Current Price: $11.12
Target Price: $15-$19
Potential Upside: 40-70%
Expected Timeline: Q2-Q3 2026
DoubleDown Interactive is a social casino and iGaming operator. Last week, the company received a non-binding privatization offer at $11.25/ADS from its parent DoubleU Games (owns 67.1%). The special committee is currently reviewing the bid. The offer on the table is basically dead on arrival, and I expect it to be raised substantially. DDI ended last year with $9.19/ADS in net cash, and the operating business generates around $2.75/ADS in annual free cash flow. If you factor in the cash the company will generate until the privatization closes, this bid values DDI’s cash-cow operating business at essentially zero.
It is extremely unlikely the buyout gets done at the current offer price. Even if the special committee somehow approves it, shareholders won’t let it pass. The deal requires approval from 95% of total outstanding shares, which is the standard minority squeeze-out threshold in Korea (DDI is a Korean company with ADSs listed on Nasdaq). The buyer would need consent from 85% of the minority holders, which seems a very high bar to reach. DDI currently trades just below the offer, and the downside to pre-announcement prices is around 20%.
The opposition is already lining up. Activist Four Tree Island Advisory, which describes itself as a top-ten shareholder, has issued a public letter urging investors to reject the offer. Aside from the parent, the only other big holder is BRC Group (previous B. Riley) with a 7% stake and cost basis of approximately $18/ADS. I do not see BRC agreeing to the current offer either.
As I have already noted in the intro, DDI’s operating business generates around $2.75/ADS in annual FCF and it is clearly worth more than zero. Here are several reference points:
- The only public peer, Playtika, trades at 5x 2025 EBITDA. It carries meaningful leverage at around 3x net debt/EBITDA, compared to DDI’s net cash balance.
- In 2023, Light & Wonder took SciPlay private at 12x EBITDA.
- DDI itself bought European social casino operator WHOW Games last year at roughly 13x EBIT.
- DDI went public in 2021 at $18/ADS, which was around 6x EBITDA at the time. Although active user count is down significantly since then, the financial performance has remained stable and even improved over the last 4 years with EBITDA up by 20%, FCF up by 42%, and net cash on the balance sheet more than doubling. The share count has stayed virtually unchanged.
- A month after the IPO, BRC Group built its 7% stake at roughly the IPO prices, calling it “highly compelling value.”
- DoubleU originally acquired DDI back in 2017 at 10.5x EBITDA.
Slapping a measly 2x-3x EBITDA multiple on the operating business and taking net cash at face value adds up to an $15-$19/ADS or 40%-70% upside from the current levels. While that would arguably still be below the actual fair value, minority shareholders would probably just take the money rather than risk returning to the status quo.
I think the privatization attempt is very serious, and there are also several peculiar details that point to deliberate preparation for the buyout. I do not think DoubleU will walk-away lightly from this deal, and there is a decent chance we will get a bump in the offer.
Consolidation makes sense and there does not seem to be any reason to leave the subsidiary public anymore. Even if the parent is forced to pay 3xEBITDA for the DDI’s operating business, it will still be walking away with a steal. On top of that, DoubleU operates a very similar business to DDI, so the merger should generate significant cost synergies by eliminating redundant overhead and public company expenses.
Just a month before the offer, DDI replaced two of the three independent directors on the special committee. One is an accountant. The other, Sung Uk Park, is an M&A/PE attorney, who had previously worked as an advisor for DoubleU on its original acquisition of DDI back in 2017. It would appear Sung Uk Park has been brought back specifically to oversee the re-privatization of DDI.
The shareholder approval threshold was set at 95%. That is a very high bar to reach, and I do not think DoubleU had any illusions it could hit that by offering only cash value for the company. My guess is that DoubleU intentionally opened with a lowball bid in order to leave plenty of room for a raise. A classic lowball-and-bump playbook by a controlling shareholder.
The timing of this buyout attempt is curious as well. The offer comes shortly after another major DDI shareholder, PE firm STIC Investments, has exited its position. STIC helped finance DoubleU’s original acquisition of DDI back in 2017 through convertible bonds, and held a 27% equity stake after the IPO. At the 2023 AGM, STIC pushed for a $50m special dividend, which DoubleU voted down. DDI has never returned capital to shareholders, which to a large part explains the cheapness of the stock. The two major shareholders were clearly not aligned on how DDI should be run or what to do about its accumulating cash balance and depressed stock price. My guess is that STIC would have strongly objected any privatization attempt that did not properly account for the value of net cash and operating business. Last year, STIC sold down its remaining 20% stake through two secondary offerings, with its ownership declining below the 5% reportable threshold in December 2025. Apparently, STIC is liquidating the fund that held DDI. The privatization proposal came just four months later.
