Teddy Sagi offloads £329m of Playtech shares

Playtech founder Teddy Sagi has sold 12% of his stake in the egaming supplier for £329m, reducing the Israeli billionaire’s holding to 21.6%.

Sagi’s Brickington Trading sold 38.7 million shares at a price of 850p per share, an increase on the originally planned 32.3 million placing due to “strong investor demand”.

The placing means Brickington will no longer have the right to appoint two non-executives.

It is the first time since March 2014 that Brickington has placed shares but has agreed not to sell any additional Playtech shares for 180 days.

In an analyst note this morning, Gavin Kelleher of Goodbody said today’s news should be seen as a “generally positive move” for the supplier giant.

“Despite the increased size of the placing, Teddy Sagi will remain a key shareholder at 21.6%, but the sale diversifies the shareholder base which should improve liquidity,” Kelleher said.

“We continue to like the Playtech story, given the good underlying growth and potential for the Group to deploy its balance sheet for value enhancing acquisitions,” he added.

Playtech said in an RNS statement that it was not party to the placing and will not receive any proceeds from the sale.

The supplier’s share price was down 7.89% to 849.25p on the London Stock Exchange at the time of writing.