David Baazov, former CEO of Amaya Inc. said he has replaced the money in his .1 billion bid to take Amaya private that was attributed to a Dubai investor that later disavowed any knowledge of the deal.
Baazov said two Hong Kong funds will increase their portion of the financing for the bid, according to Bloomberg News. The news service cited “binding equity commitment letters” from Head and Shoulders Global Investment Fund SPC and Goldenway Capital SPC for $3.45 billion of the bid. The letters were included in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
Dubai-based KBC Aldini Capital Ltd. was originally named as an investor, but KBC officials later said they had no knowledge of the deal and its reported backing had been given without the firm’s consent. KBC isn’t named in the new equity financing, Baazov said in the filing. Ferdyne Advisory Inc., a British Virgin Island firm that Baazov named in a previous press release was also not included in the new filing, Bloomberg said.
The two Hong Kong firms were named as investors initially. Baazov has created a special entity to make the offer for Amaya, which now stands at C$24 a share, the filing said. The overall deal is worth about $6.7 billion including debt
“We continue to support David Baazov,” Stanley Choi, chairman of Head and Shoulders Financial Group, told Bloomberg.
Amaya officials haven’t commented.
Amaya also received some good news in Portugal, where PokerStars was approved for an online license by the country’s gaming regulator – Serviços de Regulação e Inspeção de Jogos.
PokerStars becomes the first online poker site to be licensed by Portugal. The company had operated in the country until 2015 when Portugal began regulating online play.
The license allows PokerStars to hold online tournaments and some casino games in the country’s market, but only for players in Portugal—termed a ring-fenced market. PokerStars did not announce when it would go live in the country saying its Portuguese website is still being developed.
Portugal has been reported to be in negotiations with other European countries with ring-fenced markets to allow for shared player liquidity. France Spain and Italy are also believed to be in the discussion, local media reports say.
In another matter, Amaya has announced a new line-up for its European Poker Tour which will now be called the “PokerStars Championships.” The first event will be the PokerStars Championship Bahamas from January 6-14 at the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas. The event was formerly the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.
Stops in Prague and Malta, however, have been taken off the initial schedule.
“PokerStars has an incredibly rich live events heritage, having hosted more than 560 tournament series, attracted more than 800,000 entries and awarded more than $1.5 billion in prize money,” director of live events for PokerStars, Edgar Stuchly told Pokernewsdaily.com. “The PokerStars Championship and PokerStars Festival events are an enhancement of the existing PokerStars sponsored live tours, helping to take our vision for live poker to a whole new level.”
