Street Calls of the Week
Cirsa Enterprises reported robust financial results for Q2 2025, with significant revenue growth and a notable increase in earnings per share (EPS). The company’s stock rose by 1.6% following the announcement, reflecting investor confidence in its performance and growth prospects. Cirsa’s actual EPS was $0.2433, with revenue reaching $579 million, surpassing forecasts and marking a strong year-over-year increase. According to InvestingPro data, the company maintains impressive gross profit margins of 80.53% and shows strong financial health with an overall score of "GOOD."
Key Takeaways
- Cirsa’s Q2 2025 revenue grew by 11.3% year-over-year.
- EPS of $0.2433 exceeded expectations.
- The stock price increased by 1.6% post-announcement.
- Online segment now accounts for 23% of total revenues.
- Strong cash generation and debt reduction highlighted financial health.
Company Performance
Cirsa Enterprises demonstrated impressive growth in Q2 2025, driven by its expanding online presence and strategic market positioning. The company reported $579 million in net operating revenues, an 11.3% increase compared to the same period last year. This growth was supported by a 23% contribution from the online segment, highlighting the company’s successful digital transformation.
Financial Highlights
- Revenue: $579 million, up 11.3% year-over-year
- EPS: $0.2433, surpassing forecasts
- EBITDA: $187 million, a 9.2% increase year-over-year
- Cash generation: $107 million, a 66.1% rise
- Net debt reduction: €685 million
Earnings vs. Forecast
Cirsa’s actual EPS of $0.2433 exceeded market expectations, contributing to a positive market reaction. The company’s revenue of $579 million also surpassed forecasts, indicating strong operational performance and effective strategic initiatives.
Market Reaction
Following the earnings announcement, Cirsa’s stock price increased by 1.6%, closing at $15.21. This movement reflects investor optimism about the company’s growth trajectory, with the stock trading closer to its 52-week high of $16.
Outlook & Guidance
Cirsa provided optimistic guidance for the full year, expecting revenues between €2,280 million and €2,330 million, representing a 7% year-over-year growth. The company aims to hit the higher end of its EBITDA guidance of €740 million to €750 million, driven by its focus on the Latin American markets and potential mergers and acquisitions in the casino and online segments. InvestingPro data supports this positive outlook, with analysts forecasting continued profitability and net income growth this year. Get access to detailed financial health metrics and comprehensive analysis with an InvestingPro subscription.
Executive Commentary
Joaquim Agut, Executive Chairman, emphasized Cirsa’s resilience, stating, "We always delivered, regardless of business cycles." CEO Antonio highlighted the company’s strategic goal, "Our goal is to become the Spanish-speaking country market leader." CFO Antonio Grau added, "We expect to generate between €74 million and €84 million in annual interest savings."
Risks and Challenges
- Market saturation in core regions could limit growth.
- Regulatory changes in key markets pose potential risks.
- Currency fluctuations may impact financial results.
- Competitive pressures in the online gaming sector.
- Economic uncertainties in Latin American markets.
Q&A
During the earnings call, analysts inquired about Cirsa’s performance in Peru and the Apuesta Total acquisition. The company also addressed its online and retail growth strategies, potential entry into the Brazilian market, and the impact of foreign exchange fluctuations on future expectations.
Full transcript - Cirsa Enterprises SAU (CIRSA) Q2 2025:
Speaker 9: Good morning to everyone, and thank you for attending.
Joaquim Agut, Executive Chairman, CIRSA: Morning and welcome to.
Speaker 9: Good morning and welcome, everyone, to the first of the second quarter 2025 financial results presentation hosted by Joaquim Agut, Executive Chairman, Antonio Ostende, CEO, and Antonio Grau, Chief Financial Officer. During the presentation, your lines will remain on listen-only mode, but if you require assistance at any time, please press star followed by zero on your telephone keypad, and an operator will be happy to assist you. Please note that in the Q&A session, you can ask questions by phone or in writing via the webcam, and the answer will be given orally with the order of preference being given verbally. I would like to advise all parties that this conference call is being recorded, and I would now like to hand the call over to Mr. Agut. Please go ahead. Mr. Agut, you can now begin the call.
