FINANCE & INVESTMENT CELL

ST.STEPHENS COLLEGE
DreaMerger 2016

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Please remember the following:
1. You have 2 hours to solve the case study. This will test your logical,
analytical, reasoning and innovative skills.
2. All solutions must have the participants name and college.
3. Attach your solution in an email and send it to us on this email id-
dreamerger2k16@gmail.com
4. Please mail it to us before 8 PM. Entries after 8 PM will be disqualified.
5. All files must be in PDF format.
6. Solutions should not exceed 3-4 pages, in Times New Roman, size 12.
7. You are not expected to use any additional information. Bear in mind that
this case is based on 5th September, 2016. All facts and characters are
fictional.
8. State your assumptions clearly and justify them. Please show all relevant
calculations (if any).

All the Best!

VZone plc is a British-based Betting and Gambling entertainment Company, based

in Rayners Lane in Harrow, London. From 14 May 1999 to 23 February 2006, when it
owned the Sheraton hotel brand outside the United States, it was known as Hilton Group
plc. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a member of the FTSE
250 Index, having been relegated from the FTSE 100 Index in June 2006.
The company was founded by Mr. Seawind and Pennington in 1886 as commission
agents for horses trained at Ladbroke Hall in Worcestershire. On 29 December 2005,
the Company announced the sale of its hotel operations to Sheraton Hotels
Corporation for 3.3bn and once more rebranded itself VZone plc. This was followed by
the acquisition of Ultron Arts Inc. also known as UA Games, an
American developer, marketer, publisher, and distributor of video games headquartered
in Redwood City, California. This helped the VZone enter as a new and strong contender
in the console and video gaming industry. Following the introduction of the Gambling
Act 2005 in the United Kingdom and the subsequent relaxation of advertising laws for
gambling companies in 2007, a TV campaign by VZone, that included a host of ex-
professional footballers, was the first to result in complaints to the Advertising
Standards Authority (ASA); the ASA eventually cleared the campaign. The Company
once again came under fire from the ASA in January 2009 due to complaints received
relating to an advertising campaign that hurt political feelings leading a flood of negative
publicity and fines.

In November 2009, the Company announced it would close its biggest call
centre at Alabe due to heavy taxation with the loss of 663 jobs and labor union strikes.

On 30 September 2014, VZone issued a warning that full year profits from its e-gaming
division (both under Vzone gambling and UA Games) would be much lower than
originally expected. Profits from the division were originally forecast to be 27.5 million
(around US $44.4 million) for the year, but had been revised by VZone to be between
10 million (around US $16.1 million) and 14 million (around $22.6 million). VZone
CEO Bryan Old said that the lower profit levels for its online gaming operations were
due to a number of unexpected events that were encountered by the company over the
course of the year. "Our digital earnings have been disappointing, reflecting a lack of
competitiveness in sportsbook, emerging technological competition in console gaming,
lower margins than planned, and a greater disruptive impact than expected from the
transition necessary to grow digital for the long term," he said. Its woes relating to
income (and earnings) uncertainty continued and in August 2016, VZone announced a
pre-tax profits drop of 49.7% during the first half of 2016. As far markets go Vzone is
the 2nd largest bookmaker and slot machine supplier in the US and the 3rd largest in the
UK. Under UA games the company supplies online casinos and console games in Italy,
Canada, China and the US. The company now needs to expand into wider and newer
markets primarily Australia and Japan. According to a recent poll in Australia 92% of
the population between the ages of 15-35 are active gamers and gaming critics. Japan
is climbing up the technical advancement ladder and is a growing market for innovative
virtual reality games.
On 3 December 2014, VZone announced that it was to look for a replacement for CEO
Bryan Old who was to leave due to major play in concealing the theft of confidential
customer data from the company's 2010 share prospectus.

Estimated Annual Revenue: $ 1.2 billion GBP

No. of employees: 14,700
Debt-equity ratio: 2.4:1
Reasons for expansion:
The new CEO has plans to expand into Japanese and Australian markets with
updated online gambling games as well as virtual reality console games; while
also growing as a stronger player in the Chinese markets.
After software and betting industry success they want to venture into TV and
console gaming technology with a now well accepted UA games division.
Get a wider audience with gamers as young as 15 and betting enthusiasts as old
at 80.

