Crooks gonna crook

Did anyone who "vouched" for Amaya on the Blackrock/Pokerstars deal stand to gain from advance knowledge? Does Baazov truly own close to 20%, and if so why continue that alleged behavior for such (relatively) small amounts?

Humans gonna human, but everyting History-of-Amaya looks strange upon closer examination.

all for a measly
wtf

Likely only the amounts they could prove, and probably started way before Baazov was wealthy. Once you're in that sort of thing it can be hard to get out. Though I agree it seems silly and irrational.

You are right about <20% ownership.. 16% I think. it was a very complex and extraordinarily transaction, laden with complexities and very fuzzy details related to the debt and warrants. thereof.

The 16% of shares are likely his and unlikely could be clawed back. But depending on penalties for insider trading in Canada, the only place he might be able to spend that cash for a while is at the prison commissary.

No idea why he would risk so much future as CEO just for a few chesseburgers for his friends/family. Just dumb and arrogant me thinks.

They never think they'll get caught, plus Canada has a track record for very lax securities law enforcement.

What's also weird is it's hard to find any data online of his ownership stake, or any purchase/sale of Amaya stock.

It's easy to find the institutional breakdown, etc., but for any insiders (and maybe the preferred holders), it's (seemingly) hard to know/confirm what he really owns and what his trading history has been.

So just fines and such for convicted inside traders in Canada, no prison time ?

This is the same as the States. It depends on who you screw over.
Look at the 2008 800billion bailout for Wall Street. Not a single person was even investigated let alone charged or convicted. Yet Bernie Madolf will rot in prison for the rest of his life. Both are horrible examples of thievery and breaching of trust but only one suffers for their actions.

Is Baazov caused financial harm to the wrong people then he too will go to prison. If he just cheated honest folks and helped other crooks make more money (i.e banks) then he will be let off with a fine.

Personally I think his rise to the top was due to forming relationships with the right people in Montreal and assuming he never crossed them... and I doubt he did... then he should be off easy with a fine. Unless of course that group feels that they could still be in jeopardy if Baazov gets a slap as justice wasn't seen to be done and fear the authorities might go after them for using their influence to convince a bank to loan him 5 billion under dubious terms/kickbacks. If they feel any fear they'd throw the pawn under the bus without a second thought.

It's quite hilarious considering there are people in the US serving life sentences for drugs possession. If you extrapolate those sentences half of wall street would be serving thousands of years or be hanged by the hundreds, yet they all got off the hook. I bet the best Russian spies couldn't tear down the country that much if they tried their hardest.

It has to be this, just has to be. I read an article earlier that quoted something from investigators about an incriminating email where a check for "$32,500" was cut in a quid pro quo info exchange. Ok, the problem with that is if you got $480 million worth of liquid shares to your name it wouldn't be worth your time to stop and pick up a $32,500 bill clean off the sidewalk, much less thrity-two-five in any denomination as likely to be found, and even less so in single cigarettes off the perp-walk. The scales of justice don't easily shift under such weightless theories.

So what gives?


I've listened to DB all of about 1 minute in my life but my impression was he was executing below his pay grade. Be that as it may it seems the guy's pure chutzpah reserves could get him from NY to LA with nothing but a gun and a motorcycle 99 times out of 100, with fuel to spare. As incriminating as that might normally sound in this case we're supposed to believe this guy who, ethnicity notwithstanding, struts onto the 100th floor of Jew York Financial with park-bench newspaper still stuck up his *** crack and has these cats sucking his d*** for 5 billy within the hour is taking existential risks for beer money? And this is the the same dude who's now lying down to some schmuck bleating "you owe me bro we go back, we're homies and I really need the 32k"? Four kids or whatever and a wife, an empire. Is he gonna risk it for his loser brother and nicklerock friends' cheap approval or are they gonna be at the bottom of the St Lawrence river if they dont STFU?

Doesn't really add up.

Most of the time no investigation at all. It's the wild west in the securities market up north. The SEC in the USA has had to apply pressure to get them to do investigations.

^^

So I assume all the insider trader charges pre-dated Amaya's listing on NASDAQ?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repor...ticle31761550/

"The AMF alleges in this new document that some or all of the 13 individuals traded on information related to at least six impending takeover deals, starting with Amaya’s initial play for Cryptologic Ltd. in late 2010 and continuing well into this year with David Baazov’s announcement of his offer to take Amaya private for $21 per share."

