Breaking News: Party and Bwin shareholders approve merger
Shareholders from both companies vote in favour of the tie-up.
Shareholders from PartyGaming and Bwin have approved the proposed merger at separate extraordinary general meetings held today.
99.4 per cent of the PartyGaming shareholders who cast their vote approved the tie-up with the Austrian company, with Bwin’s own shareholders having unanimously approved the proposed merger with at their own EGM held earlier in the day.
PartyGaming and Bwin will be re-named as bwin.party Digital Entertainment Plc as a result of both sets of shareholders voting in favour of the planned merger.
Commenting on the results of today’s EGMs, Jim Ryan and Norbert Teufelberger, the proposed co-CEOs of bwin.party digital entertainment plc, said: “Today’s shareholder meetings were a key milestone in the overall process, putting the transformational merger of our two companies well on the way to completion.
“We are delighted that both sets of shareholders have overwhelmingly recognised the strategic, operational and financial benefits of creating the world’s largest listed online gaming company.”
PartyGaming released its shareholder prospectus on 23 December. The 478-page document outlines the most detailed description of what the merged organisation and the world’s largest publicly listed online gaming company would look like. On 29 July both companies announced their intention to merge.
The prospectus suggests that both companies would retain their core existing brands but operate under the bwin.party Digital Entertainment plc holding company that would be headquartered in Gibraltar and listed on the London Stock Exchange with bwin shareholders expected to hold 51.6% of shares and current PartyGaming shareholders 48.4%.
The merger would create a business with unaudited net revenues of 696.2m, unaudited clean EBITDA of 193.7m, unaudited profit after tax of 99.4m and unaudited net assets of 1.27bn after consolidation adjustments for the year ended 31 December 2009, the document said.
It added that the annual synergies resulting from the merger are expected to total approximately 55m (£46m) with around 40m be achieved in the financial year 2012, with full synergies from 2013.
The document outlines that the merged business will focus on regulated and regulating markets, invest in a joint innovation laboratory to develop new products particularly in the social gaming sphere, look to develop long-term partnerships with leading sporting organisations, prepare itself for US regulation, as well as not ruling out further acquisitions.