William Hill writes a winning £530m ticket for Sportingbet
ONLINE gambling firm Sportingbet has yielded to a sweetened £530m joint offer from Britain’s biggest bookmaker William Hill, writesRupertSteiner.
The cash and shares deal would be worth 61.1p per share of Sportingbet, up 20pc from a previous 52.2p offer.
William Hill had until yesterday to make a firm bid under Takeover Panel rules, having teamed up with European gaming company GVC in a deal that would see Sportingbet broken up.
The internet gambling firm has been in play for much of the past year as the old fashioned bookmakers go shopping online to accelerate their digital presence.
Sportingbet (up 0.5p to 53.5p), which sponsors Wolverhampton Wanderers football club, pictured, already failed to reach an agreement with Ladbrokes last year.
The latest proposal comprises 48.9p in cash, 1.1p dividend in cash and 0.0475 new GVC shares per Sportingbet share.
All parties have sought an extension to the deadline to agree terms, which has been stretched until November 13. Sportingbet said: ‘The board of has confirmed to William Hill and GVC Holdings that if such an offer were to be made, the board of Sportingbet would expect to unanimously recommend it to shareholders.’
William Hill makes most of its money in Britain but is expanding overseas and plans to take on Sportingbet in Australia and Spain. Smaller GVC would take on the company in unregulated markets. Guernsey-based Sportingbet was floated in 2001 and is the largest online sports betting provider in Australia, Spain and Greece. Its Paradise Poker is one of the world’s most well-known poker sites and the business is in 31 different countries. Ivor Jones, an analyst at broker Numis, believes that this offer could spook rivals into making a counter bid for Sportingbet. He said: ‘This offer gives other bidders for Sportingbet something to aim off. It does not appear that Sportingbet has agreed to negotiate exclusively with William Hill. On balance, we would expect a higher offer for Sportingbet to emerge from another bidder.’