forwardloop
03 May 2015
Sunday Telegraph. Live by the sword, die by the sword. In anticipation of a Labour victory at the next general election, hedge funds appear to have ramped up their bets against Ladbrokes.The proportion of the company's shares out of loan - a rough gauge for short-selling - hit 8.9%, its highest level since October 2013, data from Markit revealed. That makes it the seventh most shorted stock on the FTSE 250. Analyst James Letten believes that is because the Labour Party has pledged to crack-down on fixed-odds betting terminals to which Ladbrokes has “massive exposure”, according to the Sunday Telegraph.
ShipTap
29 Apr 2015
Re: Future dividend payment Woolworths? Woolworths? (Jest On).
Punilux
29 Apr 2015
Re: Future dividend payment If Ladbrokes follow their present shop closure plan, reign back on high rollers, pay higher FOT fees etc.and reduce their turnover in Aus because of the effective state levies then they are leaving a lot of ground to be made up by digital just to stand still. I really, really, really want a share that pays out 6% but this is a far from reliable bet. Mullen might deliver the goods but he's not like Ms H Green at Thomas Cook who appeared to have a plan from day one and really hit the ground running. At the moment it looks more like the last years of Woolworths - remember the important brand name driving fewer, better high street stores and also attached to an improved online offering?
Frankers70
28 Apr 2015
Future dividend payment Ok, here's a quick bit of Tuesday mornings maths. Let's assume £14m profit in Q1 is par for the course and we get an uplift over the year of a further £9m in profit, call it the Mullen factor. Leap of faith agreed but let's assume full year profit of £65m. Let's pay out 90% as a dividend (£58.5m). On 921m shares, that's 6.3p per share. It's a 30%ish drop in dividend payment but at 105p per share currently, still commands respect. You can see why the analysts are at 110p - 120p per share typically as there is probably upside from where we are now, no???
forwardloop
22 Apr 2015
info [link]
Punilux
22 Apr 2015
Who's Next? "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"Poor trading conditions, blah blah blah, punter friendly results, blah blah blah, we will improve our digital platform (as if making it any worse was an alternative option!) ,redundancies (to cover up paying seven figure rents on shops which are no longer operational-Racing Post today), better times ahead (see comments on digtal platform) blah blah blah blah....Same nonsense as the last CEO. I wonder if the company will be around long enough to pay him off as well.
idontwanttolose
21 Apr 2015
Ladbrokes seeks Examinership for Irish business 21/4/2015LADBROKES ADDRESSES UNDERPERFORMING IRISH BUSINESS - INTERIM EXAMINER APPOINTEDLadbrokes PLC (Ladbrokes) has today announced that the Directors of Irish trading subsidiaries, Ladbroke (Ireland) Limited, Ladbroke Leisure (Ireland) Limited and Dara Properties Limited ("Ladbrokes Ireland"
have successfully applied to the High Court in Dublin to seek the appointment of an interim examiner and to be provided with the protection of the court under the examinership procedure.Under Irish Law the examinership process provides court protection to enable the examiner of Irish companies to put together a Scheme of Arrangement with creditors with a view to allowing the company to trade as a sustainable business going forward. It is estimated the process will last up to 100 days.Ladbrokes Ireland has entered examinership with the objective of restructuring the business to create a sustainable competitive business which is currently held back due to real estate legacy issues.During the examinership process it will be business as usual for all Ladbrokes Ireland operations - customers will not be affected, shops will remain open and existing contracts and terms and conditions will remain in place. The examinership has no impact on the Ladbrokes Digital or Telephone businesses. The decision to seek examinership follows several years of declining profits in Ladbrokes Ireland culminating in a loss after interest and tax of over €5m in the last financial year (year ended 31st December 2014, unaudited).Jim Mullen Chief Executive of Ladbrokes said:"The action taken today by the directors of the Irish companies is to safeguard the Irish business which in its current state is not sustainable and cannot be supported by the Ladbrokes Board without radical change, having lost its competitive edge. "This step has been taken in the best long term interests of Ladbrokes Ireland, its employees, customers, partners and shareholders. In entering the process, our aim is to build a sustainable and competitive business based in Ireland, run from Ireland, investing in Ireland and supporting the Irish economy and sporting industry while delivering for shareholders." Ladbrokes currently has 196 shops operating in the Republic of Ireland. The company employs 840 people in Ireland. Subject to the views of the examiner, the restructuring is likely to lead to redundancies at all levels of the operation with the number dependent on the outcome of the estate restructuring. Ladbrokes Digital and Telephone businesses are not impacted by this process.AND A TRADING STATEMENT TOMORROW!!! I wonder why they released this news today and not tomorrow??
