Amaya leaves door ajar for William Hill

Amaya CEO Rafi Ashkenazi has left the door open to a second merger attempt with William Hill as the Canadian operator looks to invigorate its struggling sportsbook.

Ashkenazi told Bloomberg after last week’s FY16 financial results that Hills was a “great company with a great brand” and it would be a “very good merger”, despite previous failed negotiations.

He added: “You can never say that anything is dead. Sometimes companies need time to reflect before they reengage in discussions.”

Merger talks between the two companies progressed to an advanced phase last year, before collapsing in the face of public criticism from major William Hill shareholder Parvus Asset Management.

However the same benefits touted by the two companies the first time around – including geographical diversification for Hills and sportsbook technology for Amaya – are still on the table.

Amaya’s BetStars sportsbook brand is still sub-scale, with revenues of just $7m in Q4, while it is expected to account for 3% of overall Amaya revenues in 2017.

Ashkenazi said during last week’ earnings call the product is still not competitive with established rivals, and the target for H1 2017 is to achieve product parity through “completely new mobile products”.

But external options are also being considered, and Ashkenazi told Bloomberg he was recruiting someone to focus on M&A, with the “highest priority” on sports betting.

“We are very open to acquisitions generally,” Ashkenazi said. “2017 will also be to a large extent the continuing transitional year for us, but probably from the second half of this year, I can be much more focused on finding ways to grow the company, not necessarily organically.”

The company enjoys an improving cash position thanks to an 18% jump in adjusted EBITDA to $524m, although it still has around $2.5bn in debt.

Amaya shares jumped to their highest level since October 2016 on the news to C$22.5.