Member Article

Stride Gaming corners chunk of UK online bingo market with £40.2m acquisition drive

London-based online gaming firm, Stride Gaming, have announced a conditional agreement to acquire a raft of rival businesses and assets that will see it corner a sizeable chunk of the UK online bingo market.

If it goes through, the £40.2m deal will see the Camden headquartered business acquire specific assets belonging to Tarco Limited, the entire issued share capital of Netboost Media Limited who market Tarco’s assets, and the entire issued share capital of Manchester-based 8Ball Games Ltd.

In an effort to fund the acquisitions, Stride are looking to raise £27m through the issue of new ordinary shares at 225 pence per share.

Eitan Boyd, Chief Executive of Stride Gaming, commented that the proposed acquisition is an attempt to cement the gaming firm as a market leader in the ‘soft gaming vertical’ of online gaming.

He said: “Not only do the acquisitions strongly complement our existing business, but they will also add material scale, deliver operational leverage, and substantial cost and revenue synergies.

“Most significantly, the acquisitions will increase our share of the UK online bingo market to 10%, making Stride Gaming the fourth largest online bingo operator in the UK and our combined 105 brands will represent over 25% of the UK online bingo market by number of sites.”

Both Tarco and 8Ball Games boast a wide variety of B2C and B2B bingo brands, meaning Stride will be in possession of a significant number of bingo brands currently operating in the sector.

The move is part of a wide strategy from the business to fuel its growth through acquisitions and follows the acquisition of acquisition of InfiApps in July 2015.

Eitan added: “With the completion of these acquisitions and the successful placing, we are in a stronger position than ever going forward.

“We are pleased to report that the Group is highly confident that it will meet market expectations for the full year and we look forward to updating the market on our progress in the coming months.”

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