I could be misreading DoubleU’s intentions. It has full control and could simply walk away from the offer upon shareholder rejection. Again, it’s hard to imagine that DoubleU would opportunistically bid for DDI, just to see whether it sticks, when the offered price is so obviously dead-on-arrival. But you never know. DoubleU is a Korean company, and management teams there are comfortable with super cheap valuations and large cash piles just accumulating on the balance sheet. That said, here they know they are dealing with US minority holders, and there is no way they expected investors to just roll over and let them take the operating business for free.
The bottom line: this does not seem like a random opportunistic bid. DoubleU’s privatization intentions appear serious with deliberate planning and timing. It looks like the buyer was and is prepared to bump the offer from day one.
Background on DoubleDown Interactive
The company operates two segments: social casino and iGaming.
The social casino segment accounts for 83% of the company’s revenues. It operates no-cash online casinos where users play with virtual coins rather than real money, purely for entertainment. If players want to unlock higher tiers, access VIP events, or simply keep playing after running out of chips, they have to buy virtual coins. That is the core monetization engine. The company operates several apps under the DoubleDown brand. Combined, these have been downloaded over 121m times. The flagship app, DoubleDown Casino, has 10m+ downloads on the Google Play store alone. Across the portfolio, players have access to around 400 different casino games (mostly slots). Most of these titles are licensed: 320 come from IGT (the previous owner of DDI until 2017), another 49 are from DoubleU, and the rest are proprietary. The vast majority of revenue is generated in the US. However, the company expanded into the EU last year with the $64m acquisition of WHOW Games.
The iGaming segment is fairly new, launched with the acquisition of SuprNation in 2023 for $31m. It operates several real-money online casinos across European markets, including the UK, Sweden, and Malta. The segment has been growing rapidly, driven by the company plowing a ton of cash into marketing ($23m in marketing spend against $61m in revenue for 2025). Management wants to scale the business, targeting double-digit margins down the line, with plans to expand into additional European markets.
Historical financials:
Note that free cash flow in 2022 and 2023 was depressed by large one-off legal settlements of $50m and $95m, respectively.
The social casino space is mature, and overall traffic has been declining for years. Peers PLTK and SciPlay have seen the exact same dynamic. However, instead of throwing money at user acquisition just to fight attrition, management successfully pivoted toward retaining DDI’s core paying users. It has rolled out various initiatives to keep players engaged, including VIP events, missions, leaderboards, reward multipliers, and live user tracking to make timely promotional offers, etc. As a result, EBITDA and revenue per active user has been consistently growing and have essentially doubled since 2019. Revenue per payer and the overall payer conversion rate have also been trending up nicely as well. Peers have been seeing similar trends.
The decline in both revenue and users for the social casino business has noticeably slowed over the last two years. When analysts pressed management last year on whether churn was finally expected to flatten and stabilize, they essentially said yes (which is notable since they’ve never guided for slowing decline before). Even so, it is a mature industry, and management wants to expand beyond legacy social casino and into iGaming.
The main long-term risk for this business is regulatory, as lawmakers generally aren’t fans of the legal grey area in which social casinos operate. More background on this can be found in this rather fresh VIC pitch. In short, DDI settled a large class-action lawsuit in Washington state that claimed the virtual coins players win are “a thing of value”, meaning the platform constitutes illegal gambling. Management claims they have since made operational tweaks to ensure this doesn’t happen again. For what it’s worth, the activist Four Tree Island also argued that “Litigation risk has been substantially reduced through the 2023 class action settlement and subsequent operational changes.” However, the company is still facing multiple lawsuits in other states, and there is an ongoing investigation by the Washington AG. The Washington AG already moved against Playtika and Aristocrat earlier this year. While DDI wasn’t named in this recent lawsuit, the risk of taking another litigation hit down the road is real. Details on these ongoing cases are limited, so the timeline for any potential surprises is unclear.
