Lottery retailer Jumbo Interactive has said that it expects to complete its acquisition of UK external lottery manager and digital payments business StarVale Group after it secured the approval of the Great Britain Gambling Commission.
Jumbo entered into a deal to acquire StarVale in January this year, agreeing to pay an initial Aus$32.1m (£18.3m/€20.7m/US$20.01) to take ownership of the business, plus $8.5m in deferred payments, payable subject to StarVale achieving certain earnings targets.
The retailer agreed the deal via its newly incorporated, wholly-owned entity Jumbo Interactive UK, saying it would further expand its global growth strategy, following the purchase of UK-based Gatherwell in December 2019 and Canada-based Stride Management.
In July, Jumbo said it was unlikely that the acquisition would close before the end of the current year as initially hoped due a longer-than-expected regulatory approval process.
However, having now been given the green light by the GB Gambling Commission, Jumbo now said the deal will likely close on 1 November, subject to the satisfaction of all other closing deliverables.
Upon the deal completing, StarVale will form part of Jumbo’s Managed Services business segment, along with Gatherwell and Stride.
StarVale provides services to over 850,000 active lottery players across over 45 charities and not-for-profit organisations, many of which are major UK charities. It also owns DDPay Ltd, a digital payments business that facilitates Direct Debit payments and solutions to StarVale’s weekly lottery clients.
