Five shareholders in Partygaming, the world's largest online poker company which floated last year, have raised £232m (€337m) from selling a 5% of the company. The number of shares been sold in the accelerated bookbuild was cut after hedge funds short-sold the stock in the run up to the sale.

Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, which led the share sale, priced shares at 116p this afternoon, but was forced to cut the number of shares being sold from 350 million to 200 million after failing to achieve a high enough price for the vendors in the first round of bookbuilding, a source close to the deal said.