Brookfield Business Partners has closed on a transaction with the recently branded Light & Wonder for the Scientific Games lottery unit. Brookfield retained the name of the nearly 50-year-old business with lottery holdings all over the world while the former owners of Scientific Games opted for a new brand to more readily reflect the makeup of their business going forward.
The Scientific Games name has been in use since 1973.
The sale was announced late last year among a flurry of other major mergers and acquisitions as more and more purely money companies enter the industry as additional markets open up. Brookfield noted that the lottery company’s global headquarters would remain in Atlanta (Alpharetta), Georgia. The leadership team will remain intact there as well.
Nineteenth-Century Firm
Brookfield was first established in 1899 and manages over $690 billion in assets. The megalith’s current business activity is mostly centered in the financial centers of New York and Montreal and includes divisions focused on Renewable Power & Transition, Infrastructure, Real Estate, Credit & Insurance Solutions, and of course, Private Equity.
While the deal has been fully consummated except for Scientific Games International GmbH, and its two subsidiaries, all other obligatory regulatory approvals have been granted. Austria remains a holdout in the process with full approval expected there by early summer and transaction completion soon after.
Pat McHugh, CEO of Scientific Games and the former Lottery Group Chief Executive under the former corporate structure said: “This marks an exciting new chapter for Scientific Games and positions the company to build on the record growth we achieved in 2021 across all parts of our lottery business.”
He added, “Taking a long-term view of the business, Brookfield is committed to providing Scientific Games with the flexibility and agility necessary to expand our deep product portfolio to meet the evolving needs of our customers and their beneficiaries,” according to a press release from Scientific Games.
Deal Consumated in Less than 6 Months
The sale of Scientific Games’ lottery business was announced last October and on March 1 of this year, the company unveiled a new brand for their internet and land-based gaming business – Light & Wonder.
Brookfield retaining the brand as well as the executive suite in the deal worth roughly $6b while the founding company essentially spins itself off to pursue its gaming and iGaming businesses is a fairly rare but not unheard of transition for such an institution. Players don’t care much about whether a Powerball or a scratch ticket says Scientific Games or IGT (formerly GTECH/Lottomatica) on the back of it as the perception is that lotteries are run by the governments that administer them. But the ‘fresh new’ brand of Light & Wonder with an injection of $6 billion into it would seem to do more than ‘allow it to focus on gaming’ – it creates a dynamic and formidable force to be reckoned with.
Source: Scientific Games Celebrates Sale to Brookfield, Scientific Games News, April 4, 2022