Jette Nygaard-Andersen, chief executive officer of U.K.-based Entain, which operates Ladbrokes, has announced her immediate resignation, just weeks after the company was hit with enormous fines following an investigation by HM Revenues and Customs into its former Turkish subsidiary, the Wall Street Journal reported December 13.
Entain Board Chairman Barry Gibson commented, “Under Jette’s leadership, Entain has executed a fundamental strategic shift towards regulated or regulating markets, overhauled its governance, transformed its operations, and significantly improved its customer offering.”
He noted that she waited to leave until the investigation into a bribery scandal that occurred under previous ownership of the gaming giant. This resulted in the company agreeing to pay the government a $732.4 million settlement.
Gibson added, “It is no exaggeration to say that the HMRC investigation posed a number of threats to our Group. As the court last week recognized in approving a deferred prosecution agreement, had the matter not been resolved by way of a DPA [deferred prosecution agreement], the consequences to the company and all of its stakeholders could have been disproportionate.”
He noted that Nygaard-Anderson supervised the company “overhaul of the business model, strategy and culture of the Group” which he called vital to the HMRC agreeing to the DPA.
Nevertheless, stockholders had been showing unrest ever since the DPA was announced.
Nygaard-Andersen commented, “The past three years have been rewarding and challenging in equal measure. The resolution of the HMRC investigation into the legacy business, which was sold by a former management team in 2017, offers a clean inflection point for me and for Entain.” The group, she added, “is now safe, stable and sustainable and I believe that this is the right time to move on to other business and career opportunities.”
The board has asked Senior Independent Non-Executive Director Stella David to take the helm as interim director while a search begins for a permanent replacement. David has held executive positions with Bacardi, Domino’s Pizza Group and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings.
