After purchasing 51% of gaming affiliates firm Game Lounge Limited in January of 2015 via its Cherry Malta Limited subsidiary, online casino operator Cherry AB has now announced that it will be acquiring a further 44% stake in the Malta-based company.

Stockholm-based Cherry AB declared that it took the decision to exercise an option on acquiring the further stake in Game Lounge Limited to take its total holding up to 95% after its target experienced ‘strong and stable development’ in the period after the initial purchase.

Cherry AB is responsible for over a dozen online gaming domains including SunnyPlayer.com, SveaCasino.com and CherryCasino.com while additionally owning games developer Yggdrasil Gaming Limited and spent approximately $228.12 million in May to buy Malta-headquartered rival ComeOn Malta Limited.

Now ranked as the third largest firm of its kind in Scandinavia, Cherry AB explained that its latest purchase is to be paid for via ‘a combination of cash and a new issue of shares’ and is expected to close after its next annual general meeting in May. Following completion, it detailed that the remaining 5% of Game Lounge Limited is to be held by entrepreneurs Jonas Cederholm and Fredrik Langeland, who established the company in 2011 and are to remain with the firm post-deal as its Chief Executive Officer and Head of Sales respectively.

Anders Holmgren, Chief Executive Officer for Cherry AB, stated that Game Lounge Limited has ‘a strong position in a growing market’ and recently chalked up total third-quarter revenues of around $5.38 million, which represented a boost of 180% year-on-year, courtesy of an earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization margin of 75%.

“Game Lounge [Limited’s] business model is remarkably scalable, the company has unique capabilities in search engine optimization and is the recognized standard in affiliation within the gaming industry and we see great potential to expand the scope of the business to also include other segments such as the loan affiliate website Lainat.fi, [which was] acquired by Game Lounge [Limited] in November,” read a statement from Holmgren.