Ourgame, Allied Esports Approve WPT Sale in Final Votes

The World Poker Tour [WPT] has finally been cleared to move to its new owner, Element Partners, LLC. Official approval of the WPT’s terms of sale occurred in separate shareholder votes by Ourgame International Holdings, Ltd. and Allied Esports Entertainment, Inc. With the twin approvals, the WPT family of assets, all contained under its corporate parent, Club Services, Inc., become the property of its new owner, Element Partners.

Finalizing the WPT’s sale was delayed several weeks due to internal strife within Ourgame over the WPT sale’s proceeds, in a battle that eventually led to the ouster of three members of Ourgame’s board of directors and a subsequent, but failed, corporate coup. Allied’s vote to approve the sale had to be delayed until Ourgame’s leadership issues were resolved. Ourgame owns or controls nearly half of Allied Sports, either through direct corporate ownership (30.6%) or individually-owned share blocs, and Allied’s WPT sale approval could not be assured until Ourgame’s interests weighed in.

Following the failure of the attempted coup within Ourgame earlier this month, the company at last voted on June 28 to approve the WPT sale. That in turn allowed Allied to conduct its own final vote on July 1 in a brief shareholder meeting held on video. Allied’s approval vote had been delayed twice, the second time on June 24, as Ourgame’s vote neared. Officially, Allied’s June 24 vote was delayed for lack of a voting quorum before being resumed on July 1.

Ourgame narrowly passes WPT sale proposal

Ourgame’s internal struggles led to a tight vote to approve the sale of the WPT. With nearly 900 million shares voting on or before June 28, the proposal passed, but only by a 54.4% to 45.6% margin. The close vote was due to the efforts of the three ousted board members and their allies, who wanted the WPT sold, but only if the majority of the sale’s $105 million in proceeds went to support a struggling company called Irena Group. Irena Group is a prominent minority owner of Ourgame, and the three ousted board members, all prominent Irena executives, sought the infusion of funds to buttress their own company, which is mired in debt and is facing dozens of lawsuits.

Instead, funds from the WPT’s sale will go into Ourgame’s general fund to support the Asian-market gaming leader’s other business interests. Uncertainty over the final outcome of Ourgame’s vote, however, forced Allied to push back its own vote to Thursday.

Six-minute video conference concludes Allied’s voting process

With Ourgame’s 30.6% ownership bloc locked in in favor of the sale, Allied Esports’ own final vote appeared to be a slam dunk, and that’s how it played out. All Allied shareholders who hadn’t already voted by proxy were invited to a brief video conference, with voting of their shares done through a connected, passcode-secured online process.

The entire meeting took six minutes and 10 seconds. Allied’s CEO, Frank Ng, conducted the meeting. This amounted to a single vote on “Proposal 1”, which was to approve the sale of Club Services, Ltd. to Element Partners. Following a couple of minutes’ time devoted to assuring a voting quorum was present. Ng directed the shareholders to cast their online votes, giving them a single minute to do so.

“As chairman of these meeting,” Ng announced, following the one-minute voting window, “I hereby declare the voting closed.” Ng then directed the votes to be tabulated.

“Based on the submission of proxies and ballots,” Ng continued, “the amended and restated [purchasing] agreement has been approved.” Ng then cancelled as moot a possible vote on a second proposal, which would have authorized another delay to allow Ourgame and Allied to drum up more internal support for the sale.

Written by

Haley Hintze

Contributing writer Haley Hintze is a 20-year veteran of the poker world, a Women in Poker Hall of Fame finalist, and two-time Global Poker Awards finalist.