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Cohn Robbins Holdings Corp. Comments on Allwyn Entertainment Being Named the Preferred Applicant for the UK’s Fourth National Lottery License

Cohn Robbins Holdings Corp. Comments on Allwyn Entertainment Being Named the Preferred Applicant for the UK’s Fourth National Lottery License
PR Newswire
WILMINGTON, Del., March 16, 2022

WILMINGTON, Del., March 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Cohn Robbins…

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Cohn Robbins Holdings Corp. Comments on Allwyn Entertainment Being Named the Preferred Applicant for the UK's Fourth National Lottery License

PR Newswire

WILMINGTON, Del., March 16, 2022

WILMINGTON, Del., March 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Cohn Robbins Holding Corp. (NYSE: CRHC), which has entered into a merger agreement with Allwyn Entertainment, issued the following comment from its co-chairmen, Gary D. Cohn and Clifton S. Robbins, regarding the decision published yesterday by the United Kingdom's Gambling Commission naming Allwyn's UK business, Allwyn Entertainment Ltd., as the Preferred Applicant for the UK's fourth National Lottery license, following a competitive process:

"We congratulate our partners, led by Board Chairman Karel Komárek and CEO Robert Chvatal, along with the UK team led by Sir Keith Mills, on this tremendous accomplishment and milestone in Allwyn's journey to become the global leader in managing lotteries. The UK National Lottery is one of the largest in the world and we are very pleased that Allwyn Entertainment Ltd.'s proposal was judged to be the best way of growing returns to good causes," said Gary D. Cohn and Clifton S. Robbins, Co-Founders and Co-Chairmen of Cohn Robbins Holdings Corp.

A positive outcome for Allwyn's UK business in the tender for the UK's fourth National Lottery license was not part of Cohn Robbins' financial forecasts in evaluating and entering into the transaction with Allwyn.

"We remain strongly supportive of Allwyn's goal to continue to expand into new markets including the UK, Western Europe and the United States," added Messrs. Cohn and Robbins.

According to information published publicly today by the UK Gambling Commission, the current third National Lottery license is due to expire in 2024. Following a legal standstill period of at least 10 days beginning yesterday, a 22-month transition period will proceed toward the fourth license, which has a fixed 10-year term.

Allwyn Entertainment, the new group-wide brand for SAZKA Entertainment AG, is a lottery, entertainment, and digital gaming operator, with trusted brands delivering over €16bn in wagers.  Allwyn is one of Europe's largest and fastest growing lottery companies and its strong performance across its markets is helping to fund good causes in Austria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Cyprus and Italy.

About Cohn Robbins Holdings Corp.
Founded and listed on the NYSE in 2020, Cohn Robbins Holdings Corp. is Co-Chaired by Gary D. Cohn and Clifton S. Robbins.  Mr. Cohn is Vice Chairman of IBM and has more than 30 years of financial services experience spanning the private and public sectors, having served as Assistant to the President of the United States for Economic Policy and Director of the National Economic Council from January 2017 until April 2018, and as President, Chief Operating Officer and a director of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. from 2006-2016.  Mr. Robbins has more than 35 years of investment management experience, including as Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Blue Harbour Group from 2004-2020, a Managing Member of global growth investor General Atlantic Partners from 2000-2004, and as a General Partner of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. ("KKR") where he worked from 1987-2000.

