English
Published: 2015-12-03 08:00:00 CET
Modern Times Group MTG AB
Company Announcement
MTG accelerates digital development - Senior management changes
Following MTG’s investment in a number of scale new digital ventures
and
reorganisation into a country management structure over the past 6 months,
the
management of the Group’s digital businesses, including digital
accelerator
MTGx, are changing shape.

  ·
The online advertising video on
demand operations across 8 countries will now
sit within the local country
organisations, closer to the customer and local
product offerings. Group AVOD
revenues were up 42% in the first 9 months of 2015
and started streams were up
over 100%.

  ·
The MTGx central video on demand technical functions for both
the Play and
Viaplay services are being united under the leadership of Nordic
digital
streaming business Viaplay’s CEO Jonas Karlén, who will now report
directly to
Group CEO Jørgen Madsen Lindemann. Viaplay’s subscription video on
demand
started streams more than doubled in Q3 2015.

  ·
MTGx Ventures will
continue to focus on the development of the exciting new
Ventures Businesses
comprising Turtle Entertainment (74% owned), Zoomin.TV (51%
owned), Splay (81%
owned) and DreamHack (100% owned), as well as a number of
early stage
start-ups, academies and hubs.  These fast growing businesses
together generate
more than 2.4 billion monthly views globally and combined
annual external sales
of more than SEK 850 million. Arnd Benninghoff has headed
up the Group’s
digital ventures since joining MTG in November 2014 from his role
as CDO of
ProsiebenSat1, and will now become an MTG Executive Vice President as
well
as CEO of MTGx Ventures.


Arnd will report to Mathias Hermansson, who returns
to work on 18 December after
his period of leave. Mathias will take on the new
role of Executive Chairman of
MTGx Ventures and adviser to MTG’s President &
CEO on a number of strategic
projects. Maria Redin’s role as acting CFO is now
made permanent with immediate
effect. As a result of all of these changes,
Rikard Steiber, MTG EVP and Chief
Digital Officer, is leaving MTG.

“The group
is transforming fast now and we have a scale and high growth digital
business,
with leadership in key complementary online video categories. MTGx
has
disrupted and catalysed the organisation as planned and we now have
considerable
momentum in the digitalisation of our existing businesses and
addition of new
ones.

This strategic transformation of our business is a clear
priority for MTG.
Rikard’s job of creating MTGx and setting us on the
transformation path is done,
so he moves on with our thanks. Arnd’s job has
just begun after acquiring some
very exciting new brands and teams. He now
steps up to become an EVP and work
closely with Mathias, who takes on a new
role. MTGx Ventures will now accelerate
the development of what we have, while
also identifying and converting other
complementary and attractive
opportunities. And I am delighted that Maria now
also steps up permanently to a
role that she has made her own over the past 6
months.”

Jørgen Madsen
Lindemann, MTG President and CEO

****
Any
     questions?
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(or Per Lorentz +46 73
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investors@mtg.com (or Matthew Hooper +44 7768
440 414)
MTG (Modern Times Group MTG AB (publ.)) is a leading international
entertainment
group. Our shares are listed on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm (‘MTGA’ and
‘MTGB’).  The
information in this announcement is that which MTG is required to
disclose
according to the Securities Market Act and/or the Financial
Instruments Trading
Act, and was released at 08:00 CET on 3 December 2015.

 


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