LNG Makes Another Acquisition
AIM-listed Leisure & Gaming Plc (LNG.L) has entered into a conditional agreement to acquire London headquartered BetShop Group (Europe) Limited for a total consideration of up to £32.06 million (US$59 million). BetShop Group operates online sports betting in eight European languages using its own proprietary sports betting platform. It also operates online casinos and a sports information portal located at GoalsLive.com. Additionally, BetShop Group holds a network of over 600 retail betting shops in Italy under the BetShopItalia brand that are licensed by the Italian government.
For the year ended June 20, 2005 BetShop Group recorded revenues of £74.54 million ($137 million) and EBIT of £850,000 ($1.56 million).
Bits Corp Realigning to Focus on I-gaming
Bits Corp Plc (BIT.L), a company that designs and develops video games software for console and handheld platforms, expects to report a loss of up to £2 million (US$3.68 million) on its fiscal report for the full year ended March 31, 2006. The company is currently realigning itself, and at an extraordinary meeting on July 1st shareholders will be asked to approve a name change to Playwize. The company is moving away from the development of video games in order to focus on developing online gambling games. Bits Corp blames the anticipated £2 million loss on the write off of historical video game costs, investment in online gambling, the costs of refocusing its activities, brand development costs and substantially lower turnover than the previous year.
Probability Games Signs Deal With New AIM-listed Company
Interactive World Plc (ITW.L), a mobile content technology company that listed shares on London's Aim in May of 2005, has signed an agreement to promote the mobile casino and card gambling services of Probability Games. The deal is Interactive World's first since listing shares last month, and under the agreement the two companies will equally share net revenues from games downloaded and played.
Struggle for UNiTAB
Following the rejection of Tabcorp Holding Ltd. (TAH.AX)'s bid offer for UNiTAB Ltd. (UTB.AX) in favor of an earlier offer from Tattersall's Limited (TTS.AX)-- which actually values UNiTAB at a lower price-- Tabcorp has filed a formal letter of complaint with Deloitte Corporate Finance Pty Ltd, questioning the calculations and findings of a report Deloitte issued on May 31 in its capacity as an independent expert commissioned to review the proposed Tattersall's-UNiTAB merger of equals. UNiTAB has consequently told its shareholders that "we do not believe any of the matters raised in Tabcorp's letter would cause us to change the conclusions stated in our expert's report."
Market analysts from Goldman Sachs JBWere, Citigroup and others have begun speculating that a splitting of UNiTAB might be the most accommodating and beneficial option for the company. In such a scenario, Tabcorp would likely purchase the betting business and assets of UNiTAB for around A$1.5 billion (US$1.1 billion) and Tattersall's would purchase the gaming business and assets for around A$719.5 million ($530 million).
Amid all the confusion and speculation regarding the Tattersall's and Tabcorp bids for UNiTAB, it seems very likely that UNiTAB will have to postpone a scheduled meeting of shareholders on July 6. In the next few days shareholders are likely to be inundated with an abundance of explanatory memos, bidders statements, target statements and more in addition to the a broad spectrum of opinions from the press. UNiTAB's managing director Dick McIllwain has indicated that there is no point in holding a meeting if investors have not had enough time to digest all the facts.
Reporting
Compared to the same period last year, I-gaming software provider Chartwell Technology Inc (CWH.TO)'s total revenue for the second quarter of 2006 increased by 22.7 percent to CAD 4.76 million (US$4.25 million) while software license fees increased by 22.6 percent to CAD 4.45 million ($3.97 million). Net earnings decreased to CAD 101,000 ($90,000) from CAD 934,000 ($833,000), and positive cash flow decreased to CAD 903,000 ($806,000) compared to CAD 1.7 million ($1.5 million).
CFO Don Gleason stated, "Our second quarter results were significantly adversely affected by a provision for a doubtful account in the amount of CAD 1.007 million ($900,000) and, without this provision, our core growth was very positive. Although we believe that there are reasonable prospects to recover some or all of the receivable, we also believe that circumstances dictated that now was the time to do the provision for accounting purposes. The provision was unrelated to Chartwell's performance as the software provider and, beginning in May, the customer's continued use of the software was on a COD basis. The company did not record any revenue from that customer in the three months ended April 30, 2006."
Chartwell Technology, Inc.- Second Quarter Report