THE OPPORTUnlTY OF A GEnERATIOn: The Litimate Score on a, Oigita Go d Mine
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,,,.,, .. ,,,,,. , ..... TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction...... 3
Demographic Shifts and Opportunities………...... 5
The Millennial Hotspot...... 6
The Future of the Video Game Industry...... 8
The Evolution of Sports………………...... 11
eSports Celebrities - 8-Figure Digital Athletes...... 14
An Enormous Money-Making Opportunity...... 16
Microtransactions...... 18
Market Sector Size...... 21
Video Games - A Well-Kept Secret...... 23
Featured Investment Opportunity...... 24
Management and Ownership...... 24
Portfolio of Assets...... 27
Target Market and Comparables...... 32
Chinese e-Gaming Comparables...... 36
Game Analysis: Revenue and Cashflow Targets...... 40
Growth Catalysts...... 47
Summary and Valuation...... 49 INTRODUCTION
In the old days, when prospectors found gold, they would usually try to keep its location secret.
They wanted to mine as much as possible for themselves before word got out.
Samuel Brannan took a more unconventional route.
As soon as he found gold, he grabbed a bottle of gold dust and raced the 100 miles back to San Francisco.
There, he ran up and down the streets, shouting, “Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!”
He got the word out however he could, even publishing the findings in his own newspaper, the California Sun.
It worked. As word spread to the surrounding areas, people began rushing to Sutter’s Mill to find gold. Four months after Samuel’s first announcement of gold, the number of men in San Francisco had dropped from over 1,000 to just five according to the author of History of California, Hubert Howe Bancroft.
Samuel's newspaper had to shut down for lack of readers.
He didn’t care.
He owned a general store at Sutter’s Mill, where the gold was discovered. In the week between when he learned of the discovery and when he publicized it to every living soul in San Francisco, he had bought up all the picks and shovels in the region.
Prices skyrocketed due to limited supply. Soon his store was selling $150,000 worth of merchandise a month. That’s nearly $4 million today.
In fact, no one benefited from the gold rush as much as Sam. By profiting from many of the 300,000 men who came in search of gold, he became the first millionaire minted by the California Gold Rush fo 1849.
All because he knew he could make more money by selling supplies than by digging for gold.
We owe the saying, “In a gold rush, be the guy selling pickaxes and shovels” to Samuel Brannan.
3 Something bigger and better than any gold rush is unfolding right now. And the first people and companies to arrive are already striking digital pay dirt in a big way.
One company with a brilliant leadership team has taken a hugely profitable position in this exploding market: They are both mining for gold and selling pickaxes and shovels.
Early investors in the company are positioned to benefit from both sides of this exploding market.
Here’s why this company is about to make the California Gold Rush—the biggest peacetime migration of adult males in the history of the world— look tiny by comparison.
INTRODUCTION 4 THE DEMOGRAPHIC SHIFT NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT…YET
For the past few decades, the spending habits of baby boomers have dictated a company’s success or failure.
But that is no longer the case.
Millennials (those born 1981-2000) are the generation that must be paid attention to now. The 2015 U.S. Census indicated that millennials already outnumber baby boomers by more than 8 million.
The shift in numbers comes with a shift in dollars. While baby boomers’ spending is being phased out, millennials’ spending is rapidly taking over as the driving force of the economy.
According to data from Accenture, the spending power of millennials in the U.S. alone will be an estimated $1.3 trillion by 2020—double the $600 billion millennials will spend in 2018.
I see this generational “changing of the guard” happening in my own office. For the first 15 years of my career, I was the “young gun” in the resource sector. Now that I am one of the largest financiers in the industry, I find myself the oldest person in my own office. Everyone else is a millennial.
Anyone not paying attention to this—one of the greatest cultural, demographic and economic shifts in history—will regret it.
Think of Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes, who made a bold statement to Motley Fool in 2008: “Netflix is not even on the radar screen in terms of competition.” Netflix was a tiny company at the time. Only trading at about $4 a share.
But Mr. Keyes wasn’t paying attention to the beginnings of a massive demographic, technological and cultural shift. One that would see millennials cutting the cord and turning to subscription-based streaming video.
Within two years, Blockbuster was bankrupt. Netflix is now worth about $400 per share. Or a 10,000% rise in under a decade.
People who missed out on the Netflix rocket ship regret not seeing the direction millennials were moving earlier.
Fortunately, they’ll get another chance.
And it’ll likely be even bigger this time. 5 THE MILLENNIAL HOTSPOT
In the early 1980s, when Space Invaders and Pac-Man were all the rage, arcades were the only place we could find and play video games.
You know the type. The large, clunky arcade cabinets the size of refrigerators.
Home consoles and desktop computers were next for video games. The shrinking size of electronics and the development of the internet led to increased market penetration for video game companies.
Think Atari, Sega and Nintendo, which all burst into living rooms in the ‘80s.
Now, nearly every person in the new purchasing power group—millennials—has a cell phone. 100% of U.S. adults eag s 18-29 own a cell phone (that’s not a typo).
And 94% of those cell phones are smartphones.
Millennials are spending a substantial amount of their time on those devices, playing video games.
For example, last year, over 40% of the U.S. population reported playing at least three hours of video games per week.
More than 55% of those were either millennials or Generation Z.
In the chart below, you can see the video gamer population broken down into age groups…
6 For this generation, video games are a BIG deal.
It’s not just that gamers are gaming more as video games become more accessible.
As millennials and Gen Zers have pushed gaming into the mainstream, the number of gamers worldwide has grown steadily. There are 2.2 billion “active gamers” worldwide who play more than one hour once a month.
In the U.S., gamers spend 50 million hours per day actively engaged in video games. 63% of households have someone in the house who games for more than one hour at least once a week. This is where the data gets really interesting.
Households in the U.S. that have at least one gamer who plays more than an hour a week make 40% more than the average household in the U.S. In other words, gamers are a wealthier demographic than the average non- gaming household.
As video gaming’s accessibility, popular appeal, and its target audience have grown, revenue growth for the video game industry has followed.
In just the past eight years, the size of the video game industry has doubled.
In short, millennials have turned video gaming into a $122 billion per year industry—and they’re just getting started.
THE MILLENNIAL HOTSPOT 7 THE MIND-BLOWING FUTURE OF THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY
The vast, growing video gaming population is headed in droves toward a relatively new concept called “streaming.”