Just to confirm, I believe the speaker line could be on mute. Just confirm again to Mr. Agut that your line may be on mute. We can now hear you.
Joaquim Agut, Executive Chairman, CIRSA: Okay. I’m sorry for this delay. I’ll start again. Thank you, everyone, for attending our call. This is our first investor call since the last July 9, IPO. I’ll start with the chart on PIP3. It is a CIRSA at a glance chart. For those who are not familiar yet with CIRSA, let me summarize what is CIRSA about. We are an international gaming company with leading positions in Spain, Morocco, and selected countries in Latin America, with a unique diversification by both geography and by gaming segment, unique in our own industry. We are operating only in regulated markets, all with many expansion opportunities for growth both organically and through M&A, and in both channels, online and M&A, and led by a team that has been consistently delivering every day along these last 20 years, following always a very clear strategy aligned with top-leading ESG standards.
Since 2006, when the management team took over CIRSA, we always delivered, regardless of business cycles, and we never reported with footnotes, as you can see in our last 19 years’ quarterly reports to the markets. We delivered every day growth during 68 consecutive quarters, 54 quarters prior to COVID, and 14 right after that, including this Q2 25. In this period of time, our EBITDA improved 10 times, growing from $70 million to $700 million, and the same happened to the EBITDA margin, growing from 9% to 32.5%, more than 3.5 times improvement. The management team’s focus is on delivering and meeting or exceeding goals, as we did during the last 19 years, and is well known by especially our debt investors. The company is making significant progress in growing the online segment, today already representing 23% of our revenues, up from 16% we delivered in Q2 last year.
Down-on-based operations continue to deliver solid growth. About the summary of our Q2 25 main figures, you can see the net operating revenues are showing strong progress, being at $579 million. This is an improvement Q2 on Q2 of 11.3%. EBITDA stands at $187 million, another great improvement of plus 9.2% compared to the last year. In this period of time, we generated $107 million of cash, which is improving 66.1%. This is fully in line with our guidance, despite the higher than usual negative FX input that we had to face during the quarter. Our business growth is coming from both channels, retail and online. Geographical diversification is playing a key role on these solid results. Specifically on the online segment, Apuesta Total accretive M&A combined with organic online growth is contributing to strong revenues and profitability on this business unit.
Our business operations are focusing very clearly on achieving the maximum possible financial discipline, and this is what is allowing CIRSA to generate €107 million of cash in the quarter, 66% better than Q2 2024. In summary, CIRSA is well on track to deliver the year guidance. On the next chart on page five, it is about CIRSA’s capital structure, which has been improved significantly, and of course, therefore is improving our potential for growth. IPO was successfully executed, and CIRSA is trading since July 9. The net proceeds from the IPO were €373 million that have been used to reduce debt.
That together with the capital injection of Blackstone after the refinancing of PEAK for another €273 million, has allowed us to make a significant net debt reduction and ending the quarter with leverage at 2.68 times, which is in the right track to deliver in the midterm our 2-2.5x leverage guidance. Another two things that I believe are interesting to share with you. One is everyone to know that this is operating only in regulated markets for both channels, land-based and online. Second, we very recently got in the rating from Sustainalytics in ESG, which is positioning us at number one in our industry. Sustainalytics is looking after 60 companies. Now I’m handing over to Antonio, who’s going to share with us business unit by business unit what’s our performance.
Antonio, CEO, CIRSA: Thank you, Joaquim, and good morning to everyone. In page number seven, you have the breakdown of revenue and EBITDA among the four business units: casinos, online gaming and betting, slots in Spain, and slots in Italy. About this portfolio of businesses, I want to remark that we have our two biggest business units, casinos and slot operations in retail, which are representing today 79% of our EBITDA, and both of them with very high margins, about 40%, which are leading figures in our industry. I think it’s also remarkable the high growth of our online gaming and betting business unit, which a year ago in Q2 2023 was representing 16% of our revenues and 8% of our EBITDA. Today in Q2, these numbers have become 24% in terms of revenues and 17% of our EBITDA. Very good growth in this business unit.
