On Thursday evening, Riot Platforms announced that it had acquired 1,432,063 shares in Bitfarms for approximately $2.70 per share, a total of approximately $3.87 million.
Riot now owns 57.62 million shares of Bitfarms, or approximately 14%. This move is part of Riot's attempted hostile takeover of Bitfarms. This term describes a situation where one company seeks to acquire another by going directly to shareholders, often against the wishes of the target company's board.
Last month, Riot Platforms attempted to acquire Bitfarms for around $950 million. On Wednesday, the CEO of Riot Platforms criticised Bitfarms' recent plans to block the takeover.
Earlier this week, Bitfarms adopted a ‘poison pill’ strategy to prevent a potential takeover. This strategy aims to make the company less attractive and/or dilute the stake of the potential acquirer.
"Instead of negotiating with us privately and in good faith, Bitfarms responded by implementing an off-market poison pill with a threshold well below the 20% standard," said Jason Les, CEO of Riot Platforms.
According to a Reuters report, "if an entity accumulates more than 15% of Bitfarms shares after June 20 and until September 10, the company would issue new shares, diluting the entity's stake. After September 10, the threshold would be relaxed to 20% if any takeover attempt meets certain conditions."
Riot plans to call a special meeting of Bitfarms shareholders, at which Riot intends to appoint several independent directors to join the board.
Earlier today, Bitfarms' share price rose 15% after announcing that its hash rate will reach more than 35 EH/s by 2025, thanks to the development of its first large-scale mining site in the US.
Riot Platforms has a market capitalisation of $3.17 billion, compared to Bitfarms' market capitalisation of around $1 billion.
