Somewhere out there, hopefully on a relaxed tropical isle, sits Jette Nygaard-Andersen, the former CEO of once conflict-wracked Entain, sipping a Tequila Twist and wrapped, one imagines, in a glow of warm vindication.
PJ-loving, Danish-born Jette, the first woman to head a major gambling company, was ejected, defenestrated, as Entain boss just before Xmas 2023 after a debilitating campaign by activist investors who claimed she was driving the FTSE100 omnichannel–owners of storied Ladbrokes Coral, et al–onto the financial shoals through her allegedly “reckless” and over-priced expansion into CEE markets.
Jette was done for and Entain–which had only then recently changed its name from GVC Holdings in shame, following an exposé of alleged criminal transactions and alleged money laundering by a Turkish affiliate–embarked on yet another round of corporate and fiscal chaos, exacerbated by having to pay a massive £585 million (US$792.94m) fine for its stated misdemeanours during the GVC regime of Kenny Alexander.
Fall Guy
In truth, and in common parlance, Jette was the Fall Guy for all Entain’s troubles.
But today her nemesis Ricky Sandler, New York market raider and CEO of Eminence Capital stepped down as a non-executive director of Entain, amid swirling reports that his investment vehicle, Eminence Capital, is to shut down.
Sandler was a prime mover in Jette’s firing, claiming in a flow of brutal assessments that her policy of expanding into regulated markets–particularly in Central and Eastern Europe–were very bad deals.
The New York financier, who owned some five percent of Entain’s shares at this juncture, directed much of his fire and ire on Jette’s £750 million (US$1.016bn) purchase of Poland’s dominant STS betting brand in June 2023.
The STS acquisition followed Nygaard-Andersen’s spectacular spending spree of buying Baltics-facing Enlabs AB, Portuguese Bet.pt and esports betting vehicle unikrn in 2021 and then Latvia’s Klondaika, Avid Gaming, Poland’s Totolotek, SuperSport in Croatia and Holland’s BetCity in 2022.
Empire Building
These acquisitions were reckless “empire building” and a strategy that “was destroying shareholder value”, charged Sandler.
After Jette’s overthrow, Sandler joined the Entain Board as a non-Executive director in January 2024 and member of the company’s Capital Allocation Committee.
Today his relationship with Entain is struck.
But Entain, now under the steady leadership of current CEO Stella David, sans Sandler, sails on – boosted, somewhat paradoxically, by those same CEE acquisitions that triggered Jette Nygaard-Andersen’s fall from iGaming’s olympian heights.
As for Sandler, as he grapples with the future of his fund said to be worth some US$7 billion (£5.6bn), he’s unlikely to be blowing the whistle on any other players anytime soon.