The company has approached you, a senior consultant at DM consultancy with

the following three options:
Option 1: Merger IGTs Coral

Coral is a bookmaker acquired by IGT the largest builder of slot machines in the world
to enter as strong competition in the online gambling market and currently has over
1800 betting shops in the UK as of October 2015 as well as hundreds in Italy trading
under IGT name. By 1981 Coral was one of the largest leisure groups in the United
Kingdom, comprising approximately 650 betting shops, two greyhound stadiums, social
clubs, casinos, hotels and holiday camps.

Coral operates an online casino, an online gaming site, and an online poker site.

Coral was the first major UK Bookmaker to sign to Turf TV on 22 December 2007. Coral
employs over 11000 betting shop staff within the UK.

In July 2009 Coral announced the inception of its new TV channel, Coral TV.

In November 2011 Coral announced they had signed for 30,793 sq ft of offices at One
Stratford Place at Westfields 1.45bn Stratford City scheme opposite the Olympics
stadium in east London. Coral is the first private company to sign for offices at the
Olympic park later in the year corals creative staff felt pressure to change the style and
gameplay to fall in line with what IGT management demanded and are not close to
coming to a consensus. The planned expansion was stalled due to inner disputes, losses
due to inefficiency and the operating group having approximately 1bn of external loans
maturing in the next 3 years.

The company offers a wide variety of online products and betting opportunities both in
the UK and internationally: Coral serves clients in over 130 countries, providing online
sports betting in the following languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian,
Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Russian, Turkish, Bulgarian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian,
Finnish, Albanian and Czech.

Other services operated by the division include Gala TV. The channel shows bingo
games.

In Italy the Group won 403 betting licences in the open market tender in December
2006 under its Coral brand but was banned for 3 years due to tiff concerning
controversial advertisements.

In China the Group set up a joint venture to launch land-based bingo in the country,
with bingo being seen as the most appropriate point of entry for the Group but being
new has to work its way to gain the trust of the people who admire the local bookmakers.

At the 2006 UK Gambling Awards, Coral was named "Bookmaker of the Year".
For the merger
VZone and Coral must sell about 350-400 shops in order for their merger to be cleared,
the competition regulator has said. The Competition and Markets Authority identified
642 local areas where it said the merger would hit competition. VZone and IGTs Coral
are the UK's 3rd and 4th largest retail bookmakers, behind William Hill. VZone has about
2,150 outlets in Britain and 77 in Northern Ireland. Coral runs 1,850 shops in Britain.
A merger between VZone and Gala Coral would make it the UK's largest bookmaker.

Estimated net revenue: US $2.7 billion

No. of employees: 10,155
Debt-equity ratio: 2.1:1

Option 2: Acquire Gala Plc

Purchased by billionaire John Magnier and his business partner racing tycoon JP
McManus in May 1991 for a reported 147 million. Magnier and Jp have then quietly
built a stake in VZone estimated to be more than 10%.[21]

Over the next few years, Gala began acquiring other bingo clubs to increase their
portfolio including 17 clubs from Ritz in July 1998 and 10 clubs from Jarglen in March
2000. In April 2000, they added 27 Riva Bingo Clubs from First Leisure for 90 million.
Gala diversified outside bingo for the first time when it purchased 26 Ladbroke Casinos
for 235 million from the Sheraton Group in December 2000.

The company had trusted yet minor presence in Italy, Japan, US, Canada, Germany
and India.

In 2007 it acquired game maker DreamWorks Interactive. DreamWorks Interactive is a

joint venture between Microsoft Corp. and DreamWorks SKG formed to create
interactive entertainment software that combines great gameplay and technology with
rich production values, compelling story-telling and involving characters. Titles released
to date aare Lost World: Jurassic Park, Trespasser, Medal of Honor, Skullmonkeys,
The Nneverhood, Goosebumps:Escape form Horrorland, Someones in the Kitchen!(TM)
and Seven Spielbergs Directors Chair. The company develops, publishes and
distributes software worldwide for personal computers and video game systems such as
the Playstation(R) and the Nintendo(R) 64.