Going one by one, in casinos, we had a solid growth of 5%. This was happening in all our regions, and this is what is leading us to revenues of €237 million and around almost €100 million of EBITDA. For H2, I think we have a better trend than these figures, and this will be supported by several bonds and acquisitions that we have today in our pipeline, very close to having the final closing. In terms of online gaming and betting, the revenues for H1, you see that they were €270 million. Everything is on track to achieve the commitment we have for the year of more than €500 million of revenues. The good performance is coming from both the like-for-like perimeter. We’re having double-digit growth in the existing operations, plus the contribution of the Apuesta Total acquisition we did in Peru last year.
Also remarkable, we were able to reach a margin of 23% in line with the more than 20% that we committed to have midterm in the company. In the slot operations business in Spain, we have seen the slots market and our business unit are facing the guidance we gave to you during the roadshow, which was in the range of growing 2% to 3% during the usual latent that we have overcome this number. In terms of profitability and productivity, it has been very relevant that the deployment of our technology within our operation is also supporting this little by little growth in terms of margin, having reached for this quarter about 50% EBITDA margin.
For the last business unit, the slot operations in Italy, which just represents 4% of our EBITDA, our revenues and EBITDA grew +5%, which is above the market conditions that we have today in Italy. Now, going one by one of the business units, given the fact that we have several investors in the call that did not participate in the many meetings we had prior to the IPO, I will give some basic remarks on our business model and strategy before going to the highlights of the quarter. Starting with the casino business unit, the biggest of our four business units, this is an operation we have in eight different countries: Spain, Morocco, and six countries in Latin America. 80% of it is happening in Latin America. Our strategy here is addressing a customer base of local low wages.
This means people living and working in the neighborhood of our locations. In these last 12 months, we managed a customer base of 2.1 million people that made above 38 million visits, with an average spend per visit of €24. This is very much aligned with our responsible gaming approach in the gaming industry. Our local casinos offer a full range of gaming options, the best slot machines you can have in Vegas or in other big casinos in the world, table games, electronic tables, plus sports betting corners. This is complemented with events and shows, a good and competitive F&B offer, air conditioning, and so forth, which we are using to drive traffic in countries where the entertainment offer is very good. Very attractive for the locals to visit our places.
To capture the market growth here, what we have been doing for the past years and will keep doing is what we explain as the gold mine project, which means that once we have identified the points of sale with the highest potential, what we do is improve the gaming offer and expand those locations by leasing our neighbors in those places. Lastly, but not less important, I also want to remark that technology plays a key role in this market because you can imagine that managing the information of 2.1 million clients, plus also getting online information of our 36,000 slots that we have installed in our casinos, also makes a difference in beating our competitors in these local markets. Going to the highlights of this second quarter, I want to remark again that we have a 5% growth in all our regions.
This was coming by the deployment of what I just explained, our gold mine strategy, plus the CRM that we keep using to attract customers in PowerPoint ourselves. The final number that you can see of -1% is because of the significant hit we had in terms of FX, which was $16.2 million during this quarter, which was a hit of -6%. This is why you would like, in, let’s say, in comparable conditions, our real growth was 5%. Also, for the months to come, we have to expect that this good trend in terms of growth should be complemented by several bond acquisitions. At least I think we will be closing at least three of them before the year end because they are very, very close to having the final closing of those deals. In terms of EBITDA, again, here the hit was significant.
We had a hit of $5.7 million because of FX. This is why our EBITDA was very close to $100 million. In, let’s say, comparable conditions, our EBITDA would be $104 million. Also remarkable that we were able, even within these unfavorable FX conditions, to keep our margins even a bit better than it was a year ago at 41.3%. Now I’ll jump to page number nine, our online gaming and betting operation, which you will feel more familiar with because of the many players that are reporting this business. Here we are operating in nine countries: Spain, Italy, Portugal, plus six Latin American markets.