On top of that, with the hardening regulatory stance in Washington, IGT moved to terminate its licenses for DDI in March 2025. DDI pushed back arguing that IGT had no right to do so and that it would keep offering the titles. IGT hasn’t responded in over a year. It’s unclear whether the termination notice was just a move to appease regulators or something more serious. There is still a risk that this issue resurfaces or that the licenses simply aren’t renewed when they expire in 2027. That said, this IGT risk is smaller than it looks on paper. Even though IGT titles make up 320 of DDI’s 400 games, the royalty fees paid to IGT suggest these titles aren’t actually seeing much play. Those fees (7.5% for revenue generated on IGT’s proprietary games and 15% on third-party games) have fallen sharply from $17m in 2018 to just $2.3m in 2025 (out of a total $16.5m in royalties last year). Management noted that this drop reflects a shift in actual gameplay toward their internally developed titles. So unless I’m missing something, IGT’s catalog appears to have become a fairly insignificant piece of the overall business.
It is unlikely that anything severe materializes on the regulatory or licensing front before this privatization thesis plays out, but it is still a tail risk worth considering.
Q1 2026 results are set to be released on May 12, though no surprises are expected.
This is one of the most compelling special situations I have ever seen.
The offer on the table is utterly ridiculous. Does anyone here know Kim Ga-Rham, who controls DoubleUGames and will likely take the final decision?
What is the downside if they walk on the offer ?
Downside to pre-announcement is around 20%.
The barrier to approval from shareholders is very high as noted. The bidder knows this so I assume this wasn’t done on a whim without knowing it will take a higher bid to get everyone on board. But even if the offer gets raised, do we have any clue how often these get rejected because it can’t get all those tiny minority holders to vote for it? The barrier seems so high that I even worthy about apathy from tiny accounts not paying attention.
FYI social gambling is getting a lot of negative press recently. Here is a gift article from Bloomberg just a week ago: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2026-social-casino-apps-addiction/?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc3ODI1MDgxNywiZXhwIjoxNzc4ODU1NjE3LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJURUQ1T0pLR0lHMkIwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiIyMEQ0MzdGNzU5QkE0NjRCOEU1MkY1Q0RCNkJDOTIxMyJ9.A41ly9t3efiDm4S3ex_nWK_ZFEX44QTE8OXe6VN2ypY
“DDI ended last year with $9.19/ADS in net cash, and the operating business generates around $2.75/ADS in annual free cash flow. If you factor in the cash the company will generate until the privatization closes, this bid values DDI’s cash-cow operating business at essentially zero.”
The stock was trading below $9 prior to the buyout offer, so it seemed like the market valued the cash-cow operating business at below-zero too. Do we have an idea of why this would be?
The stock has been stuck at those levels since mid-2022. There are many reasons, including that it’s a controlled Korean company that has never cared about minority shareholders (no capital returns, etc.), constant pressure from the US regulators, a large settlement in 2022-2023, and STIC selling down its stake over the years.
Just as another data point I found this small deal”6.6x ebitda
Nazara Technologies to acquire 50% stake in Spain-based Bluetile, BestPlay for $100 million
2026-03-18 13:47:39 GMT
(Tech-Economic Times)
(Economic Times) — Gaming and technology firm Nazara Technologies on
Wednesday said it will acquire a 50% controlling stake in Spain-based gaming
studio Bluetile Games and its in-house engagement platform BestPlay Systems
for $100.3 million (about Rs 918 crore), marking its largest acquisition deal
to date.
The transaction will be carried out through the Mumbai-based company’s wholly
owned subsidiary, Nazara Technologies UK, according to a stock exchange filing
on Wednesday.
As part of the agreement, Nazara has the option to acquire the remaining 50%
stake by 2028, while Bluetile and BestPlay have the right to exit at the same
time. The valuation for this stake will be linked to the company’s earnings,
at 6.6 times its trailing earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and
amortisation (Ebitda).
If fully exercised, the total deal size could rise to about $314 million,
founder and CEO Nitish Mittersain told ET.
Thanks, but is this really a good comp? it look more like a mobile gaming company and not a social casino.
DDI reported solid Q1 results, with revenue rising 12.7% YoY and adj. EBITDA jumping 24.0%. The performance was primarily fueled by the WHOW Games acquisition and a 30.0% surge in SuprNation’s iGaming revenue following a new brand launch last year. The transition to DTC (which now accounts for 44.2% of all social casino revenue) also helped lift earnings and margins.
