Amaya Inc. rebrands as The Stars Group, sees future success

Rafi Ashkenazi, chief executive officer of The Stars Group Inc., the online gambling company formerly called Amaya Inc., said he expects strong performance to continue after making major changes to recover from last year’s downswing.

Amaya had a rough 2016 with weak earnings and the departure of its founder David Baazov amid insider trading charges. But on Wednesday, the PokerStars owner reported it tripled its second-quarter profit from this period last year in its first results under its new name. It also revised its annual guidance to expect higher profit.

In the last quarter alone, the company changed its name, moved its head office to Toronto from Pointe-Claire, paid off the balance from its multibillion-dollar acquisition of Rational Group in 2014, hired new executives and expanded its game offerings to rely less on poker.

“We were very happy to formally rename the company as The Stars Group last week,” Ashkenazi said on a conference call Wednesday. It “successfully demonstrates that we’ve turned the page to open a new chapter in our company history.”

This new chapter includes a renewed appetite for mergers and acquisitions now that it has its finances in order. The company intends to roll out 150 new highmargin casino games by year-end (it has already released 99).

The casino and sportsbook divisions pulled in 29 per cent of the company’s revenue in the three months ending June 30, up from 21 per cent in the same period last year. The diversification is critical as poker revenue declines, although Ashkenazi believes the poker business will be flat yearover-year after introducing a new loyalty program in July.