LeoVegas acquires Royal Panda, celebrates another boffo quarter

Swedish mobile gambling specialists LeoVegas turned in yet another stellar quarterly report card while announcing a major acquisition in online casino operator Royal Panda.

On Tuesday, LeoVegas announced it had inked a deal to acquire Malta-based Web Investments Ltd, which operates the primarily UK-facing Royal Panda online gambling brand. The parties say they expect to conclude by December 1.

The deal calls for LeoVegas to make an upfront payment of €60m with a maximum possible earn-out payment of €60m, subject to meeting certain financial milestones. These include Royal Panda generating revenue of at least €50m and earnings of at least €15m in the 12 months following the deal’s completion, with at least €34m of revenue and €5m of earnings coming via the UK market.

Royal Panda, which operates a proprietary technical platform and recently added a BetConstruct-powered sportsbook, generated estimated earnings of €3.2m on revenue of €9.8m (+61%) in Q3, with nearly two-thirds of revenue coming via mobile devices. The UK market accounted for nearly half of Royal Panda’s Q3 business.