Any gamer can live-stream themselves on YouTube or Twitch.
Twitch has grown to more than 15 million daily active users since being bought out for nearly $1 billion by Amazon in 2015.
Twitch users spend a lot of time watching streams: Daily users watch for an average of 1.5 hours per day, and nearly half of users watch games for more than 20 hours per week.
The top four television networks in the U.S. are shown in the chart below, alongside the top two streaming sites. As you can see, viewership on the two streaming sites is ahead of MSNBC, Nickelodeon and HGTV and is catching up to Fox News.
8 The next chart shows how big streaming is when compared to the top 10 traditional TV networks listed below.
Video Game Streaming vs. Traditional TV Networks
1.6M
1.4M
1.2M
1.0M
0.8M
0.6M
0.4M
Average Daily Viewership (Millions) Daily Viewership Average 0.2M
0
Now you might wonder why gamers would want to watch someone else play a video game. Why not just play it themselves?
To understand, think of watching streams as almost like watching your favorite sports team or TV show. Except a game stream gives you the addictive ability to interact with the host of the stream live. And to follow their reactions and responses in real time.
If you have a young child, nephew or other relative, ask them if they’ve ever watched a gamer play live.
Once they’ve said “yes”—and they will say yes—ask how many hours of video gaming they have watched.
The answer will surprise you.
We have observed this movement firsthand. Every year, Katusa Research hires a couple of interns during the summer.
THE MIND-BLOWING FUTURE OF THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY 9 The two interns we hired this summer were opposites: One was an engineering student, the other was in a business program. Two different ethnic back-grounds, and they go to school on opposite sides of the continent.
Both spent their weekends with their friends, watching gamers. I was floored that a Friday night for them consists of getting together with their friends, grabbing a case of beer, ordering a pizza and watching gamers.
It’s not just nerdy guys. The jocks, the popular girls and the cool crowd all get together to watch the gamers play games.
This is what millennials are into.
THE MIND-BLOWING FUTURE OF THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY 10 THE EVOLUTION OF SPORTS: SAY HELLO TO THE NEXT GENERATION OF ATHLETES
The rise of millennials, the exponential growth of video games and the rise of video game streaming is about to create a huge opportunity.
And you can see it nowhere better than in the next evolution of sports.
In the ‘80s and ‘90s, the athletic ability of Michael Jordan, Bo Jackson, Larry Bird, Wayne Gretzky and Joe Montana propelled them to international fame.
If the next phenomenon in video games continues its rapid growth (and it appears it will) then the household names of the next decade could be “Faker,” “Myth” and “Arteezy.” They are the new superstars your children and grandchildren look up to. eSports or esports?
Those are all the names (handles) of Katusa Research prefers the professional video gamers who compete look and style of eSports. in “eSports.” Other outlets prefer esports. eSports are just like traditional sports such This reminds me of the early as basketball, hockey, football and soccer. days of fracking when people debated whether to call it They both have the same intense training frac, frack, hydraulic frac- and brutal competition. Only eAthletes trade out the field for a screen, and the tures, etc. athletic gear for a computer. Reading this now, you are in The crowds, however, are the same—if the early days of the eSports not larger. bull market. Last year’s League of Legends (LoL) world championship finals played before a sell- out crowd at the Beijing National Stadium, the main venue of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics… with seating capacity for 80,000.
The number of people watching eSports just keeps growing.
For example, take the 2017 League of Legends World Championship finals, which is the “World Cup” of eSports tournaments. According to a report from Riot Games, the League of Legends game developer, nearly 58 million people around the globe watched the tournament.
11 eSports Viewership vs. Traditional Sports Events 70M
60M
50M
40M
30M
Total Viewers (Millions) Viewers Total 20M
10M
0 2017 League of 2017 MLB World 2017 NBA Finals DOTA 2's The 2017 Stanley Cup Legends Worlds Series International Finals Finals 2017
That’s more than twice as many as the 24 million viewers who tuned in to watch the 2017 NBA finals—or more than the MLB World Series and the NBA Finals combined.
Think about that for a second. This is a game changer.
The International 2017 tournament had Dota 2 players fighting each other to claim the number one spot. The tournament had more viewers than the 2017 NHL Stanley Cup Finals.
Even more impressively, The International 2018 had more viewers than it did in 2017.
And this is only the beginning. • Mainstream broadcasters such as ESPN and Sky have set up channels to compete with the industry’s traditional digital broadcasters like Twitch and YouTube.
• The International Olympic Committee is investigating the opportunity to include eSports in the Olympics.
THE EVOLUTION OF SPORTS: SAY HELLO TO THE NEXT GENERATION OF ATHLETES 12 • Team owners from the NFL, the NBA and the MLB have all purchased eSports leagues for the game Overwatch.
• 21 of the 30 NBA teams now have affiliated eSports teams (for example, the Golden State Warriors have the Warriors Gaming Squad) that participate in the NBA 2K League.
According to a report from Newzoo, the eSports fan base is expected to grow to 427 million people by 2019. eSports viewership will eventually overtake traditional sports viewership.
That’s a bold statement.
But don’t forget: Fortune favors the bold.
THE EVOLUTION OF SPORTS: SAY HELLO TO THE NEXT GENERATION OF ATHLETES 13 8-FIGURE DIGITAL ATHLETES AND VIDEO GAME CELEBRITIES
This new phenomenon is so big that it is minting new eAthletes making tens of millions of dollars per year.
Arguably the greatest video game player of all time, and one who has actually been referred to as “Michael Jordan,” is “Faker.” His real name is Lee Sang- Hyeok, and he is the top League of Legends player in the world.
He was scouted as a 17-year-old in 2013 by the biggest eSports team in Korea. In his first year, Faker took his team all the way to winning the world championship at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
He has since won two more world championships, and has the distinction of being the first eSports player to be featured in ESPN magazine.
Faker even has his own article on The Players’ Tribune, a website started by Derek Jeter for professional athletes to voice their opinions.
Greats like Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash and Cam Newton have all made contributions to The Players’ Tribune—and Faker was the first eSports athlete invited to do so.
And since Faker opened the door to eAthletes in the mainstream, video gamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins just took it to a whole new level.
Thanks to his massive popularity on social media and Twitch, Ninja became the first gamer on the cover of ESPN magazine.
