Amaya works out deferred payment deal with Scheinbergs

Canada’s Amaya Gaming has worked out a deal on a deferred payment owed to PokerStars’ former owners that won’t require the company to issue new equity.

On Monday, Amaya informed shareholders that it had figured out a plan to pay the remaining $197.7m of the deferred purchase price of the Rational Group, which Amaya acquired from founders Isai and Mark Scheinberg in 2014 for $4.9b.

Under the terms of that deal, the Scheinbergs received $4.5b upfront, with the remaining $400m due by February 1, 2017. Last October, Amaya revealed that it had about half of this sum in ready cash, but was exploring “various non-dilutive options to pay the balance” by the due date.

Amaya now says it will pay the nearly $200m outstanding over the course of this year from unrestricted cash on its balance sheet and cash flow from operations. The deal was made possible after the Scheinbergs agreed not to enforce their right to compel Amaya to use “commercially reasonable efforts to issue equity” to honor its debt obligations.