The bidding war for bwin.party has intensified with GVC Holdings claiming the company has made “significant progress” in its attempt to acquire the digital entertainment firm.
888 Holdings deal remains at forefront
GVC has already made several bids to take over bwin.party, with the latest deal to hit the table reported to be worth around £1.1billion. However, despite the high price GVC is willing to pay, rival 888 Holdings is still seen as being the frontrunner.888 has already agreed a deal worth £898.3million with bwin.party but investors have put their finance on hold until bwin.party clarifies that it definitely wants to go ahead with the acquisition. GVC refuses to take things lying down though and plans to resubmit its latest bid under the same terms in the “near future”.A statement from GVC said: “Significant progress has been made and the GVC Board expects to be in a position to resubmit its proposal to the bwin.party board in the near future and on the same terms as set out in the August 7 announcement, having resolved the remaining open issues to both parties’ satisfaction. The company will update shareholders accordingly.”
While welcoming the new proposal from GVC, bwin.party was careful to emphasise that deal with 888 Holdings is likely to still go ahead. A statement from bwin.party read: “The board of bwin.party notes the earlier announcement today made by GVC and confirms that bwin.party is continuing to discuss with GVC and its advisers certain aspects of the GVC proposal.“As previously announced, there can be no certainty that an offer will be made by GVC for bwin.party and bwin.party’s directors’ unanimous recommendation of 888 Holdings’ offer that was announced on July 17, is unchanged by this announcement. The bwin.party board will provide a further update as and when appropriate.”