Bwin.Party Investors sell 6% stake

Investors to Bwin.Party Stinson Ridge and Emerald Bay are working on preparations to sell as much as shares amounting to 50 million in the FTSE; London for the online gambling provider. This share sale by these investors will take up a 6% stake at the company.

This news on the investors’ sale will see bwin.party share price fall 11p to 94p. Bwin.Party board in a statement said that they were not part of the sales bargain but these actions by Emerald Bay and Stinson Ridge were at par with the plans brought out by the firm in October 2013.

Bwin.party said that this sale would not make any impacts on the ongoing sale discussions going on with 888 Holdings and joint partnerships with GVC Holings and Amaya Inc.

The Chairman to Bwin.Party; Phillip Yea said that they were happy with the news of the sale and this announcement by the trustees since it will show clarity for the market and show a significant block of shares which were expected to be sold in 2015.

This sale announcement might have come at a strange time but this is at par with the agreement that was signed in October 2013 that allowed the sale of the shares before October 2015. This raises curiosity as it was done at a time when the group is active in talks with suitors. The trustees are not part of the discussions but one thing could be that they were approached by one of the suitors. Another reason could be that an investor has a positive view on a likely outcome of the talks and made an approach to the trustees. A final thought to the move can be that the trustees saw a risk reward to the situation and thought it wise to balance things down with the sale.

The view with many is that a bid is likely to the outcome. A lot of this will depend on the scale of the synergies and the execution risk related to the bidders on the deal. On this deal, it might be possible to see 130p or more but a more cautious stance might be seen on the limited upside.

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