After a morning of intense speculation, GVC Holdings (LON:GVC) announced it has made an offer for its much larger rival Bwin.party Digital Entertainment (LON:BPTY).
Gambling site GVC, the owner of Sportingbet confirmed it has proposed a reverse takeover of the World Poker Tour owner Bwin.
GVC has a market cap of £278mln while Bwin’s is £784mln and the proposal is on an all share basis.
On a slow news day, bulletin boards had been rife with speculation of the move before the announcement was made.
The proposal is subject to confirmation from both GVC and Bwin shareholders.
Shares in Bwin rose 7% to 97p while GVVC Holdings fell 1.6% to 451p.
Elsewhere, the FTSE 100 was 20 points higher to 6,995 ahead of the resumption of trading on Wall Street.
The UK’s main index remained buoyant helped by reassuring comments from European Central Bank (ECB) boss Mario Draghi.
Draghi said reiterated the need for quantative easing (QE) and said the ECB would implement in full its £800bn programme.
The news meant sterling was firmer against the euro today as the comments dampened the euro’s strength.
On the UK’s main index, housebuilders received a boost as the Office for National Statistics revealed output rose 3.9% in March, exceeding market expectations.
Persimmon (LON:PSN) led the risers, climbing 2.4% to 1,87p while there were also small gains for Berkeley (LON:BKG) and Barratt Developments (LON:BDEV).
Meanwhile, mining stocks led the fallers with Fresnillo (LONL:FRES) and Anglo American (LON:AAL) sitting at the bottom of the index.
Commodity prices across the board were lower as property demand in China has been slowing leading to a lower demand for iron ore. Shares eased 2.2% to 744p and 1.65 to 1,092p respectively.
In small caps, Praetorian Resources (LON:PRAE) was the biggest gainer of the day after it announced the sale of stake in Equatorial Palm Oil for £637,5000 compared to book value of £552,000. Shares climbed 158% to almost 6.5p.
Shares in MoPowered (LON:MPOW), the mobile commerce software specialist, shot up today as it unveiled wide-ranging plans which will see the business re-launched with the name mporium Group.
Barry Moat, founder of UK shop-at-work retailer Premier Direct, is to take over the running of the company which is also set to acquire a digital marketing agency and raise £3.1mln of new equity. Shares rocketed 131% to 4p.
On the down side, Caza Oil & Gas (LON:CAZA) said it could be looking for new drilling opportunities.
The company improves its earnings (EBIDTA) by 29% in the first quarter of this month but crude prices continue to be an impediment.
However revenues from oil sales for the company fell 27% and shares eased accordingly, losing 17% to 3.8p.