Forward-Looking Statements
This communication includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 with respect to the proposed business combination between CRHC and the Company (the "Business Combination"). Words such as "expect," "estimate," "project," "budget," "forecast," "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "may," "will," "could," "should," "believe," "predict," "potential," "continue," "strategy," "future," "opportunity," "would," "seem," "seek," "outlook" and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements.  Forward-looking statements are predictions, projections and other statements about future events that are based on current expectations and assumptions and, as a result, are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from the expected results.  These statements are based on various assumptions, whether or not identified in this communication.  These forward-looking statements are provided for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to serve as, and must not be relied on by an investor as, a guarantee, an assurance, a prediction or a definitive statement of fact or probability.  Actual events and circumstances are difficult or impossible to predict and will differ from assumptions.  These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, the Company's and CRHC's expectations with respect to anticipated financial impacts of the Business Combination, the satisfaction of closing conditions to the Business Combination, and the timing of the completion of the Business Combination.  You should carefully consider the risks and uncertainties described in the "Risk Factors" section of CRHC's registration statement on Form S-1 (File No. 333-240277), its Annual Report on Form 10-K, as amended from time to time, for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020and its subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q.   In addition, there will be risks and uncertainties described in the Form F-4 and other documents filed by Allwyn Entertainment AG, a Swiss stock corporation (Aktiengesellschaft) ("Swiss NewCo"), and CRHC from time to time with the SEC.  These filings would identify and address other important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements.  Most of these factors are outside the Company's and CRHC's control and are difficult to predict.  Many factors could cause actual future events to differ from the forward-looking statements in this communication, including but not limited to: (1) the outcome of any legal proceedings that may be instituted against CRHC or the Company following the announcement of the Business Combination; (2) the inability to complete the Business Combination, including due to the inability to concurrently close the Business Combination and the private placement of common stock or due to failure to obtain approval of the CRHC stockholders; (3) the risk that the transaction may not be completed by CRHC's business combination deadline and the potential failure to obtain an extension of the Business Combination deadline if sought by CRHC; (4) the failure to satisfy the conditions to the consummation of the transaction, including the approval by the CRHC stockholders, the satisfaction of the minimum trust account amount following any redemptions by CRHC's public stockholders and the receipt of certain governmental and regulatory approvals; (5) delays in obtaining, adverse conditions contained in, or the inability to obtain necessary regulatory approvals or complete regulatory reviews required to complete the Business Combination; (6) the occurrence of any event, change or other circumstance that could give rise to the termination of the definitive agreement relating to the Business Combination ("Business Combination Agreement"); (7) volatility in the price of CRHC's securities; (8) the risk that the Business Combination disrupts current plans and operations as a result of the announcement and consummation of the Business Combination; (9) the inability to recognize the anticipated benefits of the Business Combination, which may be affected by, among other things, competition, the ability of the combined company to grow and manage growth profitably, maintain relationships with customers and suppliers and retain key employees; (10) costs related to the Business Combination; (11) changes in the applicable laws or regulations; (12) the possibility that the combined company may be adversely affected by other economic, business, and/or competitive factors; (13) the risk of downturns and a changing regulatory landscape in the industry in which the Company operates; (14) the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic; (15) the Company's ability to obtain or maintain rights or licenses to operate in any market in which the Company  operates; (16) the potential inability of the Company to raise additional capital needed to pursue its business objectives or to achieve efficiencies regarding other costs; (17) the enforceability of the Company's intellectual property, including its patents, and the potential infringement on the intellectual property rights of others, cyber security risks or potential breaches of data security; and (18) other risks and uncertainties described in CRHC's registration statement on Form S-1 and Annual Report on Form 10-K, as amended from time to time, for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020 and its subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q.  These risks and uncertainties may be amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused significant economic uncertainty.  The Company and CRHC caution that the foregoing list of factors is not exclusive or exhaustive and not to place undue reliance upon any forward-looking statements, including projections, which speak only as of the date made.  None of the Company or CRHC gives any assurance that the Company or CRHC will achieve its expectations.  None of the Company or CRHC undertakes or accepts any obligation to publicly provide revisions or updates to any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, or should circumstances change, except as otherwise required by securities and other applicable laws.

Projections
This communication contains financial forecasts for the Company with respect to certain financial results. Neither CRHC's nor the Company's independent auditors have audited, studied, reviewed, compiled or performed any procedures with respect to the projections for the purpose of their inclusion in this communication, and accordingly, they did not express an opinion or provide any other form of assurance with respect thereto for the purpose of this communication. These projections are forward-looking statements and should not be relied upon as being necessarily indicative of future results. The assumptions and estimates underlying the prospective financial information are inherently uncertain and are subject to a wide variety of significant business, economic and competitive risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the prospective financial information. Accordingly, there can be no assurance that the prospective results are indicative of the future performance of the Company or that actual results will not differ materially from those presented in the prospective financial information.  Inclusion of the prospective financial information in this communication should not be regarded as a representation by any person that the results contained in the prospective financial information will be achieved.

Additional Information about the Business Combination and Where to Find It
Additional information about the proposed business combination, including a copy of the Business Combination Agreement and investor presentation, will be provided in a Current Report on Form 8-K (the "Form 8-K") to be filed by CRHC with the SEC. Allwyn Entertainment AG, a newly formed subsidiary of the Company, will file a registration statement on Form F-4 (the "Form F-4") with the SEC.  The Form F-4 will include a proxy statement of CRHC and a prospectus of Allwyn Entertainment AG.  The Form F-4 will be sent to each of CRHC's shareholders, and Allwyn Entertainment AG and CRHC will file other relevant materials with the SEC in connection with the proposed business combination.  Copies of the Form 8-K, the Form F-4 and all other relevant materials filed or that will be filed with the SEC will be available at www.sec.gov. 

