hi guys thanks for joining me today hi tim how are you yeah i'm well thanks how are you chris i'm good thank you thank you for having us no problem absolutely our pleasure and anthony all good with you yeah to meet you um to start off with i think it'd be great if we can get maybe an intro from the both of you guys and into exact solutions uh in no particular order world chris um can you sort of tell us about your kind of career and what you do with xacta okay so um anthony and i have known each other for a few years now um probably around 10 years and so if that's if that's that's right and we obviously both come from a recruitment background um [Music] that we were working together in a previous company um i had actually started the online gaming industry uh before that as well so probably around 2004 um and then and then obviously since 2006 i've been very active in the industry itself um first as a recruiter myself and then um i progressed up into being a more corporate level in the um and managing a number of offices setting up offices across number of jurisdictions around the world so and then obviously anthony and i decided to set this up together um and and here we are now and anthony a little bit about your background intro is it fair to describe you guys as a dream team i don't know about that um my my experiences i used walking online i was just walking gaming uh i worked with powers or lab rooks i always had an interest being they say coming from horse racing as well when i when i used to royal last let's say 15 years have been in recruitment uh that started off in they say other industries like construction uh and oil and gas but then 2010 entered into the gaming uh industry where other companies and they since then i've been focused on the gambling industry and across like say europe and the world and then they say worked with a number of different companies throughout the gambling recruitment sector but now we set up exactly um we're here three years and we say we're growing fast yeah a little bit more on xacto now chris can you kind of talk us through uh anthony mentioned there three years set up can you talk us through the kind of the company history of these early years sure sure it was very early as you said so it's been um we set this up around september 2019 right before kovitz struck which was a little bit of a shock for us when you know when you're just starting your business and and all of a sudden a global pandemic that the world has in 100 years strikes um so obviously we [Music] got together you know we we pushed hard there and obviously all the credit goes to anthony for that because um he said no we have to push keep pushing keep pushing guys and and to be fair um you know we have grown it slowly and organically and now we have a you know we both ourselves of having a multi-lingual team of about 50 people already um in three countries and you know we're counting that because we keep keep growing and if i can come to you anthony can you talk us kind of what are the products and services that you guys offer well they'd say obviously recruitment on a permanent and because they say contracts they say choice level like say we have a number of consultants walking through us as well so like say okay if you want to take on people as a full-time employee that's no problem but if you there's certain uh companies that are entering new markets and they want to consult them to take them to market we would have them people as well then we do introductory solutions as well like say for providers um out there because we have a lot of um contacts within the operations side of things and the performance science change so say if somebody wants to be taken to america they say a payment solution or crm solution we could put them into the right part of the right um in front of the right people of course we have mercy's acquisition which is uh much harder managed by chris so that says it says everything they say we're dealing with a number of uh big companies are because of selling big they say investors are looking to buy or even like say just merge and then we also do like say administrative teams like salary benchmarking they say okay a lot of companies on the island here in malta they say obviously with the attrition and they say the market being a very kind uh candidate strong market uh people want to know like okay how much do you have to pay for selling so we deliver that service as well for um a very uh very competitive fee and we also do consultancy services as well so we're working with a number of different operators that are looking to say to reorganize a uh reorganize their um their current structure so these will be companies that have just started up or people are entering into western um what's called the same markets that have come from the eastern side of the kings and they say they don't know where okay where should the the country managers today report to the ceo or the cmo et cetera et cetera so we give consultancy services a long time we we help our they say we work with a lot of they say medium small to medium operators so as operators and they want an insight into the larger operators out there and how they can take on or emulate them now if we could stay with you anthony for this next question we're we're early into 2022. what are you guys your kind of goals and targets for for the year ahead uh well it's just like obviously what i do is like i was trying to do better than last year okay so we had a great 2021 uh 2022 and now we're only a few weeks into it but we'd say okay we're already on top of that especially with the growth within the team as well so obviously growing into the team looking at new markets we're also looking at they say opening new offices they say eastern europe is a big big a lot of uh they say concentration goes on to uh they say positions are based in sofia more than anything else so sophia is going to be our next uh protocol when it comes to they say opening an office we have a lot of work going on in latin america a lot more going on in africa and the us it's something that we didn't go after but it's something that has come into our doorstep so although you say obviously we would love to have somebody based in the states so we could say we're special specialists at that certain things but at the moment we're walking with people that we have very good relationships with any order that want us to do the exact same in the states and like as you know they say especially in the us markets like most of the talent has been taken up that is currently there so it is really okay and getting people green cards so it's growth and expansion on our team growth and expansion into the markets