OPAP secures Greek approval for Stoiximan acquisition

The Hellenic Competition Commission (HCC) has given its approval to OPAP’s pending acquisition of a majority stake in Stoiximan Group’s Greek and Cypriot operations.

Greek gaming operator OPAP Group in January agreed a deal to acquire a 51% stake in the operations for a total consideration of €94.9m (£82.0m/$105.6m).

The deal said that the operator’s OPAP Invest arm would acquire the stake from GML Interactive, a subsidiary of Stoiximan parent company TCB Holdings, and gain joint control of the business alongside two of TCB’s existing shareholders.

OPAP also purchased a 36.75% stake in Stoiximan in September 2018 for a total consideration of €50m.

The latest deal is still subject to approval from the Cyprus Commission for the Protection of Competition and certain gaming regulatory authorities. 

Confirmation of clearance from the HCC comes after lottery group Sazka Group last week upped its stake in OPAP to almost 40% after the completion of an offer period in which it attempted to acquire all the operator’s outstanding shares.

Sazka came to an agreement with around 7.25% of OPAP shareholders during the offer period, which concluded on 29 October. It owned around 33% of OPAP prior to the offer period having purchased a major stake in 2013 through venture Emma Delta when the operator was first privatised.

In total it agreed to acquire 23,323,179 shares at €9.12 – amounting to €212.7m. It had earmarked €2.06bn for the total outstanding shares.