PartyGaming founders cash in £232m worth of chips

· Market volatility scuppers plan to dump more shares
· Stock sells for same price as at flotation a year ago

The four founders of PartyGaming, plus one of the group's chief technicians, cashed in some more of their chips yesterday, coming away from the table with just under £232m. But they were forced to accept less than they had hoped for their stock and sell significantly fewer shares in the online gaming company than originally planned because of the stock market's current volatility.

Traders had been expecting PartyGaming's director, Anurag Dikshit, and the marketing boss, Vikrant Bhargava, to sell shares after they quit the board of the business last month. But yesterday it emerged that their desire to sell-out was shared by the company's original founders, Ruth Parasol, and her husband, Russ DeLeon.

The four major shareholders sold 5% of the business through the broker Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein. They were joined in the sell-off by Nitin Jain, a technician who joined the company during the dotcom boom shortly after Mr Dikshit. In total, the five dumped 200m shares at 116p each - the same price at which the stock was floated a year ago.

Originally, however, they had hoped to sell 8% of the business and were looking to sell out at 119p to 120p a share, according to dealers. But the recent volatility in global stock markets forced their stockbroker to reduce the number of shares offered to new and existing investors.

Fears over inflation in the US, soaring commodity prices and worries over potential military action against Iran have caused the FTSE 100 to lose all the gains made this year in just a few weeks and forced Wall Street into treble-digit losses.

All four founders have already been turned into multimillionaires by the flotation of the business, set up in 1997. Ms Parasol, a former porn baroness, and Mr DeLeon each sold £218m worth of shares when the company was floated. Mr Dikshit sold £420m worth of stock at the same time. Mr Bhargava made £61.5m by selling shares when the company listed.

Yesterday, Mr Dikshit pocketed a further £65.73m by selling shares. He still holds 28.95% of the business. Mr DeLeon and Ms Parasol made £38.6m each and still retain 14.87% of the business apiece. Mr Bhargava, meanwhile, earned £77.3m through the sale of some of his shares and still holds 6.96%. Mr Jain sold about 10m shares and netted £11.6m.

Between them, the four founders still have 65.7% of the business and have agreed not to sell any more shares until after September 5, when PartyGaming announces its half-year results. If they sell out between then and the end of the year, they must do so with the consent of the company's broker. Shares in PartyGaming dropped 4.5p to 117.75p as nearly 300m shares were traded on fears that the founders will sell more stock.

To retain the company's lucrative tax advantages in Gibraltar, however, the founders must retain a majority stake until 2010, meaning they can only sell about another 15.6% of the business.

PartyGaming was the brainchild of Ms Parasol, who was looking to invest the small fortune she had built up after selling an online pornography empire which, legend has it, she started with a couple of sex phone lines given to her by her father as an unusual teenage birthday present.

She used the cash to commission a friend of a friend, Mr Dikshit, a computer engineering graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology, to create a programme for casino games such as roulette. In 2000, after seeing the success of the rival Paradise Poker, they switched the focus from roulette and blackjack to poker.

Contributor

Richard Wray

The GuardianTramp

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