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As former President George W. Bush once so confidently said, “There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”

Or something like that.

After two futile attempts to acquire top UK bookmaker William Hill, the pairing of 888 Holdings and The Rank Group has thrown in the towel, announcing on Thursday that they will not be making any further offers to buy the company.

In a press release, 888 Holdings CEO Itai Frieberger said, “We are disappointed that the board of William Hill did not share our vision of the combined businesses. We believe that there was compelling industrial logic for the combination of these highly complementary businesses, which in our view would have brought scale, diversification, and strong revenue and cost synergies, from which all shareholders would have benefitted.”

Rank CEO Henry Birch added, “We strongly believe that the transaction would have created significant value for all three sets of shareholders. We and 888 are grateful for the shareholder support we have received throughout this process.”

888 and Rank made their initial approach to William Hill on August 9th, proposing to form a new company, BidCo, which would then buy William Hill. William Hill shareholders were offered 199 pence per share plus .725 BidCo shares per William Hill share. Based on the prices of 888 and Rank as of August 5th, it was estimated that the total value of the offer was 364 pence per share, or £3.164 billion. William Hill shareholders would have owned 44.6 of the new company.

After William Hill’s Board of Directors declined that offer, 888 and Rank came back with a new one at a 394 pence per share estimated value, or £3.425 billion. Once again, it was for 199 pence per share, but rather than fooling with a new BidCo company, the stock portion was for .860 shares of 888 Holdings for each William Hill share. William Hill’s ownership portion of the combined company was also increased to 48.8 percent. That deal was also rejected.

Following the dismissal of the first proposal, 888 owner Eyal Shaked was salty, tweeting, “Pure ego made #WilliamHill reject #Rank and #888 £3.16bn bid and that will be their downfall.”

In their “Statement of intention not to make an offer,” 888 and Rank still seemed a bit perturbed at the developments:

The Proposed Transaction would have created a transformational force in the global betting and gaming industry and the UK’s largest multi-channel gambling operator by revenue and profit and was expected to have unlocked substantial cost and revenue synergies.

Notwithstanding 888 and Rank’s belief in the inherent value of their Proposals, it has not been possible to meaningfully engage with the board of William Hill. 888 and Rank respect the William Hill board’s position and, as such, after careful consideration each now confirms that they have withdrawn their interest and that they do not intend to make an offer for William Hill.

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