British and Irish iGaming behemoth Flutter Entertainment is reportedly considering whether to offload its newly-acquired sportsbetting odds comparison website at OddsChecker.com for approximately £150 million ($209.7 million).
According to a short report from the Evening Standard newspaper, the London-listed operator behind a slew of online gambling domains including Betfair.com, PaddyPower.com and Adjarabet.com does not consider the assessment platform to be one of its core brands. As such and the company has now purportedly hired global investment bank Moelis and Company to investigate the option of a sale that it believes would allow it to better concentrate on its ongoing expansion efforts in the United States.
Competition cancellation:
The newspaper reported that Dublin-headquartered Flutter Entertainment, which was previously known as Paddy Power Betfair, took over OddsChecker.com last year as part of its £11 billion ($15.3 billion) acquisition of prominent Canadian iGaming firm The Stars Group Incorporated. However, the comparison platform’s attractiveness was subsequently seriously impacted after rival online bookmaker Entain pulled its own brands including perennial big-hitters Ladbrokes.com and Coral.co.uk from being featured on the service.
Foreign focus:
OddsChecker.com allows sports wagering aficionados to compare live odds on a multitude of events across a number of operators with the news of its potential sale having reportedly sent the price of individual Flutter Entertainment shares down by some 2% to 15,655p. But the operator is purportedly nevertheless still keen on a disposal so as to better prepare itself for the partial American flotation of its FanDuel Group subsidiary, which already holds a 40% chunk of the United States’ embryonic sportsbetting market.
Flying financials:
Peter Jackson, Chief Executive Officer for Flutter Entertainment, has reportedly moreover been tasked with continuing to expand his firm’s core domestic operations some two weeks after it recorded a pro forma rise of 28% year-on-year in aggregated annual revenues to £5.3 billion ($7.4 billion). This purportedly came despite the company’s associated pre-tax profit dropping to just £1 million ($1.4 million) from £136 million ($190 million) in 2019 largely as a result of costs associated with its May purchase of The Stars Group Incorporated.
Additional acquisition:
Flutter Entertainment reportedly now has a market valuation in the region of £27 billion ($37.7 billion) and last month continued its international expansion via a £47 million ($66.2 million) deal to purchase a majority stake in Indian online rummy innovator Junglee Games. This alliance could well result in the launch of a new India-facing online poker domain that would sit alongside the locally-licensed service The Stars Group Incorporated debuted in partnership with Asian gaming operator Sugal and Damani Enterprises Limited in 2018.