Flutter’s management reshuffle puts focus on chief executive Peter Jackson

Where does Flutter Entertainment chief executive Peter Jackson go from here?

It’s a week since the Paddy Power owner unveiled its first-quarter results along with a raft of management changes. If Jackson hoped that FanDuel boss Amy Howe’s leaving – he made clear to Reuters it was not her decision – and the promotion of international boss Dan Taylor into the new role of president would sate investors who have been selling off the stock by the bucket load, it’s clear now that hasn’t worked.

As of this writing, the shares are 8 per cent lower than the day before Flutter published its results. They are off more than 55 per cent since the start of the year.

Flutter’s problems are well known. While there are issues elsewhere, its key market is the US. There, its FanDuel brand has been squeezed and outflanked by so-called prediction markets that have swamped a geographic market FanDuel looked set to dominate for years.

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The prediction market problem is not a particularly new one and, while Jackson promoted Flutter’s potential as a market maker for predictions to analysts last week, it seems to remain as big a problem as ever for the company. Given that Flutter’s Betfair pioneered prediction markets – just look at Betfair Exchange – in the UK decades ago, it is clear the bookie dropped the ball in the one country where it couldn’t really afford to.

Jackson is in a difficult spot. He has been chief executive since 2018 but the environment for most of that time has been benign. That same year the US supreme court ruled a federal ban on gambling was unconstitutional. As he expanded Flutter into the market that presented, it faced few real challengers. Now that the business is under pressure from competitors in the US, Jackson has yet to show he has the answers.

Meanwhile activist investor Parvus Asset Management already owns more than 10 per cent of its shares. Just to add to the mix, a single investor, Kenneth Dart, controls about 25 per cent of the company’s stock. What does he want?

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Given the scale of the company’s bet on the US, Howe was arguably the most important executive in Flutter after Jackson. Now she’s gone, Taylor, who already ran the international business apart from the US, is the clear number two and presumably heir apparent.

For any top executive, it can be difficult to turn things around once they start to go wrong. What are the odds it will be different for Peter Jackson?