The Future of bwin.party Group to Be Determined Over the Weekend
The bidding war started by 888 Holdings and GVC Holdings to gain control of the bwin.party Group may soon be coming to an end as the parent company of popular brands like partypoker and bwin announced that it will issue a market update on Tuesday, Sept. 1.
While it's hard to guess what conclusion the board of bwin.party will come to next week, financial analysts believe the coming weekend to be a very intense one with both GVC and 888 Holdings expected to raise the stakes once again and submit final offers.
On Thursday, Aug. 27, bwin.party issued a statement soliciting GVC to step up and improve their offer by presenting their best and final bid.
"The Board of bwin.party confirms, further to its discussions with GVC Holdings, that key aspects of GVC's proposal have now been addressed to bwin.party's satisfaction," the company said.
bwin.party has now asked GVC to make their final offer.
"bwin.party has now asked GVC to clarify, with respect to its proposal, the best terms on which GVC is prepared to make a formal offer to acquire all of the issued and to be issued shares in bwin.party."
At the present time, GVC has made a $1.72 billion formal offer to take control of the bwin.party Group, marking a significant improvement over its initial $1.4 billion offer made in July when the company tried to buy the bwin.party Group through a joint venture formed with Amaya Gaming, the parent company of PokerStars and Full Tilt.
Despite the numerous offers advanced by GVC, the bwin.party board has currently decided to accept a lower bid of $1.4 billion from 888 Holdings.
"The combination of the 888 and bwin.party businesses announced under the 888 management team would generate significant value for both sets of shareholders," the company explained. "The Board continues to believe that its offer is of significantly greater intrinsic value than the proposal outlined by GVC Holdings."
"We are still very confident we will get this transaction over the line," Chairman of 888 Holdings Brian Mattingley told Reuters. Although he did not comment on whether or not 888 might be preparing a new offer to challenge GVC, Mattingley admitted that he is "not going to have an easy bank holiday weekend."
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