Financial News — Weekly Round-up for June 16, 2017

By Brian Cullingworth, Last updated Jun 16, 2017

Mixed Bag Of First Quarter Results From OPAP

Impacted by costs of new VLT business

Greek gaming firm OPAP felt the effect of its new video lottery (VLT) rollout reporting a decline of 8.7 percent on first quarter net profit to Euro 39 million (Q1/2016: Euro 42.8 million).  Declining sports betting results were offset by a good performance in numerical and scratch card games.

OPAP, who launched the new business at the beginning of the year, expects the first phase of VLT installations to complete in the middle of next year with the true benefits only felt at the end of its 2018 fiscal period.

Key performance indicators for the three month period ending March 31, 2017 include:

–    A 5.3 percent increase in total gross gaming revenues to Euro 358.9 million (Q1/2016: Euro 340.7 million). Weak sports betting results were again offset by numerical and scratch card games.

–    Adjusted EBITDA was down 0.4 percent to Euro 78.5 million (Q1/2016: Euro 78.8 million) burdened by the cost of the VLT rollout and agent strikes.

–    Net income from games was Euro 148.3 million, up 6.2 percent y-o-y.

–    Gross gaming revenues on sports betting was Euro 95.4 million, down 6.9 percent (Q1/2016: Euro 102.5 million).

–    Net earnings on numerical games amounted to Euro 223.1 million, up 10.9 percent.  Scratch and lottery amounted to Euro 38.5 million, up from Euro 37.1 million year-on-year.

–    Gross gaming revenues on OPAP’s new VLT division was Euro 1.8 million.

–    Additional distribution of gross dividends amounting to Euro 0.60 per share.

Mr Green Places New Share Issue

To finance expansion, both through acquisition strategy and organically

Mr Green & Co AB (MrGreen) has announced the placement of 5 million new shares through a directed new share issue to Swedish and International investors.

The price of the New Shares will be determined through an accelerated book-building procedure, which will begin today (Wednesday, June 14) at 17:30 and end before the commencement of trading on Nasdaq Stockholm on 15 June 2017.

Mr Green will use the proceeds of the issue to fund further expansion, both organically and through acquisitions to enable scale in an increasingly consolidated industry.

In addition to the New Shares, a handful of large shareholders, including board members Henrik Bergquist and Tommy Trollborg, are expected to divest a total of approximately 1 million shares, the company said.

The directed new share issue will be coordinated by Carnegie Investment Bank as Global Coordinator, SEB as Bookrunner and Cederquist as legal counsel.

Mr Green’s New Share Placement Snapped Up (Update)

Raises GBP 17.6 million for expansion

Mr Green & Co AB has successfully completed the placement of 5 million new shares through a number of Swedish and International institutional investors at SEK 39 per new share (see previous InfoPowa report).

The new share placement has raised SEK 195,000,000 million (GBP 17,569,833) before transaction costs which the company intends using to finance and facilitate further expansion, organically as well as through acquisitions.

The Directed New Share Issue results in an equity dilution of approximately 12.2 percent after completed issue.

A handful of large shareholders have divested a total of 1 million shares in the Company, namely: Henrik Bergquist, Hans Fajerson, Fredrik Sidfalk, Martin Trollborg, Mikael Pawlo and Tommy Trollborg, who have agreed not to sell additional shares in the Company over the next 90 days.

In addition, the company has committed to not issuing or divesting any financial instruments for a period of 180 days.

---