It was a tight-knit Modern Orthodox Jewish family with six children that tolerated Baazov's strong rebellious streak-for a while. The son of a construction worker, he was born in Israel, and his Georgian parents moved him to Montreal at the age of 1. "This was a really, really big-stakes game." And it's only just begun.įor a guy who won about as big as you can win in the deal game, Baazov says he's not much of a poker player. "The game of poker itself is like negotiating a transaction," Baazov told FORBES in his first extensive interview ever. Whether or not he ultimately succeeds is still an open question, but Baazov's story is an untold saga of chutzpah, luck and pure perseverance. "They went out and bought one of the crown jewels of online gaming for $4.9 billion, and their valuation was much less than $1 billion." "It is an audacious deal that shocked the industry and shocked the people who watch the company," says Robert Young, a financial analyst at Canaccord Genuity. Baazov's 12.5% stake in the company is now worth $800 million. Nobody-not even his own executives-thought Baazov could get Amaya, a publicly traded company with $150 million in revenues, to buy Rational Group, an Isle of Man powerhouse with $1.1 billion in revenues and a controversial history, in an all-cash deal that included Rational's PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker.īut Baazov somehow pulled it off, and his stock recently changed hands for $33, returning more than 2,600% since he took Amaya public in 2010. The boldness of what Baazov has pulled off is stunning. With that one transaction Baazov is now the new king of online gambling, a near-billionaire player in a complex and high-stakes game, facing off against titans like Sheldon Adelson. "The whole time I am still negotiating with the sellers and saying, 'Hey, I am money good.' " "We left the building, and my guys were having heart palpitations," says Baazov. They abruptly ended the meeting and threw Baazov out on the street. If a CEO in the history of capitalism had ever managed to sell equity for such a sky-high premium, the top minds at Blackstone's credit group had never heard of it. dollars), he wanted Blackstone and other investors to buy shares at nearly $18 apiece and securities convertible into Amaya stock at about $21. Despite Amaya's stock trading just under $7 (all prices are in U. Operating like he held all the cards, Baazov proposed what would seem to be a crackpot scheme. With the backing of Blackstone's credit division he wanted to stage the $4.9 billion purchase of PokerStars, the world's biggest online poker company. At 33 Baazov was the little-known chief of Amaya, an obscure Montreal company with a loose handful of assets in the gambling industry. Earlier this year David Baazov walked into the Manhattan offices of the Blackstone Group, the world's biggest private equity firm, with an outrageous offer.
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