GVC Holdings PLC (LON:GVC), the owner of gambling brands from Ladbrokes to Foxy Bingo, has played down newspaper speculation about a wider spread of HMRC’s probe into its former Turkish business.
This followed a report in the Times that aired a “theory” put forward “by investors who may have a short position in GVC shares” that there may be a “convoluted link to the Wirecard farrago”.
READ: GVC drops 11% as HMRC expands Turkish tax probe over gambling arm
The paper noted that GVC’s 2015 acquisition of FTSE 250-listed Bwin.Party included Kalixa, a payments processing business that was sold the following year for €29mln to Singapore-based Senjo.
However, after the sale, Kalixa continued to process payments for GVC and the newspaper noted that Senjo has become embroiled in the Wirecard scandal as one of the “third-party acquiring partners” identified by auditors as central to the embattled German payments processor’s business.
READ: Wirecard files for bankruptcy over threat of insolvency and over-indebtedness
GVC put out a statement on Thursday reiterating that the HMRC investigation “relates to former third-party payment service providers whose only legacy link to GVC was the provision of services to the Turkish-facing business”.
“The board can confirm that it has no evidence of any link between the HMRC investigation and the payment service providers mentioned in the newspaper report.”
GVC shares fell more than 7% on Thursday morning below 650p, but came back to 690p by lunchtime, a fall of around 3% on the day.