GiG CFO Exit Raises Questions Over 888Africa Growth Plan

Key Points

• Just five days after he told investors that GiG had slashed its workforce by a whopping 25%, CFO Phil Richards was gone.
• GiG’s 2027 revenue forecast of €85m – €90m is pinned on 888Africa’s performance, a company that only recently completed its acquisition on September 30th.
• No word yet on who will be replacing Richards, and we still don’t have any details on how 888Africa is really doing, country by country.

Two Announcements, Just 5 Days Apart

On October 28th, Richards told investors that GiG had chopped its headcount by more than a quarter, just 5 days later, the company confirmed that he was out. Richards was only at the helm of GiG for a couple of and a half years. Richards’ LinkedIn post makes it clear that October was his last month at the company but the 5-day gap in the public announcement is the only mystery here. GiG hasn’t said why he left, so for now, the reason remains a complete mystery.

Richards is off to new pastures, he starts as the new CFO of design firm Chaos on December 1st. He was only at GiG for a year and a bit after spending almost six years at Kambi, and his appointment was announced back in June 2024. At that time he took on a whole host of responsibilities including mergers and acquisitions and investor relations. In his LinkedIn post, Richards identified his time at GiG as marked by a couple of key milestones, the IPO and the company’s investment in 888Africa

The CEO, Richard Carter, thanked Richards for his “contribution to GiG” in the official announcement, but that was it, no explanation, no analysis, nothing. All we have is a promise that the “Board has initiated the search for a successor”, GiG says it’ll let us know more about that another time. For now, that’s it. On the morning of the 3rd November, GiG shares actually went up 3.8% to SEK3.28 in Stockholm.

What the Q3 Call Revealed?

Richards had already let investors know about the scale of GiG’s job cuts on the Q3 results call, he said the company had “cut headcount by more than 25% thanks to all the efficiencies we’ve been able to bring in through AI and other things”, and he warned that there was more to come in terms of cost savings, but, of course, he didn’t give any details.

The company had also decided to pull out of the Philippines and closed its white label business, in the same call, the CEO, Carter, painted a pretty rosy picture of the company, he said we had “a sharper, fitter, more highly connected GiG”, but as we all know, the numbers don’t always bear that out, Q3 revenue actually dropped by 12% to €8.5m, and the adjusted EBITDA was down from €1.2m to €0.8m, the operating loss went up to €4.3m, and the loss after tax came in at €4.5m, that’s a pretty far cry from the CEO’s rosy prediction.

And if that wasn’t enough, the nine-month figures are also looking a bit grim, a loss after tax of €16.9m, that’s up from €11.7m a year earlier.

A Savings Plan That’s Continually Changing Up

GiG had to revise its financial outlook for 2026, dropping the news on 15 January. They were now predicting revenue of €44m – €48m, down from its earlier guidance of €56m – €60m. On top of that, their adjusted EBITDA target had been cut to €10m – €13m from the €15m they were initially thinking.

The reason behind the change was bad currency movements in Latin America and a Brazilian partner’s decision to delay the launch. As a result, GiG announced a new €4.5m annualised savings program, aimed at making the company’s underlying cash flow positive by the end of the first half of 2026.

By August that year, GiG claimed they’d completed the savings program. On top of that they’d started a second round of savings worth an additional €6m in June. Most of the additional savings came from closing their white label business and pulling out of the US and Philippine markets. What’s more, the cash flow target had shifted, with management now thinking they could reach it by the end of the financial year.

In 2025, GiG’s revenue had climbed an impressive 18% to €37.6m, with Q4 revenue up 8% to €9.5m. They were also able to report an adjusted EBITDA of €4.3m, which marked their first positive annual result on that measure. However, despite this progress they still reported an operating loss of €15.2m and a loss after tax of €15.1m for 2025.

888Africa Shuts Down on the Last Day of the Quarter

GiG’s recovery plan is now heavily reliant on their acquisition of 888Africa. On 26 August, the company agreed to buy an 80% stake in the business for €16.4m from an Evoke plc subsidiary. The deal marked a return to B2C gaming for GiG, a sector they’d been away from for several years.

