The Sazka Group, a Prague-based privately held gaming operator, has launched a formal takeover offer to acquire OPAP following approval from the Hellenic Capital Markets Commission, Gaming Intelligence reports.
Sazka will acquire the remaining 67.27 percent stake of OPAP it does not own for €9.12 (US$10) a share, for a total investment of €2.06 billion (US$2.261 billion). OPAP is an Athens-listed lottery, sports betting and VLT operator that generated €1.547 billion in revenue and €353.6 million in EBITDA last year.
Sazka operates lottery and sports betting in Europe, generating €1.303 billion in revenue and €552.675 million in EBITDA last year.
OPAP will be delisted if it gets 90 percent shareholder approval on the public offer.
Athens-based OPAP, the Greek Organization of Football Prognostics S.A., for many years was a state-owned gaming monopoly. A private company since 2013, OPAP holds the exclusive rights to organize and manage lotteries and sports betting in Greece. Last month the Greek Council of State revoked OPAP’s online sports betting license, saying it never met the conditions necessary for a Greek online sports betting license.
According to iGamingBusiness.com, the loss of the license should not have a major impact on the operator’s sports betting revenue, which is dominated by retail betting. For the six months to June 30, sports betting revenue was down 5.2 percent at €191.9 million (US$210 million).
An OPAP spokesperson said the ruling “does not affect any land-based and retail offering of OPAP’s sports betting and lottery games, nor its online lottery games offering. The contribution of online sports betting for OPAP is very low, standing at low to mid-single digit million euros of GGR as an absolute amount or less than 1 percent of total OPAP’s GGR.”
