Flutter Entertainment has completed its acquisition of and merger with The Stars Group.
Flutter Entertainment, the company behind Paddy Power Betfair and FanDuel, has announced the completion of its acquisition of and merger with The Stars Group (TSG).
This news comes after TSG shareholders and Flutter shareholders voted in favour of the mega-merger. Flutter shareholders holding 99.2% of Flutter’s share capital approved the merger, while approximately 99.99% of TSG shareholders backed the deal. Last week, Flutter confirmed it had received all of the relevant regulatory approvals needed to close the deal.
Merger details
Under the deal, which was announced in October 2019, Flutter will purchase all of the shares in TSG and join together to create one of the largest online gambling companies in the world with a combined annual revenue of $4.7bn (£3.8bn).
The entire enlarged issued share capital of Flutter constituting 143,987,624 ordinary shares was admitted to the premium listing of the Official List of the Financial Conduct Authority at 8 am BST today (5 May). On top of this, shares were admitted to the Official List of Euronext Dublin and to trading on the London Stock Exchange’s Main Market for listed securities and the Euronext Dublin Market under the ticker “FLTR”.
With the competition of the deal, the former Tipico chief executive, Jan Bolz, and telecommunications executive, Emer Timmons, will step down as non-executive directors of the business. At the same time, several TSG executives and directors will join the Flutter Board. Former Stars CEO, Rafi Ashkenazi, will become a non-executive director along with former Sky Betting & Gaming chief executive, Richard Flint. Alfred Hurley, David Lazzarato and Mary Turner will also join the Flutter board.
The new business
Several of TSG’s major brands including PokerStars, Full Tilt, Sky Betting & Gaming, BetEasy and Fox Bet will form part of the combined business.
Last week, Flutter also shared details on the organizational design of the new business entity. Flutter will continue to employ a federal operating model where each regional arm of the company will have a level of independence instead of having a strategy determined by the group’s management.
Flutter said that the model leverages each teams’ local knowledge and will ensure they have the autonomy to respond to developments in each of their markets while at the same time having access to the broader group’s resources.
The combined business will consist of an initial five reporting segments which include TSG International (this will exclude US operations), Paddy Power Betfair (this will include Paddy Power online, Betfair, Adjarabet, Paddy Power retail and B2B operations), Sky Betting and Gaming, Australia and US (this will include FanDuel Group and TSG US operations).
