Evolution Acquires Nolimit City for NZ$ 335 million

Evolution Gaming has entered into an agreement to acquire the entire issued share capital of Nolimit City with an upfront payment of NZ$ 335 million. The total amount of the deal could potentially be worth as much as NZ$ 571 million.

Nolimit City will most likely soon be part of the Evolution Group, best known for their dominant position in the live dealer casino market. The total upfront payment to be made by Evolution is set at NZ$ 335 million with an additional NZ$ 235 to be paid in earn-outs based on Nolimit City’s EBITDA for the years 2022, 2023, and 2024, respectively.

Evolution Gaming says its acquisition aligns with its overall brand strategy to provide its customers with “the very best” iGaming content. Games Evolution will obtain from Nolimit City include Misery Mining, Tombstone RIP, True Grid Redemption, Mental, San Quentin and Punk Rocker. Nolimit City, in turn, joins a range of other popular studios in Evolution’s portfolio, including NetEnt, Red Tiger Gaming, Ezugi and Big Time Gaming.

Evolution and Nolimit City

Completion of the transaction is subject to regulatory approvals. The acquisition is therefore expected in the third quarter of 2022, Gaming Intelligence reports. Jens von Bahr of Evolution Gaming, is yet very pleased with the expansion of the Evolution portfolio.

“With the addition of Nolimit City to the Evolution family, we are expanding our portfolio with truly innovative and cutting edge games from the top brands and gaming studios in the industry. We’ve been following Jonas, Emil and their team [Nolimit City] for a few years now and are impressed that they’ve managed to set up a completely new style of pokie games. I am proud that yet another of the brightest minds in our industry has chosen to join the Evolution network.”

Jens von Bahr, CEO and co-founder of Evolution

Nolimit City co-founder Jonas Tegman shared his thoughts about the deal as well and reckons that both companies are “a perfect match”.

“I can’t imagine a better match between two companies than between Nolimit City and Evolution, we are completely aligned in terms of people, product, technology and how to get the job done. The online pokie vertical is undergoing massive changes, and we can’t wait to join Evolution to take on the challenge of global expansion and help players navigate the best pokie product offerings in the market.”

Jonas Tegman, co-founder of Nolimit City

Nolimit City fits in Evolution strategy

Nolimit City is the next in a series of acquisitions performed by Evolution Gaming. Evolution recently bought Big Time Gaming for NZ$ 756. NetEnt and Red Tiger Gaming are also owned by the provider while the same holds true for live casino provider Ezugi.

As a result, Evolution Gaming is one of the largest providers of (live) casino games. The acquisition of Nolimit City further strengthens the provider’s position in the pokie market while its own products and Ezugi’s games have given them an even more competitive advantage over other gaming studios.

Evolution is known for live dealer games like Monopoly Live, Crazy Time and Lightning Roulette. In recent months, the Swedish provider launched the new live casino game Crazy Coin Flip that features both elements of online/RNG games and live games.

Nolimit City itself released online pokies like Karen Maneater and Remember Gulag earlier this year of which the latter game release caused controversy because of it’s unlucky timing during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Gulag was the government agency in charge of the Soviet network of forced labour camps set up by order of Vladimir Lenin, reaching its peak in the early 1950s. The word gulag is also widely used in reference to all of the forced-labour camps that existed in the former Soviet Union.

Nolimit stated that the game was already being developed before the war between Russia and Ukraine started off. The pokie provider eventually decided to make several donations to the victims of the war in Ukraine, including all of Remember Gulag’s April proceedings.

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