Let’s update a few recent developments:
- New CFO Emily Villatte bought 200k shares at a price of approximately 4.26 SEK (about €80k – a decent “skin in the game” for a new hire).
- The two largest owners, Laureus Capital (GoodGame founders) and Knuth Capital (Jawaker founders), with a combined 23% stake, demanded the convening of a general meeting about two months ahead of schedule and are changing the board composition (the new Chairman will come from within the board, including the former H&M CEO and current IKEA Chairman; a couple of old members remain, and the two largest owners appoint three new members). Media comments highlighted “differences in strategic vision” between the former Chairman and the owners, as well as “no time to waste” – the old board was indeed full of Swedish “bureaucrats,” and on the other hand, Laureus Capital had already voted against discharging the board from liability at the 2024 AGM. It remains to be seen in which direction the company, which has undergone a transformation process, will be guided from here on, but at least there is now “skin in the game” on the board. The recent drop on Friday was triggered when a nomination committee representative, serving as a “professional board member” for Handelsbanken, decided to step aside – after all, he had been bypassed by the owners, and Handelsbanken has been selling shares into the market for about a year.
- The stock’s momentum has been very weak, and the buy side has mainly consisted of the company itself (a stake of about 6% purchased from zero in the fall in about five months) – this week an announcement was made regarding the completion of the previous buyback program, and we’ll see if the current board still has the motivation to continue with a new program (or if they wait until the EGM).
- Based on public data, the game portfolio has developed very positively regarding the largest games:
- Jawaker, well-known in Arab culture (28% growth in Q4, approximately 16% of the company’s revenue in 2025), is somewhat exposed to the situation in the Middle East (at least if internet connections fail), but according to SensorTower data, Q/Q development is at least not negative (even slightly growing).
- The war-themed strategy game trilogy Supremacy has developed very positively across both Steam and mobile game channels (figures for Stillfront’s own browser version are not public), even though the fourth game in the series (Warhammer 40k) has not been released yet. The games were clearly marketed anyway in January/February as player counts rose, but especially the Iran vs. USA situation has accelerated the numbers for Supremacy: WW3 (Steam is clearly an “onboarding channel” for the game, as the games grew y/y also in Q4, even though player activity on Steam was clearly lower – unlike Q1 so far):
- The new addition to the Big Farm game series, “Big Farm Homestead,” seems to be a success at least on par with Sunshine Island (released in 2023); furthermore, Sunshine Island’s metrics also appear to have improved Q/Q (Q4 growth was already 34% organically, without significant contribution from the new game released in December).
- Otherwise, major negative or positive trends are hard to spot. Bitlife looks slightly negative on SensorTower, but on the other hand, there has been a focus on D2C channels since Q4, affecting the numbers. Albion Online is preparing for an Xbox release in Q2, which is a very interesting expansion (previously entirely PC / slightly mobile).
The stock is down -37% YTD, and this has also fueled shorts following the momentum trend (about 6% vs. 1.5% in the fall). It may be that we have to wait for a catalyst at least until the next earnings release at the end of April, but a 41% LTM FCF yield has kept me loading up on the stock.