VR group welcomes former Sony MD as new chairman

Immotion Group, the Salford-based immersive virtual reality (VR) ‘Out of Home’ entertainment group, has announced the appointment of Ian Hetherington to the position of chairman of Immotion Studios, the VR experience creation arm of Immotion Group.

Mr Hetherington will replaces Ian Liddell, Immotion Group’s creative director, who has also notified the company of his intention to step down from the board, in order to pursue other opportunities.

Ian Hetherington will help oversee the ongoing commercial work with iP2 involving the creation of a number of immersive experiences for National Geographic, as well as the creation of a catalogue of new experiences for Immotion, focused on our partner markets.

Mr Hetherington brings with him a wealth of experience.

He was former managing director of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, where he was fundamental to the design and implementation of the Sony PlayStation, overseeing the launch of the product in Europe which made up more than 80% of the market share at launch.

Ian has published a number of leading PS games including Wipeout, and Lemmings. He was also one of the mentors and backers of David Jones, the creator of Grand Theft Auto.

He has been consulting for the group for several months, shaping the delivery of future content creation and related resources.

At his request, Ian has taken part of his consultancy fee in Immotion shares, £10,000 of which was satisfied by the issue of 147,059 shares, at 6.8 pence per share, on October 31, 2019.

A further £40,000 will be satisfied by the issue of 555,794 ordinary shares, at 7.2 pence per share, which are expected to be admitted to AIM on December 16. Following admission of these shares, the company will have 286,165,544 ordinary shares in issue and admitted to trading on AIM.

Ian Liddell, group creative director at Immotion, has notified the board of his intention to step down from the board with immediate effect after being with the company since its IPO in mid-2018.

Mr Liddell is stepping down to focus on his first passion, the creation of commercial and children’s TV animation.

He has been instrumental in launching Immotion and the board said it would like to thank him for his relentless hard work and wish him well with his new venture.

Martin Higginson, Immotion Group CEO said: “I would like to thank Ian Liddell for all his hard work over the years.

“He has been a highly-valued member of the board and we wish him well in his new venture.

“We would also like to welcome Ian Hetherington to the team.

“Ian will, I am sure, add his own dynamism and commercial expertise to the creation of experiences.

“He is currently working on a number of highly-engaging experiences, giving our partner sales team the perfect product for a number of our existing partners, as well as giving us the perfect range of experiences for zoos, science centres and museums.”