Entain has now reached an agreement with its joint venture partner, EMMA Capital to sell a 20% stake of its Central and Eastern European business, Entain CEE. This sale will actually be the first step for the company to fully exit the entire region.
The price for this transaction is expected to be approximately €425 million, which represents an implied enterprise value of €2.1 billion for Entain CEE. Entain will receive €395 million at closing with an additional payment expected to be paid early 2027 depending on the financial performance of the business for Fiscal Year 2026. The proceeds from this sale will be used to pay down debt.
Once the transaction is closed, Entain’s ownership in Entain CEE will decrease from 67.5% to 47.5%, equal to EMMA Capital’s ownership. Juroszek family will continue to maintain the 10% interest of the business.
CEO Stella David said:
Our initial divestment is a decisive first step towards Entain fully exiting Entain CEE and reflects our ongoing focus on maximising value for shareholders. This enables us to unlock the value created by our Croatian and Polish businesses and demonstrates our robust capital allocation discipline.
Entain confirmed that they are also looking to completely exit the business from Entain CEE, which includes STS and SuperSport.
For the Fiscal Year 2025, Entain CEE produced £522 million in net gaming revenue, representing an increase of 7% over the previous year, as well as an increase of 7% to £184 million on EBITDA. However, there was a decrease of 6% in revenue for the first Quarter of 2026 which was the reason behind the company’s decision to look at options to exit the company.
In addition, the company updated its Fiscal Year 2026 guidance after entering the agreement with EMMA Capital to sell a portion of the entity. While they continue to expect online revenue growth between 5-7%, they expect their online EBITDA margin to be between 21-22% versus prior guidance of 23-24%.