On the same day, GiG chopped their 2026 adjusted EBITDA forecast from €10 m – €13 m to €5m – €7m. They’d also received an €8.5m funding package to support the acquisition, a combination of €2.5m in new shares and €6.0m through convertible loans with a two-year term.

Needless to say, the share subscription was dependent on the deal going ahead, which it did on 30 September. One of the people who’d subscribed for shares was Carter, who’d also provided loans under the funding package. Following the announcement and the Q2 results, GiG shares had dropped by about 20% to SEK1.38.

Richards later described the 888Africa purchase as a “strategic foothold” for GiG’s core B2B business, essentially a beachhead that would give them access to a local operator. Having that kind of local presence would give GiG a much better understanding of the regulators, player behaviour and payment methods on the ground. He made his reasoning clear when he said: “That dual value is the whole point of the deal.”

On 28 September, GiG estimated that 888Africa was doing an annualised net gaming revenue run rate of around $50m. The business had seen Q2 revenue grow by 17% compared to the previous quarter and a 30% jump year on year. The adjusted EBITDA margin stood at 13%.

The deal had completed on 30 September, the final day of Q3, and GiG announced its completion on 1 October. As far as the final payment terms were concerned, GiG were stumping up €6.1m upfront, with the remaining €10.3m payable over the next ten months.

Forecasting 2027: Successor Ahead

The forecast for GiG’s 2027 is set at between €85m and €90m of revenue and €17m and €19m in adjusted EBITDA. This will be the first year that will take into account the revenue from 888Africa so the figures cannot be easily compared to those for 2026.

GiG reconfirmed its 2026 forecast in October by keeping the revenue forecast unchanged at €45m to €48m and the adjusted EBITDA forecast unchanged at €5.5m to €7.0m. Carter believes the core business will be profitable in Q4 of 2026. “Revenue is now running above operating costs, incremental revenue flows to cash,” he added.

The coming 2027 year is expected to see “a material increase in combined EBITDA and cash generation.” The next CFO will need to justify the figures to the investors.

Expert Analysis: Is the AI Story at GiG Just a Smokescreen?

GiG said they made a workforce reduction of over 25% thanks to AI and strides in efficiency, but when you do the math, the picture gets a lot more complicated. They also got rid of their white-label business and pulled out of the US and the Philippines, points that don’t appear anywhere in the numbers they gave to investors.

We’re pretty convinced that what really happened here was that GiG slimmed down the business a bit and reduced employment rather than replacing people with machines. Since they don’t break down the numbers, investors are left with no way to tell how much of the cutback came from white labels and how much from actually using AI to run operations.

Another thing investors should be paying close attention to is the difference between GiG’s $4.3m adjusted EBITDA and its reported loss of $15.1m. Their forecast for 2027 says the same thing, positive adjusted EBITDA, but still a pretty big loss. Any investors relying on the EBITDA number are likely to be surprised when they see the real figures.

And what about 888Africa? There is no breakdown of which country is bringing in most of its revenue, indeed, GiG barely even mentions it. Mozambique is their bread and butter, or so they say, but until they come clean about the split of their cash coming in from each country, investors should think twice about putting money into 888Africa. Especially if that one country is the whole ball game.

The cash flow target from GiG has gotten a nice long extension too. They first said it would be done by the end of 2026’s first half, then decided to push the deadline all the way to the end of the year.

Strangely enough, there is no evidence suggesting Richards’ departure from GiG was down to anything going on at the company, like maybe the layoffs and restructuring. His new CFO gig at Chaos might have something to do with it, but investors shouldn’t be left waiting for the Q4 results to find out if they have a named replacement for Richards. Again, this is all just speculation on our part.

If you disagree with this analysis, that is fair enough, cutting the workforce can be a bad sign or it can be a smart move to fix a company’s problems. The only way we can really tell is to take a closer look at GiG’s numbers and how well 888Africa is doing, and we still have a while to wait to get those results from GiG’s first full quarter of ownership.