The parent company of online poker giant PokerStars has raised more than $600 million from the recent public offering of its common shares.
In a regulatory filing, The Stars Group announced that the company managed to sell 17,000,000 common shares while several company shareholders disposed 8,000,000 of their common shares for a total net proceeds of $622 million.
Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank Securities acted as the joint book-running managers and representatives of the underwriters for the offering. The additional joint book-running managers for the offering were Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Barclays, BMO Capital Markets and Macquarie Capital (USA) Inc. The co-managers for the offering include Blackstone Capital Markets, Cormark Securities (USA) Limited, Canaccord Genuity Corp., Union Gaming Securities, LLC and Investec Bank plc.
The Stars Group and selling shareholders approved an over-allotment option to purchase up to 1,875,000 and an additional 1,875,000 common shares, respectively. The company said the option may be done for a period of 30 days from June 21.
The company plans to use the net proceeds from the treasury offering, together with debt financing and cash on hand, to fund the previously announced acquisition of Sky Bet. If for any reason the Acquisition does not close, the Company intends to use the net proceeds from the Offering for general corporate purposes.
In April, the Canadian gaming company announced that it had agreed to buy Sky Betting & Gaming from owners CVC Capital Partners and Sky PLC in a deal worth $4.7 billion.
According to the deal, The Stars Group will have to shell out $3.6 billion in cash while the rest of the payment will be in the form of newly-issued shares. British media company Sky, which has a 20 percent stake in Sky Bet, received around £425 million ($595 million) in cash aside from shares.
The Stars Group CEO Rafi Ashkenazi described the Sky Bet acquisition as a landmark moment in the company’s history, saying the deal would create the world’s largest publicly-listed online gaming firm.