Our goal here is to become the Spanish-speaking country market leader through the deployment of our omnichannel model that has been very successfully deployed in Spain and Italy. We are going to do this by growing our existing operations, plus acquisitions of leading positions, as we did in Peru last year. In July, I remember in Peru, we got the number two operator that today is the leading one in the Peruvian market. We will be considering the market also with these sorts of transactions.
In these markets, supported by a competitive platform, our game here is to develop our positions with a well-localized offer, both in the sports betting as well as in the casino segment, supported by strong alliances with very well-recognized brands, as we have recently done with Liverpool, with the two main football clubs in Peru, the Universidad Alianza de Lima, as well as with the Tigres in Mexico, one of the top clubs in the Mexican market. For the second quarter, the numbers you have seen have been outstanding. We’re on track to achieve those $500 million target that we shared with you during the roadshow. In terms of this coming both from the existing operations in the like-for-like perimeter, as I said, we have growth of about 10%, plus, of course, the contribution of Apuesta Total.
As I said, this was a number two operation when we bought it in July last year, and today it’s already number one with excellent numbers in terms of acquisition numbers, FTDs, unit asset price, and so forth. In terms of EBITDA, the growth was really good. If you add up Q1 and Q2, we have already $55 million of EBITDA. We are fully on track to meet our commitment to have more than $100 million EBITDA by year end. The margins, I have to say also, supported by an acceptable sports betting margin, were up to 22.9%. Remember in Q1, we were at 19% rate. On average, we are already achieving the numbers that we gave you as a guidance to be above 20% and looking to 25% in the midterm. All in all, a very good performance of the online segment.
Lastly, of our business units, I will not comment on the slot operation in Italy. We have in page number 10 the slot operations business in Spain. I have to remember here that we are combining here the operation of slots in the Spanish bars with the B2B unit that develops, manufactures, and sells slots just for the bachelor in Spain. The combination of those two businesses, which are, let’s say, 80% operation of slots in bars plus 20% our manufacturing business, is making the whole number that you have here. To give you some background here, we are the number one leader in Spain, four times bigger than the followers. We have today around 21% market share. The business we are operating here, 26,000 slots divided into 17,000 bars, which means we have one and a half slots per bar.
Here, the business model is signing five years exclusivity contracts with the bar owner. During this period, we split the revenue coming from the slot 50/50 with the bar owner. Our aim here to keep growing this market is having a very aggressive slot replacement program, together with exploitation of the unique technology we have in place. This means that we have in real time what’s happening in each of those 26,000 slots in real time. The third axis would be by consolidating a highly fragmented market with more than 6,000 different operators in the market. For Q2 this year, the growth was 1%, but this was a combination, as I told you, of this first business unit. Let’s say the most significant business, which is the performance of the slots in bars, was 5%, very similar to the numbers we had in Q1.
During this Q, the B2B new product introduction calendar affected the B2B revenues because in Q1, let’s go back to 2024. In 2024, we have the launch of the new products during Q2. This is when we have the most relevant show in Spain, where we launched the new product. While in this year, in 2025, we made the launch in Q1 at ICE Conference in Barcelona. This is why you have different performance between Q1 and Q2. Remember in Q1, the growth in revenues was plus 8.8%. In fact, this was due again because B2B was performing very well. These route operations in the bars stayed at 5%. I have to say that performance has been very good. I think we’ll have more contribution in H2 of bond acquisitions.
For the rest, I just have to mention again the EBITDA margin because of our, let’s say, continuous efficiency focus we have in the company. We were able even to reach a plus 50% EBITDA margin, which is an outstanding number for this business. Very solid performance in this business during Q2. I’ll now hand it over to Antonio that will take the financial chapter.
Antonio Grau, Chief Financial Officer, CIRSA: Thanks, Antonio. Good morning, everyone. Now that we’ve reviewed our revenue and EBITDA performance, I’d like to focus on four financial key topics. First will be the outstanding cash generation we’ve had in the quarter. I’ll follow commenting on capital structure and the leveraging capacity. After that, comment on the potential for significant financial expenses savings we have that will impact positively in the second half of the year 2026. Finally, I’ll touch upon net profit evolution and dividend output. Going first to the cash generation. Cash generation in the quarter has been outstanding. We’ve had a 75% conversion rate, which is top of industry. This result, combined with our disciplined approach to working capital, CapEx, and other areas, led to a 66% increase in cash generated before M&A. It is important to highlight here the role of EBITDA margin in achieving this level of cash generation.
