Tax charge hurts OPAP profits

Greek gaming monopoly operator OPAP has released its interim consolidated financial results for the first six months of 2010 showing a slight year-on-year decrease in revenues to €2.744 billion.

The Athens-based firm revealed that this figure represents a 0.7 percent drop in first-half revenues when compared to the same period in 2009 while stating that revenues for the second quarter of the year rose 5.4 percent year-on-year to €1.371 billion.

OPAP’s gross profits for the first half of 2010 reached €528.7 million, a decrease of 9.6 percent from the €584.8 million it reported for the same period in 2009, as a result of ‘reduced revenues for the period and a higher payout to winners’.

The firm revealed that its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation for the six-month period fell to €475.6 million from the €506.7 million it made for the first half of 2009 mainly due to ‘higher Stihima payouts’ of 73.5 percent from 68.8 percent. However, it stated that this had been ‘partially counter-balanced by lower administrative and distribution costs’ with earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation for the second quarter increasing by two percent year-on-year to €213.9 million.

All of this saw net profits for the first half of 2010 decrease by 32.1 percent to €251.9 million while an extraordinary tax charge of €93.8 million resulted in this figure for the second quarter plummeting from €155.5 million last year to €59.7 million for the most recent three-month period.