The Aristocrat Leisure Limited (ASX: ALL) share price is in focus today after releasing its FY24 first-half report.
This business is focused on casino and mobile games. It’s one of the world’s leading poker machine businesses.
HY24 result
Here are some of the highlights from the first six months of Aristocrat Leisure’s HY24 result:
- Revenue rose 6.1% to $3.27 billion
- Normalised EBITDA increased 17.6% to $1.2 billion
- Normalised net profit after tax (NPAT) grew 16.8% to $723.3 million
- Reported NPAT grew by 8.9% to $711.3 million
- Operating cashflow up 7% to $656.2 million
- Interim dividend per share up 20% to $0.36
- $350 million increase of the share buyback
The company revealed growth was underpinned by the Aristocrat Gaming division, with a strong performance in North America, reflecting an expansion of the installed base and game portfolio performance. It also pointed to strong sales in the ‘rest of the world’, and encouraging growth at Aristocrat Interactive.
Its profit ability grew much quicker than revenue, showing operating leverage, ongoing investment in its organic growth initiatives and cost “optimisation” across the group.
Management commentary
The Aristocrat CEO and Managing Director Trevor Croker said:
This was once again an outstanding result, reflecting Aristocrat’s resilience and ability to grow share and drive profitability through different operating environments.
Following completion of the NeoGames acquisition in April 2024, we have consolidated the Anaxi and NeoGames businesses into a single, consistent brand identity, Aristocrat Interactive. We believe that rebranding to Aristocrat Interactive will benefit our customer and regulator conversations, galvanise our teams and drive closer collaboration with Aristocrat Gaming, unlocking significant value over time.
Outlook for the Aristocrat Leisure share price
The company expects to deliver underlying net profit (NPATA) growth over the full year to 30 September 2024 because of three factors.
First, through continued growth of market share, revenue and profit.
Second, with “disciplined execution” with Pixel United with a focus on market share and investment efficiency to maintain momentum.
Third, Aristocrat Leisure talked of an “accelerating performance” of Aristocrat Interactive and further scaling of content to support broader market access in North America and Europe.
I’m not sure where the Aristocrat Leisure share price is going to go next, but delivering good profit growth can help over the long-term. The business seems to be doing the right things to keep delivering for shareholders.