14 Faker and Ninja are multi-millionaires from streaming themselves playing alone, and Faker has made tens of millions from prize winnings and sponsorships. In the latest season, Faker’s contract was renewed for a rumored $2.5 million. This doesn’t include endorsements, licensing agreements and appearance fees, which will be above the $10 million mark in 2018.
Their stories are the rule, not the exception.
The salaries in the eSports world are comparable to salaries of the “real world” professional athletes in the NBA, NFL and other major leagues.
eSports stars can earn salaries from their leagues, as well as money from their teams (who are often sponsored), from their YouTube and Twitch feeds and from tournament winnings.
League of Legends players make an annual salary of $105,000, plus tournament winnings, as they advance in the League Championship Series. In 2017, the estimated total prize pool for all LoL tournaments was nearly $12 million.
Players in another popular game, Dota 2, earn salaries on sponsored teams, but Dota’s world championships has a much larger prize pool. Team OG, based out of Europe and backed by Red Bull, won over $11 million this year when they won the championships to be split among the five team members.
Activision Blizzard’s new Overwatch league pays players a minimum salary of $50,000, plus bonus, health and retirement benefits, and a percentage of tournament winnings.
8-FIGURE DIGITAL ATHLETES AND VIDEO GAME CELEBRITIES 15 AN ENORMOUS MONEY-MAKING OPPORTUNITY
In late August 2018, an event called The International 2018 took place in my home city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
A total of 18 teams of gamers were flown in from all around the world. All expenses paid. They participated in the world championships for the video game Dota 2.
The prize pool for this event was just over $25 million.
And the winning team walked away with nearly half of that total.
The 19,000-seat stadium where the event was held sold out in seconds.
The final set of games drew in some 15 million viewers worldwide. That’s just a hair under the 16.2 million that watched the last game of this year’s NBA finals.
All of the numbers in the image above represent just one video game—and not even the most popular one in the world.
16 Dota 2’s monthly active player count sits at just 10 million, while Fortnite—a recent hit video game sensation—reported north of 75 million last month.
But the most popular game in the world is League of Legends. Their monthly active player count is even higher than that of Fortnite’s.
Whether or not you believe that the future of sports belongs in the digital world doesn’t really matter.
What matters is that eSports are booming. Money keeps streaming into an industry which has captivated millennials.
Today, investors want to invest in an industry that has a large young audience (16-35), super-fast growth and multi-billion-dollar potential.
Right now, video gaming is that industry.
And good old Sam Brannan could never fathom how small the greatest gold rush in history would look in comparison to the digital gold rush.
Of course, that leads us to the question: how can we best profit from the continued growth of video games?
There are thousands of companies in dozens of sectors with exposure to the video game industry. But none of them benefit quite as much as the video game developers and publishers themselves.
These companies have figured out a revolutionary new monetization model that has transformed the video game industry.
AN ENORMOUS MONEY- MAKING OPPORTUNITY 17 HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS PER MONTH IN MICROTRANSACTIONS
The gaming profit-making model is called “microtransactions”.
And it has become the new standard for making massive profits from video games.
Traditionally, video game developers took on the sunk costs of developing, marketing and publishing video game titles. Once the video game was published, they would rely on sales of the game in order to make their money back.
However, in the past few years, the rise of microtransactions has completely changed how video game developers approach game design.
Under the old model, let’s say there was a video game—Grand Theft Auto, for example—that you wanted to play. You would head down to your local game store, pay them $60, and you would get your copy of the game.
You would then play it until you were bored of it. You’d then sell it back to your game store, lend it to your friends, or let it collect dust. Either way, the publishers of the game had already taken your money and were done with you.
Microtransactions have trumped that revenue model.
Nowadays, you can still buy Grand Theft Auto, but the game itself will come with its own online shop. In this online shop, you’ll be able to find in-game items that you might not be able to get from just playing the game itself— cool cars, fancy guns and new “skins”. These are all virtual, of course. And all with a real-money price tag attached.
To see what a big deal this is, in the chart below look at how microtransactions (in blue) are outpacing traditional game sales.
18 To many of us, the idea is ridiculous. “Why pay money for virtual items? They aren’t even real!”
Yet as you can see from the chart above, the revenue share of microtransactions in video games has far outstripped that of the traditional models.
It generated over three times as much cash on the PC platform last year as actual game sales did.
Even for larger gaming companies, which originally relied on the traditional model of revenue generation, the revenue shift has been steady.
Electronic Arts is one of the largest and most well-known video game publishers in the industry, with some of the most famous and well-received franchises under their umbrella. They own the Madden NFL and FIFA video game series, SimCity, Rock Band, Battlefield, Star Wars… the list goes on.
But even with such prolific games under its belt, many on an annual release schedule, Electronic Arts has been finding more significant success with its microtransactions, or “live services” model.
HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS PER MONTH IN MICROTRANSACTIONS 19 Over the past five years EA has, on average, derived 58.5% of its revenue from microtransactions.
Below is a chart of Electronic Arts’ revenue over the past few years, broken down into game sales versus microtransactions. As you can see, the split is steadily trending in favor of microtransactions.
With their Xbox Live Marketplace, Microsoft was the pioneer in this monetization model.
Since then, mobile games have helped turn microtransactions into a widespread social norm, particularly with the plethora of popular free-to- play, or “F2P,” games.
Pokémon Go, Angry Birds, Candy Crush and Clash of Clans are just a few of the more well-known examples of games that have made money off of the growth of millennials and their ever-present cellphones.
HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS PER MONTH IN MICROTRANSACTIONS 20 REACHING BILLIONS…AND MAKING BILLIONS
More recently, two video games have exploded in popularity. They've made billions in microtransactions for their respective developers and created a prototype for success in the evolving video game market.
The first is a game developed for PC called PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, or PUBG. It is an online multiplayer battle royale game, a survival game mode in which the last man standing wins.
In the first three days of its early access release in March 2017, PUBG made $11 million. By June, it had sold more than five million copies and earned more than $100 million in revenue.
Tencent Games is the largest publisher of video games in China. When it saw PUBG’s success, it approached the game’s developers about buying equity in the company and offered to publish the game in China.
The same month PUBG went into wide release, Tencent came to an agreement with the Chinese government to allow the game to be published in China.
