Walker lobbies for action on lottery
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Your support makes all the difference.Brent Walker yesterday made a further call on the Government to level the playing field on which its William Hill betting operation competes with the National Lottery. Despite recording a 38 per cent jump in profits from its bookmaking subsidiary, the cash-strapped former George Walker empire said it was extremely worried by a fall in turnover at William Hill.
Sir Brian Goswell, chairman, said: "The decrease in betting duty in March, whilst welcome, has not had the desired effect of arresting the decline in turnover and we are continuing to lobby for further reductions and additional deregulation."
Swamped by a pounds 1.4bn debt mountain, and only kept trading on the say-so of its bankers led by Standard Chartered, Brent Walker is thought to be lining up buyers for its two main trading arms, William Hill, Britain's second-biggest bookmaker, and PubMaster, a chain of 1,600 mainly tenanted pubs.
In May, the value of William Hill was written down by pounds 267.9m to pounds 427.9m, in a move some saw as a prelude to a deal. Several companies, including Bass, Stanley Leisure and Rank have been linked with William Hill in recent months.
Plans to float PubMaster off are understood to have been delayed due to indifference in the City towards tenanted pubs and five financial buyers, including Prudential Ventures and Legal & General, are thought to be considering a bid. The value of the chain was also written down in the spring to pounds 140m.
Despite the fall in turnover at William Hill in the six months to June and a poor start to the year, Sir Brian said an excellent run of results and lower operating costs had led to operating profits rising more than one-third from pounds 22.2m to pounds 30.8m on sales of pounds 800.7m (pounds 810m).
Profits were boosted during the period by initiatives such as "Lucky Choice", which allows bets to be placed on the numbers selected in the Irish national lottery.
PubMaster saw operating profits rise 11 per cent to pounds 8.9m despite a reduction in the number of houses in the tenanted estate.
Sir Brian said the company continued to "churn and invest", selling underperforming pubs to release funds for investment.
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