GVC Holdings has made a £900 million bid to acquire Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment in a deal that values the company at about .4 billion.
Under the offer, GVC Holdings would pay 110 pence a share in cash and shares for Bwin.Party, representing an 11 percent premium to its closing price last week.
Bwin.party said it will work with GVC so that the bidder can finalize the offer in the coming days. There’s no guarantee there will be a formal announcement of a transaction, it said.
Bwin.party, has weighed the benefits of a combination “and has determined to work with GVC so that they can finalize their offer over the coming days,” the company said in a news release.
The company had previously announced that it was in “preliminary discussions with a number of interested parties regarding a variety of potential business combinations.”
GVC Holdings first announced its takeover approach in May, and 888 Holdings, an online gambling company based in Gibraltar, announced its own takeover bid shortly after.
GVC Holdings said that its talks with bwin.party were continuing and that any offer would be jointly financed by GVC Holdings and its partner Amaya gaming, the Canadian operator of the websites PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker.
“Based on our experience with the successful Sportingbet acquisition and restructuring, we believe that the potential combination of GVC and bwin.party would result in substantial financial and operating synergies and represent an excellent opportunity for both GVC and bwin.party shareholders,” Kenneth Alexander, the GVC chief executive, said in a news release on Thursday.
