Israeli billionaire Teddy Sagi has sold 12 percent of Playtech’s float at a secondary placement for 850 pence per share. The number of shares sold surpassed the initially announced 10% of the company’s float. Sagi is pocketing a total of £330 million ($412 million) from the sale.
Sagi’s company Brickington Trading Limited initially intended to offer 32.3 million shares of Playtech, but due to the strong investor demand that was shown at the offering, the size of the placement was increased to 38.7 million shares. The price at which the shares were sold is just about over 7 percent lower than yesterday’s market close of 919 pence per share.
After the sale, Teddy Sagi’s interest in Playtech will amount to 21.6 percent of the company’s shares. The founder of Playtech has reportedly been looking to diversify his investments and his 33.6 percent stake in Playtech was one of the assets that he chose to partially offload. His company Brickington Trading has agreed to impose a period of 180 days, during which it won’t be selling any more shares of Playtech.
The total interest of Brickington currently amounts to 69,582,169 ordinary shares.
As we have already underlined in our coverage of the secondary placement by the Israeli billionaire company last night, the move is also likely to free up additional Liquidity for trading of Playtech’s shares. The free float of the company’s ordinary shares will substantially increase after the offering.
The holdings of the Israeli billionaire’s company after the placement have fallen below 30 per cent, which no longer gives Teddy Sagi the right to appoint two non-executive directors to the board of Playtech.
