Entain Sells 20% CEE Stake to EMMA Capital for €425m as Full Exit Begins

Key Points

• Entain has agreed to sell a 20% stake in Entain CEE to joint venture partner EMMA Capital for approximately €425m, valuing the business at €2.1bn.
• Through a separate voting agreement, EMMA Capital will assume majority control of Entain CEE, absorbing the voting rights attached to the Juroszek family’s 10% holding.
• Entain has confirmed that a full exit from Entain CEE is its goal, with proceeds from any future sale earmarked to cut group leverage below 3x and return surplus capital to shareholders.

Entain has entered into an agreement to divest a 20% stake in its Central and Eastern European joint venture with EMMA Capital for about €425m (£366m), marking the beginning of what Entain considers a total departure from the region.

The deal, at €2.1bn enterprise valuation, carries with it a multiple of about 10x EBITDA. The payment terms include an upfront payment of €395m upon completion of the sale, with the balance to be received in the early part of 2027 following the assessment of performance in FY2026.

While regulatory approvals are yet to be obtained, the sale is anticipated to be completed in Q4 2026. Entain plans to use the funds from the sale to reduce the debt on its balance sheet, resulting in an estimated interest saving of about £20m annually.

EMMA Gains Majority Control as Entain Steps Back

Once the deal closes, Entain’s stake drops from 67.5% to 47.5% while EMMA Capital climbs from 22.5% to 42.5%. The Juroszek family foundations hold on to their 10%, but under a voting agreement struck at the same time, those shares’ voting rights transfer in full to EMMA.

EMMA therefore commands a majority of votes from the moment the deal completes, without needing to buy a single additional share. The Juroszek family gets something in return: a put option on their 10% stake, exercisable in three tranches across the three years after completion. The put and call options that existed under the original shareholders’ agreement are cancelled when the transaction closes.

Pavel Horák, Investment Director at EMMA Capital, said assuming the majority voting position was “a completely logical next step.”

A Planned Exit, Not a Fire Sale

Entain’s board has confirmed that a full exit is the destination, with all options for the remaining 47.5% stake now being assessed. Proceeds from that eventual sale will go towards pushing group-reported leverage below 3x, and whatever is left over will be handed back to shareholders.

CEO Stella David put it in terms of discipline rather than necessity: “Our initial divestment is a decisive first step towards Entain fully exiting Entain CEE and reflects our ongoing focus on maximising value for shareholders. This enables us to unlock the value created by our Croatian and Polish businesses and demonstrates our robust capital allocation discipline.”

Three reasons sit behind the decision. First, Entain argues the exit fits a wider push to sharpen shareholder returns and strip back complexity in the group’s structure. Second, the sale crystallises value built since Entain CEE was established in 2022, when Entain took a 75% stake in Croatian market leader SuperSport from EMMA Capital for approximately €690m.

A year later, Entain CEE paid £750m for Polish sportsbook STS Holdings, planting the flag in the region’s largest economy alongside the country’s dominant betting brand. Both STS and SuperSport have held their number-one positions in their respective markets since the acquisitions.

The third reason is harder to dress up: Entain’s adjusted net debt stands at approximately £3.64bn, which is roughly where its market cap sits too. Pulling capital out of CEE attacks that problem directly.

CEE Numbers Tell the Story

Entain CEE reported net gaming revenue for FY2025 of £522m, up 7% from the previous year, with EBITDA at £184m, 7% more than in the previous fiscal year. Between 2023 and 2025, the company grew double digits yearly on a proforma basis in terms of online NGR and EBITDA.

This was not the case during Q1 2026.  CEE NGR fell 6% against the same period last year, retail revenue slid 30%, and online dipped 1%. Croatia bore the brunt, with sports margin down 7.1 percentage points as a heavily football-weighted product mix collided with a sustained run of results that landed firmly in punters’ favour.

That momentum shift in CEE, set against the weight of the UK government’s 40% GGR tax on online casinos, tilted the commercial logic firmly towards a sale.

Guidance Revised Downward on De-consolidation

Once the 20% sale completes, Entain CEE drops out of full consolidation in Entain’s accounts. Entain will still pick up its proportional share of profits and dividends for as long as it holds any stake in the business.

FY2026 guidance has been revised accordingly. Online EBITDA margin is now forecast at 21% to 22%, stepping back from the 23% to 24% range that had CEE’s numbers baked in.

The company held its online NGR growth forecast of 5% to 7% in constant currency on a like-for-like basis, and said it is comfortable with the market consensus for group underlying EBITDA of around £1.13bn. The 2028 target of approximately £500m in annual adjusted cashflow has not moved.

Entain will set out more details on guidance when it reports interim results on 13 August 2026.

Market Reacts Positively

Entain shares jumped as much as 4%, touching 576.6 pence in mid-afternoon London trading. The stock had been clawing back ground after a steep fall of around 46% from its Summer 2025 peak of £10.22.

Investors appear relieved that Entain is acting on its balance sheet rather than circling the problem. Selling to an existing partner who already knows every corner of the business keeps execution risk low for both sides.

Goodbody’s head of gaming research David Brohan had flagged before the announcement that any deal was likely to be “quite straightforward” and “well-received.” He pointed to CEE’s separate tech stack as a clean separation point and EMMA as the obvious buyer; he added that a transaction could “facilitate a reduction in leverage, potential for cash to be returned to shareholders, and increased investment in key organic markets.”

Expert Analysis

The Entain CEE divestment is a classic case of a company reshaping itself around its core while financial pressure builds. A 10x EBITDA valuation holds up reasonably well given the recent softness in CEE’s NGR figures, and the deal’s structure suits both sides: Entain gets a deferred payment tied to performance, EMMA gets voting control from day one without needing to acquire additional shares. For EMMA, this is the first step towards consolidating full ownership of two market leaders it helped create. For Entain, it converts a joint venture that was always somewhat peripheral to its UK identity into concrete debt relief and room to manoeuvre. The revised margin guidance, now stripped of CEE’s higher-margin contribution, is an unvarnished signal that the core business carries serious structural cost weight from the UK tax changes. When the full exit finally arrives, the price achieved will settle the question of whether Entain moved at the right moment or was simply running out of options.