The casino chain Enjoy from Chile received offers for assets in Mexico as well as in Punta del Este, Uruguay

In the midst of its judicial reorganisation, casino company Enjoy informed the Financial Market Commission (CMF) that it has received offers for its assets. "The company has received and is analysing expressions of interest and offers for assets (gaming casino operations, hotels and real estate assets) in Chile as well as in Punta del Este, all of which are non-binding and subject to conditions, among others, to the completion of a due diligence," the company said in an essential fact.

As explained in its balance sheet as of September, Enjoy operates eight gaming casinos in Chile, located in Antofagasta, Coquimbo, Viña del Mar, Rinconada de los Andes, San Antonio, Los Ángeles, Pucón and Castro. In Uruguay, it operates the Enjoy Punta del Este casino , which is licensed until 2036.

The company, whose shareholders include Euroamérica and Penta Vida Compañía de Seguros, said that an international operator has offered to buy its Chilean operations as a single business unit, including all its assets (casino gaming operations, hotels and real estate assets).

Asked for the identity of the bidders, Enjoy declined to disclose their names, "in view of the fact that these are non-binding offers".

However, sources close to the company confirmed to Pulso that it is the Mexican group Logrand Entertainment Group, the same interested party that this newspaper reported last September. Logrand, with 17 years of experience in the field, opened its first casino, Paradise, in the city of Monterrey, Nuevo León, in 2005. As of September, according to its sustainability report, it reported operations in six Mexican states, with 12 gaming rooms, and a minority presence in three other locations. The company also has online operations in sports, virtuals, fantasy, slots, live casino, table games, bingo, sweepstakes, e-sports and scratch cards, according to its website.

The same sources said Enjoy has also received two bids for its Punta del Este operations, but from companies other than the bidders for the Chilean operations. The identity of the bidders was not disclosed.

Today Enjoy's largest shareholder is Euroamerica, which reports a 15.25% stake as of December 2023, followed by Penta Vida, with 11.66%. The firm is chaired by Henry Comber, president of Enjoy.

As Enjoy detailed through the essential fact published on Tuesday before the regulator, the stages to follow for the bids submitted, both for those mentioned and for others that may eventually arise in the future, "will be subject to the proposed agreement to be submitted by the company in the framework of the judicial reorganisation process," said Enjoy's general manager, Esteban Rigo-Righi, in the document.

"At this date it is not possible to determine the financial effects that the eventual execution of one or more of the non-binding offers could have on the assets, liabilities or results of Enjoy," the executive concluded.

The reorganisation
The casino chain announced at the end of January this year that it began a new judicial reorganisation process, after ending the first one on 1 March 2022, in response to a complicated financial scenario deteriorated as an effect of the pandemic and its slow recovery.

Enjoy's financial situation remained in the red in the third quarter of 2023. In fact, at that time it reported a 38.77% increase in its losses, accumulating a loss of $69.218 million as of September, which was mainly attributed to a negative variation in its Ebitda, which went on to post a negative figure of $2.052 million in the first nine months of 2023.

This, in turn, was due to lower revenues in the Punta del Este business unit "due to the hold and exchange rate effect and higher personnel and economic supply costs, due to inflationary and exchange rate effects". According to Enjoy, the Uruguayan business numbers were offset by the performance of its operations in Chile.