888 Holdings Rejects William Hill Offer

Published on February 16th, 2015 4:23 am EST

Shares of 888 Holdings (888 on the London Stock Exchange) are currently down over 14% in early trading after 888 rebuffed an attempt by William Hill to acquire their company.

Shares of 888 Holdings spiked last week after it was reported that William Hill had made an offer of 200p per share plus a 3p/share dividend to acquire the online gaming company. This offer would have valued 888 Holdings at roughly 700 million pounds, which works out to about $1.078 billion USD.

It did not take long for 888 Holdings to reject the offer - here is what the company had to say on Monday:

"Due to a significant difference of opinion on value with a key stakeholder, it has not been possible to reach agreement on the terms of a possible offer and the board of the company has agreed with William Hill to terminate discussions."

At the time that the offer was announced, many people felt as though 888 Holdings would eventually reject the potential deal. 888 Holdings has been mentioned as a potential acquisition target in the past but nothing has ever materialized.

The majority of the company is held by two families (Shaked and Ben-Yitzhak). One of these families felt that the William Hill bid undervalued the company and things eventually fell though, to virtually nobody's surprise.

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The "haves" of the online gaming industry are clearly on the prowl for acquisition targets, while the "have nots" (Bwin.Party) are hoping that the likes of Amaya, William Hill and Playtech look in their direction for a potential purchase.

Source: FT.com - 888 Holdings Rejects £700m William Hill Approach

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