that we're already with and they say okay working with the best uh they say partners that we have sure i mean it sounds like an exciting time the company for sure and as you guys have mentioned obviously two key focuses are m a and recruitment um as an editor as my colleagues will say uh when i met you guys uh a trade show in amsterdam when you when you said those are your focuses i thought my eyes lit up because great great areas to talk about for gaming inside and you guys have written some great columns for us uh um since since we started working together um when it comes to mna um chris as anthony mentioned this this is your your sort of your your bag your kind of key uh expert area of expertise um can you talk us through kind of the biggest trends at the moment if we're looking at it from a from a general view when it comes to our gaming m a yeah we've seen that we've seen a significant increase in the activity i mean if you and this is probably has been brought about by by the increased levels of of compliance across across the globe okay so obviously batman means increasing costs so companies are looking um more and more to merge or to be acquired or or the bigger companies are looking to to acquire the smaller companies um when you know when when colville i meant i referred to this earlier but we'll call it struck um we you know people thought it would put a host with the m a um activity but we quickly saw some some some big deals happening and and yeah one one of them was the uh was the flutter entertainment and the stars group merger you know i mean maybe people were expecting it maybe others wedding so but that happened and after that obviously right now we're going through the um playtech um playtech sale and uh just today we we got to know that aristocrat pulled out so um a lot of a lot of a lot of rumors and a lot of um people say saying different things about that but anyway so obviously it's it's become it's driven by a lot by geographical diversification um and and the number of markets have become rapidly less viable because of what we said earlier you know increased regulation um and increased costs so obviously m a has become more and more a tool in in the bigger companies in the acquirers hence to expand their markets and obviously as always there's two sides up to every story and um and the the the smaller companies and the seats medium-sized companies are looking to merge with the bigger operators to to get the advantages that or or get the investment that they need so it's it's ongoing and it's growing we're it's been non-stop growth since since we started absolutely yeah i'm staying with m a i mean i mean you mentioned playtech as you say plenty of plenty of headlines with with playtex we're kind of at the time of this interview we're seeing stuff pretty much every day at the moment um one trend um i mean we've picked up on which which which is hard not to notice really is kind of um operators buying suppliers or perhaps game studios um it happened a little bit more often recently kind of what do you guys make of make of this kind of i guess out of if it's a growing trend yeah it is it is a relatively common occurrence i would say um and we've come across a number of these deals um i mean we're dealing with a couple of them as we speak um and helping we're on the lookout for as you mentioned game studios for example everyone is looking for game studios because obviously of the lack of um the lack of manpower and the lack of expertise the lack of technical expertise um and that's where we come in as well in conjunction with the recruitment side of things that we try to fill the gap as we can um and yeah i mean the the acquired technology it comes with with the motivated team so obviously companies are looking to buy um these motivated teams and trying to keep them motivated even if they're across across the other side of the world um and and obviously it it every every story has its own side so there's there's disadvantages to these to these strategic moves but yes definitely it's a common occurrence and a final question for me on the m a side of things another trend which is this one's impossible to miss is kind of european us mergers i mean a good example is um bali's and uh game sys um what are the biggest things to kind of avoid or maybe capitalize on here when you kind of got uh both sides of the atlantic ocean merging essentially yeah i mean as we had expected you know the u.s has become a mammoth i would say in the in the in the high gaming market and as well in the m a market as well so um and it we can only see that grow further with the arrival or the entrance of wall street investors okay so um we've seen we've seen the uh a couple of deals happening and and and i think that's that's just the beginning um of this of the story i mean obviously the european um the more traditional european operators are looking at the us and and and as an opportunity um and marriages are happening and will keep happening as that market continues to grow i think we're still in the very beginning and early days of that market um of that market happening and where where will it take us we don't know really and truly i mean the the it's it's a totally different ballgame there yeah plenty plenty to watch out for and and look out for as you say there um as you guys mentioned earlier m a specialism but of course recruitment as well and anthony you're very much a specialist in this area um if you were to kind of sum up the overall gaming recruitment picture in 2022 you know what would you what would you say where would you place it um it's uh if you have skills you can get the job that you want that's what it is so um it's a very candidate driven market they say um people are looking for talents across they say multiple of departments they say everything from because with with the opening of new markets and the new regulations coming in like say in the uk and they say in which say germany being regulated then the state's being regulated it's like say the new americans are looking for the best talents of the year okay so they say across compliance they're looking for people across affiliations looking for people because all these operators are competing against each other they want the best traffic they're looking and they say okay technology is always a big big uh driver so it is so like in our furnace if you don't have the product everybody has these great ideas especially when it comes across crypto casino or anything like this you have these amazing ideas but if you can't make the products then it's not going to take off so it's just like say and all obviously we're in the we're in the age of remote walking now as well