Gaming

Blackstone fights time more than Oaktree for Crown

3 May 2021

It’s hard to see value in Oaktree’s plan to fund a buyback of founder James Packer’s 37% stake in the Aussie casino operator. And yet Blackstone is willing to absorb more regulatory risk. That suggests concern that as Crown’s crisis ebbs, the $6 bln bid’s appeal may too.

Capital Calls: Jerome Powell, Shopify

28 Apr 2021

Concise views on global finance: The clock is ticking on the Fed boss’s taper timeline; the e-commerce firm grew even as it warns of a post-pandemic lull.

Capital Calls: Hella/Hueck, Evolution Gaming, 3M

27 Apr 2021

Concise views on global finance: A big block trade is good news for investors of German car parts maker Hella if it presages industry consolidation; Swedish gaming group enjoys a double whammy from locked-down punters and states jonesing for casino cash; 3M could use a pruning.

Capital Calls: The $2 trln toybox

23 Apr 2021

Concise views on global finance: Mattel’s 47% sales growth tees up a spree of discretionary spending, as American consumers raid pandemic savings.

Epic’s $29 bln price tag looks beyond “Fortnite”

14 Apr 2021

Its latest fundraising values the maker of the cult shoot-’em-up game at two-thirds more than last August. That’s a bigger bump than listed peers got from the pandemic. Investors are counting on boss Tim Sweeney’s bets on digital marketplaces and game-making software to pay off.

Capital Calls: Christine Lagarde, Bernie Madoff

14 Apr 2021

Concise views on global finance: The European Central Bank president’s quest for inflation will take a while to achieve its goal; investor gullibility will live on after the death of the Ponzi schemer in a U.S. federal prison.

Capital Calls: LVMH surges back to full health

13 Apr 2021

Concise views on global finance: The 300 billion euro luxury conglomerate’s first-quarter sales surpass pre-Covid-19 levels.

Capital Calls: Netflix, GameStop

9 Apr 2021

Concise views on global finance in the Covid-19 era: The video-streaming service sprays webs of money to secure movies; GameStop’s “Chewy of Gaming” strategy.

Gaming weakness puts Ubisoft on M&A last life

9 Apr 2021

Shares in the “Assassin’s Creed” publisher have languished since a failed takeover by Vivendi in 2018. Despite a pandemic boost, CEO Yves Guillemot’s $10 bln group suffers from dour profitability. That leaves him open to attack by rivals like Activision Blizzard or Tencent.

Applovin IPO is magic money chest for KKR

7 Apr 2021

The private equity giant invested $400 million in the mobile app and gaming company in 2018 and helped it expand. Now that the firm is seeking a valuation of up to $30 billion, the buyout baron is going to turn a tidy profit. Relations with Apple could be the only small hitch.

Capital Calls: Bling deal

6 Apr 2021

Concise views on global finance in the Covid-19 era: Signet, the owner of jewelers Zales and Kay, is buying rental firm Rocksbox.

Transatlantic gaming deal may have bigger jackpot

24 Mar 2021

U.S. casino operator Bally’s agreed to buy Britain’s Gamesys for $3 bln. Some aspects of the deal make it look like a reverse takeover. Yet the terms for UK shareholders being asked to cash out seem stingy. Investors hoping for a higher price have a strong argument.

Review: When “Ocean’s Eleven” meets Chapter 11

19 Mar 2021

“The Caesars Palace Coup” rolls a casino caper and legal thriller into one edifying book. Dense bankruptcy lingo sometimes bogs down the ruthless scrap over $18 bln of distressed debt. And it’s hard to find a Danny Ocean in a Wall Street dramatis personae full of Terry Benedicts.

Capital Calls: Elon Musk, AstraZeneca

15 Mar 2021

Concise views on global finance in the Covid-19 era: The electric-vehicle maker’s jocular new title of “Technoking of Tesla” tests the theory that deeds matter more than words; fears over the drugmaker’s vaccine risk further delaying the re-opening of Europe’s economy.

Sands’ Sin City sale might fund pivot to Australia

4 Mar 2021

The $50 bln casino company has filled its war chest after negotiating a rich price for Las Vegas assets. Crown Resorts would be an affordable addition to their Asia-Pacific empire, and the group founded by the late Sheldon Adelson would be welcomed by watchdogs Down Under.

Swelling Sea mostly flows in sound new direction

2 Mar 2021

Worth quintuple what it was a year ago, the $127 bln tech outfit is buying an Indonesian lender and won a digital bank licence in Singapore. Expanding in finance brings new risks but sensibly deploys capital to diversify. Venturing into Mexico, though, is a nouveau-riche misstep.

Crown Resorts raises Aussie governance stakes

19 Feb 2021

The $5 bln casino operator just lost one gaming licence and another is now threatened by a new regulatory probe. A board shakeup should help its case, but director candidates are in short supply. The usual suspects fill too many seats: Crown Chair Helen Coonan is a prime example.

Viewsroom: Tesla/bitcoin, Hydrogen, French finance

11 Feb 2021

Elon Musk has gone full cryptocurrency. Tesla’s $1.5 bln bitcoin buy is a wink to virtual-investment, anti-establishment fervor, if a challenge to accounting rules, Richard Beales argues. Meantime, Japanese carmakers are going gaga for hydrogen, and Parisian finance is in tumult.

Capital Calls: KKR, the investment bank

9 Feb 2021

Concise views on global finance in the Covid-19 era: The private equity firm run by Henry Kravis is building a useful capital-markets business, with almost half its deals last year for outside clients.

Humbled Crown Resorts faces rough reinvention

9 Feb 2021

The company is not fit to operate its $1.7 bln casino in Sydney, according to a report prepared for regulators. An ownership change could solve some, but not all, of the issues. China’s row with Canberra, plus a crackdown on overseas gaming, renders the business model obsolete.