The rapid rise of Intertain
With four major acquisitions under its belt, eGR looks back on a year which has transformed the Canadian gaming group
The Intertain Group’s £425.8m acquisition of Gamesys’ Jackpotjoy, Starspins and Botemania brands has confirmed the Canadian firm’s arrival among the industry’s power players and certainly as one of the world’s largest online bingo operators.
The deal dwarfs the firm’s previous acquisitions, which include Mandalay Media and online casino operator Vera&John. But what is Intertain, and just how has it gone from floating on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) back in February 2014 to completing four major acquisitions in less than 12 months?
Intertain burst onto the scene with its CA$70m takeover of Amaya Gaming subsidiary WagerLogic just weeks before listing on the TSX. The takeover saw Intertain acquire one of the best known online casino brands in the market, InterCasino, and Amaya Gaming as a major shareholder.
At the time Intertain was known as Goldstar Acquisitionco, a partnership created by Intertain CEO John Kennedy FitzGerald (pictured) and current CFO Keith Laslop. FitzGerald had previously worked for WagerLogic parent company CryptoLogic as general counsel while the firm was being taken public on the London Stock Exchange under CEO Lewis Rose and CFO Jim Ryan.
In an interview with eGR FitzGerald said WagerLogic was “a corporate orphan” that “didn’t get a lot of attention” under Amaya’s ownership, but that putting the team together to acquire the firm and “turn the business around” was “something very doable”.
FitzGerald’s ambitions for InterCasino were very simple – to get the brand back to where it was in 2011 when it was generating around $13.5m in net income. And despite owning InterCasino for a less than a year, Intertain has already redesigned and completely overhauled the brand and website.
Just months after completing its acquisition of WagerLogic, Intertain was back in the headlines after announcing it had bought Costa Bingo owner Mandalay Media for £60m, taking over a number of UK focused bingo and affiliate sites as well.
And following Amaya Gaming’s shock $4.9bn acquisition of PokerStars parent company the Rational Group in August, FitzGerald said the investment community had “woken up to the idea of online gaming” and were willing to “talk and listen” to the firm’s ideas. “It’s allowing us to explore some larger transactions as well,” he said at the time.
The firm’s third and largest acquisition at the time came towards the back end of last year when completed its 89m takeover online casino operator Vera&John. On announcing the deal FitzGerald said the acquisition would allow Intertain to expand into the Nordic markets, and provide an “immediate accretion and meaningful operating cash flow” to the business.
And while the firm’s acquisition of the Gamesys Group’s key brands trumps its earlier M&A activity in terms of size and scope, it’s hard to believe that FitzGerald and Intertain will stop where they are.