UK’s William Hill ups the ante for Sportingbet to £530 million

One of Britain's leading gaming and betting companies William Hill Plc has sweetened its bid to acquire online gambling firm Sportingbet to approximately £530 million ($850 million), eying its lucrative Australian and Spanish markets.

In a statement, William Hill said that the company, along with its partner GVC Holdings Plc has improved the proposal which now offers 61.1 pence for each share of Sportingbet including a recently announced dividend of 1.1 pence, valuing Sportingbet at approximately £530 million.

The new offer is significantly higher than last month's bid by William Hill of 52.2 pence per share of Sportingbet.

Under the new offer, Sportingbet's shareholders will get 50 pence in cash and 0.0475 new GVC shares for every Sportingbet share they own, based on the closing middle-market GVC share price of 233.5 pence on 15 October 2012.

Sportingbet, which owns Paradise Poker offers sports betting and games across 26 countries and has more than 700,000 active customers. Australia accounts for nearly 70 per cent of Sportingbet's revenues, where the company is a market leader in telephone and online gaming.

Sportingbet's board, which rejected the earlier takeover bid saying that it significantly undervalues the business and its future prospects, has now said that if a new agreement is reached upon detailed terms and conditions, the board would unanimously recommended the revised offer to its shareholders.