A major takeover bid is taking place for the William Hill bookmaking group following an approach by Apollo Global Management.

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Over the weekend various reports have been circulating the financial press suggesting that two cash proposals were before the company, which has been moved to issue a board reponse to the talk.

Hill confirmed that it had received a cash proposal from Apollo and from Caesars Entertainment. Discussions, it said, are ongoing, as the shares in the company rose 41 per cent on Friday. The group now has a market value of £3.1bn.

Apollo has a track record in gambling investment, joining with TPG in 2008 to buy out Harrah’s Entertainment (subsequently renamed Caesars) and in 2019 it took a stake in Gamenet Group in Italy.

While all of this is going on, William Hill is in talks with Caesar’s, its partner in sports betting in the US, over a possible merger of their operations. The US market in sports betting is very much a target for William Hill, with the expansion of that sector coming at a time when the group’s UK base has been hit with betting office closures following the UK government’s revision of the stakes on fixed odds betting terminals downwards.