Flutter Entertainment, the parent of sports betting and gaming brands worldwide, including FanDuel in the US and Betfair in the UK and Ireland, announced in a filing to the exchange and the Central Bank of Ireland that Parvus Asset Management is now holding more than7% of the voting rights.
Equity Swaps and Put Options
Sending Standard Form TR-1 for notification of major holdings to notify for an acquisition or disposal of financial instruments, FTSE-listed Flutter revealed that on May 25, Parvus Asset Management Europe surpassed the 7% threshold of voting rights by way of equity swaps and options.
Parvus acquired equity swaps with expiration from June 2022 to May 2025, as well as put options expiring in June 2022 to add 12,457,399 new voting rights and now has 7.09% of all voting rights at Flutter.
Parvus, a London-based investment manager to a number of funds and previous history in the gambling industry with positions in William Hill and The Stars Group, is owned by Edoardo Mercadante, formerly of US investment bank Merrill Lynch.
“Under the terms of the various investment management agreements, Parvus Asset Management Europe Limited holds the power to vote any physical shareholdings held by these clients.”
Flutter Entertainment
Parvus notified Flutter about the newly-acquired voting rights on May 27 and triggered Flutter’s obligation as an issuer to notify the exchange and the Central Bank of Ireland where Flutter Entertainment is incorporated.
By increasing its voting rights from 6.03% to 7.09% Parvus became the third-largest holder of voting rights at Flutter – behind US pension fund Capital Group, which holds 14%, and private equity group Caledonia Investments with 10%.
BlackRock also Active
The increase of voting rights by Parvus Management is the second for the investment manager in the month following the initial increase from 5.1% to 6.03% on May 4. On that same day, Flutter released its Q1 financial results posting strong growth in revenue driven mainly by its US operations.
Parvus is not the only active party with financial instruments at Flutter as BlackRock, Inc., a US investment management corporation notified Flutter of changes to its voting rights attached to shares and other instruments three times between May 13 and May 19.
Interestingly, BlackRock maintained its voting rights at 6.74%-6.75% and was just changing the balance between voting rights attached to shares and voting rights through other financial instruments.