The company generated roughly $0.90/ADS in FCF during Q1 alone. Net cash stood at $10.1/ADS at the end of March. At $11.25/ADS, the pending privatization offer essentially just covers the current net cash plus several more months of FCF. The special committee review is still ongoing.
I am surprised that this has not moved much despite the cash.. The Korea discount is strong. What are your thoughts on timeline. My gut says this should get done very quick given that further cash accumulation will only make the offer look more ridiculous and they might as well give a $2-$5 bump and get it done.
I am so tempted to park all my cash in this for 30 days to see what happens..
FWIW, in my experience privatizations in Asia are rarely done “quick”. The offer is already ridiculous enough, I don’t think a bit more time changes anything. The questions are whether they want this strong enough, and whether they are willing to play nice and raise enough to get it. The market seems quite cautious in that regard.
Some thoughts I had as ive been following the stock for a while, but from the Korean corporate governance reform lens (which im not totally sure applies, but some of the timing may be a bit fishy). Basically Korea is trying (again) to reform corporate practices that have essentially shafted minority shareholders of public companies. Heres a summary of some changes:
First Commercial Act amendment (effective July 22, 2025): Expanded director fiduciary duties under Article 382-3. Directors now owe duties to shareholders broadly, not just to the company as a legal entity.
Second amendment (late 2025): Strengthened minority shareholder protections including expanded inspection rights, lower thresholds for shareholder proposals, and procedural safeguards in related-party transactions.
Third amendment (effective March 6, 2026): Mandatory treasury share cancellation. Treasury shares stripped of voting rights, dividend entitlements, and pre-emptive subscription rights (Article 341-3(1)). Closed the long-standing “treasury wedge” — chaebol practice of parking shares in treasury and allocating to friendly parties during proxy fights to entrench control. Listed companies now required to cancel treasury holdings on defined timelines. This could be, I think, important given the timeline of the current set up. Although they have no treasury shares, potentially they see strategic doors closing, and want to scoop up the cash and FCF as cheap as they can.
Fourth amendment (proposed, expected 2026–2027): Mandatory tender offer (MTO) regime under active discussion at FSC and National Assembly. Would require acquirers crossing control thresholds to offer to buy out minority holders at the same price paid to controllers — eliminating the discount typically applied to minority squeeze-outs.
The Value-Up Program (Korea Discount initiative): Ongoing FSC/KRX framework pressuring listed companies to disclose capital efficiency targets, return excess cash, and improve shareholder returns
Could all be unrelated, but the timing of this made me wonder if they are worried about whether this attempt at corporate governance changes may stic. Perhaps DDU is trying to get full control of the company and the cash hoard before potential strategic doors close to them and they are pushed to treat minority shareholders better. On the other hand reforms like this have tried and failed, so who knows if these really have the teeth needed to close the Korean discount.
Thank you for sharing this insight.
Spiking after-hours..
Just got an alert for this – is thesis still intact?
What alert? I don’t see any news, but the stock has been reasonably volatile since the announcement.
Does the fact that the Special Committe has yet to engage Financial or Legal Advisors mean anything (it’s been 2.5 months)?
They don’t have to announce the hiring of advisors, as that’s just a procedural step. They’ve already announced the formation of the special committee, and the next required disclosure should be the decision on the bid.
Any updates on the thesis here?
Haven’t seen any, but it has only been 2.5 months since the offer announcement, which is not out of the ordinary for such situations.
Got it, thank you.
Anyone worried holding this into earnings?
Boston Partners, a value-focused fund, first showed up right after the privatization offer and has been adding in recent days. Based on the latest disclosure two days ago, they increased their stake from 5.4% to 6.7%. The fund can block the squeeze out single-handedly.
I’m confused by the Boston Partners disclosures. The first states “This Schedule is being filed with respect to 133,719 shares of the American Depository Shares” and the second “This Schedule is being filed with respect to 165,051 shares of the American Depository Shares”. And they claim to own a 6.6% stake. They also convert that to common shares (“Per Form 20-F filling for 12/31/25, each ADS is equivalent to .05 Common Shares in the company, so dividing the ADS held 165,051 by 20, we hold 8,252.55 common shares in the company. 20 ADS = 1 Common Share in company”). But the number of ADS outstanding is 49,553,440. 165,051 ADS would be a 0.33% stake and raising questions why the 13G was filed. If they held 165,051 common shares or 3,301,020 ADS then they would hold a 6.7% stake. But the 13G explicitly states 8,252.55 common shares.
