An Activist Hedge Fund Is Staging A Big Campaign Against The Company That Runs The World Poker Tour
Not a good look.
That makes this $1.6 billion market cap U.K company - which also has businesses ranging from casino games, to sports, betting, to poker - a very attractive target for hedge funds that happen to play the very-American activist investing game.
In the case it's Jason Ader and Andrew Wallach of SpringOwl Asset Management taking up the challenge. They own 5.25% of the company's stock and Ader has a long history in then gaming world. He made his name as a star analyst in the sector at Bear Stearns, and he sits on the board of Las Vegas Sands.
All he and Wallach want are four seats on the board. That's it.
"SpringOwl has made numerous attempts to work with the incumbent Board of BPTY to facilitate a reconstitution of the Board to ensure accountability to shareholders. Unfortunately, the incumbent Board has chosen to seek to maintain the status quo. We believe shareholders have become disillusioned by ongoing declines in business metrics as the Board approves incremental equity grants," said Ader.
Think of this like a reverse British Invasion. Forty percent of bwin.party's stock is held by American investors, anyway.
"At the end of the day we want to surround this management team with a board... that's going to hold them accountable for underperformance," Ader told Business Insider.
We'll be following this to see how it all shakes out. In the meantime, check out the descriptions of the four proposed board members below.
- Michael B. Fertik is the CEO, Chairman, and Founder of Reputation.com. He has been named Entrepreneur of the Year by TechAmerica, World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer and a member of the WEF's Global Agenda Council on the Future of the Internet. Mr. Fertik is the named inventor on multiple patents in the fields of technology and data science. He is the author of the bestselling book Wild West 2.0 (AMACOM 2010) as well as the upcoming Reputation Economy (Crown 2015). He is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Inc., Scientific American, Bloomberg, CNBC, BBC and the LinkedIn Influencer blog on topics including entrepreneurship, technology, innovation, data-driven leadership and Silicon Valley.
- Francis X Grady is the founder of Grady & Associates (founded in 1994), a boutique law firm devoted to the representation of banks throughout the United States. Mr. Grady provides bank regulatory, corporate and securities law representation to banking organizations in matters involving bank supervision, payment and credit card processing, bank regulatory enforcement actions, executive compensation and shareholder relations. Prior to founding Grady & Associates, Mr. Grady held positions with the law firms Seeley, Savidge & Aussem; Hahn, Loeser & Parks and Muldoon, Murphy & Faucette. Mr. Grady began his career in the Honors Attorney Program at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in Washington, DC, where he worked from 1984 to 1986.
- Kal Patel is a private venture capital investor and advisor to emerging disruptive technology companies. From 2012 to 2013, Mr. Patel was Executive Vice President and a Member of Executive Committee of LRN Inc., with responsibility for global strategy and operations. From 2011 to 2012, Mr. Patel was a London-based Partner and Senior Advisor of VantagePoint Capital Partners, a venture capital firm focused on Energy/Resource Innovation, Information Technology and Healthcare, where he led the firm's global strategic partner initiative. From 2003 to 2011, Mr. Patel was a senior executive at Best Buy Co., Inc., where he rose to become Chief Strategy Officer and President and Chief Executive Officer of Best Buy Asia as well as running the Company's Best Buy Venture Capital Fund. Prior to Best Buy, Mr. Patel served as a Senior Partner at Strategos Inc, CA, strategy innovation consulting firm. Prior to Strategos, Kal worked at KPMG Consulting, where he co-founded and led the Business Transformation Practice. Mr. Patel was born in Kenya and raised in Zambia and the United Kingdom.
- Steven Rittvo is the founder of The Innovation Group of Companies and has served as the Chief Executive Officer of a number of the individual component companies since the founding in 1999. The Innovation Group is an integrated service organization focused on the terrestrial and online casino and gaming industry. Its clients, in over 65 countries, include National and State Governments, publicly and privately owned casino and gaming operators and equipment providers and leading financial institutions. The services provided by The Innovation Group of Companies include project feasibility studies, financial analysis, development of marketing plans, restructurings and reorganizations, operational and situational audits, financing and M&A advisory. Mr. Rittvo has been identified by Global Gaming Magazine as "One of the 10 Most Influential People in Gaming." An acknowledged thought leader in online gaming, Mr. Rittvo founded iGaming North America, the first major US-centric Internet Gaming conference. Mr. Rittvo also produced and published the first comprehensive, nationwide survey of internet gamers in the United States. He is a frequent expert witness on gaming-related issues and has testified before numerous legislative and licensing bodies on both state and national levels. Mr. Rittvo previously served as a Director of Gametech Corporation.