Who Owns Hacksaw Gaming? Owners, Founder and Management

Who owns Hacksaw Gaming? The listed company and its shareholders

It helps to distinguish three layers: the public company that issues shares, the operating businesses it controls and the individuals or entities holding interests in the parent. Hacksaw AB (publ) is the Swedish listed parent. Hacksaw Gaming refers to the operating brand and gaming-content business. Maltese group entities conduct substantial operational and licensing activity. The existence of an operating subsidiary does not make its managing director the beneficial owner of the Swedish parent.

Corporate and governance map

At year-end 2025, the issuer said all its shares belonged to a single class with one vote each. Thus, the annual shareholder table showed the same percentage for capital and voting rights. This simplifies interpretation at that particular date, but a publicly reported holder may be a company, trust or nominee. A registered shareholder's name does not reveal all persons behind it, the rights in its governing documents or who ultimately exercises economic control.

The parent listed on 25 June 2025. Its IPO largely offered existing shares, not a sale of the entire business. See Hacksaw history and IPO and Hacksaw brands and subsidiaries for those separate subjects.

Major shareholders: the last complete dated snapshot

The audited 2025 annual report includes a named table of the ten largest shareholders as at 31 December 2025, sourced there to Modular Finance. The relevant issued-share denominator was 289,195,987 shares. This is a point-in-time capital and voting snapshot, not a complete live register for 8 November 2026.

The figures show concentrated holdings, but no majority control by one named holder. The ten positions cannot be assigned to one family or control bloc without further evidence.

Holdings can change through trades, loans or issuance. Notices on different dates cannot be combined into a November cap table.

What changed in 2026 and what FI notices really show

Swedish major-holding notifications add useful later observations. They are event notices, not a replacement for the entire shareholder register. The distinction matters because a percentage crossing may follow a securities-lending arrangement, an acquisition or another change in reportable voting rights.

The Capital Group sequence illustrates how securities lending can temporarily change reportable holdings or votes. Returned shares may reverse the threshold. It would be inaccurate to describe these changes as a definitive strategic exit and repurchase.

These threshold-triggered observations are not a complete register. Their dates, denominators and reporting categories must be kept distinct.

Who ultimately controls the private holding vehicles?

Fractional Holding AB, Lollipop Assets Ltd and The Soybean Trust are separate named holders in the audited table. Their legal forms alone do not disclose complete beneficial-owner chains. In particular, a holding vehicle's registered percentage is not automatically the economic percentage of an individual associated with it. Layers of ownership, voting arrangements and trust rights may matter.

Public discussion has linked Karl Rausing with Fractional and with Hacksaw's founding story. That link is relevant, but the available attributable material is not sufficient to publish a definitive percentage of Hacksaw AB ultimately controlled by him or to designate him the company's sole ultimate beneficial owner. The limited publicly accessible excerpt of an Affärsvärlden interview is not a substitute for a complete ownership-chain document or a certified current register.

Hacksaw's nomination committee named Rafail Poumeyrau for Fractional, Philip Asmar for Lollipop and Frédéric Herz for his own holding. Appointment as representative does not prove personal beneficial ownership.

Our evidence boundary is therefore straightforward:

• Known: the annual report's direct shareholder names, amounts, voting percentages and reporting date.
• Known: dated major-holding and governance notices, each for its own defined purpose.
• Not proven: a complete current November 2026 register, every ultimate beneficiary of private vehicles or a single individual who controls the entire listed group.

Who is the CEO of Hacksaw Gaming? Group versus operational management

Search results commonly collapse several offices into “Hacksaw Gaming CEO”. The accurate answer depends on whether the question concerns Hacksaw AB's Group CEO or the Operational CEO of the gaming business, and on the date of the question.

The company announced on 30 April 2026 that Ana Vrabic Verdir would become interim Group CEO. On 20 August 2026, it appointed her permanent Group CEO. By 8 November, describing Ana as merely interim would be obsolete. She also serves on the board, which does not mean that every board member or local managing director holds the same executive office.

On 3 November 2026, Hacksaw announced Philippa Gregory's appointment as Operational CEO of Hacksaw Gaming. She and outgoing operational leader Marcus Cordes are working in parallel until 1 December 2026 to complete the handover. Philippa will then lead the gaming business independently, while Marcus focuses on Hacksaw Markets. The appointment is already announced; the handover is not yet complete.

