William Hill buys Stanley Leisure for £504 million
May 16, 2005
After weeks of speculation William Hill Plc, the U.K.'s second-
largest bookmaker, has agreed to buy Stanley Leisure Plc's betting
shops for 504 million pounds ($930 million) in a deal that enables
it to overtake Ladbrokes as the industry leader in Britain.
Bloomberg's reported this week that the purchase of Stanley's 624
betting offices will create a chain of 2,237 bookmakers, quoting
William Hill Chief Executive David Harding (49) on a conference
call.
Ladbrokes, owned by Hilton Group Plc, runs about 1,900 bookmaking
shops in the U.K. Ladbrokes will remain Europe's No. 1 bookmaker,
with 2,400 outlets in the U.K., Ireland and Belgium, according to
Hilton Group spokesman James Mason.
Shares of William Hill declined 3 percent contributing to a lower
close of the FTSE 100 index. Investors were not happy with William
Hill's decision to cancel a 453 million pounds planned special dividend,
in order to fund the transaction.
Stanley's online and international betting businesses aren't part
of the William Hill transaction, and the Internet unit may now be
sold separately, according Stanley's CEO Bob Wiper.
InfoPowa news contributed to this report
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