GAMING NEWS
19
Bidding Begins For William Hill
FanDuel Listing Hitting Delays Due To Fox
The start of the first round of bidding for the
Flutter Entertainments hopes of floating FanDuel on the US stock market is not going to happen anytime soon observers believe with the ongoing dispute with Fox Entertainment.
European assets of William Hill with favourite at the moment being Apollo Global Management starts this week, the giant buyout firm that already owns Italy’s Lottomatica.
However speculation is building that some joint venture could materialise between Entain, Betfred and 888 Holdings.
Fox who has a 2% stake in Flutter say they had an agreement with Flutter to purchase a large stake in FanDuel at some 6 times it current sales of Fanduel which would mean the Fox Corporation paying around £1.6 billion.
Caesars Entertainment started what is believed to be the biggest asset fight of the year when buying William Hill and stating it wanted to sell off all its European business and retain just the US facing assets.
However FanDuels main competitor DraftKings is selling its stock at 12 times the sales estimate and that is what Flutter want to sell to Fox for, which would then mean Fox would have to pay some £3.2 billion.
Apollo have already done due diligence on William Hill as it was at one stage going up against Caesars for the entire William Hill business and so knows more than its competitors on the value of the business.
Fox are suing Flutter in the dispute and it is not expected to go to a judgement till late in 2022, however Flutter wants to get an investment bank on board to start the IPO process and it is finding it very difficult given the ongoing legal process.
But shareholders at 888 Holdings want to majority family owned Shaken Family to lodge a bid for William Hill, however it is speculated that this would only be online and the retail business could be sold off to Betfred.
Should neither side come to an agreement before the court ruling then Flutters hope of listing FanDuel on the US stock exchange look slim before 2023.
Analysts believe that the Entain interest will not really materialise into a serious bid as it already holds Ladbrokes and Coral retail outlets in its portfolio and would have to sell the majority off to pass competitions regulation.
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