One of PENN Entertainment’s biggest shareholders has expressed concerns about the long-running underperformance of the company. [Image: Shutterstock.com]

Making its thoughts known

A major PENN Entertainment shareholder has expressed concerns over the company’s recent underperformance.

HG Vora – which holds an economic interest of 18.5% in the Pennsylvania-based firm – stated in an SEC filing that it had spoke with PENN’s board of directors about various concerns. The capital management firm believes PENN has not been able to give long-term value to shareholders, leading to a lower share price.

PENN’s share price hit a high of $130.47 in March 2021 and is now below the $26 mark

HG Vora has confirmed it wants to appoint a representative to PENN’s board to try to turn around company fortunes, reviewing its investment going forward if improvements are not forthcoming. PENN’s share price hit a high of $130.47 in March 2021 and is now below the $26 mark not even three years later.

Controlling the direction

HG Vora ultimately wants more control over the future direction of PENN. This includes the ability to propose shifts in operations, suggest changes to the management team and board, alter the governance structure, tweak the dividend policy, propose extraordinary corporate transactions, sell assets, and more.

PENN Entertainment, formerly known as Penn National Gaming, operates 43 casinos and racetracks across 20 states. It also offers sports betting in the US through ESPN Bet and in Ontario through theScore Bet.

PENN Entertainment has been trying to gain a foothold in the US sports betting sector for some time, which has proven to be costly. It bought the Barstool Sports media company for a total of $551m and set up a sportsbook using the Barstool name. PENN was trying to leverage the brand’s audience to build its customer base.

PENN sold Barstool Sports back to its founder Dave Portnoy for just $1 in August

It then decided to abandon this project and throw its lot in with an ESPN-branded sportsbook. PENN sold Barstool Sports back to its founder Dave Portnoy for just $1 in August and entered a $2bn ten-year deal with ESPN. ESPN Bet sportsbooks launched for the first time in November, going live in 17 states.

A difficult space

The US betting market is extremely competitive, with the large customer acquisition costs pricing out a lot of the competition. PENN is aiming to make the most of ESPN’s extensive reach in the sports space to try to carve out a significant market share for itself.

Investors across the sports betting space have grown uneasy in recent times. Jette Nygaard-Andersen resigned last month as the CEO of gambling group Entain after shareholders criticized her approach. A group of investors in 888 Holdings has been trying to drive change in the company and held discussions with potential takeover suitors over the summer, including DraftKings and Playtech.