Sports betting giant raises £1.1bn
The world’s largest gambling business Flutter Entertainment, which owns Leeds-based Sky Betting and Gaming, has raised about £1.1bn through a share placing.
Approximately 8m new ordinary shares in Flutter have been placed by Goldman Sachs International and J&E Davy at a price of 14,000 pence per placing share.
The placing shares represent about 5.2% of the company’s issued share capital immediately prior to the placing, excluding treasury shares.
The company says it is pleased by the strong support it has received from both new and existing shareholders.
The business separately announced yesterday that it has entered a conditional agreement to acquire the entire 37.2% interest in gaming company FanDuel Group Parent LLC, which is currently held by Fastball Holdings LLC for $4.175bn/£3.131bn.
Upon completion of this transaction, Flutter will own 95% of New York-headquartered FanDuel’s issued share capital, with the remaining 5% continuing to be held by its existing co-shareholder Boyd Interactive Gaming LLC.
Flutter will pay for the acquisition with $2.088bn/£1.6bn of cash and the issue of approximately 11.7m new Flutter shares directly to Fastball.
And it says it intends to fund the cash element of the purchase through cash on balance sheet, and the net proceeds of the placing.
As part of the share placing, global media company Fox Corporation has committed to invest further in the sports betting giant.
Lachlan Murdoch, executive chairman and CEO of Fox Corporation, said: “We are delighted to participate in this capital raising.
“Maintaining our ownership stake in Flutter signifies our long-term commitment to Flutter, and ongoing confidence in management’s ability to execute against the fast growing US opportunity.”
