EBet was not as lucky. The gambling group received a first strike against its remuneration report last week and may have the Bermuda Triangle to blame. A bemused CEO, Tony Toohey, told CBD he was not sure why this happened and not just because the share price had more than tripled to $3 in the past year, reflecting the group's growing earnings and revenue. ''It will be difficult for us to address the reasons for their concerns because none have been given,'' he tells CBD. Confusion over the result was not helped by the fact that one insto shareholder withdrew their proxy vote against the remuneration report when they realised what was about to happen, and voted in favour of the report in the poll taken from the floor. This led to the bemusing situation of the no vote declining between proxy and poll. But the 40 per cent vote against the report levelled off at 25.8 per cent. Which brings us to Bermuda. While management were keeping mum, it does look like reclusive businessman Duncan Saville had neglected to vote his 15.3 per cent stake held via his Bermuda-based Utilico. Saville held as much as 26.5 per cent of eBet's shares until October when he lightened the load a little. Utilico also contains the remains of the profit-challenged ticketing provider, ERG; this is a result of Saville ploughing more than $100 million into ERG over the years, and walking away with the viable part of the ticketing operations when it was on the verge of collapse. A four-year legal battle over the abandonment of Sydney's public transport smartcard ended just last year with the NSW government dropping its $90 million claim against ERG, which in turn dropped its $215 million counterclaim against the government. - Colin Kruger Got a tip? [email protected]
ITQ Price at posting:
$2.70 Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held
