Suzo International continues to place focus on increasing relations with European casinos. Having built very strong business relations over fifty years with European OEM’s, the natural step was to increase Suzo’s presence with the European casinos. Following on from the AESI’s success in the USA (a company within the Suzo-Happ Group), Suzo International has learnt the benefits that can be brought by building direct casino relations.

The first step was to bring together a range of world-class casino products. Casinos can benefit from being able to choose from a very wide product range. The second stage was to create a catalogue specifically for casinos. The Casino Catalogue 2008 from Suzo International underlines this focus. The third step was to create a strong European Casino Team.

Let’s look at this last point first. Erik Wijma leads the Casino Team with many years of experience. His previous position as Sales Manager for France, Italy and Switzerland brought his first steps into the casino market. Erik explains how this came about, “As gaming OEM’s are minimal in France it was natural for me to turn directly to the casinos, given that France boasts the largest number of casino slots in Western Europe. Here I learnt the benefits for both the casinos and Suzo from creating direct business relations. With AESI joining the Suzo-Happ Group, this allowed us to further enhance our strategy”.

Erik has a team of three to help him support the European casino market. Whilst Erik continues to focus on the countries in Western Europe, he can look on the support from two sales colleagues. Mathias Reindl is the Regional Sales Manager for Central and Eastern Europe and Joost van Egeraat is the Regional Sales Manager for Southern Europe. Their professional backgrounds differ but blend in to provide Suzo a whole wealth of experience. Austrian-born Mathias lives in Germany, having had nine years of experience working in Spain. Having gained experience in a global company such as Siemens, he then joined the gaming industry three years ago to become sales manager at Starpoint. With Starpoint now being a part of the Suzo-Happ Group, Mathias has taken on the challenge to support the casino customers in his regions. Thus, Mathias brings a wealth of experience from the components side. Joost, on the other hand, brings a wealth of experience from the manufacturing side. Joost has joined Suzo from Orion and this OEM background brings an essential advantage to the casino group.

A major pillar in the raison d être of the Suzo casino group is to provide professional service. Here Erik has turned to Marc Martens who joined Suzo from the photo-processing market. Marc’s experience has been to offer practical, on-site service to his customers. He relishes challenges and states himself the importance of knowing the customers. Therefore, casino customers can look forward to dealing with Marc’s uncomplicated, solution-oriented approach.

So now we’ve seen the team, let’s look back to the Suzo product range. The casino catalogue is 65 pages long, thus underlining the strength in depth of the Suzo product range. However, offering the right products is only part of the Suzo casino strategy, as Erik explains, “we seek to bring innovation to the market. This, coupled with our outstanding service, is where we see our unique selling point. It is our stated goal to bring benefits to the casino market”.

But how do Erik and his team intend to do this? The example of strategic partnerships explains this. Strategic relationships with FutureLogic and MEI allow Suzo International to bring the benefits of these products within the European casino market. Both companies have proven its technological strengths in their home markets – namely the USA. Suzo is transferring this know-how to the European casinos who are seeing the benefits of having these products fitted as standard within the slots. Casinos thus have direct links to new component technology and with the service that Suzo offers know that they can rely on these components during their life usage within the slots. Many casinos within Europe have successfully trialed the MEI Cashflow SC83 banknote reader in value-added trials (VAT’s). With the increasing importance of TITO in Europe, casinos appreciate the benefits of using the market leader FutureLogic.

The Suzo casino team is increasing its dialogue with casinos in traditional gaming as well. Suzo-Happ is the official distributor for Elixir Gaming so can offer a whole range of table solutions with the Chip Washer, Deck Checker, RandomPlus Shuffler and ShufflePro.

Erik Wijma sums up the new casino group, “we are providing world class products to the casino market. We are constantly looking to improve our products for the benefit of the market. Our toppers are a prime example with new Xenon technology toppers that can be linked together. We focus on market leaders for our strategic partnerships and thus can offer the casino market the excellent benefits in note and ticket handling with MEI and FutureLogic.

Atronic International GmbH Latin America has moved its office!

As of the 1st March, 2008 the Peru office of Atronic International GmbH Latin America has been relocated to new premises in Lima, Peru.

The main address and telephone numbers are as follows:

Atronic International Peru
Av. Van Gogh 349,
San Borja
Lima, Perú

Tel: +511 618-3200
Fax: +511 618-3201

The move was initialised by the need for a bigger office due to the growth of the Atronic team in Peru. The new premises offer more space and are more comfortable for both employees and visiting customers.

