Olympic Entertainment’s Polish unit files bankruptcy petition

Casino and online gambling operator Olympic Entertainment Group (OEG) says its Polish subsidiary has filed a bankruptcy petition.

In a terse statement posted on the company’s corporate website on Monday, OEG CEO Madis Jääger announced that OEG subsidiary Casino Polonia-Wroclaw sp. z.o.o., which until last September operated OEG’s flagship gaming property in Warsaw, Olympic Casino Sunrise, had submitted its bankruptcy petition to the courts.

On September 30, OEG had announced that its Polish subsidiary’s application for a local specific activity license had been rejected by the Ministry of Finance, reportedly because it filed its paperwork after the due date. That news followed OEG’s announcement that it was freezing its Polish operations after failing to convince the Ministry to renew Casino Polonia-Wroclaw’s license by the September 23 deadline. The property had been active for the last nine years.

OEG had stated that both of its Polish subsidiaries – including Ultramedia sp. z.o.o. – planned to compete in an upcoming public tender for the local specific activity license. The freezing of Polonia-Wroclaw’s operations was intended to keep costs to a minimum while the application was pending. In September, OEG said the freezing of its Polish operations would result in an impairment of goodwill and assets totaling €9-10m, with additional costs of around €1m.