In early 2018, it was localized and released by Tencent Games in China, while two mobile versions based on the game for Android and iOS were also released.
The games had a combined total of 75 million pre-registrations, and the iOS version ranked first on the Chinese download charts at launch.
PUBG became the fifth best-selling video game of all time in just ten months, coming in just ahead of Super Mario Bros. Over fifty million copies have been sold across all platforms as of June 2018.
PUBG drew in a little over $700 million in revenue in 2017, and the little- known company that created the battle royale game is now worth a staggering $4.6 billion.
Not bad, right? It gets better: The second game is nearly three times as big… and the game has barely been out for a year.
Fortnite was originally developed as a player versus environment (PvE) game.
Its developer, Epic Games (remember this name—it’s important later) sold 48.4% (now diluted to 40%) of the company to Chinese publisher Tencent for $330 million in exchange for help with development.
21 After years of Fortnite languishing in development, PUBG was released and became a near-instant worldwide phenomenon.
Epic realized that they could easily layer a battle royale mode on top of the game they had already developed. And they did so. In just under two months.
In September 2017, Epic released a new, free to play, player versus player (PvP) version of Fortnite called Fortnite Battle Royale, which would make money through microtransactions.
The new version gained over 10 million players during its first two weeks of release.
In the past year, Fortnite Battle Royale has become a massive commercial hit. It’s gained 125 million players and grossed more than $1.5 billion in revenue through microtransactions.
And it’s still pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars per month.
A game that was barely in development a year ago has already become a multibillion-dollar cultural phenomenon.
The success of PUBG and Fortnite clearly demonstrates the power of millennials and the massive rise of the video game industry.
22 STILL A WELL-KEPT SECRET
Despite all of this… the rise of millennials, their ongoing obsession with video games, the massive profits of video game developers and publishers…
You still don’t really hear anyone talking about video games.
News stations might talk about the latest hot game or app release. And business shows might discuss earnings at big video game companies such as Electronic Arts or Nintendo.
For the most part, though, video games seem to get glossed over by the media, as if they are irrelevant.
The industry is dominated by established developers like Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. and Electronic Arts Inc., which crank out predictable updates to franchises like Grand Theft Auto and Madden (now in its 29th version).
There are a few massive investment opportunities sleeping just beneath the surface of the water here—unseen by most.
This is just like Sutter’s Mill (discussed above), right before Sam Brannan started what became the California Gold Rush overnight.
eSports today are where pot stocks were in 2015.
Where Bitcoin was in 2016.
A few small companies have moonshot potential. And thus there is an opportunity to make a once-in-a-generation asymmetric bet.
The Special Situations team at Katusa Research is looking deep into several opportunities right now.
And we’ll feature one of them today…
23 MY #1 FAVORITE VIDEO GAME STOCK— AXION VENTURES (AXV:VN)
Remember when I mentioned Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite? They are a big deal. Years ago, they teamed up with a savvy group to create Epic Games China, now called Axion Games.
Axion Games was founded in 2006 as a joint venture between Epic Games and the company that I believe has strong potential in the video game market: Axion Ventures.
The company’s crown jewel is a video game, which we’ll discuss in-depth below.
The game has all the right ingredients:
• An initial release in China, the biggest gaming market in the world; • A launch partnership with Tencent, the biggest video game company in the world (more on these guys later); • A coming global release; • A proven monetization model; • An upcoming mobile version; • And last but not least, a rock star leadership team.
Axion Ventures Inc. (AXV.TSX-V), AXNVF.OTCQX) www.axionventures.com Price Share: C$0.87 MCap: C$205M As of: 01/17/2019 Shares SO: 239M FD: 254M As of: 01/17/2019 Options Open: 16M Price: C$0.57 Exp: 2021-2023 Cash US$3.4M Cash Debt: US$14.4M As of: 06/30/2018
As usual, let’s start with the team…
24 MANAGEMENT TEAM
John Todd Bonner – Chairman and CEO:
At the initial meeting with Todd, the first thing that came to mind was that this guy’s life story could be made into a Hollywood movie. A co-founder of Axion, Todd has led a colorful life that began near the ghettos of Philadelphia in the ‘70s and took him to Stanford, Wharton and eventually investment banking at Alex Brown in Baltimore.
After a short stint, Todd left investment banking to work on start-ups, most of which were wildly successful. Todd also spent many years working closely with Richard Li (one of the richest billionaires in Hong Kong) and his Pacific Century Group (PCG).
Todd’s first foray into the video game industry was around the turn of the millennium when he tried to mount a takeover of Activision through Pacific Century CyberWorks, a subsidiary of PCG, though that deal unfortunately fell through due to billionaire politics. Even then, Todd was already convinced that gaming, and in particular online gaming, would blow up in a significant way—especially in China.
Todd has decades of investment experience and serial entrepreneurship under his belt. Not to mention he's one of the first investors to take a serious look at the video gaming sector as a growth opportunity. Todd is someone we believe has the right knowledge and vision to lead Axion as it grows itself into a serious video game contender.
AXION VENTURES (AXV:VN) 25 Yoshihiro Obata – Director:
Yoshihiro has some thirty years in the tech industry, beginning with R&D work on a global fax mail system in the late ‘80s. He started and sold his own internet company—the first commercial internet exchange company in Japan—and then started another company, an ADSL wholesale company named eAccess.
Yoshihiro’s second company would also get bought out—to the tune of USD $2.3 billion. Following that, Yoshihiro ended up as the President and CEO of BizMobile, a commercial mobile device management firm. With relevant entrepreneurial and directorial experience in the tech sector in Asia, Yoshihiro is a strong asset on Axion’s board.
CAPITALIZATION STRUCTURE
Axion Ventures, the publicly listed company, is a holding company with a pipeline of projects in their portfolio—but our main focus is the subsidiary Axion Games. Axion Ventures currently owns 60% of Axion Games, and is in the process of increasing its ownership to more than 75%.
Half of Axion Ventures’ 238 million shares outstanding are held by insiders alone. 190 million (80%) of Axion's shares are held by insiders and close associates of the company.
In addition, 33 million of those shares are performance shares that have not yet been issued. Katusa readers should know how much having “skin in the game” means. And Axion’s management team definitely has a lot of skin in the game.
