Finances Revealed
Officials with Virtgame.com (VGTI) announced that the company's revenue more than doubled to $312,961 from $131,538 in the previous quarter. The company's bottom line improved from $333,048 loss in the third quarter to $6,309 profit in the fourth quarter of 2000. This represents the first quarterly profit and the highest quarterly revenue in the company's history, the company said. Virtgame discontinued its gaming operation during second quarter 2000 to concentrate on its software gaming platform and its
proprietary e-BorderControl technology. All revenues generated in the third and fourth quarters were under the company's new business, which didn't exist last year. Therefore, Virtgame officials said, to compare fourth quarter year 2000 with the prior year, revenue increased from $0 to $333,048 and the net improved from $739,456 loss ($0.07 per share) to $6,309 profit ($0.00 per share). For the 12 months ending Dec. 31, 2000, revenue was $473,499, (1999, $0), net loss was $1,630,117 ($0.14 per share) compared to
1999 loss of $3,050,719 ($.34 per share).
Sky Interactive, a division of British Sky Broadcasting (BSY), earned more than £33 million from its betting services during the six months ended December 31, reports Revolution. While that sounds like a lot, parent BSkyB spent more than £49 million on the service and its operations. In addition, 15,000 betting accounts were opened for the company's Sky digital interactive television service that launched in December. On the other hand, BSkyB has written off about £25 million related to new-media company
ventures.
Canadian horse racing company Magna Entertainment (MIE) issued a warning that the company's losses would be worse than its previously estimated loss of $0.04 to $0.05 per share. Company officials attributed the losses to a number of causes, including:
- severance and other costs associated with the relocation of the company's head office from Santa Monica, California to Aurora, Ontario, which was announced in mid-December;
- delays relating to the sale of certain non-strategic real estate assets in North America and Europe; and
- to a lesser degree, higher than expected costs at certain racetracks.
Based on its preliminary estimates, Magna now expects to report a loss of $0.11 to $0.12 per share for the fourth quarter and income of approximately $0.01 per share for the year. The company plans to report its results for the year ended December 31, 2000 on February 19, 2001, and will provide further details at that time.
Who's on the Block and Who's Not
Stanley Leisure (SLY.L) is rumored to be one of the suitors for London Clubs International, which lost a bundle of money on its foray into the Las Vegas market with the Aladdin hotel/casino. Among the benefits of such a deal, LCI has long been rumored to be considering a move into the Internet gambling arena, where Stanley has already established a presence with its own betting and casino sites. The last few weeks have seen Stanley Leisure's share price climb back after bottoming out during the end of 2000. Although still shy of its 245+ pence high back in March, trading closed today slightly up at 238.50 pence.
Some industry experts had been speculating that Betinternet.com, an Isle of Man-based Internet bookmaker, might be targeted for takeover by either Power Leisure or Sportingbet.com. Betinternet.com CEO Vincent Caldwell, whose family owns 60 percent of the AIM-listed company, torpedoed those ideas in an interview with the Sunday Business Post Ireland. (The company's May flotation garnered £35 million in market capitalization.) According to just released interim figures, the company has had a positive year, seeing a 103 percent increase in turnover. Further, the company reported a 1.3 percent profit realization, not including figures from Euro 2000. Betinternet is bringing in stg£1.3 million a week, causing Caldwell to predict stg£60 million in turnover for the year. The company has begun focusing its coverage on soccer, Caldwell said, because "you cannot make money on horse-racing on the Internet. We still do it on our phone business, however, and it was important initially."
Why Close?
According to a Digitrends article, several dot-coms closed up shop long before their accountants considered the situation critical. Only three of the 10 high profile Internet companies that closed down or filed bankruptcy last year were considered by their auditors to be problematic. Company auditors are required to state in the year end reports their concerns that the company might fail during the upcoming year. "While auditors say they couldn't have predicted the current dot-com collapse, it's uncanny that some online companies--especially those that weren't in trouble at the time--seemed to know what was in store and pulled out before the tech market went from bad to worse," the Digitrends article concluded.
On the Move
Gaming Internet Plc (GIN) has named Ian Dennis Hayes as group finance director. Hayes previously worked for telecommunications firm Viatel Inc.