INVESTORS gave a lacklustre reception to online casino 888.com's stock market debut yesterday amid jitters over the future of the fledgling sector.
Shares in the world's largest online casino fell back to 164.5p from their issue price of 175p following a recent warning from poker giant PartyGaming that growth was slowing in the sector.
The flotation gave the company a value of £590m - at the bottom of the range previously indicated by the firm. The City had expected a price of up to £800m prior to the comments from PartyGaming earlier this month.
888's debut contrasted sharply with that of PartyGaming, which rose considerably on its first day of trading in June.
Shares in a series of online gaming stocks also slumped yesterday in response to 888's poor reception, with PartyGaming plunging 8% and smaller rivals Sportingbet and Empire Online also losing out.
Justin Urquhart Stewart, analyst at Seven Investment Management, said there was now a "dose of realism" following the hype surrounding the flotation of PartyGaming.
He said: "The main issue is the continuing fear of this particular fashion fad balloon having popped."
RSS News Feed