Intralot denies Intracom merger as Greek eyes focus on Kokkalis’ ‘Turkish dilemma’

Greek gambling technology and lottery systems provider Intralot SPA has denied rumours that it will be absorbed by Athens-listed IT solutions provider Intracom Holdings.

Last week, Greek business news sources reported that Sokratis Kokkalis, founder and majority shareholder of Intracom, was evaluating forming a new Athens conglomerate merging the Intracom assets of Intrakat (construction), Intralot (lottery/gambling) and Intrasoft (logistics technologies).

The merger speculation follows a tough opening to 2019 for Intralot, which saw the gambling technology group lose its Turkish IDDAA sports betting concession to new incumbent ‘Sans Girisim’ – a joint venture formed by Nasdaq-listed Scientific Games and Turkish media conglomerate Demirören Holdings.

Furthermore, the IDDAA concession loss would see Sokratis Kokkalis take back day-to-day leadership of Intralot, a company he founded in 1992, replacing Antonios Kerastaris as Group Chief Executive.

Greek analysts are monitoring the movements of Kokkalis closely, observing how the business magnate will restructure Intralot’s Turkish division, which generates a reported +50% of Intralot group revenues.

Closing Friday 15 March trading, Intralot and Intracom governances released independent statements refuting merger claims, detailing that ‘news reports did not correspond with reality’.