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New listing of the company CDA S.A.

Shares of the company CDA S.A. were first listed on NewConnect on 8 May 2019.

CDA is the 385^th company listed on NewConnect and the sixth new listing on NewConnect in 2019.

Key information

*at the proposed reference price: PLN 5.50

Issuer’s history and business

CDA.pl dates back to 2004. The company CwMedia sp. z o.o. sp. k. (the issuer’s legal predecessor) was established in 2012 as the operator of CDA.pl. The founder’s father Jarosław Ćwiek joined the Company and is currently its CEO.

In late 2014, the company decided to gradually change the profile of the portal. CDA improved its copyright protection measures. It developed a panel for copyright holders to filter and remove CDA content. In early 2015, a partner programme was launched for verified content providers: Youtubers, professional video authors, including options of access to live revenue statistics for authors as well as a geoblock.

In November 2015, the company started work aiming to modify its business model and launch a VOD service under the CDA Premium brand, available to subscribers (monthly subscriptions).

The sVOD (subscription VOD) service launched in January 2016 was a turning point in the history of the service. CDA Premium launched in January 2016 to address the fast-growing VOD market and to tap the monetisation potential with the existing user base. The business strategy focused on the development of the new segment. The content base grew dynamically.

In view of the dynamic development of the VOD section, CwMedia sp. z o.o. sp. k. was transformed into a joint-stock company. The registration court issued a decision entering CwMedia S.A. to the National Court Register, entry number KRS 0000671280, on 3 April 2017.

In 2018, the issuer’s management decided to discontinue selling advertising space at auction platforms, which were the main channel of ad sales in the publicly available section of user generated content. As of May 2018, CDA.pl generates revenue mainly by selling ads accompanying content posted by verified users and partners (aVOD ads in the CDA Premium Free section). By terminating relations with intermediaries selling ad space, the company was in a position to monitor the content and origin of ads. Those measures followed strategic decisions made in 2016.

Today CDA S.A. is the operator of Poland’s biggest independent VOD service under the brand CDA Premium. The service offers access to high-quality feature films and series as subscription VOD (sVOD).  The range of videos available in CDA Premium is developed only in partnership with official film distributors, publishers, as well as agents who hold the copyright in published content.

The company also provides users with free of charge aVOD (advertisement VOD) content in the CDA Premium Free service. The content mainly includes videos published by verified users who post their own content in the public part of the portal. Film distributors and agents can post feature films available as aVOD in the CDA Premium section.

The portal also operates a hosting social platform where users not verified by the Company may add content (user generated content). Access to user generated content is available free of charge to all users.

CDA.pl’s business model is based on monetisation of sales of CDA Premium subscriptions (sVOD) and the broadcast of ads in CDA Premium Free (aVOD).

Issuer’s development plans

The Company is planning to maximise the reach of the service through development in four areas:

• VOD – licences from film distributors, focused development of the CDA Premium segment;
• smartTV – development of a responsive smartTV application;
• Mobile – development of a mobile application to increase monetisation in the mobile channel;
• Additional functionalities of the portal – addition of user account management and configuration functions to enable content profiling. For example, a kids section will allow parents to manage the channel and approve the kids’ access to content, watching time, etc.

Selected financials of the issuer (PLN’000):

Public offering

The company completed a public offering of shares in December 2017. The shares were offered from 23 November 2017 to 8 December 2017 by Polski Dom Maklerski S.A.

The public offering included 1,000,000 shares.

154,645 shares were allotted on 18 December 2017.

Issue price: PLN 5.50.

Total value of offered shares: PLN 850,547.50.

The shares were taken up by 158 shareholders. 

Shareholders: