Today, the leading international gaming and sports betting group GVC Holdings posted a refinancing and trading update, which comes ahead of its official full-year report scheduled for March 23rd.
The Chief Executive of GVC Group Kenneth Alexander described 2016 as a year of great importance for the company, as the Group carried out its largest takeover ever – the acquisition of bwin.party. Mr. Alexander explained that the company’s team put a lot of efforts and hard work in order to achieve its goals, which resulted in creating a significant shareholder value.
The company’s boss also said he was very pleased with the fact that the company’s efforts to bring bwin.party back to growth were successful and confirmed that the Group remained focused on securing €125 million of synergies by the end of 2017.
GVC Holdings posted a trading update for the fourth fiscal quarter along with the full-year update for 2016. The operator revealed that its net gaming revenue (NGR) over the last four months of the fiscal year increased by 7% in comparison to the result posted a year earlier. This was considered as a particularly satisfactory performance, especially considering the fact that it was a strong comparative period with the fourth quarter of 2015.
As the company itself revealed in its trading update for the fourth fiscal quarter, the fact that GVC Holdings features a diverse range of businesses on a global scale helped it face the customer-friendly sports results in the UK and adverse currency fluctuations in a number of markets.
GVC Holdings revealed that the net gaming revenue of its sports operations rose by 5% to €904 million in 2016’s fourth fiscal quarter. On the other hand, the net gaming revenue generated by the gaming operations of the company had a 9% increase from €1.4 million to €1.6 million. As a result, the total net gaming revenue of the company rose by 7% from €215.2 million over the fourth fiscal quarter of 2015 to €231.3 million in the last four months of 2016.
Of course, GVC Holdings also published a proforma full-year update for its results of 2016. The company revealed that its Board of Directors now expects a pro-forma group net gaming revenue of approximately €894 million, with this result representing a 9% increase in comparison to the result posted a year earlier. The company also explained that the Board expected pro-forma clean earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) to be approaching the upper end of market forecasts, while the net debt would probably amount to approximately €140 million.
According to the Chief Executive Officer of the group, the positive trading momentum for the past financial year would put an excellent start to 2017. On the other hand, Mr. Alexander confirmed that GVC Holdings would remain focused on the pursue of its strategy of seeking expansion of its presence on a global scale. He also said that the company would seek international diversification, too, by depending on its excellent team and high-quality technology.
- Author
Olivia Cole
