It has been a year of significant consolidation for us and the wider industry as businesses look to achieve the scale necessary to compete for significant opportunities as regulated markets open up. Internally, we have put in place a new operating structure and realigned certain business units to ensure greater efficiency in the development of new content and product enhancements.

This was achieved concurrently with the rollout of over 90 casino games across flash and download formats, substantial enhancements to the iPoker network, and three upgrades to our operating platform. This success is testament to the immense efforts of all those involved at Playtech.

In October we completed our work on the integration of William Hill Online (WHO) through its migration to the Playtech casino platform, another significant achievement. This migration marked the end of over 12 months of very substantial work. The share of profit from our 29% interest in this joint venture has had a positive impact on our financial results for the year and will do so going forward.

We have played an active part in the consolidation of the sector, acquiring the games platform developer Gaming Technology Solutions Limited (‘GTS’) in December 2009 and the leading Bingo network provider, Virtue Fusion after the year end, in February 2010. Through these actions, Playtech is enhancing its position of being the world’s leading B2B provider in online gaming. We are very well positioned to capitalise on the growth expected to come from the opening up of new locally regulated markets and improving economic conditions.

The announcement in November that Playtech had been accepted by the World Lottery Association as an associate member further reflects our growing reputation and profile on the global stage. This was reinforced in January 2010 by the announcement of a joint venture with the second largest global lottery operator, Scientific Games based in the US.