888.com still on Bingo Prowl
888.com, owners of 888 Ladies Bingo pulled off one of the best acquisition deals of 2009 by completing the buyout of Wink Bingo on New Years Eve and it looks like they will not be stopping there either.
Chief executive of 888 Ladies Bingo, Gigi Levi has stated that they are already on the prowl for future deals and their company who has no depts and a very healthy cash flow are in a great position to do just that.
888.com also recently opened another online bingo site on the net 888bingo, but unlike their sister site 888 Ladies Bingo, this one currently runs on the globalcom bingo network and is not standalone. Although we are led to believe that this will not be the case for much longer.
The buyout of the Wink Bingo chain sent shock waves throughout the online bingo industry, as news of this takeover was definitely kept under wraps. Daub Ltd, owners of Wink Bingo, Posh Bingo and Bingo fabulous could net £60 million pounds from this sale, but of course this will depend on specified targets being met this year.
According to a report on ‘this is London’ 888.com are already in advanced stages of acquiring another smaller acquisition and in the very early stages of a larger one.
It certainly looks like the big guns are coming out to play gaming ball in more ways than one. Last year Partygaming bought out the cashcade group, owners of Foxy Bingo, Cheeky Bingo, Think Bingo, Bingo Scotland, etc, in a multimillion pound deal. Cashcade however, just like Daub also have targets to meet from their deal with Partygaming, before picking up their full (pay packet).
With 888.com snapping up Wink Bingo and their sister sites, it does give both these companies a huge slice of the online bingo market within the UK. There are around 300 online bingo sites currently listed on the net, so we are not quite at the (monopoly) stage yet by big gaming brands, but they certainly now have a nice slice of the bingo pie (so to speak).
It will be interesting to see just what other companies 888.com and possibly partygaming go after in 2010 and as always, we will endeavour to keep our readers fully up to date as all the (acquisition) action unfolds.
