Shares in bwin party rose 10.5% mid-afternoon as the company revealed that it had entered early stage talks “with a number of interested parties regarding a variety of potential business combinations with a view to creating additional value for bwin.party shareholders”.
The Financial Times said it believed Amaya Gaming was the company holding talks with bwin party and would price the shares at 145p, valuing the company at £1.1bn. Mid-afternoon bwin party had a market capitalisation of £881m.
Meanwhile the London Evening Standard said Playtech was the company in the running following its announcement that it had raised €315m to carry out acquisitions and “organic opportunities”.
Playtech issued an update shortly after to say it had placed “€297m of senior, unsecured convertible bonds due 2019”. For Playtech a buy-out of bwin would give it a major foothold in the sports betting market, the only vertical where it has not made major headway in recent times, although observers would have to wait to see if bwin party had sold business units on an individual basis or as part of the whole group.
The news comes as bwin party has suffered significant drops in revenue since bwin and PartyGaming merged in 2011 to create what was for a time the largest listed igaming company in the world.
Amaya’s recent eye-catching acquisition of PokerStars recently and other takeovers by fellow Canadian company Intertain have brought M&A activity back to front of stage in recent months, with further agreements very likely in the near to short term.
In a statement bwin.party said “such discussions may or may not result in an offer being made for the Company. However, as all such discussions remain at a preliminary stage, there can be no certainty as to whether or not they will result in any form of transaction with any party”.
source : www.igamingbusiness.com
