William Hill acquires OpenBet for £270m

The deal saw William Hill entering a long-term commercial agreement with NYX Gaming Group. As part of that agreement, William Hill invested £80m in the form of a note, which is redeemable in cash or shares in NYX, with an interest coupon of 6% payable in kind. William Hill invested a further £10m in equity to fund the £270m acquisition of OpenBet by NYX. According to NYX, the deal values OpenBet at 8.4x EBITDA.

SkyBet invested alongside William Hill, also investing in the note and the equity.
NYX is a digital gaming content and technology supplier, providing around 650 games to 170 customers including the supply of a third of the games on William Hill's Vegas platform.

Previous funding
Vitruvian Partners acquired OpenBet for £208m in January 2011.

Company
OpenBet is a provider of sports betting and gaming technology. The business operates from six offices worldwide including London, the US, Australia and Singapore, employing 700 people.

OpenBet generated EBITDA of £24.3m for 2015. The company was founded in 1996 and was originally known as Orbis Technology.

People
William Hill - James Henderson (CEO).
NYX Gaming Group - Matt Davey (CEO).

Advisers
Equity - Gibson Dunn, Jonathan Earle, Tony Downes, Hollie Cope Jones, Andre Van Zyl Glow, Philip Crump, Nisha Navekar, Jeff Trinklein, Panyota Burquoit, Patrick Doris, Steve Melrose (legal).

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• Exits
• UK / Ireland
• Technology
• Vitruvian Partners
• Trade sale