The Spanish based multinational gaming group Codere is just one of many companies hit by the recession but this company with interests in several countries has also been hit by higher taxes and changes in gambling regulation in these various countries. The company had regularly posted losses over the last two years and had built up serious debts said to be due in part to problems linked to the company’s businesses in South America.
Codere was founded in 1980 and the large multinational gaming company has businesses in Europe, in Spain and Italy and also in several South American countries including Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Colombia. Codere runs casinos, betting shops, bingo halls and also race tracks in the different countries. Even though Spain is finally beginning to come out of recession, Codere had been having difficulty managing to continue repaying its debts for several months before, in January of this year, it claimed that it would need to come to an agreement with its lenders if the company were to be able to repay its loans. It is believed that Codere’s debts had reached an amount just under one and a half billion euros by last autumn.Codere isn’t the only Spanish company to be facing possible bankruptcy. There has been an increase of 15 per cent in bankruptcies in Spain over the last year and since Codere sought protection from its creditors in January 2014 it has been attempting to restructure its debt and so avoid going bankrupt. However, the company recently refused an offer from its creditors to provide it with the finance needed to reduce its debts as this deal involved providing equity in the business in return. Codere now has until the end of April to find a solution to its financial problems or it will have little choice but to file for bankruptcy protection in Spain even though the majority of its debt has originated from its South American interests.
