Exclusive interview with Per Norman, Mr Green CEO

"We are moving into a new phase where we can be much more aggressive"

Major gambling operator Mr Green recently published its financial results which showed interesting H1 earnings which CEO Per Norman discussed with Yogonet International.
2016-07-29
Reading time 2:45 min
Major gambling operator Mr Green recently published its financial results which showed interesting H1 earnings which CEO Per Norman discussed with Yogonet International.

Mr Green CEO Per Norman thinks the company is ready to give the “next step” and move into a “new phase” having left behind months of “plumbing and fixing” - though he is sure that is a “never-getting-over” task. Well, efforts must have paid off because the gambling operator recently announced its financial results for the second quarter and the first half of the year. According to the figures disclosed, quarterly revenue amounted to SEK211.2 million, up 8.1% year-on-year as compared to the figure posted for the same period a year ago.

“We have over the last quarters done a lot of groundwork to put together our new platform, to launch the sportsbook, to do a lot of engineering at the background. This, of course, led to a revenue decline, for we stayed conservative on the marketing side. But in April, when several of these things were finally ready to go live, it was natural for Mr Green to start pushing for more. Having recently launched our sportsbook, we're seeing our efforts pay off. Mr Green's performance in Q2 is an indicator that the growth is coming back,” Mr. Norman said in an exclusive interview with Yogonet International, aslo highlighting the arrival to the firm of Jesper Karrbrink back in April to lead the Malta-based management team.

“He has a strong combination of knowing the industry but also working with a lot of companies outside the inustry,” he noted praising Mr. Karrbrink's experience in sales and marketing which seems to have been the icing on Mr Green's cake.

“We have been plumming and fixing over the past 1-2 years. Its never getting over but we are moving into a new phase where we can be much more aggressive and use the new platfform and the introduction of the new sportsbook to focus more on sales and marketing. He arrived just for Mr Green's next step.”

So, is Mr Green going to expand its business to new verticals? Yogonet International asked Per Norman about Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) and what investment possibilities might be looming on the horizon.

“A few years ago, we looked into introducing a social gaming company that was launching casino games on Facebook at the time. However, we decided to back out after making some mistakes. When it comes to DFS, you need to have the knowledge and skills before entering the market. At Mr Green, we feel there's still a long way to go before expanding into DFS. The possibilities within the casino and sports betting sectors are huge, and we're also looking to expand geographically. At the moment, we're much more focused on what we're doing on the casino side than in DFS.”

With clear future perspectives and the casino and sports betting continuing to open up many “huge possibilities,” Per Norman analyzes the industry following the recent wave of mergers and acquisitions that had, for instance, 888 Holdings and Rank Group evaluating a joint bid to acquire ailing William Hill. According to Mr. Norman, the gaming business is going through a “natural transition”.

“A lot of the mergers taking place make perfect sense. The industry is going through a period of transition: from unregulated revenues into more regulated markets. It's a very natural transition,” he noted and explained why Mr Green is planning to shift to Nasdaq Stockholm.

“From Mr Green perspective we have always grown organically. One of the reasons we actually are now working to change the listing of our shares to Nasdaq Stockholm –we are planning to shift to Nasdaq during 2016–, is that in the long term we see that Nasdaq Stockholm gives better opportunities to get funding, to raise funding if we need that to be active. Having said that, though, I don't see that that necessarily it has to happen in 2016 or 17, but from a long-term perspective I would say that it would be a natural process to be anticipating those changes and that I think that moving to Nasdaq Stockholm will support us in such case."

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