Blackstone’s CIRSA revenue rises in Q1
Revenue was up 12.5 per cent year-on-year.
Spain.- The Blackstone-owned Spanish gambling operator CIRSA has shared its financial results for the first quarter of the year. The company posted revenue of €576.7m, up 12.5 per cent year-on-year, and operating profit of €179m, up 9.1 per cent. EBITDA was up by 9 per cent at €178.8m and net debt now totals €2.6bn.
Online gaming and betting operating revenue was €145.1m, up 54.8 per cent year-on-year. The company attributed the increase to the highly successful integration of Apuesta Total and CasinoPortugal , as well as “robust organic growth” in all its markets. The segment made up 22.7 per cent of the group’s net revenues, an increase from 16.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2024, and is now the second largest business unit by net revenues.
In its casino segment, operating revenue was €237.3m, up 0.6 per cent despite “headwinds in Panama and Mexico caused by the measures announced by the new US administration impacting these two countries.” In Spain, revenue from slots reached €108.2m, up 8.3 per cent year-on-year while EBITDA totalled €54.5m, up 17.8 per cent. The company noted that the number of slots had grown slightly and that its strategy to optimise the pool of slots continued to yield results in terms of increased revenue per machine.
Slots Italy net revenue rose by 5.4 per cent to €103.4m despite a challenging market environment. EBITDA rose by 7.1 per cent to €8.2m. The acquisition of Royal, an AWP operator in the Italian market, contributed to the increase in net revenues.
In the LatAm region, revenue was up 3.3 per cent year-on-year, with EBITDA from Panama accounting for 11.8 per cent of the overall figure, trailed by Colombia (9.9 per cent) and Mexico (7.2 per cent).
Blackstone bought CIRSA from its founder Manuel Lao Hernandez for €2bn in 2018. The private equity group carried out a complete restructuring of the operator, which has seen it beat market expectations since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic.
