Press Release
5th April 2011
Broker snap: bwin.party has potential post merger
Panmure Gordon ups its target price for PartyGaming following its merger with bwin, saying that the newly-formed bwin.party Digital Entertainment has the potential to deliver above-average earnings growth, underpinned by €55m of merger synergies.
“Recent regulatory developments have been overwhelmingly positive for eGaming operators, in our view and we think eGaming stocks are well placed for a period of sustained outperformance,” said the broker.
Panmure estimates that bwin.party will be almost twice the size of its closest peers in 2012, and its scale benefits give it a significant advantage in the French and Italian poker markets, where the broker thinks it will be among the top three poker liquidity providers.
The broker keeps its ‘buy’ rating, but increases the target price from 275p to 288p.
Press Release
1st April 2011
Beyond the Deal Selected to Support Merger Integration of PartyGaming and bwin
Beating stiff competition, Beyond the Deal LLP has been chosen to support the integration of PartyGaming and bwin, following their announced transformational merger inJuly 2010 to form bwin.party digital entertainment plc (Ticker: BPTY). The deal, completed today, makes bwin.party, the world's largest listed online gaming company.
Conducted across key bwin and PartyGaming locations across Europe, and working with senior executives and management in the merged entity, Beyond the Deal's work is focused on supporting integration planning, internal communications and cultural alignment.
Kathy Swindley, Group HR Director for bwin.party digital entertainment, said:
"We have chosen to work with Beyond the Deal due to its skills and understanding of the complex challenges that arise from merging different international cultures."
Carlos Keener, Managing Partner, Beyond the Deal LLP, stated:
"Our appointment by bwin.party continues to highlight our ability to support the largest multi-national deals in a way that is responsive, flexible, and makes the best use of clients' own capabilities and experience in merger integration. We look forward to working with many other companies as M&A activity resumes in the coming months."
Notes to Editors
1. Established by Carlos Keener in 2001, Beyond the Deal (http://www.beyondthedeal.com) is an advisory and resources firm specialising in post merger integration, based in the UK & US.
2. The company focuses on acquisition and integration strategy, business model design, integration planning and management, and other post-acquisition areas such as business process change, organisational design, HR, IT, branding, culture, communications, and risk management.
3. Beyond the Deal's Cultural Snapshot Survey helps businesses address the need for cultural assessment alongside more commonplace pre-deal processes, and certainly as part of acquisition target assessment and integration planning. The survey considers both organisational and national culture, links it to post-deal business models and integration planning, and provides practical ways forward for cultural alignment post-deal.
News
PartyPoker Unleashes Card Rush Instant Win Promotion - 5th April 2011
PartyPoker, the world’s third largest online poker room, is offering up 1.8 million prize cards as part of its Card Rush Instant Win promotion in April. The promotion will run through April 30th or until the prize cards are given away and offers numerous chances to earn extra cash by playing on the site this month.
You can obtain a Card Rush card simply by playing in a real money game on PartyPoker and earning points. The first card will cost five points and subsequent cards will cost 15 points. Players may obtain up to 50 cards per day, but the promotion will end when all 1.8 million are assigned.
Each card will instantly give players a monetary prize between $1 and $5,000, a points prize up to 25,000, or entry into a freeroll. The freerolls will run on the following days:
Card Rush $2,000 Freeroll – May 5th at 1:00pm ET
Card Rush $15,000 Freeroll – May 5th at 2:30pm ET
Card Rush $3,000 Freeroll – May 6th at 1:00pm ET
Card Rush $10,000 Freeroll – May 6th at 2:30pm ET
Card Rush $5,000 Freeroll – May 7th at 1:00pm ET
Card Rush $7,000 Freeroll – May 7th at 2:30pm ET
Card Rush $20,000 Freeroll – May 8th at 1:00pm ET
Players can also earn cash in the Card Rush Race, a leaderboard that will pay the top 200 point-earners a minimum of $100. Points will be awarded as part of the Card Rush promotion ranging from one to 20 points per card. The more points a player earns, the more money they’ll receive. Here’s a look at the payouts:
1st place – $9,000
2nd place – $7,000
3rd place – $5,250
4th place – $4,000
5th place – $3,500
6th place – $3,000
7th place – $2,500
8th place – $2,000
9th place – $1,500
10th place – $1,000
11th-18th places – $800
19th-30th places – $700
31st-45th places – $600
46th-60th places – $500
61st-75th places – $400
76th-100th places – $300
101st-125th places – $200
126th-150th places – $150
151st-200th places – $50
In addition, every 20th spot from 220 to 2,000 will earn a Hot Spot prize of $50.
PartyPoker is also running daily qualifiers to the 2011 World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas. Qualifiers are running now until June 19th, with satellites available for as little as $2. Each $14,000 package includes the $10,000 Main Event buy-in, travel and eight days’ hotel accommodations, and $2,000 spending money.
There are also special qualifiers exclusively for first-time depositors. Every month, new players can enter an exclusive freeroll to win one of 10 seats, each worth $750, in the WSOP weekly satellite.
PartyGaming, which owns and operates PartyPoker, recently merged with bwin to form the largest gambling group in the world. With the merger, Party Gaming hopes to even the playing field in the online poker arena as it positions itself to re-enter the U.S. market.
The new company also hopes the merge will expand the PartyPoker brand in Europe. bwin previously resided on the Ongame Network, but now combines its client base with PartyPoker to create the third largest online poker room in the world. (Credit: Poker News Daily)
Media Man, Casino News Media and Global Gaming Directory do have a b2b relationship with PartyGaming, as they do with dozens of other companies in the gaming, igaming, media and entertainment industry.
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