Intertain eyes second 2014 acquisition
InterCasino and Costa Bingo owner looking at bingo and casino deals and reveals social gaming sector could form part of growth plans
Intertain CEO John Fitzgerald says the company plans to be “very acquisitive” moving forwards with plans to acquire another company by the end of the year, following its £60m takeover of the Mandalay Media Group.
Speaking to investors after the Toronto-based company released its Q2 financial results yesterday, Fitzgerald said the social gaming sector was of particular interest with plans to launch a free-to-play product in Lat Am markets ahead of real-money regulation.
“We plan to be very acquisitive and adding good gaming companies with good management teams to our business to grow through acquisition,” he said. “We believe that having a social casino platform in markets that we want to expand in with real-money gaming would be a good move for us,” he said.
“It might allow us to go into markets that we eventually want to follow in with our real-money casino, and we see a lot of cross-selling opportunities in getting in first into those markets,” he added.
Intertain has been building its Israel-based marketing team over the last 12 months with Peter Marcus returning to the firm to take on the role of chief marketing and operations manager for the Intertain Group. Marcus had been consultanting for the business for a number of months following spells at William Hill, Betfair and Betclic Everest.
The Toronto-based firm has previously expressed interest in launching a sportsbook, however Fitzgerald said that would likely by a large acquisition, and plans to get a few smaller takeovers completed before then.
Plans include a “couple of smaller tuck-in acquisitions” in the bingo and casino verticals it could bring in under its current licensing agreement with Amaya, following its purchase of WagerLogic and its InterCasino brand from the Canadian gaming supplier last year.
“There are a number of opportunities, our pipeline is quite robust and we are in discussions with a few people now. We would definitely like to get an accretive acquisition done by year end,” Fitzgerald said.
The presentation followed the firm revealing Q2 2014 revenues from its InterCasino and InterPoker brands had increased 80% sequentially to CA$5.2m. Mandalay’s bingo business meanwhile generated £4.7m (US$7.9m) in revenue £2.1m (US$3.5m) in net income during the quarter, but were not included in Intertain’s Q2 results.
Fitzgerald said he expects revenues to increase further following the launch of its Amaya-powered mobile platform for InterCasino and InterBingo, due to go live in the next four weeks.
“As we have seen from our Costa Bingo business [Mandalay] the mobile platform constitutes almost half of new registrants,” he said. “Having mobile up there right now is something that is really important us and as soon as we have that product, which we expect will be in the next four weeks. “It will really be the impetus for us to start spending our marketing dollars,” he added.
Fitzgerald said marketing in H2 will focus on Costa Bingo and its brand ambassador and former Spice Girl Mel B, who will appear on the next season of the X Factor as a judge.
“You are going to see a lot of spending in and around that show in the UK during that time, which is great publicity for the Costa brand,” he said.