White heat:<\/strong> On a panel dedicated to discussing trends in M&A, Mohit Kansal, partner at Clairvest, made the obvious point about the \u201ceuphoric\u201d M&A backdrop being driven by events in the US. \u201cYou have all this capital chasing deals to capture that growth.\u201d Asked by panel host Julian Buhagiar from RB Capital which deals had surprised him, he mentioned the DraftKings deal for VSiN (see below for more on DraftKings and media).<\/p>\n \u201cThis was a move to go upstream,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is a big step forward for them and it opens the floodgates. They are all looking for an edge. They are moving upstream and buying media assets. So could they buy a media network? Who knows? Maybe they might buy rights? That I feel is on the horizon.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n SPAC in black: <\/strong>The panel also discussed the future of SPACs. Kansal suggested that the PIPE market – that is those putting extra money into a de-SPAC deal – has \u201clargely dried up.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s been more challenging to do deals as a result,\u201d he added. \u201cBut a slowing doesn\u2019t eliminate the fact that there are a huge amount of SPACs on the sidelines trying to do deals.\u201d But Buhagiar was more worried. \u201cSPACs can adversely affect the (M&A) market,\u201d he said, suggesting that the equal and opposite reaction to the current frenzy might be a period of nothing being bought. \u201cI think SPACs will be the weapon of mass destruction in the gaming industry. It will deplete good capital in the acquisition space.\u201d Buhagiar also predicted a wave of consolidation among slots developers (maybe he has some on his advisory books?): \u201cI think there will be a ridiculous amount of slots companies acquired,\u201d he suggested. \u201cIn terms of content, and creativity, you can see there will be consolidation.\u201d<\/p>\n A media message:<\/strong> The investment theme was picked up on a later panel by Thomas Allen, analyst at Morgan Stanley and Andreas Aean, partner at Copenhagen-based investment firm Symmetry Invest. Thomas said that from an his standpoint he had \u201cnever seen such an influx of other investors looking at this space.\u201d \u201cI spend more time on my phone with internet and media investors than gaming investors,\u201d he added. Meanwhile, Aean spoke specifically about the affiliate side and suggested he can see the operators only wanting to work with the big affiliates. \u201cThey can really roll up this industry.\u201d Note: Symmetry has a close relationship with the founders at Better Collective and is invested in Gaming Innovation Group (GiG) which has a large affiliate business.<\/p>\n Agenda setting: <\/strong>Thomas also spoke about the issue of gambling and ESG, saying the US industry \u201cneeds to be aware of it and be focused.\u201d It was also the subject of a panel hosted by E+M\u2019s Scott Longley which featured Kelly Perry, director of ESG at\u00a0 Edison Group, and Liesbeth Oost, sustainability manager at Aspire Global. Both pointed to the way that ESG – and particularly governance and societal elements of the equation – have risen up the agenda for the investment community in recent years, a trend that the gambling sector \u201cabsolutely needs to be aware of.\u201d<\/p>\n iGaming Next Day 1 conference notes White heat: On a panel dedicated to discussing trends in M&A, Mohit Kansal, partner at Clairvest, made the obvious point about the \u201ceuphoric\u201d M&A backdrop being driven by events in the US. \u201cYou have all this capital chasing deals to capture that growth.\u201d Asked by panel host Julian Buhagiar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[342,324],"tags":[589,590,744,16,738],"class_list":["post-1935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-news","tag-caesars-entertainment","tag-draftkings","tag-galaxy-entertainment","tag-igaming","tag-macquarie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935","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\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1935"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1937,"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935\/revisions\/1937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Hot topics on Earnings + More today:<\/h3>\n
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