India's Delta Corp shares sink on $1.34 bln tax blow (updated)

Delta

25/09/2023 05:51

(Adds background, details, stock moves from paragraph 2)
       BENGALURU, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Shares of Indian casino
operator Delta Corp  DELT.NS  plunged as much as 20% on Monday
to their lowest since January 2021, after the company said that
it received a notice to pay 111.40 billion rupees ($1.34
billion) in tax arrears. 
    Delta Corp, which owns casinos as well as poker and rummy
websites, added that the company and two of its units received
intimations of an additional tax shortfall aggregating to 56.83
billion rupees for the period between July 2017 and March 2022.
        The notice deals another blow to the gaming company
which is already contending with the federal government's
elevated levies. 
  
        The stock logged its steepest intraday percentage
decline since July 12, when the country's Goods and Services Tax
(GST) Council decided to impose a 28% indirect tax on money
collected by gaming companies, which industry experts had said
would sap earnings of the $1.5 billion online gaming industry.
The stock had lost a fifth of its value then.
  
        The shares pared some of the losses and were last down
nearly 18% at 144.05 rupees apiece, pushing them down 32% this
year. Meanwhile, peers Nazara Technologies  NAZA.NS  and
Onmobile Gaming  ONMO.NS  climbed about 18% and 46%,
respectively this year.
  
        While global investors have 
    urged
     Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to review the 28%
gaming tax, citing a setback to prospective investments of about
$4 billion, the country's revenue secretary had said there was
no need to rethink the tax.
  
    
($1 = 82.9700 Indian rupees)

 (Reporting by Varun Vyas in Bengaluru; Editing by Dhanya Ann
Thoppil)
 ((varunvyas.hebbalalu@thomsonreuters.com;))