THE NORDICS

The past 18 months has seen a ramping up of M & A activity in the gambling affiliate space , with Nordicfounded and managed companies the main protagonists . Scott Longley delves into the dealmaking activity by the likes of Catena , GIG , RakeTech and others , which only looks set to continue rising in 2017 .

THE M & A MOVES IN the operator and supplier space understandably dominate the headlines , but an equally significant process of consolidation has been underway in the igaming affiliate world .

And going by the news that has appeared to date this year and regular exchanges with affiliate contacts , the pace of change is likely to quicken in the coming year . But first , a recap of recent events .

Privately owned affiliate network RakeTech announced it had raised € 70m in funding in order to fund future acquisitions ; then Catena Media , a leading Stockholmlisted affiliate consolidator , released news of its latest buyout , the € 8.6m acquisition of Swedish-facing affiliate Slotsia .

Finally , Oslo-listed Gaming Innovation Group ( GIG ) announced its affiliate arm had bought an unnamed affiliate network for € 3.5m , following that news up a week later with the announcement that it had secured a SEK400m (€ 42m ) bond , the bulk of which would go towards further deals in the affiliate space . On 10 March , it announced its largest affiliate acquisition to date , of Casinotopsonline . com for € 11.5m .

These moves come on top of an already busy period of M & A in the affiliate realm involving not just the aforementioned firms but also XL Media and Cherry Gaming .

As can be seen from our tables , iGaming Business has tracked at least 33 deals within the last three years involving these businesses alone , and this doesn ’ t include a dozen deals in the past 12 months mentioned by RakeTech in its fund-raising news .

The dealflow , if anything , is speeding up and the amount of money involved in each individual buyout would also appear to be on the increase .

Deal sizes in the low single-digit millions of euros just one or two years ago are now

Figure 1 : XLMedia gambling affiliate acquisitions

rising into the € 10m-plus territory , and in the case of Catena Media ’ s recent buyout of the US-based PlayNJ business , up to a potential US $ 45m if earnout targets are reached .

PROPERTY DATE FEE + EARNOUT MARKET FOCUS Scandi / Danish network July 2014 $ 2.3m Denmark UK sports betting site August 2014 $ 2.3m UK MarMarMedai June 2015 $ 7.36m Unknown

Figure 2 : Catena Media affiliate acquisitions

PROPERTY DATE FEE + EARNOUT MARKET FOCUS Finix Invest November 2014 $ 6m Scandinavia LJFK Ltd March 2015 Unknown Netherlands Promo6000 March 2015 Unknown Norway Stay Media July 2015 $ 2m Sweden Arctic Marketing August 2015 $ 0.3m Finland Cornvinus August 2015 $ 0.65m UK La Luna September 2015 $ 0.45m Netherlands Good Game September 2015 $ 1.5m Finland

38 iGB Affiliate Issue 62 APR / MAY 2017