Catena Media has cut 25% of its workforce in a push to reduce costs following a 40% drop in revenue in the first quarter of 2025.
Online gambling news company Catena Media is cutting costs in a number of ways, including reducing its workforce by 25% and pausing interest payments on its hybrid capital security. This comes after a drop in revenue for the first quarter between 2024 and 2025.
More than 50 roles will be eliminated, including both contractors and full-time employees. The cuts are focused on removing a layer of management, in an attempt to streamline decision-making and with an estimated annual saving of between €4.5 to €5 million. Further technical changes are also underway to save another €800,000 a year.
Falling revenue at Catena Media
For the first quarter of 2025, Catena reported a preliminary revenue of €9.8 million, done from €16 million in the first of 2024, a 38.8% drop. It’s a 3.9% decline from the last three months of 2024, which saw €10.2 million in revenue.
This had a knock-on effect for the company’s EBITDA, falling to €900,000 – a 52.6% drop when compared to the same time in 20205 and a 40% drop from the quarter prior.
Catena Media lays the blame for the revenue decrease on the fact that more income comes from sub-affiliation, which has lower margins, and an increase in personnel costs.
“Our Q1 results show we still have substantial work ahead to fully stabilise the business and rebuild profitability,” CEO Manuel Stan told Next.io. “It is vital that we protect margins, and we have therefore taken strong action that I am confident will see costs decrease in absolute and relative terms in the coming quarters.”
This is likely not going to be the end of changes at Catena, with the company stating that further “financial-structure optimisation” is needed to make room for future technical investments. The firm is also not alone in needing to make layoffs in order to stay afloat recently.
“Today’s decision was difficult and not taken lightly,” said chairman Erik Flinck. “We believe that deferring interest payments on the hybrid capital security and choosing not to redeem this instrument in the short term are essential to secure the group’s financial stability and to enable investment in development and growth.”
Featured image: Midjourney
