Shareholders Approve GVC Relocation to UK

GVC Holdings shareholders have voted to approve the relocation of the Ladbrokes Coral and bwin.party owner’s place of management and control and tax residents of the United Kingdom.

The company announced last month that it is considering a relocation to the United Kingdom from the Isle of Man, where they are currently located.

The shareholders voted to back the relocation plans and 99.98% voted in favor of the special resolution at a general meeting hosted in Gibraltar. There were 481,356,880 in favor of the relocation measure with just 5,744 going against the proposal.

Main Reason for Relocation

Representatives from GVC, which recently teamed up with Microgaming, said that the main reason for their relocation is that they are unable to hold Board meetings or shareholder meetings within the UK and that the change will give them the ability to hold the meetings in the UK, reducing operational complexity.

“The main reasons for making the move is that under the group’s current Articles of Association and tax residency we are unable to hold Board meetings or shareholder meetings within the UK,” Dossetter said.

“The proposed change will give us the ability to hold full board and board committee meetings in the UK, which will reduce operational complexity and enhance governance, and in turn, will increase efficiency and reduce costs. It also means that future shareholder meetings can be held in the UK,” said Jay Dossetier, GVC’s Head of Media relations, commenting on the relocation plans back in January 2019.

Further commenting on the relocation, officials from GVC said that it is just for the top holding company and has no impact of staffing or the operational side of the business.

“The relocation is just for the top holding company and has no impact on staffing or the operational side of the business,” Dossetter said. “It has no impact of our tax bill or the effective tax rate we pay. Operationally, the online business will continue to be run from Gibraltar and the UK retail estate from the UK.”

More About the Company

GVC Holdings PLC is a gambling and online gambling operator that operates in both B2C and B2B markets. It is one of the world’s largest sports-betting and gaming groups and it is licensed in over 20 jurisdictions and has a current workforce of more than 25,000 experts in 20 offices across five continents.

The company is a member of FTSE 250. GVC offers a highly scalable and robust platform, proprietary sportsbook, casino, poker and bingo software. The Group owns a wide portfolio of well-established brands. Their sports brands include bwin, Coral, Crystalbet, Eurobet, Ladbrokes, Neds International and Sportingbet.

As far as games brands go, the Group owns CasinoClub, Foxy Bingo, Gala, Gioco Digitale, partypoker and PartyCasino. The Group holds ownerships for proprietary technology across all of its core product verticals and aside from their B2C operations they provide services to third-party customers on a B2B basis.

Source:

“GVC shareholders approve relocation to UK”, igamingbusiness.com, February 7, 2020.