Live online casino games innovator Evolution Gaming Group AB has announced that its co-founders have reduced their overall shareholding after earlier this week offloading just under one-quarter of their total stake.

Evolution Gaming Group AB explained that Fredrik Osterberg and Jens Von Bahr sold some 1,798,520 shares they held in the Stockholm-listed firm via an accelerated book-building process to local and international institutional investors at an individual unit price of around $67.

The Swedish firm declared that the sold stake equates to approximately 5% of its entire outstanding shareholding with the sale conducted via Fros Ventures AB and JOvB Investment AB.

In a joint statement, Von Bahr and Osterberg stated that they had gone through ‘a very emotional process’ before taking the decision to sell off the shares and added that it was ‘inevitable’ that some investors would ‘react negative’ to their move.

“There is never a good timing to sell down,” read the joint statement. “So either you can simply never sell or you have to choose the least bad timing. We have chosen the latter. The company is performing well and every analyst covering our stock has a positive recommendation.”

The pair additionally proclaimed that they hoped the decision to sell would ‘be a bad deal’ for them before asserting their belief that the price for Evolution Gaming Group AB shares ‘will continue to have a positive development long term’.

“As aforementioned, we do both still have the vast majority of our wealth in Evolution Gaming [Group AB] and in addition we are moving our shares to a new jointly-owned vehicle that will control our shareholding in Evolution Gaming [Group AB],” read the joint statement. “We remain firm in our belief in, and commitment to, Evolution Gaming [Group AB] and intend to continue to be active shareholders for the long run.