Gala's total clubs peaked at around 174[9] but since 2007 and the introduction
of smoking bans in Scotland, Wales and England, this total has now declined to around
140.[17] In their 2012 year-end accounts, the company reported employment of 4,801
staff in their bingo clubs, along with 10,849 under DreamWorks, 2776 in 25 casinos,
276 in remote gambling and 98 in Italy where it has over 400 betting outlets - plus a
further 374 in support staff functions.

Later in 2008 the company acquired VZone china.

Estimated net revenue: US $1.59 billion
No. of employees: 6,000
Debt-equity ratio: 1.5:1
Option 3: Acquire bwin.party Digital Entertainment

bwin.party Digital Entertainment an online gambling and entertainment company,

formed by the March 2011 merger of PartyGaming plc and bwin Interactive
Entertainment AG. Formerly the world's largest publicly traded online gambling firm, it
was best known for its online poker room PartyPoker, World Poker Tour ,its sports
betting brand bwin (best in the world) and its video production venture Maker Studios
(3rd largest partner with youtube) in partnership with youtube headed by of pokemon
go. The company is headquartered in Gibraltar (low taxation) and quoted on the London
Stock Exchange.

Division: Bbwin trading

The division was founded in 1997 with the launch of Starluck Casino. Prior to passage
of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 by the U.S. Congress, the
firm was the world's largest online gaming and poker brand, based on cash
game revenue and number of players. Its market share has fallen since then, but it
remains the third largest online poker room in the world, behind PokerStars and Full
Tilt Poker and 3rd largest online gaming player after IGT and Amaya gaming.

The bwin became the world's largest publicly traded online gaming firm in 2010, 48.4%
owned by existing PartyGaming shareholders and 51.6% by bwin shareholders.

In October 2015, bwin announced the sale of its leading online poker network, Ongame,
to Amaya Gaming Group in a deal worth up to 25 million. In late 2015 the company
faced backlash due to plagiarism accusations by sony for the bwins game Money
diamonds being a rip-off of sonys gold digger. The case took a toll on bwin.party as
whole. But the company managed to control shareholder trust though the tiff sony made
the competitiors more confident. In August 2013, Bwin took the unprecedented step of
voiding all bets following a tennis match between Martin Arguello and Nikolay
Davydenko because of suspicious betting patterns. Although funds were removed from
customer accounts before the bets had won, the company claimed that due to "technical
issues in transmitting bets into the Tote pools in the last 10 minutes before the pool
closed", they would not pay any winnings. Reportedly some small gamblers were
deprived of wins of up to 16,000 apiece.

Division: Maker Studios

Maker Studios, Inc. is an American worldwide multi-channel network.

Outside of the US, Maker has built significant audiences in
the UK, Brazil and Australia, and aims to expand its Asian operations where it
generates 700 million monthly unique views. Run by Rene Rechtman, President for
International, Maker is building a headquarters in London for its commercial,
production and marketing activities outside of the US. An Asian hub has been
established in Singapore, offering limited commercial and marketing support until the
business is larger.

In April 2013 Maker Studios partnered with Mike Tompkins. Maker Studios have also
signed celebrities such as famous rapper Snoop Dogg and his YouTube channel
WestFestTV, actor Robert De Niro's Tribeca Enterprises, and Kevin Smith. Felix
Kjellberg (a.k.a. "PewDiePie") gaming critique with a following of over 36 million, is also
signed under the Maker sub-network Polaris.

This divisions revenue generation though is very unpredictable as it depends majorly

on youtube and its complicated terms and conditions. Inner disputes among the
youtubers is also an important problem.

Estimated net revenue: US $1.59 billion

No. of employees: 6,000
Debt-equity ratio: 1.5:1
 FINANCE & INVESTMENT CELL
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