Exclusive interview: 888 COO Itai Frieberger on £900m deal

888 Holdings’ deal to acquire bwin.party for almost £900m goes “way beyond” cost synergies, according to its COO Itai Frieberger who, talking exclusively to eGaming Review this morning backed the proposed agreement to be an overwhelming success.

eGaming Review (eGR): Why did bwin.party go with your bid over the offer put forward by GVC/Amaya?

Itai Frieberger (IF): What we bring to the table is a lot of value through what we have done in the last four years, which gives us a lot of credibility. Our footprint in the world is very similar to bwin.party, while GVC’s is slightly different. The potential economies of scale are mind-blowing.

There are a whole bunch of areas where we are going to be able to save money. And I don’t underestimate that because it is important. But if you look at synergies only you are missing the bigger picture. The true value is way beyond synergies. Synergies are nice, be that $70m or $100m, it doesn’t really matter. The real value will come from operational excellence, of doing the right thing and building it properly. That is where the significant value lies for both shareholders of bwin.party and 888, which are now the same.

eGR: Where do you see the greatest growth potential in combining the two companies?

IF: Combining poker is going to be massive. We already have a plan of how we are going to do that. Casino integration will be very powerful. Bingo which we already provide the platform for, provides major growth opportunities as well.

And then there is sport, we have never had a proprietary tier one sportsbook and that is what we are getting here. We are getting a very good sportsbook with a great brand, and if we combine that with our CRM and marketing methodology, that alone will create significant value and upside for both shareholders.

eGR: Will you look to migrate the 888 sportsbook to the bwin.party platform as soon as the acquisition is complete?

IF: Absolutely, but that is going to take time. We have a relationship with Kambi that is going to be sustainable for now, so they will have enough time to do what they need to do in order to mitigate that. It’s a long process, we are talking about different products, regulations, core platforms and CRM systems. It all needs to come together and it’s not something that is going to happen in a couple of months.

eGR: Will you look to keep all of bwin.party’s brands post-acquisition?

IF: We haven’t decided yet. There is definitely value in their brands. Bwin is one of the top brands in the world when it comes to sports betting, and partypoker is a very strong, significant, legacy poker brand. So we will be using them in some construct, but I can’t say that it is going to be exactly the same as it is now.

eGR: How will you look to grow the combined business in the coming months?

IF: We have shown how well we have been able to grow lifetime value in each one of our verticals. We have shown how well we retain customers, and how well our CRM system is performing. Our CRM and our core platform are second to none in the industry, there is no one close to where we are with that.

Now take the revenue that comes out of bwin.party and put that to work through our advanced platform and methodology, and that alone will create value. Just sharing poker liquidity between the two platforms will create value. And those things, in my view, are way beyond any number of synergies. This is how the business will drive forward.