Member Article

William Hill say 420 jobs to go in closure of loss making outlets

High street betting shop chain William Hill says it will close 109 loss making shops before the end of the year, creating around 420 redundancies.

The firm blames the impact of a planned increase in Machine Games Duty from 20% to 25%, due to take place in March 2015.

It said the announcement made a turnaround for loss making stores unlikely and would move to close the portfolio at £23-24 million of exceptional costs.

The news follows William Hill’s announced of a 25% fall in operating profit for the first quarter of 2014. driven by a two week period of major wins for football punters.

Ralph Topping, chief executive, said: “Our focus on combining a broad and deep product range with outstanding user experiences and scale investment in marketing continues to deliver tangible benefits across the Group: Sportsbook betting continues to grow rapidly, mobile gaming is much improved and we’re seeing positive trends in the key performance indicators for Australia and the US.

“Whilst the outstanding gross win margin in Q1 2013 sets a very high bar, meaning we are facing tough comparative figures, two substantial loss making weeks in this quarter (weeks 2 and 12) - with major wins for the football punters - impacted profit progression despite good growth in wagering in both Online and Retail and significantly improved gaming performance in both channels.

“As ever, it is important to look through short-term sporting results to the underlying strength of the business. Mobile, for instance, continues to go from strength to strength, increasing to 45% of Online Sportsbook amounts wagered and 27% of Online gaming net revenue in the period.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .