National Post

Caesars pays ‘ lucky’ online chief Garber US$210M

ENTERTAINM­ENT

- Christophe­r Palmeri and Anders Melin

• Mitch Garber watched his father go broke and had some of his school costs paid with donations from strangers. In the past year, he’s scored one of the largest cash payouts to an executive of a publicly traded U.S. company — US$ 210 million — thanks to a simple formula: Put a little money at risk and look for smart partners.

Garber, a 52- year- old Montrealer who heads Caesars Entertainm­ent Corp.’ s online gaming unit, owes his big payday to the sale last summer of the company’s social- gaming business to a Chinese consortium for US$ 4.4 billion, about 18 times what Caesars paid. The sale helped Caesars complete a debt restructur­ing and paves the way for its main subsidiary to exit bankruptcy later this year.

“I looked at my tax stub, the number even surprised me,” Garber s aid when reached by phone in his car. “My comp is outstandin­g.”

The haul includes almost US$ 168.3 million for stock options and restricted shares, along with a more down-toearth US$ 1.7 million in salary and bonus. Garber also owned stock in the interactiv­e unit worth US$40.3 million. His windfall puts him in the same league as buyout titans such as Blackstone Group LP’s Steve Schwarzman.

Schwarzman collected US$425 million in deal profits, salary and other compensati­on last year. The windfall also put Garber in the same league as KKR & Co. founders Henry Kravis and George Roberts, who took home US$ 116 million and US$ 119 million, respective­ly.

Garber is already a celebrity of sorts in his native Quebec, where he once worked as a TV sportscast­er and a judge on a French-language version of the business competitio­n show Dragons’ Den.

In addition to his duties at Caesars, Garber is chair of Cirque du Soleil, which was purchased by an investment group led by TPG Capital in 2015. He’s also been working with Seagram Co. heir Stephen Bronfman to bring a Major League Baseball team back to Montreal.

“I’ve learned to be a little more conservati­ve than my father was,” said Garber, whose W- 2 tax form listed income of about US$180 million. “I put my money in, but I surround myself with great co-investors.”

It could have gone the other way. His father Steve was a restaurate­ur who dropped out of school in eighth grade. Garber père was among the first to deliver pizzas to homes in Montreal. The Rib ’ N Reef, a steakhouse he owned, is still in operation. But the elder Garber suffered from depression and financial troubles, and took his own life in his early 40s, according to his son.

Still, Garber’s parents instilled in him a need for higher education, and he attended Montreal’s McGill University. He was an average student, he told an alumni newsletter in 2015.

“I probably just slid into university,” he said. “McGill didn’t come looking for me.”

Garber got a law degree, according to his website, and specialize­d in casino work, advising local gambling establishm­ents and their suppliers. He left law in 1999 to join a payments- processing spinoff of Bell Canada, which was a client, and was later recruited to run PartyGamin­g PLC, an online gambling business then traded on the London Stock Exchange. He joined Caesars in 2009 to capitalize on a potentiall­y lucrative new business, online betting in the U.S.

Garber invested US$1 million of his own money in the founding of Caesars Interactiv­e Entertainm­ent, which was then valued at US$ 35 million. But online betting took off more slowly than anticipate­d and is still only legal in three states: Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware.

From a friend, Garber heard about a social- gaming business in Israel called Playtika. It consisted of 13 employees and was generating US$ 10 million a year in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciati­on and amortizati­on. In 2011, he persuaded Caesars’ then- chief executive Gary Loveman and controllin­g shareholde­rs Apollo Global Management LLC and TPG to buy it for about US$110 million.

Playtika’s most popular title, Slotomania, an online slot- machine game, transition­ed perfectly to mobile phones and tablets. Garber credits co- founder Robert Antokol with keeping the business on top of the latest trends. Playtika is projected to earn US$400 million this year, Garber said.

Being early helped, as did those smaller acquisitio­ns, according to John DeCree, an analyst in Las Vegas.

“They were able to develop such an enormous active user base they’ve become this gargantuan social network,” he said.

The sale provided Caesars with billions of dollars at a critical time — the Las Vegasbased company was negotiatin­g a debt restructur­ing with creditors, a legacy of its 2008 leveraged buyout. Garber’s remaining business, which includes the World Series of Poker, will merge back into the parent company.

“I’ ve gotten i ncredibly lucky,” he said.

 ?? JOHN MAHONEY / POSTMEDIA NEWS FILES ?? Mitch Garber at his office overlookin­g St. Catherine St. in Montreal.
JOHN MAHONEY / POSTMEDIA NEWS FILES Mitch Garber at his office overlookin­g St. Catherine St. in Montreal.

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