Aristocrat Leisure

Infobox Company
company_name = Aristocrat Leisure Limited
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company_type = Public company (asx|ALL)
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location_city = Sydney
location_country = Australia
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homepage = http://www.aristocrat.com.au/
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Aristocrat Leisure Limited asx|ALL is an Australian company, which has its administrative centre in the Sydney suburb of Lane Cove, although the majority of its research and development is done at its Rosebery site. It also has marketing and development offices in South Africa, Russia, the United States and Japan.

Aristocrat is the largest gaming machine manufacturer in Australia, and is one of the largest manufacturers of slot machines in the world (currently second only to US based International Game Technology). The company produced its first machine in 1953, and was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 1996. The company was founded by Len Ainsworth, whose family [cite web |url=http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/RICH-PICKINGS-Len-Ainsworth-EFVNV?OpenDocument |title=RICH PICKINGS: Len Ainsworth |accessdate=2008-07-07 |publisher=Business Spectator |date=2008-5-10 ] maintains a lucrative stake in the company, but is now Chairman of a different gaming company, Ainsworth Game Technology. Aristocrat is now licensed to distribute slot machines and other gaming products in over 200 jurisdictions (note that many countries, such as Australia, have a number of different gaming-licence jurisdictions).

Products and PartnershipsAside from spinning reel slot machines, the company also has strong interests in gaming systems (a computerised network systems that manage slot machines), computerised card game simulations, electronic table games and linked jackpot systems (such as the patented Hyperlink systems). The company has developed the exclusive Reel Power system,where players buy reels instead of lines, win combinations in the standard configuration.

To this day, probably the most iconic Aristocrat game is "Queen of the Nile", with its striking golden Egyptian theme. However, a key revenue driver for the company is its linked jackpot themes, such as the "Cash Express" or "Jackpot Carnival" hyperlink themes, which place large progressive jackpots over a number of machines, usually between 4 and 12, but theoretically up to 256 machines can be linked under one jackpot system.

Key strengths of Aristocrat are its advanced video graphics games, as well as its large range of low-denomination games. Many jurisdictions, such as the gaming district, have a majority of quarter dollar games, and a large proportion of mechanical spinning reels. However, most areas are gradually moving toward computerised gaming machines with lower denominations, which allow greater flexibility of bet and line combinations. This puts Aristocrat in a strong position captialise on future trends, since its base market in Australia is already well-developed in these areas.

The company has a number of distribution partnerships, such as its partnership with Sammy Corporation in Japan, which allow it to focus on software development while capitalising on the local presence of their distributing partners.

Corporate Information

Company revenue during 2004 was in excess of $1.1 billion Australian dollars. 2080 persons are employed by the company. Its current CEO is the former CEO of United International Pictures, Paul Oneile, and his experience in the entertainment industry combined with sound financial management has put the company its current strong and competitive position, with record earnings and profits throughout 2005. This is in contrast to earlier financial crises that the company has suffered, mainly associated with licence rejections in Nevada and dishonoured contracts in South America.

Aristocrat's CEO has blamed the US Subprime Crisis for bad financial results in 2008 [cite web |url=http://business.smh.com.au/aristocrat-feels-pain-in-us-20080429-29dt.html |title=Aristocrat feels pain in US |accessdate=2008-06-02 |publisher=Fairfax Digital |date=2008-4-30 ] , despite the fact that competing companies have experienced record growth [cite web |url=http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/news/article.asp?docKey=600-200805121603PR_NEWS_USPR_____LAM099-7JH6S64SN92VTRD19R8M3AIGUE&timestamp=05/12/2008%204:03%20PM%20ET&headline=Bally%20Technologies%2C%20Inc.%20Announces%20Record%20Earnings%20for%20Third%20Quarter%20Fiscal%202008%20on%20Record%20Revenues%20of%20%24233%20Million&docSource=PR%20Newswire&provider=ACQUIREMEDIA&realtedsyms=%7CUS%3BBYI&symbol=BYI |title=Bally Technologies, Inc. Announces Record Earnings for Third Quarter Fiscal 2008 on Record Revenues of $233 Million |accessdate=2008-06-02 |publisher=The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. |date=2008-5-12 ] in the same time period. As a result of the expected drop in revenue, the CEO has enacted sweeping budget cuts, including large-scale retrenchments of staff from all areas of the business [cite web |url=http://www.asx.com.au/asx/statistics/showAnnouncementPDF.do?idsID=00839957 |title=CEO & CFO Presentation, Macquarie conference |accessdate=2008-06-02 |publisher=asx.com.au |date=2008-5-7 ] .

Current CEO, Paul Oneile has announced that he will be leaving the company as of the end of 2008. A successor has not yet been identified. [cite web |url=http://news.smh.com.au/business/aristocrat-begin-global-search-for-ceo-20080729-3mht.html |title=Aristocrat begin global search for CEO |accessdate=2008-07-29 |publisher=Fairfax Digital |date=2008-07-29 ]

External links

* [http://www.aristocrat.com.au/ Official site]
* [http://www.lotteryinsider.com/vendors/aristocrat.htm Lottery Insider corporate profile]
* [http://www.slotshero.com/slots/machine/manufacturers/aristocrat/ Slots Hero corporate profile]

References