While Sun International has been roundly bested by competitor Enjoy in Chile, news that it has lost out on all but one of five municipal licences that it had bid for may not be such a bad thing after all, given the stress on the gaming and hotel group’s balance sheet. Sun International’s subsidiary in the region, Sun Dreams, tendered for the two municipal licences it holds — Iquique and Puerto Varas — and for three more licences. In Iquique it has secured 15 more years to trade at $10m — an "economic offer" that is payable yearly and increases with Chilean inflation. That means it can go ahead with the construction of a $55m hotel and casino complex, which is expected to be finished in two years. But Enjoy has scooped the other four, including the Puerto Varas property that Sun currently operates and that earned it ebitda of R183m in 2017 on revenues of R405m. This would have fallen "significantly" considering the obligatory economic offer — an extra fixed annual tax. Clearly, losin...
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