Go American.
It’s one of the obvious but little-discussed trends in the past couple of years: international gaming companies publicly listing in the United States.
The most recent case is Allwyn Entertainment, the European lottery firm formerly known as SAZKA. Like so many others, the operator of lotteries in Austria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Italy and elsewhere has its eye on iGaming, sports betting and lottery growth in the U.S.
It will go public on the New York Stock Exchange through Cohn Robbins Holdings Corp., itself publicly traded as CRHC, which will own 83 percent of the company that expects to generate $810 million in EBITDA on $1.7 billion in revenue this year.
Allwyn follows a long line that includes game providers like Bragg, sports betting data companies SportRadar and Genius Sports, and iLottery operator NeoGames in either dual listings or going public in U.S. markets.
Catena And Ainsworth Next?
So, who’s next? Two candidates come to mind: Catena Media and Ainsworth Game Technology.
Catena is a betting affiliate that gets around 60 percent of its revenues from casino and most of the rest from sports betting.
A decade-old Swedish company that trades in Stockholm, Catena calls the U.S. an unparalleled opportunity. It’s been capitalizing on that opportunity by introducing publications in states with legalized sports betting and iGaming under brands such as Play USA and Legal Sports Report.
Capitalizing on opportunities takes capital, and there is no bigger source of funding than the home of the unparalleled opportunity—the U.S.
Perhaps a hint: last year Catena appointed an American, gaming industry veteran Michael Daly, as CEO; and he’s based in the U.S., not Sweden.
The tip that Ainsworth has big U.S. ambitions came when the company hired Harald Neumann as CEO and based him in its expansive Las Vegas facility.
For many years, Neumann was CEO of parent company Novomatic. It makes sense that the former CEO of a multibillion-dollar international conglomerate has not relocated from his native Austria to the Mojave Desert just to run a penny-stock outpost.
Ainsworth has been executing on a growth plan that hasn’t drawn much attention because of its small size and Australian home base. That strategy has focused on broadening its product line, growing its games library, becoming more assertive in putting games online, and building its leading position in the fast-growing but little-followed world of historical horse racing machines in the U.S.
Again, it takes capital to grow and it makes more sense for Ainsworth to tap the U.S. capital markets than for a now Austrian-owned and U.S.-headquartered company to continue to list solely in Australia.
The stock sells for under $1 a share, but do a reverse split of the 330 million-plus shares, combine it with some other Novomatic assets in the U.S. and, voila—you have the makings of a substantial U.S.-listed gaming technology company.
Wanna Buy A Planet?
Caesars’ announcement that it will transform Bally’s Las Vegas into a Horseshoe gives another hint that Planet Hollywood will be the Las Vegas property it sells sometime this year.
Planet Hollywood has several characteristics that make it the likely sale candidate:
- It’s the only property on the east side of the Strip physically separate from the other Caesars resorts
- It’s the furthest from Caesars’ Forum convention center
- It’s an odd property with its surrounding shopping mall and long trek to the parking garage on the other side of the retail center, and
- It’s well-known brand name and upscale qualities should be able to fetch a good per-square-foot or per-hotel-room price.
The other Caesars properties are in a line, from south to north: Paris, Bally’s (which shares a garage with Paris), the Cromwell, the Flamingo, the Linq and Harrah’s, with Caesars Palace just across the street from Flamingo. Flamingo and the Linq share the Linq entertainment and restaurant promenade, the High Roller observation wheel, and proximity to Forum convention center.
CEO Tom Reeg might pull a surprise or have an offer he can’t refuse that would give Caesars a new strategy for the Strip. But at this point, it would appear Planet Hollywood is likely to leave the Caesars orbit.
