Lottoland sells Jumbo Interactive stake two months after purchase

Lottery betting operator Lottoland has sold its stake in Australian online lottery reseller Jumbo Interactive, barely two months after it acquired the shares.

In late April, the Gibraltar-based Lottoland paid around A$7.6m (US $5.8m) for slightly more than 3.1m shares in Jumbo Interactive, a division of Australian lottery and betting operator Tatts Group. The purchase represented just over 7% of shares in Jumbo, the official online lottery reseller for OzLotteries.com.

At the time, Lottoland CEO Nigel Birrell issued a statement saying the acquisition of the Jumbo stake was “another example of Lottoland’s long-term commitment to the Australian market.” But Jumbo filed papers with the Australian Stock Exchange on Monday indicating that Lottoland had sold its entire stake in Jumbo the previous Friday.

The filing contained a brief fax message from Birrell that included Lottoland’s “notice of ceasing to be a substantial shareholder in relation to Jumbo Interactive Limited.” The attached Form 605 indicated that Lottoland had sold its entire Jumbo stake at A$2.55 per share, a modest premium over what Lottoland paid two months earlier.