Our margin of 32.3% remains stable despite the mixed effect from the 63% growth in the online venue, which, as you know, operates at a lower margin than CIRSA’s average. Here for context, our casinos venue maintains a margin above 40%, and slots in Spain have historically exceeded 45%, even surpassing 50% this quarter. This strong cash flow generation enables us to finance growth internally while continuing to deliver, as we’ve always done. Moving now to capital structure and the leveraging. Our financial position has significantly strengthened in recent months, with a total debt reduction of €685 million since 31 March. This is supported by two main items, as Joaquim Agut was mentioning before, a €273 million contribution from our shareholder in May, following the refinancing of the PIC notes. Secondly, the €373 million already commented by Joaquim of net IPO proceeds, which were immediately used to reduce debt.
While these large-scale debt reductions are critical, we must also recognize the contribution of organic cash generation and EBITDA growth, which alone accounted for a 0.12 times reduction in leverage only in one quarter. We’ve met our target of 2.7 times leverage for IPO. Indeed, the performance leverage is of 2.68 times. This brings us close to our steady state range of 2 to 2.5 times, providing thus flexibility for value accretive operations going forward. Going now to financial expense saving potential. Thanks. Following the reductions I just mentioned from the shareholder contribution and IPO proceeds, plus the internal cash generation, we expect to realize over €40 million in interest savings on a normal basis, which we expect to have a positive impact of close to €20 million in the second half of 2025. This corresponds to the already executed two first blocks in this slide.
I’d like to comment before going to the other savings that we are expecting, that over the past few years, our consistent leveraging, strong cash generation, disciplined investment strategy, delivering guidance we’ve commended, I mean, has led to credit rating upgrades, both from Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s. With the most recent upgrades in June and July, we now stand at the remaining score Standard & Poor’s and B1 positive outlook for Moody’s, aligned with all yields below 500 basis points. In this context, we plan to anticipate a refinancing of two bond issues before year end. These two bond issues currently carry an average coupon close to 7%. Given our current yield to maturity below 5%, refinancing at this level could generate, and we expect to generate, between €20 million and €25 million in annual interest savings, which will be positively impacting our 2026 results.
Looking ahead, including the next financing forecasted in July, that you already have from the slide, under current market conditions, we estimate a total annual revenue savings of approximately €74 million to €84 million. To simplify, we expect to finance future dividend payments and interest savings. Thus, we’ll not be altering our traditional cash generation profile, which has historically and consistently supported both growth and the leveraging. My final comments on net profit and dividend outlook. Let me close on a few words on adjusted net profit, which forms the basis of our dividend policy. We’ve set a dividend policy of payment of 35% of adjusted net profit. The 2026 dividend will be based on full-year 2025 adjusted net income. For the first half of 2025, we have achieved €101 million in adjusted net income. That’s a 17% increase versus the previous year.
We expect this KPI to benefit further from interest savings in the second half, as per the savings I have just commented. In summary, I have to say that our strong cash generation and the leveraging profile allow us to at least, I would say, maintain our dividend policy while continuing to execute on our growth strategy. With that, I’ll hand over to Joaquim for the closing remarks. Thank you, Tony. Two things that I would like to highlight on the closing remarks. The last presentation chart, one is about CIRSA being a great investment opportunity. The first point would be that the management team always delivered 68 consecutive quarters. The high translation of EBITDA into pure printing cash flow generation in the range of 75%. In all our markets and channels, without any exception, we have plenty of growth opportunities in both organic and in M&A opportunities.
The second point is about the guidance. I’m reconfirming you the guidance. I expect to be in the high end of the net revenues and EBITDA guidances that we give you. In revenues, we expect to be in the range between €2,280 million and €2,330 million. We expect to be at about 7% improvement year on year. Also, another 7% in EBITDA terms of improvement to be in the range between €740 million and €750 million. Regarding CapEx investment, we expect to be in the 7% to 9% investment on net revenue. Now I’m handing over to the operator who is going to coordinate the Q&A. Thank you very much.
