Scientific Games has changed chief financial officers, dipping into the technology and computer field to land the next top financial executive for the Las Vegas-based gaming equipment provider.
The company named Michael Eklund as CFO Thursday, replacing Michael Quartieri, who will remain in a full-time role with Scientific Games until June 30, where he will transition into a consulting position that will run through Dec. 31.
Eklund spent more than 20 years at Dell Technologies in both financial and operational roles, including leading the value creation and integration function for the $67 billion Dell-EMC combination. He served as CFO of Dell’s $40 billion-plus client solutions business unit and global operations organization.
“He has a wealth of experience in financial and operational leadership and a passion for aligning all aspects of a company’s finance and operations with its core business model,” Scientific Games CEO Barry Cottle said in the statement.
Scientific Games CFO Michael Eklund
Scientific Games has made several key hires in the past year, including Matt Wilson as CEO of the gaming division, Rich Schneider as Chief Product Officer, and Jamie Odell as a special advisor to Cottle.
“Scientific Games is a highly leveraged but high free cash flow generating business, in a normal environment,” said Macquarie Securities gaming analyst Chad Beynon. “That said, we still believe Scientific Games has strong asset value within the different business segments and the incoming CFO will be tasked to examine these values.”
Eklund joins Scientific games as the company, which supplies equipment and technology to both the casino industry and government lotteries, deals with the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. Casinos nationwide are slowly beginning to return to business after being shut down starting in mid-March.
In March, Scientific Games furloughed an undisclosed number of employees, reduced pay and work hours for others, and sliced the salaries of executive leadership by 50%. Cottle gave up his entire salary. In April, the company said it had sliced costs by $100 million in the second quarter and drew down $480 million of its credit facilities, which was added to the $200 million in cash the company had on hand at the end of March.
Cottle added that Quartieri wanted to leave earlier this year but, after the COVID-19 pandemic hit, agreed to stay to help the company navigate the crisis. He credited Quartieri with “efforts to reduce our cash burn while preserving key operations.” Cottle added that Scientific Games will emerge from the pandemic as “an even stronger competitor.”
Quartieri is moving to a new industry outside of gaming.
SunTrust Robinson gaming analyst Barry Jonas told investors he didn’t view the CFO change as “a negative read” for the company operationally.
“We think the transition is a natural progression for Mr. Quartieri, who’s moving to a new undisclosed role outside of gaming after serving as Scientific Games’ CFO for four years under three separate CEOs,” Jonas said. “We think Mr. Eklund should adapt quickly, given both a financial and operational background.”
Jonas added that most of the finance and treasury decisions come from billionaire Ronald Perelman, the company’s chairman, who owns roughly 40% of Scientific Games’ stock through his MacAndrews & Forbes holding company.
Shares of Scientific Games closed at $14.37 on the Nasdaq Thursday, down 8 cents or 0.55%.
Howard Stutz is the executive editor of CDC Gaming. He can be reached at hstutz@cdcgaming.com. Follow @howardstutz on Twitter.
