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Sweden – Paf buys Speedy and Speedy Originals from Hero Gaming
By Phil - 4 August 2021
Åland gaming company Paf has bought the Swedish licensed online gaming brands Speedy and Speedy Originals from Hero Gaming.
The Swedish gaming company Hero Gaming, best known for its brands such as Speedyspel and SpeedyCasino, has over the past three years managed to increase its Swedish revenues by over 500 percent. The Swedish Speedy brands and revenues are now being sold through a structured sale to the operator Paf.
The agreement means that Hero Gaming sells the two subsidiaries Speedy Ltd and Speedy Originals Ltd, which each have a Swedish license, as well as the brands Speedycasino, Speedybet and Speedyspel. The buyer of the companies is the operator Paf, which in turn is owned by the Åland Provincial Government. Paf has a long-term strategy to grow in regulated markets such as Sweden.
Tomas Bäckman CEO, Hero Gaming, said: “Hero Gaming was founded 2013 and in the last couple of years we have seen a fantastic growth of the business and felt we needed to come up with a strategy to pay back some dividends to our shareholders. The founder, Georg Westin together with our main shareholders, have not been interested in selling off the whole group which is why this part-exit was a win-win strategy for everyone. We have been working on structuring this sale for the last 1,5 years with setting up the companies, applying for new Swedish licenses and moving the brands for sale into the companies that are now being sold. If looking at the first quarter 2021 Sweden accounted for approximately 15% of our total revenues. So as said, this is not to be seen as an exit from our side, rather the opposite – we’re optimizing our company structure and strategy for continued growth while at the same time paying back some well-deserved dividend to our patient shareholders”
Christer Fahlstedt, CEO, Paf, comments: “The Speedy brands were perfect for Paf’s investment in the Swedish market. We have a long-term strategy and strong faith in the future in the regulated Swedish gaming market. With the acquisition, we will move to a top six position in the Swedish market, which is completely in line with where we want to be. Our goal is to remain a strong player in Sweden for many years to come. Hero Gaming has done a good job with the gaming sites and they will be a good complement for us in the future. We do not have an interest in taking over the gaming sites unless their customers are largely at a gaming level that we accept. Customers will notice that we value responsible gaming very strongly, and expect any acquisitions to have the same level of responsible gaming that we have on Paf’s other gaming sites.”
So what does the future hold for Hero Gaming?
Mr. Bäckman added: “Hero Gaming is first and foremost a technology company with its own platform. We will now put even more focus on this fact by providing more of our technology development and services to our selected B2B partners who focus on non-European markets such as Asia and Latin America. The world is big and by putting more focus on providing more locally placed products and content to our selected partners through our advanced technology, we believe we can create even higher shareholder value in the long run.”
