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Monday, August 29, 2005Cassava Enterprises (Paficic Poker) expected to FloatThe big news in online poker this week is the suspected flotation of the gaming company Cassava Enterprises on the London Stock Exchange later in the week. Cassava Enterprises is the owner of online poker room Pacific Poker (amoung the top five in the industry) and online casino leader 888.com (by far the world's largest online casino). The flotation is said to be valued at over $1 billion. The media is reporting that the company is trying to get going on the flotation in order to speed up their plans of acquiring the largest takeover in poker history. And the rumors are that Cassava is targeting to takeover PokerStars.com (currently ranked as the number two, second only to partypoker.com, online poker room on the web today). Poker Stars is home to the World Championships of Online Poker (WCOOP) and also home to the 2003 and 2004 winners of the World Series of Poker (WSOP). Needless to say, a major player in the industry and a great target for Cassava. There has so far been no comment by the folks at Cassava Enterprises on their plans but the buzz in the media (including reports by the respected Financial Times) leads all to believe that this will happen and very soon. Earlier this year, online gaming mammoth, PartyGaming successfully completed their flotation on the London Stock Exchange, one of the biggest in many years. And now with Cassava jumping on the bandwagon it looks as though the trend has started and already the year 2005 has been dubbed by some as the year of the "Poker IPO's". Since Party Gaming IPO'd their shares have only seen a rise in price and the four lucky founders of the enterprise have recently been added to the Forbes Billionaires list, with a combined net worth of over $8 billion. After the success of Party Gaming's float in the market, Empire Poker floated onto the alternative Investment Market about a month later and has already seen rises in their shares of more than 35%. And along with the talks of Cassava Enterprises going public a number of other online poker rooms have been mentioned to do the same. Some of the bigger names being mentioned are PokerStars.com, 32Red, PokerRoom.com and Ultimate Bet Poker.com. So in the near future expect to hear a lot about these floats in the news as this industry, in the UK, is growing at an exponential pace and IPO history is in the makings. | |
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