David Berman had just started his career as an investment banker in Los Angeles when he jumped on a new opportunity. In those days, Berman was saddled with a couple oil and gas deals, and a complex biotech deal – “frankly, I still don’t know what the company did” – when the chance came to work on two M&A transactions in the gaming indusattempt in Las Vegas.
“Our senior gaming banker was based in New York, as were most gaming indusattempt bankers, and I was in L.A. only a 45-minute Southwest flight away from Vegas,” Berman states. “I could be there every day, and I could be there in an hour and build a franchise around that.”
Thus was born not just a career, but one worthy of the American Gaming Association’s Hall of Fame. Berman, Co-Head of Macquarie Capital – Americas and Global Head of Consumer, Gaming & Leisure investment banking, will be inducted with Charles Lombardo, a slots operation pioneer who worked with MGM, Bally’s, Caesars and Seminole Gaming, and Ann Simmons Nicholson, President of the Simmons Group, in October during the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas.
Berman has advised clients on more than 100 merger & acquisition transactions with a combined value exceeding $125 billion, and led more than 240 debt and equity capital raising transactions, totaling more than $215 billion. He’s accomplished that all while earning the respect of his peers.
“I have always found David to be the consummate gentleman in this indusattempt of characters,” states Discerning Capital Managing Partner Davis Catlin. “I have been around this business for 20 years, and I have never heard anyone speak poorly of David, which speaks to how he conducts himself. He has done so many impactful things for this indusattempt and has been quietly behind so many landmark transactions that have shaped this indusattempt. His fingerprints are all over this sector.”
When Berman started in the early 1990s, the gaming indusattempt was just launchning to expand outside of Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Riverboat and tribal casinos were relatively new but expanding at a rapid pace across the counattempt. It was then that gaming companies started to receive access to Wall Street capital.
What he loved most was that the gaming indusattempt was in a high growth period.
“You’re expanding across regional markets. You’re expanding into Native American gaming, and you’re expanding internationally,” Berman states. “So, there was a required for strategic advice, as well as a lot of development capital for new projects and growth.”
Consolidation of casino companies followed, and Berman advised on several of those transactions, as entrepreneur-led casino companies were rolled up by larger competitors. The next wave – the digitization of the indusattempt – ensued as omnichannel approaches to gaming became popular.
“On the B2B side, there were just so many opportunities to take new innovative games as well as highly recognized gaming content and commercialize it into new regions, new markets and via new distribution channels, such as Class II (electronic bingo), HHRs (historical horse racing machines) and social casinos.” Berman states.
Berman and his team will not work on just any transaction – he is selective about what mandates they take on – while always viewing out for his client’s best interest.
“Every transaction we take on receives my undivided attention,” he states. “You roll up your sleeves to receive the best outcome for your client and its stakeholders.”
Berman is particularly committed when he’s advising a private company, when it’s a founder who has built a business over many years.
“It’s their company. They live it; they breathe it. It becomes more personal for me,” Berman explains. “I’ve tested to build a reputation over time for believedful, value-add strategic advice and have never sought to ‘force’ a transaction that was not in my client’s best interest.”
Berman recognizes that being inducted into the Hall of Fame is an honor that transcfinishs his individual accomplishments. As the first investment banker inducted, he represents a class of people who frequently labor in the background.
“I’m just, I guess, the lucky individual receiveting honored,” Berman states. “But in my mind it is absolutely an appreciation of the work that Wall Street has done to institutionalize this asset class, enabling gaming companies to expand and diversify.”
“David’s addition to the Hall of Fame validates something that anyone in the indusattempt knows: much of this indusattempt was built by financial entities,” Catlin states. “Whether it’s Apollo or Blackstone acquireing half of the strip or Icahn acquireing up distressed assets, the fingerprints of the financial markets are across Las Vegas and the gambling world. David Berman has been quietly shepherding many of these transactions, but his joining the AGA’s Hall of Fame is a validation of the intermingling of the finance and gambling world. Without the David Berman’s of the world arranging and providing capital, the Las Vegas Strip and the entire indusattempt would be a fraction of its current size.”
Leave a Reply