Bwin buys Gioco Digitale for push on new Italy market 14/09/2009
BWIN IS TO complete its acquisition of Italian poker operator Gioco Digitale for far in excess of the €90-95m figures circulated.
The deal, confirmed on EGRmagazine.com last week, will take place next month for 2.3m Bwin shares and up to €50m cash, pricing the Italian company at circa €115m based on Bwin's closing share price of €28.30 on Friday.
Bodner said: “There are 60 to 70 people in Gioco Digitale and we would have had to build a team with that many people to be able to compete with the biggest poker sites in Italy. The time to market would have been too slow, the market penetration had to happen fast.”
The deal will see Gioco Digitale’s management team including chief executive and president Carlo Gualandri join Bwin to develop poker and other products ahead of the deregulation of Italy’s egaming market.
Gioco Digitale shareholders will contribute 752,000 Gioco Digitale shares comprising 56% of share capital in exchange for 2..3 million Bwin shares. Bwin will then acquire the remaining 44% of Gioco Digitale share capital for €25m in cash, plus a further €20m payable on presentation of Gioco Digitale's audited accounts for 2009, and a further €5m 18 months after closing subject to the achievement of financial performance targets for 2009.
The share exchange will be financed from authorized share capital excluding the subscription rights of existing shareholders, whilst the remaining Gioco Digitale shares will be acquired using existing cash resources.
An early entrant to the Italian poker market, Gioco Digitale is a new entrant to this year’s Power 50 ranking of egaming’s 50 leading operators for having survived competition from major networks such as Playtech.
In the first half year of 2009, Gioco Digitale generated net revenue of €20.1m and earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of €9.2m.For the full year 2008 it generated net revenue of €13.7m and EBITDA of €1.8m.
In other Bwin news, Bwin lost the latest round of its landmark legal battle against Portugese state monopoly La Santa Case da Misericordia at the European Court of Justice last week.
For more on liberalisation of the Italian egaming market, see our August feature: what lies behind Italy's egaming law changes?
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Posted: 14/09/2009
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Anonymous
gioco digitale rules!
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