Exclusive: Virtue Fusion CEO resigns
Aaron Johnson, chief executive of Playtech's B2B bingo arm Virtue Fusion, resigns but Israeli company understood to be prepared to offer him financially lucrative position to retain his services.
Aaron Johnson, chief executive of Playtech’s B2B bingo arm Virtue Fusion, has resigned, with the Israeli company understood to be prepared to offer him a more financially lucrative position in order to retain his services, eGaming Review can exclusively reveal.
Johnson, one of founder and majority shareholder Teddy Sagi’s closest advisors and executives, is understood to have resigned and left the business last week following an alleged “falling out” with Sagi, a source close to the matter told eGR.
eGR has since learned, however that the software supplier is considering offering him another so far unspecified role in order to keep him on board.
Johnson has worked with Sagi and has been with the company for close to nine years in a number of roles. He was described by one source as one of the “powers behind the throne” at Playtech leading its bingo business and behind some of its most lucrative licensee wins in the last two years.
These include Paddy Power and Betfair signing up for and extending casino, bingo and mobile software agreements with the latter announcing its contract terms yesterday. The Betfair deal however is said to have been agreed and signed six months ago with Johnson at the heart of negotiations.
He is also known to have been the “main liaison” between Playtech and online joint venture partner William Hill and was among a handful of senior executives to fly out to Tel Aviv last October in order to attempt to appease the 185 staff who staged a mass walk out in protest at executives reportedly preparing to move the operation to Gibraltar. One source close to the matter called him the “acceptable face of Playtech”.
William Hill is due to announce details over the future of its deal with Playtech in the coming weeks with a number of industry commentators suggesting it needs to retain more control over the venture following several high-profile disputes including a high court injunction last year.
Prior to taking charge of Virtue Fusion, Johnson was instrumental in setting up Playtech’s live casino business in Manila in the Philippines as well as working for Sagi’s PTTS business as operations director. Sagi sold PTTS, the holding company for Europartners “ one of the industry’s largest affiliate programmes “ to Playtech last year for an initial 140m with the business’ exceptional performance in the second quarter of 2012 triggering an accelerated payment of an additional consideration of 140m in July.