Atronic’s General Manager for Latin America, Oscar Londono, said, “The bigger space will allow the Peru team to offer a better service to Atronic customers and make them feel more comfortable when visiting Atronic Peru.”

 Bristol, PA- Merit Entertainment’s anti-piracy program scored another victory as officers from the Dubai Police Economic Crimes Department recently arrested an Indian national and seized counterfeit Merit products in a March 18th raid.

The raid and arrest were based on the United Arab Emirates Copyright Law of 2002 and netted thirteen suspected ION™ update kits and thirty suspected Force™ motherboards. Merit’s attorneys from Cedar White Bradley assisted Dubai Police with the raid.

“This was the result of a two month investigation into counterfeit Merit products being sold in the U.A.E,” said Robert C. Fay, Merit’s Director of Government Relations. “We will continue our investigation regarding the customers of the Indian national and appropriate action will be taken.”

Merit’s anti-piracy program focuses on enforcing the company’s intellectual property rights and has produced strong results in several countries around the world.

“The Dubai raid and the raids in China two weeks ago resulted in criminal cases and show Merit’s commitment to fighting piracy in any country where our intellectual property rights are violated,” added Fay.

For 30 years, Merit has ensured long-term return on investment for operators by providing continually high-earning equipment along with updates and upgrades for its products. With an installed base of over 250,000 touch-screen games garnering nearly 4.6 billion plays per year, Merit Entertainment is the worldwide leader in touch-screen entertainment devices. Merit Entertainment products appear globally in a wide array of venues and appeal to an almost limitless demographic. Merit continues to expand its position in the industry with ever-increasing entertainment, content, and new games.

ELK GROVE VILLAGE, IL (March 6, 2008) —– Suzo-Happ Group today announced completion of the acquisition of Suzo Polska Sp. z.o.o, located in Wysogotowo, Poland.  Suzo Polska, a distributor of parts and components for gaming equipment in Poland, has grown very rapidly during the last several years.  The company will operate as part of Suzo International, the European arm of the Suzo-Happ Group, with the same local leadership responsible for its recent growth.  The Suzo Polska facility will be expanded in 2008.  Pfingsten Partners, a private equity firm in Deerfield, Illinois is Suzo-Happ's majority shareholder.

Suzo Polska is the eighth company to become part of the Suzo-Happ Group.   All eight companies combine to strengthen Suzo-Happ's position as the leading global supplier of amusement and gaming parts and accessories with over 30,000 SKUs, customers in 80 countries, and more than 600 employees in 14 locations.

“This acquisition continues our expansion strategy by investing in the rapidly growing Eastern European market” said Marcel Oelen, Managing Director of Suzo International.  “It provides us a physical presence which enables us to serve our customers better and further penetrate the market.” 

Pedro Garcia, Managing Director of Suzo Technical Components Espana S.A., the Spanish subsidiary of Suzo International acquired in 2006 said, “As a member of the Suzo-Happ Group, we have access to many more resources allowing us to better serve our customers.  These additional resources enabled us to achieve a rapid growth rate beginning in 2007 immediately after joining the team.  I’m sure our colleagues at Suzo Polska will similarly benefit from Suzo-Happ’s ownership.”

Tomasz Andrzejewski, General Manager Suzo Polska, reports that “We are very pleased to be part of the Suzo-Happ Group.  Our business continues to grow at a very rapid rate.  The additional resources and commitment to the future is very important at this stage of our company’s life.”

Suzo International is pleased to inform its customers that the new Casino Catalogue 2008 can be downloaded from their website. It’s simple to do – type in www.suzo.com , then pick “Catalogue” on the black bar. Scroll down and click on “Casino Catalogue 2008”.

 This PDF document is simple to navigate. The whole Suzo casino product range can be found in this catalogue. Erik Wijma – Suzo International’s Business Manager for Casinos stated, “The new Casino Group continues in gaining in momentum. We have now built up a sales and technical team to support the European casino industry. To this end we have put major focus on the casino catalogue which was introduced to the market at the ICE. Our customers are spread all around Europe and so we see this free download service as a further way of underlining the excellent service of our casino team”.

Customers can chose from a wide product range in the Casino Catalogue that is spread over sixty three pages. On the last page the index gives a clear overview. The product highlights from the ICE can also be found within the catalogue – namely the new toppers with LED strip, wide-screen touchscreens from ELO and the Elixir product range. Whether you are looking for money handling products, tools, tokens or locks– you’’ find them here as these are just a few examples of the products available.