I think these big publicly listed companies actually do have an excuse to maximize their profits for shareholders, otherwise, they could be breaking law if trying to do something else than loads profits as possible or in better scenario, if they try their best and can't make money for owners, just get kicked out and operational leadership is changed.
WH (like many casino operators) made quite good covid year now, from last March under £40 to current £270, would guess that most of owners are happy for that but share price have been flat last months which is not that great anymore so results need to improve to make the price increase or if operations can't deliver more value to the company, people start to sell these and price takes hit which is not in the interest of almost any company.
Smaller ones which are not listed can make whatever they feel and owners want, often the majority of owners is quite a small group who have the final word to decide what's gonna happen in the company and let's make some longer-term plans instead or let's start to be non profit casino organization who just pays our salaries etc... these are much harder to sell for huge amount of investors who don't understand anything about the industry and of course the only reason why they own shares from some companies is to make much profit as possible, which depending bit from the country but mostly publically listed and exchanged companies are obligated to do, try to maximize shareholders value and nothing else matters.
Picture tells quite a lot, after good growth since 2019, would you think that all institutional and other investors would be happy just to stop maximizing profits everywhere possible, have to be quite a well-made presentation where you can actually sell stupid owners idea about cutting short term profits to make bigger once for longer-term, often it's very hard to guarantee and be impressive enough to make people be patient with their investments. When looking this picture, you think WH owners are still happy many quarters with current development? Would guess that no.
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