Baazov offloads $100m worth of Amaya’s stock
David Baazov has sold seven million common shares in Amaya Inc, almost a third of his stake in the Montreal-based online gambling company.
Baazov headed up the company until March 2016 after he encountered legal troubles. Baazov was charged with insider trading and has pleaded not guilty but will face fraud charges on trial next November in Quebec.
Baazov sold the Amaya common shares at $19 apiece, totalling $133m. The sale represents around 4.8% of the company’s outstanding common shares and about 30% of Baazov’s holdings in Amaya.
The disposition leaves Baazov with roughly 17.6m common shares, representing 12.1% of the company’s issued and outstanding stock.
The sale comes only days after Amaya had announced that it had refinanced its long-term debt. The financial restructuring was put in place to discourage Baazov from acquiring control. The gaming operator successfully re-priced its first-line term loans and included an amendment to prevent a “certain current shareholder” from taking over the company.
Once previously known as the “king of online gambling”, in 2014 Baazov purchased PokerStars under Amaya for $4.9bn and unsuccessfully attempted to buy Amaya outright. In 2016 he ended his pursuit to take over management of Amaya’s assets, claiming that he could not meet “premium investor demands”.
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