Success rewarded

GVC has announced the sale of its payments business Kalixa for €29m, as expected. In addition, and hard on the heels of the increased special dividend for shareholders (announced 15 December), GVC has reported that directors are to receive cash alternative payments in respect of options that have vested. The combined impact is a small (2%) upgrade to our 2017e normalised EPS. GVC goes into 2017 with very strong positive momentum that is still not reflected its EV/EBITDA of 9.6x.