SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
FTSE-listed betting operator William Hill has informed the market that it has agreed to acquire industry software development firm Grand Parade for a reported £13.6 million combined cash and shares deal.
Confirming the deal, William Hill governance detailed that it had acquired Grand Parade with a view of bolstering its digital development capabilities as the company continues its corporate focus on in-house development.
Founded in 2007 by of Andy Clerkson, Grand Parade is a specialist in developing native apps, betting-specific devices and visuals for industry clients. The company operates commercial offices in London, supported by a development studio in Krakow (Poland)
As part consideration for the acquisition, William Hill will issue 495,048 shares to Grand Parade, with the rest made up in cash.
Philip Bowcock interim CEO of William Hill commented on the acquisition
“Bringing the Grand Parade team into William Hill will rapidly ramp up the scale of our development team by backfilling existing resource gaps and also enhance our creative capabilities,”
“This enables us to capitalise on the potential of our Trafalgar front-end platform by accelerating our product development and also to support the work with OpenBet to build our new back-end platform”.
This week, William Hill governance are expected to deliver a strategic update in its H1 2016 presentation (Friday 5 August) focusing on turning around the firm’s declining digital performance.
