Blackstone's gambling co Cirsa expects share listing in Spain on July 9
The company said on Monday it would seek a valuation of 2.52 billion euros ($2.98 billion) in an initial public offering of shares worth at least 400 million euros, at 15 euros a share.
Cirsa operates casinos and gambling platforms in Spain, where it is the largest casino operator, Italy, Morocco, as well as in Latin America. It entered Portugal and Puerto Rico last year.
The IPO would be the first one in Spain since travel tech company HBX Group (HBX.MC), opens new tab raised 725 million euros in February in a deal that valued it at 2.84 billion euros at the time.
($1 = 0.8464 euros)
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
21 minutes ago
- Reuters
Breakingviews - AI dooms the billable hour – and Big Law earnings
LONDON, July 2 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Artificial intelligence promises to save time for white-collar workers. If true, that could be bad news for companies that bill clients by the hour. Law firms, auditors and other professional-services outfits might find ways to mitigate the financial hit. But there's no getting around the fact that automation risks devaluing part of the pricey service they're offering. The 'billable hours' model dates to Reginald Heber Smith, a legendary managing partner of Hale and Dorr between 1919 and 1956, who 'pioneered the rationalization of the modern law firm', as described, opens new tab by its descendant White Shoe outfit WilmerHale. At heart, billing by the hour means getting staff to meticulously track the time spent on projects so that they can invoice clients accordingly. Beancounters and tax advisers at groups like Deloitte are also heavy users of so-called timesheets. About 82% of U.S. law firm partners' work is charged by the hour, Thomson Reuters Institute research shows, while such revenue makes up 65% of income at U.S. audit firms, according to, opens new tab the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants. Rates can be eye-popping. The most senior partners at elite firms, like Kirkland & Ellis or Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, can bill up to $3,000 an hour. The rate for junior lawyers can be $400, according to LexisNexis's Sean Fitzpatrick, or sometimes much more at White Shoe firms. It's normal, opens new tab in Big Law to charge out juniors at multiples of their salaries, which can be a nice earner for the top partners. But AI, particularly so-called AI agents which work autonomously, are now threatening to undermine the time-honoured practice. Goldman Sachs analysts estimated, opens new tab in a 2023 report that 44% of legal tasks in the United States could be automated. It might sound like a good thing that an AI agent could draft a non-disclosure agreement in minutes, or instantly synthesise board minutes for an audit. Yet a perverse outcome of the billable hour structure is that being more productive, all else equal, can mean generating less revenue. According to American Bar Association guidelines, opens new tab published in July, lawyers can only charge for actual time spent on tasks, even if AI allows them to perform them faster. Compounding the problem is the fact that professional-services firms may face a chunky upfront IT bill to get the new software up and running. Only one-third of tax firms surveyed, opens new tab by Thomson Reuters reckon they can directly pass on generative AI investment costs to customers, implying that developing or buying slick new AI agents will initially eat into profit margins. There are no painless ways to respond to this double whammy. One extreme option, in theory, would be to let AI agents replace a big chunk of the junior staff. Clients pay partners for their wisdom and personal touch, not the grunt work. The implication is that seniors could keep charging themselves out even if the rest of the firm becomes populated by faceless AI robots. And to the extent that some juniors spend time on work that can't be billed, agents could boost profitability. Associates, who are generally younger members of staff, are already shrinking as a proportion of law-firm headcount – to 40% in recent years compared with 45% from 2005 to 2009, according to Thomson Reuters, opens new tab. One problem with this option, other than its heartlessness, is that firms need a constant pipeline of juniors to repopulate the partnership. Who else will replace the old guard when they finally cash out to hit the golf course full time? It's also far from clear that the hallucination-prone software is ready for the big time, implying that a horde of associates may still be needed to check AI agents' accuracy. That points to a different solution: moving away from billable hours. It's already happened at the elite strategy consultancies like McKinsey & Company, Bain & Company and Boston Consulting Group, who often charge flat project fees tied to specific outcomes. Doing the same would flip the AI equation for law and accountancy firms: productivity improvements could boost margins rather than hurt them. There's a precedent in the legal world too: Allen & Overy in 2002 created a subscription-based business called Aosphere, whose lawyers give advice online to 1,200 clients. 'We don't even do time sheets', its website claims, opens new tab. Buyout shop Inflexion and Endicott Capital agreed to invest in the division in 2023 at an unspecified valuation, suggesting that the model may hold some promise. But it's a different type of service to advising on a complex deal or piece of litigation. The risk is that it will be tough to systematise pricing across the vast variety of projects. Doing so might be easier for beancounters, since audits can in theory share a common overarching process. But no two lawsuits, for example, are the same. Switching to a project-fee approach puts the onus back on professional-services firms to judge how many resources a clients' work will take. The bigger problem, however, is that automating tasks makes it harder to charge a margin. Under the classic law-firm model, for example, revenue gets split equally three ways between overhead costs, salaries and partner profit. The implication is that seniors should charge juniors out at a minimum of three times their pay. Yet clients may balk if Big Law tries to apply the same logic to an AI agent. Why should a White Shoe firm add a markup to software that it just bought from someone else? Corporate clients could argue that they could just get their own AI agents instead. It's a management challenge that Hale and Dorr's attorney mastermind Reginald Heber Smith would probably have relished. Solving it will require moving beyond the billable hour. Follow Karen Kwok on LinkedIn, opens new tab and X, opens new tab.
