The £2.7bn bid by Australia’s Aristocrat Leisure for gambling software maker Playtech collapsed on Wednesday after opposition from a bloc of Asia-based shareholders.
Playtech needed at least 75% of investors to approve the takeover, but only 56.13% voted in favour at the court meeting and 54.68% at the general meeting.
A group of publicity-shy Asian investors took a collective stake of around 27% in Playtech, which earlier on Wednesday said it did not expect the deal to get the go-ahead. The company was frustrated by what it called an “unwillingness to engage” on the offer by the new shareholders.
Aristocrat chief executive Trevor Croker said the “emergence of a certain group of shareholders who built a blocking stake while refusing to engage with either ourselves or Playtech materially impacted the prospects for the success of our offer”.
“Based on public disclosures, the majority of these shareholders arrived on Playtech’s register after the announcement of the recommended acquisition,” he said, calling their behaviour “unusual”.
