Online gaming and financial services provider Playtech plc (LON:PTEC) announced its full year 2020 financial results this morning, which included an update on the company’s Financials division, now known as Finalto. Finalto comprises the acquired CFH Group and Alpha Capital Markets forex B2B services businesses, and the Retail FX brokerage brand Markets.com. It rebranded the division from TradeTech Group to Finalto in late 2020.

First, to the results. As we reported back in January, Finalto had a much more challenging second half of the year in 2020. Finalto’s revenues of €87.3 million in H1 2020 declined by 60% to €34.6 million (USD $41.3 million) in H2 2020. EBITDA was down from €52.8 million in 1H 2020 to just €3.6 million in the second half of the year, making the business marginally profitable from July through December 2020 at a time when a number of other FX industry participants were churning out profits.

As was reported exclusively at FNG back in August, Playtech entered into a formal process to sell its entire Financials business to focus on core gaming operations, hiring investment bank UBS to run the sale. The process yielded a buyer group earlier this year for Finalto, in the $200 million range. With the sale process underway – Playtech now reports that it “remains in discussions regarding potential sale” – Finalto has been classified as Discontinued Operations at Playtech.

That led Playtech to take an accounting charge of €221.3 million in 2020, writing down the carrying value of the various Finalto businesses on its books to reflect the expected sale price. Playtech paid a combined $270 million four years ago for CFH Group and Alpha Capital Markets, and Markets.com was listed on its books at about another $200 million.

Playtech didn’t provide too much of an update on the sale of Finalto, which as per above we reported was being negotiated with Israeli entrepreneur Zvika Barenboim with backing from Bank Leumi and two insurance companies Menora and Phoenix. The company characterized the Finalto sale process as “advanced”, and added that the Board is confident that the sale will be completed by the end of 2021.

Playtech’s full 2020 results release can be seen here.