Punilux
23 Apr 2017
No Longer Any Use If you are chairman of a company who has hand-picked a CEO which you have sacked, then followed it by announcing merger plans without mentioning it to your biggest shareholder what do you do? I know! Let's get rid of Graham Sharpe two years before he wanted to retire because he has only been promoting William Hill as an idiosyncratic brand with class and humour for 41 years. Even Gidiot and Camoron said that they looked at his political odds as being more reliable than their own polls and surveys. Far better to have Rabbi Savage to promote your company.
Punilux
21 Apr 2017
FOT Legislation Delayed Racing Post think that earliest that legislation can be passed is October so that high street bookies will get at least an "extra" six months at the present levels. On the other hand, the additional uncertainty will put a brake on further consolidation that might have been expected during Summer. A further problem is that the new "levy", by which part of the profits are used to fund racing, might not go through in time. Presently The Levy Board is funding some of the prize money for races by drawing on reserves. Good news for Corals/Ladbrokes/Dones, who don't pay image rights either, but a bit unfair on WMH who do.
Punilux
28 Mar 2017
888... ....just taken a big hit walking away from Australia following the ban on online poker. Anyone going to our AGM this year?
elliottsilverman
24 Mar 2017
RNS yesterday indicate Parvus Asset Management Europe Limited's stake in WMH has now gone above 17%...quite a big chunk. Active investor may be about to get more active...is it worth riding their coat-tails? What d'yall think?
Regency Green
22 Mar 2017
Re: Beware! Thanks for highlighting the Racing Post report - if the market was taking notice it seems to have taken it in it's stride and the price is holding up very well.
Punilux
21 Mar 2017
Beware! Looks like I might be wrong! Racing Post reporting this evening possible "radical" plans for FOTs being announced in weeks after Easter. Apparently Tracey Crouch isn't a great fan whilst Philip Hammond does not want to lose any further revenue following his problem last week. Some costings suggest that there would be a loss of £1bn to HMRC.in years up to 2020 if maximum stake reduced to £2. There is also apparently a moral risk in sending high stakes FOBTs gamblers into casinos or websites which may not even be regulated.Whatever happens, there could be a very negative opinion in the markets tomorrow.
Punilux
16 Mar 2017
Re: Re: I don't want to predict "good" news and then cause people to lose money on WMH shares because I was wrong but....1) Almost every horse training centre in England has a Tory MP.2) A lot of trainers are really struggling, unless they were very wealthy to start with.3) The new "settlement" of 10% of profit after £500,000 is going to need retail to remain pretty much intact over the next ten years, or there will be a sudden drop in income that could realistically put tens of thousands of people out of work. 4) If it is a condition of installing FoTs is that the betting shop must have racing, and vice versa then I can't see there being too much pressure being put on the continued existence of most LBOs.If my logic is wrong, I'm happy to be corrected...
pyueck
16 Mar 2017
Re: I highly suspect that this person who placed the bet has some kind of problem, although who knows for sure. Even if this person had enormous amounts of money I would say that this action was reckless and certainly at the very least should raise questions. The trouble is the industry always applies the mantra of the person is deemed to be fine unless they self exclude, there is no proactive identification and barring of people who seem to have their gambling out of control. Remember this is not just a monetary issue, anybody spending hours every day in a bookies must surely fall under the category of gambling causing them problems in their lives.I am not sure the person is innocent, whatever that means, the person made a free choice to place the bet, however they of course may be under the spell of an addiction. That is not to say the industry shouldn't do more, or be forced to by regulation.What is clear in my mind is that whether this person has or hasn't got a problem or whether the bet should have been accepted, there are many many others who regularly use betting shops and online gambling that do have a problem. Just go into any betting shop, look at the people in there and make up your mind what % of their revenues come from people with an addiction. I suspect the number is stageeeingly high.The industry likes to use the statistic 'what % of people who gamble in a year have a problem'. While this figure is probably understated, it's not the best picture of how much betting shops rely on problem gamblers. The true figure is 'what % of revenues come from people with a sign of addiction'. I suspect the regulation of this sector will only get more intense, especially once industry wide self exclusion kicks in in 2018. The latest results have showed the impact that the extra regulation and tax is having on the business, I suspect this will only multiply.
Punilux
16 Mar 2017
How terrible that those n4sty bookies preyed on an innocent man into losing £375,000 on Douvan yesterday (Telegraph today) ! I think that there should be a maximum bet of £2 and that is only for people who can show that they are not poor by bringing along their bank statements, a photo of their home and a letter from their spouse stating that their marriage isn't facing difficulties. Are there any WMH discussion regulars who agree with me?
Punilux
24 Feb 2017
Results Uh-oh!EPS sinking rapidly.No news of disastrous share buy-back.No news of new CEO...or chairman.Increased debt.Cash cows in Australia and US not producing as much.I know, let's hold the dividend so we don't get moaned at during the AGM, but hint at cutbacks to cover the costs.The good news is that whilst LAD/COR and Dones refuse to the new ARC rights deal we get a few more people in our shops and makes the new levy deal announcement due by April 1st rather difficult. And there was a genuinely funny Paddy Power joke about Ladbrokes etc. shop customers being made to watch Songs Of Praise..
valeite
15 Feb 2017
hsbc downgrades infact the whole sector is downgraded on a lot of potential negatives .WMH is down from £2.65 to £2.57 ..gutted!
Punilux
14 Feb 2017
Re: parvus still restless The story appears to be:1) WMH want GVC's CEO because he has dealt with the company before and would be seen as a safe pair of hands growing online and international. At the moment WMH are 55% UK retail, and clearly that is not acceptable to many people.2) The CEO of GVC might become CEO of a combined group.3) GVC shareholders are unlikely to accept that until the Government Review of UK betting shops has been priced into the transaction.4) WMH shareholders are not going to be happy with GVC making a large chunk of change in the, apparently, unlegislated Turkish market. At the moment everything looks unlikely to happen before a potentially hostile WMH AGM in May. A lot of WMH shareholders are not too bright, who went within a hairs breadth of effectively dumping a competent (albeit vocal ScotsNat) CEO a few years ago. Now there are real problems...
nk1999
13 Feb 2017
Re: parvus still restless Some details on this from a newsletter:"Parvus Asset Management, a hedge fund which owns a 14% stake in William Hill, has been pushing for a sale of the group for the last four months, City sources told The Sunday Times.Parvus opposed the attempt made by William Hill to merge with Canadian gaming company Amaya but during those talks is understood to have proposed a merger of William Hill and FTSE 250 online gaming firm GVC Holdings."
valeite
12 Feb 2017
parvus still restless weekend report saying parvus (14% WMH holding ) are lobbying the board to the virtue of tying up with GVC Holdings
Punilux
10 Feb 2017
Good January? GVC reported 22% increase in revenue for January, against last years figures, because of favourable results in 2017 compared with abysmal figures in 2016. (gamblinginsider.com).Significantly, WMH has been taking a lot of high street business from LAD/COR and Dones because of the rights dispute. At least they will be able to pay for more torches now.
