Ladbrokes Sportingbet talks end in no deal

Ladbrokes started takeover talks with Sportingbet with back in June this year. You can read the details here.

Talks are now dead with Ladbrokes (or rather their lawyers) believing Sportingbet’s regulatory exposure in the Turkish market was too much of a risk.

Sportingbet continues to accept bets from Turkish residents despite an online gambling ban that exists there.  There were plans to sell off this part of the operation to pave the way for the Ladbrokes takeover but even with the disposal the legals at Ladbrokes thought there would still be an unacceptable risk. I’m assuming the concern was the possibility of some kind of retrospective prosecution from Turkish authorities, ala the US Department of Justice’s settlement with PartyGaming long after they exited the American market.

CEO Richard Glynn said of the abandoned deal, “We have been unable to agree a structure which would give our shareholders a decent and acceptable level of regulatory exposure. The Turkish issue could not be resolved and we cannot accept unnecessary regulatory liabilities.”

An article in the Express quoted a Sportingbet representative as saying Ladbrokes had been too over-sensitive and an industry analyst suggested that their (Ladbrokes’) inability to complete a string of recently initiated takeover negotiations would discourage other possible targets from coming to the table.

The big question…will Laddies put the gun in the holster for a while or start looking for another takeover target straight away?