Upon releasing its yearend results, PartyGaming announced today that its CEO, Richard Segal, will step down after 18 months of service--a period in which he guided the company through its hugely successful IPO last June.
Segal, 42, said he is resigning because he is not willing to leave his wife and children in London and relocate to Gibraltar, where the gaming company is based.
"I've got family ties in London that I am unable to break," Segal said. "And at the end of the day I choose my family."
Upon PartyGaming's June floatation on the London Stock Exchange, Segal agreed to commute to and from Gibraltar, which is about two-and-a-half hours by plane each way.
The decision to leave was made mutually between Segal and the board at last month's board meeting. The parties agreed that because of the rapid growth of the company (e.g. the recent acquisition of Empire Poker and the launch of a fully integrated platform), its CEO and other executive directors must be located in Gibraltar to effectively run the company.
"The request to Richard was, 'Can you move to Gibraltar with your family?' And the answer was that his family ties are too strong in the U.K.," said John Shepherd, director of corporate communications for PartyGaming. "So, by mutual agreement, Richard is going to leave, but he will be around until the first of June to ensure that there is an orderly transition."
In the meantime the rumor mill has churned out its own speculation on Segal's successor. Nigel Payne, the CEO of online gaming company Sportingbet, is vehemently denying rumors that he will be named Segal's replacement.
"I have neither been asked, nor if I was asked, would I be remotely interested," Payne said.
Segal's replacement will need to be based in Gibraltar, where he/she will head up an ambitious company with myriad goals. So far, Shepherd pointed out, all goals have been met.
"We said that we would launch our integrated platform in the first six months of this year, and we launched it in the first six weeks," he said. "We said we'd launch a new game in the first half, and we will. And we'll launch a game in the second half."
Segal has been an integral part of growing the company over the last year-and-a-half, and Shepherd said he will be missed.
"It's always sad to see someone like Richard go, particularly when you look at his track record over the last 18 months from when he joined," Shepherd said "When he joined, our head office in Gibraltar probably had under 30 people. There was one person in London and less than 500 in Hyderabad, India. Now there are just over 100 people in London; there are just over 200 people in Gibraltar; and there's now over 1,000 people in Hyderabad. And he led this company attracting very strong directors to the main board; took the company through the floatation and has done everything we've said we'd do strategically when we floated on the stock market last year."