Aristocrat’s most recent Annual General Meeting (AGM) saw several issues critical to the company’s growth being discussed. Among the more exciting points of discussion was a proposal to employ the services of Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) to increase its online footprint.
Aristocrat has experienced mixed fortunes of late, with its most recent report revealing a drop in group revenues of 5.9% to $4.1 billion for 2020. Its online gaming does not offer any real-money titles and is entirely comprised of social gaming offerings.
Despite this, Aristocrat’s online gaming engagement increased by 29%, taking some of the heat off the flagging land-based business which saw a decline of 35% due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic which led to temporary closures of land-based casinos worldwide.
Trevor Croker, the CEO of Aristocrat, relayed to investors that the company would “significantly escalate” its interest in M&A, with an eye on cultivating the digital business.
He said, “We will continue to significantly escalate our focus on convergence products and services as part of our strategy. We remain ready to invest to accelerate our strategy. During fiscal 2020, we concluded two deals to acquire access to more world-class game development capability in Digital. Investments in the proven game studios Neskin and Proteus signaled our intent.”
This latest news had many analysts speculating that the company seems poised to explore real-money online gambling to counteract the losses experienced by the land-based sector.
