Finnish operator Paf acquires Hero Gaming's Swedish Speedy brands

The Swedish-based gaming operator Hero Gaming, owner of Speedyspel and SpeedyCasino, has managed to increase its revenues by more than 500% over the past three years in Sweden, and it is now being sold together with the Swedish Speedy brands. 

The sale is being conducted structurally to the operator Paf, as Hero Gaming sells the two subsidiaries Speedy Ltd and Speedy Originals Ltd, both with their respective Swedish licenses, as well as the brands Speedycasino, Speedybet and Speedyspel. 

Paf, which is owned by the Aland Provincial Government, has a long-term strategy to grow in regulated markets such as Sweden. 

In an official press release, Tomas Bäckman, CEO of Hero Gaming, spoke about this new milestone. 

“Hero Gaming was founded in 2013 and in the last couple of years we have seen a fantastic growth of the business and felt we needed to come up with a strategy to pay back some dividends to our shareholders”, he explained. 

“The founder, Georg Westin, together with our main shareholders, have not been interested in selling off the whole group which is why this part-exit was a win-win strategy for everyone”, he continued. 

“We have been working on structuring this sale for the last 1,5 years with setting up the companies, applying for new Swedish licenses and moving the brands for sale into the companies that are now being sold”,  Bäckman said. “If looking at the first quarter 2021 Sweden accounted for approximately 15% of our total revenues. So as said, this is not to be seen as an exit from our side, rather the opposite -  we’re optimizing our company structure and strategy for continued growth while at the same time paying back some well-deserved dividend to our patient shareholders”. 

Paf CEO, Christer Fahlstedt, also commented “the Speedy brands were perfect for Paf’s investment in the Swedish market. We have a long-term strategy and a strong faith in the future in the regulated Swedish gaming market”, he described. 

“With the acquisition, we will move to a top 6 position in the Swedish market, which is completely in line with where we want to be. Our goal is to remain a strong player in Sweden for many years to come. Hero Gaming has done a good job with the gaming sites and they will be a good complement for us in the future”, he concluded. 

When it comes to the future of Hero Gaming, Bäckman reflected that “Hero Gaming is first and foremost a technology company with its own platform. We will now put even more focus on this fact by providing more of our technology development and services to our selected B2B partners who focus on non-European markets such as Asia and Latin America”. 

“The world is big and by putting more focus on providing more locally placed products and content to our selected partners through our advanced technology, we believe we can create even higher shareholder value in the long run”, he reflected.