NetEnt confirms Johansson as permanent CFO
Stockholm-listed NetEnt has handed Lars Johansson the role of chief financial officer on a permanent basis following four months as interim finance chief.
The CFO role was vacated by Therese Hillman when she was promoted to chief executive of NetEnt in May this year, with Johansson joining the supplier to take up the position on a temporary basis on September 3.
Johansson has spent over 30 years working in various management positions at both public and private companies across a number of industries, serving as senior investment director of Swedish private equity investor Ratos before moving to NetEnt. He also had a spell as acting CEO of the business.
Earlier in his career, Johansson served as finance chief of Swedish airport operator Swedavia, as well as both CFO and chief operating officer of commercial television broadcaster TV4 Group. He also oversaw finance for Orc Software, later becoming its operations chief, then interim CEO.
“I am very pleased to appoint Lars Johansson as chief financial officer,” NetEnt chief executive Hillman said. “He brings significant experience to the role and has already played an important part in the ongoing change process of NetEnt.”
The appointment comes after NetEnt announced that it is to cut up to 55 jobs at its Stockholm headquarters last week. The move is designed to free up resources that will allow the supplier to ramp up the development of new content. as it looks to free up resources to ramp up new game development.
NetEnt is seeking to reduce staff numbers immediately at the office, which will see a number of corporate support staff cut. The redundancies are likely to lead to a one-off cost of around SEK20m (£1.7m/€1.9m/$2.2m) for the fourth quarter of the current year.
However, NetEnt continues to perform well financially, with revenue in the third quarter up 10% year-on-year to SEK449m. Operating profit also climbed 11% to around $19m for the three months through to the end of September – the first full quarter under Hillman's leadership.