Mobile games developer Gaming Realms has announced that Patrick Southon has stepped down from his role as chief executive and its board with immediate effect.
Southon had served as CEO since co-founding the developer in July 2013, but will now leave the business to pursue a new challenge. He follows co-founder Simon Collins, who also left Gaming Realms in October last year to take on a new role with News UK.
Non-executive chairman Michael Buckley will now become executive chairman until a permanent replacement for Southon is appointed. Buckley will also have support from chief financial officer Mark Segal.
“During my six years as CEO, the main focus of the company was on B2C real money gaming,” Southon said. “However, with the last of those assets disposed of in July 2019, and the company now stable and successfully implementing its new B2B focused game development and licensing strategy, I feel now is the right time for me to pursue a new challenge.
“It has been an honour to work alongside everyone at Gaming Realms and I wish them and the company every success in the future.”
Buckley added: “Patrick has made a valuable contribution to the company over the last six years as CEO, most recently helping to successfully evolve the company’s resources and strategy to better suit the changed regulatory landscape we operate within. On behalf of the board, I wish him every success in the future.”
Meanwhile, Gaming Realms has published a trading update for the 12 months to 31 December 2019, saying that it expects revenue to be ‘modestly ahead’ of its initial forecasts for the period.
The developer put this performance primarily down to the success of its content licensing business, which it said continued to expand last year with eight new licensing agreements.
As a result of this better-than-expected reveue and continuing control of costs, Gaming Realms said it is likely to report an adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciaito and amortisation loss for the year of £500,000.
Buckley said: “FY19 was a transformational year for Gaming Realms, and I am delighted with our overall performance. We are now a simplified business with a clear and attainable strategy underpinned by a skilled and talented management team.
“The combination of our strong games portfolio, our existing distribution agreements with global partners, and our strong pipeline of new partnerships, means we are cautiously optimistic about the significant opportunities ahead of us as we focus on the growth of the company.”
Gaming Realms expects to report its preliminary results for the 2019 financial year during the week commencing 13 April 2020.
