Chances are, there will be no FanDuel IPO now that shareholders of the online gambling site’s primary owner have approved a US stock listing. On April 27, votes representing 99.9% of Dublin-based Flutter Entertainment‘s stock were cast in favor of the US listing.
Flutter (Flutter Entertainment 25,46 +0,08%) is already on the London Stock Exchange.
Voting to add a US listing means stockholders flashed a nearly unanimous green light of 111,510,229 shares in favor and 0.1% (115) against the effort. None of the other 13 measures on the Annual General Meeting (AGM) agenda achieved that tally. That mandate may speed up implementation.
Meanwhile, three aspects of the vote stand out:
- The announcement didn’t say when the US stock listing process would begin and end, or whether Flutter would list on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) or Nasdaq
- FoxBet may live on. The US listing will contain Flutter’s global brands and, while the AGM agenda did mention FanDuel twice, it didn’t exclude any brands. FoxBet is in Flutter’s US division, like FanDuel, PokerStars, and TVG.
- The vote happened fast – Flutter confirmed on Valentine’s Day that the company wanted to pursue this US listing. Also, Bonus first heard interest in the topic from a shareholder questioning company leaders about it on Nov. 16, 2022, at Flutter’s FanDuel Capital Markets Day.
UPDATE: 5/3/2023
While today’s trading update from Flutter didn’t provide many details on the upcoming US listing, it did at least provide more of a timeframe. The Q1 2023 update said a US listing will come “in late Q4.”
Flutter CEO Peter Jackson added:
We were also very pleased to receive overwhelming support among our shareholders for the addition of a Flutter US listing. The strategic and capital markets benefits this will bring to Flutter will position the Group well for its next phase of growth.
No FanDuel IPO Likely
While no FanDuel IPO seems to be in the works now, it was a front-of-mind consideration for Flutter from March 2021 to October 2022, when the economy cooled.
Shortly afterward, a final hassle blocking a possible FanDuel IPO ended. Flutter’s disagreement with media partner Fox Corporation was finally resolved on Nov. 7, 2022, with an arbitrator saying Fox would need to pay $4.1 billion to acquire an 18.6% stake in FanDuel. That decision meant FanDuel’s value was $22 billion.
However, Flutter had already moved on from the idea of separating out FanDuel. Just days later, a stockholder proposed the US Flutter listing. Even so, the AGM agenda describes FanDuel as Flutter Group‘s “largest business by revenue during FY2022, and [it’s] expected to constitute an ever-greater proportion of its overall value in the future.”
Perhaps part of Flutter’s optimism comes from the knowledge that many investors who will buy stocks on a US exchange – in dollars and during an Eastern Time Zone trading day – will be paying close attention to FanDuel’s performance, too.
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