William Hill Shares Dive 11% On Profit Alert

William Hill shares dive 11% on profit alert


(Close): William Hill shares shut down more than 11% after the bookie alerted on earnings.


It stated online trading had actually been struck by tougher regulation and "the worst Cheltenham results in current history".


It now expects full-year operating profit to be between ₤ 260m and ₤ 280m, below ₤ 291.4 m last year. As an outcome, the FTSE 250 business saw its shares drop almost 40p to 331p.


However, the benchmark FTSE 100 ended flat, up 6.4 points at 6199.1.


Top riser on the FTSE 100 was B&Q owner Kingfisher. Its shares completed up 6% in spite of reporting a 20% drop in full-year profits to ₤ 512m.


However, when reorganizing costs were stripped out, underlying profits were a better-than-expected ₤ 686m.


William Hill said there were 2 main aspects behind the weaker-than-expected performance from its online service.


It said it had actually seen "a velocity in the variety of time-outs and automated self-exclusions over current weeks", measures which allow punters to halt gambling with a bookmaker.


William Hill said that while the pattern was "still developing, we approximate that, should these trends continue around present levels, the following lower profits will lower online's profits by ₤ 20-25m in 2016".


Secondly, its profit margins were lower than anticipated since of European football results and recently's Cheltenham horseracing celebration, where bookmakers were hit by large a number of favourites winning races.


William Hill said that regardless of its online issues, the broader group continued "to trade well" and was in line with expectations.


The business likewise stated it remained in "sophisticated discussions" to buy Openbet, a video gaming software application firm.