The Chairman of Australian slot machine manufacturer Ainsworth Game Technology has informed investors that the company hopes to resume the payment of dividends by next year as post-COVID operating conditions continue to stabilize.
Speaking at the company’s 2023 Annual General Meeting on Friday, non-executive Chairman Danny Gladstone said Ainsworth has focused its resources on returning to full capacity in 2023 but is already eyeing the return of dividends in the near future.
“With the current economic uncertainties combined with supply chain challenges, an increased level of working capital, primarily inventory levels, were considered necessary to ensure continuity in production to fulfil expected sales volumes in calendar year 2023,” Gladstone said.
“Once these conditions stabilize and operational requirements can be reliably determined, the Board maintains its commitment to review the recommencement of dividend payments to our shareholders.
“Our priority remains to maintain a strong balance sheet to self-fund our growth strategies and product investments. We have implemented processes and recruited new talent to ensure improvements in outputs of our R&D (research and development) initiatives which is expected to lift the competitiveness of our products. We are offering more value to our customers and have a new organizational structure and financial capability to support these strategies.”
Ainsworth CEO Harald Neumann told investors in a presentation of his own that R&D investment has included the launch of two new studios in North America, aimed at complementing existing studios in Las Vegas and Sydney.
“These new studios are led by industry veterans with significant experience and are expected to provide more creativity and diversity to our current product offerings,” Neumann said.
“Quality initiatives have already started to improve game designs, mathematics, and graphical arts to create a more diverse and targeted range of product offerings to our customers. I look forward to updating you on these improvements as we progress.”
Neumann added that the company had needed to improve the output of its R&D investment, having under-performed across key markets in recent years.
“We expect that these initiatives will lift the competitiveness of our product and offer more value to our customers,” he explained. “An established product road map and strategies to upgrade game performance is in place to achieve sustainable long-term results across global markets. The ability to quickly deliver new products to market that can provide better results for our customers is critical to our long-term success.”
The update come safter Ainsworth recently said it expects to record a profit before tax of around AU$20 million (US$13.3 million) for the six months ending 30 June 2023, up from a profit before tax of AU$7.3 million (US$4.9 million) for the six months to 31 December 2022. The change in fortunes has been credited to strong revenue gains in the North American and Latin American markets.
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