GameAccount set to float on London market

GAMEACCOUNT, an online gambling company backed by the Smurfit family, is set to float on the London stock market.

The company, set up by Dermot Smurfit (nephew of family patriarch Michael) plans to list on London's Alternative Investment Market (AIM) by the end of the year.

The company could be worth up to €150 million as it is in talks to acquire a larger betting firm.

GameAccount was set up in 2001. It generates revenues by hosting online backgammon, gin rummy and blackjack, as well as staging golf, darts and pool games.

GameAccount raised €2m of funding from investors earlier in the year, bringing the total amount invested in the company to €7m. Its most recent accounts (for the year to end September 2004) show the company has retained losses of almost €1.6m. Turnover is running at around €2m.

The company is expected to raise €13m in cash from the flotation, though existing shareholders are expected to maintain their holdings.

A spokesman said: "We have no particular requirement for capital at this time so we'd be injecting some liquidity into the capital structure and also looking to use the shares as acquisition currency."

The company will be hoping to cash in on the boom in online gaming, now an industry worth billions of euros a year and growing.

Earlier this year, PartyPoker the biggest online poker company listed on the London market and went straight into the index of the largest 100 companies.

But shares in gaming sites like PartyPoker, SportingBet and Empire Online have collapsed in recent weeks on fears that subscriber growth is slowing.

GameAccount said the listing depended on investor demand for online gaming companies.

"Certainly we hope to do so but these things may slip as you might imagine. It depends on whether or not the market will bear it," the spokesman added.