I’m also confused why the 4/28 schedule 13D main page states “the Transaction will be subject to the affirmative vote of at least 80% of the Issuer’s outstanding Common Shares, including a majority of the votes cast by shareholders other than the Reporting Person;” and the actual proposal letter contradicts that and states 95%.
I don’t believe 95% is the South Korea legal threshold and neither is 80%. I could be wrong but I think Art 434 of the Commercial Act applies which means “shall be adopted by the affirmative votes of no less than two thirds of the voting rights of the shareholders present at a general meeting of shareholders and of at least one third of the total issued and outstanding shares”. I don’t know where the 95% came from and why but Doubleu chose it.
Not sure why the 4/28 filing said 80%, but it was changed to 95% in the amendment on 4/30. It does seem to be the squeeze out threshold in South Korea, so it makes sense it should be 95%.
“Squeeze-out of minority shareholders at fair value is possible in Korea. However, a squeeze-out is only permissible if the major shareholder owns at least 95% of the outstanding shares (the number of shares held by subsidiaries is aggregated) and complies with certain procedures. Whilst the squeeze-out mechanism was used for some time at the early stage of its introduction in 2012, it has not been frequently used thereafter.” https://practiceguides.chambers.com/practice-guides/corporate-ma-2026/south-korea
As for the Boston Partners stake, good catch. So is it a… mistake on their part? They explicitly say they own ADS securities and even show calculations as to how those convert to common stock. Yet, they still calculate incorrect percentage ownership across all three of the latest filings. Super weird.
For me the 95% doesn’t make sense. It appears self-imposed and I don’t see what basis it has. As you saw they wrote 80% in the older filing. As a one-step merger it’s not about squeeze-out. I would like to understand why they need it to be 95%, otherwise I don’t think the 5% holders are in a blocking position. I haven’t been able to find any precedents of similar buyouts.
I believe Boston Partners holds 6.7%. Otherwise there would be no filings. Weird mistake.
Matt,
Do you think the following may be the reason that DUG put in the 95% threshold: Without the threshold, it appears that DUG could push through the merger at any price it choose since it has over 2/3 of the shares. However, if minority shareholders thought the price was inadequate they would exercise the Korean equivalent of dissenter rights (I have no idea if this is available to ADS holders). That would mean that DUG had completed the merger, but didn’t know what price it was a paying until a settlement was reached or the court process was completed. To the best of my knowledge, merger agreements in Korea do not include the equivalent of Dissenter Cap Conditions which cap the amount of dissenters shares there can be in a merger in the US.
Without the 95% provision, DUG doesn’t know what its ultimate cost of the merger is. With the 95% provision, it knows the cost before being on the hook.
Tom, let me share my thoughts while Matt comes back with his own view.
The problem with your theory is that ADS holders are not shareholders of record — the ADS depositary is. So ADS holders themselves have no way to exercise appraisal rights. This is explicitly disclosed in the 20-F risk factors:
“The rights of shareholders under Korean law to take actions, including voting their shares, receiving dividends and distributions, bringing derivative actions, examining our accounting books and records, and exercising appraisal rights, are available only to shareholders of record. Because the depositary, through its custodian agents, is the record holder of our common shares underlying the ADSs, only the depositary can exercise those rights under Korean law in connection with the deposited shares. ADS holders will not be able to bring a derivative action, examine our accounting books and records, or exercise appraisal rights through the depositary.”
And Korea does have dissenters/appraisal cap conditions as well. You can look at the Woori/Tongyang comprehensive share exchange, for example. That transaction includes a condition allowing the comprehensive share exchange to be terminated if the amount payable for shares subject to appraisal rights exceeds KRW 200bn.
You can check it here: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1264136/000119312526174907/d117568d425.htm?
I think both the majority-of-the-minority approval and the 95% condition are clearly self-imposed. Why they chose to structure it this way is still not entirely clear to me. My guess is that the U.S. listing and the additional scrutiny under Rule 13e-3 may have pushed them toward a more conservative proposal. They have to disclose a detailed fairness opinion, and if those disclosures are untrue or misleading, that could potentially create litigation risk.
That said, technically, at least based on my interpretation, if they disclose the relevant information properly, then even if the disclosures point to undervaluation, the legal route for shareholders seems limited.
