Ladbrokes and Coral announce planned sale of 359 shops

Bookmaker Ladbrokes announced on Monday that subsidiaries of both itself and merger partner Gala Coral Group have agreed to sell a total of 359 licensed betting offices to Done Brothers Cash Betting - trading as Betfred - and StanJames Abingdon - trading as Stan James.

The FTSE 250 firm said Betfred will purchase 322 shops for a cash consideration of £55m, and Stan James will purchase 37 shops for a cash consideration of £0.5m.

It said the exchange of contracts remained conditional upon the approval of the Competition and Markets Authority, and the completion of the merger of Ladbrokes and the Coral Group.

The combined consideration of £55.5m for the sale of the 359 shops would be payable to each of the vendors in proportion to the profitability of the shops, with Ladbrokes giving its intention to use the consideration it receives to repay debt.

In total, 185 shops will be sold from the Ladbrokes chain for an expected consideration of £29m, and 174 shops will go from the Coral chain for around £26.5m.

“The sale of these shops will clear the last significant hurdle to delivering on the merger with Coral and paves the way for our focus on completion and quickly delivering on the opportunities the merger offers,” said Ladbrokes chief executive Jim Mullen.

The shops generated fully costed EBITDA - including an estimated allocation of retail back office costs - of £16.8m in the year to 31 December 2015, resulting in an EBITDA consideration multiple of 3.3x.

Ladbrokes said the disposal will be slightly dilutive to both its and the enlarged group's earnings.

On 26 July, the CMA published its final conclusions into the merger in which it stated that it could proceed subject to the divestment of 350 to 400 shops, and that completion of the merger could occur when the shop divestment process was substantially complete.

The CMA will now decide if it will approve the merger upon the exchange of contracts for the sale of the shops to Betfred and Stan James.

Once approval has been received, Ladbrokes and the Coral Group will seek the CMA's consent to complete the merger, “subject to the divestiture of one remaining shop”, Ladbrokes’ board said.