PointsBet shareholders approve Mixi takeover as Betr votes excluded from the process
With the court hearing scheduled for tomorrow, there isn’t much time to clear up the confusion cause by Betr revoking its votes during the poll.
Key points:
– PointsBet shareholders held a meeting today to vote on a potential company takeover
– Shareholders approved the takeover by Japanese group, Mixi
– However, Betr are calling for a recount after a senior officer revoked Betr’s proxy vote
PointsBet shareholders have voted in favour of the AUS$402m (US$261.6m) takeover from Mixi, the Japanese entertainment group.
Both Mixi and Betr have spent the last few months submitting bids for PointsBet.
Mixi first entered a AU$353m bid in February, before Betr proposed its own deal a few weeks later at AU$360m.
This resulted in Mixi revising its offer to AU$398m, while Betr then offered an unsolicited, all-scrip off-market takeover offer for PointsBet just days before the votes were due to be cast.
During the meeting earlier today, 95.69% of votes were cast For the Mixi takeover, while 4.31% were Against.
At proxy close, the votes stood at 69.47% For and 29.59% against, but this is where things get complicated.
Betr quickly released a statement explaining that: “It appears that the chair of the meeting has impermissibly excluded Betr’s vote against the Scheme and provided no basis for doing so.
“The company confirms it validly lodged its proxy vote against the scheme as recorded in the PointsBet announcement this morning. Betr did not, at any time, revoke that proxy.”
Computershare, the company responsible for overseeing the process, confirmed that somebody at a senior level in Betr logged on and revoked the company’s votes.
In a release, PointsBet said: “PointsBet understands, having confirmed with Computershare, that one of Betr’s senior company officers validly logged into the Scheme Meeting virtually and revoked Betr’s proxy on Betr’s behalf prior to the close of the poll.
“This person then did not lodge any votes for Betr at the Scheme Meeting. As noted above, this explanation is consistent with the records of the Scheme Meeting maintained by Computershare.”
Good to know: While the identity of the senior officer has not yet been revealed, it has been verified internally
While Betr is demanding a recount of the vote to include the proxy vote in full, PointsBet has said that as the decision has been approved by the requisite majorities of PointsBet shareholders, it intends to proceed to the Second Court Hearing scheduled for tomorrow.
Betr has said it will challenge this at the hearing at that the company is still preparing its unconditional takeover offer direct to PointsBet shareholders and will share further details with the market in coming days.
We will continue to update as the situation unfolds.
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