Galleon shares jump 20% as Kasparov signs up for global merchandising

Galleon Holdings, the licensing group, saw its shares rise 20 per cent yesterday after it revealed it had signed a global merchandising deal with the former world chess champion, Garry Kasparov.

The agreement, which comes as Kasparov prepares to take on his toughest opponent to date – a computer – gives Galleon the licensing rights to any products that use the chess international grandmaster's name.

Galleon's subsidiary, Clipper Media, will handle the rights, which are expected to attract interest from publishers, computer games makers, toy makers and broadcasters. Its shares gained 0.25p to 1.5p.

"There are only two sportsmen with levels of recognition and reverence that are truly worldwide, one is Mohammed Ali, the other is Garry Kasparov," John Knox, Clipper's managing director, said.

Mr Knox, who has previously worked at Paramount and Warner Brothers, said chess was "arguably the biggest pastime by participation in the world". Already, the company has licensed the Azerbaijan-born chess champion to Dai Nippon Printing of Japan, which is making a personal organiser-style product containing all the information on chess that a fan could possibly need.

The Kasparov deal represents Galleon's first big leap into the international rights market, building on its limited current portfolio. The company hopes to gain further from the anticipated surge of interest in chess in October when Kasparov pits his wits against the reigning world computer chess champion. He will be up against a machine designed by two Israeli programmers that can process millions of possible positions per second.

As well as Kasparov, Clipper Media holds the rights to a number of children's cartoon properties including The Cornish Riviera Pasties – a group of talking pasties who live by the sea – and PC Pepper, created by the cartoonist behind Fireman Sam. It is also developing a magazine called BOOM, which it intends to turn into a "super-rich lifestyle brand".