Below is a picture that shows the full ownership structure of Axion:
AXION VENTURES (AXV:VN) 26 As you can see above, Axion has close ties with Chinese game publishing titan Tencent, who I will be discussing in further detail in a moment.
Because of how tightly held Axion Ventures’ stock is, very little of it actually changes hands on a regular basis. The average daily volume over the past six months barely breaks the 25,000 mark.
If there was ever a stock to sit patiently and invest like an alligator in, this is it.
THE ASSET – RISING FIRE
In its early years, Axion (as Epic Games China) partnered with Epic Games on titles like Gears of War and Infinity Blade.
The billion-dollar battle royale game phenomenon we discussed earlier, Fortnite, was created by Epic Games.
People from the same game design team that co-created that game would go on to sign a publishing deal with Tencent in 2014 for what would become their own flagship game, and our focus: Rising Fire.
AXION VENTURES (AXV:VN) 27 Rising Fire is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online third-person shooter, or “F2P MMO TPS.” MMO means that players are able to interact with each other online in a persistent game world, and TPS means that they shoot each other with guns from a third-person view, as you can see below.
Rising Fire is currently only available on PC. A mobile tie-in is already out, and a full mobile version supporting cross-platform play is in the works.
AXION VENTURES (AXV:VN) 28 The game aims to deliver all of the “shooter” genres of gameplay—PvE, PvP and Battle Royale—in one package.
It also has RPG (role-playing game) mechanics, offering players a clear path of progression through the game, as well as extra opportunities for monetization.
All of these things are important to us as investors.
For example, F2P games are currently the best monetization model for video games, so it’s definitely a good thing that Rising Fire is F2P.
Cross-platform games allow people playing the same game on different platforms to play with each other.
This helps increase the size of the target audience instead of restricting it to, say, only PC gamers, or only Xbox gamers.
That’s another point in Rising Fire’s favor.
The best platform of them all is mobile. Last year, over 50% of all video game industry revenue was generated from the mobile segment alone.
However, games developed for computers and consoles generally need quite a bit of tweaking in order to work properly on a smartphone.
Rising Fire does already have some mobile tie-ins. But players of these tie-ins are not playing the same game that Rising Fire’s current PC players are. And there is less incentive to spend.
Axion is already working on a full mobile version of their game. In the meantime, the mobile tie-ins will help draw attention to and spread awareness of the main game.
Rising Fire was originally designed primarily as a PvE experience.
But the strong success of PUBG and Fortnite led to Tencent asking Axion to further develop its PvP game modes—and specifically, battle royale.
Remember, Fortnite was also originally developed as a PvE game. That mode has largely been left behind as the explosive success of battle royale shifted all resources into further development of that game mode.
A battle royale game is not difficult to build once the underlying game system
AXION VENTURES (AXV:VN) 29 and mechanics are in place.
Rising Fire’s PvP game modes will be able to offer a similar battle royale experience, amongst others. But it will also have a considerable amount more PvE content than Fortnite.
It will be able to offer the best of both worlds, which will help attract different kinds of players and increase player retention.
Another thing that will increase Rising Fire’s player retention is its RPG mechanics. RPG mechanics offer more immersion to players and provide a sense of progression, which helps keep players invested in a game.
It also provides additional avenues to microtransaction monetisation that purely PvP games lack.
Players can “Pay to Progress” by spending money to save time spent unlocking things in-game.
All these mechanics come together to form a video game that we believe has an excellent chance of replicating Fortnite’s runaway success.
Of course, a game doesn’t need to be a League of Legends or a Fortnite to be profitable.
If that were the case, there would be far fewer games available in the market than there are.
AXION VENTURES (AXV:VN) 30 Video Game Terminology
F2P: Free to Play refers to games Mobile Version: The exact same that are free to download and play. game and gameplay, but accessible Money is made from from a mobile device. Again, Fortnite. microtransactions within the game. Fortnite is currently the premier PvE: Player vs Environment, a style example. of game where a player (or group of players) fight against the computer, MMO: Massively Multiplayer or “environment.” Think Minecraft. Online game, where thousands or even tens of thousands of players PvP: Player vs Player, a style of game play in the same game world on the that pits a player (or team) against same server simultaneously. Think another player (or team). Think World of Warcraft. Fortnite or League of Legends.
TPS: Third Person Shooter, a Battle Royale: A specific PvP shooting game where the point of subgenre that pits multiple players view is provided by a camera (usually 100), sometimes teams, positioned behind the character. against each other in a free-for- Think Grand Theft Auto. all, with the last player or team standing victorious. Fortnite once Mobile Tie-in: A mobile game using more, though PlayerUnknown’s the same IP, but not the exact same Battle-grounds (PUBG) first gameplay as the PC or console version. brought it into prominence. Sometimes movies and other non- gaming franchises will get these too. RPG: Role-Playing Game, a game For example, popular Netflix TV series where your character becomes Stranger Things has a mobile tie-in. progressively stronger and gets better gear as you continue playing. Cross-platform: Available on more Players tend to immerse themselves than just one platform (PC, Xbox, in these types of games, taking on PS4, Switch), with players on the “role” of their character. World different platforms able to play with of Warcraft is, again, the prime each other. Think Fortnite. example.
31 BREAKING INTO THE CHINESE GAMING MARKET
But before we talk profitability and numbers, it’s important to understand Rising Fire’s launch market—China. And why we like it so much.
China is by far the single largest market for video games in the world.
As you can see from the chart below, China accounts for a quarter of the entire gaming industry’s revenue—over USD$30 billion a year.
But there’s something you may not know about China: Back in 2000, they banned the sale of video game consoles due to concerns that their children would waste too much time playing video games.
This ban was eventually lifted in 2015, but do you know what all those kids did in the meantime?
That’s right—they turned to PC games instead!
On top of the console game ban, further growth of PC gaming was fueled by the popularity of the “internet café” model in China and other Asian countries. Due to the relatively high cost of ownership of personal computers, internet cafés popped up everywhere in China. People would rather go to an internet café when they needed to use a computer than purchase their own.
32 As newer and newer games were released that required faster, better computers, Chinese gamers continued to visit internet cafés to play games on the high-end machines they could not afford themselves… keeping the cycle going.
Nearly 50% of Americans prefer gaming on a console as compared to just 27% who prefer gaming on a computer. In China, just over half of the gaming population consider themselves not only PC gamers, but online PC gamers. The total number of online PC gamers in China, 303 million people, is nearly the size of the total population of the United States!
