Operator News
UK – Playtech rejects Aristocrat offer
By Lewis - 2 February 2022
Aristocrat Leisure’s offer for Playtech has been rejected after shareholders turned down the £2.8bn proposal, with less than 55 per cent supporting the offer of the 75 per cent needed to proceed. Aristocrat, which claimed its bid has been the subject of a blocking stake to prevent the sale, will not be able to make another bid for Playtech for six months.
“We are disappointed that our recommended offer to acquire Playtech plc is expected to lapse. Notwithstanding extensive due diligence on Aristocrat’s part, developments since the announcement of our offer have been highly unusual and largely beyond Aristocrat’s control,” stated Aristocrat CEO, Trevor Croker. “The emergence of a certain group of shareholders who built a blocking stake while refusing to engage with either ourselves or Playtech materially impacted the prospects for the success of our offer.”
Aristocrat claims that most of the dissenting shareholders took stakes in the company after its offer was announced in October. A group of Asian investors has been highlighted as taking large stakes in Playtech after the Aristocrat bid was announced, including Hong Kong-based Paul Suen and Stanley Choi. Aristocrat had asked the Takeover Panel, the principal regulator of mergers and acquisitions in the UK, to rule whether the investors were ‘acting as a concert party’ in breach of take-over rules.
Playtech shares rose five per cent today as the company announced it was considering other approaches, which runs counter to previous predictions that the business could be broken up if Aristocrat’s bid was not accepted.
