NAGA’s Loss Balloons While EU Revenue Soars
NAGA Group AG, a diversified financial services company specializing in retail FX/CFDs trading and cryptocurrency, has reported a net loss of over €37 million for the fiscal year 2022. The figure represents a substantial increase compared to the previous year’s loss of €10 million, according to the company’s consolidated financial statements. Despite these losses, there are some positive aspects to the company’s financial performance.
NAGA, renowned for providing social trading services for FX and CFDs instruments and brokerage services, saw an upswing in its revenue for 2022. The revenue from its brokerage business rose to €57.5 million, up from €52.8 million in the preceding year. This marks a year-on-year improvement of approximately 9%.
Perhaps most notably, European customers contributed significantly to NAGA’s trading revenue in 2022. They accounted for a staggering 90% of the total revenue, marking a significant shift from the more evenly distributed 54% seen in the previous year. Of this European revenue, a remarkable 43% was generated solely in Germany.
However, as revenues increased, so did expenses related to trading. NAGA’s direct expenses climbed to €14.3 million, up from €8.7 million in the previous year. Consequently, the group’s gross profit for the year amounted to €48.4 million, slightly surpassing the €45.7 million of the preceding year.
The Hamburg-based group made efforts to reduce its marketing and advertising expenditure, bringing it down to €28.3 million from €30.9 million. However, despite these savings, NAGA ended the year with a negative EBITDA of €13.7 million, although this was an improvement on the preceding year’s negative figure of €42 million.
Furthermore, the group wrote off more than €15.3 million for the “amortization of non-current crypto assets”. This, combined with “depreciation”, resulted in an EBIT of €36.8 million. Despite the losses in 2022, NAGA managed to turn a positive EBITDA of €4.2 million in the first nine months of 2023.
Moving forward, the company’s Executive Board has outlined plans for declining Group sales for the fiscal year 2023. However, they intend to compensate for this by improving efficiency in marketing and sales. The focus is set to shift from aggressive sales growth to generating stable and reliable profits. A key part of this strategy involves significant cost reductions, which the company expects will visibly improve earnings figures.
Earlier in the year, the group raised $8.2 million in convertible bonds but repaid $6 million last month through a loan from an unnamed institutional investor. The remaining amount of $2.7 million, along with interest, is due to be paid on January 30, 2024.
