Oct 27 (Reuters) – Scientific Games Corp, a U.S. maker of slot machines, said on Wednesday that Canadian investment company Brookfield Business Partners, will buy its lottery business for $6.05 billion.<\/p>\n
The deal will consist of $5.825 billion in cash and an additional payment of up to $225 million based on achievement of certain profitability goals<\/a> in 2022 and 2023.It is expected to close in the second quarter of next year, Scientific Games said.<\/p>\n With demand for online game surging during the pandemic, Las Vegas-based Scientific Games had earlier announced a plan to divest its lottery and sports-betting businesses<\/a> to focus on gaming and digital content provider.<\/p>\n According to its website, it handles lottery games in more than 50 countries.The lottery business has also attracted interest from private equity firm Apollo Global Management Inc, a Bloomberg report said.<\/p>\n Brookfield said the deal for the lottery business will be funded with about $2.6 billion of equity, of which 30% will be raised through existing funds and the rest from its institutional partners.<\/p>\n Last month, Reuters reported that Scientific Games is also seeking to list its predominantly North American and European lotteries unit in Australia in a $5 billion IPO.<\/p>\n The company had in September also sold its sports betting business OpenBet to Endeavor Group Holdings Inc, the owner of the Ultimate Fighting Championship for $1.2 billion in cash and stock.(Reporting by Maria Ponnezhath and Tiyashi Datta in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/strong><\/u><\/p>\n <\/p>\n