News in brief: CTXM; Finsoft; Gala; Micro; Neo Games; NetEnt, Nordicbet...

FINANCIER HUGH Osmond could gatecrash the restructuring of Gala Coral, according to reports in UK newspaper The Sunday Times. Osmond, who made his fortune by expanding and selling the Pizza Express restaurant chain during the 1990s, will this week reveal his intention to float an investment vehicle on the London Stock Exchange aimed at turning around businesses which have failed to become more profitable after being bought in private equity deals. Osmond hopes to raise £500m for the vehicle, named Horizon, and is understood to have referred to Gala Coral in meetings with potential investors. However, Osmond is not yet in talks Gala Coral, which is subject to bids from investment firm Blackstone, mezzanine lenders Park Square and Intermediate Capital Group, as well as US private equity firm Apollo.

Software supplier Net Entertainment (NetEnt) has released a download version of its CasinoModule. Download CasinoModule allows operators to target markets with low bandwidth connectivity or to meet the demands of players that prefer to install casino applications. NetEnt customer Nordicbet is the first operator to deploy the new product.

Scratch card business NeoGames will provide Spanish holding company ITNet Consulting with fully managed services to create MundiRasca.com, the first localised Spanish scratch card site.

Software business Microgaming has launched new slot Hellboy, which is based on the comic book action hero (pictured) created by Mike Mignola and licensed by Dark Horse Comics.

Online development and consulting business Zukido Consulting has released four new mini-slot games: Fireball Football, Mini-Rock Star, Monster Mash Dash and The Winning Line. The multi-lingual mini-games are available via Finsoft, Orbis and GTS game engines, and give Zukido a portfolio of seven mini-games and 10 full size games.

Software provider CTXM will launch its Multi-Brand Solution during the ICE conference in London this month. The product allows medium and large operators to run several gaming sites, brands or agents on one platform so that they can franchise their business model to other operators or sublicense the software to their affiliates.