Danske Spil transfers shares in Swush Fantasy Sports to Ekstra Bladet

If the agreement is approved at Danske Spil’s general meeting as expected, Ekstra Bladet will take over Swush on January 31. Dankse Spil and Ekstra Bladet have agreed not to publish the purchase price for the Swush deal.

Swush.com, which offers fantasy sports in Denmark, is also the company behind sports management games provider Holdet.dk. Jesper Carstensen and Ole Christensen, co-founders of Swush.com, retained a 40% stake in the company, along with Danske Soil’s 60%.

After the takeover, Holdet.dk will continue to operate as an independent brand and company of Ekstra Bladet. Holdet.dk currently has more than 200,000 users across Denmark.

“Jesper and I launched Holdet.dk in 2009 and are incredibly proud to have created such a large and popular gaming universe that thousands of dedicated couch trainers use every day,” said Christensen, Managing Director of Swush.com.

“We look forward to working closely with Ekstra Bladet and Bold.dk to make sport more fun for even more sports fans.”

Ekstra Bladet’s commercial director, Signe Skarequist, also welcomed the new deal. Bladet said that Holdet.dk and Ekstra Bladet are a “perfect fit”.

“We see great potential in developing Holdet.dk’s strong position and business together,” said Skarequist. “The purchase of Holdet.dk is a clear underlining of our commitment to creating strong digital media that deliver engaging and relevant content to a large audience.”

Dankse Spil applauds the success of Swush

Dankse Spil held shares in Swush for more than eight and a half years. Nikolas Lyhne-Knudsen, CEO of Dankse Spil, said the company is proud of Swush’s success during this time.

“We really appreciated the co-ownership,” said Lyhne-Knudsen. “We are proud of the progress made at Swush and Holdet.dk in recent years. At the same time, we are pleased that we have now found a good new home for Holdet.dk.

“We look forward to following the further development under Ekstra Bladet. The gaming platform better fits the company’s strategic ambitions and can help to further expand Holdet.dk.”

Dankse Spil highlighted Swush’s success in its third-quarter results released in November. In the third quarter, Swush revenue increased 10.0% year-on-year to DKK 11.0 million (£1.3 million/€1.5 million/$1.6 million).

Other key figures for Dankse Spil in the third quarter included a 2.4% increase in consolidated sales to DKK 3.69 billion. This was due to a 3.1% increase in Danske Lotteri Spil’s revenue to DKK 2.07 billion, while Danske Klasse-lotteri’s revenue increased by 39.7% to DKK 183.0 million.

Sales at Danske Licens Spil, which includes sports betting and online casinos, fell 1.6% to DKK 1.21 billion. Additionally, Elite Gaming, its arcade business, recorded a 2.7% decline in revenue to DKK 217.0 million.