NOVOMATIC INTERVIEW


empower them. That means we are really a decentralised company; the executive board defines the strategy together with the country managers, and the country managers have to implement it. But with the implementation, they are more or less autonomous.


Teamwork, communication and empowerment is the secret of success for Novomatic. It’s the only way you can manage 70 countries directly from the top.


CI: Is the Americas still an important area for you as an area of growth?


HN: It’s a very important market. After Europe, the US is the second biggest slot market in the world with roughly 800,000 to 1 million slot machines in the casino market alone. There is also an interesting market for us, which is the street market that incorporates VLT and so on, like Illinois. We have defined a strategy that Class II and Class III markets will be handled by Ainsworth because that’s the casino business and it’s what they understand; from the other side, Ainsworth is not so familiar with the street market, so that will be handled by Novomatic for the US.


Another benefit of the acquisition is the combination of Novomatic and Ainsworth in South America that makes us the number one in almost every country there. We will still separate the organisations, at least for the next two or three years; we do not want to do too much at once. First, concentrate on the US and we will leave the


44 NOVEMBER 2017


rest as it is to see how it works, then discuss further synergies.


CI: You are in the process of acquiring a stake in Ainsworth and that’s a significant deal; you have said you don’t perhaps need a roadmap, but are you looking at other territories where an acquisition might make sense?


HN: The answer is quite easy. We have three defined core markets: Europe, where we have two strategic directions; one is investing further in operations. It is difficult to invest in technology because the technology market is more or less consolidated, outside of Spain. Gaming vendors in Europe are therefore interesting as potential acquisitions. Second – and third – is sports betting and online. Plus, there is geographical expansion into the US and South America, those are the four possible targets where we might acquire to strengthen our position.


CI: Could you expand as an operator globally, is


there potential for growth there? HN: For Europe, there is a clear target to increase


operations. Not in the US, however, as there you cannot operate and also be a supplier. There is a distinct separation of the two businesses. In South America, we have sold our Peru


operations because it does not make sense to operate just in one country and leave the rest. If we are going back to operating in South America, we need to make bigger acquisitions that are covering the whole region, not just one country.


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