Amaya Gaming plans to sell off its share of lottery subsidiary business Innova Gaming Group to Pollard Banknote limited, which has made a C million bid for the group.
Amaya owns 8.18m shares—40.45 percent—of Innova. Amaya has reached a support agreement with the Canadian lottery services company.
Pollard made an unsolicited bid of C$42 million for Innova with an all-cash offer of no less than C$2.10 per share for Innova, and Amaya, which owns 8.18m shares (40.45%) of Innova, has pledged its support of Pollard’s bid.
Innova provides technology to state and provincial lottery operations and was formed in 2015 when Amaya spun off its Diamond Game Enterprises subsidiary, according to CalvinAyre.com. The move was part of Amaya’s divestiture of its B2B operations following the company’s 2014 acquisition of the Rational Group and PokerStars. The Innova group was designed to hold all Diamond Game shares ahead of a public floatation on the Toronto Stock Exchange, the website said.
Amaya officials said that despite the agreement, there was no guarantee that the deal would go through and Pollard has until May 8 to make a formal offer.
The move comes after Amaya refinanced its long-term debt to waive its requirement to repay excess cash flow, which provided the company with the $48 million to make deferred payments to the Rational Group’s former owners Isai and Mark Scheinberg.
