Betsson in Deal With Cherry


Tuesday February 19,2013 : BETSSON IN SEK 286 MILLION ONLINE GAMBLING DEAL WITH CHERRY
 
Company to acquire top Scandinavian brands Sverigeautomaten.com, Norgesautomaten.com and Danmarksautomaten.com
 
Internet gambling group Betsson AB announced Tuesday that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the leading Scandinavian brands Sverigeautomaten, Norgesautomaten  and Danmarksautomaten  from Cherry, for a consideration of SEK 286 million.
 
SEK 60 million of the agreed consideration constitutes an additional purchase price. In practice, the deal implies that Betsson AB's subsidiary in Malta, which is already responsible for the operation of the Automaten sites, now also takes over the brands and the responsibility for the external marketing of the brands.
 
Simultaneously, Cherry acquires the brand Cherrycasino.com from Betsson AB's Maltese subsidiary, for a consideration of SEK 1 million.
 
The initial net consideration of SEK 225 million will be paid by the delivery of 1,063,895 newly issued Betsson B shares. The additional purchase price will be paid in cash after 12 months.
 
The Automaten brands delivered revenues in 2012 of SEK 168.2 million, which are already included in Betsson's total revenues.
 
In total, the deal implies that Betsson, calculated on 2012 levels, will make a yearly saving of SEK 52.7 million in costs corresponding to the net effect of savings of revenue share to Cherry from the previous partner agreement and additional marketing spend to be carried out by Betsson.
 
"The deal is in line with our strategy to focus on B2C in our core markets in the Nordics. Our judgment is that the acquired brands will develop stronger internally because we can use the marketing power and scale advantages of the entire Betsson group." said Magnus Silfverberg, CEO of Betsson AB.