Lads Coral digital revenues up 14% on sportsbook strength
Firm also ramps up estimated synergy savings to £150m a year by 2019
Ladbrokes Coral this morning reported a 14%cc jump in H1 digital revenues, with online sportsbook doing much of the heavy lifting.
Sports revenues were 18%cc up on last year and 25% up when stripping out the Euro 2016 comparison.
Sports gross win margin of 9.0% was 0.4pp ahead of last year
Gaming revenues grew 10%cc, with growth even higher (145cc) in the sportsbook-led brands.
Analysts noted bingo was a drag, although no figures were broken out.
The London-listed firm also hailed newly-found synergies, which were upgraded to £150m per annum by 2019 – more than double the original estimate.
The new savings will be gleaned through procurement, IT and the harmonising of horse racing gross win margins across the UK Retail brands.
“Ladbrokes Coral posted a strong performance in H1 with results in line with our expectations and another significant upgrade to synergies,” said group CEO Jim Mullen.
“Digital has performed well, with net revenue growth of 17% particularly pleasing against a backdrop of a significant period of platform integration and a competitive trading environment.”
Mullen said the firm had successfully integrated its UK digital brands to a single platform and completed the consolidation of our head office team.
“The further synergies identified re-emphasise the merits of the merger and the potential of the enlarged Group, with the additional savings delivered in 2017 offsetting the impact of current UK Retail run rates. We therefore remain in line with our expectations for the full year.”
Retail revenues dipped 6% in part due to the absence of horseracing video from ARC tracks, an issue which was resolved last week.
Total Group operating profit for H1 is expected to be within the range £153.3m to £158.3m – 4% to 7% ahead of last year.
The group’s share price was up 4% to £124 in early trading.