Shepherd and Wedderburn act for FanDuel in proposed merger

Shepherd and Wedderburn and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati acted for FanDuel in its proposed conditional merger with fellow fantasy sports technology company DraftKings.

The Shepherd and Wedderburn transaction team included UK corporate lawyers Stephen Trombala, John Morrison, Tom Swan, Eilidh Gillanders and Claire Busby, with UK tax input from Stephen Miller and Douglas Sinclair and UK share incentives input from Rodger Cairns and Gavin Charlton. DraftKings were advised by Cooley.

The transaction is expected to close in 2017. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Daily fantasy sports are one component of a broader industry that has potential for sustained growth as there are currently 228 million fans of major sports in the U.S. and 57 million fantasy players.

At closing, DraftKings CEO Jason Robins will become CEO of the newly combined company and FanDuel CEO Nigel Eccles will become chairman of the board. In addition to the chairman and CEO, the board will be composed of three directors from DraftKings, three directors from FanDuel and one independent director.

The company will be co-headquartered in New York and Boston.