8th Aug 2024 15:06
(Alliance News) - Entain PLC on Thursday lifted its outlook, easing some pressure on the stock and restoring market confidence.
Shares in the Ladbrokes owner rose 6.8% to 559.20 pence each in London on Thursday afternoon. Shares are down around 60% over the past 12 months, however.
The Isle of Man-based sports betting and gaming firm said pretax loss narrowed dramatically to GBP27.6 million in the first half of 2024 from GBP448.1 million a year prior.
Notably, costs for recognition of an HMRC settlement liability dropped to GBP5.9 million from GBP585.0 million. HM Revenue & Customs had launched an investigation into Entain in 2019. Entain faced allegations relating to bribery offences at its former Turkish unit, which was sold to its management team in 2017.
Revenue in the recent half-year climbed 6.0% to GBP2.52 billion from GBP2.38 billion.
The company declared an interim dividend of 9.3 pence per share, up 4.5% from 8.9p a year prior.
Looking ahead, Entain upgraded its annual guidance. It now expects 2024 online net gaming revenue growth on a proforma basis to be a low single-digit percentage positive, improved from previous guidance that this would be negative by a low single-digit percentage.
The company expects to deliver earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation in the range of GBP1.04 billion to GBP1.09 billion, at least 3.2% higher than GBP1.01 billion in 2023. Underlying Ebitda in the first half of 2024 was GBP523.8 million, up 4.9% from GBP499.4 million in 2023.
Analysts at Davy commented: "Underlying online H1 revenue run rates are ahead of expectations and growth has improved from the Q1 stage, helped by the European Football Championship and favourable sporting results in Q2.
"It has updated its full year guidance expectations and now expects low- single-digit underlying online growth versus a low-single-digit decline previously. It has also issued a full-year guidance range that implies a 3% upgrade to our forecasts. In the context of a long period of downgrade momentum in core Entain, this is a positive outcome."
By Eric Cunha, Alliance News news editor
Comments and questions to [email protected]
Copyright 2024 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Related Shares:
Entain