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Boldt, one of Argentina’s most historically significant gaming conglomerates, is heading toward a major ownership shift after Antonio Eduardo Tabanelli (pictured) launched an operation to acquire the entire stake his sister, Rosana Beatriz Martina Tabanelli, holds in the group – ending the near-even ownership split the siblings inherited following the death of their father, Antonio Tabanelli, on June 25, 2025.
The mechanics of the deal
The transaction combines a voluntary cash tender offer with a separate share-swap option into B-Gaming, a related company with its own roots in the original Tabanelli business. Antonio currently holds 45.9 per cent of Boldt, while Rosana controls 46.4 per cent and has formally signalled her intent to accept her brother’s offer for her full stake – a transfer that would leave Antonio holding roughly 92.3 per cent of the company. Neither party spelled out what prompted the timing, but the restructuring is understood to be part of preparing the group’s governance for the next generation: Rosana has no children, while Antonio has two, a detail understood to be central to her decision to accept. The filing specifies no side agreements exist for board members or senior management to sell shares – this is a deal between the two principal shareholders, not a broader management shake-up.
The cash option offers up to 523.9 million Boldt shares at $70 each, paid in dollars, a roughly 60 per cent premium over the stock’s six-month average of $43.775. The alternative lets shareholders swap Boldt stock for B-Gaming shares at a fixed ratio. Investors have three choices: sell at $70, swap into B-Gaming, or hold their position. The offer isn’t contingent on any minimum acceptance threshold. Formal CNV authorisation is still required before the ten-business-day offer window opens; Antonio has also indicated he’ll launch a subsequent mandatory tender offer once he formally gains control, while explicitly ruling out delisting Boldt or pursuing major mergers involving the company.
What’s actually inside Boldt
The ownership change is worth understanding against the breadth of what Boldt has built since its founding in 1933, originally as a security-printing business before expanding into lottery and betting technology and, eventually, casinos and entertainment venues across Buenos Aires province and beyond, including an earlier regional push into Chile. Much of the group’s real economic footprint, though, comes less from owning venues outright and more from supplying the technology and management systems that keep gaming floors running: Boldt’s proprietary CAS platform manages more than 10,000 gaming terminals across Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and Paraguay, giving the group a genuine regional infrastructure business independent of any single casino’s foot traffic.
That technology-first instinct carried Boldt into online betting through bplay, launched in Santa Fe in 2020 and since expanded across multiple Argentine jurisdictions with sports betting, slots, live casino and virtual sports – a segment the company has flagged as a clear growth and profitability opportunity going forward.
Why B-Gaming is the other half of the story
B-Gaming, the company Antonio is using as swap currency, emerged from an earlier split of the historic Boldt conglomerate: Boldt retained the entertainment-facing businesses, while B-Gaming took on a less visible but strategically important role – the technology for capturing, validating and processing large volumes of betting transactions in real time. Antonio’s personal stake in B-Gaming effectively becomes a financing tool for the restructuring, letting him fund part of the deal without relying solely on cash.
Taken as a whole, the transaction is less a change in what Boldt does than in who ultimately controls its direction – consolidating a business spanning physical casino infrastructure, regional gaming technology and online betting under a single decision-maker for the first time since the previous generational handover in 2022. For an Argentine gaming sector navigating provincial licensing regimes and growing political pressure over betting taxation, having one of its oldest, most vertically integrated players settle its ownership structure cleanly – with the acquirer explicitly committing to keep the company publicly listed – offers a degree of institutional continuity arguably as significant to the market as the deal’s financial terms.
