The Aristocrat Leisure Limited (ASX: ALL) share price is higher after reporting strong growth in its FY24 result.
Aristocrat Leisure is one of the world’s largest casino slot machine providers. It also has a digital gaming segment. It has a market capitalisation of more than $40 billion.
Aristocrat Leisure FY24 result
The business reported how it performed in the 12 months to 30 September 2024:
- Revenue increased 4.9% to $6.6 billion
- Normalised EBITDA grew by 18.5% to $2.47 billion
- Normalised net profit increased 16.6% to $1.45 billion
- Statutory net profit dropped 10.4% to $1.3 billion
- Operating cash flow declined 1.9% to $1.76 billion
- Normalised profit / earnings per share (EPS) grew by 19.7% to $2.27
- Dividend per share rose 21.9% to $0.78
Aristocrat Leisure said that this performance was driven by “exceptional performance in North America gaming operations, with around 7,100 net units added to its installed base.
Pixel United gained market share in the Social Slots genre, with a focus on optimising user acquisition spending and operational efficiency, delivering “strong margin improvement”.
The ASX share said Aristocrat Interactive benefited from organic growth in its Platforms business and continued scaling of iGaming across North America and Europe, and the inclusion of five months of NeoGames and a full year of Roxor in FY24.
The company said its normalised profit benefitted from successful execution of its growth strategy, operating leverage, ongoing investment in organic growth initiatives and cost optimisation across the business.
Aristocraft Leisure also said it continues to fund a high level of organic investment in the priority areas of design and development, user acquisition and capital expenditure.
Management comments
As part of the result, Aristocrat Leisure and Managing Director Trevor Croker said:
Looking ahead, we continue to see strong momentum in our core business as we focus on portfolio performance and seek to capture the significant strategic opportunities in front of us. We are committed to our capital management strategy and our ongoing on-market share buy-back program, and to implementing the outcomes of the strategic review of the group’s casual and mid-core gaming assets.
Final thoughts on the Aristocrat Leisure share price
On 12 November 2024, the ASX share announced the sale of Plarium Global Limited for a fixed amount of US$620 million to Modern Times Group, with a possible further consideration of up to US$200 million (based on financial targets between 2025 to 2028).
Proceeds will be used to fund its longer-term growth strategy, enhance the revenue growth rate and margins going forward.
It continues to review Big Fish Games (excluding the Big Fish Social Casino).
The ASX share continues to grow strongly, but after a 60% rise this year it seems fairly expensive considering how large the business already is. It’s not one of the ASX growth shares I’m looking to buy, partly due to its already large size, though its growth has been impressive over the years.
