The biggest losers in the acquisition of daily fantasy sports company FanDuel by Dublin-based bookmaker Paddy Power Betfair appear to be the company’s founders and common shareholders, who are getting zero dollars from the transaction. Meanwhile, “C-Suite” executives for FanDuel stand to do very well.
That’s according to documents acquired by Legal Sports Report that detail the two companies’ business combination. That means the DFS site’s founders — including former CEO Nigel Eccles — and most employees appear as if they will get nothing from the agreement. That list would also appear to include co-founders Lesley Eccles, Tom Griffiths, Rob Jones and Chris Stafford. All have moved on from the company.
The deal between PPB and FanDuel announced in the spring appears to be close to closing, if it hasn’t already.
What we know about the FanDuel-PPB deal
The summary of the transaction is where common shareholders learned they were out of luck:
The aggregate value of the consideration to be paid by the Company in the Offer is approximately $465 million. As this consideration is not sufficient to satisfy the aggregate preference payable on the A Preference Shares, no part of the consideration payable in the Offer will be payable on FanDuel’s ordinary shares or options to purchase FanDuel’s ordinary shares.
According to the document, the “aggregate preference amount payable with respect to the A Preference Shares is $543,255,315.40 plus £11,658,295.57 pounds.”
You can see the full offer to FanDuel shareholders here.
Majority shareholders used their “drag along right” (document here) to force minority shareholders to accept the deal. The dragging shareholders here were early-stage investors KKR and Shamrock Capital, who led two of FanDuel’s biggest rounds of investment.
Meanwhile, FanDuel executives could make a lot of money
Another document showed that current FanDuel executives could make tens of millions of dollars, including current CEO Matt King, Chief Technical Officer Robin Spira, Chief Legal Officer Christian Genetski, Chief Financial Officer Andy Giancamilli, EVP of Corporate Strategy David VanEgmond and Chief Marketing Officer Mike Raffensperger:
For purposes of the Golden Parachute Provisions, the estimated aggregate amount of Payments the Disqualified Individuals could receive in connection with the Transaction is $6,186,814 for Mr. Genetski, $3,517,833 for Mr. Spira, $4,957,685 for Mr. Giancamilli, $11,342,688 for Mr. King, $2,601,338 for Mr. VanEgmond, and $1,693,375 for Mr. Raffensperger.
King also worked at FanDuel investor KKR. King appears to be in line to take over all US operations for PPB as it moves toward sports betting. An email to users confirmed that sports betting would be rolled out under the FanDuel brand:
