Amaya and GVC Announce $1.4B Offer to Buy Bwin.Party
Amaya Gaming, the parent company of PokerStars and Full Tilt, has placed a £900 million (approximately $1.39 billion) bid to buy the bwin.party group, this according to the Financial Times on July 7.
As anticipated on PokerNews on May 18, the operation sees Amaya joining forces with GVC Holdings, the sports betting and gaming company that controls online operators like Sportingbet, CasinoClub, and Betboo.
"We're still in discussions with bwin.party and we're not commenting on the details of those discussions," a spokesperson from GVC told The Daily Telegraph. bwin.party could not be reached for comments on the operation.
Amaya and bwin.party have been reportedly in negotiations since November 2014, when the Financial Times' Paul Murphy and Bryce Elder announced in the magazine's Live Markets section that "advanced negotiations between bwin.party and a potential buyer" have been running for over a month.
Amaya and bwin.party have been in negotiations since November 2014
Shortly after, the rumor was confirmed by the board of bwin.party in a statement sent to the media. "Further to recent media speculation regarding a possible bid for bwin.party," the message said, "the board of bwin.party confirms that it has entered into preliminary discussions with a number of interested parties regarding a variety of potential business combinations with a view to creating additional value for bwin.party shareholders."
If successful, the operation would allow Amaya to enter the U.S.online poker market with the partypoker being a legal poker room in New Jersey, and become one of the world's top players in the sports betting industry.
Also, the acquisition of would prevent bwin.party from falling right into the hands of 888holdings, as the parent company of 888poker, 888casino, and 888poker has also been reported to be in advanced negotiations to buy the group.
Amaya's competitor group 888holding has also been reportedly in negotiations with bwin.party
The news about the $1.39 billion bid to acquire bwin.party did not generate any particular enthusiasm in the international markets, with the two bidders closing their trading sessions in the red.
As shown in the graphs below, Amaya - which is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (AYA:TO) and on the Nasdaq (AYA) since June 8, closed yesterday's session with the value of the company's stocks going down by 0.6 percent and -1.99 percent respectively.
Things went slightly worse for GVC Holdings, as the company's stock lost 3.56 points during the first half of Wednesday's trading session at the London Stock Exchange.
GVC's negative performance, however, is also influenced by the difficulties and that all the European markets started to experience since the Greek financial crisis and the crash of China's stock market created concerns among international investors.
Wednesday's session at the London Stock Exchange turned out to be a negative one for bwin.party also, with the company's shares down 3.43 percent by 12:30.
Despite the mild reaction of the markets, financial analysts seem to think Amaya's takeover could be a good move for all the parties involved in the deal, as both Amaya's and bwin.party's shares maintained their 'buy' rating.
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