Every day, more than 500 million people play video games in China—that’s more than the combined populations of Mexico, the United States and Canada.
More people are active gamers in China than the entire population of the European Union (that’s 28 countries). This is a big, big market.
This makes the Chinese gaming market an extremely attractive one to create a base in and expand from.
Of course, Axion has plans in place for an international release of Rising Fire. But China is the right place for Axion to start, especially given their partnership with Tencent.
On the next chart you’ll see how Tencent dwarfs global brand like Sony, Microsoft and Apple in gaming revenue.
BREAKING INTO THE CHINESE GAMING MARKET 33 Largest Video Game Companies by Revenue from Games $20B
$18B
$16B
$14B
$12B
$10B
$8B
$6B
$4B 2017 Video Game Revenue (USD, Billions) (USD, Revenue Game Video 2017 $2B
0 Tencent Sony Apple Microsoft Activision NetEase Google EA Nintendo Blizzard
Tencents R own iot Games, the developer of the world’s most popular game, League of Legends.
Supercell, a mobile game company, is also owned by Tencent. Supercell is known for games such as Clash of Clans and Clash Royale.
Tencent also owns nearly half of Epic Games, the makers of Fortnite.
Tencent has been key to the success of titles such as League of Legends, Clash of Clans and Fortnite because of its marketing power in China.
More importantly, Tencent also provides something nearly impossible to get anywhere else: Chinese government approval.
A major problem with launching video games in China is the fact that each video game requires a license of approval from the Chinese government. But this obstacle for other, non-Chinese video game companies works in Tencent’s favor.
They are able to use their position as the largest video game company in
BREAKING INTO THE CHINESE GAMING MARKET 34 China to help secure publishing deals. This is essentially a near-monopoly enjoyed by Tencent, and it is not going to change anytime soon.
Axion signed a 5-year publishing deal with Tencent for Rising Fire’s PC launch, and secured their license from the Chinese government well in advance of the game’s initial launch. The publishing deal with Tencent went into effect this past July, during the game’s alpha test launch, and will run through 2023.
With all of the paperwork and Chinese politics already dealt with, Rising Fire has a clear path ahead of them as they look to grow their player base and revenues.
So what kind of growth can we expect?
BREAKING INTO THE CHINESE GAMING MARKET 35 CHINESE E-GAMING COMPARABLES
Though Fortnite and PUBG are excellent examples of what can happen when a video game “hits it big,” it’s not just the Fortnites and PUBGs that are raking in the cash.
As you can see from the chart below, even before Fortnite or PUBG had their big breakout runs, free-to-play shooters were already well-represented.
Games that aren’t even discussed in North America are making hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue per year for the companies that own them.
One of the best grossing PC games of all time—another free-to-play shooter—is a game you’ve probably never heard of before.
In fact, if you asked your kids, chances are pretty good that they’ve never heard of it before either.
36 CrossFire, developed by a South Korean company and first released in China in 2007 by Tencent, is a game that never really took off outside of Asia.
In 2014, CrossFire had the highest revenue of any video game in the world.
By 2016, it had raked in a total of $6.8 billion. Even more important, the cash flow has been consistent since 2013.
Steady Revenue from CrossFire Despite Being a Little-Known Shooter $1.5B
$1.0B
$0.5B CrossFire's Annual Revenue (USD, Billions) (USD, Revenue Annual CrossFire's
0 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Another benefit for the developers of video games is that the cost to produce the game is recovered very quickly.
The launch of CrossFire, a game that is virtually unknown outside of China, recovered its full capital cost to build the game in the first four months after release. Other than minor costs to maintain the game with new options, the full revenue is essentially converted into earnings for the owner of the game.
The major success of CrossFire proves that a game does not need to be on the tip of every kid’s tongue to make an absolute fortune.
And even though multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games have been
CHINESE E-GAMING COMPARABLES 37 the most popular among Chinese gamers in recent years. CrossFire has been able to hold on to the Chinese and Asian market extremely well.
However, CrossFire is an aging game.
It has been in release for over a decade. Most of its current online shooter competition is only a year or two old.
Despite this, CrossFire has still been able to attract a huge audience, as the graphic below shows.
Tencent also has another older shooter in their portfolio called Ni Zhan (or Assault Fire, as it’s known around the world).
Assault Fire was published in China in 2011 by Tencent. Though the game never took off outside of Southeast Asia and South America, it was a moderate success.
It even earned a spot as a featured game at the World Cyber Games finals in 2013 (the largest eSports tournament in the world at the time).
With Assault Fire getting old, Tencent has chosen to replace it in its game lineup.
The game they’ve chosen to replace it is Axion’s Rising Fire.
CHINESE E-GAMING COMPARABLES 38 Tencent has more gaming user data than any company in the world. They would not replace a moderate success like Assault Fire unless the data proved that Rising Fire (Axion’s game) would create more revenue for Tencent.
Support for Assault Fire has already been discontinued. And the gamers who used to play Assault Fire are now being redirected by Tencent to Rising Fire.
Tencent’s aim is to recycle the Assault Fire player base and to target players of CrossFire looking for a newer experience.
The final piece of the plan is to catch the battle royale crowd with PvP game modes identical to Fortnite and PUBG.
Tencent will be aiming to lock up a significant part of China’s shooter gamer demographic with Rising Fire’s updated graphics and various modes of gameplay.
CHINESE E-GAMING COMPARABLES 39 ANALYZING RISING FIRE – THE GAME
With the comparables out of the way, let’s take a closer look at Rising Fire itself.
After all, Axion’s performance rests heavily on how much traction Rising Fire can gain among Chinese gamers.
The game has already been made available to a select audience chosen by Tencent.
Major video games tend to have a staged release cycle, beginning with “alpha” and “beta” tests. These tests involve releasing early versions of the game to a select group of gamers.
The gamers are usually invited at random from a pool of applicants. This way, they can assess the software and provide feedback on things like gameplay and features.
While these tests are good ways for the game developer to fix bugs in their game, it’s also a good way to gauge interest in the game.
An important metric to look at for any game is the “retention rate.”
The retention rate refers to the percent of people who are still playing the game after a certain period of time (in essence, how “sticky” the game is).
