Vendors Complete eLOT Stock Sales
Officials at eLOT Inc. (ELOT) announced that several vendors have completed the sale of about 1.6 million shares of common stock they received for payment purposes. The shares were distributed to the vendors in an effort to preserve cash. The company is also hoping to improve its working capital position by generating cash from various balance sheet actions. Already the company has extracted additional cash through a series of non-dilutive measures. "The balance sheet actions combined with the recently announced cost reductions are expected to provide the company with sufficient working capital well into the third quarter," said Edwin McGuinn, eLOT's president and CEO. He added, "The company continues to explore several strategic alternatives for financing activities and operations beyond the third quarter."
BETandWIN.com Releases Provisional Figures
Austrian e-gaming company BETandWIN.com (BWIN) is reporting record-setting results for the first quarter of 2001, with betting turnover of 178,883,895 Austrian schillings, up six fold over the previous quarter. Further, comparing turnover this quarter to the same quarter last year shows a 500 percent increase. "The development of our betting turnover is in line with our own expectations and gives us a positive outlook for future periods," Co-CEO Norbert Teufelberger said. In addition, while BETandWIN.com's net winnings were up 139 percent over the same quarter last year, the net earnings margin declined to 6 percent. The company explained that this is in line with international standards, although it's at the lower end of the bandwidth it projected. A net winning margin of 8 percent to 10 percent is expected for calendar year 2001.
The company has also recorded 38,000 new registrations for the first quarter of 2001, compared to 3,400 for the first quarter last year. In addition, more than 650,000 bets were placed by about 22,000 active punters, which the company said was equivalent to a betting turnover of about 272 Austrian schillings per bet and 30 bets placed per bettor.
Company executives are cognizant that BETandWIN.com's stock price has dropped extensively the past few months. Shares closed today at 59.17 Austrian schillings, while the stock's highest point of 89.44 was achieved in the heady days of its flotation in December 2000. "The development of our company is on
schedule. We have ambitious plans for expansion and also have sufficient financial resource," Teufelberger explained. "For the time being, this naturally requires patience from our investors, but we are unable to ignore present market conditions. However, if this situation fails to improve during the coming weeks and months, we can well envisage investing aggressively in our own company using the share buyback program already approved."
First Quarter Results Issued:
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