PointsBet takeover hangs in balance after farcical voting error

The complicated nature of Japanese company MIXI’s intended takeover of PointsBet has taken a farcical turn with PointsBet’s board now conceding that it hadn’t received the required approval from shareholders during a shareholder scheme meeting.

A system error from Computershare, which conducted the vote, was blamed for Betr’s proxy votes being excluded from the final vote count on Wednesday, which meant that the $400 million MIXI takeover would have been approved.

Betr holds 19.9 per cent of PointsBet and had stated it would vote against the MIXI deal.   

A revised vote tally was published on Thursday morning, indicating that only 70.5 percent of eligible shareholder votes had been cast in favour of the MIXI deal. It needed 75 per cent of votes to pass.

“PointsBet was informed yesterday evening at around 8:40pm (Melbourne time) by Computershare, that due to a system error on its part, the proxy lodged by Betr Entertainment Limited (Betr) proxy was not revoked as previously advised by Computershare to PointsBet,” an ASX statement from PointsBet chief financial officer Alister Lui said.

“Consequently, Betr’s votes were incorrectly excluded by Computershare from the final voting results that were provided to PointsBet at the conclusion of the Scheme Meeting.”

Computershare’s chief executive of issuer services, Marnie Reid, issued an apology for the error, which initially led the betr share price to slump 10 per cent when it was announced the MIXI’s bid had been approved.

“I confirm that this evening we undertook a detailed review of the circumstances behind the exclusion of the proxy votes for BBTR and 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 at the conclusion of the Scheme Meeting,” Reid said.

“I confirm that Betr’s proxy was not revoked by the Betr representative.”

“We sincerely apologise for this situation and assure you that we appreciate the gravity of this matter and are committed to working with you to resolve it.”

The MIXI deal was expected to be confirmed via a Federal Court hearing on Thursday, but that will now likely be postponed.

MIXI vote win contested by betr in latest PointsBet takeover twist

The protracted saga over the takeover of publicly listed wagering company PointsBet is set to continue, with the outcome of a shareholder vote which favoured the bid of MIXI being contested by rival betr.

The StraightBren O’Brien

Both MIXI and betr have put forward alternate off-market offers for PointsBet, which will now be considered.

MIXI issued a statement on the announcement that the initial scheme meeting vote had been overturned.

“MIXI Australia is strongly committed to acquiring PointsBet and is offering PointsBet shareholders the certainty of an all-cash offer at a compelling premium, that is fully funded and unanimously recommended by the PointsBet Board,” it read.

“MIXI also notes that over 95 per cent of the votes cast at yesterday’s Scheme meeting by PointsBet shareholders other than betr were in favour of the MIXI Scheme.”