The parent company of Paddy Power Betfair, Flutter Entertainment, are about to complete merger with Canada’s Stars Group in a Multi Billion £ deal. The Stars Group who own brands such as Sky Betting, PokerStars and Full Tilt have a huge presence in the US market.
US Market Expansion
The new deal will see Flutter-Stars focus on retaining growth and expansion in the US market where the Stars Group brands are established and showing positive growth.The main focus is growth within the US market but the merger is raising concerns from UK regulators with Flutter-Stars having 40% of the UK’s betting and gambling market. The threshold for market dominance currently stands at 25% but the merger far exceeds this. Its likely the UK Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) will raise concerns which could cause complications with the merger.
Appease Regulators
With the size of the new company being a concern, the only way to keep on the right side of the regulator would be to sell off a number of companies, the most likely company would be Paddy Power.It would be a difficult move to forego Paddy Power as most people associate Flutter with Paddy Power. It was only a few months ago the company changed it’s name to Flutter from Paddy Power. The merger is due to be completed next year so we will have to wait and see what happens. Over the years large mergers of companies have resulted in brands disappearing from the industry, we really hope that isn’t the case for Paddy Power.