Inspired to acquire Gaming Technology Group from Novomatic
Inspired Entertainment has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase the Gaming Technology Group (GTG), a division of Austrian gaming equipment and solutions giant Novomatic's UK subsidiary, for $120m (£94.4m/€106.0m).
Once the deal is completed, Inspired will take charge of the six companies within GTG, including Gamestec Leisure, Playnation Limited, AstraGames Limited, Bell-FruitGroup Limited, Harlequin Gaming Limited and Innov8 Gaming Limited.
“The potential acquisition of NTG is transformational for Inspired, enabling us to dramatically increase the size, scale and scope of our business by combining our highly complementary, but largely non-overlapping, businesses,” said Inspired’s executive chairman, Lorne Weil, said.
“We expect to leverage our superior game content, technology, operational capabilities and respective footprints to augment the existing growth trends for our enterprise.”
Inspired noted that GTG's Category B3, C and D games businesses would complement its B2 and B3-focused operations, allowing it to diversify its UK business and expand into new sectors.
Gamestec supplies the UK pub sector with gaming machines, while Playnation provides terminals for the UK holiday and leisure industry. Innov8 Gaming, meanwhile, is a gaming machine developer providing Category B3 and C gaming machines within NTG and to external customers.
AstraGames manufactures and provides Category B, C and D gaming machines, whereas Bell-FruitGroup primarily sells Category C machines to European markets. Harlequin Gaming operates as the game development studio for both AstraGames and Bell-FruitGroup.
“Inspired and NTG currently operate in different segments but have much in common in terms of providing resources for our customers and their consumers,” Weil said. “This combination would provide additional resources for our core businesses and combine the great content and machine portfolio from each.
“We expect to be able to deliver meaningful value to our shareholders as the acquisition is integrated.”
The acquisition is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, and is expected to close during the third quarter of this year.
Inspired expects to achieve between $12.3m and $13.3m of synergies through shared costs and increased scale, as well as make use of shared manufacturing, engineering, software development, field maintenance and customer service to drive growth and cost savings after the transaction closes.
Upon closing the deal, Inspired will manage over 75,000 gaming machines across the UK and Europe.
The acquisition comes after Inspired last month announced a 10.1% year-on-year decline in revenue during the first quarter to $33.7m. Inspired put this down primarily to a dip in the performance of its server-based gaming division.