Mandalay Media Makes Enormous, Last-Minute Offer to Buy World Poker Tour

Has the ugly duckling World Poker Tour turned into Cinderella? Earlier this year Gamyina Limited offered $9.08 million to purchase the World Poker Tour Enterprises. That was topped recently by an offer of $12.3 million by Peerless Media. In fact, Tour’s board of directors was preparing to vote on Peerless Media’s offer. In case you’ve never heard of Peerless Media, their subsidiary is PartyGaming.

But wait! Stop the presses! WPTE received an eleventh hour offer from Mandalay Media worth $36.5 million. This is an enormous increase by any standards over the original Gamyina offer of slightly more than $9 million as well as the offer of $12.3 million from Peerless that was under serious consideration by WPTE’s board of directors.

WPT is now looking at something that’s four times larger than the original deal, plus Mandalay Media is offering what they’ve referred to as “significant cash and stock” to WPTE shareholders.

Mandalay Media is hoping to meet with the WPTE Board of Directors as soon as possible, so this is a story that has yet to play out. Even so, one has to wonder why, and how, suitors are now finding such increased value in a company that was reportedly foundering just last year.