Sportech (SPO) RNS Announcements

Sportech PLC is an online gambling and entertainment company headquartered in the United Kingdom. The company is traded on the London Stock Exchange under the symbol SPO.L; the stock is a component of the Alternative Investment Market. The company, formerly known as Rodime PLC, was originally an electronics company specialising in hard disk drives based in Scotland. In 2000, the company changed its name to Sportech PLC, after acquiring Littlewoods Pools from The Littlewoods Organisation for £160 million.

History

Sportech began as a small electronics company, Rodime PLC, based in Scotland in 1979. By 1986, it was listed on the London Stock Exchange. The company specialized in manufacturing hard disks, inventing the 3.5-inch hard drive in early 1985, but soon became unprofitable due to delays in getting the product to market. By 1991, Rodime ceased manufacturing hard disks. By early 2000, Rodime was a shell company with a $34 million overdraft and four employees, primarily in the business of suing other hard drive vendors for patent infringements related to Rodime's 3.5-inch drive development work. The company negotiated patent-licensing settlements with Seagate Technology, Conner Peripherals, and IBM.

In 2000, businessman Trevor Hemmings masterminded a deal that merged Rodime with the much larger Littlewoods Pools business. Littlewoods had been hurt by the advent of the lottery. After the acquisition, the company changed its name to Sportech PLC.

Sportech purchased Scientific Games Racing, a division of Scientific Games Corporation, on 5 October 2010.[7] Scientific Games Racing is one of three large bet-processing companies in the United States horse-racing industry, whose clients include major racetracks in California and New Jersey, as well as off-track betting companies in parts of New York state.