Dreams and Enjoy Give Up on Merging After the Investigation

Dreams and Enjoy, the well-known companies from Latin America, gave up on the plan to merge after long negotiations. They agreed to put an end to their work as one company, and they notified Chile’s Financial Markets Commission about that.

Giving up:

The Dreams’ spokesperson said: “The parties have agreed to terminate the merger agreement in accordance with its stipulations and not to continue with the operation.”

Enjoy agreed: “The parties have agreed not to persevere in the business combination and, by mutual agreement, have terminated the Merger Agreement. At this date, it is not possible to determine the effects that the information may have on the assets, liabilities, or results of Enjoy. The closing of the merger was subject to the fulfillment of a number of conditions, the last of which was to be met on or before July 13, 2023.”

Enjoy has a long history on the continent. The company has existed for 48 years, and it’s finally time for them to shine and become one of the major players in the Latin American market. Enjoy’s next focus will be on developing an online business, especially one that already exists in Brazil. The next step is expanding the online business in Chile, and the company awaits approval from the authorities to start working on that project.

Problems in the industry:

The Chilean casino industry has been carefully examined in the recent period, which is one of the reasons for the companies to split up. Even the investigation has been opened by the National Economic Prosecutor’s Office. It is related to bidding processes in the Chilean casino industry, and among raided parties was Henry Comber, the President of Enjoy. His phone, computer, and all other electronic devices were taken in order to prove Enjoy’s alleged coercion and coordination during the tender process in the casino.

Dreams was supposed to be a major shareholder in the shared company. They would possess 64% of the company, 58% of land-based Chilean casino licenses, and 76% of online casinos in Chile which have the GGR license from 2019.

The merger that would cause the problems:

The competition authority in Chile caused some problems for the companies. They were concerned that these two companies, if merged, would take full control of municipal casinos in the country, which they said to The Fiscalía Nacional Económica (FNE). Also, they wanted to take charge of the Enjoy Santiago casino, which would possibly reduce the company’s ownership of the market.

In June last year, the FNE wanted to investigate the consequences of the merger on the whole market, including the consumers as well as other casino operators, and that’s when the merger was put on hold. 

Dreams and Enjoy tried to defend their decision to merge last November, and it was decided to merge in January 2022. However, since then, there wasn’t any noticeable progress on the matter, and they decided to finally give it up.