Speaker 9: Thank you very much. We’ve now entered the opening lines for the Q&A. If you would like to ask a question, please signal now by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you’d like to remove yourself at the end of questioning, please signal by pressing star followed by two. As a reminder, to raise a question will be star followed by one. Our first question comes from Francisco Riquel from Alantra. Francisco, your line is now open.
Francisco Riquel, Analyst, Alantra: Good morning. Thank you for the presentation and taking my questions. I have two, if I may. The first one is about Peru, which has become the second largest contributor to group EBITDA in Q2 alone. I see a high quarterly volatility since you bought Apuesta Total. In this year, it has been EBITDA in Peru of $9 million in the first quarter, $26 million in the second quarter. I wonder if you can explain any one-offs in this quarterly performance and what you think is the quarterly run rate that we should expect going forward. Related to Apuesta Total, if you can update what has been the cumulative investment to date and how much is pending and included in net debt already. I have a second question. I don’t know if you want to answer this and then.
Antonio Grau, Chief Financial Officer, CIRSA: Okay. I’ll take the second from this one. Thanks for your question. Yeah. In terms of net financial debt associated to the PRU acquisition, we’ve recorded for all concepts that could be pending of paying, which includes potential earnout plus put and call options that we have for the remaining 30%. Total that we have included in net financial debt, which probably corresponds to estimates, but we believe they are, I mean, very reasonable estimates, completely sufficient to cover what it could arise. It is what’s left is around the $70-80 million mark in terms of net financial debt standing for PRU.
Antonio, CEO, CIRSA: Yes, with regards to your first question around Peru and Apuesta Total, the numbers that you see here are combining Apuesta Total plus our retail business in Peru, which is also performing very well. You are right that Apuesta Total is improving quarter on quarter. As I said, when we bought this company a year ago, they were number two. Today, they are number one. We are capturing the growth of the market. It’s also true that in Q2, the sports betting margin was, let’s say, more than acceptable in Peru. I don’t think you should expect this percentage to keep growing in the future, performing well as it is performing today.
Francisco Riquel, Analyst, Alantra: Okay. I have a second question, if I may. Thank you. You flagged Panama and Mexico as the more weaker units in the first quarter because of the uncertainty of the Trump tariffs and the currency headwinds. I wonder if you can also update on the performance in these two countries in local currency trends and what are you observing and what shall we expect going forward, Panama and Mexico in particular. Thank you.
Antonio, CEO, CIRSA: Yes, Paco. I think, first of all, it’s worth mentioning that this is part of our diversification benefit. We are operating in many countries in Latin America. From time to time, some may perform better, some others not that good. With regards to your specific question, Mexico has already recovered in local currency, while Panama is still struggling a bit, but going in the good trend. When I’m saying struggling, it means that we might be minus 1%, minus 2% in revenue terms. Not a big issue.
Francisco Riquel, Analyst, Alantra: Okay, thank you for the color.
Speaker 9: Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Kevin Goldhill from Barclays. Kevin, your line is now open.
Francisco Riquel, Analyst, Alantra: Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. My first question is on FY revenue guidance. I mean, at midpoint, the implied H2 growth is below your midterm revenue guidance of mid to high single digit. What drives this conservatism, if I may ask? Secondly, can you share some color on current trading in Q3 so far? Thank you.
Antonio Grau, Chief Financial Officer, CIRSA: Yeah, the guidance we gave for revenues from this, did you ask for online or did you ask for retail for the guidance?
Francisco Riquel, Analyst, Alantra: For the group revenue guidance.
Antonio Grau, Chief Financial Officer, CIRSA: For the group revenue guidance.
