888 Drop Valuation of Initial IPO – September 15th, 2005

The IPO of Cassava which was mooted for the 1st September has been put back due to the recent interim results released by PartyGaming.  888.com / Cassava Enterprises on Thursday dropped the price range for its initial public offering set for the end of this month, after its rival PartyGaming last week warned about a slowdown in the growth of online poker.

888.com, which is based in Gibraltar and operates the world’s largest online casino by number of visitors, said its owners would sell about 25 per cent of their shares and set a price range of 162-212p per share.

The new price range values the group at £546.1m to £714.6m ($1.0bn-$1.3bn). At the mid-point of the range, 888 would have a market capitalisation of £630.4m when trading begins on the London Stock Exchange at the end of this month.

The other Gibraltar based Casino also planning on floating on the London Stock Exchange – 32Red operated by Trafalgar Betting & Gaming are still going ahead as planned with their own £100 million IPO later this month.