Evolution Gaming, one of the leading software providers that offer live online poker games, has made an exciting announcement in June 2020. Shocking the gambling community, the company made a move to acquire another popular online casino games provider – NetEnt.
In the official offer Evolution made to NetEnt's shareholders, they proposed to exchange every NetEnt share for 0.1306 Evolution shares. According to the offer, each NetEnt share is worth SEK 79.93 (8.56 USD), which values the entire company at SEK 19.6 billion (more than 2 billion USD).
And when you compare those numbers to the closing prices of NetEnt's shares in the stock exchange that took place on June 23, it is a 43% increase in value. Also, when you look at the average value of the shares in the month before the offer, it can be considered as a premium of 72%. The offer is quite decent, which is probably why Evolution declared they won't negotiate on the prices.
Unsurprisingly, the NetEnt board of directors support the move, and they recommended the shareholders to accept the offer. Evolution gave the company in question some time to consider the request, but the offer will expire around October 26 - so they better make up their mind soon.
But WHY?
So, what stands behind this surprising and bold move? Well, there's no question that Evolution is good at what it does. The company has a lot to offer in the live gambling arena, but it has little experience with other gambling styles.
Officials in the company stated that the idea behind the deal lies with their desire to expand their horizons. Their goal is to make Evolution the best software provider in the online casino world, and they can achieve that by adding some of the best online slots to their repertoire.
If the two companies merge, it will lead to interesting game combinations and valuable collaborations that will affect the player's gambling experience. Also, it will be able to save about 33 million USD in annual costs, compared to what the two companies spend separately.
So, once you take all those details into account, it seems that the acquisition can lead to great things – for the industry, the players, and both companies.
In Conclusion
Both Evolution and NetEnt are considered as prominent iGaming businesses. Dozens of casinos all over the world use the service of at least one of the two software providers, which serves to show how popular and powerful they really are.
If the two great companies will join forces, they will be unstoppable, and we hope the online gambling world will benefit from it.