Nov. 3 is the appointed day for Landry’s shareholders to vote on CEO Tilman Fertitta‘s $21/share buyout offer. The stock’s had a wild ride lately, hitting bottom at $12.42, following a precipitate dive during what might be called Hurricane Ike weekend. No fool he, Fertitta took advantage of depressed prices to scarf up an additional 400,000 shares. The performance of Landry’s huge restaurant portfolio hasn’t been stellar of late, but the two Golden Nugget casinos are keeping revenues aloft, providing 43% of the company’s total intake.
Although daily newspapers rarely have the luxury of indulging in analysis, the Las Vegas Review-Journal has been dipping a few toes in the analytical waters of late. Noting the Ike Effect on Landry’s restaurants, the R-J finds Fertitta between a rock and a hard place: If operated revenes fall below certain benchmarks, Fertitta’s financing is imperiled. But if the deal doesn’t go through, a re-restructuring of debt is nigh and Landry’s probably couldn’t meet a margin call. Fertita’s own equity contribution to the buyout consists of $90 million in cash and $97 million worth of shares.
A similar story chronicles some of the business challenges that are bedeviling International Game Technology. It doesn’t get into why IGT is losing market share to Bally Technologies (which just dodged a bullet from the SEC) and WMS Industries, but it suggests that Wall Street impatience is part of the problem.
IGT is trying to pivot and position itself at the leading edge of server-based slots, something that’s not going to yield any short-term results. Depending on where the impending cuts of 500-1,000 IGT jobs fall, it would be unfortunate if their effect was to impair the company’s ability to innovate, simply to placate stock analysts.
