Centric Multimedia
| Anonymi Etairia | |
| Traded as | Athex: CENTR |
| Founded | 1995 |
| Headquarters | Athens, Greece |
Key people |
Rodolfo Odoni (Managing Director) Ioannis Capodistrias (Vice-President) George Athanasopoulos (Chief Operating Officer) |
| Revenue |
 €567.1 million (2011) |
Number of employees |
 20 |
| Website | www.centric.gr |
Centric Holdings S.A, also known as CENTRIC, is a Greek public company, trading in the ATHEX since 2002. Its 2011 Fiscal Year turnover is circa €567m.
History
Centric was founded in 1995 under the trading name “Group Multimedia Systems S.A.” and it specialized in the production and distribution of digital products and home entertainment services.
Since its inception the company expanded its operations in the digital gaming industry, representing and distributing game consoles, computer games, online games and computer and gaming console peripherals in the Greek Market. In 2001, Centric signed an agreement with Microsoft for the distribution of the Xbox gaming console in Greece, establishing its position in the digital home entertainment market.
In 2002 Centric was listed in [ATHEX] for public trading and in 2003 changed its trading name to “Centric Holdings S.A.”.
Due to the intense competition and the illegal software copying (“piracy”) of gaming software, which ultimately suppressed gross profit margins and have therefore restrained long-term growth prospects for the digital home entertainment industry, Centric decided to explore different investment opportunities in order to enhance its presence in the digital entertainment industry. Hence in 2007 the company decided to focus on the integration of online services capitalizing οn its vast experience on the business.
The online entertainment companies at the time were offering a combination of traditional services such as sportsbook, casino, poker and several soft games using state of the art technology in a web environment providing consumers entertainment through Personal Computers.
Therefore, in 2007 Centric started shifting its investments in areas with better growth prospects in order to boost its financial performance. The company acquired 21% of ECN Management Ltd, a company that manages and operates the VistaΒet.com and LexPoker.com & Lexcasino.com sites in the Greek language through its subsidiary Vista Gaming Online Ltd. In addition Centric acquired 100% of Flyer S.A., which was the JV partner of Sportingbet Plc for the provision of its online entertainment services in the Greek.
Expanding partnerships and present
In 2008 Centric raised its stake in ECN Management Ltd to a total of 51%. Moreover, Centric expanded the agreement with Sportingbet to include an additional 9 languages of the CEE & SEE (Croatia, Slovenia, Romania, Macedonian, Serbia, Slovakia, Albania, Montenegro and Bosnia) to offer the online entertainment services through Sportingbet and Vistabet.
In 2009 Centric commenced advertising and launched the Sportingbet online services in the Croatian and Slovenian languages as well as the Sportingbet and Vistabet.com online services in the Romanian language. In 2010, the subsidiaries of the group, started the promotion and management of the Vistabet.com services in Albanian and the Sportingbet services in Slovakian.Furthermore, in 2012 the services were launched in the Serbian language.
The company gradually distanced itself from the activity of the distribution of digital content and in 2011 has decided to discontinue it. Further, in 2012 under a decision of the General Meeting of its shareholders, Centric has changed its name from Centric Multimedia to Centric Holdings, trusting that the new name depicts better and more accurately its current activities.