SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
MIXI’s offer to acquire PointsBet has successfully passed a shareholder vote, with contender Betr now claiming its vote has been purposefully excluded.
The vote took place during a 25 June meeting of PointsBet shareholders. Announcing the subsequent results, Company Secretary Andrew Hensher stated that 95.7% of votes were cast in favour of MIXI’s proposal, while only 4.31% opposed it.
Betr has contested the results. The company is the biggest shareholder in PointsBet with a total of 19.9% of shares, which it intended to leverage as a counter-vote in the meeting. However, it is now claiming that its stance has been deliberately omitted by the meeting’s Chair.
“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’s Board of Directors said.
Betr is now calling for a recount to include its vote in full, warning that it will challenge the original vote at the Second Court Hearing on 26 June if results are not updated immediately.
Potential sabotage?
PointsBet has released a statement of its own, fully dismissing Betr’s claims of its vote not being counted. In fact, PointsBet Chief Financial Officer Alister Lui has ensured that Betr did not cast a vote at all during the meeting.
The poll showcasing the final results was overseen by a representative of PointsBet’s share registry, Computershare.
“The information included in PointsBet’s announcement earlier today accurately reflects the outcome of that poll as recorded by Computershare and confirmed by Computershare prior to the release of PointsBet’s announcement,” Lui added.
Computershare had confirmed with PointsBet that a Senior Officer from Betr virtually logged into the meeting and subsequently revoked Betr’s vote on its behalf prior to the closing 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,” PointsBet’s statement further read.
From PointsBet’s point of view, the scheme has been validly approved and will proceed to the Second Court Hearing scheduled for 10:15 AM Melbourne time on 26 June.
Comparing offers
MIXI first tabled a proposal back in February, offering AU$1.06 per PointsBet share for a full takeover price of AU$353m (£168m).
Betr then entered the bidding war with MIXI by offering AU$360m instead, looking to disrupt an Australian market dominated by heritage brands like Tabcorp, Entertain, and Flutter.
At the start of June, MIXI countered by putting forward a 13.2% increase on its first offer, this time proposing AU$1.20 per share, representing a total value of AU$402m.
Betr then tried to make one last dash to the finish line, offering 3.81 Betr shares for each PointsBet share, which would supposedly amount to AU$1.22 for each PointsBet share (AU$0.32 price per Betr share).
However, PointsBet remained focused on the MIXI offer, arguing that it represents more stability with its fixed $1.20 per share compared to a more volatile Betr offer.
