Fairground Shares Leap 150 Percent

Published: Monday, October 10, 2005 Online-Casinos.com

FAIRGROUND SHARES LEAP 150 PERCENT

Microgaming associate does well on IPO

In our Online-Casinos.com & Infopowa reports over the past two weeks we have covered the (then) imminent IPO of online gaming investment company Fairground Holdings, and as a follow-up we have been monitoring the progress of the listing on the London Exchange.

The company seems to be enjoying considerable investor popularity, and saw its share price jump over 150 percent following its listing on the London Stock Exchange this week. Share prices soared from a listing price of 50p to almost 120p a share by last Friday.

Based on the Isle of Man, the firm raised GBP 3.8 million through the listing to fund acquisition of smaller casino, poker, bingo and skill gaming sites. Fairground has access to a cash chest of GBP 8 million, and is expected to target some of the smaller casino and poker sites in the Microgaming portfolio in the present climate of consolidation.

Fairground has an impressive board of directors and is led by chief executive officer and director Evan Hoff, who co-founded and served as co-CEO of egaming marketing firm ForwardSLASH from 1997 to 2000.

Hoff said he would use his contacts in the industry to build a "portfolio of synergistic, cash-generative online gaming businesses. We see many positive opportunities for consolidation in the smaller end of the fragmented online gaming sector," he said. "The listing gives us the right public profile and platform from which to rapidly grow our business through acquisition."

The firm said in an earlier statement it planned to work with Isle of Man-based Microgaming to "identify opportunities and to develop acquired businesses".