Investment foundations linked to Poland’s Juroszek family are urging the board of DigiPlus Interactive to launch a substantial share buyback, arguing the Philippine digital gaming operator is the lowest-valued B2C gaming company among global listed peers and that repurchases would create more value for shareholders than new land-based investments.
In an open letter to the board dated July 6th, Betplay Capital Foundation, ZJ Foundation and MJ Foundation, which together hold approximately 1.4 percent of the company, said DigiPlus trades at around 2.4x estimated 2026 EV/EBITDA, roughly one-third of the peer median, while offering a free cash flow yield of around 32 percent, more than six times the peer median of roughly 5 percent.
Applying peer median multiples to DigiPlus’ financials implies a valuation of roughly PHP30 ($0.49) per share, more than 150 percent above the recent market price in the low teens, according to the letter, signed by Tomasz Juroszek.
The foundations said the company’s balance sheet ‘remains a fortress’ with more than PHP20 billion ($325 million) in cash and virtually no debt, giving it ‘all the firepower it needs’ to fund repurchases from its own cash generation.
The letter also argued that ‘further land-based investments are not optimal at this stage and can be deferred’, suggesting any non-committed land-based capital expenditure be postponed and the entire free cash flow redirected toward buying back and canceling shares. ‘Shares repurchased and canceled in the meantime will prove to have been bought at once-in-a-cycle prices,’ the letter said.
The recommendation touches directly on DigiPlus’ most prominent land-based move: its push into Manila’s casino sector through Hong Kong-listed International Entertainment Corp, owner of New Coast Hotel Manila. DigiPlus completed its subscription to HK$1.6 billion ($204 million) of IEC convertible notes in two equal tranches in March and June, under an agreement signed last November. Full conversion would hand DigiPlus a 53.89 percent controlling stake, although the company has yet to convert any of the notes into shares.
The appeal comes just after a key deadline: the share repurchase authorization approved by the board a year ago expired on July 4th, and the foundations urged the board to renew it.
DigiPlus, operator of BingoPlus, ArenaPlus and GameZone, has faced a difficult twelve months, as the delinking of e-wallet access from licensed online gaming platforms disrupted user activity through 2025, while the fuel crisis triggered by the war in Iran tempered consumer sentiment. Still, first quarter 2026 revenue of around PHP17.2 billion ($280 million) stood about 27 percent above the same period in 2024, the letter noted.
The appeal lands against a mixed picture among DigiPlus’ major shareholders. Chairman Eusebio Tanco spent PHP1.04 billion ($16.9 million) on February 27th to lift his stake to almost 16 percent, while Clearspring Holdings, another substantial shareholder of the company, sold 113.12 million shares at the same price on the same day, according to disclosures to the Philippine Stock Exchange.
The foundations themselves said they have held DigiPlus shares for approximately two and a half years and continue to increase their position at current prices. However, Juroszek told Forbes Poland in February 2025 that the family had begun selling its stake in the Philippines’ largest online casino operator, which he did not name, after a return of more than 150 percent in under a year.
AGB has approached DigiPlus for further clarification. No reply had been received by the time of publication.
