MILAN (Reuters) – Italian gaming company Lottomatica said on Wednesday it was considering strategic alternatives to support growth, including a potential public listing, as it posted a core profit of around 460 million euros ($501 million) for 2022.
An initial public offering, which sources had told Reuters could take place in the second quarter, would mark a return to the Milan bourse for Lottomatica and help to leave behind a dry spell in the IPO market.
Backed by Apollo Global Management , Lottomatica has been working on the possible IPO with with UniCredit, Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan.
Credit Suisse has also now joined the consortium, which a source with knowledge of the matter said.
Lottomatica said preliminary results for 2022 showed that it had collected 22.8 billion euros in bets, with revenues of around 1.4 billion euros and earnings before interest, tax, amortisation and depreciation of 458 million-462 million euros.
Pro-forma EBITDA stands 516 million-520 million euros in 2022 when taking into account the acquisition of Italian remote gaming and betting collection company Betflag, which Lottomatica completed in November.
In the fourth quarter Lottomatica’s EBITDA rose 7-11% year-on-year excluding Betflag.($1 = 0.9189 euros)
($1 = 0.9186 euros)
(Reporting by Elisa Anzolin, writing by Cristina Carlevaro, editing by Alvise Armellini and Valentina Za)