Participants in the Solicitation
CRHC, the Company and Swiss NewCo and their respective directors and executive officers, under SEC rules, may be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies of CRHC stockholders in connection with the Business Combination.  Investors and security holders may obtain more detailed information regarding the names and interests in the Business Combination of CRHCs' directors and officers in CRHC's filings with the SEC, including CRHC's registration statement on Form S-1, which was originally filed with the SEC on July 31, 2020.  To the extent that holdings of CRHC's securities have changed from the amounts reported in CRHC's registration statement on Form S-1, such changes have been or will be reflected on Statements of Change in Ownership on Form 4 filed with the SEC. Information regarding the persons who may, under SEC rules, be deemed participants in the solicitation of proxies to CRHC stockholders in connection with the Business Combination will be included in the proxy statement/prospectus relating to the Business Combination when it becomes available.  You may obtain free copies of these documents as described in the preceding paragraph. 

No Offer and Non-Solicitation
This communication shall not constitute a proxy statement or solicitation of a proxy, consent or authorization with respect to any securities or in respect of the Business Combination. This communication shall also not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities of CRHC or Company, nor shall there be any sale of securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction. No offering of securities shall be made except by means of a prospectus meeting the requirements of Section 10 of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended.

Contacts
For media inquiries: 
Adam Weiner
Arrowpath Advisors for Cohn Robbins Holdings Corp.
CRHCmedia@arrowpath.com 
+1 212 596 7700

For investor inquiries:
Ryan Lawrence, ICR
allwyn.ir@icrinc.com

 

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The Coming Of The Police State In America

The Coming Of The Police State In America

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

The National Guard and the State Police are now…

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6 hours ago

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March 9, 2024

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The Coming Of The Police State In America

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

The National Guard and the State Police are now patrolling the New York City subway system in an attempt to do something about the explosion of crime. As part of this, there are bag checks and new surveillance of all passengers. No legislation, no debate, just an edict from the mayor.

Many citizens who rely on this system for transportation might welcome this. It’s a city of strict gun control, and no one knows for sure if they have the right to defend themselves. Merchants have been harassed and even arrested for trying to stop looting and pillaging in their own shops.

The message has been sent: Only the police can do this job. Whether they do it or not is another matter.

Things on the subway system have gotten crazy. If you know it well, you can manage to travel safely, but visitors to the city who take the wrong train at the wrong time are taking grave risks.

In actual fact, it’s guaranteed that this will only end in confiscating knives and other things that people carry in order to protect themselves while leaving the actual criminals even more free to prey on citizens.

The law-abiding will suffer and the criminals will grow more numerous. It will not end well.

When you step back from the details, what we have is the dawning of a genuine police state in the United States. It only starts in New York City. Where is the Guard going to be deployed next? Anywhere is possible.

If the crime is bad enough, citizens will welcome it. It must have been this way in most times and places that when the police state arrives, the people cheer.

We will all have our own stories of how this came to be. Some might begin with the passage of the Patriot Act and the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security in 2001. Some will focus on gun control and the taking away of citizens’ rights to defend themselves.

My own version of events is closer in time. It began four years ago this month with lockdowns. That’s what shattered the capacity of civil society to function in the United States. Everything that has happened since follows like one domino tumbling after another.

It goes like this:

1) lockdown,

2) loss of moral compass and spreading of loneliness and nihilism,

3) rioting resulting from citizen frustration, 4) police absent because of ideological hectoring,

5) a rise in uncontrolled immigration/refugees,

6) an epidemic of ill health from substance abuse and otherwise,

7) businesses flee the city

8) cities fall into decay, and that results in

9) more surveillance and police state.

The 10th stage is the sacking of liberty and civilization itself.

It doesn’t fall out this way at every point in history, but this seems like a solid outline of what happened in this case. Four years is a very short period of time to see all of this unfold. But it is a fact that New York City was more-or-less civilized only four years ago. No one could have predicted that it would come to this so quickly.

