GVC Holdings may have delivered a knock-out blow in its battle with 888 Holdings to acquire bwin.party Digital Entertainment with the news that the board at bwin.party has accepted GVC's £1.1bn takeover offer.
The move comes around six weeks after bwin.party recommended an offer from 888, worth about £900m.
Bwin.party chairman Philip Yea told Reuters that the competing proposals had divided shareholders: "There was a pretty even split of those that expressed views one way or the other. But we also had a significant block of shares that was happy to support the board on its deliberations."
Following a summer that has seen GVC first lead the race to take over bwin.party before losing ground to 888, only to emerge as frontrunner once again, this is unlikely to be the end of the headlines. Indeed, just this week, 888 reiterated its desire to acquire bwin.party with a new approach confirmed.
