Ninjas In Pyjamas is now thriving.
At 14 Hicham Chahine was investing in equities, by 18 he had been headhunted by the largest wealth management firm in the Nordics and by his mid 20s he was managing a fund worth around $70 billion with a couple of his own business on the side. As far as a career in finance goes, it doesn’t get off to a better start than that. But now, just days after his 36th birthday, he finds himself in a very different world.
“I decided, okay, I’m going to take a sabbatical,” recalls Chahine. “This little esports company, Ninjas in Pyjamas, is technically bankrupt. I’m going to clean it up for six months, hand it to someone else, and I’m going to go back to finance. Obviously, nine years in, the sabbatical is still ongoing.”
Chahine is now the founder and Co-CEO of NIP Group, having initially joined the Ninjas in Pyjamas esports team in the mid 2010s when the company was struggling financially. In the years since he has taken the company that was once only focused on winning Counter-Strike tournaments, and turned it into a major player in the esports space with gaming hotels, a talent agency and a brand-new deal with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office all on its books. “It’s been an eventful sabbatical,” jokes Chahine.
When he first joined NiP back in 2016, the mission was all about keeping the company afloat. Despite being one of the top Counter-Strike teams in the world for many years, and being one of the most recognisable brands in esports, the money was not flowing in particularly quickly for the company, and expenses were high. The company’s financial troubles were reasonably well known in the industry at the time, but behind closed doors the reality was much worse.
“It was significantly worse than what we let people know,” says Chahine. “There were things which were pretty bad from accounting, auditing, tax filings, and where do you even start to retrieve all this information and documentation. I did not know how much tax liability, how much the players were actually owed, was there VAT related things? Then you’re probably going to get some penalties because you’re trying to clean this up. A lot of people ask me, would I have actually done it if I knew [how bad it was]
? I’m not so sure, it was pretty bad.”
Hicham Chahine has turned NiP around.
But, not wanting to see a brand he had loved for years die for a second time, he stuck it out. Using his experience from the world of finance, Chahine brought in experienced consultants, negotiated with the Swedish tax authority and worked tirelessly to keep NiP alive. Given the state NiP was in when he arrived, that’s quite the achievement.
Once the ship had been steadied, Chahine, who is clearly someone who is never satisfied with just coasting, started the mammoth task to grow NiP into more than just an esports team. Over the past few years the company has expanded with investments, purchases, and creations of new divisions, from mobile gaming teams, to talent management and even gaming hotels. While the original NiP brand is still thriving, it’s now a small part of a much bigger company that is one of the few in the industry with a truly global reach.
“I said, if I’m going to do this, it needs to be the largest esports company in the world,” says Chahine. “It was, how do you take these 100 million fans that you have, and build a well diversified business with several legs to stand on. So if you’re having a dip in performance in NiP, eStar Gaming [the company’s mobile gaming team] is doing well or the talent management [business] is doing well, and so on.”
The result of Chahine’s vision is a new company, NIP Group, that has around 400 employees, is listed on the NASDAQ and is bringing in $100 million in revenue a year, which is “moving into a profitable output for the company,” according to the co-CEO.
In a world where countless leaders with a background in finance have tried and failed to right companies, expand smaller groups or just get involved in some way and spectacularly failed, it’s refreshing to not only see one that has succeeded, but also has done things in the right way. Throughout our conversation, Chahine was pointing out multiple staff that have been with NiP since he joined, fond memories he has with them, and how building sustainable organisations offers stable jobs to people in a notoriously unpredictable industry.
This vision is now set to expand even further. In the last few weeks, NIP Group has signed a deal with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office to create a global HQ that could create up to 300 jobs over the next few years. There are bonuses for himself, of course, being from the region allows him to return to his roots, it’s a perfect time zone for a company with ventures around the world and the cash influx is always nice, but, in our conversation at least, it’s the positives this move can bring for others that was the key.
“[We] can create 200 to 300 local job opportunities here and help facilitate skill development, knowledge sharing, connecting Abu Dhabi to the rest of the gaming and esports ecosystem around the world,” says Chahine excitedly. “[The Abu Dhabi Investment Office] want to educate their population and provide the opportunities for the population [locally]. They want to counter brain drain, they don’t want the younger population to go and study abroad and stay abroad.”
Chahine is clearly an intelligent person, and his experience in finance has obviously helped him during this esports journey, making decisions that traditional esports execs may not have made. You don’t see many western companies opening hotels in China because it fits with their audience, for example. But what really struck me was his constant focus on others, be it the players, his employees or just the industry in general. The turn around of NiP has clearly worked out for him personally, but he appears to be just as proud of the opportunities it has provided others, and the rare stability NIP Group now offers hundreds of people around the world.
