SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
The future of Ladbrokes‘ Irish retail business has been thrown into doubt after the firm was granted court protection to restructure its business following losses of 5m euro (£3.6m) last year.
The bookmaker announced to the stock market that the “Directors of Irish trading subsidiaries, Ladbroke (Ireland) Limited, Ladbroke Leisure (Ireland) Limited and Dara Properties Limited (“Ladbrokes Ireland”) have successfully applied to the High Court in Dublin to seek the appointment of an interim examiner and to be provided with the protection of the court under the examinership procedure”.
Under Irish Law the examinership process provides court protection to enable the examiner of Irish companies to put together a Scheme of Arrangement with creditors with a view to allowing the company to trade as a sustainable business going forward. It is estimated the process will last up to 100 days.
It is the first major business move by new CEO Jim Mullen, who believes the division is being held back by ‘real estate legacy issues’. He explained: “The action taken today by the directors of the Irish companies is to safeguard the Irish business which in its current state is not sustainable and cannot be supported by the Ladbrokes Board without radical change, having lost its competitive edge.
“This step has been taken in the best long term interests of Ladbrokes Ireland, its employees, customers, partners and shareholders. In entering the process, our aim is to build a sustainable and competitive business based in Ireland, run from Ireland, investing in Ireland and supporting the Irish economy and sporting industry while delivering for shareholders.”
Ladbrokes currently has 196 shops operating in the Republic of Ireland. The company employs 840 people in Ireland. Subject to the views of the examiner, the restructuring is likely to lead to redundancies at all levels of the operation with the number dependent on the outcome of the estate restructuring. However Ladbrokes Digital and Telephone businesses are not impacted by this process.
