Gala Coral reports a 9% increase in turnover, with only the Gala Retail sector not showing a northward trend after the release of the financial reports for the 28-week period ending 13 April 2013.
Gala Coral have issued their Q2 financial results and Carl Leaver, Group Chief Executive, has described them as ‘satisfactory’. Gross profit was up 6%, to £234m EBITDA was up 3% to £74.2m and turnover was up 9% to £311.3m.
Coral Retail gross win finished the quarter 7% ahead of last year at £10.5m. Football and the Grand National being cited for the strong OTC gross win margin of 20.6%. The revamped online and mobile arm of Coral Interactive continued to show strong growth after it’s Dec 2012 move onto the Playtech platform. A 116% increase in active player numbers and a 120% increase in amounts wagered the main reason activity in the online realm witnessed a 110% increase in gross win.
The Italian sector also showed growth. Eurobet Italia continued to increase its market share with the further acquisition of 500 new ship licenses. The Italian EBITDA increased by 24% at £5.7m, retail sports betting market share was up 7.5% and online grew by 8.4%.
Gala Interactive active players also increased by 43%, and with amounts wagered by also increasing by 35%, the interactive division saw a 27% increase in EBITDA to £6.6m. The ‘must do better’ award was handed out to Gala Retail, whose gross profit declined by 3% – to only £1.4m – due to the wonderful British weather and the broader consumer environment – not sure what scope the latter covers? But Leaver stated that effective management of operating expenditure helped to mitigate what could have been an even steeper decline.
Covenant net debt of £1,292.4m improved by £29.7m, primarily due to underlying cash conversion, an influx of cash from VAT refunds and the sale of the Piccadilly Casino License, and £113.1m of the £179m received from Rank Group after the sale of 19 UK casinos was put towards prepayment of Term Loan B debt. That debt now stands at £2,080.0m.
