888 chief reveals M&A talks

888 Holdings chief executive Brian Mattingley (pictured) says the firm has been in talks with a number of potential acquisition targets while also dismissing any suggestion the firm itself could be up for sale.

Speaking to eGaming Review following the company’s Q3 results disclosure this morning, Mattingley said 888 continued to “study opportunities” and could be in discussions with “two or three parties at any one stage”.

“We will always study the opportunities and our team, the people who get the information, they will review it and analyse it and if there’s something that we see as a significant benefit to us that is not too much then we will make a move,” Mattingley said.

“We [could be] actively talking to two or three parties at any one stage [but] at this particular time I can’t comment as far as to say we are moving forward,” he added.

Mattingley also commented on recent speculation that London-based private equity firm Permira had failed in an attempted takeover bid and confirmed that an inquiry had been made to one of its shareholders.

“We knew where that [story] came from and we knew that Permira had made an approach to one of our shareholders to take some of their shares,” Mattingley said.

“As far as we are concerned, we were not engaged with them whatsoever, it was more of a shareholder interest. I don’t see us being acquired and at this moment in time we will be an acquirer or as and when any opportunities come along which make strategic sense,” he added.

Any acquisition would be bolted-on to a growing business with the operator having posted a 22% increase in Q3 revenues which Mattingley said was a “record” at US$114m “even when we were in the States pre-UIEGA”.

The operator’s flagship casino was once again the main driver of growth with a 23% rise in B2C revenues to $98m, however, Mattingley was keen to highlight the 83% year-on-year growth seen in its Kambi Sports Solutions-powered sportsbook, a product he said represented “one of our most exciting prospects”.

888’s sportsbook numbers are still obscured by the fact they are contained within its ’emerging offering’ in the company’s results although Mattingley revealed sports contributed around 85%-90% of the emerging offering’s $9m Q3 revenue haul and was up 25% sequentially.

He added that the sportsbook figures would soon be stripped out and listed separately once it had managed to increase its overall revenue contribution from its current 5% to around 8%.

While a large majority of its sportsbook revenues were derived from the UK, Mattingley said the recent launch of the product in Spain had provided some “promising” signs and said the operator was working with Kambi to launch sports in Italy around the middle of next year.

The vertical also provided a boost to its casino figures with Mattingley having revealed 45%-50% of its sportbook customers had been successfully converted to casino games.

“All the time we are seeing active players gaining traction in sports and it represents a great opportunity for us to cross-sell, no doubt,” Mattingley said.

While bingo and poker grew by 9% and 3% respectively, Mattingley said its US business had flat-lined although added that he expected the market to be “enormous” in the coming years as more states open up to online gaming.