NetEnt sacks 55 staff to “increase profitability and competitiveness”

Online gambling technology provider NetEnt is cutting 55 employees as part of a global restructuring to “increase profitability and competitiveness.”

On Wednesday, the Stockholm-listed NetEnt announced that it was “taking action to optimize its operations,” which will lead to the elimination of 55 full-time positions, most of which are based at the company’s Stockholm headquarters.

The changes will take place this month, and the company intends to reallocate its resources to increase game production. The company believes the restructuring will enable it to release between 30-35 new games in 2019.

The company says this reorganization will result in non-recurring costs of around SEK25m (US$2.75m) that will appear in its fourth-quarter 2018 results. Roughly SEK5m of these costs will result from a write-down of intangible assets from an apparently ill-fated “development project in the area of virtual reality.”