Innovative Gaming names CEO

Monday, July 8, 2002 | 10:59 a.m.

Financially strapped Las Vegas gaming equipment maker Innovative Gaming Corp. of America has appointed Laus M. Adbo to chief executive officer of the company. Adbo, who will continue to serve as the company's president and chief financial officer, also was named to the company's board of directors.

During his tenure as president and CFO, Adbo improved the company's financial status by increasing revenues and reducing expenses, outgoing chief executive Tom Foley said.

Separately, Innovative announced that Tibor Vertes requested to withdraw his nomination for election to the company's board of directors. Vertes said he aimed to avoid any perception that he was influencing the proposed merger of GET USA Inc. and and IGCA. Vertes is a founding partner of GET's Australian Internet gambling software unit, Gaming & Entertainment Technology Inc.

Adbo joined the Las Vegas-based company in September 2001 and specializes in arranging financing and structuring private debt for real estate, gaming and leisure companies. He has served as the CFO of a gaming-related real estate company and has provided financial analysis of gaming companies for Wall Street investment firms Paine Webber and Smith Barney.

"We have made tremendous progress in restructuring IGCA over the past six months and look forward to focusing out resources on our core competencies in the gaming equipment industry," Adbo said.

Innovative Gaming, on the verge of financial collapse earlier this year, issued shares of stock to help pay creditors and aims to secure short-term debt financing. As of February, the company owed more than $3 million to 350 vendors, not including investors who held preferred stock, according to Nevada gaming regulators.

For the three months ended March 31, the company reported a loss of $1.5 million, or 6 cents per share of common stock, compared to $828,000, or 6 cents per share, for the same period last year. It reported negative cash flow from operations of $4.8 million in 2001.