by Renee Israel
Sportingbet, the giant London-listed online sports betting operator,
announced this week that it has finalised a deal that will see it offload its
Turkish language gambling interests.
A deal for Sportingbet to sell its Turkish gambling site was struck in
October, but needed the final approval of Sportingbet's shareholders. After
being approved, the internet sports betting group announced via a brief
statement that the deal has gone through and will take affect this week.
The Turkish language SuperBahis.com was sold to East Pioneer Corporation to
the tune of £125 million in cash.
Sportingbet's subsidiary, Longfrie Limited, arranged the acquisition deal and
has offered guarantees that SuperBahis.com will continue to be operated in the
same way that it was when it was owned by Sportingbet.
The statement by Sportingbet read: "Further to Sportingbet's announcement on
November 10 announcing that the resolution to approve the disposal of the
business had been approved by its shareholders, GVC Holdings' announcement on
November 16th that GVC shareholders had correspondingly approved all necessary
resolutions relating to the transaction and GVC's re-admission to trading on AIM
yesterday, the company is pleased to announce that all conditions precedent have
been satisfied and that the disposal of the business is therefore expected to
complete after market close on November 21."
Turkish Gaming Site Scuppered Acquisition Deal
As a reminder, one of the reasons that the acquisition deal between Ladbrokes
online gambling operator and Sportingbet fell through was the fact that the
latter was still running its Turkish language gaming site.
Ladbrokes felt that it had to stay true to its core principles to operate in
regulated markets only, and could not ignore the fact that Sportingbet owned
SuperBahis.com.
As such, months of negotiations eventually fell through at the beginning of
November, with the official termination of discussions confirmed by the London
Stock Exchange. At the time, the LSE said that both groups "were unable to agree
either a suitable structure or one that delivered sufficient value to the
shareholders in a meaningful time frame."
The CEO of Ladbrokes online and offline sports betting group, Richard Glynn
said after the negotiations fell through that the group was "unable to agree a
structure which delivers increased shareholder value within our acceptable
regulatory environment."
Sportingbet's operations in Turkey were seen as a major obstacle to the deal.
But now that it has parted ways with SuperBahis.com, it could be back on the
market which could result in a new acquisition deal sometime in the future.
