The British sports betting and gambling operator Entain has received all necessary regulatory approvals that would allow it to proceed with the planned acquisition of Enlabs.
As Casino Guardian reported at the time, Entertain revealed the initial bid for the takeover deal in January 2021, only a few days after rejecting the acquisition offer of its US partner MGM Resorts. However, the takeover deal was rejected by some minority shareholders of the Baltic-facing operator Enlabs, saying that the offer “materially undervalued” the company. As a result, last week Entain decided to boost its acquisition bid for Enlabs to SEK3.7 billion.
The improved offer was backed by 51% of Enlabs’ shareholders with shares and votes, with the deal also approved by the company’s board and shareholders who own 42.2% of the business. This, however, was not enough for the deal to be finalised. Now, Entain has received all of the necessary approvals from the local competition and gambling regulators that had to be acquired in order for the takeover deal to be completed.
Enlabs has extended the initial acceptance period for the takeover bid from February 18th to March 18th so that it had enough time to make sure it receives the necessary approvals for the proposed acquisition. However, the British gambling company revealed that it could once again extend the acceptance period in order to provide more time for all conditions of the offer to be met.
Entain Seeks Expansion into Locally-Regulated Foreign Markets
The confirmation of the regulatory approvals received by the two companies over the proposed deal has come after a week ago Entain revealed that its 2020 revenue was almost exactly flat, estimated at £3.63 billion. The British gambling operator further shared that the growth generated by its online gambling division helped it considerably minimise the decline registered at its retail units.
The takeover deal was proposed at a time when there has been an increased pursuit of consolidation in the gambling industry that would help operators face regulatory and financial hurdles on the way to expansion.
Apart from that, the deal with Enlabs has been seen as one of the first steps made by the new CEO of Entain, Shay Segev, to expand the presence of the UK gambling giant to some foreign locally-regulated markets. The acquisition of Enlabs would provide Entain with access to Lithuania and Estonia, both of which are among the quickly expanding gambling sectors.
As mentioned above, the British gambling and sports betting operator that was previously known as GVC Holdings approached Enlabs with a takeover bid only several days after rejecting a proposed $11-billion acquisition deal from the US casino company MGM Resorts International. At the time it rebuffed the MGM takeover bid, Entain said that the offer seriously undervalued the business.
- Author
Olivia Cole
