Betsson acquisitions to continue, says former CEO

Former Betsson chief executive Magnus Silfverberg believes the firm will soon follow-up on its recent purchase of Georgia-facing Europe-Bet and remain an active player in industry consolidation.

Speaking to eGaming Review moments after delivering his last set of Betsson results on Friday, his final day at the firm, Silfverberg said the operator was enjoying a period of sustained growth thanks to a dual strategy of organic growth and international acquisitions.

“We are looking out for non-Nordic, preferably locally regulated or to be locally regulated revenues, so that’s our focus right now [and] we are listening to all proposals that come our way,” Silfverberg said.

“Part of our strategy has been to really broaden our geographical footprint and improve our regulated mix and the acquisition of Europe-Bet is an important step and there might well be more steps to make,” he added.

Betsson chairman Pontus Lindwall has taken on the role of CEO on an interim basis as the board looks for a permanent successor to Silfverberg – a process Silfverberg said he had chosen to play no role in.

And Silfverberg, who has left to join big data firm Bisnode as chief executive, said he had no words of advice to offer the experienced Lindwall, who himself led the firm in the years prior to Silfverberg becoming CEO in 2011.

“It’s not up to me set the strategy now but what I can say is that the strategy we have had of combining acquisition with organic growth has been extremely successful,” Silfverberg said.

“During the next few years we’ll see quite a lot of M&A activity as more markets move towards regulation and the initial wave of acquisitions will happen in those markets when companies start to realise the incoming regulation will have a detrimental impact – which was the case in the Netherlands for us,” he added.

According to Silfverberg, Friday’s results, which showed H1 and Q2 revenues had grown 19% and 14% respectively, were due to growth in the UK and its Netherland’s facing Oranje and Kroon brands, which were acquired in early 2014.

“The last six months couldn’t have gone better – to finalise with the deal of Europe-Bet and after that this report, I’m very lucky to be able to deliver such an ending to my term,” Silfverberg said.

“Our acquisitions are delivering, particularly the Dutch one, so there’s strong growth there and all the internal optimisation initiatives that we have done are also paying off and investments in new markets such as UK and Italy are really starting to drive our growth now too.”

The results disclosure also saw Silfverberg discuss the £54m acquisition of Europe-Bet, which he said would remain on its own platform for at least the next year.

“We are not in a hurry to migrate,” Silfverberg said. “However it is a big upside when we do migrate it as we think the Techsson platform is well ahead of the Europe-Bet platform but we’ll take our time to ensure we get things right and we’ll probably do it within the next 12-18 months,” he added.

Silfverberg said Betsson would retain what he described as a “very good” a management team while there would also be a place at the firm for one of its former owners.