Boylesports founder, owner, and chief executive, John Boyle, is eyeing up a move into the British retail market ‘within five years,’ according to reports in the Irish Times.
The recent acquisition of Tom Flood Bookmakers cemented Boylesports place as the number two bookmaker in Ireland, but it seems their satellite navigation system is set beyond the borders of the Emerald Isle.
During a recent interview with the Irish Times, Boylesports head honcho, John Boyle stated that he expected to enter the British retail market ‘within five years;’ in a move that will see them join a rather crowded market place.
Boylesports was established in 1982, and now has 192 retail stores in Ireland that are operated by a team of 1,200 people. The business has a turnover of a billion euros per year, and competes in all the normal channels such as retail, telephone, mobile and the virtual world.
Boyle told the Times that there was also room for further expansion in his beloved Ireland, stating that they ‘could easily manage 250 stores,’ and ‘calculates that it could easily fit another 30 to 40 in Dublin alone.’
The Boylesports brand is already popular in both the British and European marketplace thanks to its mobile offering, but entering the retail market would be a first.
“We’ve looked in the past – the time that the Tote wanted to sell – that’s going back to 2006, 2007. We were showing interest then in buying their stores,” he told the Times, “but then the recession arrived and the British government – who owned them – took them off the market, because they were only going to get half the value.
“At that time we were very keen and I had spent a good few months over there in preparation for that,” he said.
“So if the right acquisition knocked on our door, we’re looking for opportunities over there, so we expect in the next five years to have a presence in retail.
“You don’t know what opportunities are going to knock on your door. There’s three, four, different companies that could become available over the next number of years, and if you can show that you are good at retail in Ireland, you can do it anywhere in the world.”
