Dave Portnoy covered his $350M short for only $1

[ValueArb]

 

Quote

 

Penn Entertainment Inc. had high hopes for Barstool Sports when it bought the online media company in two deals totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. 

Now, the regional casino operator is selling the business back to its controversial founder Dave Portnoy for just $1. Penn said Wednesday it will record a loss of up to $850 million on the transaction.

 

...

Portnoy founded Barstool two decades ago as a newspaper in Boston. He wrote the articles, delivered the newspaper to commuters and put images of women in bikinis on the cover. Over the years, it has branched out into podcasts and online video. 

But ultimately it wasn’t much of a business, reflecting the challenges other online media companies like Vox Media Inc. and BuzzFeed Inc. have faced. Barstool lost $16.1 million on sales of $80.9 million over the first six months of 2023, Penn said in a filing.

 

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-09/dave-portnoy-paid-1-to-get-barstool-back-from-penn-entertainment

[Spekulatius]

A true value investor. Sell high and buy low. Who would have thought?

[Parsad]

He only got the brand and name back.  The actual betting business is being sold to ESPN.  If Portnoy makes any money from selling the brand in the future perhaps after building a whole new betting business, Penn gets 50% of the sale.  So really, Penn for $1 gets a potential windfall of 50% from whatever Portnoy develops.  Cheers!