Lottomatica IPO to go ahead this month
The Italian gambling group has confirmed that it plans to advance with an IPO on the Euronext Milan stock exchange.
Italy.- The Italian gambling operator Lottomatica has confirmed its plans to make an initial public offering (IPO) on the Euronext Milan stock exchange by the end of this month. It hopes to generate €425m, mainly for the purposes of financing debt.
Apollo Global Management, the private equity firm that bought the operator back in 2021, hasn’t yet confirmed the quantity of existing and new shares that will be put on the market. It’s appointed Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and UniCredit as joint global coordinators and bookrunners.
Providing a preliminary trading update for Q1, Lottomatica advised that it expects revenue for the three months to March 31 to be up by around 20 per cent at between €421m and €423m. It expects to report EBITDA of €155m and €156m, up 15 to 16 per cent proforma, driven by a 40 per cent rise in online revenue.
For full-year 2023, it maintains an EBITDA forecast of between €550m and €570m, with online EBITDA coming in at €275m as a minimum and turnover reaching between €1.57bn and €1.67bn.
Lottomatica revenue for 2022
Lottomatica SPA reported revenue of €1.39bn for 2022, an increase of 72 per cent against comparative results the previous year. The group’s 2021 merger with Gamenet Group was partly responsible for the rise, making it the biggest retail gambling operator in Italy.
Just over half of all revenue came from Lottomatica’s gaming franchise, up 93 per cent to €725m from wagers of €11bn. Meanwhile, revenue from its sports betting franchise also boomed despite it having to reduce the number of outlets. Revenue here hit €341m, up 122 per cent, from €2.53bn in bets.
Meanwhile, another major Italian operator, Sisal, acquired by UK-listed Flutter last August, has announced that it’s unified its Italian operations into one legal entity, Sisal Italia SpA. The reorganisation merges the lottery division Sisal Lottery Italia with the gaming business Sisal Entertainment.
Following the combination, parent company Sisal SpA owns 100 per cent of the new entity’s share capital. The new company owns 100 per cent of Sial Gaming Srl, which builds gaming software and develops, rents and manages gaming machines.
