- Centric Multimedia
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Centric Multimedia S.A. Type Anonymi Etairia Traded as Athex: CENTR Founded 1995 Headquarters Athens, Greece Key people Rodolfo Odoni (Managing Director) and (President of BoD),
Neiadas Vassilis (First Vice-President of the BoD),
Ioannis Capodistrias (Second Vice-President of the BoD),
Cheretis Yorgos (General Manager)Revenue € 758.6 mil. Profit € 4.7 mil. Employees 30 Website www.centric.gr Centric Multimedia, also known as CENTRIC, is a Greek public company, trading in the ATHEX since 2002. It’s 2009 Fiscal Year turnover is circa €750m.
Contents
History
Centric was founded in 1995 under the trading name “Group Multimedia Systems S.A.” and it specialized in the production and distribution of digital products and home entertainment services.
Since its inception the company expanded its operations in the digital gaming industry, representing and distributing game consoles, computer games, online games and computer and gaming console peripherals in the Greek Market. In 2001, Centric signed an agreement with Microsoft for the distribution of the Xbox gaming console in Greece, establishing its position in the digital home entertainment market.
In 2002 Centric was listed in [ATHEX] for public trading and in 2003 changed its trading name to “Centric Multimedia S.A.”.
Due to the intense competition and the illegal software copying (“piracy”) of gaming software, which ultimately suppressed gross profit margins and have therefore restrained long-term growth prospects for the digital home entertainment industry, Centric decided to explore different investment opportunities in order to enhance its presence in the digital entertainment industry. Hence in 2007 the company decided to focus on the integration of online services capitalizing οn its vast experience on the business.
The online entertainment companies at the time were offering a combination of traditional services such as sportsbook, casino, poker and several soft games using state of the art technology in a web environment providing consumers entertainment through Personal Computers.
Therefore, in 2007 Centric started shifting its investments in areas with better growth prospects in order to boost its financial performance. The company acquired 21% of ECN Management Ltd, a company that manages and operates the VistaΒet.com and LexPoker.com & Lexcasino.com sites in the Greek language through its subsidiary Vista Gaming Online Ltd. In addition Centric acquired 100% of Flyer S.A, which was the JV partner of Sportingbet Plc for the provision of its online entertainment services in the Greek.
Expanding partnerships
In 2008 Centric raised its stake in ECN Management Ltd to a total of 51%. Moreover, Centric expanded the agreement with Sportingbet to include an additional 9 languages of the CEE & SEE (Croatia, Slovenia, Romania, FYROM, Serbia, Slovakia, Albania, Montenegro and Bosnia) to offer the online entertainment services through Sportingbet and Vistabet.
In 2009 Centric commenced advertising and launched the Sportingbet online services in the Croatian and Slovenian languages as well as the Sportingbet and Vistabet.com online services in the Romanian language. Furthermore, a wholly owned subsidiary was incorporated & headquartered in Malta, FSM Holding Ltd, with the scope of promoting the financial spread trading services following an agreement signed with Worldspreads Plc. FSM Holding is managing the www.spreads.gr.
In 2010, the subsidiaries of the group, started the promotion and management of the Vistabet.com services in Albanian and the Sportingbet services in Slovakian.
Subsidiary ECN has also concluded an agreement with Dragonfish Plc, an 888 subsidiary, for the exploitation of the Lexcasino & Lexpoker websites in the Greek and English languages.
References
External links
Categories:- Companies listed on the Athens Stock Exchange
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
