Indians to make £300m bid for Lottery
A recent article on www.thisismoney.co.uk has reported that the operators of the indian lottery, are interested in buying a £300 million stake in the UK national lottery operators Camelot.
India's biggest lottery operator, Sugal & Damani, has expressed an interest in buying stakes in UK national lottery operator Camelot from Cadbury and Thales.
The two 20% stakes could cost S&D more than £300m, according to some estimates.
S&D chief executive Kamlesh Vijay fought a long losing battle against the current lottery oparators Camelot last year for a new ten-year licence to run the UK lottery that begins in February. One of the big things Camelot planned to do if they were to be successful in getting the new ten year licence was to launch the "Global Lottery" a new game played worldwide with massive jackpots that is expected to be launched in the next year or two.
Camelot had sales of £4.96bn in the year to March, slightly up on the previous year. It makes 0.5p profit for every £1 ticket sold. Not bad hey, however it also raises a lot of money for charity, as well as making some people millionaires (not me yet!)
While the remaining Camelot shareholders - Royal Mail, De La Rue and Fujitsu - have preemption rights on the sale of stakes, it is understood that none is keen to exercise them.
S&D is a privately owned conglomerate with interests ranging from hotels to finance.
Greek lottery operator Intralot said last week it was also interested in the stakes, though it was waiting to see details
What difference the buy out will make (if it does happen) is unclear yet, a 40% is a big percentage of the company to own, however its not a controling share in its own right.
Personally I cant wait for the Global lotto game to be launched.
Thats all for this lottery news update.
