US personal equity fund the Blackstone Group is to acquire Spain’s largest casino and bingo hallway operator, Cirsa.
March 27, 2020
US personal equity fund the Blackstone Group is to acquire Spain’s largest casino and bingo hallway operator, Cirsa.
Chairman Lao: Cirsa founder Manuel Lao is always to step down as chairman of the business he founded 40 years back on completion of the multibillion-dollar Blackstone deal.
The two companies announced the deal in a joint press release on Friday, and, while exact terms were not disclosed, Cirsa’s asking price was known to have been between €2 billion ($2.4 billion) and €2.5 billion ($3 billion).
In February, the company found itself in a position that is enviable the item of a putting in a bid war between competing US hedge funds. Advent Overseas, Apollo Global Management and Cerberus Management had been all said to be pursuing the company, along with Blackstone.
That accompanied a November 2017 announcement by Cirsa’s bulk owner, Spanish billionaire Manuel Lao, that financial advisory firm Lazard was in fact hired to weigh a number up of strategic options for the company, including a possible IPO.
Blackstone-Apollo Bidding War
By the beginning of April, media reports suggested the field of suitors had narrowed to just Apollo and Blackstone, while sources near the situation told Reuters they doubted whether a deal would go ahead at all.
The Catalan company, based just outside of Barcelona, had been founded in 1978 by Lao, who is ranked by Forbes as Spain’s ninth richest person.
Cirsa operates 147 casinos, 178 gaming halls, 70 bingo halls, 2,000 sports kiosks that are betting and around 75,000 slots in a lot more than 70 nations, mainly Spain, Italy and Latin America. It also operates online gaming in Spain, Colombia and Panama.
It reported profits before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of €398 million ($489 million) in 2016, up 5 percent on the year that is previous.
Lao to Step Down
In the year that is last, Cirsa has integrated 25 new casinos in Latin America (17 in Peru, three in Panama, 1xbetmobi two in Colombia, two in Mexico and one in Costa Rica). It purchased 75 percent of the video gaming machine operator of Barcelona Miky.
Friday’s declaration confirmed that 74-year-old Lao would be stepping down as chairman, to be replaced by the company’s longstanding CEO, Joaquim Agut. Lao continues to run the organization’s Argentinian business, which will maybe not be included in the Blackstone deal.
Agut said in a statement that is official Blackstone will ‘accelerate growth in key markets,’ as well as ‘improve the supply and quality of services.’ He additionally thanked Lao, the for his ‘total dedication it is today without their strategic way and exceptional leadership. since he founded Cirsa 40 years back,’ adding that ‘the company would never be where’
Warriors, Rockets NBA Favorites Entering Semifinals, Cavs Underdogs vs. Raptors
The Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets will be the favorites that are heavy win the NBA title heading into circular two of the playoffs.
Steph Curry’s Golden State Warriors and James Harden’s Houston Rockets would be the favorites in vegas to win the NBA Finals. (Image: Sergio Estrada/USA TODAY Recreations)
The warriors and Rockets cruised to easy first-game wins in their semifinal series openers after making quick work of their round one foes. Golden State topped the New Orleans Pelicans 123-101 on .
Cleveland and Boston both needed seven games to achieve the semis. They shall correspondingly face the Toronto Raptors and Philadelphia 76ers.
Las vegas oddsmakers think the two teams that are already one-up in on their semi opponents would be the squads to beat for the NBA championship.
The Westgate SuperBook gets the Warriors once the favorites at 4/5, or implied chances of about 56 percent. A $100 bet and Golden State winning its title that is third in years nets the gambler $80 at this juncture.
The Rockets are next at 9/5, with a $100 wager arriving at fruition netting $180. The 76ers, the team that is hottest in the NBA, are next at 8/1.
Houston, the Eastern Conference regular season leaders, follow at 12/1. The remaining four goes Cleveland (15/1), Boston (80/1), Pelicans and Jazz (100/1).
LeBron the Underdog
LeBron James has never lost a first-round playoff show in his illustrious career, but their Cavs needed all seven games against a resilient Indiana Pacers team led by Victor Oladipo.
Cleveland won Sunday 105-101 to advance, but sportsbooks were none too happy about Oladipo’s last-second three pointer that wiped millions of bucks from their books.
The Cavs were favorites by five to 5.5 points at tip off, meaning the made three pointer as time expired allowed the Pacers to cover the spread.