With the announcement that Ongame is shutting down, decided to look back at NYX's filings for 2015. It appears that Ongame's EBITDA for 2015 was negative $11.1 million (CAD). So.....times 8 = negative $88.8 million that Amaya "gets paid" as part of this deal?

http://www.nyxgaminggroup.com/nyx-ga...ancial-results

Looks more and more like Amaya & NYX knew Ongame was a sinking ship (and that NYX was going to pay zero for it under the EBITDA clause), and that the other parts of the deal were favorable to NYX in return.

Amaya got their short-term $$ (on the NYX option-exercise = Cryptologic sale + lease-back) and their management rep was prevented from taking a big hit vs. if Ongame had been sold/valued in a transparent way (whether Ongame's demise was due to mismanagement, market forces, or some combination thereto).

@ amaya

Sounds plausible, good piecing together. FWIW, the subsequent Ongame sale was only fo Europe. For whatever reason, the North American brand rights reportedly were retained.

Interesting

For us non-finance majors can you put in layman terms?

Did they do something cheezy?

Amaya loaned NYX $10 million (convertible to NYX stock, unsecured debenture)

NYX got an option to purchase Cryptologic, which it did for $150 million CAD ($110m cash + $40m in preferred shares). Amaya signed 6-year leaseback and guaranteed payment of at least $12m/year for 1st 3 years.

Amaya "gave" NYX Ongame (it appears), which was a sinking ship.

In the public press releases, related articles, etc. of these deals, there's no mention of "loss" or Amaya taking any kind of hit on the Ongame sale. The other parts of the deal seem to provide a nice "shiny object redirect" from the fact that Amaya had (seemingly) failed in their first attempt to successfully operate a poker site.

Cliff's from my understanding for your Cliff's:
- Amaya ran Ongame into the ground.
- Instead of writing it down as its value depreciated, which would have had to be disclosed in their financial statements resulting in their reputation and/or analyst opinion possibly getting dinged, they engineered a transaction whereby they sold it to NYX for a very low price that appeared much larger than it was because it included a fancy-sounding EBITDA-multiple that both parties knew would be worth nothing when it was finally calculated.

Is that about right?

(If it is, I still don't see how the loss wouldn't ultimately have to appear SOMEWHERE on an Amaya financial statement...surely there'd have to be some sort of accounting/reconciliation to acknowledge that the EBITDA multiple consideration ultimately had a value of zero, no?)

^^^^

Was that all done under scrutiny of SEC , Canadian regulator or both ?

I'm not clear on timing re: their listing in US

Sounds like something SEC would have issues with or at least require more transparent disclosures / filings

I'm just suggesting that including the Ongame sale in a multi-layered, hard-to-value transaction obfuscated the fact that Amaya probably lost a good chunk of $$ on the Ongame purchase + operation + sale. Later on in a filing they declared a $32 million accounting loss re: Ongame (other people pointed out the loss, or even the strategy in buying Ongame (i.e. expecting a loss) *could* be for a myriad of reasons - strategic, etc.).

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...ghlight=ongame

If you own the World's largest online gaming site and are up to your eyeballs in debt (with increasing debt payments/obligations coming due), you probably don't want people to realize that your first foray into operating a poker/gaming site didn't go so well. The public/investors being optimistic about your future growth/management/performance still matters a lot.

Maybe NYX had strategic interest/hope for operating Ongame? Or maybe both parties knew it was a crap asset, and part of the benefit Amaya received in the Amaya-NYX deal was being able to dispose of the soured asset, while spinning such in a more positive light.

(Hey, it's part of a broader investment/partnership/asset sale. No easily digestible numbers to see here reflecting negatively on our management capabilities, everyone move along!!)

The Toronto Globe and Mail columnist Nicholas Van Praet has done several pieces on the subject recently. Here's a link to one: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repor...ticle31761550/
Other's are on his website: https://muckrack.com/nicolasvanpraet/articles. (Some but not all are behind the Globe's paywall.)

http://www.pressreader.com/canada/th...81681139357607

so Earl Levett, brother of Craig Levett, buddy of Dave Baazov, remortgages his house, puts the $150k and the rest of his savings, $50k, into a trading account, immediately buys as many shares of WMS as he can. A couple of weeks later a takeover of WMS is announced, shooting the share price up, Earl Levett immediately sells and trousers $77k. Investigators later ask him what WMS does and he has no idea.

Why is this guy even hiring a lawyer?

Is there any chance that guy could profit nicely and not get busted? Seems 99% that you are caught with being so obvious. What a ******.