Slots vs. Online Gambling Focus of IGT Proxy Battle: Comes to Head March 5
A March 5 annual meeting will determine the fate of the world’s largest slot manufacture’s board.
Investor Jason Ader is embroiled in a nasty proxy fight with IGT’s current management. Ader wants to place his own hand-picked executives on the board.
He also feels the company has lost its focus.
“IGT’s core business has historically been relatively straightforward -- it designs, manufactures and distributes slot machines and systems to casino operators,” Ader’s group said in a presentation to stockholders released this month.
IGT’s current Chairman, Philip Satre, disagrees with this sentiment.
In an interview with Bloomberg News, Satre noted that today’s younger patrons are less inclined to play on slot machines and more focused on the Web.
“They won’t sit at a machine for two hours or three hours,” Satre said. “It is to me one of the biggest single challenges for the gaming industry, having products that are relevant to this new generation.”
“This is an incredible opportunity for us to take our content that we’ve developed for our bricks and mortar casinos and move it into another space,” Satre said. His vision is to excite younger players through online play and get them spending more at the brick & mortar casinos on slots.
IGT’s stock is down 30 percent since 2009 when CEO Patti Hart took over. Its stock has risen 12 percent this year, however, beating the S&P 500’s 5.3 percent advance.
Total sales of slot machines in North America fell to 61,979 in 2010 from a recent peak of 136,619 in 2004, according to Eilers Research LLC, based in Anaheim Hills, California. Last year’s sales totaled 90,447.
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com
