Former Sportech COO lines-up ?100m Football Pools bid

Former Sportech chief operating officer Ian Hogg is lining up a ?100m bid to acquire the operator’s Football Pools business, eGaming Review understands.

Hogg, who left Sportech in September 2014, is believed to be in the process of putting together a consortium of investors, and plans to raise the cash through a stock market flotation.

Sportech has been trying to offload the Football Pools for over a year, having turned down a ?75m from GVC Holdings last year as it believed the asset is worth closer to ?100m.

At the back end of 2015 NetPlay TV announced it was in talks with Sportech over a potential acquisition of the business, but pulled the plug on the deal just weeks later.

Sportech opened bidding on its Football Pools asset in December, and a source close to the situation today confirmed to EGR that management was considering around five bids, including the one from Hogg.

The source also said it would likely be “at least a couple of months” before the London-based operator named its preferred bidder.

Revenues from the Football Pools fell by ?2.1m to ?17.2m in H1 2015, but Sportech said its plan had always been to stabilise revenues and then drive growth.

In a recent trading update, the firm said new player acquisitions via digital had increased 29% year on year to 9,000 off the back of “extensive trials” of new online acquisition channels.

It has been a busy few months for Sportech in terms of M&A, after Canada-based Contagious Gaming moved to acquire the firm in its entirety but was unable to raise the required funds.