SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Codere SA has confirmed that its financial restructuring process, first initiated earlier this year, has been completed, with the planned liquidation of the international gambling group ‘expected to begin shortly’.
The corporate reorganisation will see Codere SA relinquish its status as the parent company of the wider Codere operating group, 95% control of which will be transferred to new holding company Codere New Topoco SA with the remaining 5% continuing to be held by the former company, which will receive warrants issued by the latter.
As the new holding company for the group’s operating entities, Codere Newco will continue to ‘operate normally and attend to its obligations, business partners and clients’, remaining active in Spain, Italy, Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, Panama and Colombia.
The reopening of national markets in Latin American countries has enabled Codere to resume activity across all jurisdictions where it holds an operating licence, experiencing a strong increase in turnover.
Providing a financial update for the first nine months of 2021, Codere explained that it had generated total revenue of €499.6 as of September 2021. This represents an increase of 8.5%, although the Spanish gambling group acknowledged continuing hurdles in Uruguay and Italy.
At the same time as publishing this update, the group reaffirmed that its financial restructuring would be completed by 19 November, under the terms of an agreement signed with its stakeholders in April 2021.
The arrangement saw the Bolsa Madrid group commit to a liquidation process, allowing its stakeholder sto receive financial compensation to which the sale of a proportional part of their shares and warrants would contribute, and which the firm anticipates will be conducted by an external liquidator appointed by the General Meeting of Shareholders.
The liquidation agreement would see company shareholders invest €225 million into the company whilst also agreeing to capitalise more than €350 million in debt, corresponding to existing senior guaranteed bonds, while an extension of the debt maturities to September 2026 and November 2027 was also secured.
