Standard General Facing Miami Pension Suit Over Bally’s Deal
Posted on: September 21, 2025, 09:00h.
Last updated on: September 20, 2025, 10:41h.
- Pension investor calls Bally’s owner “vulture hedge fund”
- Claims Standard General’s bid to acquire Bally’s was “coercive”
- Says Sinclair Broadcasting assisted Kim’s hedge fund
The Miami Police Pension and Relief Fund claims Standard General’s 2024 offer to acquire regional casino operator Bally’s disadvantaged many investors, accusing some larger shareholders of aiding Soo Kim’s hedging on a “coercive” offer.
In a suit filed in the Court of Chancery of the state of Delaware, the Miami law enforcement retirement plan named Kim, Bally’s CEO Robeson Reeves, President George Papanier, and other high-ranking executives. In March 2024, Standard General, which is controlled by Bally’s Chairman Soo Kim, floated a $15 per share takeover offer. That was upped to $18.25 a share, which the gaming company accepted. That offer arrived 26 months after the hedge fund attempted to acquire the gaming company in January 2022, offering $38 a share. The Miami police retirement fund isn’t happy about how things went down.
Plain and simple, ‘hedge fund vulture’ Kim and Standard General could not fund the Transaction on a level playing field and therefore demanded a coercive deal structure that massively underpaid Bally’s and its minority stockholders for the equity ownership Kim and Standard General received,” according to a legal document.
The $4.6 billion deal closed in February. The Miami Police Pension and Relief Fund asserts Standard General was able to acquire Bally’s through several steps, adding the buyer’s quest was assisted by some other prominent investors.
Sinclair Broadcasting Allegedly Involved
The Miami retirement plan explicitly names Sinclair Broadcasting (NASDAQ: SBGI) in the document, claiming that company assisted Standard General its plan to control more shares of Bally’s, thus forcing the casino operator to accept a subpar takeover offer.
Sinclair received an equity stake in Bally’s in late 2020 when the two companies struck an agreement reportedly worth $85 million over 10 years under which the gaming company would apply its name to the media firm’s regional sports networks (RSNs). Those networks now bear the FanDuel name, but Sinclair remains a Bally’s investor.
“Together, Kim, Standard General, (Noel) Hayden, and Sinclair (together the “Control Group”) beneficially owned 53% of the Company’s fully diluted shares pre-Transaction and 48.3% of the Company’s fully diluted shares excluding out of the money options held by Sinclair. If not for their pre-signing agreement to roll over their equity along with Standard General, the Transaction would not have occurred as Standard General did not have the funds to close the Transaction,” according to the suit.
Noel Hayden is the founder of Gamesys, a UK-based interactive gaming company Bally’s acquired for $2.7 billion in March 2021. That deal made him a significant shareholder in the casino operator.
The Miami Police Pension and Relief Fund adds the next step in Kim’s plan was to infuse Bally’s with debt using the company’s own revolving credit facility.
“Then, Kim required Bally’s to provide additional Transaction financing by issuing massive debt from the Company’s own credit facility. The availability of those funds required Bally’s to first pay down its credit facility using cash from newly executed transactions, leaving the post-Transaction company precipitously overleveraged and less valuable,” per the suit.
Special Committee Was ‘Conflicted’
In March 2024, Bally’s formed a special committee to evaluate Standard General’s offer. Committees of that nature are supposed to be independent, but the Miami police retirement plan claims the Bally’s version was anything but independent.
The investor alleges the three members of that committee had “strong ties to Kim” and that they were plied with “lucrative job offers” special payments, and pledges of stakes in rolled over equity. Those enticements may have tilted the playing field in favor of Standard General, according to the plaintiff.
The Miami pension plan adds that while the committee had limited options, it didn’t use what leverage it had to lure other bidders. When the Standard General offer was revealed, some analysts speculated Bally’s wouldn’t attract other bids because of other issues, including regulatory headwinds in the UK and disappointing performances in its North America digital arm.
“The Committee (i) refused to follow- up with unsolicited inbound bidders early in the sale process, (ii) rejected bondholders’ offers to waive the change-of-control triggers to their debt instruments that would have leveled the playing field on Transaction costs to the Control Group and competing bidders, (iii) performed a belated and limited market check and then sabotaged engagement with potential alternative buyers, and (iv) allowed a conflicted director, Jaymin Patel (Vice-Chair of Bally’s Board and advisor to Kim) to interface directly with Kim and abdicated their duty to drive the process to Patel,” wrote counsel for the plaintiff.
Patel is named in the suit. The pension investor also said the committee “caved” to Kim and his hedge fund and that the group didn’t live up to its fiduciary responsibility to inform investors what was the best course of action to take with their shares. The plaintiff also accuses Bally’s of issuing a “misleading” proxy statement excluding details of the special committee’s cozy relationship with Kim.
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