Icahn Ally Mather Departs Caesars Board

Courtney Mather, an ally of Carl Icahn, resigned from Caesars Entertainment’s (NASDAQ: CZR) board of directors, effective Tuesday.

The news comes as Icahn is attempting to mount a takeover bid for the casino giant — one that needs to adequately surpass the $17.6 billion Tilman Fertitta’s Fertitta Entertainment Inc. (FEI) is offering for the target. Caesars didn’t comment on deal-making being a potential impetus for Mather leaving the board.

Mather joined Icahn LP, the limited partnership of Icahn Enterprises, in April 2014 after serving as head of U.S. loan trading at Goldman Sachs. He worked for Icahn until March 2020.

Mather Had Interesting Caesars History

As Icahn’s stake in the old version of Caesars exceeded 15% in March 2019, he pushed for more control at the gaming company.

The Harrah’s operator acquiesced, removing three of its directors and replacing them with a trio close to Icahn, one of whom was Mather. The other two were Keith Cozza and James Nelson, neither of whom are on the board today.

Those appointments proved integral in Icahn acting as the architect of the $17.3 billion acquisition by Eldorado Resorts — the 2020 deal that created the new version of Caesars and the largest U.S. casino operator by number of venues.

Caesars isn’t the only company at which Mather represented Icahn’s activist interests. He also served on the boards of Freeport-McMoRan and Newell Brands — companies at which Icahn previously pushed for change. Currently, Mather is the chief executive officer and chief investment officer of Vision One.

Clock Ticking on Icahn’s Caesars Bid

As Caesars points out in the regulatory filing, Mather’s resignation from the board isn’t the result of a disagreement with the company. Still, it arrives at a potentially inconvenient time for Icahn.

Reports are circulating that he’s trying to piece together a competing takeover bid for Caesars even though the board previously advocated in favor of Fertitta’s offer. Icahn’s offer, which hasn’t been formalized of yet, is rumored to involve complex debt swaps, though it’s believed to value Caesars at $33 a share, slightly more than the $31 per share valuation in the Feritta deal.

Icahn has until Saturday to get Caesars to the bargaining table because that’s when the company’s go-shop period expires. It’s a Hail Mary play, but he has some help because Jesse Lynn, general counsel of Icahn Enterprises, and Ted Papapostolou, chief executive officer of that company, are directors at the casino operator. With Mather’s departure, Caesars has 10 directors.