had was if we did that , we would have to probably consider splitting the company into two companies : one that focused on regulated markets and one that focused on grey or even black markets now , in Canada and other places that are outside of the legal provinces ,” he explained .
Instead , he suggested Catena opted to stay on the side of the angels . “ We weren ’ t sure that our investors would want to see that split of the stock in terms of giving them something that was a much greyer or black market .”
But then he suggested this is what GiG had itself done . “ They are doing a different strategy than we were able to do with our focus on regulated markets , which we believe to be sustainable and also would not jeopardise the licences in those sustained and regulated markets by doing activities in markets that had declared themselves either grey or black ,” he said .
“ So that was what we couldn ’ t do . And to what they are doing specifically , you ’ d have to ask them .”
BACK TO THE SOURCE
So naturally , this is what iGB Affiliate did . Milorad Matejic is the director of SEO and publishing at GiG . He said the company was “ delighted with the performance of the AskGamblers business ”.
“ We see a higher share of traffic from regulated markets and a lower share of traffic from unregulated markets ,” he continued . “ The same trend applies to revenue .”
Matejic pointed to some of the nuts and bolts of making any acquisition work . “ The most obvious signs that things are going well are that traffic to the websites and conversions are growing , that employees are motivated and engaged and that previously identified synergies are being fulfilled ,” he said .
“ The most important KPIs in our business are the number of referred players , revenue and profit margin .
“ However , it can take some time to see these KPIs grow , so we also look at metrics such as website visits and search engine visibility . If these trends are good , we know we ’ re on the right track .”
Offering an insight into the processes any acquirer goes through once a deal is wrapped up , Matejic said that when GiG acquired AskGamblers the company
iGB AFFILIATE LONDON 2024 • ISSUE 94 • 55