GVC confirms Amaya joint-bid for bwin.party
Operator clarifies that the bid announced on Friday would be jointly financed by Amaya Gaming
GVC this morning issued a statement clarifying that its bid to acquire bwin.party in its entirety will be funded in part by PokerStars’ owner Amaya Gaming.
The operator said it was responding to media speculation yesterday that it had joined forces with Amaya to table a second 1.5bn offer to acquire the firm.
But GVC confirmed that it had made just the one offer for bwin.party, and that the offer would be jointly financed with Amaya.
“As announced on 15 May 2015, GVC has submitted a proposal with a view to the Group acquiring the entire issued and to be issued share capital of bwin.party,” GVC said.
“GVC confirms that the execution of this proposal would be jointly financed by GVC and Amaya,” it added.
Amaya also issued a statement confirming that it had agreed to jointly finance GVC’s takeover bid of bwin.party, but said it would provide no further details on the partnership or the funding agreement.
Yesterday UK newspaper The Telegraph reported that Amaya was interested in acquiring bwin.party’s poker assets and possibly its sportsbook platform.
The Telegraph said that under plans being drawn up by the two companies a special vehicle majority owned by GVC would acquire bwin.party outright with Amaya having the option to subsequently purchase the poker business.
GVC would place its own management in the special vehicle, and would be responsible for restructuring bwin.party over the next two years, with Amaya having the option to purchase the sportsbook platform at the end of that period.
The update comes after 888 threw its hat into the ring yesterday after confirming it too had made an offer to acquire bwin.party in its entirety.
The part-cash and part-paper deal has already gained the backing of 59% of 888 shareholders, including the Shaked family, who had recently rejected a proposed takeover offer from William Hill.
Bwin.party’s share price was up 0.9% this morning to 109.01p, GVC’s was up 1.4% to 467.85p, while 888’s share price was down 0.3% to 166.50p.