The Stars Group seeks fresh funds for $4.7B Skybet deal

The parent company of online poker giant PokerStars has launched a public offering of its common shares to help fund its acquisition of UK online gambling operator Sky Betting & Gaming (Sky Bet).

On Monday, The Stars Group announced that it has filed a supplementary prospectus in North America for a proposed public offering of 15 million common shares. It will be valued “in the context of the market with the price and total size of the offering,” which will be determined at the “time of entering into an underwriting agreement for the offering.”

Aside from the preliminary treasury offering, The Stars Group is also contemplating on making a secondary offering of 6 million common shares.

Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank Securities will act as the joint book-running managers and representatives of the underwriters while Goldman Sachs & Co., Barclays, BMO Capital Markets and Macquarie Capital (USA) Inc. are additional book-running managers, according to the company.