A toughened economic and regulatory environment had led to 888 Holdings and Caesars Entertainment agreeing a cut in the deal value of William Hill’s international assets in advance of the former’s acquisition of these non-US operations.
William Hill’s international assets now have an enterprise value of between £1.95bn and £2.05bn, compared to £2.2bn when the deal was first announced in September last year. 888, which had already announced a £500m share placing to help fund the purchase, now intends to place up to 70.8 million new ordinary shares, in order to finance completion of the deal.
The new terms include a £250m cut in the amount payable on completion and a deferred payout of up to £100m payable in 2024. The cash amount payable to Caesars at closing has been cut to £584.9m from £834.9m. In a statement, 888 also said that revenue for Q1 of 2022 is expected to be in the range of $222m to $226m, down year-on-year due to regulatory impacts, temporary closure of The Netherlands market and the “very strong comparative period that was impacted by leisure restrictions across several of our key markets”.