Group leadership, operating leadership and the Markets project are different responsibilities. “CEO” in an older profile is not necessarily the current Group CEO.

Board, chair and group management

The board and executives have different responsibilities. The board, chaired by Patrick Svensk, supervises the listed company, its governance and executive appointments. The Group CEO runs the business within that oversight framework. The Group CFO, Mikael Rahm, oversees the finance function; he assumed that role from 1 January 2026, succeeding the previous CFO. These positions are confirmed by issuer governance pages and appointment announcements.

The November announcement said Luke Hammett, Chief Commercial Officer of the Maltese gaming operation, would join Group Management. That expansion should be read as a change to the executive team, not as evidence of an acquisition, new equity class or transfer of corporate control. Nor should a named officer of HGMT Ltd or another subsidiary automatically be substituted for a member of the Swedish parent's board.

An important overlap between ownership and governance is Frédéric Herz. He held 6.6% of Hacksaw AB's shares and votes in the audited 31 December 2025 snapshot and also serves on its board, including the Audit Committee and Remuneration Committee. Both positions are documented separately; neither establishes that he controls the company alone. His 2025 stake must not be presented as a verified November 2026 holding.

Current governance pages establish roles; dated announcements establish the sequence. Neither alone establishes undisclosed internal reporting lines.

Who founded Hacksaw Gaming?

The company distinguishes the Swedish parent's 2017 legal formation from the 2018 founding of the commercial business in its IPO documentation. These are different milestones. The Swedish company was incorporated on 27 October 2017 and registered on 13 November 2017, while the group's own description dates the business foundation to 2018. The later public listing in 2025 was another distinct event.

Karl Rausing has been described as a principal founder in limited published interview material associated with the period around the June 2025 IPO. We treat that as an attributed founder reference, not a verified comprehensive founder register. Without the full underlying interview and contemporaneous formation documentation, it would overstate the evidence to list every supposed co-founder or present Karl Rausing as sole founder and sole beneficial owner.

Nor does the prominence of Marcus Cordes as an Operational CEO and early public face establish that he incorporated Hacksaw AB or founded the listed parent. A person's management career may be relevant to the company's growth without answering who subscribed the original shares, who designed the original product or who controls today's equity. These questions need different documents, not search-result repetition.

The strongest answer is therefore deliberately bounded: the business dates its foundation to 2018; a published source associates Karl Rausing with its founding; the full founding and ultimate-control chains are not established by the material reviewed here.

What ownership and management mean for investors

The FY2025 table shows that no single named holder exceeded 17% of the parent at that date, while the ten largest together held 60.8%. This arrangement can make shareholder coalitions, board nominations and voting participation important. It does not mean the ten holders act together or that the company lacks effective influence from major investors. Control depends on votes exercised, agreements and applicable law, not only the largest number in a table.

Management continuity is another issue to monitor. The permanent appointment of Ana Vrabic Verdir clarified group leadership after an interim period. The November operational handover divides attention between established gaming operations and the newer Markets initiative. In our view, the test is whether that transition preserves business execution and establishes accountable leadership for the new product; the announcement alone cannot prove future results.

Share-lending-related threshold changes should be assessed with the same restraint. A notice can be economically meaningful but does not, by itself, prove a changed long-term shareholder strategy. Nor should the 2025 percentage of any private holding vehicle be inserted into an investment valuation as if it were a real-time cap table. For the surrounding exposures, see Hacksaw risks and opportunities; share-market data and price movements belong to Hacksaw share price and chart.

My assessment

Hacksaw AB is a publicly held Swedish parent, with its largest named historical shareholder Fractional Holding AB at 16.9% on 31 December 2025. That does not identify one proven ultimate owner of the whole group. Ana Vrabic Verdir is Group CEO as at 8 November 2026, Patrick Svensk chairs the board, and Philippa Gregory's operational handover with Marcus Cordes remains in progress until the planned 1 December transition. Reliable ownership analysis keeps the legal entity, holder, voting date, executive office and founder claim separate.

Documentary sources reviewed: audited Hacksaw AB Annual Report 2025 (shareholder table as at 31 December 2025); Hacksaw AB IPO prospectus (16 June 2025); official Group Management and Board pages reviewed 8 November 2026; Hacksaw releases of 30 April, 20 August and 3 November 2026; Swedish major-holding notifications concerning Movestic and Capital Group; published nomination-committee notices.