Fantasy sports company DraftKings will go public after merging with Diamond Eagle Acquisition Corp. ($DEAC) and SBTech. When the bookmaker makes it official, the company will have a market cap of $3.3 billion and be listed on Nasdaq u.
DraftKings CEO Jason Robins said the company was looking to achieve three objectives: acquire SBTech, raise capital to fund launching in new states for sports betting, and go public. The deal got “all three of those objectives accomplished in one transaction,” he told Cheddar.
Diamond Eagle will change its name to DraftKings Inc. once the transaction closes, which is expected in the first half of 2020 and will create the first vertically integrated sports betting company. Through the merger with SBTech, which is a sports betting technology provider, and the already special purpose acquisition company Diamond Eagle Acquisition ($DEAC), DraftKings will become a publicly-traded company without undergoing a lenghthier, traditional IPO process.
According to the CEO, DraftKings uses a lot of its own homegrown technology, but he noted that "the one thing that’s not is the bets that are made and the systems and operations behind that.”
“We’re a tech company, we’re a product company and, for us, it’s absolutely critical to own and control that,” Robins said of SBTech.
Robins will lead the new DraftKings, and the company will remain headquartered in Boston, where it is one of the largest tech companies in the city, but will reincorporate in Nevada. The company was founded in 2012 and most recently had attempted to merge with its rival FanDuel, but the deal was abandoned after federal regulators sued.
The Rev. Al Sharpton is set to lead a protest march on Wall Street to urge corporate America to resist the Trump administration’s campaign to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The New York civil rights leader will join clergy, labor and community leaders Thursday in a demonstration through Manhattan’s Financial District that’s timed with the anniversary of the Civil Rights-era March on Washington in 1963. Sharpton called DEI the “civil rights fight of our generation." He and other Black leaders have called for boycotting American retailers that scaled backed policies and programs aimed at bolstering diversity and reducing discrimination in their ranks.
President Donald Trump's administration last month awarded a $1.2 billion contract to build and operate what's expected to become the nation’s largest immigration detention complex to a tiny Virginia firm with no experience running correction facilities.
Chipmaker Nvidia is poised to release a quarterly report that could provide a better sense of whether the stock market has been riding an overhyped artificial intelligence bubble or is being propelled by a technological boom that’s still gathering momentum.
Cracker Barrel said late Tuesday it’s returning to its old logo after critics — including President Donald Trump — protested the company’s plan to modernize.
Low-value imports are losing their duty-free status in the U.S. this week as part of President Donald Trump's agenda for making the nation less dependent on foreign goods. A widely used customs exemption for international shipments worth $800 or less is set to end starting on Friday. Trump already ended the “de minimis” rule for inexpensive items sent from China and Hong Kong, but having to pay import taxes on small parcels from everywhere else likely will be a big change for some small businesses and online shoppers. Purchases that previously entered the U.S. without needing to clear customs will be subject to the origin country’s tariff rate, which can range from 10% to 50%.
Southwest Airlines will soon require plus-size travelers to pay for an extra seat in advance if they can't fit within the armrests of one seat. This change is part of several updates the airline is making. The new rule starts on Jan. 27, the same day Southwest begins assigning seats. Currently, plus-size passengers can pay for an extra seat in advance and later get a refund, or request a free extra seat at the airport. Under the new policy, refunds are still possible but not guaranteed. Southwest said in a statement it is updating policies to prepare for assigned seating next year.
Cracker Barrel is sticking with its new logo. For now. But the chain is also apologizing to fans who were angered when the change was announced last week.
Elon Musk on Monday targeted Apple and OpenAI in an antitrust lawsuit alleging that the iPhone maker and the ChatGPT maker are teaming up to thwart competition in artificial intelligence.
