British bookmakers William Hill will be bought by Caesars UK Holdings, a subsidiary of the American gambling giant Caesars Entertainment. They are paying to acquire the entire William Hill business for a price of approximately £2.9bn. This will be roughly equal to a price of 272 pence per William Hill share for Caesars.
The deal still remains subject to approval from the shareholders of William Hill. However, the board believes that the terms of the deal are “fair and reasonable” and will recommend to shareholders that the offer should be accepted.
Caesars’ Chief Executive Tom Reeg said: “The opportunity to combine our land based-casinos, sports betting and online gaming in the US is a truly exciting prospect.
“William Hill’s sports betting expertise will complement Caesars’ current offering, enabling the combined group to better serve our customers in the fast growing US sports betting and online market.”
If the deal does go ahead, the William Hill brand as it currently stands will be broken up. Caesars will sell large portions of the non-US operations – including those ones based in the UK – so they can maintain their strategic hold on those in America.
Though they recognise that William Hill’s UK and non-US international operations are impressive, they would be best in the hands of owners with longer-term ambitions and more focus.
With sports betting rolling out across many US states, William Hill will run these operations through Caesars Entertainment for both online sports betting and sportsbooks in Caesars’ properties. Once the acquisition is through, there is also the potential for new sports betting operations to roll out as well.
When including online gambling – a venture currently outside plans that could potentially be merged – Caesars could be set to generate up to $700m (approximately £587m) in net revenue in the 2021 fiscal year.
