The financial crisis forced Olympic Entertainment to draw itself in to protect the strength of its core business. As drastic as that was, as the global economy bounces back, the company finds itself in the right place at the right time to expand into new markets and buy out underperforming rivals. CEO Madis Jääger spoke to Hugh Sorrill.
The recent histories of the three Baltic States have run parallel: after 50-or-so years of Soviet occupation - except for a few years under Nazi control during World War 2 - they all managed to regain their independence, set their faces towards the West and become fully engaged members of the European Union.
Amid the rapid development since the end of the Soviet era, Olympic Entertainment, the transnational casino operator founded in Estonia by Armin Karu in the early 1990s, has grown into and with the economies of Lithuania, Latvia and its home state - and rolled with the punches during the recent downturn.
Karu hired Madis Jääger as CFO in 2010 and in early 2012 made him CEO with the brief of pulling a robust and healthy company out of the mire of the recession.
“Before the crisis, the markets were really booming,” says Jääger, “but the recession was really hard on us.
“In Estonia, pre-crisis, the gambling sector was worth around €130m but that figure is now only about €55m, so down to almost a third of its previous level. The same is true for the other Baltic States and I think that over the last couple of years, during the recovery, the sector has lagged behind the wider GDP growth. The economy has stalled a bit in Estonia recently, but in all three markets now the gambling sector is doing OK so far this year.”
Read the full article in the July issue of InterGaming
