IGT owners nod merger into GTech as finance sealed

Feb 11, 2015 Newsdesk Latest News, Top of the deck, World  

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Slot machine maker International Game Technology (IGT) said a special meeting on Tuesday of its shareholders approved the firm’s US$6.4-billion merger with Italy-based lottery management specialist GTech SpA.

It followed the suitor company GTech announcing the same day that it had successfully raised US$5 billion via a series of secured notes denominated in U.S. dollars and euros. The offering was conducted through a special purpose vehicle issuer called Cleopatra Finance Ltd

More than 99 percent of the IGT stockholder votes represented and cast at the meeting called to approve the merger – approximately 72 percent of the total outstanding common stock eligible to vote – were in favour, IGT said in a statement.

The assets of the two will be placed in a holding company called Georgia Worldwide Plc, which will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

“The transactions are still subject to certain closing conditions, including, but not limited to, the receipt of required gaming approvals,” said Nevada, U.S.-based IGT in a filing to Nasdaq in New York.

IGT’s board of directors also declared a cash dividend of US$0.11 per share on its common stock. The dividend is payable on March 20, 2015 to shareholders of record on March 6, 2015.

In November, IGT told Nasdaq it planned to cut US$50 million in costs on an annualised basis during financial year 2015, on top of US$30 million in savings made in financial year ending September 30, 2014.

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