Entain Receives Regulatory Approvals for Enlabs Acquisition

Entain Plc announced in a press release today it fulfilled the condition with regards to the receipt of necessary regulatory approvals related to the pending offer to buy shares of Enlabs AB.

Regulatory Conditions Satisfied

The global sports betting and gaming group received all the necessary approvals from relevant competition and gaming authorities and is now on track to complete the acquisition deal for which it was forced to up the bid by some of the larger minority stakeholders at the Baltic firm.

In January, wholly-owned by Entain subsidiary Bwin Holdings came up with a cash offer of SEK40 per share totaling SEK2.8 billion to acquire Enlabs AB, a bid which was accepted by the Independent Bid Committee at the Nasdaq First North-traded company, which unanimously proposed to shareholders to approve the deal.

The offer which was also accepted by stakeholders of 42.2% of Enlabs shares including Enlabs chairman Nicklas Braathen, was rejected by some of the larger minority stakeholders at the company such as Alta Fox Capital and Hans Isoz, who argued that the offer significantly undervalued the company and demanded Entain to up the bid to SEK55 per share.

After initially coming up with a decision to extend the acceptance period for its offer until March 18 in February, on March 1 Entain significantly improved its bid for the shares of the Baltic gaming operator, offering to pay SEK53 per share.

Large Minority Stakeholders Satisfied

The new offer which values Enlabs closer to the proposed by Alta Fox Capital SEK3.9 billion received approval from both the fund and the other major stakeholder Hans Isoz, who was satisfied that with the upped price shareholders get a piece of the company’s future value while Entain still has some upside.

The improved offer has an acceptance period as previously announced until March 18 since Entain is planning on completing the deal by the end of the month, and it will not be further reviewed, the gaming group underscored. Entain reserved the right to extend that period, though.

Shortly after tabling the improved offer for Enlabs shares, Entain reported its 2020 financial results in which it revealed growth in revenues from online gambling managed to offset the decrease in retail business and led to the gaming group’s total revenues of £3.56 billion, almost unchanged from the £3.57 billion Entain generated in 2019.

On a separate update, the global gaming group revealed its stockbroking business Intertrader is up for sale, and Enatin is looking to offload it within the next 12 months.