Hillman appointed permanent CEP at NetEnt

The board of directors at NetEnt has appointed Therese Hillman new group CEO, with effect on May 22, 2018.

Hillman has been CFO of NetEnt since January 2017 and acting CEO since March 2018.

Before joining NetEnt, Hillman worked in the e-commerce industry for 10 years and was the CEO of Gymgrossisten, a subsidiary of Qliro Group. She has also been a member of the board of Unibet, and has an M.Sc. in Accounting and Finance from the Stockholm School of Economics.

”We are pleased to appoint Therese Hillman as new Group CEO. Therese has a clear business focus and is an appreciated leader with great energy. NetEnt is pioneering the online gaming industry and is taking the next step to be at the forefront of business focus and innovation. With Therese’s abilities, we get the right person to lead the company in the next growth phase”, said NetEnt’s chairman of the board, Fredrik Erbing in a company statement Monday.

Capital markets day presentation

In related news, NetEnt is holding a capital markets day to present more detailed financial information on the group and its products, at which Hillman and other group execs will provide a business and strategy update and a market outlook for NetEnt.

For the first time, the company presents revenues by geographic region and by customer size class. Additionally, the estimated revenue impact from the upcoming Swedish gaming tax is given, and a new product within Social Casino will be beta-launched today (Tuesday).

Hillman commented in a statement Tuesday:

”We have initiated changes to enable better execution of our strategy, focusing on cost control and new growth initiatives utilizing existing resources. Through a new, exciting product initiative we are now beta-launching a selection of our games on Facebook in the gaming form called Social Casino, which could generate new revenues in the mid- to longer-term perspective.”

Regulated markets form an important part of NetEnt’s growth strategy and the company aims to be ready to operate on the re-regulated Swedish market from the expected start on January 1, 2019, given that the new regulation takes place according to the most recent proposal.

NetEnt’s current total revenues will be negatively impacted by an estimated 2.5 percentage points due to the proposed new gaming tax in Sweden.

The company advises that its revenue split by player country in Q1-2018 was:

Sweden 14 percent
Other Nordic 18 percent
United Kingdom 14 percent
Other Europe 47 percent
Other World 8 percent

Based on customer size classes, NetEnt’s share of revenues in FY 2017 were split:

Customer 1-3 21 percent
Customer 4-10 27 percent
Customer 11-20 17 percent
Customer 21-40 17 percent
Other customers 17 percent

NetEnt is targeting shareholder cash returns of at least 60 percent of profit after tax, subject to the company’s long-term capital requirement.