{"id":1628,"date":"2021-09-09T13:51:29","date_gmt":"2021-09-09T20:51:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/?p=1628"},"modified":"2021-11-01T13:55:51","modified_gmt":"2021-11-01T20:55:51","slug":"888-confirms-william-hill-buyout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/news\/888-confirms-william-hill-buyout\/","title":{"rendered":"888 confirms William Hill buyout"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>The top line<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>888 will pay Caesars Entertainment \u00a32.2bn ($3.04bn) for the entire William Hill international business.<\/li>\n<li>The buyout will be funded by \u00a31.64bn of new loans, a \u00a3150m revolver facility and via a \u00a3500m right issue. 888 will also take on \u00a30.8bn of William Hill debt.<\/li>\n<li>In 2020 the combined business would have had revenues of $2.5bn and adjusted EBITDA of $464m. The deal has been completed on a historical multiple of 9.2x.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Sweet Caroline:<\/strong> 888 CEO Itai Pazner hailed the \u201ctransformational\u201d deal which will give the new entity a combined market share in the UK of 12.3% (based on the figures from the UK Gambling Commission&#8217;s monthly survey which cover 80% of the market) and 10% shares in core markets Italy and Spain. Pazner noted 888 was \u201cpleasantly surprised\u201d in its due diligence process to find William Hill in the UK had \u201cgood momentum\u201d with \u201cperhaps the best marketing campaign around the Euros with effectively the unofficial anthem\u201d as part of its TV ad campaign.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cWe were pleasantly surprised to see the business performance growing into this year,\u201d said Pazner. \u201cThis is a result of the investment William Hill did in their product and offering in the last 24 months. They are seeing similar experience as us.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Are you being served?<\/strong> Contrary to some speculation, 888 confirmed it would be retaining the \u201cright-sized\u201d retail estate of circa 1,400 shops and sees opportunities in omni-channel. Pazner noted that \u201cno further rationalization was needed\u201d and added that since the summer reopening, the retail business had returned to \u201cnearly or over\u201d pre-Covid levels. \u201cThat reflects the high quality of the shops that remain,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pick and mix: <\/strong>888 said it was committed to future brand positioning in key markets (including the ailing Mr Green which he noted would be retained for its position in the Nordics) with head of strategy Vaughan Lewis talking about matching up the \u201camazing\u201d 888 with the \u201ciconic\u201d William Hill. \u201cThis is a combination that has been discussed many times over the years,\u201d Lewis added. On platform synergies and execution, Pazner said the two companies had \u201creally great components on both sides and the best operational teams.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Back in the USA: <\/strong>Pazner confirmed that Caesars would retain the rights to the William Hill brand in the U.S. but suggested the experiences of the William Hill international team in the US market would be leveraged when it comes to 888\u2019s own U.S. plans which includes the SI Sportsbook JV.<\/p>\n<h3>Additional articles available on Earnings + More:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/wagersearningsmore.substack.com\/p\/9-sep-888-confirms-william-hill-buyout\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">OPAP H1<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/wagersearningsmore.substack.com\/p\/9-sep-888-confirms-william-hill-buyout\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Macquarie online sector note<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The top line 888 will pay Caesars Entertainment \u00a32.2bn ($3.04bn) for the entire William Hill international business. The buyout will be funded by \u00a31.64bn of new loans, a \u00a3150m revolver facility and via a \u00a3500m right issue. 888 will also take on \u00a30.8bn of William Hill debt. In 2020 the combined business would have had [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[324],"tags":[587,647,588],"class_list":["post-1628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-587","tag-opap","tag-william-hill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1628"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1631,"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1628\/revisions\/1631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}