BoyleSports to compete for William Hill’s UK retail assets
Irish bookmaker hails “rare” M&A opportunity amid ambition to become “principal operator” on UK high street
BoyleSports has joined the list of suitors lining up to acquire William Hill’s UK betting shop portfolio.
The Irish bookmaker revealed its interest in acquiring “some or all” of William Hill’s 1,400 UK retail betting estate after hailing it as a “rare opportunity” to drive scale through M&A.
William Hill’s betting shops have been put up for sale by new owner Caesars Entertainment, along with the rest of the UK operator’s non-US-focused operating assets.
“BoyleSports would certainly be interested in acquiring some or all of William Hill’s UK shops, or indeed any other opportunity that makes sense for our business,” BoyleSports said in a statement.
“We have made no secret of our ambition to be one of the principal operators on the UK high street and believe that our retail and digital offerings represent a best in class safe and enjoyable proposition for the betting public.
“The sale of the William Hill estate presents us with a rare opportunity to achieve the retail scale we have been targeting,” BoyleSports added.
BoyleSports currently operates 21 betting shops in Great Britain, with a further 45 in Northern Ireland, 33 of which were acquired from Hills in January 2020 as part of a deal which included two further shops on the Isle of Man.
The firm’s largest proportion of betting shops stretch across Ireland, where BoyleSports operates 298 retail betting premises.
The operator has also recently upgraded its online betting site and mobile app.
BoyleSports joins a long list of parties eyeing up Hills’ retail business, including US-based investment firm Apollo Global Management, Betfred and 888.
For its part, Caesars Entertainment has said it wants an accelerated sale of the William Hill international business by as soon as the second half of 2021.
Speaking in May, Caesars CEO Tom Reeg dismissed speculation that he might try to retain the Hills non-US business, indicating that he didn’t have a “moment’s pause” about selling.
“One of my pet peeves when I was an investor was companies that didn’t know what they were good at, and I can’t tell you we’re good at running a non-US digital business,” Reeg said.
“I can tell you that there are almost certainly people out there that will do it better than us and see opportunity there and I can deploy that capital into businesses that I know will drive better returns to shareholders,” he added.
Caesars is expected to make as much as $1.5bn from the sale of William Hill International, with the firm expected to use funds to repay $2bn of company debts.