While rumors are flying left and right about potential buyouts and mergers in the European online gaming market, news broke that Everest Poker and Mangas Gaming will join forces. Mangas plans to buy out Everest in early 2010 as part of a deal worth in excess of $100 million.
The deal will be finalized in the first quarter of 2010. Mangas Gaming will pay $100 million to Everest’s parent company, GigaMedia, in exchange for 60% of the shares of the company. A Dow Jones article also stated that the final portion of the deal would be paid out after the company’s fair market value is reassessed in 2012. There is also an option that allows GigaMedia to buy back Everest Gaming in 2013 should it see fit to do so. GigaMedia is a publicly traded company on NASDAQ Stock Exchange, where it can be found under the symbol “GIGM.”
While the name Mangas may not sound familiar, the sites it owns and operates are well-known within the online gaming market: BetClic, Expekt Poker, and Bet-At-Home. The French-based company appears to be taking more interest in poker as of late. In addition to brokering the Everest deal, the company also signed World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner Scotty Nguyen as an Expekt spokesman earlier this year and debuted former Team PokerStars Pro Isabelle Mercier as a BetClic spokeswoman at the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio.
The increased efforts of Everest Poker to heighten its profile in the French marketplace make even more sense in light of this deal. The company, which is the official on-felt sponsor of the WSOP, signed a deal with November Nine member Antoine Saout after he made the Main Event final table and added Fabrice Soulier to its roster of pros last month.
Mangas Gamings Chief Executive Officer Isabelle Parize commented on the deal in an official press release announcing the acquisition: “We are very proud that Everest is joining our group. It is a great company; it is a brand with an outstanding awareness in the world of poker, well-known for its know-how, its platform reliability, and its strict policies. Mangas Gaming is reinforcing its position as a major European player in both the online poker and sports betting markets.”
GigaMedia’s CEO, Arthur Wang, expressed similar sentiments in his statement. “We were looking for a reference partner with complementary activities to ours,” Wang explained. “Our strategy is to participate in the growth of this innovative and dynamic industry in Europe. We are glad to do it alongside the French leading sports betting and online gaming group.”
Poker News Daily has learned that once the deal is complete, players on Mangas’ other online poker rooms will be shifted towards Everest. Expekt is expected to disappear entirely before the end of 2010 and all of the company’s customers will be shifted over to Everest.
Since the announcement of the deal, shares of GigaMedia saw a spike in trading value. After trading as low as $3.53 on December 11th, stock prices shot up as high as $4.24, an increase of 20%.
