Scientific Games Corp. last week announced a rebranding of its company and its name—it will now do business as Light & Wonder, Inc., “a game company singularly focused on creating great games and leveraging technology to enable a seamless player experience across all platforms,” according to a press release.
It’s not the first rebranding for the company originally known as Bally Manufacturing, Inc. The slot supplier was subsequently Bally Gaming and Bally Technologies before its merger with lottery supplier Scientific Games.
The company is in the process of shedding the lottery business that was the origin of Scientific Games, which was founded in 1973. Last year, SG agreed to sell its lottery business to Brookfield Business Partners for $6.1 billion, and the name of the company was sold too. Gaming CEO Matt Wilson said the decision to re-brand was required since Brookfield valued the brand of Scientific Games in the lottery space.
It is also shedding its sports betting business, to Endeavor Group Holdings for $1.2 billion.
The name change is meant to emphasize its remaining core business of creating game content for brick-and-mortar casinos, online casinos and social casinos through its SciPlay division.
According to the company, Light & Wonder will a deliberate cross-platform approach to bring great game franchises to players anywhere, at any time including games in land-based casinos, online and mobile and in both real money and free-to-play social gaming markets.
“We are thrilled to introduce the world to Light & Wonder, a company that will build great games and franchises that offer players a seamless experience across platforms,” said CEO Barry Cottle, who celebrated the launch with employees at the company’s Las Vegas headquarters.
“Our powerful new strategy required a powerful new identity to distinguish us and our unique offerings and capabilities. Our new name and identity are born from our winning strategy to be the leading cross-platform game company and will inspire our people to make great products for our players.”
The new identity, Light & Wonder, was born out of the company’s strategic vision and input from key stakeholders. It also reflects the company’s focus on creating great content, hardware and systems that connect iconic titles across any place or channel.
Cottle said the new name “evokes the kind of feelings we want to capture in the work we do every day, excitement, inspiration, imagination and maybe even a little bit of magic and certainly a lot of fun.
“We already have a world-class team powered by the brightest game creators in the business, and in transforming into a growth company who invests in our people and products, we will serve our players even better wherever and whenever they play,” Cottle told the Wall Street Journal. “That’s where the world is trending because in iGaming, particularly in the United States, the land-based operators are getting digital licenses, and they want to provide their players 360-degree access to the games that they have.”
As part of the transformation, the company’s new website featuring iGaming and land-based casino products, technology and services will now be lnw.com. This new portal to the company offers a look at player-favorite games, as well as platforms, systems, player account management and hardware.
Light & Wonder will operate under an assumed name until a legal name change is complete in the spring. At that time, the company intends to start trading under a new stock ticker it has registered, LNW, on the Nasdaq.
The rebranding announcement came after Scientific Games’ fourth-quarter earnings call, in which it announced total revenues from continuing operations at $580 million, beating all analyst estimates.
“The better than expected quarter coupled with the announced share repurchase authorization should draw a positive reaction in the shares,” wrote analyst David Katz of Jefferies Equity Research. “Although we are generally maintaining our estimates, we expect that as the pending divestitures close in the coming 1-2 quarters, expectations should solidify and valuation should become clearer.”
Jeffries rated SG stock as a “buy,” with a price target of $96 per share, compared to $62 on the day of the report.
“It’s the way players play these days,” said company Chairman Jamie Odell at the earnings call. “They like to play on phones and play on screens. We’re already seeing increasing examples of where games are being launched, at the same time, across platforms, allowing all that extra dollar to come through and to get extra excitement of playing the same games on different platforms.
“So for us, it’s inevitable that that’s the way that play is going to go, and we’re going to facilitate it with great IP, great processes, great technology, and content, which we deliberately developed to make sure it can work easily across those platforms.”
Cottle added, “Operationally, we are very pleased with the strong performance we achieved in the quarter, which capped what was an outstanding year, as we grew double-digits on both top and bottom line and generated substantial cash flow while laying the foundation for future growth.”
In a GGB News exclusive, hear Light & Wonder Gaming CEO Matt Wilson explain the reasons and wisdom of the choice of Light & Wonder as the company’s name in this week’s GGB Podcast.
