Big Guns Join Party Poker Board
Published: Friday, May 13, 2005 Online-Casinos.com
BIG GUNS JOIN PARTY POKER BOARD
Analysts say it could presage the long
awaited IPO
Reuters reported this week that the world's biggest online
poker company, PartyGaming, has fuelled speculation it is nearing one of London's
largest initial public offerings in five years by adding two high-profile executives
to its board.
PartyGaming said it had appointed Michael Jackson, currently
chairman of Sage Group as non-executive chairman and Brian Larcombe, former chief
executive of 3i Group as its non-executive deputy chairman.
"To
me that says game on for an IPO," said analyst Robin Chhabra at Evolution
Securities. "If you weren't going to list, why would you hire two city-friendly
people like Michael Jackson and Brian Larcombe?"
Chief Executive
Richard Segal told Reuters: "The strategic review has been completed and
we are considering the conclusions of that. Our decision will be made sooner rather
than later. This is a company that has always been in a hurry."
Chhabra
estimated the market value of the overall company at around $10 billion, a figure
backed up by other industry sources. That would make it the biggest London offering
since Dimension Data floated for around 6 billion pounds in July 2000.
Further
evidence that PartyGaming aims to float was seen in its announcement earlier in
the week that its revenue had quadrupled in 2004 to $602 million.
"There's
no need for a private company like this to reveal those numbers unless they're
thinking of going for an IPO," said Chhabra.
Reports coming in as
we went to press this week indicate that PartyGaming is confident of a valuation
of more than GBP 5 billion should it decide to float on the stock market.
The Gibraltar-based group said its underlying profit before financial charges
reached $391million (GBP 210 million) last year - four times the level of 2003.
Revenues made a similar fourfold jump to $602 million.
Analysts expect
the group to announce a decision to go public soon, following a three-month strategic
review in consultation with investment specialists at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein.
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