Francisco Riquel, Analyst, Alantra: Yeah. We gave guidance for retail and for online. In the case of the online, we gave you guidance. In general terms, they’re aligned with some of the historical revenue growth model, which comes one-third from M&A, two-thirds from organic. Aligned with that, we gave for the midterm for the online mid to high teens. For 2025, given the positive impact of Apuesta Total, we increased this guidance to over 20% revenue growth. Going forward, you would have this plus 20% or 20% for this year. You can see that in the first half of the year, we’ve achieved very significant progression in terms of revenue for the online. Going forward, the high teens that we are guiding is coming again from this one-third from M&A, two-thirds from organic, which translates into, let me say, a double-digit growth for the organic, slightly above 10%.
The rest corresponding to M&A, which is totally aligned with what we’re having right now to achieve this mid to long-term guidance. In terms of retail, that’s the same. We gave mid single-digit growth, which is comprised again by, if you want to put it in practical terms, the two-thirds organic would be around 3%, 3.5% and the remaining up to 5% coming from M&A. As you’ve seen, the organic growth we have is completely aligned with our guidances. As Antonio commented before, we have good prospects for a bolt-on for the second half of the year. That is the summary of the guidance we gave and how it compares to what we’ve been explaining.
Antonio, CEO, CIRSA: To give you a color of what’s happening up to now, I have the figures until September 8. If anything happens until the end of the month, nobody knows what’s going to happen. As of today, the numbers that we have, I would say, are a bit better than the ones that we have reported for Q2. Performance in Latin America and casinos is a bit better than what I have just reported, as well as the retail business in Spain. For online, things are following the same trend. What is true is that for Q3, we’ll be comparing apples with apples. We will not have the extra contribution of M&A that we had last year because of the Peruvian acquisition.
Francisco Riquel, Analyst, Alantra: Thank you very much. That’s really helpful. Thank you.
Speaker 9: Thank you very much. As a reminder, if you would like to raise a question, please signal now by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. You can also submit a text question via the webcast. Our next question comes from Ed Young from Morgan Stanley. Ed, your line is now open.
Ed Young, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Thank you. I’ve got two questions, please. First of all, on the strong organic development in casinos, you called out in the statement the good impact of your renovation CapEx. Should we therefore expect that impact to carry over into the coming quarters? I think you spoke to the M&A pipeline there as well. Should we be expecting an acceleration from that base, I guess, in casinos over the next three, four quarters? Second of all, in online, sorry, I’ll let you answer that first. I’ll come back to the second question. Apologies.
Antonio, CEO, CIRSA: Yes. For the casinos business unit, gold mine is recurrent. I don’t think we can expect bigger growth because of gold mine. In fact, we already have projects that were ended up during this first half, and we have new ones going on. I remember three in Colombia, two others in the Dominican Republic, another one in Mexico. I don’t think we should expect a push-up because of gold mine, but yes, because of bolt-on acquisitions. As I said, we have three very mature deals that in fact are just waiting for antitrust clearance, and this will be closed for sure before the end of the year.
Ed Young, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Very helpful. Thank you. The second question I have is on online, just to follow up there. The development has obviously been strong, particularly the Apuesta Total. You seem comfortably ahead of the top end of guidance here if we look at the run rates. Are you allowing for some potential disruption from Italy when you need to collapse down into the three brands from the current multi-brand strategy? Is that partly in the conservatism? Could you give us a potential update on any acquisition in Brazil, just where your status is in Brazil M&A? Thank you.
Antonio, CEO, CIRSA: Regarding the guidance for the online, we feel very comfortable. We don’t expect any hit for Italy going forward with the new, let’s say, tender going on. About Brazil, we are following very closely that market. As you know, we have been interested in that running well, but as of today, we don’t see still the conditions to make a big investment there. As you may know, taxes will be raised from 12% to 18% very soon. This has been offered by politicians. Still, the great marketplace, at least 60% of the market there. There are still many things to be happening before we feel comfortable in making an investment. Having said that, we are in conversations with specific names there to take the position when we see the market under good conditions.
Ed Young, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Thank you.
Speaker 9: Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Fabio Pavan from Mediobanca. Fabio, your line is now open.
