Trufin: Balatro poker craze boosts finance company to profit

Financial services firm Trufin is set to announce an adjusted profit before tax “significantly ahead of market expectations” thanks to its video game arm publishing the indie hit Balatro.

Trufin is now preparing to report its first ever full year profit, a year earlier than had been expected.

While the group is primarily known as a financial services firm, its Playstack arm focuses on mobile games publishing.

This year it published Balatro, an indie game which has skyrocketed to success and won ‘Best Independent Game’ and ‘Best Mobile Game’ at the 2024 Game Awards, leading to “exceptional year-end performance” for the group.

The poker rogue-like brought in more than $1m in its first week of release from iOS and Android devices, while making more than $4m in the first two months after its mobile release, according to reports.

Operating profit at Playstack is expected to have risen by more than 20 times, with revenue up more than 440 per cent.

“The success of Balatro should not be underestimated and it has been a joy to watch it build throughout the year,” said Trufin chief executive James van den Bergh.

“These achievements would not have been possible without our extremely disciplined and careful approach to building a robust and scalable games publisher.”

This boost from Balatro has meant Trufin’s adjusted operating profit is expected to come in at more than £7m for 2024, compared to a £3.5m loss in 2023.

Meanwhile, profit before tax is set to be more than £500,000, compared to a £6.6m loss in the previous year, while revenue is expected to have risen to about £54m, almost triple the group’s £18.1m reported in 2021.

Trufin, which floated on the London Stock Exchange in 2018, saw its stock price fall by more than a third in July after its Satago Financial Solutions business was faced with an early agreement termination from Lloyds.

The high-street bank’s decision to withdraw the agreement cut Trufin’s revenue significantly, with its subsidiary Satago Financial Solutions now expecting revenue to fall from £3.8m to £2.4m in 2024.

Since the termination with Lloyds, the group’s stock price has recovered from the blow, rising 83 per cent in the last year.

The group’s other business, Oxygen Finance Group, is expected to see a 21 per cent growth in revenue, with operating profit rising 65 per cent to £2.1m.

“I look forward to providing a more detailed update during Trufin’s annual results statement,” added van den Bergh.

“In the meantime, I would like to again thank our shareholders for their ongoing support.”