Jason Ader, the corporate investor who made IGT squirm last year, made some headlines this year when he acquired 6.1 percent of bwin.party through his Spring Owl firm. He immediately launched public criticisms of the company.
Ader charges the company has not been returning shareholder value.
“Be it through personnel decisions which do not appear to take into account the needs of the business or compensation decisions which we don’t believe have been aligned with the success or lack thereof of the shareholders, it is unfortunate that this board has overseen a path which has seen the shareholders bearing the economic burdens of their mistakes,” Spring Owl said in a press release,
Bwin.party responded with its own release.
“We have had several conversations with Jason, welcome his investment and look forward to holding more in-depth dialogue,” the release said. “We continue to urge him to use his right to nominate his representative to the board as soon as possible so that we can take him through the full details of our plans.”
Ader has suggested possibly breaking up bwin.party and has also questioned the recent appointment of the new chairman, Phillip Yea.
He has called on bwin.party CEO Norbert Teufelberger to replace the current senior management team with what he calls “a more competent team of managers.”
In addition, Ader has nominated four people to be named to the bwin.party board, including Michael Fertik, the CEO of Reputation.com, financial attorney Francis Grady, venture capitalist Kalendu Patel and Innovation Group founder Steven Rittvo. Spring Owl has the right to name one member of the board, according to bwin.party.
