About this app
About Book Of Admiral
Another report, commisisoned by Euromat, estimates that Europe’s black market has sustained a compound annual growth rate of 18% between 2019 and 2026, and will be worth up to €13 billion by the end of the year.
For enforcement authorities, however, the challenge is not simply estimating its size. It is keeping track of an ecosystem that can continually change domains, infrastructure and acquisition channels. That is where Madsen sees Trace2Trace fitting in.
One of its investigations concerns a specific globally renowned brand. Madsen says an initial scan identified around 1,600 domains, followed by another roughly 4,500 associated with this operator. That puts the number identified so far at around 6,000, although he believes the actual figure is considerably higher. “I think what we’ve found so far is only a small part of the overall picture,” he says. “I’m almost certain the real number is at least twice as high.”
What is Book Of Admiral?
Ahlberg agrees the €16.4 million valuation is attractive, with a deferred consideration of around €10.4 million that reduces the immediate cash burden.
Corfai Capital Managing Partner and Founder Ben Robinson is even more bullish on the price, pointing to the circumstances in which GiG was able to acquire the business.
“On the numbers GiG has disclosed it looks cheap,” he says. “€16.4 million for 80% implies an EV of €20.5 million against roughly $50 million of run-rate NGR, 30% year-on-year growth and positive cash generation. €6m of cash on day one for a business generating $50 million of NGR tells you who needed the deal.”
How to play Book Of Admiral
Beyond offering crypto payment solutions, a number of black market operators are licensed in “light touch” offshore jurisidictions which use opaque offshore operating structures to help to obscure company ownership and make local enforcement against these companies complex, the report noted.
By comparison, the long tail of smaller black market sites rely heavily on affiliates to generate traffic.
Much of the onus for the increasing black market is put on increasingly restrictive policies enforced by regulators across the licensed sector.