Jason Drummond
Jason Drummond is a British technology entrepreneur.
Jason Drummond has founded, built and listed 7 technology companies on European Stock Exchanges since 1999.
At the age of 18, Drummond established IDL Communications Limited a distributor of mobile phones and fax machines. Subsequent to this Drummond spent approximately three years outside of the UK, establishing and running distribution and new media companies in emerging markets such as Russia and Africa. Drummond returned to the United Kingdom in 1995. In 1996 he founded Virtual Internet Ltd, an online intellectual property protection and web hosting services company. Virtual Internet plc ("VI") was admitted to the Alternative Investment Market in January 1999 and in March 2000 combined a £33m fundraising with a move to the Official List.[1] In November 2000 Drummond founded RegistryPro,[2] a joint venture between VI and Register.com which created the domain name .pro.
VI was acquired by Register.com Inc. in 2002.
In March 2000, Drummond founded Xworks Limited, an e-business incubator, which was admitted to trading on AIM in April 2001 with a market cap of £4.4m at 10p a share. In August 2002, Xworks changed its name to Gaming Corporation plc to reflect its principal business "casino.co.uk". In March 2005, Gaming Corporation plc raised £14m in an institutional placing at 14p per share (market cap £36m), and in May 2005, acquired Gambling.com for $20m. For the year ended Sep 2006 Gaming Corp made profits of £2.5m, but new US legislation, the Safe Port Act made online payments by US customers to online gaming companies illegal, causing a massive write-down in the value of Gambling.com. In October 2006 Gaming Corporation Plc changed its name to Media Corporation Plc, and sold Casino.co.uk to Cryptologic Ltd for £3.6m in cash in August 2007. Drummond stepped down as chairman in February 2012.[3]
Drummond was a significant shareholder in Active ISP, that listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange In October 2004 with a market cap of NOK 270m.[4]
Drummond was a director of Metacharge Limited, an Internet payment service provider that was sold to PayPoint plc for £8.4m in October 2006, and In December 2005, Drummond co-founded Shellworks Ltd, which was admitted to trading on AIM as Nettworx plc having raised £10m.[5]
In 2006 Drummond co-founded FAIRFX plc, a peer-to-peer foreign currency exchange with turnover of £320m (2013), which has recently joined forces with Easyjet to launch a Euro VISA prepaid card to its customers.[6]
Drummond was also the founder of Coms plc (L.COMS)[7] the Internet communications company. Drummond founded the business in September 2003, and listed it on AIM in September 2006. Drummond stepped down as Executive Chairman in September 2012.
In 2000, the Guardian described Drummond as "richer than all of the Spice Girls put together and virtually unknown",[8] in 2001 the Telegraph included Drummond on a list of the "The net losers" after the value of his shares in Virtual Internet plc fell by £104m.[9]
References
- ↑ http://www.investegate.co.uk/virtualinternet-net--vet-/rns/proposed-placing-at-900p-per-share-to-raise--27m/200003210701556155H/
- ↑ RegistryPRO http://www.registry.pro/
- ↑ http://www.thedrum.com/news/2012/02/16/media-corp-executive-chairman-jason-drummond-stand-down
- ↑ Public listing of Active 24 ASA at Oslo Børs http://www.oslobors.no/ob_eng/Oslo-Boers/Listing/New-listings/Active-24-ASA
- ↑ Investment in Nettworx http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c5857f2e-7033-11da-a1f7-0000779e2340.html#axzz2fRTenSa3
- ↑ London Stock Exchange RNS http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail.html?announcementId=11674447
- ↑ Coms plc (L.COMS) http://www.coms.com/
- ↑ The young rich entrepreneurs http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2000/mar/12/rich.life17
- ↑ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/4489416/The-net-losers.html