Telegraph
35 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Wall Street has faith in Trump. It could all end in tears
All is forgiven. Wall Street has soared to record highs just months after Donald Trump unleashed tariff chaos on the world. The S&P 500 stock index has surged nearly 25pc from the nadir it reached in the days after the US president announced his ' liberation day ' tariffs on April 2. The benchmark completed its best quarter since December 2023 on Monday as it reached a new high, even as Trump threatens to impose fresh tariffs within weeks. This will please a president who has long viewed the stock market as an unofficial straw poll on his performance. But is such a full-throated endorsement of Trump's economic plans justified? Not everyone is convinced. '[Stocks] are at an all time high and the risks are still there,' points out Luca Paolini, the chief strategist at Pictet Asset Management. 'It is not as bad as it was but it is not as good as it was a year ago. 'Our view is that it's going to get weaker and that's why we don't buy into the strength of the market.' Stocks have surged even as official data, published last week, confirmed that the US economy shrank by half a percentage point at the start of the year. 'The US economy is somewhat slowing and when you have those types of stock valuations, there's not much room for deception,' says Kevin Thozet, a member of the investment committee at European asset manager Carmignac. Stock prices on the S&P 500 are trading at about 22 times earnings, which assumes that companies will experience astonishing growth in profits in coming years. 'This recovery is driven entirely by soaring valuations rather than earnings upgrades, signalling underlying fragility,' Susana Cruz and Joachim Klement, analysts at stockbroker Panmure Liberum, have warned. The current stock market rally is 'built on shaky ground, given the deep economic uncertainty'. There are some good reasons for stocks to have roared back since Trump announced his 'liberation day' tariffs. 'Markets are always navigating a very uncertain environment. The question is, 'Is it worse or better than a few months ago?' And I think the market, correctly so, came to the conclusion that it's probably better,' says Paolini. 'The trade war that was supposed to be terrible for the global economy. It doesn't look like it is going to be that bad because there are going to be deals between the US-UK, US-India, Vietnam, probably Europe and Japan. 'So yes, there will be higher tariffs, but we are probably going to avoid a devastating trade war of everyone against everyone else.' Rory McPherson, the chief investment officer at Wren Sterling, says: 'Corporate earnings have been really strong. The earnings for the rest of the year have not been downgraded by anything like what they were downgraded in previous crises. 'Yes, they have been downgraded and the downgrade for the year is almost 4pc but that's not too far out of whack.' However, Paolini warns that the surge in stocks means there is 'very limited upside from here because equities are very, very expensive'. The big question hanging over the stock market is the future of so-called US exceptionalism – the previously self-reinforcing theory that America is unique and distinct from other nations. This belief has long helped to prop up stock markets, with investors betting that American businesses will pull through even the most difficult patches. But there are signs that this faith is being shaken. The dollar has suffered its worst first half of the year since 1973 and concerns about Trump's plans to borrow hundreds of billions have seen borrowing costs jump, prompting jokes that the president could become 'Donald Truss'. 'If I'm looking further out I think Trump's policies would lead to a lower US dollar and higher interest rates,' says Thozet of Carmignac. 'The Trump administration wants to have more manufacturing, more stuff made in the US and this comes with a lower dollar policy. And there's a risk that these higher interest rates deflates the elevated prices on US equities.' The man who could make or break the Wall Street rally is Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve. Lower interest rates would spur economic activity and help boost corporate profits. Traders are currently pricing in two cuts before the end of 2025 and a 53pc chance of a third, anticipating that policymakers will react to a slowdown in the American jobs market, which added 139,000 jobs in May, down from 147,000 in April. However, Powell warned on Tuesday at the ECB Forum in Sintra that policymakers had kept rates 'on hold when we saw the size of the tariffs'. He also warned that the 'US federal fiscal path is not a sustainable one' as the Senate edged closer to approving Mr Trump's ' One Big Beautiful Bill ', which would cut taxes and add an estimated $3.3 trillion (£2.4 trillion) to the American government deficit over the next 10 years. Those comments will infuriate Mr Trump, who has repeatedly pressured 'Too Late' Powell to cut rates. As the melodrama plays out, Wall Street waits. 'It is not blind hope,' insists McPherson. 'The US has a lot more upside from here.'
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Euro 2025 prize money: How much do teams win round by round?
Euro 2025 will offer record prize money of €41m (£34m) as Uefa confirmed an increase of 156 per cent from Euro 2022, but there remains a significant gap of almost €300m between men's and women's European Championships. Switzerland will stage the 16-team tournament following a record-breaking Euros won by hosts England in 2022, and Uefa are hoping to smash viewership figures and sponsorship revenues amid the wider growth of women's football in Europe. The total prize money available to teams at Euro 2022 was €16m, with England taking just over €2m by beating Germany at Wembley. The prize money on offer at Euro 2025 will be more than double what it was three years before, and the champions can win up to €5.1m when performance bonuses are added Uefa's executive committee also confirmed that participating teams will distribute between 30 to 40 per cent of their prize money to the players for the first time, in a move that mirrors the agreement made ahead of the Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand in 2023. Teams at Euro 2025, which includes first-team qualifiers Wales, are also guaranteed a participation fee of €1.8m - almost as much as England's winning-bonus from 2022. The compensation package on offer to clubs who contribute players to the summer tournament will also rise to €6m - an increase of €1.5m from 2022. The total prize money on offer at the 24-team men's European Championships in 2024 was €331 million, with the winners Spain taking home a maximum of €28.25m. Euro 2025 prize money (per team) €1.8m guaranteed (£1.53m) Additional Bonuses Group-stage win: €100,000 (£85,300) Group-stage draw: €50,000 (£42,650) Quarter-finals: €550,000 (£469,200) Semi-finals: €700,000 (£600,000) Winner: €1.75m (£1.49m)
