FEATURE
AFFILIATE M&A KEEPS
UP THE MOMENTUM
The trend towards further consolidation in the affiliate sector, led increasingly by a handful of aggressively
acquisitive companies, has continued in the second quarter of this year and shows no signs of abating,
writes Scott Longley.
RECENT MOVES INCLUDE Gaming
Innovation Group’s (GIG) biggest deal
to date, another buyout involving a
central player in the space Catena
Media, the recent re-entry of XL Media
into gaming-related M&A activity and
developments in the retail financial trading
space. The deals as detailed in Figure
1 show that the big four are certainly
continuing to build scale in the space,
and doing so with some substantial
resources dedicated to the task.
GIG’s €11.5m deal for CasinoTopsOnline
in March marked the company’s high point
to date in terms of the sum laid out, while
its smaller €5.7m deal for unnamed
German-speaking sites last month was a
departure in terms of target territory.
Meanwhile, Catena Media, a huge
player in the consolidation process in recent
years, added more sites to its roster with
the acquisition of Online Media (UK) Ltd
which includes sports-betting offerings
such as Bets.co.uk, Bonuses.co.uk and
iGamble.co.uk.
As iGB Affiliate noted in our last
issue, further buyouts from Catena were
prefigured by the €100m bond raise in
October last year.
New M&A breakthroughs
Similarly, the other name in the table of
acquisitions, Raketech, gave notice that
it would be on the M&A path when it
said in February it had raised €70m via
its own bond issue.
“Optimizer Invest, owned by the ex-Betsafe founders
Henrik Persson, Mikael Riese Harstad, and André Lavold,
owns 16% of Catena Media. It also owns the same
percentage of GIG”
The subsequent deal announced in April
for Denmark and Finland-facing BetXpert
and Turtle Gaming constitutes the first
fruits of that cash raise, and there are likely
to be many more to come.
As chief executive Michael Holmberg
said previously, the company has an
“ambitious acquisition strategy” and it
was evaluating 20-plus further deals.
Another new name, but with familiar
backers, is Investoo, a start-up retail
financial trading information portal which
Figure 1: Recent consolidation in the affiliate space
COMPANY/ACQUISITION
DATE FEE + EARNOUT MARKET FOCUS
June 2017 £1m Romania
May 2017 £11.7m UK
German language-facing sites April 2017 £5.7m Germany/Austria
Casinotopsonline March 2017 £11.5m UK
April 2017 Unknown Denmark/Finland
XLMedia gambling only
Ponturi-bune.ro
Catena Media
Online Media (UK) Ltdg
Gaming Innovation Group
Raketech
BetXpert/TurtleGaming
Investoo
100ForexBrokes April 2017 Unknown UK/Europe
Invezz April 2017 Unknown UK/Europe
iGB Affiliate Issue 63 JUN/JUL 2017
45