Institutional ticker directory tracking stock mentions, long/short ideas, and high-conviction pitches extracted from quarterly hedge fund letters.
| Ticker | Company | Sector | Industry | Pitches | Stance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fund / Manager | Thesis Excerpt | Stance | Period / Date | Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Buckley Capital Zack Buckley | “Light & Wonder is a leading global gaming company that develops and distributes casino content across land-based, online, and mobile channels. Its core gaming business supplies slot machines, table products, and casino management systems to operators worldwide, through both outright sales and a growing base of leased machines that generate recurring revenue from a share of daily play. The company monetizes this same game library digitally through SciPlay, its social casino mobile business, and through iGaming, which delivers real-money online casino content to operators via its platform. It also owns Grover Gaming, the leading supplier of electronic pull-tab games for charitable gaming in the US. LNW is the second-largest slot supplier globally behind Aristocrat. LNW is undergoing a transformation rooted in a wholesale management change. Chairman Jamie Odell and Deputy Chair Toni Korsanos are the team that drove Aristocrat's decade of industry dominance, and they recruited CEO Matt Wilson (also ex-Aristocrat) to run the same playbook of investing heavily in game content and letting hit franchises compound. This team set aggressive 2025 targets in 2022 ($1.4B in adjusted EBITDA ex-Grover) and came remarkably close to achieving them despite real setbacks, falling slightly short only because litigation forced the company to remove its hit game Dragon Train. The team has now set 2028 targets of $2.0B in adjusted EBITDA and >$10.55 in EPS (we are at ~$13.00), which we believe imply ~150%+ upside for the stock if achieved given today's depressed valuation multiple. The street doesn't believe them — consensus sits well below the targets — but we think this skepticism is irrational: this is a credible management team with a track record of achieving targets it sets. Based on our several conversations with management, we believe there is actually deliberate conservatism in the targets. Notably, management intentionally does not give a precise path to the numbers, leaving them open-ended so that if one part of the business underperforms, they can make it up elsewhere. Moreover, beyond the $2B target sits a stack of free options that management has deliberately excluded from its guidance: US iGaming and video lottery terminal (VLT) legalization in additional states, international iGaming expansion (the Philippines is already live, the UAE is coming), Grover legalizations in additional states, and carbon/AI-driven cost efficiency. LNW is trading at its lowest multiple in five years — ~7.4x EBITDA vs. Aristocrat (ALL) at 14.8x, a ~7-turn gap vs. a historical average of 3-4 turns. This gap is the widest ever, despite LNW being the faster-growing business with similar EBITDA margins. The gap versus ALL is attributable to two linked items: higher leverage and lower FCF conversion. We believe that cash conversion is at an inflection point and should materially improve going forward. Cash conversion was hit over the last few years due to non-recurring items (the Dragon Train legal case, which was a headwind in 2024 and 2025 and was settled in Q1 2026; and one-time restructuring costs relating to the Grover acquisition). Ultimately, this will improve FCF conversion, reduce debt and leverage, and decrease annual cash interest, leading to further improvement in FCF conversion. The company has accelerated its stock buyback program as well. In Q2 2026, the company spent ~$134M to repurchase 2% of its shares outstanding. With ~$180M left under the current buyback program, we see no reason why the company will decelerate. It will likely buy back another 2% of shares in Q3 2026. At a bare minimum, the buybacks will mean the company handily exceeds EPS estimates going forward. The recent share price weakness stems largely from one quarter of soft market share data, which we believe the market is misreading. Quarterly ship-share in this industry is heavily skewed by the timing of launches of new cabinets (the fundamental physical hardware unit of the gaming industry). Aristocrat is currently enjoying a successful new cabinet launch, while LNW's new hardware slate is weighted to the second half of the year — so a single quarter of headline weakness says little about underlying competitive position. Australia is the clearest example. Earlier this year, the market grew worried about LNW's Australian share decline, but this too was caused by launch timing: customers simply stop buying an old cabinet when a new one is on the horizon, and LNW's share fell ahead of its refresh. The new Cosmic Dual Screen cabinet has since launched in Australia, and based on our conversations with the team, it has been a success — we expect Australian share to normalize as it rolls out. The same setup now applies to the US, where LNW's second-half slate — the Cosmic Sky and Landmark 7000 premium cabinets, new for-sale hardware, and a deep pipeline of franchise content — is just beginning to hit casino floors. As these launches roll out, we expect the market share data to inflect, and the stock to inflect with it. We're also excited about the Grover acquisition, which closed in May 2025. The purchase price was $850M upfront plus up to $200M in revenue-based earn-outs, or just 7.7x 2024 EBITDA for a business that grew revenue at a 29% two-year CAGR and has ~82% margins. Grover is the dominant, vertically integrated provider of electronic pull-tabs — regulated gaming devices in VFW halls, American Legion posts, and local bars, where a portion of proceeds funds charities — with 10,000+ leased devices with recurring revenue-share economics across 1,500 low-churn customers. The runway waterfall is what makes