Halister News

(Bloomberg) -- OPAP SA shares rise as much as 8% Wednesday in Athens, the most this yr, after Greek parliament approves appointment of Evangelos Karagrigoriou as chairman of gaming regulator HGC to succeed Antonios Stergiotis.

• Greek betting firm’s shares up 5% at 3 pm in Athens, most since Feb. on a closing basis, extending gaining streak to three days
• “New Gaming Commission chairman will seek common ground for outstanding regulatory issues, including OPAP’s stalled VLT project,” Paris Mantzavras and George Grigoriou, analysts at Athens-based Pantelakis Securities wrote in a note to clients Wednesday
  • Restarting VLTs project, which the market does not appear to discount at all, could add ~EU2/share to stock price, even with rather cautious assumptions for the games achieved traction, the analysts write
• “New chairman highlighted the clampdown on illegal gambling and the resolution of the VLT deadlock as the HGC’s priorities, reinforcing our view that dialog between the govt and OPAP will soon be resumed and that a compromise on the VLT front will be found,” analysts at Eurobank Equities led by Nikos Koskoletos wrote in a note to clients Wednesday
  • “We reiterate OPAP as our top pick among Greek non financials”
• NOTE, Nov. 2015: OPAP filed request for arbitration under the 2011 VLT License Agreement with the London Court of International Arbitration claiming damages in excess of EU1b from the Greek state
  • Hellenic Gaming Commission’s decisions resulted in major change of regulatory framework for VLTs, led OPAP to the actual suspension of the VLTs business activity, the company had claimed