Sportingbet Gets New Director

Macnamara to chair audit committee This week came an announcement from online sports betting group Sportingbet that Rory Macnamara has been appointed to the position of a non-executive director and chairman of its audit committee, with immediate effect. Prior to this, Macnamara held a number of senior positions, including those at Morgan Grenfell, later Deutsche Morgan Grenfell, Lehman Brothers where he was head of UK coverage, then he served as a non-executive chairman of Izodia plc in 2003, and he also has an extensive experience chairing audit committees, such as those at Augean, PEI, Dunedin and Raven Mount. In related news, Sportingbet has another two changes to the Board, as Nigel Payne, a 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 to serve as independent directors for the purposes of the UK Corporate Governance Code. It has also been specified that Payne, who currently chairs the audit committee, will remain on the committee after Macnamara's appointment and will retire from the Board at the company's Annual General Meeting on 16 December 2011, whereas O' Connor will also retire from the Board. In addition, the announcement states that they both entered into consultancy agreements with Sportingbet.