April 17, 2012

Playtech aims to go social with €95m acquisition

Online gaming software and services provider Playtech is poised to enter the social gaming market with a planned €95m acquisition of real money gaming and social media assets from a company linked to Teddy Sagi, Playtech’s largest shareholder.

Playtech has signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the undisclosed party regarding the potential acquisition of certain B2B real money gaming and B2B social media assets and businesses, together with a 20 per cent stake in a B2C social gaming operation.

The remaining 80 per cent stake will be retained by entities linked to Teddy Sagi, who will be granted perpetual royalty free licences to use the software and other assets under acquisition, as well as a licence to use certain games from the Playtech portfolio in relation to play for fun activities.

The company says it has been monitoring the social media scene and analysing ways to penetrate the market and believes that the intended acquisition will provide it with the broad range of social gaming platforms and products needed to enable it to supply cross platform capabilities for a full suite of products including social casino, poker, bingo and rummy.

In addition to the social gaming platform and products, the acquisition also includes real-money end-to-end online casino software with integration platform and casino games content, mobile poker and casino software, and online poker software.

Under the AIM Rules for Companies, the acquisition would constitute a related party transaction and Playtech says that it intends to seek independent shareholder approval for the deal, as required for a company with a Premium Listing, regardless of whether it has succeeded in moving to a Premium Listing on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange at the time of completion.

Playtech added that the €95m consideration would be payable in one or more tranches at a time of its choosing following completion, with any outstanding balance accruing interest at a competitive market rate.

In a second non-binding MOU announced today, Playtech has also secured the services of Teddy Sagi as an advisor to the company for a nominal annual fee of €1.

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