But once the lockdowns happened, all bets were off. Here we had a policy that most directly trampled on all freedoms that we had taken for granted. Schools, businesses, and churches were slammed shut, with various levels of enforcement. The entire workforce was divided between essential and nonessential, and there was widespread confusion about who precisely was in charge of designating and enforcing this.

It felt like martial law at the time, as if all normal civilian law had been displaced by something else. That something had to do with public health, but there was clearly more going on, because suddenly our social media posts were censored and we were being asked to do things that made no sense, such as mask up for a virus that evaded mask protection and walk in only one direction in grocery aisles.

Vast amounts of the white-collar workforce stayed home—and their kids, too—until it became too much to bear. The city became a ghost town. Most U.S. cities were the same.

As the months of disaster rolled on, the captives were let out of their houses for the summer in order to protest racism but no other reason. As a way of excusing this, the same public health authorities said that racism was a virus as bad as COVID-19, so therefore it was permitted.

The protests had turned to riots in many cities, and the police were being defunded and discouraged to do anything about the problem. Citizens watched in horror as downtowns burned and drug-crazed freaks took over whole sections of cities. It was like every standard of decency had been zapped out of an entire swath of the population.

Meanwhile, large checks were arriving in people’s bank accounts, defying every normal economic expectation. How could people not be working and get their bank accounts more flush with cash than ever? There was a new law that didn’t even require that people pay rent. How weird was that? Even student loans didn’t need to be paid.

By the fall, recess from lockdown was over and everyone was told to go home again. But this time they had a job to do: They were supposed to vote. Not at the polling places, because going there would only spread germs, or so the media said. When the voting results finally came in, it was the absentee ballots that swung the election in favor of the opposition party that actually wanted more lockdowns and eventually pushed vaccine mandates on the whole population.

The new party in control took note of the large population movements out of cities and states that they controlled. This would have a large effect on voting patterns in the future. But they had a plan. They would open the borders to millions of people in the guise of caring for refugees. These new warm bodies would become voters in time and certainly count on the census when it came time to reapportion political power.

Meanwhile, the native population had begun to swim in ill health from substance abuse, widespread depression, and demoralization, plus vaccine injury. This increased dependency on the very institutions that had caused the problem in the first place: the medical/scientific establishment.

The rise of crime drove the small businesses out of the city. They had barely survived the lockdowns, but they certainly could not survive the crime epidemic. This undermined the tax base of the city and allowed the criminals to take further control.

The same cities became sanctuaries for the waves of migrants sacking the country, and partisan mayors actually used tax dollars to house these invaders in high-end hotels in the name of having compassion for the stranger. Citizens were pushed out to make way for rampaging migrant hordes, as incredible as this seems.

But with that, of course, crime rose ever further, inciting citizen anger and providing a pretext to bring in the police state in the form of the National Guard, now tasked with cracking down on crime in the transportation system.

What’s the next step? It’s probably already here: mass surveillance and censorship, plus ever-expanding police power. This will be accompanied by further population movements, as those with the means to do so flee the city and even the country and leave it for everyone else to suffer.

As I tell the story, all of this seems inevitable. It is not. It could have been stopped at any point. A wise and prudent political leadership could have admitted the error from the beginning and called on the country to rediscover freedom, decency, and the difference between right and wrong. But ego and pride stopped that from happening, and we are left with the consequences.

The government grows ever bigger and civil society ever less capable of managing itself in large urban centers. Disaster is unfolding in real time, mitigated only by a rising stock market and a financial system that has yet to fall apart completely.

Are we at the middle stages of total collapse, or at the point where the population and people in leadership positions wise up and decide to put an end to the downward slide? It’s hard to know. But this much we do know: There is a growing pocket of resistance out there that is fed up and refuses to sit by and watch this great country be sacked and taken over by everything it was set up to prevent.

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/09/2024 - 16:20

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Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People with inadequate…

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10 hours ago

on

March 9, 2024

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Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People with inadequate iron levels in their blood due to a COVID-19 infection could be at greater risk of long COVID.

(Shutterstock)

A new study indicates that problems with iron levels in the bloodstream likely trigger chronic inflammation and other conditions associated with the post-COVID phenomenon. The findings, published on March 1 in Nature Immunology, could offer new ways to treat or prevent the condition.

Long COVID Patients Have Low Iron Levels

Researchers at the University of Cambridge pinpointed low iron as a potential link to long-COVID symptoms thanks to a study they initiated shortly after the start of the pandemic. They recruited people who tested positive for the virus to provide blood samples for analysis over a year, which allowed the researchers to look for post-infection changes in the blood. The researchers looked at 214 samples and found that 45 percent of patients reported symptoms of long COVID that lasted between three and 10 months.

