Cirsa has closed the purchase of a majority stake in Slots del Sol, the main online casino operator in Paraguay, as the company communicated this Monday.
The Paraguayan firm manages a "successful offer" of online gaming through "slotsdelsolonline.com", which is reinforced with two physical casinos and two gaming rooms in the country. This omnichannel structure, according to Cirsa, is "fully aligned with its strategy".
With this operation, Cirsa lands for the first time in Paraguay, an "adjacent market that fits perfectly with the company's international diversification strategy, by offering a stable and growing economy, and in the gaming sector, with stable regulation for many years".
Reinforcement of the omnichannel strategy
The acquisition will allow Cirsa to "continue reinforcing its omnichannel strategy, with a leadership position in a structurally growing market". The company anticipates that the transaction, due to its incremental nature, will be "highly positive" in terms of value creation and profitability improvement.
The executive president of Cirsa, Joaquim Agut, has underlined that this purchase "reinforces the firm's strategic commitment to accelerating growth in the online gaming sector". In his opinion, "Paraguay represents an attractive and very stable regulated market, with solid fundamentals, and Slots del Sol provides us with a leading platform from which we can continue to expand our online capabilities in the region".
For his part, the CEO of Cirsa, Antonio Hostench, has pointed out that "Slots del Sol has demonstrated exceptional performance, with outstanding capabilities in online operation". "We are delighted to partner with its founding partners and are convinced that we will be able to combine our global experience and our best-in-class capabilities with their local knowledge and experience to drive future growth," he added, emphasizing that this step will contribute to "improving the margins of its online gaming business".
The company has also specified that the multiple paid in the transaction is consistent with previous operations carried out by Cirsa and that the purchase will be financed with available cash, so no "significant" effect on the leverage of the Cirsa Group is foreseen.