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Betting firm William Hill says trading is holding up despite consumer downturn
BETTING shop and internet gambling business William Hill says trading has held up well in the face of the consumer downturn.
The group, which has 2,300 shops in the UK and Ireland, described its performance as resilient after gross win - the amount left by losing punters - rose eight per cent in the 11 weeks since October 20 and by six per cent for the year as a whole.
William Hill has a regional HQ in Leeds, while its telephone betting arm is handled from call centres in Leeds and Sheffield.
Its e-commerce division is based in Leeds and Gibraltar.
William Hill recently bolstered its online gaming and sports betting operation following a deal with software firm Playtech.
Playtech is supplying William Hill Online with casino, poker and other gaming software products, in return for a 29 per cent stake in the new operation.
The deal came a year after William Hill was forced to abandon a long-running upgrade of its internet betting operation - a move which led to a 20.9m write-down in its 2007 results.
The firm has forecast operating profits of 275m for 2008, around 10m higher than most City estimates.
Despite the solid performance, Numis Securities said it remained cautious about the company's prospects in 2009 as it expected UK bookmakers' earnings to be impacted by rising unemployment throughout 2009.
The broker cut its 2009 profits forecast by 11 per cent to 190.7m and 2010's prediction by 13 per cent to 205.3m.
William Hill also said it was in discussions with its banking syndicate about refinancing current borrowing facilities, the majority of which are due to mature in March 2010.
Investec Securities believes William Hill is planning to refinance at least 850m of the current 1.2bn total facility by the time of the company's final results in late February.
It described the current trading performance as commendable, helped by softer comparisons with a year earlier.
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Wednesday 23 May 2012
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