Teddy Sagi’s Playtech, well-known now for planned Plus500 acquisition, is said that it is looking for raising funds for next acquisitions.
Playtech informed on Thursday that the company will raise approximately £225 million with around 29,050,000 Ordinary Shares placement with the price on share to be set via an accelerated bookbuild. This will represent 9.9% from Playtech’s already issued capital.
Besides Plus500’s acquisition, Playtech is looking for further buyouts as well. The company had £692 million in cash at the end of 2014, what is well enough for the Plus500 acquisition, albeit further buyouts will need more capital. Such situation motivates other shareholders of Plus500, lifting their stake in the Israeli broker recently, as we have reported before here.
The largest shareholder of Playtech – Brickington, has already informed that it intends to take up 33.6% of the Placing to keep its current shareholding of the same portion.
Playtech is said to plan to buy a midsize B2C broker over which TradeFX has an option to purchase.
Playtech’s CEO, Mor Weizer, said: “Playtech’s enviable M&A track record has been founded on its ability to be pro-active, facilitated by financial flexibility which has allowed it to be able to act from a position of strength. Today’s equity fundraising, in conjunction with new debt facilities, which we are in the process of securing, will improve the efficiency of Playtech’s capital structure whilst maintaining the financial flexibility to pursue acquisitions in both the gambling and financial trading space to deliver long term value for our Shareholders.”
Nevertheless, Plus500 acquisition seems to be vetoed by Odey Asset Management, holding now over 25% of the company, albeit extending its stake in the company suspisciously during the time when Playtech already informed about the set price (400p a share) for buyout. The shareholders’ meeting is scheduled to be at July 16, 2015.
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