Unibet to join forces with someone, or Sportingbet, or both?

Found this and absolutely none if this represents any of my own thinking or ideas;

copy & paste and link below:


18/11/2010
James Bennett 
 Leak caused Unibet-Sportingbet talks to collapse

The chief executive of Sportingbet has described Unibet’s withdrawal from a possible merger with the British sportbook as “very unfortunate”, and admitted a leak during talks, and resulting press speculation, eventually forced the Swedish operator to pull out of a deal.

Andy McIver, told eGaming Review: “The breakdown in talks with Unibet was very unfortunate and was due to a leak when talks were taking place followed by speculation in the press. Talks were at an incredibly early stage and they sadly broke down.”

McIver described the “logic” in merging two sportsbooks [Unibet and Sportingbet] as “enabling the synergies of both companies”.

“This [the merger] was of particular appeal, plus they [Unibet] have a different geographical bias to us and their strengths in different geographies was one of the great attractions,” he added.

He refused to say whether or not the operator was examining other deals but admitted the Sportingbet board was “interested in other channels and markets, very interested in mobile and also in B2B, not just as a general channel, but also as an income stream”.

“We have no fixed agenda as to who we acquire or whether we acquire, how we do this, and what route we go down but we are looking at lots of different opportunities,” he added.

Quoting an unnamed source the Sportingbet-Unibet merger story leaked on 14 November when the Sunday Times reported both parties were in preliminary merger talks. Both companies, voted eighth and tenth respectively in this year’s eGaming Review Power 50 most influential global operators, then immediately released statements to the London stock exchange, however neither firm specified they were talking to one another, suggesting they “had and would continue to have discussions with different parties in relation to a variety of potential opportunities”.

The following day eGaming Review met with Unibet CEO Henrik Tjarnstrom who said that if the Swedish firm did merge with another operator it would be to “improve its geographic reach rather than its product offerings”.

“You can either grow organically or you can grow through mergers and acquisitions,” Tjarnstrom, said, refusing to comment at the time on whether or not the company had met specifically with Sportingbet representatives. He admitted, however, that it had been in talks with “many companies” adding “we are looking at different opportunities, it could be mergers, it could be acquisitions.” Two days later, however, Unibet announced to the stock market that it had withdrawn from talks.

McIver, however told eGaming Review that Sportingbet’s “overall strategic plan”, to be a globally diverse sportsbook, “has not changed since and before the business exited the US in September”.

“Over and above we’re interested, at this point in time, in diversifying our geographic mix. At present 75% of our operations is based in Europe, a region where the recession is biting the hardest, 25% in Latin America and Australia, and a small toehold in South Africa. Europe has been heavily affected by the recession so we need to diversify.”

Its recent joint venture with Russian bookmaker First International Bookmakers (FIBC), according to McIver, “took years" to scope out and eventually find the right partner, is part of that diversification, McIver added.

Sportingbet’s deal with FIBC will establish a Russia-facing online sportsbook under the Liga Stavok brand. FIBC currently operates 256 betting outlets across Russia under Liga Stavok, making it the second largest licensed bookmaker in the country. Liga Stavok’s exclusive betting partnership deal with the Russian Football Premier League would give it “unparalleled access to the Russian sports betting market”, a Sportingbet statement said when the deal was announced earlier this month.

“We needed a third party to help give us the exposure and to make headway in a new market,” he said. “Russia is on a different economic cycle to the rest of Europe and is growing. It has a large population with a strong sporting heritage and not only is online a new proposition, offline betting is also in its infancy there.

http://www.egrmagazine.com/news/604972/leak-caused-unibetsportingbet-talks-tocollapse.thtml?utm_source=daily-snapshot&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=daily-snapshot