Prominent iGaming and sportsbook operator Entain has announced that it has redoubled its effort to purchase smaller Baltic-facing competitor Enlabs AB by upping an earlier bid by some 32.5% to approximately $446.1 million.
The Isle of Man-based firm is already responsible for a plethora of iGaming brands including Bwin, Ladbrokes, PartyPoker and SportingBet and proposed a deal in January that would have seen pay around $336.7 million so as to acquire all of the issued share capital in Enlabs AB at an individual price of roughly $4.76. However, this proposition was subsequently rejected by a significant number of its target’s investors over concerns that the overall value of the Stockholm-listed firm was being belittled by as much as $122 million.
Preeminent pitch:
Entain also partners with MGM Resorts International to run the BetMGM platform in the United States and it used an official press release to detail that it now hopes to overcome this reluctance by proposing to offer in the region of $6.27 for every share in Enlabs AB. The London-listed operator previously known as GVC Holdings moreover explained that this revised proposal represents its final offer and is not due to be increased ahead of a planned May 17 acceptance deadline.
Early assent:
Rob Wood serves as the Chief Financial Officer and Deputy Chief Executive Officer for Entain and he used the press release to assert that investors holding in the region of 8.7% of the shares in Enlabs AB have already agreed to accept his company’s improved offer. He also pronounced that this means parties controlling approximately 50.9% of its target’s shareholding including earlier hold-outs such as Texas-based hedge fund Alta Fox Capital Management and digital entrepreneur Hans Isoz are now irrevocably on board with either the previous or revised offers.
Anticipated benefits:
Entain earlier estimated that the successful completion of this buyout could allow it to book as much as $109.2 million in additional net gaming revenues every year via an increase of market share in the online gaming markets of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. It pronounced that such an arrangement would furthermore give it the keys to the Optibet-branded family of iGaming domains alongside a majority stake in Maltese operator Shogun Group and see its annual earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization rise by as much as $28.5 million.
Further foundation:
Wood closed by declaring that an independent bid committee set up by Enlabs AB is now set to recommend that the firm’s investors accept the revised offer from his own company, which he revealed represents an 88.5% premium when compared with the volume-weighted average price of its shares for the 180 days up to the end of Friday trading.