Private equity firms are reportedly prepared to pay US$6.54bn for the total business
Australian gambling giant Tabcorp has rejected reports published by newspaper The Australian last Friday 06, which stated that a number of private equity firms were about to launch a takeover bid.
In a statement, Tabcorp Holdings Limited referred to the article that The Australian entitled “Private equity and Matthew Tripp circle Tabcorp in potential break-up deal for wagering giant,” stating that “Tabcorp is not aware of, and has not received, any proposal in respect of the Company or its businesses” as authorised by the Tabcorp Chairman, Paula Dwyer
Reportedly, Matthew Tripp is said to have held talks with two private equity firms, one of which is seeking to purchase the entire Tabcorp business for a fee of AU$9.0bn (US$6.54bn).
The other, unnamed, private equity firm is said to be considering a $3.0bn bid for Tabcorp’s TAB betting division, and upon release of such reports, Tabcorp’s share price rocket by 16.4% from AU$3.53 at opening on Friday to AU$4.11 at close.
In related company news, Tabcorp announced that it will undertake a “comprehensive and urgent review” after a major outage hit its TAB, keno and gaming services over the weekend. Tabcorp said the incident took place at around 11:30am AEDT on 7 November, but services have now largely been restored. Based on a preliminary assessment, Tabcorp said a smoke and likely fire incident at a third-party managed data centre in Sydney resulted in extensive damage to Tabcorp’s servers and associated infrastructure, adding that incident led to technical and systems outages, as well as the closure of TAB retail venues.
Tabcorp added that there is no evidence of any potential cyber security issues or customer data breaches a this stage, and also said the incident had an estimated impact of under $10m on its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA).
“The outage was unacceptable; Tabcorp remains deeply sorry for this and acknowledges the significant disruption caused to our customers, the racing industry and venue partners,” Tabcorp managing director and chief executive David Attenborough said. “Our teams and technology partners are continuing to deploy all available resources into restoring the full Tabcorp gambling entertainment experience for our customers and partners.”