Unfortunately, Q2 report offered no update on the ongoing special committee review aside from the boilerplate language. DDI’s net cash now stands at around $10.5/ADS. The pending privatization offer therefore covers little more than the current net cash balance plus a few more months of FCF. I continue holding, and with the review already 3.5 months in, I hope we’ll get an update soon.
Q2 earnings were solid:
– Revenue rose 11.2% YoY and adj. EBITDA grew 17.2%.
– Most of the growth came from the WHOW Games acquisition, decent performance in the core social casino business, and 9.8% growth at SuprNation following last year’s new brand launch. SuprNation’s growth has slowed from the +30% YoY pace seen in Q1, as management pulled back marketing spend in response to higher gambling taxes in UK. Sequentially, SuprNation’s revenue was flat.
– The transition to DTC accelerated, with it now accounting for 52.4% of social casino revenue, up from 44.2% in Q1. This helped to lift adj. EBITDA margins further to 41.6%.
– The company generated roughly $0.50/ADS in FCF during Q2 and about $1.43/ADS during H1.
https://www.bamsec.com/filing/162828026055705?cik=1799567
BRC Group Holdings reduce participación al 3,65% https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1799567/000121390026090233/xslSCHEDULE_13G_X02/primary_doc.xml
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/08/17/3346472/0/en/four-tree-island-advisory-urges-special-committee-of-doubledown-interactive-to-demand-fair-value-for-minority-shareholders.html
great work by Eric Gregg (Four tree Island ) stirring up the pot with DoubleU Games! That should wake up the sleepy committee!
“DoubleU Games stated on its August 12, 2026 second-quarter earnings call that it expects to submit additional SEC documentation following the third-quarter and that it intends to pursue taking DDI private during the fourth quarter.” This seems to be a positive timeline update. Is there a link to the original DoubleU earnings transcript to validate it?
It’s valid – listen to the transcript on DoubleU Games website. 43 minutes into the call.
Nice find. So this was said on the earnings call of the parent company, DoubleU Games. Only an audio recording is available, and the call itself was held in Korean with simultaneous English interpretation.
According to the live English interpretation, management said it expects to make a new SEC filing after Q3 and to take DDI private thereafter. When I ran the original Korean through AI, it flagged a discrepancy in the timeline. The Korean wording appears to be: “Our goal is to proceed with the take-private through a new filing with the SEC within the third quarter.” So the distinction is potentially “after Q3” in the live English interpretation versus “within Q3” in the original Korean. Either way, this is positive news, but maybe the takeover may happen even faster than the activist’s comment implies.
Here is the full relevant exchange, with the response translated from the original Korean by AI:
”
Question:
The third question is about the acquisition of the remaining shares of DDI. Can you provide any updates on the deal so far? And can you tell us how you expect the company’s shareholder return policy to change after the deal is completed?”
Response — translated from Korean:
Lastly, I would like to address the delisting of DDI. In the case of a delisting in the U.S. market, DDI has formed a special committee, an independent committee composed solely of outside directors. That independent committee has appointed an external valuation firm, which is currently conducting an assessment of fair value.
Based on that fair-value assessment, DoubleU Games and the independent committee will negotiate and proceed according to the process determined through those discussions. This process is currently ongoing.
Our goal is to proceed with the take-private through a new filing with the SEC within the third quarter.
Once this is completed, we are also considering making some changes to our current shareholder-return policy. We plan to communicate with the market on this once the DDI take-private process has progressed to a certain extent.
”
It sounds like the “new filing” should be a definitive agreement? And they plan to take DDI private in Q4 then use the cash to pay Korean shareholder dividend.
Again, the exact timeline is a bit lost in translation, but it does sound like they are referring to a definitive agreement. There should still be some back-and-forth between the special committee and the buyer group once fair value is determined. Hopefully they push them on price a bit. I guess a Q4 closing is more realistic.
And yes, that was my thinking too on the dividend point.
Giorgi,
I think in theory the minority holders may be able to exercise their dissenter rights by first converting their ADS holdings into local shares (which are not listed). However, the more I think about the 95% threshold, I think its reason for inclusion at this stage is simply to convey that DUG needs agreement by all investors. Even if the price is raised to a level that satisfys all of the activists in DII, it would be highly unlikely to reach the 95% threshold (it would require too significant % of the retail ADS investors). So, I expect that if negotiations lead to a price that satisfies a significant amount of the activist investors the threshold will be adjusted and/or eliminated (perhaps replaced with something else – majority of minority, voting agreements with activists, etc).