Online affiliate sites manager Catena Media plc (STO:CTM) released its Q3 results showing a decrease in revenue which clearly disappointed the markets, sending the company’s shares tumbling by 17% in Thursday trading.

Q3 revenue for Malta-based Catena came in at €24.9 million, down 6% YoY. Company management termed Q3 a “short term revenue disruption”, and indicated it was shifting its focus into the US and Latin America which were both showing promise. Catena CEO Per Hellberg noted,

“Continued strong performance in the US and the recent strategic review reveal a bright future.”

Interestingly, Catena noted that it was making “no further investments into the Financial Services segment”, which has clearly been a disappointment for the company. In 2017-2018 Catena made a concerted effort to grow from its base of gaming affiliate websites into the “financials” area, spending tens of millions of dollars in acquiring a number of (mainly) FX broker affiliate websites such as DeutscheFXBroker.de, BrokerDeal.de, ForexTraders.com, TheBull.com.au, TheBull.asia, FatCat.com.au, LearnTrading.com.au, LearnCFDs.com, hammerstonemarkets.com, and Leaprate.com.

The company brought in FXcompared.com executive Nigel Frith in early 2018 to head the Financials group out of London. However the Financials group has been generating only about 5-6% of corporate revenue for Catena. And as noted the company has now announced that it was freezing any further investments into the Financials segment.

With the “no further investments” freeze in place it is unclear if at this stage Catena will continue to run all the sites as is, or if it will shut some down and/or seek to sell some or all of its FX affiliate sites.