Online gaming company, 888 Holdings Plc (LSE: 888) has agreed to acquire the assets of the Wink Bingo business from privately owned Daub Limited for an initial £11 million, plus a further performance related payment in 2011. Daub’s Wink bingo already operates on 888’s Dragonfish infrastructure and has over 60,000 active players.
The performance related earn-out payment will be between five and six times earnings for the 12 month period ended 31 March 2011, with the total consideration capped at £59.7 million. The earn-out payment is expected to be made during the second quarter of 2011.
"We are delighted to announce the Wink Bingo acquisition as an expansion of our B2C online Bingo footprint in the lucrative UK market”, 888 Holdings Chief Executive, Gigi Levy said, “The Wink team has a proven track record of excellence in marketing, CRM and execution and will be a great addition to our growing Bingo business”
The deal adds to the FTSE250 companies expansion in the ‘B2C emerging offering‘ segment, which has seen 99% growth in Q1. In the 11 months ended 30 November 2009, Wink Bingo reported £15 million in revenues, with a pre-tax profit of £1.3 million. Wink Bingo and its subsidiaries had gross assets of £1.6 million.
The online gaming group also updated investors in a brief pre-close statement ahead of 2009’s final results, stating ‘trading remains strong and is in line with management's expectations. The Company remains confident about its prospects for the full year’.