Punilux
09 Apr 2015
Re: LAMF LAD has about £420M visible debt, plus quite a few long leases which may (or may not) eat into future earnings. Likewise , purchases such as Betdaq will have to be revalued very soon. It made £40M last year, most of which resulted from 45 minutes of football - the first half of Brazil Vs. Germany. Even so, it still had to effectively borrow to pay the dividend. Would it be an exaggeration to state that Ladbrokes could be one inspired AP McCoy Grand National ride from becoming a zombie company? Lots of zombies have recovered (Thomas Cook and Premier Foods being the most famous) but it wouldn't strike many people as having an asset base similar to BG Group.
Pontune
09 Apr 2015
Re: LAMF Bad news is in the price, restructuring and, like BG, a takeover can't be ruled out? That's what I'm hoping anyway.
Punilux
09 Apr 2015
LAMF It is now too easy to mock Motley Fools and their endless stream of nonsense - see their offering 8th April. Even so, their prediction that increased revenue will allow dividends to be maintained is strange. Every recent increase in turnover has resulted in a reduction in EPS (or profit). In itself this might not be a bad thing but LAD appear to follow a rough formulae of (Increase in Total Debt) + (Earnings per Share) = Total Payable in Dividends. Does anyone know if my rather simplistic equation is correct ? Are there any staff shares that do not effectively pay a dividend, or is there a way that shares can effectively be held in treasury without it being immediately apparent? Clearly I am not a major expert (Having sold my BG Group shareholding last week!) but this share appears to be levitating above the ground without any apparent means of support. Are there any financial equivalents of Penn & Teller out there who can explain how it is done?
bismark4
08 Apr 2015
Re: Advertisng haha...you never disappoint puni...howdy laddies...75-80p john222? predicted this value around april this year mmm...I was wrong.great read...as always
Punilux
06 Apr 2015
Re: LAD valuation This is THE Standard and Poors?Sands Casinos are good value? HAHAHAHHA! Forgotten about Macau have they?Ladbrokes are going to increase profits this year? HAHAHAHAHAHA! And Pay 7.13% ? HAHAHAHAHAHA! And have a share price backed up by assets? HAHAHAHAHA!At least they got the bit about Greek Football League being a slightly better bet.
albent
06 Apr 2015
LAD valuation Report on LAD [link] I found useful.
john222
02 Apr 2015
Re: Advertisng One direction must be .8 of what they were surely?! 5 less 1 is 20%!!!quickly off topic but lets get back to the issue.......LADS are royally stuffed unless they can make inroads to online and reduce debt they are also closing under performing estate outlets which will result in reverse premiums ie buying their way out.I still see an under pressure share price to circa 75-80p soon, and will stay away until that point.Just a view DYOR!222
Punilux
02 Apr 2015
Re: Advertisng Mr Mullen appears to be constrained by the fact that he was part of the management of the LAD tie-up with Playtech which has not emulated the success of WMH and Playtech. He can't just walk away now because, presumably, he signed the contracts and can't afford to buy LAD out of them, even if a digital replacement was available. Likewise, the earlier policy of trying to convert every "laundrette and kebab house" into a bookie on a long term lease (whilst others were mastering that new fangled internet thingy) will take many years to rectify. If there had been someone new coming into the company I would have more confidence, but it is going to take a very big man to stand up and say that he was responsible for wasting billions of Pounds of shareholders money. Remember that last year's profits were helped by a cracking World Cup.This year the EPS could easily enter negative territory. For a company that basically owns a lot of small red pens but little else this could be disastrous.Good line about One Direction. Can I be a pedant and suggest that the SP will lose 20% ? I've got the Easter Egg to prove it.
