Boylesports prepares £100 million bid for Ladbrokes-Coral retail portfolio

Stating its corporate intent to increase its profile within the UK betting market, Irish independent bookmaker Boylesports outlined to the Irish Business Post that it is prepared to bid £100 million (€118 million) for a significant chunk of Ladbrokes-Coral retail betting shop inventory.

Meeting industry competition concerns, the UK Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA)

has forced Ladbrokes-Coral to sell circa 400 retail betting points, in order to conclude its proposed £2.3 billion merger.

Preparing to table its bid, Boylesports governance hopes to land approximately 360 UK betting shops more than doubling its current UK retail portfolio.

In August 2015, Boylesports founder and CEO John Boyle stated that his company were ‘monitoring closely’ Ladbrokes-Coral merger plans, viewing it as an opportunity to expand its operations quickly within the highly saturated UK betting market.

In May the UK markets authority had ordered Ladbrokes and Coral governances to begin to sell off a number of its retail assets as its review had identified +600 areas across the UK where the merger could harm competition.

Boylesports will likely compete for the betting shop inventory against Manchester bookmaker Betfred, whose owner Fred Done is reported to have offered a £ multi-million bid to Ladbrokes-Coral governances this July.

Speaking to the Irish Business Post Jemma Boyle Retail Director of BoyleSports commented

“The plan is to expand our regional presence in Britain. What we would like to happen, would be an acquisition of the larger scale. We’re in the process of reviewing our bid with a view to making that.”

“The Gala/Coral-Ladbrokes merger presented an opportunity for us which we definitely need to look at, so we’re driving that process.