R&D priority for competitive products: Ainsworth CEO

Sep 01, 2022 Newsdesk Latest News, Top of the deck, World  

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Harald Neumann, the chief executive of Australia-listed slot machine maker Ainsworth Game Technology Ltd, says the firm’s priority “is to maintain a strong balance sheet and liquidity to be able to support” the group’s research and development (R&D) investments.

That is in order to “ensure the development of competitive products” across the group’s markets, said Mr Neumann at the firm’s annual earnings teleconference on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Ainsworth reported a profit after tax of AUD11.8 million (US$8.1 million) for the 12 months ended June 30, compared to a loss after tax of AUD53.4 million in the prior corresponding period.

The company ended its financial year with a net cash position of AUD50.3 million, with cash flow from operations amounting to AUD51.3 million, an increase of AUD29.1 million from the previous year. As of June 30, it had cash and cash equivalents of more than AUD50 million.

“Ainsworth is well placed to self-fund product and technology investments whilst supporting required levels of working capital to satisfy customer demand,” stated Mr Neumann.

He added: “We fundamentally need to improve the outputs of our R&D investments. We need to lift the competitiveness of our product. We need to offer more value and entertainment to our customers. And we need an organisational structure and balance sheet to support these strategies.”

Ainsworth’s CEO said additionally that the company had entered the second half of calendar year 2022 “with good momentum.”

“We expect to have continued growth in North America, further improvements in the Latin America markets and steady performance from Australia,” he added.

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