Playtech takeover battle heats up

Playtech’s acquisition is getting more interesting by the day.

It all started quite simply. Aristocrat made a £2.1 billion offer. Nice premium to pre-offer share price. Playtech’s board said, sounds great. ‘We’ll recommend the offer to shareholders’. Deal seemed done.

But before champagne corks had hit the ground, came another offer (Hong Kong based Gopher Investments). Then talk of another (Eddie Jordan’s JKO Play Ltd).

The three-way has since become an orgy, with Playtech’s share register revealing a bunch of other interested parties accumulating Playtech shares at well above Aristocrats 680p offer price.

Those parties include:

• Paul Suen, owner of Birmingham City FC and Les Ambassadeurs casino, who has lifted his Playtech stake to over 4%;
•  Stanley Choi, high stakes poker player and former owner of Wigan Athletic FC,
• Tang Hao, former Stars Group investor (Pokerstars, FullTilt etc, now owner by Flutter)

But setting tongues wagging the most of late, is a buying spree by Karen Lo.

The heiress to the Vitasoy fortune has been hoovering up Playtech stock at up to 770p a share to bring her current holding to over 4.5% (via her Future Capital Group). She clearly has no intention of seeing the Aristocrat deal go through. If it does, she will burn a lot of cash.

Lo is no stranger to spending cash. It was reported that in the 18 months to the end of 2018 she spent $200 million of luxury properties across the US, including a $100 Holmby Hills mansion, a New York Central Park West penthouse purchased from Sting and a beach house in Malibu.

When she flies it’s in her very own Gulfstream G550. When she cruises the seas it’s in her 72m motor yacht named Game Changer, which you can charter for around half a million dollars per week by the way.

Game Changer – comes with plenty of water toys including submarines.

And how’s this for being tapped into family wealth. Karen is part of not one, but 2 of the richest families in Asia. She’s granddaughter to Dr. Kwee Seong Lo, founder of the Vitasoy empire – a big(ger) chunk of which will one day be hers.

She’s also closely connected to the Ho family, of Macau casino fame. Her sister Sharon Lo is married to Stanley Ho’s son Lawrence Ho. Perhaps the Ho-Lo connection is the source of interest in a gambling business?

Either way, lots more water to flow under the bridge on Playtech’s final acquisition.