PointsBet shareholders have received an improved takeover offer from MIXI Australia, which is battling betr entertainment for control of the company.
MIXI Australia announced a slightly improved offer for PointsBet on Thursday (21 August), with the improved offer subject to MIXI securing 90 per cent or more of PointsBet shares.
If MIXI hits this level of ownership, it will pay A$1.30 per PointsBet share. Otherwise, the takeover offer price will remain at $1.25 per share, as announced earlier this month.
This compares to betr Entertainment’s most recent offer of 4.219 betr shares for each PointsBet share, which includes a selective share buyback programme.
The offer from betr Entertainment equates to A$1.27 per PointsBet share based on today’s closing price of $0.30 per betr share.
The battle for control of PointsBet Holdings began in February with MIXI offering to acquire the business for $1.06 per share, a 27.7 per cent premium at that time, for a total of $352 million.
At the same time, betr Entertainment (then BlueBet Holdings) offered to acquire PointsBet for between $340-$360 million, with $240-260 million payable in cash and $100-$120 million in shares.
betr Entertainment said at the time that this represents an illustrative value of $1.28 per share, although this was questioned by the board of directors of PointsBet, which has consistently recommended the takeover offer from MIXI.
MIXI said Thursday that its latest all cash offer is “last and final”, adding that the 29 August deadline for acceptance of the offer will only be extended in the event that MIXI acquires more than 50 per cent of PointsBet shares, or improves the offer consideration. Both of these events would trigger an automatic 14-day extension.
“MIXI Australia’s offer is for certain all cash as opposed to the betr offer which is predicated on uncertain value of betr scrip and timing of synergies, which have been characterised by the PointsBet Board as ‘materially overstated’ and which exclude revenue dis-synergies and implementation costs,” said MIXI Australia.
“MIXI Australia’s offer provides certain funding sourced from the approximately A$942 million cash reserves on MIXI Inc’s balance sheet, whereas betr is offering uncertain scrip value and the uncertain potential for a share buy-back subject to betr’s discretion after its offer has closed and with an upsize conditional upon an uncommitted debt facility.”
MIXI added that a number of large PointsBet institutional and long-standing corporate shareholders have accepted its offer, with the company having currently received acceptances in respect of 37.12 per cent of PointsBet Shares.
The company also highlighted that it endeavours to pay PointsBet shareholders within 10 business days whereas the betr offer is conditional and acceptances cannot currently be processed or paid.
In addition to its core online betting business in Australia, PointsBet is also active in online betting and gaming in the Canadian province of Ontario.
betr Entertainment currently owns 19.6 per cent of PointsBet shares.
Shares in PointsBet Holdings Ltd. (ASX:PBH) gained 0.40 per cent to close at A$1.26 per share in Sydney Thursday, while shares in betr Entertainment Ltd. (ASX:BBT) closed 3.23 per cent lower at A$0.30 per share.
In Tokyo, shares of MIXI Australia parent MIXI Inc. (TYO:2121) climbed 1.23 per cent to close at ¥3,280.00 per share.