this compelling: paper pull-tabs are legal in 39 states, e-pull-tabs in just 11, and Grover operates in only 5 (North Dakota, Ohio, Virginia, Kentucky, New Hampshire) — so there's room for Grover to expand share where it already operates, to expand into already-legal states, and to take advantage of legalization in additional states. Minnesota and Maryland are the two priority already-legal states, while Indiana legalized in 2025 following the acquisition, and Grover is already #2 there with ~20% share within a year of entry, and charities themselves are lobbying for legalization in new states. Critically, neither the deal model nor management's $2B 2028 target underwrites any new-state expansion — that's all free optionality. Within existing states, venues have capacity for more units and same-store growth remains healthy. There are also content synergy opportunities with the rest of LNW's business: the company has spent billions on slot R&D over decades, and can now layer proven franchises onto Grover's installed base — even redeploying depreciated premium gaming-ops units into the charitable channel at strong incremental returns. In summary, LNW is a high-growth, high-margin, hardware-anchored, regulated recurring-revenue business (~73% recurring revenue vs 65% in 2024), driving what should be an Aristocrat-style valuation re-rating — and it's insulated from AI disruption.” | BULL | Q2 2026 Jul 25, 2026 | View Pitch |
Buckley Capital Zack Buckley | “We re-entered Light & Wonder after the shares dropped sharply on news of its delisting from Nasdaq to the Australian Securities Exchange. The ~30% decline was vastly overdone and unrelated to fundamentals. Light & Wonder has engineered a dramatic turnaround over the last five years, transitioning from an overleveled, shrinking business into a growing, well-capitalized market share gainer. We believe multiple convergence with Aristocrat is likely now that both trade on the ASX, supporting substantial upside. BSD Analysis: Light & Wonder sits behind the scenes of gaming, selling content and systems that casinos rely on regardless of foot traffic. Its slot franchises generate recurring participation rather than one-hit wonders. Digital gaming adds optionality without breaking the core economics. Systems and maintenance revenue provide stability across cycles. Regulation acts as a moat by limiting new entrants. Execution matters more than creative hype. Margins expand as content scales globally. This is not a casino bet. It's gaming infrastructure with creative upside and durable cash flow.” | BULL | Q4 2025 Jan 27, 2026 | View Pitch |
ClearBridge Mid Cap Growth Strategy Brian Angerame, Jeffrey Bailin, Aram Green, Matthew Lilling | “Light & Wonder (Long +22%) shares recovered sharply as the company reported strong third quarter results and re-iterated full year earnings guidance. The shares were also supported by the completion of the NASDAQ delisting and shift to a sole primary listing on the ASX which saw the end of significant forced selling from U.S. passive equity holders. In early January 2026, Light & Wonder noted the settlement of a longstanding litigation dispute with Aristocrat Leisure for US$127.5m, removing a significant overhang for the company. BSD Analysis: Light & Wonder is a global gaming supplier spanning casino hardware, content, and digital gaming platforms. Its shift toward recurring content and digital revenue has improved margin quality. Casino capex cycles create volatility, but installed-base monetization smooths results. The digital segment adds growth optionality beyond physical casinos. Regulatory complexity is a constant but well-managed. Execution has been strong post-restructuring. Light & Wonder is a gaming-tech company with improving economics.” | BULL | Q4 2025 Dec 31, 2025 | View Pitch |
“Light & Wonder (LNW) ($6.5B market cap, $11.3B EV) is a Las Vegas based maker of video gaming terminals, shuffle machines, other table products, etc., plus they now own 100% of SciPlay (SCPL) after the 2023 buyout and have a growing iGaming unit. This is the old Scientific Games (SGMS), they sold their lottery business to Brookfield (BN) in 2022 for $5.8B and the name went with the lottery business. Light & Wonder is undertaking a strange move, the company is currently traded in both Australia on the ASX (which they only added as a secondary listing in 2023) and the U.S. on the NASDAQ, but after 11/12/25 (this coming Wednesday) the shares will be delisted from the NASDAQ, any remaining shares trading on the NASDAQ will move to OTC. A popular strategy in recent years to increase your multiple has been to move listings to the U.S., but here Light & Wonder is doing the reverse which piqued my interest. Multiples for gaming companies tend to be higher in Australia, for example, The Lottery Corporation (ASX: TLC) trades for 20x EBITDA, Brightstar (BRSL) trades for 7x EBITDA in the U.S. Light & Wonder's closest peer, industry leader Aristocrat (ASX: ALL) trades for 14x NTM EBITDA, while LNW trades for 8x. BSD Analysis: Light & Wonder is a gaming content and systems company that benefits from recurring revenue and strong IP in casino floors and digital channels. The best part of the model is that once games and systems are installed, replacement and participation revenue becomes sticky. Growth comes from new game performance, expansion of installed base, and digital cross-sell, which can be powerful when execution is strong. The risk is that gaming is hit-driven, and regulators can change the rules quickly in key markets. Capital allocation matters because acquisitions and content investment can either compound or dilute returns. If the game pipeline stays strong, operating leverage is meaningful. This is a higher-quality gaming supplier when content is winning.” | BULL | Q4 2025 Dec 31, 2025 | View Pitch |
Each excerpt above is the manager's commentary on this ticker specifically. The full letter has the rest of their portfolio thinking, risk discussion, and broader institutional context.
