GVC Holdings Plc, 888 Holdings Waging War For Bwin.Party

Published on August 8th, 2015 3:12 am EST

The bidding war for Bwin.Party continues.

Earlier today, GVC Holdings Plc revealed that they had raised their offer to buy Bwin.Party, which is the parent company of Partypoker. GVC Holdings revealed that they had upped their offer from 1 billion pounds (roughly $1.55 billion USD) to 1.03 billion pounds ($1.6 billion USD).

In July, Bwin.Party agreed to a deal to be acquired by 888 Holdings for roughly 900 million pounds, which works out to $1.4 billion USD. Despite GVC Holdings having offered more money (908 million pounds), Bwin.Party's board elected to go with the 888 Holdings deal, claiming that the GVC Holdings offer carried "additional execution risks". The door was left open for another bid from GVC Holdings, however, as the 888 Holdings/Bwin.Party deal has a break-up fee of almost 6 million pounds.

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The first GVC Holdings deal proposal heavily relied on Amaya, Inc., which is the parent company of both Pokerstars and Full Tilt Poker. The original plan was for Amaya, Inc. to take over Bwin.Party's online poker business, while GVC Holdings (which runs the sportingbet, Casino Club and betboo brands) would run the sports book, casino and bingo businesses.

The GVC Holdings/Amaya, Inc. deal was rejected by Bwin.Party, however, which sent GVC Holdings back to the drawing board.

GVC Holdings, in launching another bid for Bwin.Party, enlisted the services of Cerberus Capital Management to help finance the bid. There is no word on if Amaya, Inc. is involved in the new bid for Bwin.Party.

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Will Bwin.Party recommend the acceptance of the new bid from GVC Holdings/Cerberus Capital Management? Will 888 Holdings come back with a higher offer?

We should find out the answers to these questions over the next couple of weeks.

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Filed Under: Online Poker Rooms