A heart-stopping Friday for investors gambling on the two rival bids for Bwin.party.
Two of the online gambling company’s billionaire founders, Ruth Parasol and James DeLeon, have dumped stakes.
True, they had been ordered to sell them by United States regulators by September this year.
But why pull out now when we’re a couple of weeks away from a decision on the bid?
The answer can only be that they don’t rate the deal’s chances.
The bid is anything but simple: there are mixtures of cash and shares to evaluate, and Bwin, like one bidder, 888, has a sizeable chunk of its operations in the Wild East, the unregulated “grey” markets of eastern Europe.
Business news in pictures - June 12
Tricky to value, in other words. Both sets of bidders seem to think the talks on the deal are progressing well.
But many investors will follow Parasol and DeLeon and take their chips off the table.
