Flutter shareholders vote at AGM to move primary listing to NYSE
The move from London to the NYSE will be completed by the end of May. As per the AGM, the move reflects “the company’s growth trajectory and changing dynamics of global markets”.
The news follows a growing trend highlighted by the UK financial press of public companies moving their primary listing from London to New York.
Flutter first began trading on the NYSE in January to much fanfare under the ticker FLUT. This followed an announcement in December that it was working to list its shares on the NYSE by 29 January 2024.
What does the Flutter move to the NYSE mean?
In the eyes of industry analysts, the listing represent a turning point for sports betting investment in the US.
As previously highlighted by senior analyst at H2 Gambling Capital, Ed Birkin, it is a logical move. Stocks listed in the US normally trade at a much higher valuation than those listed in London.
Given Flutter-owned FanDuel’s market dominance in the US, the name already carries serious value. “There are few opportunities for US investors to get materially exposed to the growth of the US online sports wagering or igaming market. DraftKings is the main opportunity,” says Birkin.
“While Flutter isn’t a US online pureplay investment, it has meaningful exposure to the market. That is likely to be of genuine interest to investors.”
With only seven US states having launched igaming so far, there is plenty of work still to be done. “When the majority of your revenues and earnings are coming from a certain market and you can get higher valuations with more liquidity, it makes sense to move your listing to that location,” Birkin explains.
The access to far higher liquidity pools will inevitably provide more ammunition for doing so. Birking added: “Being listed on the NYSE will without doubt open the doors to more potential investors.”
Flutter consolidating FanDuel’s position
As highlighted, Flutter’s principal goal alongside attracting investment will be to consolidate its market leadership.
Key to this will be taking more share in the US igaming space as it regulates. The development of the UK since 2010 has followed a similar trajectory.
Both Paddy Power and William Hill have based much of their UK success on this. While both used sports as their primary driver, this inevitably peaked, with igaming then coming into play. Birkin agrees and believes that FanDuel will also follow this path.
“The same is likely to be the plan for FanDuel”, explains Birkin. “Maintain a sports wagering market leadership and at the same time accelerate the overall growth rate of the business by increasing their lower share in the igaming market.
“Scale matters and having such scale in sports is naturally going to translate to gains in igaming.”
Building on 2023’s success
Flutter’s NYSE listing also comes at a time when its balance sheet is in good health. Group revenue rose 24.7% to $11.79bn (£9.32bn/€10.87bn) in 2023.
As reported in its preliminary results in January, operations in the US were the main driver behind its success. Through FanDuel, Flutter CEO Peter Jackson highlighted that it holds a market-leading position in the country, with activity in the US resulting in positive annual adjusted EBITDA for the first time in 2023.
Such is Jackson’s and Flutter’s optimism for 2024 that double-digit growth is forecast across group revenue and adjusted EBITDA. In its outlook issued in March 2024, Flutter said revenue is expected to increase 17.5% and adjusted EBITDA 30.2%.
Flutter’s breakdown of its segmental performance in 2023 showed the US led the way by some distance with revenue of $4.48bn, an increase of 40.6% from the previous year.
Looking at US operations as a whole, net gaming revenue market share stood at 53.4%, up from 43.2% in 2022. FanDuel also acquired over 3.7 million new betting and igaming players in 2023, 19.0% up from the previous year.