MIXI has submitted a fresh, off-market takeover bid of PointsBet worth A$402m (£199.8m) as the ongoing war for the future of the ASX-listed business rumbles on.
The move comes in the fallout a system error from a third-party platform led to shareholder votes on MIXI’s original bid being incorrectly tallied.
PointsBet shareholders met on 25 June to vote on competing takeover bids from MIXI and BlueBet parent company Betr.
The board unanimously sided with MIXI’s A$1.20 per share cash offer, with 95.7% of votes in favour.
Following the meeting, Betr claimed that its votes against MIXI’s proposal weren’t taken into account and demanded a recount.
PointsBet originally stated that that one of Betr’s senior company officers validly logged into the board meeting virtually and revoked Betr’s proxy on the company’s behalf prior to the close of the poll. This person then did not lodge any votes for Betr during the meeting.
In an update released today, PointsBet revealed it had used third-party platform Computershare to conduct all aspects of the meeting, including proxy voting.
Due to a system error on Computershare’s part, the proxy vote lodged by Betr was not revoked as previously advised by Computershare to PointsBet.
Therefore, Betr’s votes were incorrectly excluded by the third-party platform from the final voting result that was given to PointsBet at the conclusion of the board meeting.
This meant that the MIXI bid could not have been approved by the required majority of votes.
As PointsBet’s largest shareholders with a 19.9% stake, Betr’s votes would have been crucial in the final tally.
Computershare CEO Marnie Reid told PointsBet: “Following the review we determined that, due to an issue with the system set up for the meeting, Betr’s votes were incorrectly excluded from the final voting results that we provided to PointsBet. I confirm that Betr’s proxy was not revoked by the Betr representative.”
Following the error, MIXI has submitted an off-market takeover bid for PointsBet, which had been included in its contingency plan should PointsBet shareholders not back its initial bid.
The offer remains at A$1.20 a share, a figure the PointsBet board is recommending its shareholders accept.
The operator believes MIXI’s offer to be superior to the all-stock deal offered by Betr, which equates to 3.81 Betr shares for every PointsBet share.
A MIXI statement read: “MIXI Australia is encouraged by the fact that over 95% of votes cast by PointsBet shareholders (excluding Betr) were in favour […] demonstrating positive support of MIXI’s proposal to offer superior and more certain all-cash value.
“We look forward to progressing the takeover offer in a timely manner and paying PointsBet shareholders promptly in cash for their shares as and when the conditions to the offer are satisfied.
“The choice for PointsBet shareholders is clear: accept our proposal and receive A$1.20 per share in cash, as opposed to what is currently a lower scrip offer (with the uncertain prospect of receiving cash only if a share buy-back is approved at some time in the future).”
PointsBet said it would provide its shareholders with further updates and instructions in due course.
MIXI intends to share further details on its takeover bid with the ASX and PointsBet in the coming weeks.
Betr has yet to release a public statement since MIXI announced its takeover bid.
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Japanese conglomerate lodges fresh A$402m offer after third-party platform “incorrectly excluded” Betr’s proxy vote in controversial shareholder meeting
The post MIXI submits off-market takeover bid for PointsBet after shareholder voting mishap first appeared on EGR Intel.