David Baazov Eyes Amaya Deal For $3.48BN

In February, David Baazov made a non-binding proposal to take Canadian gambling company Amaya Inc private. Despite currently facing insider trading charges by the Quebec financial security regulator (AMF), the former chief executive of Amaya Inc has now followed up by proposing a $3.48 billion bid for the company.
David Baazov already has a 17.2% stake in the company which owns the world’s biggest poker site, PokerStars, and the Montreal gambling entrepreneur is now hoping that the company will accept his $24-per-share offer, which represents an attractive 30.9% premium on its current share price of $18.34. The latest development takes place following a potential £4.5 billion merger agreement between Amaya and William Hill failed to materialize in October after the UK bookmaker’s shareholders refused to endorse the deal. Just one month later, and Baazov has now put his own offer forward, having first secured the backing of four investment funds in order to pay for the deal.
Meanwhile, Amaya has just released its third-quarter financial results, which were better than initially anticipated. In Q3 2016, Amaya subsequently generated $270.8 million in revenues, up by 9.5% compared to the $247.3 million collected in the same quarter of 2015, while customer registrations also soared by 1.9 million to 105.5 million.
Commenting on the impressive results, Amaya CEO Rafi Ashkenazi expressed his satisfaction that the company’s core poker business had greatly benefitted from the changes PokerStars had made to its business model which now favors recreational players. According to estimates, Amaya is anticipating revenues of between $1.137 billion and 1.157 billion for the whole of 2016, and elaborating further on his vision for the future, Ashkenazi said:
“We plan to continue leveraging this positive momentum into our casino and sportsbook offerings as we focus on becoming the world’s favorite online gaming destination and maximizing winning moments for all of our customers.”