The Herald of Scotland offers new analysis based on PartyGaming settlement

From today's CAP News page:

April 13, 2009 (CAP Newswire) -- Writing in the Scottish newspaper The Herald, Douglas Hamilton is among the latest business writers to speculate that the recent PartyGaming settlement may open up the online gambling industry to a wave of consolidation and mergers.

The fact that the U.S. government has agreed not to prosecute PartyGaming means that the company can now focus its energy into forward momentum, instead of having to dilute its resources in the U.S. legal negotiations. This newly legitimate status will, in turn, restore the company’s access to capital needed for mergers and acquisitions, writes Hamilton.

"We've received a favourable indication from the parties that we'd gone to that once this matter was resolved we could have access to not only the equity markets, but to debt markets," Jim Ryan, PartyGaming’s CEO, was quoted in the article. "We are now well placed to seize organic as well as strategic opportunities that previously were beyond our reach."

According to Hamilton, PartyGaming is already reaching out to financial organizations to see what kind of capital it can gain access to. Because of the agreement, the company can now include U.S. investors on that list of possible financial partners, as well.

Click here to read Douglas Hamilton's article in The Herald.