Gambling operator William Hill announced today that it has acquired developer and supplier of online sports betting and gaming solutions Grand Parade for the total consideration of £13.6 million.
The move could not be defined as a surprising one given William Hill’s continued efforts and investment into redeveloping and upgrading its entire web architecture.
Commenting on the acquisition deal, William Hill Interim CEO Philip Bowcock said that by joining forces with Grand Parade, the gambling operator will be able to quickly ramp up its development scale. The company’s latest acquisition will also provide it with the opportunity to fill resource gaps and enhance the creative capabilities of its team.
According to Mr. Bowcock, Grand Parade will help William Hill reap the benefits from its Trafalgar front-end platform through product development acceleration and will support the operator’s work with sports betting supplier OpenBet to develop a brand new back-end platform.
Grand Parade was founded in 2007. Over the past nine years, the company has been specializing in the creation of applications, websites, and different social tools serving the international sports betting and gaming industry. As part of its activities, Grand Parade has also worked on a number of marketing and commercial projects for some of the world’s biggest gambling operators, with Ladbrokes, Coral, Bwin, Sportech, and Betfair being only few of these.
Under the terms of the acquisition deal and as part of the total consideration, William Hill is to issue 495,048 new ordinary shares to Grand Parade, valued at 10 pence each.
Earlier this year, William Hill and fellow operator Sky Betting & Gaming backed and financed partially NYX Gaming Group’s acquisition of OpenBet, with the deal being put a £270 million price tag. The two gambling companies participated in the transaction with a £100-million equity investment. William Hill contributed £80 million to the total consideration.
Many suggested that the gambling company will try to influence the combined entity in a bid to reap as many benefits from the deal as possible, particularly ones related to its efforts to boost both its front- and back-end platforms and online gambling operations.
William Hill pointed out that its involvement will be limited to monitoring a specially established three-year development program for the modernization of OpenBet’s technology.
