Casino and online gambling operator Olympic Entertainment Group (OEG) says its Polish subsidiary has filed a bankruptcy petition.
In a terse statement posted on the company’s corporate website on Monday, OEG CEO Madis Jääger announced that OEG subsidiary Casino Polonia-Wroclaw sp. z.o.o., which until last September operated OEG’s flagship gaming property in Warsaw, Olympic Casino Sunrise, had submitted its bankruptcy petition to the courts.
On September 30, OEG had announced that its Polish subsidiary’s application for a local specific activity license had been rejected by the Ministry of Finance, reportedly because it filed its paperwork after the due date. That news followed OEG’s announcement that it was freezing its Polish operations after failing to convince the Ministry to renew Casino Polonia-Wroclaw’s license by the September 23 deadline. The property had been active for the last nine years.
OEG had stated that both of its Polish subsidiaries – including Ultramedia sp. z.o.o. – planned to compete in an upcoming public tender for the local specific activity license. The freezing of Polonia-Wroclaw’s operations was intended to keep costs to a minimum while the application was pending. In September, OEG said the freezing of its Polish operations would result in an impairment of goodwill and assets totaling €9-10m, with additional costs of around €1m.
The company also said it would maintain up to 15 of its 39 Polish job positions while the operations were frozen, and current staff were offered positions with OEG subsidiaries in other countries. OEG’s statement this week offered no further details on the fate of its Polish subsidiary’s staff.
OEG said in September that its Polish operations were responsible for revenue of €9.4m and operating profit of €500k in H1 2016. The figures corresponded to roughly 10% of OEG’s overall revenue and 4% of its overall profit. Through the first nine months of 2016, the Polish segment’s revenue fell 25% to €13.5m while reporting an operating loss of €8.8m due to the aforementioned impairment charges.
OEG will publish its FY 2016 unaudited gaming revenue report on January 12, with consolidated financial results following on February 28 and its annual report on March 28. The company will hold its annual general meeting on May 20.
