GVC Holdings PLC UP 33.7%

Business News

GVC Holdings PLC, the multinational sports betting and gaming group, is pleased to provide a trading and refinancing update ahead of the publication of its full year results on Thursday 23 March 2017.

Refinancing

The Group has now repaid in full the outstanding loan of €386m provided by Cerberus Business Finance LLC (the “Cerberus loan”), through a combination of existing cash resources and the drawdown of the €250m loan from Nomura International plc. As previously stated, under the new facility the Group’s interest payments will be materially lower (c€40m) in 2017, than they would have been had the Cerberus loan remained in place.

Q4 Trading (pro forma)

NGR per day increased by 7% (+9% in constant currency) in Q4 2016 over the same period in 2015. This is a particularly pleasing performance given the adverse sports results in the last few weeks of the year and the strong comparative period in 2015. Indeed, Q4 produced the highest daily NGR run rate of 2016. The international diversity of our business combined with a proven portfolio of both sports and gaming brands helped cushion us against particularly punter friendly sports results in the UK and adverse currency movements in some of our markets.

Kenneth Alexander, CEO, said:

“2016 was a landmark year for GVC in which the Group undertook its largest and most ambitious acquisition to date, that of bwin.party. Through the tremendous hard work of our people, we achieved and exceeded many of our goals and once again we were able to create significant shareholder value. In addition to returning bwin.party to growth, we remain on target to secure €125m of synergies by the end of the current year.

The positive trading momentum experienced in 2016 has continued with a particularly strong start to 2017. Pro forma daily NGR for the month of January was up 21% (23% in constant currency) against the same period in 2016.

Our strategy of pursuing international diversification and scale, through the leverage of our proprietary technology and talented people, is more relevant today than ever. We are excited about the organic opportunities for the Group in 2017 and beyond, but also remain alive to further industry consolidation.”

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