Three potential acquirors have been selected by advisors Mediobanca and Uncredit  for the final round of bids for Cogetech, one of the leading companies in the Italian gaming market, and one of the concessionaries of the AAMS (Italian Gaming Regulator). MF-Milano Finanza writes today that runners are Italian betting company Gamenet (controlled by private equity firm Trilantic Capital Partners), US private equity  giant Apollo and Spanish betting company Cirsa.
Cogetech operates a wide area network connecting more than 38.000 amusement machines (AWP or New Slot) placed in approximately 15.000 shops, it operates directly 5.200 Videolotteries (VLT), it collects horse and sports betting through a network of 189 shops in Italy under the brand name iZiPlay and provides services to a network of 300 independent betting shops.
Some interest for the deal had been shown also by private equity funds CVC Capital Partners and Blackstone any by Italian betting company Sisal. The latter is controlled by  Permira, Clessidra and Apax funds and is preparing for listing its shares on the Italian Stock Exchange. Sisal’s shareholders still might make an offer at the last minute. A decision about the auction result is expected next week.
Cogetech è is now controlled by Cogemat spa, which in turn is 71pct owned by private equity funds of Orlando Italy and Investindustrial through OI Games 2 sa and OI Games sa . the group reached 132,9 million euros of consolidated revenues in Q1 2014, with  11,3 millions of ebitda and 101 of net financial debt (download here the quareterly results) . Cogemat reached 481,2 millions of revenues in 2013 (down from 513,5 millions in 2012), with a negative ebitda of 43,6 millions (due to 84.2 millions of non-recurrent items) and 88.1 millions of net financial debt (download here 2013 results).
