Flutter Entertainment’s shareholders back move to US primary listing

Paddy Power owner, Flutter Entertainment, is aiming to complete the move of its primary share listing from London to New York by the end of the month, its chief executive said today.

Peter Jackson was speaking after shareholders overwhelmingly backed the transfer of the listing at the company’s AGM in Dublin this morning.

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Mr Jackson said the move would result in the company dropping out of the FTSE100 index.

“We will do everything we can to make ourselves eligible for inclusion in the US indices, as quickly as we can,” he added.

He said the reason for the movement of the listing is that the company really sees itself as “going home”.

“The US is our natural home for this business,” he said, adding that having the primary listing in the world’s leading equity market was the right place for it to be.

The Flutter CEO said the liquidity pools in the American market are much greater than other markets around the world, with higher volumes of trading than in Dublin and London.

“That means that people are willing to take bigger stakes in companies because they feel they can get in and get out of them,” he said.

Earlier this year, Flutter delisted from the Irish stock exchange, Euronext Dublin, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange instead, ahead of its planned movement of its primary listing from London to the US.

He added that stockmarkets in Europe and in the UK need to be very much focused on how they can drive up liquidity, which is a true test of an exchange.

He said the US is going to be nearly half the group revenue base for this year, nearly half of shareholders are US-based and a majority of board members are based there too.

In relation to the ongoing development of the Gambling Regulation Bill here, Mr Jackson said Flutter supports the introduction of legislation in Ireland.

“It is very important that we do see regulation brought in to bare,” he claimed.

He said the company is happy with the vast majority of what is contained in the draft laws, but there are a few issues that do need to be addressed, which Flutter is engaging on through consultation processes.

“Our particular concern is around the potential impact for unintended consequences if some of these things are removed,” he stated.

Mr Jackon acknowledged that there have been some redundancies in the company’s operations in this country, but said Ireland is a very important place for Flutter, as it was founded here.

“We don’t have any plans for any significant wholesale changes in our location strategy, but we are a big global business that operates out of many locations around the world,” he said.

All resolutions put to the AGM were comprehensively passed by shareholders and the meeting took less than 15 minutes.

 

Source: RTE

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