Cirsa completed last Wednesday, July 9, his expected IPO. Expected because the Spanish parquet is eager for new quoted after many years of drought, and because its owner, the Blackstone Risk Capital Fund, completes a process of more than two years in which it has analyzed all possible alternatives to give way to its investment in the Spanish game company, which acquired its founder, Manuel Lao. Your figures. Among all the options, Blackstone has decided the one that allows him to keep his winning hand in the game. After contemplating a complete sale to another Private Equity fund, to another group of the game sector or a more ambitious leaving, the largest fund in the world has put around 20% of the capital on the market, a percentage that will vary if it fully executes the option of over -assignment, which has entrusted Morgan Stanley. In that case, the offer of shares will raise its amount to 521 million euros, 20.7% of the shares. If not, the floating capital will remain at 18%. Blackstone will continue to control more than 75% of the shares in both cases, which guarantees the absolute command in the future of the company. Financial sources analyze this stock market debut as a first step towards a more forceful disinversion in the medium term with which Blackstone more recovers its investment, given that the funds captured with this exit operation will reduce CIRSA's debt. It is also interpreted as a way to gain time for the company to continue raising its operational figures, while measuring its liability, and thus, raise its business value. CIRSA went out to quote at a price of 15 euros per share, setting a business value of 2,520 million euros. Blackstone came to look for valuations in the surroundings of the 5,000 thinking of a total divestment, an option that finally did not occur. Thus, this stock market is 150% greater than Blackstone paid Manuel Lao for his actions. He did it in the spring of 2018, when another of the large world investment funds, Apollo, was imposed to take 100% of its capital. The value of the operation was around 2,000 million euros, a figure that included the group's debt, which was in the middle of the price. Therefore, the value of the paid to Lao was at 1,000 million euros. From 2019 to 2020, the company lost half of its income, and in two years, 2020 and 2021, accumulated 400 million losses. However, in 2022 it exceeded the business figure and the exploitation result (EBITDA) prior to the pandemic, also reaching record figures, while other rivals in the sector such as Codere suffered important financial difficulties from which they still recover. Sector's sources consulted speak of the lower exposure of CIRSA to markets that can be considered unstable. Spain and Italy represent 60% of their income. Mexico less than 8%, a country that had a very slow return to normal after the coronavirus, like Argentina, where Circa decided not to operate. No Latin American market represents more than 10% of its income. It also based its resistance on its two key and very profitable businesses: type B or slot machines, whose exploitation margin is equivalent to 50% of the income they generate; and the casinos, where that margin is 40%. The dimension of the current business of CIRSA have little to do with the one that the company founded in 1978 in Terrassa (Barcelona). Then, the activity was based, precisely, on the installation of slot machines in hotels, restaurants and bars, which were not even manufactured by the company. That changed a year later, when it began with the design and production activity of its own slot, becoming leader of that market. His first casino did not open it until 1985, an activity that fired his growth, also internationally, in the following years: in 1990 he arrived in the Dominican Republic, in 1996 to Peru, and in 1997 to Italy and Panama. Already in the 21st century it landed in Mexico, Colombia or Costa Rica, and above all, it began to try their luck with the online game, one of the bases on which the future of the company is based. A critical step was, in 2019, already with Blackstone, the purchase of 50% that did not control Sportium, on which it has been making new acquisitions. At the close of the first quarter of 2025, this business already represented 23% of the income.
Improve your numbers
Now, as a quoted company, CIRSA does not want to stop improving its numbers. Since 2005 he has multiplied by 10 his EBITDA, growing at an annual rate close to 13%. This year he plans to finish it in a range between 740 and 750 million, up to 7% more. After marking in 2024 its income record, with 2,150 million, the company indicates in the brochure of issuance of shares its objective of raising them at a rate of 5% in the medium term, not counting the inorganic growth: and that is that CIRSA plans to invest up to 500 million euros in two years in acquisitions. And finally there is the detec melon. At the end of May it was 2,312 million euros, a figure that multiplies its Ebitda for more than three. After the IPO, the leverage ratio will fall to 2.7 times. And the group's intention is to be between 2 and 2.5 times. When I achieve it, Blackstone will have to think about how he plays his cards.