SBC News Burlywood Capital moves to acquire The Football Pools for £97 million

Burlywood Capital moves to acquire The Football Pools for £97 million

screen-shot-2016-09-13-at-10-16-41Updating the market this morning, the board of Sportech Plc has announced that it has reached an agreement to sell The Football Pools to Burlywood Capital (Burlywood) for a total cash consideration of £97.25 million on a debt free/cash free basis.

Sportech’s board will forward Burlywood proposal to investors, stating that the offer represented ‘an attractive opportunity to realise the value of The Football Pools’, following its product revamp.

Burlywood an investment fund specialising in media and entertainment will look to float a new company on London’s AIM market for the purpose of acquiring The Football Pools.

The fund led by Mark Blandford and Andrew Burnett will raise the acquisition capital by offering new company equity to institutional investors and securing an approved £30 million debt facility.

Burlywood informed that the proposed proposed directors of the ‘AIM quoted’ company which plans to acquire The Football Pools are Ian Hogg (Chairman), Conleth Byrne (Chief Executive and current Managing Director of The Football Pools), Carl Lynn (Chief Financial Officer and current Finance Director of The Football Pools), Brian Mattingley (Non-Executive Director) and Liz Catchpole (Non-Executive Director).

In recent years The Football Pools has been the subject of numerous rejected acquisition bids, as Sportech governance has declined the proposed value from its suitors.

In 2015 Sportech’s division had generated revenues of £33 million with yearly profits of £15 million. Nevertheless, the asset has seen a continued decline in active players which has stagnated to circa 300,000. Aiming to modernise its asset for digitally-led audiences in 2014 The Football Pools undertook a product revamp combined with a brand overhaul.

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