lol at all the clueless grinders on here who only know how to play poker insulting a businessman like him. He may even turn out to be your saviour

+1
This sounds like a whole load of Hokum Pokum. I have enough on Stars to visit Chipotle about 4 times and I'm thinking to take that off. Whoever is funding all these 'deals' of Baazov needs their head examined. It's never seemed so easy to make tons of money since Bernie Madoff garden parties.

If anything came of this lets-go-private deal, it would deny us all the ability to view and scoff at the quarterly and yearly financial results. Pre Stars, the Amayazov deals have seemed very murky to say the least and post Stars purchase, we've been treated to 18 months of declining performance and upbeat assessments with a resulting tank in share price.

At the end of the day, the people who knew what was going on better than anyone were the Scheinbergs. They got out, got paid and have headed for the hills, good luck to them. In summary, if there is no US entry for poker, Stars is only worth a fraction of what was paid, with sports and casino there is far too much competition.

Baazov is making a light peel wants to see what the turn brings.

This is quite an arrogant and ignorant point of view. First, to say grinders are clueless is a pretty trite point of view that I have heard many times and it usually comes from the douchiest of sources. Most grinders are pretty smart people so maybe it's time to step off your pedestal oh ye great one. Second, there are many people on this site that have solid credentials in finance making well thought out pertinent points on a lot of aspects of the Amaya acquisition and it's leaders. I do agree that he may be a savior, but only after he came in and wrecked what didn't need to be saved initially.

Why not privatize, move to wherever Bovada is, pokerstars.lv worldwide, out of US jurisdiction. Open up. **** the DOJ. **** the US Gov. I'm tired of the red tape everywhere. Going rogue is the only way the business survives.

Amaya buys Poker Stars for 4.9 billion. Baazov now wants to purchase it for about 2 billion. Looks like some financiers are going to be in trouble with their bosses.

Ok mate.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...-dons-1580811/

Can't understand who would want to get involved with financing any of these deals. Amaya has never added value to anything it's done, and the 18 months record with Stars has been catastrophic with a share price in the toilet. Mr Baazov must be truly hypnotic when he enters rooms with investors, with them writing blank cheques for him by the time he leaves. The price for Stars BTW was $4.9b PLUS $400m if there is no change in Russian regulation within 2 years (none so far).

My first question as an investor would be to ask "if I give you a $billion Dave, how do I know $875m of that is not going to end up in the Kentucky state coffers?" would like to hear the answer to that... hypnotise me Baby!

Totally agree. Now we know Mondays announcement the 8% jump on Friday looks extremely suspicious and shady. Not really surprising when AMAYA is involved.

Agreed, every previous online gaming company Amaya has bought has ended up as a hollow carcass ripped of all its value and left to rot. Chartwell, Crypto, Ongame I think are three, any others? They have made some slots in their time I think - but utterly awful ones nobody plays.

When Amaya bought Stars I said it would be terrible for the players but I did not realise how bad it would be for the shareholders in Amaya also. Even with Mondays generated spike the shares are still trading below the price they were on the day of the announcement of the PokerStars purchase. There is no escaping the truth and that truth is Amaya are a terrible stock faced with many regulatory concerns on top of a rapidly declining poker industry. I fully expect the market to realise this announcement has no real substance and sharp declines to follow soon. This is an excellent time to short Amaya in my opinion.

Haha yeah Kentucky is a major concern, but it is a very public one that surely most serious investors in Amaya know about now. What many might not know about are the regulatory concerns over markets like Russia/Poland/Australia/Canada and what the UKGC's stance on these are. That is a real hidden problem for Amaya on the horizon.

Mondays share price increase might seem steep (and for those who purchased specifically on Friday it really was steep). However in the bigger picture it made only the most minor blip on an otherwise sharp marked decline over the last 6 months, and that is telling.

What if Isai Scheinberg is one of the investors? :P

I wrote months ago that the best people to get Stars back on track would be the Scheinbergs and that they could pick it back up for a fraction of what they were paid. However, I don't think they would take it back on what with all the new legal issues in the US and just the general messiness of the business and the increasing regulations. I think they got out at the right time, at an inflated price, and if they wanted to get busy again they could surely invest in other types of tech heavy businesses.

