Novomatic's Ainsworth Takeover Bid Fails

Dr. Annelies De Vos · 2026-02-11

Well, that didn't go as planned. Novomatic's big move to take full control of Ainsworth Game Technology just hit a major roadblock. The Austrian gaming giant needed a 75% yes vote from shareholders to make it happen, and they fell short. Way short. It's a classic case of not getting everyone on board. You can have a great offer on paper, but if the key players don't buy into the vision, it's going nowhere fast. ### The Numbers That Didn't Add Up So here's what was on the table. Novomatic was offering $0.71 per share for the chunk of Ainsworth it didn't already own. On the surface, that looked pretty sweet—a 35% premium over what the shares were trading at before the offer came out. But here's the thing about numbers. They only tell part of the story. The Ainsworth family, who still hold a significant piece of the pie through their holdings, looked at that $0.71 and saw something different. They saw an undervaluation. - The offer valued the entire company at about $164 million. - The family specifically called out properties in Nevada and Florida as being worth more. - Some investors even suggested the board wasn't looking out for shareholder interests by recommending the deal. When the founding family starts questioning the math, you know you've got a problem. ### A Deal With History This isn't the first dance between these two companies. Len Ainsworth, the founder, actually sold a 53% stake to Novomatic back in 2016. That was the starting point of this whole relationship. Fast forward to today, and Novomatic's stake had grown to nearly 67%. They wanted to go all the way to 100%, announcing plans last April to buy the remaining 47% they didn't own. But that 13% still controlled by the Ainsworth family through AKHA Holdings? That turned out to be the stumbling block. Sometimes, holding onto a piece of the family legacy matters more than the immediate cash offer. ### What Happens Now? The official word came on February 6th—the offer expired without enough support. And here's the kicker: Novomatic can't just turn around and try again next week. There's a four-month cooling-off period before they can make another bid. That's four months for everyone to take a breath, reassess, and maybe come back to the table with different numbers or a different approach. Or maybe not come back at all. It makes you think about how these big corporate moves work. Or don't work. You need more than just a majority. You need that supermajority, that 75% threshold, to make something like this happen. And when key stakeholders feel like their legacy assets—those Nevada and Florida properties—aren't being valued properly, well, that threshold starts looking very far away indeed. As one observer put it, 'Sometimes the price tag doesn't capture what people really value.' And in this case, what the Ainsworth family values includes more than just the current share price. So we're left with a gaming manufacturer that stays publicly traded, at least for now. Novomatic remains the majority owner, but not the sole owner. And everyone goes back to their corners for at least four months to think about what comes next in this ongoing corporate story.