OPAP gets shareholder approval for disputed IT deal

Greece’s privatisation agency, HRADF, is selling all but 1% of the government’s 34% stake in OPAP as part of Greece’s efforts to raise 2.6 billion euros in privatisation proceeds this year. The OPAP sale, along with the privatisation of Greece’s natural gas distributor DEPA, is among the biggest sales Greece is expected to conclude as part of an EU/IMF bailout.

But two of the seven potential suitors for the OPAP sale – a bid vehicle called Emma Delta backed by Greek shipping tycoon George Melisanidis and Czech investor Jiri Smejc, and a consortium led by gaming equipment company Gauselmann and gaming software group Playtech – have threatened legal action if the contract for a new central hardware and software system was approved.

They say that the contract would involve OPAP paying more than it had stated and that the buyer of the government’s stake would be bound to it for five years without any say. Both would-be buyers have called on OPAP and HRADF not to formalize the contract.

But OPAP shareholders who attended the meeting on Saturday voted in favour of the Intralot deal, the company said in a bourse filing. It did not say how many investors voted in favour of the deal.

HRADF did not take a position on the contract and cast a blank ballot at the meeting, saying that it was up to OPAP’s management to decide on the deal. “HRADF is not, in any case, in a position to evaluate the terms of the deal,” it said in a statement read out to shareholders. “The approval of these terms is an issue for OPAP’s management, which has the specific knowledge of the respective technical and economic parameters.”