{"id":995,"date":"2025-09-21T14:00:28","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T14:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/?p=995"},"modified":"2025-09-29T11:56:40","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T11:56:40","slug":"standard-general-facing-miami-pension-suit-over-ballys-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/21\/standard-general-facing-miami-pension-suit-over-ballys-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Standard General Facing Miami Pension Suit Over Bally\u2019s Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><strong>Pension investor calls Bally\u2019s owner \u201cvulture hedge fund\u201d<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Claims Standard General\u2019s bid to acquire Bally\u2019s was \u201ccoercive\u201d<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Says Sinclair Broadcasting assisted Kim\u2019s hedge fund<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p>The Miami Police Pension and Relief Fund claims Standard General\u2019s 2024 offer to acquire regional casino operator Bally\u2019s disadvantaged many investors, accusing some larger shareholders of aiding Soo Kim\u2019s hedging on a \u201ccoercive\u201d offer.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_222727\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-222727\" data-style=\"width: 858px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-222727 size-post-thumbnail-858xAUTO lazyload\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" alt=\"Bally&#039;s\" width=\"858\" height=\"572\" data-src=\"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/SK-858x572-1.jpg\"><figcaption>Standard General founder Soo Kim. A Miami pension plan is accusing the Bally&#8217;s owner of shortchanging investors in a 2024 takeover offer. (Image: <em>Meet AC\/Casino.org<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In a suit filed in the Court of Chancery of the state of Delaware, the Miami law enforcement retirement plan named Kim, Bally\u2019s CEO Robeson Reeves, President George Papanier, and other high-ranking executives. In March 2024, Standard General, which is controlled by Bally\u2019s Chairman Soo Kim, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/ballys-should-but-probably-wont-accept-new-takeover-bid\/\">floated a $15 per share<\/a> takeover offer. That <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/ballys-accepts-higher-takeover-bid-from-standard-general\/\">was upped to $18.25 a share<\/a>, which the gaming company accepted. That offer arrived 26 months after the hedge fund attempted to acquire the gaming company in January 2022, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/ballys-stock-falls-after-company-rejects-takeover-offer\/\">offering $38 a share<\/a>. The Miami police retirement fund isn\u2019t happy about how things went down.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"main-blockquote\">\n<p>Plain and simple, \u2018hedge fund vulture\u2019 Kim and Standard General could not fund the Transaction on a level playing field and therefore demanded a coercive deal structure that massively underpaid Bally&#8217;s and its minority stockholders for the equity ownership Kim and Standard General received,\u201d according to a legal document.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The $4.6 billion deal closed in February. The Miami Police Pension and Relief Fund asserts Standard General was able to acquire Bally\u2019s through several steps, adding the buyer\u2019s quest was assisted by some other prominent investors.<\/p>\n<h2>Sinclair Broadcasting Allegedly Involved<\/h2>\n<p>The Miami retirement plan explicitly names Sinclair Broadcasting (NASDAQ: SBGI) in the document, claiming that company assisted Standard General its plan to control more shares of Bally\u2019s, thus forcing the casino operator to accept a subpar takeover offer.<\/p>\n<div class=\"callout\">\n<p>Sinclair received an equity stake in Bally\u2019s in late 2020 when the two companies struck an agreement reportedly worth <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/ballys-name-heading-to-sinclair-sports-networks-in-gaming-media-deal\/\">$85 million over 10 years<\/a> under which the gaming company would apply its name to the media firm\u2019s regional sports networks (RSNs). Those networks now bear the FanDuel name, but Sinclair remains a Bally\u2019s investor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cTogether, Kim, Standard General, (Noel) Hayden, and Sinclair (together the &#8220;Control Group&#8221;) beneficially owned 53% of the Company&#8217;s fully diluted shares pre-Transaction and 48.3% of the Company&#8217;s fully diluted shares excluding out of the money options held by Sinclair. If not for their pre-signing agreement to roll over their equity along with Standard General, the Transaction would not have occurred as Standard General did not have the funds to close the Transaction,\u201d according to the suit.<\/p>\n<p>Noel Hayden is the founder of Gamesys, a UK-based interactive gaming company Bally\u2019s acquired for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/ballys-gamesys-takeover-dubbed-exciting-by-analysts\/\">$2.7 billion<\/a> in March 2021. That deal made him a significant shareholder in the casino operator.<\/p>\n<p>The Miami Police Pension and Relief Fund adds the next step in Kim\u2019s plan was to infuse Bally\u2019s with debt using the company\u2019s own revolving credit facility.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cThen, Kim required Bally&#8217;s to provide additional Transaction financing by issuing massive debt from the Company&#8217;s own credit facility. The availability of those funds required Bally&#8217;s to first pay down its credit facility using cash from newly executed transactions, leaving the post-Transaction company precipitously overleveraged and less valuable,\u201d per the suit.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>Special Committee Was \u2018Conflicted\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>In March 2024, Bally\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/ballys-forms-committee-to-mull-standard-general-takeover-bid\/\">formed a special committee<\/a> to evaluate Standard General\u2019s offer. Committees of that nature are supposed to be independent, but the Miami police retirement plan claims the Bally\u2019s version was anything but independent.<\/p>\n<p>The investor alleges the three members of that committee had \u201cstrong ties to Kim\u201d and that they were plied with \u201clucrative job offers\u201d special payments, and pledges of stakes in rolled over equity. Those enticements may have tilted the playing field in favor of Standard General, according to the plaintiff.<\/p>\n<p>The Miami pension plan adds that while the committee had limited options, it didn\u2019t use what leverage it had to lure other bidders. When the Standard General offer was revealed, some analysts speculated Bally\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/standard-general-makes-new-15-share-takeover-bid-for-ballys\/\">wouldn\u2019t attract other bids<\/a> because of other issues, including regulatory headwinds in the UK and disappointing performances in its North America digital arm.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Committee (i) refused to follow- up with unsolicited inbound bidders early in the sale process, (ii) rejected bondholders&#8217; offers to waive the change-of-control triggers to their debt instruments that would have leveled the playing field on Transaction costs to the Control Group and competing bidders, (iii) performed a belated and limited market check and then sabotaged engagement with potential alternative buyers, and (iv) allowed a conflicted director, Jaymin Patel (Vice-Chair of Bally&#8217;s Board and advisor to Kim) to interface directly with Kim and abdicated their duty to drive the process to Patel,\u201d wrote counsel for the plaintiff.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Patel is named in the suit. The pension investor also said the committee \u201ccaved\u201d to Kim and his hedge fund and that the group didn\u2019t live up to its fiduciary responsibility to inform investors what was the best course of action to take with their shares. The plaintiff also accuses Bally\u2019s of issuing a \u201cmisleading\u201d proxy statement excluding details of the special committee\u2019s cozy relationship with Kim.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/standard-general-facing-miami-pension-suit-over-ballys-deal\/\">Standard General Facing Miami Pension Suit Over Bally\u2019s Deal<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\">Casino.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pension investor calls Bally\u2019s owner \u201cvulture hedge fund\u201d Claims Standard General\u2019s bid to acquire Bally\u2019s was \u201ccoercive\u201d Says Sinclair Broadcasting assisted Kim\u2019s hedge fund The Miami Police Pension and Relief Fund claims Standard General\u2019s 2024 offer to acquire regional casino operator Bally\u2019s disadvantaged many investors, accusing some larger shareholders of aiding Soo Kim\u2019s hedging on a \u201ccoercive\u201d offer. Standard General [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=995"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":998,"href":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995\/revisions\/998"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}