Light & Wonder Proposes To Buy Rest Of SciPlay For $422 Mln; SciPlay Stock Up In Premarket

(RTTNews) - Light & Wonder, Inc. (LNW), a cross-platform games provider, announced Thursday that it has submitted a proposal to acquire the remaining 17 percent equity interest in SciPlay Corp. (SCPL) that it does not currently own for $20 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at $422 million.

In pre-market activity on Nasdaq, SciPlay shares were gaining around 28 percent to trade at $19.92.

Currently, L&W owns approximately 83 percent of the economic interest and 98 percent of the voting interest in SciPlay.

The proposed consideration would imply an enterprise value of $2.1 billion for SciPlay and a premium of 28.5 percent based on the SciPlay closing stock price as of the close of business on May 17, the last trading day prior to the proposal.

L&W said it will not conduct due diligence and do not expect consummation of the transaction to require any regulatory approvals or the approval of L&W shareholders, simplifying and expediting closing the deal. Further, L&W will not require any third-party financing to fully fund the transaction.

Following the deal, SciPlay would become a wholly owned subsidiary of Light & Wonder.

With the acquisition, Light & Wonder expects to unify its businesses, enabling seamless collaboration with SciPlay that will add further momentum to the Company's already robust cross-platform strategy. It would also combine the L&W and SciPlay balance sheets, providing flexibility to invest cash across the enterprise.