A few days ago, MGM Resorts International revealed that it won official regulatory approval to take over the Swedish online gambling company LeoVegas AB.
Back in May, the casino and gambling giant offered to purchase the Sweden-based gambling and sports betting operator for a total of $607 million in cash. The company is offering $6.20 per share for LeoVegas. It shared its expectations that the acquisition will be accumulative to earnings per share. As revealed at the time, if successful, the offer was subject to special conditions included in the Offer Document to be finalized. Apart from that, the deal was subject to regulatory and governmental approval in order to be completed.
Now, MGM Resorts International has received all the necessary approvals in order to proceed with the completion of the takeover deal. The US casino and gambling operator noted that it has managed to fulfill the condition regarding the receipt of the governmental and regulatory clearances, approvals and decisions.
According to expectations, the completion of the takeover could close by the end of 2022.
Although LeoVegas has limited exposure in the US, where BetMGM is currently among the dominant gambling and betting operators, the acquisition could be very beneficial for the buyer in terms of expanding the awareness of its MGM brand in Europe. LeoVegas has been a popular name in the European online gambling sector and would help the US gambling company expand into new markets with an already established presence of the Swedish iGaming brand.
MGM Resorts and LeoVegas Needed Regulatory Approvals to Finalize the Takeover Process
As CasinoGamesPro previously reported, regulatory approvals are often obligatory elements in gambling companies’ acquisition process. In this particular case, there were some potential issues of concern.
In June 2022, the Economic Crime Authority of Sweden started an investigation into possible insider trading in LeoVegas stock right before MGM Resorts made its announcement of the takeover proposal. Stockholm-based offices of the Swedish gambling operator were raided, with the company revealing that it was cooperating with the probe at a later stage.
Furthermore, earlier in August, LeoVegas faced a massive $1.6-million monetary penalty imposed by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) for anti-money laundering failures. The company became subject to a similar fine in Denmark in October 2021.
Although there has been some controversy regarding the acquisition deal, MGM Resorts never signaled that it could potentially abandon its efforts to take over the Swedish online gambling company that currently operates the leovegas.com, pinkcasino.co.uk, betuk.com, 21.co.uk and slotboss.co.uk gambling platforms, along with some other services.
In its latest announcement, the US casino and gambling giant confirmed that the acceptance period for the takeover offer was set to expire on August 30th, 2022, while the settlement for shares tendered is expected to take place as soon as MGM Resorts announced that the conditions of its acquisition bid were fulfilled or if the company otherwise decided to finalize the offer. In case such an announcement is made no later than August 31st, 2022, the settlement is expected to be initiated on September 7th, or around that date.
