888 chief on M&A: If you don't play you don't win
Itai Frieberger philosophical about William Hill rejection but insists there's no pressure on him to do a deal
888 chief executive Itai Frieberger (pictured) says he was “disappointed” rather than “frustrated” at William Hill’s refusal to discuss a three-way merger with Rank, but insists he’s under no pressure to do a deal, despite a string of recent M&A failures.
Speaking to EGR after posting a 19% rise in H1 revenues, Frieberger said he understood why Hills rejected the notion of a mega-merger but believed things could have been different had they been given the opportunity to sit down with the operator.
“At the end of the day, a deal needs to be a win-win, especially when you talk about a company like William Hill,” Frieberger said.
“It’s a very well-respected and massive company and if they didn’t feel the deal was value for them then I respect that.
“The problem is we couldn’t engage with them or speak with them before and I’m sure if we had we could have moved things around and accommodated them but we never got around to doing it.
“If our business today was in decline or showing signs of weakness then I would have been very frustrated but it’s not, so I think it’s more a sense of disappointment as I truly believed in the concept,” he added.
When asked whether 888 could still discuss M&A with Hills in the future, Frieberger said it was “a question for them [William Hill]” but was keen to reemphasise the rationale behind a combination with the sportsbook giant.
The chief exec said he was “being modest” when claiming 888 had the best backend system in the industry and one which would have transformed the fortunes of William Hill.
“When you go to William Hill, or Ladbrokes, or others, you get the odds and you make a bet. However, what happens after? How do they make you place another bet? How do they make you stake? How do they make you play casino? This is where we differ,” Frieberger said.
“Our backend is better than anyone else’s and this is the value we bring to the table.
“If you want the rationale behind the William Hill exercise; if you take the entire William Hill install base, implement our tools and functionality and those algorithms over the massive install base of them, or anyone else for that matter, you’d get seriously great results coming out it,” he explained.
The failure to land William Hill comes after the firm was beaten to the punch by GVC Holdings in their battle to land bwin.party last year, with that disappointment coming after an earlier deal with William Hill had been abandoned.
“If you don’t play you don’t win,” Frieberger said. “But M&A is not our main agenda â it’s an opportunity. I don’t run the business for M&A.
“There is no pressure on me from the board or from our shareholders to do a deal. As long as we can provide strong results everyone is happy.
“What I am trying to say is that we are doing very well as an independent company and we enjoy everything we do, but there is an open door here for us to look at opportunities â I’m paid to look at opportunities,” he added.
Despite its search for a proprietary sportsbook, Frieberger said 888 had the “right partner” in sportsbook supplier Kambi and didn’t think 888 could do much more if they were to go it alone.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “But our DNA is proprietary – we like owning and running on our own.”
888’s share price is up 5p to 220p since the publication of its results on Wednesday morning.