PartyGaming CEO targets DoJ resolution this year

[clevfan]

PartyGaming CEO targets DoJ resolution this year

Fri Aug 29, 2008

By Matthew Scuffham

LONDON, Aug 29 (Reuters) - PartyGaming is targeting a successful resolution to talks with the U.S. Department of Justice this year and has placed new Chairman Rod Perry in charge of the process, Chief Executive Jim Ryan told reporters.

"Certainly that's our goal (to have a successful resolution by the end of 2008)," Ryan, who joined the company at the end of June, said in a conference call on Friday.

"To bring continuity to the DoJ discussions Rod Parry, our newly-appointed chairman, will be taking over the day-to-day management of the DoJ process freeing me up and allowing me to focus my efforts on daily operations," he added.

Perry has been a non-executive director of PartyGaming since May 2005 and has been the senior independent director since February 2007.

Ryan emphasised that PartyGaming has made negotiations with the DoJ a priority and said the talks are continuing to progress.

PartyGaming initiated discussions with the DoJ in June last year in the hope of securing a deal to end the threat of prosecution for taking U.S. Internet wagers in the past.

As well as removing the legal axe hanging over their heads, a deal could leave online firms clear to re-enter the United States if Internet gambling is ever permitted there.

Analysts also say it could trigger major consolidation in the fragmented sector.

[clevfan]

Partygaming trading in line ahead of relaunch

Fri 29 Aug 2008

LONDON (SHARECAST) - Online gaming company Partygaming saw revenue growth in all areas, as it continues to come to terms with life after the passing of the US Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act on 13 October 2006.

Revenue on continuing activities in the first half of 2008 rose 17% to $254.8m, bang in line with market expectations, from $217.4m a year earlier.

Poker accounted for more than half of company revenue, rising 6% to $153.9m, due to higher yields.

Casino revenues surged 38% to $89.9m, driven by higher player numbers and yields. The small but fast growing bingo business is gaining traction, particularly in the UK, and saw revenues jump 82% to $2m. The sports betting book saw a strong increase in volume, pushing revenues up 36% to $9m.

Clean earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation from continuing activities rose to $64.9m from $36.9m. The figures exclude reorganisation income and costs and non-cash charges relating to share-based payments.

Trading since the end of the reporting period has been in line with management expectations except that the performance of the poker division has been slightly below expectations.

“Our poker business continues to grow but is being held back by the continued competition from those sites that accept players from the US,” said Jim Ryan, Partygaming’s chief executive officer.

In the 8 weeks to 25 August, average gross daily revenue has been $1.6m. Average gross daily revenue for poker has been $835,000 while for casino it has been $694,100. Bingo revenue has been running at $27,600 per day while the sports book’s average gross win per day has been $44,600.

The company has again refrained from declaring a dividend.

[Mr Falcone]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/26/bu...gewanted=print

THE story begins, improbably enough, at a collection of lucrative massage parlors operated in San Francisco. Their owner, Richard Parasol, saw fabulous wealth from the businesses. State property and business records show that Mr. Parasol - at times in deals involving his Swedish wife, Gunna - moved his family into an upscale home in Marin County and bought an array of investment properties while putting money into a leather goods concern and other businesses.

By the early 1990's, Mr. Parasol had a new business partner in his ventures - one of his three daughters, Ruth, the woman who ultimately would prove to be a driving force behind PartyGaming. After spending years in private school, Ms. Parasol attended college at the University of San Francisco, state records show, before she moved on to Western State University in Fullerton, Calif., where she earned her law degree.

Ms. Parasol, now 38 and a resident of Gibraltar with her husband, J. Russell DeLeon, has universally declined to be interviewed and did not respond to an e-mail message.

But the lawyer's life of filing briefs and making court appearances was not to be for Ms. Parasol. Instead, her father brought her in as an adviser on a phone sex-chat business he had formed with Ian Eisenberg, a Seattle businessman whose father, Joel Eisenberg, was a pioneer of sex-oriented phone lines in the 1980's.

Quickly, Ms. Parasol emerged as one of the small clique of prominent executives in the growing world of interactive pornography. In 1994, she split off from her father's business, forming her own sex-chat phone business with Seth Warshavsky, another young Seattle businessman who had worked with Mr. Eisenberg.

But her business dealings with her father were not over. California state business records show that Ms. Parasol and her father established Starlink Communications, another phone-sex business. They also invested with Mr. Warshavsky's biggest venture ever, the Internet Entertainment Group.

Cash was coming in by the fistful for everyone. While online pet stores and cosmetics companies were struggling, Internet pornography was a gold mine. The phone lines almost printed money, and, through I.E.G., Mr. Warshavsky became the most prominent businessman in online pornography, with hundreds of thousands of paying members. Time magazine called him the Larry Flynt of the Internet.