In analyzing the blood samples, the research team noticed that people experiencing long COVID had low iron levels, contributing to anemia and low red blood cell production, just two weeks after they were diagnosed with COVID-19. This was true for patients regardless of age, sex, or the initial severity of their infection.

According to one of the study co-authors, the removal of iron from the bloodstream is a natural process and defense mechanism of the body.

But it can jeopardize a person’s recovery.

“When the body has an infection, it responds by removing iron from the bloodstream. This protects us from potentially lethal bacteria that capture the iron in the bloodstream and grow rapidly. It’s an evolutionary response that redistributes iron in the body, and the blood plasma becomes an iron desert,” University of Oxford professor Hal Drakesmith said in a press release. “However, if this goes on for a long time, there is less iron for red blood cells, so oxygen is transported less efficiently affecting metabolism and energy production, and for white blood cells, which need iron to work properly. The protective mechanism ends up becoming a problem.”

The research team believes that consistently low iron levels could explain why individuals with long COVID continue to experience fatigue and difficulty exercising. As such, the researchers suggested iron supplementation to help regulate and prevent the often debilitating symptoms associated with long COVID.

“It isn’t necessarily the case that individuals don’t have enough iron in their body, it’s just that it’s trapped in the wrong place,” Aimee Hanson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge who worked on the study, said in the press release. “What we need is a way to remobilize the iron and pull it back into the bloodstream, where it becomes more useful to the red blood cells.”

The research team pointed out that iron supplementation isn’t always straightforward. Achieving the right level of iron varies from person to person. Too much iron can cause stomach issues, ranging from constipation, nausea, and abdominal pain to gastritis and gastric lesions.

1 in 5 Still Affected by Long COVID

COVID-19 has affected nearly 40 percent of Americans, with one in five of those still suffering from symptoms of long COVID, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Long COVID is marked by health issues that continue at least four weeks after an individual was initially diagnosed with COVID-19. Symptoms can last for days, weeks, months, or years and may include fatigue, cough or chest pain, headache, brain fog, depression or anxiety, digestive issues, and joint or muscle pain.

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/09/2024 - 12:50

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February Employment Situation

By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000…

Published

11 hours ago

on

March 9, 2024

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By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert

The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000 average over the previous 12 months. The payroll data for January and December were revised down by a total of 167,000. The private sector added 223,000 new jobs, the largest gain since May of last year.

Temporary help services employment continues a steep decline after a sharp post-pandemic rise.

Average hours of work increased from 34.2 to 34.3. The increase, along with the 223,000 private employment increase led to a hefty increase in total hours of 5.6% at an annualized rate, also the largest increase since May of last year.

The establishment report, once again, beat “expectations;” the WSJ survey of economists was 198,000. Other than the downward revisions, mentioned above, another bit of negative news was a smallish increase in wage growth, from $34.52 to $34.57.

The household survey shows that the labor force increased 150,000, a drop in employment of 184,000 and an increase in the number of unemployed persons of 334,000. The labor force participation rate held steady at 62.5, the employment to population ratio decreased from 60.2 to 60.1 and the unemployment rate increased from 3.66 to 3.86. Remember that the unemployment rate is the number of unemployed relative to the labor force (the number employed plus the number unemployed). Consequently, the unemployment rate can go up if the number of unemployed rises holding fixed the labor force, or if the labor force shrinks holding the number unemployed unchanged. An increase in the unemployment rate is not necessarily a bad thing: it may reflect a strong labor market drawing “marginally attached” individuals from outside the labor force. Indeed, there was a 96,000 decline in those workers.

Earlier in the week, the BLS announced JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) data for January. There isn’t much to report here as the job openings changed little at 8.9 million, the number of hires and total separations were little changed at 5.7 million and 5.3 million, respectively.

As has been the case for the last couple of years, the number of job openings remains higher than the number of unemployed persons.

Also earlier in the week the BLS announced that productivity increased 3.2% in the 4th quarter with output rising 3.5% and hours of work rising 0.3%.

The bottom line is that the labor market continues its surprisingly (to some) strong performance, once again proving stronger than many had expected. This strength makes it difficult to justify any interest rate cuts soon, particularly given the recent inflation spike.

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