Fabio Pavan, Analyst, Mediobanca: Yes. Good morning. Congratulations for the results, and thank you for taking my question. I have a follow-up on the M&A pipeline. I was wondering if there is some color you can share with us eventually on the sector we should look at, the region, and the potential contribution to our rate of EBITDA for next year. Thank you.
Antonio, CEO, CIRSA: The color I can give you is that in the casino segment, this will be happening in both sides of the Atlantic. Forgive me not to disclose the specific places, but we live in countries where our competitors do not report any figure or any movement. We don’t want to take the risk that I’m telling you we’re going to acquire its casinos in Colombia. My competitors go there to interfere with transactions. It’s the only thing I can tell you. This will be happening before year-end in both sides of the Atlantic. In the sort of operation segment, this will be happening as it has been in the past quarter, so business as usual. In the online arena, our focus is Latin America. I can tell you that we have, let’s say, two big ones going on, but nothing will happen before year-end. That’s for sure.
Speaker 9: Thank you. Very clear.
Thank you very much. As a further reminder, if you would like to raise a question, please signal now by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. You can also submit a text question via the webcast now. Our next question comes from Karina Elias from Barclays. Karina, your line is now open.
Karina Elias, Analyst, Barclays: Hi. Thanks for the presentation and thanks for taking my question. I just wanted a quick reminder. Can you just confirm whether the intention is for you to pick or pay in cash the first coupon on your 8.625% maturing in 2030, please?
Antonio Grau, Chief Financial Officer, CIRSA: Are you referring, sorry, for the orders of doubt, the PIC notes? They sit at, let’s say, our former unique shareholder level. Yes. On that, we don’t need to pay any PIC interest on those. If you are asking on intentions on payment of the PIC notes, that’s obviously a question for PLUS and not for us. Not sure if you are referring to these PIC notes when you put the question of our intention to pick or to pay.
Karina Elias, Analyst, Barclays: Yes, that’s what I was referring to. Is the intention to pick or to pay in cash, basically, the first interest?
Antonio Grau, Chief Financial Officer, CIRSA: Yeah. What we can comment, and I already commented, is in our dividend policy. What PLUS and those should be a question for them.
Karina Elias, Analyst, Barclays: Okay. Thank you, Claire.
Speaker 9: Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Richard Stuber of Deutsche Bank. Richard, your line is now open.
Richard Stuber, Analyst, Deutsche Bank: Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Two, please. You mentioned that your online business is growing at double-digit organic growth. Could you give a little bit more color in terms of the growth rates by the different geographies, such as Peru, Italy, Spain, etc.? My second question is, at the current FX rates, what would you expect the FX headwind to be on both revenue and EBITDA for the full year, please? Thank you.
Antonio, CEO, CIRSA: On the online segment, what I can tell you is that, let’s say, in the like for black perimeters, Spain, Italy, Portugal, we are above 10%. In Italy, more close to 20%, and in Spain, more in the 10%. That’s all I can disclose on that. Of course, Peru is far away from these figures, more on the 30, 40%.
Antonio Grau, Chief Financial Officer, CIRSA: Yeah. On FX rates, what I can tell you is that, and you can look at the US dollar variation to understand what FX rates because that’s what drags other currencies in general. What I have to tell you, of course, I don’t have a crystal ball to know what the US dollar will do from here to year-end. Looking at the situation last year of the different currencies and dollars specifically, I would be expecting, unless there are big changes, lower impact in Q3 and Q4 than what we’ve had in Q2. The level of decrease depends a bit on what’s the variation of US dollar and how it may drag other currencies in Latin America. In general terms, as of now, I expect a lower impact in Q3 and Q4.
Richard Stuber, Analyst, Deutsche Bank: That’s great. Thank you.
Speaker 9: Thank you very much. We currently have no further questions on the line. I’d just like to hand over to the management team for any webcast questions.
Speaker 7: Thank you very much for having attended the call. See you in the next quarter call.
Antonio Grau, Chief Financial Officer, CIRSA: Thank you very much.
Antonio, CEO, CIRSA: Thank you.
Antonio Grau, Chief Financial Officer, CIRSA: See you.
Speaker 9: As we conclude today’s call, we’d like to thank everyone for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.
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