‘It was probably a swing of $3 million to $5 million in Nevada,’ Wynn Las Vegas sportsbook manager Johnny Avello told ESPN. ‘These forms of things happen … whether it’s a home that is two-run to pay for the run line into the bottom of the ninth or an empty-net goal in the final minute of an NHL game.’
After sneaking by Indiana, the Cavs will have an even harder test in dealing with the Raptors. Toronto is unquestionably out for revenge, as LeBron & Co. have actually ousted the synergy north in all of the past two seasons.
But Toronto is really a better team in 2017-18, and Cleveland has struggled amid many roster changes. The SuperBook gets the Raptors the favorite at -200, or implied odds of approximately 67 %.
Series Odds
Many sportsbooks feel the NBA title shall be determined when and if the Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets meet in the Western Conference Finals.
Both are outlandishly favored within the semifinals with one game already within the bag. The Warriors are at -3500, (implied odds of 97.22 percent), therefore the Rockets are at -6000 (98.36 %).
A $100 wager nets a measly $2.86 on Golden State, and $1.67 on Houston at those odds.
The other series that is semifinal the East, Philly is the strong frontrunner at -450 (suggested chances 82 %) over the Kyrie Irving-less Celtics.
Mashantucket Pequot Leader Says Tribes Must Unite in Pursuit of Casinos Both Domestic and Abroad
Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Council Chairman Rodney Butler opined this week that Native American groups should bond and pair their assets so that you can acquire for marquee casino resorts both domestically and abroad.
Mashantucket Pequot Chairman Rodney Butler (right) hopes the casino partnership between his tribe and Kevin Brown’s Mohegan Sun is the initial of several arrangements that are such. (Image: Dana Jensen/The Day)
Fresh off this month’s National Indian Gaming Association convention in Las Vegas, the Mashantucket leader sat down with CDC Gaming Reports to share his vision of a united gaming front that is tribal. He cited the present $1.3 billion Sands Bethlehem sale to your Poarch Band of Creek Indians of Alabama as inspiration that tribal teams can, and really should, seek to control more expansive gambling properties.
‘That is a big deal. A small tribe deep in the heart of Alabama buying a $1.3 billion asset from one of the gaming operators that are largest in the globe,’ Butler declared.
He added that the Sands acquisition ‘encourages most of us to keep taking a look at deals and pursuing opportunities.’
Butler’s Mashantucket Pequot tribe owns and operates Foxwoods in Connecticut. The indigenous American community is currently in the process of jointly constructing a $300 million satellite casino aided by the Mohegan Sun Indians in the north-central part of the state in an effort to keep gambling dollars from flowing across the edge to MGM Springfield in Massachusetts.
Tribal Energy
Rodney Butler is under the opinion that Native Americans should form a united front to be better equipped to acquire prevalent casino resorts, in the place of chiefly concentrating on regional video gaming facilities typically housed on sovereign land.
He says there’s no reason a tribes that are fewn’t have gotten together buying Carl Icahn’s Tropicana Entertainment, which offered earlier this month for $1.85 billion. Butler also believes US tribes should be looking to new international markets, including Japan, which has the eyes and ears of every major commercial casino operator on earth planet.
‘ We have some of the gaming analysts that are best in the country working for us. We can analyze these deals and know just what a price that is fair to pay. We don’t give ourselves enough credit in Indian country of exactly how well we operate these facilities in comparison to the commercial operators,’ Butler opined.
‘ The extreme example is imagine if a consortium of tribes come together and made a critical play in something in Japan or Brazil. That is how exactly we need certainly to think,’ he concluded.
Response to MGM
The Mashantucket Pequot Indians have a lot of reason to unite along with other tribes to generate a stronger coalition. After getting state approval to build a satellite casino in East Windsor, MGM Resorts, seeking to protect the gaming monopoly that is largest possible around its $960 million Springfield investment, began lobbying Connecticut lawmakers to hold an open bidding process.
MGM invested millions of dollars trying to convince state lawmakers that it was interested in building a $675 million casino that is integrated in Bridgeport. The casino that is commercial spent $3.8 million lobbying in Connecticut last year alone, although the two tribes mutually spent not as much as $1.5 million.
Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun have experienced gaming that is gross (GGR) decline over the last decade as commercial competition has expanded in nearby states. Slot winnings has fallen from $1.72 billion in the 2006/07 financial 12 months to $1.06 billion in 2016/17.