so claude like say clients have to realize like say okay you have to be more open to people walking either hybrid or remote and they say what we've seen since they say the last two or two or so years um since the pandemic here is probably around 40 percent of our they say clients are adapting to that more and more like even 40 have gone fully remote okay so they say they know it's not as easy to jump on a plane and relocate to the likes of costa rica or the philippines or solitude so they just have to be more like say meeting halfway between the candidates and their needs given what you've said there about it being a candidate driven market and and the remote working piece as well if there was one piece of advice you could give to gaming companies at the moment what would it be pay pay for talent if you pay for talent and they say and look at what your competitors are doing okay and they say attrition is the biggest problem especially on the islands um such as malta gibraltar and so with spain and trying to keep the talents as the best and we know it's like people are doing so many incentives around they say okay loyalty bonuses they say fully full and i say holidays two week holidays um brought away for everything like this everybody goes to lunches and dinners and everything like this but it's standing out from the crowd it's about employer branding more than anything else it is and then paying for the best staff that you can okay and then being as i just said like say looking at people that are local loyalists be more open towards that rather than saying okay we we have recorded local clients say okay they have to be in the office because the ceo works in the office they they have to do the same as the ceo and now they it's going to affect their revenue going on it's not going to happen it's not going to affect them straight away but in the long term it will affect them because they don't have this person in place because they're not adapting to the core of america and given what you said again about the kind of they've been a candidate driven mark at the moment maybe a little bit a little bit easier for candidates but um if there was one piece of advice on the flip side you would give to candidates maybe an executive looking for a role or looking for a change or step up that kind of thing what would it be be open be open don't don't go in don't go in with they say prerequisites in your head okay saying i want this salary i want this toilet i want to work in this kind of company i only want to be based from home i only want to do this these candidates that we speak to when they just say okay no no no no no it's a more they say they're put off like say okay just saying okay that person's gonna be hard to face but if a person that's open saying okay we might be able to make that work okay we take into consideration okay what the candidate needs okay okay do you have a family do they have children of course we're not to send them somewhere if they're english-speaking and there's no english speaking skills or something like this okay so it shows the candidate being open looking at different different roles okay and they say how they fit within that company because within different companies of course if you're a c level and a small company if you want to move into a big company you're not going to have the same title so it is okay so it's like say taking a step back looking at the bigger picture rather than looking at exactly what is being put on frontier and i'd say at the time but obviously it comes down to they say okay the main thing that we look at look for within the candidates is they say getting them the best deal that they can they making sure they stay there because the last thing we want to do is represent somebody and they come back to us and they say okay i'm not happy here and then the client is not happy because they're not happy so we try to put people in lifetime jobs more than people are just looking for they say a stepping stone to get to the next next position definitely some great insight there and chris the same for you earlier when it comes to the m a um if i were to give leave the floor open to you guys for kind of some final thoughts maybe any messages you want to get out there about x-acto m a recruitment um i'll go to you chris because we've just been with anthony but if there's any kind of concluding thoughts you have uh you know that the floor is yours so to speak yeah i mean like we we we we're the beginning of the journey here i mean talking for ourselves so and exactly solutions so it's been an exciting three years um and we're looking forward to another exciting three years at least so um and and going forward from there um the world we have expanded a lot um moreover i think we're operating in over 33 countries now um uh we you know we started from tiny malta and we're we have expanded quickly so much and so um and and we we we've expanded our service offerings and he explained earlier as well so so we we we're building on our teams and we're building on our skills you know we we very much believe in what anthony was mentioning earlier in empowering employees we believe in that ourselves and we practice that a lot uh within the businesses itself and that hopefully will take us into expanding into other markets as as we mentioned earlier into setting up new offices in new territories um and the world bizarre is our is our place more um once this pandemic is over and it looks like there's a there's a ray of uh there's a light at the end of the tunnel um who knows how much this will grow and how further the the markets will grow and open uh even further so looking forward to it and anthony any final thoughts from from yourself yeah if you're working in gaming and you want to progress on the game speak to me okay so we have a team it's not just me it's a team like we as as we said we have lots of other people so we have specialisms okay it's not just me trying to put everybody into everywhere so we have specialism across operations marketing technical products and across they say we don't only deal with operators we deal with providers we don't only they say look at sportsbook or casino we look at esports we look at poker we look at the social gaming side of things uh we're even looking at crypto now at the moment also so they'd say if if your required talent or if you want to take the next step into a move or like say into a bigger challenge uh reach out to us here and exactly and reach out to myself uh i'm sure you're gonna share all our details uh with tim well chris anthony thanks very much for your input your answers it's a pleasure speaking with you guys thank you for having us uh tyson ciao you