A takeover approach by William Hill

February 18, 2015

One of the main British gambling operators William Hill made a takeover approach of the online bookmaker 888 Holdings, which lifted its share by more than 20%.

The announcement from 888 appeared after the newspaper The Times informed its readers that William Hill had negotiated about 750 million pound proposition as it is going to quicken the stretching of its online gambling business.

The newspapers informed about the prior agreement with 888 Holdings on a proposition at 210p per share.

888 Holdings’ shares, including casino, bingo games and poker, were going up 21% at 175p per share at 14.59 GMT, and the amount of sales were in five times higher than usually. The shares of William Hill were 376.2p, which is by 3.5% lower than they had been.

“888 Holdings knows about the takeover by William Hill, but there are no firm offers, so everything is very uncertain,” 888 informed.

The Times, quoting one of its sources from the sphere of gambling, said that the talks may fall over because of one of the founder in Israel, as he planned to receive 300p for a share. The possible takeover was expected to happen in 2011 by the company Ladbrokes, but failed.

An analyst Karl Burns from Panmure Gordon says that the price of 210p is really beneficial and it is doubtfully that William Hill will offer more.

“I doubt that the deal will be signed as this is going to draw out William Hill’s balance sheet significantly.”

The changes of taxes and regulations as to the gambling operators forced them to try their hand in online gambling industry.

One of the gambling operators, Bwin.Party, is already examining several proposals given in November and Deutsche Bank is conducting the talks.