Pokerstars

PokerStars soll Full Tilt Poker gekauft haben! – Update – Offizielles Statement von Tapie

Die Meldungen überschlagen sich. Wir sind auf einen 2+2 Thread aufmerksam geworden, jetzt kam die Meldung von Alexandre Dreyfus über Twitter „Pokerstars buys FullTilt for a consideration of $750m, including settlement with DOJ and full balances of players (330m). I’m impressed.“

Das Orignialposting im 2+2 Thread war wenig vertrauenswürdig – erster Post und mit einem “Predicting the future“. Was weit mehr für Erstaunen in der Redaktion sorgte war der Zusatz des altehrwürdigen Moderators NoahSD „I don’t know if this is actually true, but a number of inside sources contacted me to tell me to undelete this thread. So, this thread is staying open for now.“

Die Nachfrage bei PokerStars Germany lief ins Leere, aber nur kurze Zeit später verlautete Alexandre Dreyfus über Twitter, dass PokerStars eben Full Tilt Poker für $750.000.000 gekauft hätte. Dass sich Dreyfus einen üblen Scherz erlaubt, davon ist nicht auszugehen.

Weitere Details gibt es bislang keine, einzig diese beiden Meldungen verbreiten sich wie ein Lauffeuer in der Community. Pokerfirma bleibt für Euch natürlich dran und hält Euch auf dem Laufenden!

Update 17:45 Uhr:
Es gibt kein offizielles Statement von PokerStars.
Igaming France meldet über Twitter: „Just spoken to Laurent Tapie re Stars-FTP buyout, no comment, he’ll put out a release later today…“
EGamingReview via Twitter: „GBT: „our efforts to obtain final DoJ approval to acquire the assets of Full Tilt Poker have ended without success“ – more to follow“

Update 18:05 Uhr:

Pokerupdate.com meldet „PokerUpdate has received information from credible sources at Full Tilt offices in Cherry Wood, Dublin that PokerStars have indeed purchased the Full Tilt assets.“
Eine weiter Meldung von igaming France über Twitter: „Laurent Tapie confirms deal is off for FTP buyout, insinuates external sabotage over DOJ negociations. More to follow… #pokerstars“

18:30 Uhr:
Offizielles Statement der Groupe Bernard Tapie:

Groupe Bernard Tapie regrets to announce that, after seven months of intensive work, our efforts to obtain final approval of the United States Department of Justice of the agreement to acquire the assets of Full Tilt Poker have ended without success.
Ultimately, the deal failed due to two major issues.
The parties could not agree on a plan for repayment of ROW players.
GBT proposed a plan that would have resulted in immediate reinstatement of all ROW player balances, with a right to withdraw those funds over time, based on the size of the player balance and the extent of the player’s playing activity on the re-launched site. All players would have been permitted complete withdrawal of their balances, regardless of whether they played on the site, by a date certain, and 94.9% of ROW players would have been fully repaid on day 1. DOJ ultimately insisted on full repayment with right of withdrawal within 90 days for all players– a surprise demand made in the 11th hour, after months of good-faith negotiations by GBT.
The legal complications surrounding the deal – specifically, questions surrounding the legality of the forfeiture under non-US laws – also proved unresolvable.
All of the key assets of the FTP companies reside outside of the United States. A non-US court well might regard the purported forfeiture as a “fraudulent transaction” and declare it invalid or deem the acquirer of the assets responsible for all of those creditor obligations.
Given the $80 million purchase price, and the substantial amount of cash needed to relaunch FTP, those issues ultimately proved too substantial to overcome.
GBT is very conscious of the hopes it has created – among FTP employees that they will retain their jobs, among FTP players that they will recover their balances, and among the entire poker community that the world’s finest poker platform will be relaunched and bring a needed added element of competition to a world market that today is fully dominated by a single operator.
GBT cannot accept the end of those hopes.
For that reason, unless a concrete and legally viable solution is found in the very coming days to save the employees and repay the players of FTP, we will move to our own plan of action.
We understand from press reports that the DOJ may have entered into an agreement with PokerStars pursuant to which PokerStars will acquire the FTP assets.
If accurate, we can only assume that PokerStars determined that it was willing to accept these legal and financial risks in order to resolve its own legal situation with DOJ.

If a PokerStars acquisition of FTP means that all FTP players will be fully repaid immediately, we are very happy for the players, as their final and full repayment has always been our priority.
We only regret that such a deal would signal further consolidation of a poker market already dominated by a single player – an outcome that may raise antitrust concerns and that, in the long run, is probably not good for players and for the whole online poker industry.”

Update 19:30 Uhr:
Alle warten gespannt auf eine Bestätigung durch PokerStars. Für viele gilt das bisherige Schweigen von PokerStars bereits als Bestätigung des Deals.

Update 19:40 Uhr:
Auf Quadjacks wird eine baldige Stellungnahme von PokerStars angekündigt.

Update 21:00 Uhr:
Ein neuer Thread von Shaun Deeb: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/biggest-news-about-ftp-stars-1197578/
I feel bad making a new thread but dont want this info lost elsewhere but cliffs are included my source I trust a lot.

Anyways the deal is already done by what I am told;

Players will be paid within 90 days
FTP will be open in the US market
Isai will be stepping down from the company

If these statements are true I feel that Isai deserves all our thanks+ business in the future with his company he is bailing out the igaming industry’s tarnished reputation

Update 00:45 Uhr:
Das lang ersehnte Statement von PokerStars ist da. Zwar nicht das was man erwartete, aber auch kein schlechtes:

We’ve had a lot of enquiries and there’s lots of speculation on the forums, so I wanted to address the PokerStars chatter. As you know, PokerStars is in settlement discussions with the U.S. Department of Justice. As such settlement discussions are always confidential, we are unable to comment on rumors. As soon as we have information to share publicly we will do so.

Eric Hollreiser is Head of Corporate Communications for PokerStars


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