China’s Ourgame International Holdings Ltd has been forced to call an Extraordinary General Meeting after a shareholder linked to a recently exiled director called for the removal of seven current directors from the board.
According to a series of filings since late April, two Ourgame shareholders – Yu Meng and Glassy Mind Holdings Limited – have delivered a requisition calling for the company to convene an EGM to vote on the removal of the seven directors. Although no specific reason for the removal is outlined in the requisition, Glassy Mind Holdings is known to be a subsidiary of another company called iRENA Group Co Ltd which counts former Ourgame director Mr Gao Hong as one if its own current directors.
Gao, along with iRENA Group founder Ms Fu Qiang, was removed from the Ourgame Board of Directors on 6 May after he demanded Mr Ma Shaohua – one of the Ourgame directors he is now looking to vote down – funnel the majority of funds from the sale of Allied Esports Entertainment Inc directly to iRENA.
Allied Esports is a US-based joint venture subsidiary of Ourgame that holds the assets to the World Poker Tour (WPT). Ourgame is currently in negotiations to sell Allied Esports and its WPT brand for around US$100 million.
According to a Friday filing by Ourgame, Gao, Fu and a third former director in Mr Hu Wen threatened to “cause obstructions and difficulties to the operation of the company” should it fail to divert proceeds of the sale directly to iRENA.
Ourgame also alleged that iRENA has been “involved in more than 30 lawsuits in China in aggregate and is a judgment debtor,” and that “iRENA has been exposed to extremely significant risk and is likely to go bankrupt and be liquidated.” It added that Gao himself was named by the Beijing Regulatory Bureau of the China Securities Regulatory Commission as one of the responsible persons for non-compliance with relevant laws and regulations in relation to information disclosure.
The requisitionists hold a combined 10.21% stake in Ourgame, which will hold its EGM in Beijing on 11 June to vote on the request.
