Unibet chief favours single-brand UK approach

Unibet will likely adopt a single brand in the UK market as the firm continues to mull over its options following the recent acquisition of Stan James, its CEO Henrik Tjärnström told eGaming Review.

While Stan James did not contribute to Unibet’s Q3 results – the acquisition was not completed until the very last day of the quarter – Tjärnström did hint at how the brand would contribute to its longer term strategy in the UK.

“My thesis is that it is enough to have one sports betting brand per market,” Tjärnström told eGR after this morning’s Q3 presentation. “Then it is a question for us to decide which brand that is in the UK market.”

Tjärnström said Unibet was still wrestling with that decision, despite agreeing the £19m acquisition back in July. Stan James certainly enjoys greater brand recognition within the UK market than Unibet, but it is the latter which has experienced faster growth in recent years.

A potential wildcard could be a further acquisition. Tjärnström said Unibet is “definitely not ruling anything out” when it comes to more acquisitions in the UK.

“We are clearly looking at acquisitions on a case-by-case basis. We have the organic growth which is a good pillow to sleep on, and if we can add strategic acquisitions to that then all the better,” he said.

It is an open secret in the industry that at least a couple of mid-sized UK-facing bookmakers are currently up for sale, and both would dwarf Unibet and Stan James’ market presence.

It would not be a huge surprise to see the firm move to acquire such an operator and roll up its Stan James and Unibet.co.uk brands under a more established name.

Either way, the firm still has a platform issue to resolve with Stan James. Tjärnström said the brand has ownership of the source code of its third-party platform.

That means there are no pressures in terms of being locked into a deal with supplier GTECH, and it seems likely the brand will ultimately be migrated to Kambi.

“Long term we want to reduce the number of tech platforms we operate as a group,” Tjärnström said. “It gives us a better customer handling system and a better product offering, and enables a better cross-sell opportunity.”

If the Stan James brand was to be axed, and the customers migrated to Unibet’s Kambi-powered sportsbook platform, the obvious question is exactly what did Unibet pay £19m for? And, according to Tjärnström, the answer is less asset-driven and more about longer term strategic goals.

“We bought the Stan James business as it had certain pockets of expertise in sports which we want to keep. We are adding local expertise,” Tjärnström said.

That value will not be lost on Tjärnström, despite the firm exuding the sort of confidence needed when taking on much larger incumbents in Europe’s most competitive market.

“We are close to doubling our size in the UK market. We are very confident that while we might be doing things differently to the UK incumbents, we can compete in an Anglo-Saxon market,” he said.

He points to Australia, a market where the firm is more than doubling in size year-on-year, as evidence it can replicate its success in the Nordics further afield.

If the firm can add scale over the coming months and years, there are few reasons to prevent it emerging as a major force within the UK.