NetEnt Releases Statement Regarding Evolution Gaming Offer
The board of directors at NetEnt has confirmed to the public that it has received, and accepted, a $1.8billion buyout offer from Evolution Gaming. The deal is worth some $7 per share and will lead to Evolution taking 90% of NetEnt’s shares.
Combining the two businesses has been described as a “game changer” with cost savings of some $30million per year anticipated by the marriage.
The NetEnt Statement
In a statement released by NetEnt’s board, it has been made clear that the directors have unanimously recommended all shareholders accept Evolution Gaming’s offer.
The announcement lists details of the offer put forward by the Stockholm-based corporation. On June 24 2020, they announced their offer of 0.1306 Evolution Gaming shares for each share in NetEnt. The offer gives each NetEnt share a value of SEK79.93 with all shares coming to a grand total of SEK19.6billion.
NetEnt’s statement also details the process that was undertaken by their board of directors in order to evaluate the offer properly. Many factors were taken into account, including NetEnt’s current financial and strategic position, market conditions and operational opportunities.
Having undertaken that evaluation, the board also took into consideration NetEnt’s biggest long-term family shareholders who represented more than 68% of the votes and nearly 30% of the capital had signed an unchangeable undertaking to accept the offer on the table.
NetEnt Board’s Recommendations
The board in its statement offered the opinion that, despite NetEnt having a proven and well-defined strategy, a combination of NetEnt and Evolution Gaming together is a positive and they believe the deal to be strategically sound.
In listing the benefits of this deal in the announcement, the board offered these as its specific likely wins:
- Increased scale and ability to create a leading supplier of online casino products
- Ability to leverage Evolution’s strong market position in the Live segment
- Increased capabilities to leverage a strong position within US states now opening up for online casinos
- The enlarged entity will provide enhanced client and product diversification
- Combining two such brands will provide a robust basis for new and innovative products
Given these supposed benefits, the board of NetEnt therefore unanimously recommended the shareholders of the company to accept the offer from Evolution Gaming while it also listed the potential effects on the current employees.
The statement says that under Takeover Rules, the board is required to present its opinion on the effects of the implementation on employment. To this end, quotes were given from Evolution Gaming’s own press release which states:
“Evolution is confident that it will be able to build a strong group together with NetEnt’s senior management and employees. Evolution recognises the value of NetEnt’s senior management and other employees and appreciate that their talent and dedication have been, and will continue to be, integral to NetEnt’s and the combined group’s success.”
About NetEnt and Evolution
NetEnt in its own right remains a leading provider of gaming solutions to the world’s biggest online casinos. Their team deliver flexible digital casino solutions and have done since 1996 when the company was founded in Sweden.
Evolution has very much developed into a world leader within the live dealer gaming sector. They produce the very best Live Casino studio facilities and operational nous for both online and land-based operators, something that NetEnt’s current team can now take major advantage of as part of a bigger casino family.
