The gaming veteran will become Aristocrat’s new CEO and managing director come today (Wednesday), replacing the current boss Jamie Odell.
Croker took the opportunity to share his vision for the business during the AGM: "I believe Aristocrat must evolve our focus to fully leveraging our momentum, and transforming our business over time… We must also aggressively pursue value-adding opportunities, including adjacent segments and markets.”
Referring to company’s growth strategy, Croker said Aristocrat will focus on growing and leveraging its core business, whilst "investing wisely to capture opportunity in adjacent segments and markets, including Class III stepper, VLT and Class II video.”
"Aristocrat has no presence in each of these adjacent segments, and our increased capability and momentum gives us confidence to attack these with focus and vigor over the coming years,” he said.
In January, the gaming company reported normalized profit after tax of US$298 million for the period ending September 30, 2016, representing a 69 % increase year-on-year. Revenue increased by more than 34 %, "driven by growth across all key segments in broadly flat markets.”
Aristocrat said it witnessed strong growth on its Americas business, which saw a US$ 65.13 million improvement in post-tax profit. Revenue for its Americas business went up 28 %. "The growth was supported by improved outright sales share, growth in Class II gaming operations footprint and significant share, fee per day profit growth from the Class III premium gaming operations business,” said the company.
Aristocrat’s digital business also saw strong growth, due to the continued success of Heart of Vegas on Facebook, IOS, and Android. Digital revenue grew 82 % to US$ 207 million.
