Light & Wonder, the gigantic American provider of gaming products and services, has announced that it completed the sale of its lottery business Brookfield Business Partners, a private equity company Brookfield Business Partners, a subsidiary of Canadian financial services giant Brookfield Asset Management Incorporated.
Light & Wonder has been known in the gaming industry as Scientific Games but the company decided to switch to the new brand earlier this year. At that time, the corporation announced that the new name would better reflect the group’s shift towards focusing on gaming services.
The same idea was behind the sale of the lottery business to Brookfield Business Partners in a deal worth 5.8 billion dollars. Light & Wonder underlined the fact that this sale represents a major milestone in the history of the company, transforming both its business and its balance sheet.
The decision to sell the lottery business came after a strategic review of the corporation’s activity, while the money generated from the deal will be used to reduce the company’s debt to a net debt leverage ratio range of 2.5x to 3.5x. The American company aims to pay down around 5 billion dollars in existing debt.
However, some of the money from the sale will also be used to fund share buybacks in order to give something back to shareholders. Moreover, the company aims to use the rest of the proceeds to invest in further growth opportunities.
