SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Speaking last weekend to The Daily Telegraph, GVC Holdings CEO Kenneth Alexander detailed his company’s ambitious plans for its +£1 billion takeover of bwin.party Entertainment.
Having gained shareholder approval to finalise its leveraged takeover of the Gibraltar based online gambling operator, Alexander stated to The Telegraph that should GVC governance successfully integrate bwin.party services, the new business entity would become a “very attractive company”.
Alexander who has led GVC operations since 2007, and describes himself as a ‘gambling man’ has firm eyes on placing GVC’s new vehicle on the FTSE 250.
“What we want to do is keep growing it. My ambition is to get ourselves into the FTSE 250 and quite frankly to get into the FTSE 100 pretty quickly after that.”
The CEO further details that he wants to create a lean and dynamic online gambling outfit, telling the newspaper that he is prepared to sell “smaller parts” of bwin.party operations such as payments arm Kalixa.
Alexander notes that GVC through its takeover of bwin.party has gained vital assets to compete in the highly saturated and consolidating online gambling market. Noting that his firm have gained a top tier sports betting platform in bwin.com and leading UK online bingo room in Foxy Bingo, which Alexander describes as a “cracking business”.
Should Alexander’s plan be successful, the CEO stated that his company would be preparing to undertake further acquisitions.
Preparing for the integration of bwin.party, Alexander has hired leading igaming multi-channel strategist Shay Segev as new Chief Operations Officer.
With his enterprise set to evolve into a FTSE operator, GVC yesterday confirmed the appointment of former Peel Hunt lead analyst Nick Batram as Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy
