New director for Sportingbet

Online sports betting group Sportingbet has announced the appointment of Rory Macnamara as a non-executive director and chairman of its audit committee, with immediate effect.
Macnamara qualified as an ACA with Price Waterhouse before joining Morgan Grenfell, later Deutsche Morgan Grenfell, in 1981 as an investment banker. Over the following seventeen years he advised clients on a wide range of corporate finance issues and became Head of the Advisory/M&A division in 1995 and Deputy Chairman the following year.
In 1999 he joined Lehman Brothers as head of UK coverage and led teams advising a number of major UK and international clients.
In 2001 he became an independent consultant working with Lehman Brothers on M&A projects and with other companies on their business development and financial and acquisition strategies.
Macnamara became non-executive chairman of Izodia plc in 2003, a previously listed company which was involved in a complex series of claims and negotiations to recover missing funds. By last year, under his leadership, Izodia had recovered substantial amounts through legal actions and was able to return to shareholders amounts exceeding the asset value preceding the fraudulent transactions.
He has extensive experience of chairing audit committees and fulfilled that role at Augean, PEI, Dunedin and Raven Mount.
Sportingbet also announced two further changes to the Board. Nigel Payne, as former chief executive of the company and a non-executive director of the company since 2007, and Sean O’Connor, who has been a non-executive director since 2000, are no longer deemed to be independent directors for the purposes of the UK Corporate Governance Code.
Payne, who currently chairs the audit committee, will remain on the committee following
Macnamara’s appointment and will retire from the Board at the company’s Annual General Meeting on 16 December 2011.
O’ Connor, who stepped down as Sportingbet’s Senior Independent Director on 24 March 2011, will also retire from the Board.
O’Connor and Payne have each entered into consultancy agreements with Sportingbet.

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