Amaya Acquisition Ahead?

The owner of PokerStars and Full Tilt, Amaya Inc., has announced that its chairman and CEO, David Baazov, has plans to make a cash offer to acquire the company. Amaya has been valued at C$21.00 per common share and Baazov is prepared to make a cash bid but no formal offer has been made as described in Amaya's press release on February 1, 2016. “Amaya Inc. (NASDAQ: AYA; TSX: AYA) confirmed today that it has received a non-binding indication from its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, David Baazov, that he intends to make an all-cash proposal to acquire Amaya at a price currently estimated by Mr. Baazov to be C$21.00 per common share. The board of directors of Amaya has established a special committee of independent directors to review any proposal that may be forthcoming, as well as other alternatives that may become available to Amaya. Amaya's Lead Independent Director, Dave Gadhia, will chair the special committee.” Baazov currently owns a portion of the company but it willing to pay a price tag of C$2.8 billion to gain full ownership. The purchase would take the company's shares from being publicly traded on the stock market to a private ownership, which eliminate the fluctuation in market share prices. There are lots of questions surrounding the announcement like whether or not Baazov will follow through with an official offer or was this simply an attempt to start a bidding war. Amaya has put together a special committee to review offers but for now all we can do is sit back and watch what happens next.