Playtech Ltd. Seeking £100million IPO
Last week Playtech Limited announced that they are looking to raise £100million in funding by means of a fully funded share placement. This online gambling software and services company wishes to enhance earnings, finance new bolt-on acquisition opportunities and invest in strategic joint ventures. The news also leads up to a revised dividend policy, where they will pay out up to 40% of profits to shareholders in any given financial year. The shares have already been placed at 215 pence – a 2.5% discount on closing price. To date they have released 46,511,627 shares, and the placing represent about 19% of their issued share capital.
Financial experts believe that this is a wise move considering where online and mobile gambling is heading in the future. They believe that Playtech needs to cement itself even more firmly in this market place to retain its number 2 place as a global leader.
The current largest shareholder in Playtech is Brickington – Tedi Sagy – with 40.3% of shares, and they have agreed to underwrite the entire share placement with a claw-back mechanism. This will come into play should institutional investors not complete their subscription. In terms of the deal, Tedi Sagy has also aligned himself to increase his current shareholding to just under 50%.
They have identified a number of acquisition opportunities, and we know that Playtech recently acquired Mobenga as a bolt-on acquisition to develop mobile gambling platforms. Other acquisitions are planned to complement and/or expand their existing products and/or technology. The cost of new opportunities under review vary up to round about £40million, and to date, we are not really sure what it is they are looking at. Depending on the success of the share up-take, we are pretty certain we will know soon enough where they will be capitalizing. Playtech has said that; anticipated preparations will more than likely entail the injection of both marketing and operation expertise into mechanisms with JV partners.
Written by Neha A.
