Serial Dealmaker/VGK Owner Bill Foley Strikes Again This Week With News Of $9 Billion Payment Platform Merger and New Indoor Lacrosse League Team For His Henderson Arena
By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
You didn’t think Bill Foley was only about the Vegas Golden Knights, did you?
Foley, the man who made his money in a billion-dollar portfolio buffet from property title insurance companies and wineries to restaurant chains and a Montana golf course community, is a self-declared serial dealmaker.
And he has struck again this week, bigtime.
He created a blank-check company designed to work acquisitions and mergers called, Foley Trasimene Acquisition Corp., and this week he announced he’s merging with a payments platform operation called Paysafe Group Holdings Ltd in a cannonball splash deal worth $9 billion. This is a little bigger than Foley’s winery acquisition in June.
Here’s a business-speak release about Paysafe: It’s “a leading integrated payments platform, with a two-sided consumer and merchant network, whose core purpose is to enable businesses and consumers around the world to connect and transact seamlessly through payment processing, digital wallet, and online cash solutions.”
But the biggest part of Paysafe is its gambling-related clients and sports betting connections that are what they like to say is a growth industry these days.
And Foley is all about catching that “growth industry” wave at the bottom of that wave. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2021.
Paysafe’s appeal is that there’s gaming and e-commerce components and Foley’s acquisitions company found Paysafe as an ideal partner.
Let’s use the business release again: “Paysafe delivers a unique value proposition in large and high-growth markets, such as gaming and e-commerce, enabling the company to generate strong organic revenue growth and margin expansion. With a proven strategy and an experienced management team and our newly formed partnership, we believe Paysafe has significant long-term growth potential.”
Like I mentioned, the entire deal is valued at $9 billion when you roll in the debt. The deal caught the attention of the guys on CNBC. Foley Trasimene will combine with Paysafe and, Paysafe will become a publicly traded entity under the name “Paysafe Limited” and symbol PSFE. Foley also has institutional and private investors coming along for the ride: “The cash component of the consideration will be funded by Foley Trasimene’s cash in trust, $150.0 million in proceeds from the forward purchase agreement with Cannae Holdings, Inc., as well as a $2.0 billion private placement from various institutional and private investors. The $2.0 billion private placement includes a $500 million investment from Fidelity National Title Insurance Co., Chicago Title Insurance Co., Commonwealth Land Title Insurance Co. and Fidelity & Guaranty Life Insurance Co. and a $350 million investment from Cannae Holdings, Inc”
Foley is also growing his sports portfolio.
You might recall that Foley has been poking around looking at creating a Major League Soccer (MLS) team for Las Vegas.
Well, he’s not spawning a new soccer team right now, anyway.
But the Vegas Golden Knights owner who is building an $84 million, 6,000-seat arena in Henderson for his Henderson Silver Knights minor league hockey team plans to start an indoor lacrosse league team for the Henderson Events Center arena to give the new venue at the former Henderson Pavilion site some revenue-generating programming and some sports dates in the building.
Foley is looking at creating a team in the National Lacrosse League, according to Channel 8 here in Las Vegas.
LVSportsBiz.com broke news in February about the national lacrosse League looking to expand to Las Vegas.
Foley told KLAS Sports Director Chris Maathuis that he was looking to add the lacrosse team to the Henderson arena by 2022.
By the way, Foley also told Maathuis the Golden Knights are not trying to trade VGK goal-scoring winger Pacioretty to dump salary so that the fourth-year NHL team can get more flexibility under the NHL cap.
