Gtech Loses Top Execs, Expects Profit Shortfall

Gtech Holdings Corp., the world’s largest vendor to government lotteries, said that its two top executives quit and that fiscal second-quarter profit probably will miss estimates. Gtech’s shares dropped $2.94, or 13%, to close at $19.81 on the New York Stock Exchange. Chairman and Chief Executive William O’Connor and President and Chief Operating Officer Steven Nowick resigned amid board dissatisfaction with Gtech’s stock performance and the handling of a software malfunction in Britain in 1998, the company said. The shares have lost about half their value since March 1998 because of slow growth in the international lottery business. W. Bruce Turner, a Gtech board member and a former gaming industry analyst at Salomon Smith Barney Inc., was named nonexecutive chairman.