When you open up your phone and look at your apps, you probably see some that you haven’t used in months. Others you probably haven’t even touched since installing.
It’s the same for video games.
With fast internet, it’s very easy for people to download a new game, try it out once and never play it again.
So it’s important to see how many new players are still playing the game days or weeks down the road.
Retention rates fall most sharply between the first day a user downloads a game and seven days after.
After that, it typically only falls by a couple of percentage points each day until the 30-day mark. After a month, retention rates stabilize.
40 That’s why 7-day and 30-day retention rates are the most often used benchmarks when analyzing a game’s staying power.
If you look through Axion’s news releases, you’ll see that Rising Fire achieved a 30-day retention rate of 54%. And this was during its closed beta test in late 2017, before the game was released to the public.
In other words, a month after the game launched, 54% of the people who originally downloaded the game were still playing.
This is a very high number, but that’s mainly due to the nature of beta tests. Closed beta tests are only open to a select number of gamers who are invited to participate from a pool of people who apply.
So the only people who downloaded the game in the first place are ones who already had enough interest to sign up for a chance to participate in the game’s beta test (over 100,000 gamers).
A more interesting number for us to look at is how the game did after its public launch, which is listed in the table below. The number that stands out is Rising Fire’s 7-day retention rate: 20%.
RISING FIRE HIGHLIGHTS—FIRST 30 DAYS Total Downloads: 226,000 7-Day Retention Rate: 20% Average Playing Time per Day: 112 Minutes Peak Daily Active Users (DAU): 42,000+ Average Revenue per Paying User (ARPPU)*: USD $10.60
* The ARPPU above shows a 30-day period starting from July 6th
To put that number into perspective, the average 7-day retention rate for new mobile games sits just under 15%.
For Axion’s partner Tencent, the mark used to judge a game’s success is also 15%.
Put simply, Rising Fire has done markedly better (33% better) than its peers in terms of being able to keep its players interested enough in the game to keep playing.
The game had a major update at the end of August, and retention rates following the update spiked up to 26% during September.
ANALYZING RISING FIRE - THE GAME 41 This is excellent.
It means Tencent will be looking to invest more resources like advertising dollars into Rising Fire.
Rising Fire downloads were in the mid-300,000 range as of mid-September. Tencent is employing a staged release with Rising Fire before it launches the game to its entire network.
It has only actively marketed the game to a select 1.5 million gamers on its WeGame network. That network, operating under the same umbrella as popular messaging app WeChat, has a total audience of over 200 million gamers.
So only a tiny fraction has had the chance to see Rising Fire so far.
Despite the small initial audience, Rising Fire was still able to hit a peak daily active user count of 42,000 in its first month of release.
This compares favorably to other well-known games, such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. It’s the most recent installment of a long-running game franchise, and it saw a 52,300 peak in its first month of release.
Rising Fire also compares well to Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, with a 20,000 peak in active users in the same time frame.
All preliminary data points suggest Rising Fire will be an economic success.
ARPPU, or Average Revenue per Paying User, is another important metric used to judge the success of a game’s launch.
Rising Fire’s ARPPU of USD$10.60 compares favorably with the 2017 average mobile game ARPPU of around $7.
These numbers tell us that Rising Fire has been able to generate more traction within the player segment it has been restricted to than similar games.
The player audience is expected to continue growing as well…
Tencent continues to roll out its staged release cycle for Rising Fire. It will eventually hit 15 million, and then 100 million+ gamers on the WeGame network.
What’s important to ask now is this: How big can it get from here? ANALYZING RISING FIRE - THE GAME 42 RISING REVENUE
There are three cases I’ll consider for Rising Fire’s growth:
1. It’s a smash hit and becomes the new Fortnite in China.
2. It does moderately well and performs like other moderately successful Tencent titles.
3. It fails to gain ground elsewhere and maintains its current engagement rate within the Chinese gamer audience.
While I do see potential for Rising Fire to take off like Fortnite has, it’s always important to consider the worst-case bear scenario.
So let’s see what our potential player count growth looks like, given our three possible cases:
ANALYZING RISING FIRE - THE GAME 43 From these numbers, we can project possible revenue growth. We’ll use a range of Average Revenue per User (ARPUs) as well (note that the ARPU— single ‘P’—is simply the ARPPU multiplied by the proportion of paying users):
While the Fortnite growth scenario would provide astronomical returns to Axion, we can’t rely on Rising Fire to do that well.
The success of Katusa Research lies in mitigating our downside risk.
If we can make money in a most probable scenario, we will do incredibly well if our conservative models are proven to be too conservative.
So with that, let’s focus on the worst possible scenario out of the three.
1. We’ll assume that Rising Fire will fail to gain widespread popularity amongst the PC gaming market (both Chinese and international).
2. We’ll do this by projecting a final total of 15 million downloads for Rising Fire (for comparison, Axion’s first self-released title, MARS, launched in China in 2011, hit 23 million downloads). Note: For our worst-case scenario, we are assuming 30% fewer downloads than Axion’s previous game, which is inferior in all ways to Rising Fire.
3. We’ll also assume that they retain an ARPU of around CAD$3, instead of growing it up to the Chinese average of $30+. Again, we are taking only 10% of the Chinese average. We are doing this to show how conservative our approach is.
We will also need to take into account the fact that Axion Games only sees about 26% of the revenue from Rising Fire.
The bulk of it goes to Tencent to handle advertising, distribution and server costs for the game in China. ANALYZING RISING FIRE - THE GAME 44 We’ll assume a similar revenue share model for publishing deals they secure outside of China as well, even though Axion will likely be able to do better elsewhere. For instance, Steam, the world’s largest video game distribution platform, only takes a 30% cut. This means that 70% would stay with Axion.
On top of this, we also assume a conservative growth case for Axion’s outsourcing revenue, which we expect to remain steady. Though there is potential for significant growth here as well.
Taking all this into consideration, we can build out a cash flow model as seen in the chart below.
For a worst-case scenario, it’s very promising financially.
ANALYZING RISING FIRE - THE GAME 45 As we’ve mentioned before, it is important to remember that it’s not just the Fortnites and League of Legends that are making money in the video game industry. If that were the case, nobody would be making games.
There are plenty of game companies out there that are producing mediocre or niche games and still generating strong positive cash flow.
But mediocre and niche is not what we’re looking for in our investments.
