William Hill is expecting to sustain a hit of up to £10m from the impending UK credit card gambling ban, as the operator reported a 37 per cent drop in operating profit for the full year 2019.
That drop was ahead of management expectations, following on from the implementation of the £2 FOBTs stake limit during the year. Group revenue fell by two per cent to £1.582bn, while shop closures and redundancy payments led to exceptional charge and adjustments of £134.1m, leading on to a statutory loss of £37.6m in 2019.
Net deb increased, as anticipated, to £535.7m, with William Hill citing the £2 limit, the acquisition of Mr Green and “disciplined investment” into US expansion that resulted in net debt/EBITDA of 2.4x. A full-year share dividend of 8p was confirmed.
William Hill stated that around five per cent of deposits are made online using credit cards. The company said the impact of the UK ban, which kicks in on April 14, 2020, will fall in the range of £5m to £10m.
Ulrik Bengtsson, William Hill’s CEO, said: "2019 was a year of transition during which we executed on our ambition to diversify internationally with the acquisition of Mr Green and the continued strong growth of our US business. The group delivered a strong operating performance, ahead of our expectations and against a challenging regulatory backdrop.
"We move into 2020 in a stronger position. Almost a quarter of revenue is now generated outside the UK compared to 15 per cent in 2018. We made positive progress with our digital platform, launching our purpose-built platform in the US and product developments in the Online business in 2019. We will invest in our proprietary technology as we continue to improve the competitiveness of our customer offering. We have also made great progress embedding a culture of safer gambling across the group.
"This is an exciting time to be William Hill's CEO. Our industry is evolving and this brings great opportunities, underlining the importance of our efforts to reposition the business. We look forward to building on these foundations with a renewed focus on customer, team and execution."
