SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Chile gambling giants Enjoy and Dreams have reached a final agreement to merge their businesses, becoming the Chilean market’s biggest casino group and outright gambling leader.
The transaction, which is expected to be completed by Q4 or early 2023, will result in an enlarged company that will control 58% of the casino industry in Chile.
According to documents sent to Chile’s Commission for the Financial Market (CMF), shareholders of Dreams will be in charge of 64% of the combined entity’s shares, while Enjoy’s will have the remaining 36%.
Henry Comber, President of Enjoy, stated that the merger aims to consolidate “the leadership of a Chilean company in the Latin American casino industry.”
Additionally, Comber said that after completing the merger, they will focus on other businesses, such as electronic games.
“These businesses will benefit from a greater scale and geographic diversification, which will undoubtedly allow us to deliver a better offer for our clients,” he explained
Although this operation has yet to gain the approval of the local regulator, the Superintendency of Gambling Casinos (SCJ), the CMF, and the National Economic Prosecutor’s Office, it also needs the approval of the respective extraordinary boards.
Claudio Fischer, president of Dreams’ Board of Directors, hinted that this merger will help the new company face the challenges that have arisen in recent months due to COVID.
“The new company will combine all the experience of both groups and [will provide] a financial strength that will allow the business to face the new challenges that the effects of the pandemic and the development of new technologies have imposed on the Latin American gaming and entertainment industries.”
The companies had confidentially sent the general terms of the agreement to the CMF in October but had failed to share the details of the future operation with the public.
In addition to the operations in Chile, the company will be in charge of 12 casinos in Argentina, Colombia, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay. Moreover, according to data from the SCJ, Dreams and Enjoy totaled 76.4% of the gross revenue of the Chilean industry in 2019, the last year recorded before the pandemic.
