Online gambling operator GVC Holdings says it will sell off parts of Bwin.party’s Kalixa payments division while holding on to its Foxy Bingo operation.
In an interview with The Telegraph, GVC CEO Kenneth Alexander said he has already had “very early discussions” with payment processors regarding the sale of some aspects of Kalixa once GVC completes its acquisition of Bwin.party on February 1.
Kalixa began life as Bwin.party’s internal payments division but was spun off into a standalone entity in 2013 so that it could handle payments for third party companies. It’s this third party business that Alexander believes GVC would “probably look at maybe disposing bits of that.”
However, Alexander rejected suggestions that GVC was interested in offloading Bwin.party’s Foxy Bingo operations, which he described as “a cracking business.”
In September, when GVC won the bidding war to acquire Bwin.party, Alexander said the plan was to hang on to Bwin.party’s individual Bwin.parts but he would be “happy to have a discussion” regarding the potential sale of some of the assets. In November, Alexander acknowledged outside interest in Kalixa and Foxy Bingo.
Alexander also suggested that GVC would likely fulfill its obligations to become an Authorized Betting Partner of British racing. The controversial scheme requires online operators to pay 7.5% of their UK race betting revenue to racing in order to qualify for sponsorship opportunities with tracks and race meetings.
Finally, GVC announced that it had hired Peel Hunt analyst Nick Batram as its new head of investor relations and corporate strategy. Alexander said Batram would assist GVC in identifying and pursuing new acquisition targets, an area that GVC hopes to revisit a year or so after the Bwin.party deal is done.
