GVC Holdings’ board of directors has issued a statement in response to a report concerning the sale of its Turkey-facing business in 2017.
The Sunday Times reported that GVC faced corporate governance questions and stated that its CEO Kenny Alexander has approved the sale of its unregulated Turkish unit to Ropso Malta, a firm that provided IT services to the business.
The transaction was worth up to €150m over five years, but the Times reported that to prevent its involvement in Turkey from scuppering a £3.2bn takeover deal for Ladbrokes Coral, the payments were waived.
The Times reported that Ron watts, one of three owners of Ropso Malta, co-owns a stud farm in Scotland with Alexander and that they are former colleagues at Sprotingbet.
In response, the GVC board stated: “The Disposal was subject to an arms-length competitive process, overseen by Houlihan Lokey investment bank.
“The details of the disposal were fully disclosed on 2 November 2017 ‘Disposal’ and on completion on 20 December 2017 ‘Disposal Completion’.
“The walk-away from the Turkish earn-out was a specific condition of GVC’s acquisition of the Ladbrokes Coral Group being recommended by the Ladbrokes Coral Group’s board of directors, and was fully disclosed on 22 December 2017 within the ‘Rule 2.7 Announcement’.
“The board today re-iterates the fact that subsequent to the disposal of the group’s Turkish-facing business, GVC has no activity either directly or indirectly linked to the Turkish market.
“Furthermore, the board also categorically refutes suggestions that the group, or senior management, continue to benefit from any operations servicing the Turkish market.
“The business continues to perform strongly and is focused on taking a market leading position in the US and other regulated markets.”
