The Italian group Lottomatica absorbs the Catalan Cirsa to create a global gambling giant

BarcelonaCirsa, a Catalan company in the gaming sector, announced this Wednesday its merger with the Italian group Lottomatica. According to the agreement, communicated to the National Securities Market Commission, the Catalan firm, of which Blackstone is the main shareholder, will be absorbed by its Italian counterpart, in a cross-border operation that will create one of the leading global companies in the gaming and sports betting sector. The resulting company has a combined business of 34,000 million euros and an adjusted gross operating result of 2,000 million euros. With these figures, the merged group will become the second largest listed gaming operator in the world.

The resulting company from the merger will retain both the name and the headquarters of Lottomatica, located in Rome, although it will also have a second headquarters in Barcelona for Cirsa. The shareholders of the Catalan company, as a consequence of the agreement, will receive 0.668 shares of the resulting company for each share of the company they hold.

In this way, the capital of the Egarenca company will constitute approximately one-third of the share capital of the resulting company once the merger is carried out. According to the terms of the exchange ratio, the North American fund Blackstone, the main shareholder of Cirsa, will also be the majority shareholder of the new Lottomatica group, with 24% of the share capital in its portfolio, and will have two seats on the board of directors.

Capital distribution

It is worth noting that, before executing the merger, Cirsa plans to distribute an extraordinary dividend of approximately 262 million euros. Subsequently, once the operation is completed, the combined company will submit a capital distribution of 744 million euros for shareholder vote, which can be executed through an extraordinary dividend, a share buyback offer, or a combination of both procedures.

Both companies are now awaiting approval from their respective governing bodies, as well as from the competent regulators in both cases. Should the shareholder meetings accept the merger agreement under the established terms, they expect the operation to become effective in the second quarter of 2027.

Following the announcement, Cirsa's stock has soared, with an increase in share value at the opening of the trading day close to 16%. With this jump, the Catalan company's shares are trading at 15.8 euros per share, after closing Monday at around 13.6 euros.