Kindred Group completes acquisition of Relax Gaming
Kindred Group has acquired the remaining 66.6 per cent of the B2B supplier.
Sweden.- Kindred Group has completed its €295m acquisition of the remaining 66.6 per cent of B2B supplier Relax Gaming. The group took control of a third of the company’s shares in 2013 and announced this past July that it would buy the company outright.
After an initial payment of €80m, it will pay earn-out payments capped at €113m in 2022 and 2023 subject to Relax Gaming meeting earnings targets.
Kindred’s board said: “The acquisition accelerates Kindred’s strategy to increase its focus on product and customer experience by strengthening Kindred’s product control and product differentiation capabilities.”
Relax Gaming will remain an independent subsidiary of Kindred, with its founder Patrik Österåker as chairman. Kindred said it expected to save €8m per year in the first three years through synergies. It said the deal valued Relax Gaming at €320m.
Kindred Group blocks Dutch players
Meanwhile, Kindred has announced that it has begun to block players in the Netherlands as it plans to apply for a licence to operate in the country’s new regulated market. Several major operators have made similar decisions.
Kindred said the decision would cost it £12m per month in lost earnings. It plans to apply for a Dutch licence after November 1 when the cooling-off period passes for operators active in the unlicensed market.
CEO Henrik Tjärnström said: “We’ve taken steps to temporarily cease our activities due to formative changes which created uncertainty in the market. We’ve not been actively targeting the Dutch market – the 2019 fine was a voluntary payment. In a letter the Minster sent on 20 September, it states clearly that there shouldn’t be a connection between having Dutch customers passively and the licensing process.
“It’s been part of the regulatory developments that it’s fine for operators who have not been actively targeting Dutch customers to get a licence and operate in the Dutch market. We have been compliant with the criteria; no .nl web address, no Dutch marketing, no Dutch payment solutions. As a consequence, we are not actively targeting Dutch customers.
“Our licence application has been worked on for a long time and we passed all required audits. We are also working on getting our systems fully compliant and ready to go live as soon as possible, but we also have the cooling-off period to consider.
“We are ready with a few aspects of the application and planning to be ready with most of them by November 1. We want to follow through with the process we’ve been going through for a year and a half.”
The Dutch regulator has so far granted licences to 10 operators, which were able to begin accepting players on the new regulated market this weekend.
