Monthly Archives: April 2018

Spanish gaming giant Cirsa sold to Blackstone Group

Spanish gaming giant Cirsa Gaming Corp has been acquired by private equity funds managed by The Blackstone Group.

On Friday, Cirsa and Blackstone issued a joint statement saying they’d reached agreement on a deal under which Blackstone will acquire Cirsa’s casino, bingo and sports betting operations in Spain, Italy and Latin America, with the exception of the Argentinean business, which will continue to exist as a separate entity under the rule of Cirsa founder Manuel Lao Hernandez.

Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but the Barcelona-based Cirsa had been expected to fetch somewhere between €2b and €2.5b via the hedge fund bidding war that began in February. Earlier this month, media reports indicated that the field of possible bidders had narrowed to just Blackstone and rival hedge funders Apollo Global Management, creating doubts as to whether a deal was actually in the offing. Cirsa was also reportedly mulling an initial public offering should a direct sale not transpire.

Cirsa’s current empire includes 147 casinos, 178 salons, 70 bingo halls, over 2k sports betting points of sale and over 75k gaming machines. Cirsa is also a joint venture partner with UK bookmaker Ladbrokes in the Sportium sports betting operation. The company’s 2017 revenue exceeded €1.7b and extended Cirsa’s streak of consecutive quarterly earnings growth to 47.

Svenska Spel’s online gambling growth outpaces int’l competitors

Sweden’s state-owned gambling operator Svenska Spel posted online growth in Q1 that handily outpaced its internationally licensed competitors.

Figures released Friday by Sweden’s Lotteriinspektionen gaming regulator show the nation’s gambling market generated turnover of SEK5.63b (US$618m) in the first three months of 2018, up 2.8% from the same period last year.

Swedish-licensed land-based and online operators’ turnover slipped 1.1% to SEK4.13b while internationally licensed online gambling operators grew 15.3% to SEK1.5b. Those international sites claimed a 27% slice of the overall pie, roughly four points higher than in Q1 2017.

Svenska Spel’s total turnover was up 1.4% to just under SEK2.2b, thanks entirely to its online operations. While the state betting monopoly’s online arm still makes up less than 30% of its total turnover, the digital ops posted growth of 24.8% in Q1, while land-based turnover fell 6.1%.