Considered a successful action last year, the Lotex concession, popularly known as scratch cards, may not go off the record. This is because the winning consortium of the auction informed that it is moving away from the concession due to the lack of understanding with the Federal Government and Caixa Econômica Federal.
In a recent statement, IGT, from the United States, and Scientific Games, from the United Kingdom, which make up the Estrela Instantânea consortium, highlighted the difficulty in distributing the new modality.
“Although we are fully prepared to comply with all the financial and non-financial conditions precedent of the concession contract, prudent capital management dictates that we withdraw from the process and reevaluate the business of implementing a lottery operations model in Brazil”, they stressed
According to the companies, if the government offers an increase in the time for Caixa to release and execute a distribution contract, they can analyze “the possibility of re-engaging in the process”.
In return, the Ministry of Economy declared that, after two extensions of the term, the consortium needed to prove until September 21, the fulfillment of all the requirements prior to signing the Lotex concession.
“At the end of this period, several conditions foreseen in the public notice were not fulfilled”, is stated in the official note, which guarantees that the government and the BNDES “are adopting the measures provided for in the public notice”.
The BNDES, in turn, pointed out that “it notified the winning consortium regarding the guarantee of the proposal, in the amount of R $ 25 million”.
Problem with Caixa Economica Federal
The impasse happens because the group wanted a settlement with Caixa to sell Lotex tickets in the 13 thousand lottery companies in Brazil. In a note, the companies claimed that they had repeatedly communicated to the government that the success of the “scratch card” depended on the distribution agreement with the state bank.
“After more than seven months of diligent discussions with Caixa, the parties successfully concluded contract negotiations. However, despite reaching an agreement in the final version of the contract more than two months ago, Caixa failed to authorize its execution in the concession period, and our request for an extension of the process was not granted “, appears in the group’s note.
In addition, the consortium also underscored the recent decision by the Supreme Federal Court (STF) on the exploitation of lotteries not to be exclusive to the Union, allowing the states to create new lotteries.
The Ministry of Economy, on the other hand, said that “this is a private transaction, which is strictly not essential to the concession of Lotex, according to the public notice and draft of the concession contract”.
Consortium was the only one interested in the Lotex auction
The group was the only one interested in the auction held in October last year. The companies won with a bid of R $ 96.969 million for the initial installment of the grant.
At the time, the government stated that the action would ensure an amount of R $ 817.9 million to public coffers over 15 years.