Fortunately, Axion has one major advantage over its competition…
Thanks to their partnership with Tencent, they have a direct bypass into the largest PC gaming market in the world (China). And free advertising in the Chinese market.
This is one of the main reasons that we believe Rising Fire has the potential to see Fortnite levels of success.
As always though, we want to sandbag our worst case scenario numbers in order to ensure we are getting the most value out of our investment dollar.
This is doubly applicable for video game companies, because it can be difficult to accurately predict just how popular a game will be. For example, it took CrossFire four years after its initial launch to rise to its spot atop the revenue charts.
However, China is not the end of the road for Rising Fire. As I’ve mentioned before, there are a couple of very strong catalysts not currently in play for Axion that I believe will help the game really take off.
But we have shown that even in a worst-case scenario, Axion has a winner.
When we start showing the most realistic scenario of Rising Fire being a moderate success, the cash flow becomes insane.
If that is the case, Axion’s share price would be a five-bagger from here immediately.
ANALYZING RISING FIRE - THE GAME 46 CATALYSTS FOR GROWTH China is the largest single market for video gaming in the world. If a game is a success in China, it's already a massive win for investors.
However, China only represents 25% of the world’s gaming market.
In other words, accessing the global market would open Rising Fire to an audience three times its previous market. And with potential player count and revenue growth to match.
Rising Fire’s gameplay is written in Chinese. But Axion keeps an English build of the game maintained alongside the current Chinese version, even though it is currently unavailable.
Right now, the English version of the game is exactly the same as the latest Chinese version of the game currently available to play on Tencent’s servers. Axion is in talks with video game publishers to find the right company to distribute Rising Fire outside of China.
The expected target date for an international release is mid-2019. That timeline will also allow for Axion to use the feedback from its Chinese players to put out an even more polished product.
Another key for Rising Fire’s success is the development of the mobile version of the game. While there are already mobile tie-ins to Rising Fire, the purpose of these tie-ins is just to draw attention to Rising Fire and to spread awareness of the game’s brand.
What we're waiting for is the full mobile version of the game.
That would mean that people would be able to log in to their Rising Fire accounts and play the same character and same game that they do on the PC… except from their mobile devices.
This is what Fortnite currently has—and it’s a printing press for profits.
Axion’s development team is working hard on the mobile version of Rising Fire. The expected release date for this mobile version is also in mid-2019 which aligns with the expected release of the global version of the game.
And I need to remind you that Axion—not Tencent—still retains the mobile distribution rights for Rising Fire both globally AND within China.
If Axion is able to put out a mobile version of Rising Fire at the same time they release the game internationally, it will be a big win for their books, and for investors as well. 47 A MASSIVE GROWTH OPPORTUNITY
We can see that there’s tremendous growth opportunity for Rising Fire and Axion. But even without taking the above catalysts into account, Axion will still be able to turn a profit.
Based on our projections for Axion’s revenue from Rising Fire, using numbers for a worst case scenario, we arrive at a valuation of CAD$1.14 per share.
To get this number, we also assume interest in Rising Fire dies off rapidly after the first three years. However, Axion and Tencent have plans to support Rising Fire for up to a decade. Updated versions and new content are an obvious and easy move that has been proven to work in the past.
If Rising Fire is able to emulate Fortnite’s success—$10 million in revenue a day—our valuation quickly soars to well over CAD$10 a share.
But of course, even if Rising Fire doesn’t become the next Fortnite, there is still plenty of upside potential to be found in the company.
Realistically, Rising Fire’s performance will likely end up somewhere in the middle.
The stock could deliver a solid return from its current price point. And could set Axion up in a strong position for future projects.
There is also a strong possibility that if Axion is even a moderate success, Tencent would just buy out Axion for their cash flow and own Rising Fire 100%.
We’ve already seen full and partial buyouts happen before with developers like Riot Games (League of Legends), Supercell (Clash of Clans, Clash Royale) and Epic Games (Fortnite), to name but a few.
In addition, earlier I mentioned that Axion Ventures (the main company) has a few other projects. My projections give zero valuation to all those projects.
But let’s get into one of them…
Innovega is a company developing a “smart contact lens”—like Google Glass, except on your contacts.
This is an exciting venture that even Tencent has invested in. It’s a free lottery ticket that is not valued in the share price today.
Axion is a very tightly held stock, and since the beginning of the year it has traded in a narrow band between CAD$0.80-$1.00. 48 The next step on the road for Axion would be for Tencent to approve expanding marketing and distribution of Rising Fire past its initial target market of 1.5 million gamers. Until this happens, I don’t foresee any significant moves from Axion’s share price.
Rising Fire will be the primary driver for Axion’s growth and revenue for the next few years.
By March 2019, we should be able to see the completion of Axion Ventures’ acquisition of their additional share in Axion Games, at least two more player retention and revenue updates, and the staged release for Rising Fire moving towards the 15-million-gamer mark.
If player base growth and average spend for Rising Fire stay on track through this time period, expect explosive growth from Axion mid-to-late next year as all of Rising Fire’s catalysts come fully online and the microtransaction flood-gates open.
SUMMARY – AXION VENTURES (AXV.VN)
Axion currently trades between CAD$0.85-$0.95 on the TSX Venture exchange.
Axion Ventures is also listed on the U.S. OTC markets as AXNVF.
Below you’ll find our executive summary table on Axion Ventures:
Rating Buy Target Price C$4.00 Base Case C$1.14 Upper Bound C$10.00 Return to Target 443% Risk Rating High
–Katusa Research
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FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS
Forward looking information: All statements in this report, other than statements of historical fact should be considered forward-looking statements. These statements relate to future events or future performance. Forward-looking statements are often, but not always identified by the use of words such as “seek”, “anticipate”, “plan”, “continue”, “estimate”, “expect”, “may”, “will”, “project”, “predict”, “potential”, “targeting”, “intend”, “could”, “might”, “should”, “believe” and similar expressions. Much of this report is comprised of statements of projection. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements. Risks and uncertainties respecting companies are generally disclosed in the annual financial or other filing documents of those and similar companies as filed with the relevant securities commissions, and should be reviewed by any reader of this report.
For more information on Axion Ventures please contact their Investor Relations department (Matt Sroka) at 604-780-4298.
This report was first published on October 26, 2018. 51