The Minister of Canadian Heritage has given Penn National Gaming approval under the Investment Canada Act to acquire Toronto-based operator theScore.
Penn agreed to acquire theScore in a $2.0bn cash-and-stock deal in August, with chief executive Jay Snowden suggesting at the time that he plans to migrate Penn’s betting products to a platform currently being built by theScore.
Penn will pay $17.00 in cash and 0.2398 shares – $17.00’s worth – of its stock for every theScore share, for a total consideration of $34.00 per share. This will mean that theScore shareholders will hold approximately 7% of the new combined business, while current Penn shareholders will hold the remaining 93%.
Although the deal was initially set to close in early 2022, Penn said it is now expected to be complete on 19 October, following final approval from the Supreme Court of British Columbia, as well as shareholder meetings for both operators on 12 October.
TheScore is currently developing its own platform, part of a wider operational overhaul.