Analyst Views: Does Ladbrokes’ profit warning change your view on the company?
KARL BURNS PANMURE GORDON
“Within retail the business has seen poor results leading to lower gross win margins, while in online it is yet to see a discernible benefit from the integration of Playtech and the integration process is unlikely to complete by early 2014 as Ladbrokes migrates from Micro-gaming.
SIMON DAVIES CANACCORD GENUITY
“The real disappointment has been digital, where margins have been particularly weak, and it has under-estimated the disruption from its transition over to the Playtech platform. And given the run-rate in retail, we see a shortfall of at least £6m to previous consensus profit forecasts of £143.8m.
IVOR JONES NUMIS
“Perhaps the clearest indication of how bad things are at Ladbrokes is the chairman’s statement “we remain fully confident in this management team…” We are cutting our recommendation [to add] and price target to reflect our concern over the apparent disarray in the digital division.