Goldman Sachs sells majority of Kindred Group shares

Goldman Sachs has sold the majority of its shares in Kindred Group to leave the US banking giant with a nominal 0.16% stake in the business.

In a statement released today, 22 August, Kindred said it had received a notification on 21 August of the decrease in shareholding and voting rights.

As of 16 August, Goldman Sachs had reduced its shares in the Unibet parent company from 5.42% to 0.16%, with the sale triggering a notification of major holding update for the Stockholm-listed firm.

The Wilmington-based bank has held a circa. 5% stake in Kindred Group since May of this year, with the shareholding fluctuating minimally since.

On 6 March, Goldman Sachs raised its holdings in the group to 7.99%, only to quickly sell off its accumulated shares to leave it a 0.22% stake as of 7 March.

Then, over a three-day period in May, the bank initially took a 5.64% holding on 15 May before increasing that to 6.04% a day later.

However, 17 May saw the group reduce its holding to 5.12% ahead of three more share purchases across May and June took its stake to 5.42%.

The disposal of the shares comes as La Française des Jeux (FDJ) proposed acquisition of Kindred Group continues to ramp up after the operator put a £2.1bn bid in for the company.

The transaction is expected to close later this year, with French antitrust authorities now reviewing the deal from a monopoly perspective.

Ahead of the deal’s completion, FDJ acquired a 1.12% stake in Kindred from Veralda Investment Group for €25.8m at the end of March.

In July, FDJ CFO Pascal Chaffard told investors that concerns the acquisition could be nixed over monopoly concerns were out of the question.

He argued that Winamax and Betclic would still be well ahead of a combined FDJ/Kindred Group business in terms of French market share.

He also rejected the notion FDJ would consider pulling Unibet from the French market to appease monopoly concerns.