Comments on Online Poker Insiders: World Poker Tour: Season 8, Company Sale?

They issued a press release about Slovakia, the fifth of these non-televised overseas tournaments.

A press release provided more details about the
2009-07-14T19:11:12.902-04:00
A press release provided more details about the WPT Cyprus.

What about the WPT North American Poker Championsh...

2009-06-13T11:44:46.566-04:00

What about the WPT North American Poker Championship in Niagara Falls, Canada? It has been held in October the past three years, but it seems to have been replaced by WPT Marrakech (October 12-19) and the new WPT Indiana at Hollywood Casino Lawrenceburg in January.

Add Spain and Cyprus to the list of European WPT events coming up after season 7 finishes April 25 (finishes playing, not airing). Neither one will be televised in the US, though the latter is expected to be televised regionally.

Note re a possible sale: we ran a poll on it a whi...

2009-04-03T09:52:00.000-04:00

Note re a possible sale: we ran a poll on it a while ago, and the results were:

65% of you think the WPT will be sold; 22% of you think it will be out of business a year from now; and 14% of you think it will remain an independent company. Of those who think the WPT will be sold, 2/3 think it will be sold to Full Tilt Poker and 1/3 think it will be sold to someone else.

According the the WPT's latest Proxy Statement, insiders own over 30% of WPTE stock: Steven Lipscomb 9.5%, Lyle Berman 11.4%, and Bradley Berman: 10.2%. I'd seen them buying a while back, which indicates they believe it's undervalued.

The WPT issued a press release about the Venice tournament. It will run May 5-10. bwin will be broadcasting it on the web. The tournament has its own web site.

The WPT has added a second online-poker-room-spons...

2009-03-06T06:41:00.000-05:00

The WPT has added a second online-poker-room-sponsored European tournament for season 8: Marrakech, sponsored by Chilipoker. It will take place in October, and the three-year deal contemplates televised broadcasts. See the WPT and Chili sites.

A Yahoo! Finance message board poster's comments on Steve Lipscomb's compensation:

As much as I would like to see a sale of this company, it absolutely disgusts me that Lipscomb will receive even further compensation if it happens.

Let's see, they pay him $500K annual salary and awarded him 2.3M shares when the company was taken public. He then dumped 700K of these shares at an avg price of about $19 for a profit of around $13M before setting off to destroy 95% of shareholder value over the next three years. He then repurchases 375K share at an avg price of around $.35, and is exchanged 500,000 new options at current market prices to replace the 600,000 he was granted that had a strike price of $8. To top it off, he's then granted an additional 5% stake of the gross proceeds of the company (minus cash) should it be sold.

I must ask, what has he accomplished to be awarded such additional compensation? This is a complete outrage, and just another grotesque example of coporate governance in this day and age.