William Hill’s takeover approach to 888 Holdings

William Hill, which is considered to be one of the leading gambling providers in Britain, undertook a takeover approach of 888 Holdings, online gambling operator, increasing its share cost by more than 20%.

The information from 888 appeared immediately after the newspaper The Times published a report about William Hill’s negotiations of £750 million deal, as it intends to enlarge its online gambling facilities quicker.

The reported preliminary deal with 888 gambling operator will cost 210p for a share to William Hill.

The shares of 888, including poker, bingo game and casino, were up 21% at 175p at 14.59 GMT and enlarged the trading amount in 5 times than average. William Hill shares were by 3.5% lower and cost only 376.2p.

As 888 Holdings told, “We are aware of the takeover approach made by William Hill, but we can’t make any confirmations as we haven’t got and firm proposals yet.”

But the newspaper, citing some unknown gambling sources, said that the talks might fail as the Israel’s co-founder is against the deal, because he expected to have 300p for a share. The similar takeover was tried to be made by Britain’s Ladbrokes in 2011 but without any results.

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According to Karl Burns, an analyst from Panmure Gordon, 210p is a fair price for the share and it is useless to expect more.

“The agreement may not come true, as this will significantly affect the budget of the gambling provider William Hill.”

Numerous taxes and legislations imposed on gambling operators make them turn their attention to online gaming sector.

The company Bwin.Part has already received several offers in November and asked Deutsche Bank to carry out the talks.