Allied Esports Entertainment, Inc. announce that it has reached an agreement to sell its World Poker Tour to Element Partners, LLC for $105 million, ending a bidding war that included an unsolicited offer from Bally’s Corp. of $100 million for the tournament.
Irvine, California-based Allied Esports, which operates the HyperX Esports Arena inside the Luxor on the Las Vegas Strip, had initially agreed to sell the tournament to Element Partners for $78 million. Bally’s made its $100 million offer in mid-March, following it up with an offer of $90 million for just the poker business. On March 19, Allied announced an adjusted agreement to sell WPT to Element for $90.5 million, touching off a bidding war that saw Bally’s raise its offer to $100 million, then $105 million, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
“The company’s board of directors will evaluate any additional proposal in due course, in compliance with the terms of their stock purchase agreement with Element Partners,” Allied Esports CEO Frank Ng told investors on an earnings call last week.
“We always listen to offers, but the potential sale of the esports business is a lower priority at this time as we focus our attention on completing the sale of WPT,” Fisher told the Review-Journal. “Once we finish the WPT transaction, we can then devote more energy to our go-forward strategy for esports.”
Allied Esports reported a net loss of $46.5 million in 2020 compared with $15.5 million in 2019. Allied Esports lost a net $19.7 million in the fourth quarter last year, compared with a loss of $5.8 million during the same period in 2019. Those numbers exclude its World Poker Tour business component.