Amaya bought Pokerstars with mostly debt which will likely remain in place. This wont impact the value of the bondholders at all, they'll possibly even be happy about the transaction but it is too early to tell without actual details on the deal.

This.

And this.

lol... Pertinent like this?:

double lol at such a well though out pertinent point

Only if he's doing something illegal.

seriously. do ppl really believe that PS could 'hide' somewhere and that they get rid of all tournament series ...

i find it also amusing, that some believe this is a 'bluff' to bring the stock back

plus debts

Beyond the ban from operating broadly in the US and the allowance in certain state jurisdictions for them to have gambling licenses which I assume have strict conditions, what is the NJDGE's power to get involved over how a publicly listed company conducts its affairs?

I mean as long as they are transparent with the market and satisfy their listing requirements, I don't see how this is any of their business.

I can understand that view looking in from the outside but, DGE can make just about anything they want "their business". Gaming licenses are privileges not rights.

As far as current announcement that maybe there might be some announcement in the future about possibly something, with perhaps some set of mystery investors... sort of meaningless from a gaming regulatory (or really any other) standpoint.

If baazov offer actually has legs, and AYA cares about NJ license (as Slr940 correctly stated above, US market is more sizzle than steak), then DGE would be involved and need to give their blessing on a deal prior too closing (many new/existing individual investors/firms would get dragged into licensing process as well... more time.... more costs).

The Blackstone/Blackrock/BlackPstones cartel no doubt have some version of the Madoff cold call list at the ready. They are selling this stuff to suckers, brilliantly. Look at what they just accomplished with the stock price in two days, 35% jump. Even Madoff himself might not have had the dexterity to pull that particular rabbit out of his a**. So what if there was a little insider trading? They just sold a dog to the market, next they're gonna form a conglomerate of drooling 1940's movie stars and trust fund pill heads to buy the stock out at $17, gang bank them for buku fees then take it public again in a few months and pound some more fees out of yet more suckers after they have time to cook the books a little better. These guys are the Bill Cosbys of finance.


Most of their clients probably don't even know where they are, much less where Kentucky is.

Well through the conditions of the gambling licenses that are issued I can sort of understand why they (or perhaps the relevant state authority) would have a say in this in terms of their approval in order to assign the license to another operator.

Tremendous amount of ignorance about how the Market operates in these posts or I am missing a lot of triple-range merging going on.

Can someone with good knowledge corporate finance / capital markets provide a roadmap of the possible paths forward from where we stand right now (e.g. Baazov having made a non-binding statement of intent to put in an offer at $21, with a special committee of independent Directors to evaluate such offer, if made)? From what I've read to this point, outcomes include:

1) No other bids materialize, special committee / BOD recommends accepting $21 Baazov offer, SH's vote to approve and all existing SH's get $21/share.
2) Competing bids by 3rd parties are made, a possible bidding war ensues, special committee / BOD evaluates bids and recommends one, SH's vote to accept it, and all receive $X / share.

...But re: the actual logistics of the above, and other possible paths, that's where things get a little murky:
- What happens if Baazov decides not to put in a bid (either b/c he can't get financing, or b/c he simply changes his mind)?
- What happens if SH's vote to reject the bid b/c they think it's too low?
- Given that Baazov already owns 19% of AYA, are there just a couple other big insiders / institutional investors who he'd need to convince in order to get >50% and do whatever he wants?
- How about the $3 Billion shelf they registered for in November? Can that be used in some way (whether benign or nefarious) in this process?

Just trying to get some insight into how this might all play out.

now, u know that pokerstars-employee's read this thread..and maybe also david himself^^
remember what I ve written few days ago in the statement-thread^^

on 28th of january^^

Scary but probably true.

A publicly traded company has so many more rules and regulations to try to protect the stockholders and the public. Plus I believe they are required to be audited every year by a CPA Firm.

If a public company wants to commit fraud and steal player money they still can. Doesn't really make a difference

Case in the gambling community : purple lounge, a casino/poker room on the microgaming network who loudly boasted to everyone they were listed on the London stock exchange and had segregated player funds. They went bust owing players over £600,000 and stiffed everyone.

https://www.reviewed-casinos.com/new...-will-go-away/