We recently reported that William Hill had announced that sales in their retail commercial properties had grown – despite the tough economic times. But it seems they are not the only bookmaker to be thriving.
Ladbrokes PLC, Britain’s second largest bookmaker behind William Hill, have announced overall net profits of £193.5 million. This is slightly down from the year before, but only by 0.4 per cent. However, their retail commercial properties have seen profits of £152.3 million, which is an increase of 2.1 per cent from 2011.
With such staggering profits, Ladbrokes have announced that they will expand their commercial property portfolio by opening 60 new shops. It is not yet clear where the retail commercial properties will be located, but 40 of them will be specifically designed to cater for the most popular forms of betting, namely football and bet in play machines.
Speaking of Ladbrokes’ success and growth, Richard Glynn, Chief Executive of Ladbrokes PLC, stated: “We are continuing to make progress with our plan to reinvigorate Ladbrokes.
“The UK Retail business has performed strongly this year. The contribution from machines has been excellent and we have grown profit per shop for a second consecutive year despite a comparatively poor gross win margin in the second half of 2011 and continued cost pressures.
“In 2012 we expect to build on this with further growth in machines, robust cost control, a renewed focus on local market competitiveness and the evolution of the retail customer experience.”
Although Ladbrokes are opening new shops this year, they did open 50 new shops last year – but also closed 21 commercial properties. However, with the announcement of 60 new shops, Ladbrokes remains positive about sale forecasts for this year, and hopes to increase like for like sales by 5.0 per cent.
Mr Glynn added: “We expect revenues to grow throughout the year as we build upon the positive growth in customer acquisition achieved to date. We have a number of important milestones in the next few months and are confident of delivering growth in profit during the second half of the year as the benefits from our investments combine.”
Ladbrokes has a total of 2778 commercial properties in and around Europe. 2098 are located in the UK, 208 in Ireland, 78 are in Northern Ireland, 288 are in Belgium, and 106 shops are located in Spain.
The UK retail commercial property market makes up 68 per cent of Ladbrokes business, whilst European retail shops make up 13 per cent, the digital market equates to 17 per cent and telephone betting makes up just 2.0 per cent of the business.
