GLI co-founder James Maida says the impending sale of the company to private equity firm CVC Capital Partners will provide the company with financial security and new avenues for expansion that do not exist under its current ownership model.
Revealing that discussions over “institutionalizing” GLI have been ongoing for the past 14 months before becoming public in July, Maida told Inside Asian Gaming on day one of the G2E tradeshow in Las Vegas that now is the perfect time for he and fellow founder Paul Magno to hand over the financial reins of the company as it looks to shore up its position as the leading industry test lab globally.
“It was time that we started thinking about it,” said Maida, pointing to the company’s foundation in New Jersey in 1989. “We’re almost 37 years into GLI and I think about the 1,700 employees and 1,700 families that we have.
“What most people don’t know is that GLI was started with a capital investment of US$12,000, which was US$10,000 by myself and US$2,000 by Paul. And we never took debt, never took any outside equity. Our capitalization table is just the two of us and we have a responsibility to our 1,700 employees around the world.
“So right now, at Paul’s age – he is a few years older than me – it was a good way for him to exit the business and for me to exit in terms of financial concentration.
“We will be bigger, we will be better, and this allows us to institutionalize GLI so that the engineer we hire today at 24 years old will have a company to work for in another 37 years from now.”
It was via two antitrust filings in Austria and Malta in July that CVC’s acquisition of a 100% stake of GLI was first revealed. The investment will see Avalon Buyer Limited – a UK-based subsidiary of CVC – take sole control of GLI as well as GLI affiliates Worldwide Laboratories LLC and Kobetron LLC.
Contrary to some reports, however, Maida will stay on as CEO and President of the company and will take a place on the newly formed Board of Directors. The entire management team will also be retained.
“There will be no structural change to GLI,” he explained. “We have a responsibility to our employees but more so to the regulators because we do, as you know, a super majority of the testing in the gaming industry. So, we owe it not only to the suppliers but the regulators to have a sustainable succession plan. And this will allow us to do that.
“The whole process has been very intentional. We didn’t have to do this but it’s the right time and we want to send the right message to the industry that nothing is changing.
“We’ve done a whole lot of great things in the last year. We’ve hired 270 new test engineers, turnaround times have never been faster than they are now and this year we’ll do over 120,000 certifications globally.
“None of that’s changing but it will help us not worry about what succession planning looks like.”
More important, according to Maida, are the doors that CVC’s financial might will open for GLI moving forward.
“This will allow GLI do other things, to invest in other companies that previously were out of reach because I didn’t want to take the risk,” he said.
“CVC is a global organization with an unbelievable wherewithal, and that will only help us. So, we’re really excited. We picked the best partner after interviewing over 50 potential partners in a process that spanned a little over 14 months.”
On his new role as an employee rather than an owner, Maida insists he looks forward to a different type of accountability but also the input of his fellow board members.
“The only thing that will be different for me is I’ve never had to work with a board or had somebody tell me different things,” he continued. “But I’m going to say this – I think I’ll be better when I get different voices in the boardroom than listening to myself, or Paul and I talking, or even our leadership team.
“Sometimes when you’re in your own echo chamber, you’re not as good as when you have people on the outside. So, I think it’s going to be better. We’re going to have diverse ideas.”
Confirmation of the transaction is now in the hands of regulators across the more than 710 jurisdictions in which GLI operates in globally. As such there remains no definitive timeline for completion, with Maida estimating sometime in the first half of 2026. He also politely declines to divulge the final sale price, pointing to the fact that neither GLI nor CVC is publicly listed.
But he is at pains to stress, “This is not about me and it’s never been about me – it’s about our 1,700 families. And every employee, no matter what age, deserves to understand what their career path is, their trajectory.
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“That’s why I want to make it clear that the team will not see anything different and the families won’t see anything different. It’s just more of the same.
“That’s an important message for our customers, our suppliers, our regulators and our operators, too. We still have our 1,700 employees, including just under 1,200 direct testers, operating out of 31 offices around the globe.
“And me, well, I’m not going to miss it because I’m still going to be here as well.”
