Earnings+More - How d’ya spell egregious?
How d’ya spell egregious?Penn under scrutiny, Entain concludes strategic review, Hard Rock denies Star link +More
Maybe I shouldn’t try to be perfect. Penn’s shareholder pressureYou are not serious people: Before Earnings+More’s revelations over the corporate jet usage at Penn, shareholder pressure was already building as activists circle and the company faces questions about its online strategy and its levels of executive compensation. Earnings before the nasty stuff: As noted yesterday, the Penn proxy statement for 2024 showed that CEO Jay Snowden received a short-term incentive plan (STIP) bonus of $4.37m in 2023 on top of his salary of $1.8m. CFO Felicia Hendrix received a $825k STIP payout on top of her $850k salary.
Everything but the whirl: The company said the compensation committee calculated the adj. EBITDAR applicable by excluding the losses in the online arm for the second half of 2023, which is the period after Penn first agreed the ESPN deal with Disney.
Artifice: To even things up a bit the committee also adjusted the shares-based long-term incentive plan, so as to also exclude the “artificial inflation” caused by the “successful” ESPN Bet launch. This meant lowering the LTIP achievement from 141% to 108%, and the executive team saw their equity awards drop by 33%.
The heart of the matter: It is the (under)performance of ESPN Bet that lies at the center of the controversy over the bonus levels. In its launch quarter of Q4 last year, the operation racked up an adj, EBITDA loss of $334m, more than double what had been expected by the analysts.
It’s temperamental, my fiasco: All this came after what David Einhorn from Greenlight Capital said, in a letter to his investors, was the “fiasco” with ESPN Bet precursor, Barstool Sportsbook, which he said had left investors with “serious doubts about the company’s strategy and management’s competence to execute.” Now live on the OpticOdds screen: player market alternate lines, vig, line history & more… Built for operators with an emphasis on speed and coverage, OpticOdds offers:
Join top operators at opticodds.com/contact. A mountain of lossesYour right leg, I like: The doubts over capability don’t run to the bricks & mortar gaming side where, despite recent worries over regional casinos, investors are generally happy with how the business has performed.
Dead set on destruction: But as one investment source who spoke to E+M on condition of anonymity said, where Penn has “gone awry in a meaningful way” is the $4bn it has now spent – or squandered depending on your viewpoint – on various interactive initiatives.
Penn Entertainment and its discontents: Alongside Einhorn’s Greenlight, HG Vora has a 9% share and has gone public with its desire for boardroom representation. Then there is a more recent activist name added to the register in Shapiro Capital Management. None of the activist investors wished to speak to E+M regarding Penn. The widening gyreWeak become zeroes: Situations such as the one Penn finds itself in tend to attract speculation and, in this instance, there have been murmurs of interested parties circling. “People perceive Penn as being vulnerable,” said the financial markets source. “There is interest in either splitting the business up or siphoning off the B&M side.”
Disney matter: Then there is the position of Disney. The appointment of CTO Aaron LaBerge, who joins from ESPN itself and who will have responsibility for ESPN Bet, might placate fears over the direction of travel, although it should be noted he doesn’t have any experience in online betting and gaming.
The arrow was pure gold, but somehow missed the target: Notably, a recent note from Bank of America suggested ESPN Bet had missed its initial market share targets, meaning revenue was too low while the fixed-cost base was too high.
Having moved the stock to a Hold, despite the recent share price lows, the BofA team said they believed ESPN Bet’s high cost structure “increases both the time to scale and execution risk, despite lowered guidance.”
The vote: To be clear, there is zero chance of the company losing the non-binding vote on its executive compensation given the weight of institutional share ownership. But sources suggested that should the rebels achieve even a 10% or less vote against, or any substantial withholding of votes, then that would be “sending a message.”
100 Days To Comply Frictionless affordability checks are required from 30 August 2024. No time to waste – email michael@dotrust.co.uk and join other leading operators including Rank and Lottoland on the leading dedicated platform for financial assessment. +More newsEntain concludes reviewAs you were: The strategic review undertaken by Entain’s capital allocation committee has concluded the company has the “appropriate portfolio of diversified strategic assets, brands, capabilities and geographic footprint.”
The company said today that there “remains significant upside” if it could focus on delivery, the return to an organic growth path and “winning” in the US. It added that its balance sheet and leverage position is “robust.”
All paths lead to Romer: Operationally, the committee expressed confidence in Entain’s progress on a number of fronts, including in Brazil, the US and with Entain CEE and the ongoing Project Romer cost-saving program. The company said the committee will continue to review strategy on a periodic basis. Barnacles off the boat: Jefferies analysts said they saw “limited change” resulting from the review but noted that, although not mentioned in the statement, the review conclusion “may now catalyze the pending CEO appointment.” Hard Rock denies Star linkThat’ll be a no then: Hard Rock has quickly moved to scotch rumors put about by Australia’s stricken casino operator Star Entertainment that the Florida-based company had made approaches about buying the company.
For whom the Bell tolls: Recall, Star is currently the subject of a public enquiry in Australia into the company’s suitability as a casino license holder in New South Wales after a 2022 probe found it had committed multiple AML infractions. +More takesActivist laments AGS buyout: Last week, investor Emmett Investment Management went public with its fears that the $1.1bn offer from private equity house Brightstar offers shareholders little or no premium and has allowed for little investor understanding of the company’s “exceptional” recent trading performance.
Flutter: Winning on product was a key theme among the analysts, with CBRE suggesting it was a “key theme globally.” “Regardless of jurisdiction, management attributes much of its recent performance to an array of product and content innovations,” the team said. Games Global retreatJoel Simkins, newly installed as founder and CEO at XST Capital, took to LinkedIn to offer a view of the pulling of the Games Global IPO. Recall, the online gaming supplier pulled its New York listing less than a month after announcing the move, saying it was “in the best interest of shareholders.” Regrets, I’ve had a few: Simkins, who spoke at the Earnings+More Capital Markets Forum event in New York in early May, noted he had said on the day that the now-canceled IPO “was set to be a significant indicator” for the industry. “Regrettably, this IPO has been shelved due to ‘market conditions’,” he added.
Cancel culture: On the Games Global no-go, he said the cancellation “doesn’t reflect a lack of interest” in either gaming or its online variant. “While establishing a market comparable would have been ideal, there’s still significant demand for online gaming services in both established and emerging markets,” he said. IPOs aren’t easy: The Games Global float would have seen the selling shareholder maintain a controlling stake in the business, and Simkins noted this can “complicate matters”, particularly if initial floats are small.
I’ll be back: He added that he expected Games Global to return to the market “when conditions improve, leveraging its strong cash flow and market position to explore options like strategic sales, partnerships with private equity or a reattempt at an IPO.” Calendar
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