XLMedia has agreed to sell its remaining material assets to sports data and tech giant Sportradar, subject to approval at the next shareholder general meeting on 7 November.
The agreement will see XLMedia receive $20m upon completion of the deal and a further $10m in April 2025 subject to the performance of the sold assets.
After the sale, the affiliate will become a cash shell focused on distribution to shareholders with the Sportradar deal completing the total divestment of the company’s media assets. Back in April, Gambling.com Group acquired Freebets.com from XLMedia for $42.5m in purchasing its European and Canadian assets.
The North America business generated $27.5m in revenue and $5.5m in EBITDA in 2023, with Sportradar agreeing to pay a 5.5x multiple on last year's earnings.
In a statement, XLMedia admitted that as its sole remaining material asset, the North American business’ revenue did not match the group’s original plans.
It added that the ongoing need to fund the historical US acquisitions from cashflow had precluded it from undertaking further M&A and that its focus instead on growing its owned-and-operated fooprint and expanding its media partnerships had left it subscale to compete in the US market going forward.
The acquired assets include Sports Betting Dime, bought by XL for £26m in 2021, the sites brought by the CBWG Sports acquisition for up to $21.5m in 2020 (CrossingBroad.com, PASportsBooks.com, BetNewJersey.com, EliteSportsNY.com, PromoCodeKings.com and ActionRush.com) and the Saturday Football Inc.college football sites (Saturdaydownsouth.com and Saturdaytradition.com) bought for $23m in 2021.
Sportradar started providing real-time sports data to XL's North American sites under a deal agreed in 2022.
XLMedia chairman Marcus Rich said the board, having committed to maximise shareholder value, was "pleased to have reached an agreement to sell the North American business to Sportradar pending shareholder approval" on 7 November.
Rich said he anticipated an intial distribution of the proceeds before year-end, with the group expecting to receive around $18m of net cash following completion and receipt of the initial payment.
XLMedia, forged by CEO Ory Weihs in 2008 from the combination of the Reef Media network he founded in 2003 and the Webpals business founded by Yaron Nahari and Assaf Levy in 2007, pioneered the path to the public markets for igaming affiliates when it listed on London’s AIM in 2014.
The group expanded into non-gaming sectors such as personal finance but struggled to rebound from the huge impact of a 2020 Google manual deranking of its casino sites.
You can read more on XLMedia's financial situation in the most recent Affiliate Monitor.