Boylesports keen to buy Ladbrokes Coral shops

The bookmaker has confirmed its interest in buying Ladbrokes Coral shops for near £100 million (€117.8 million).

UK.- Boylesports has confirmed its plans to buy 360 shops owned by Ladbrokes Coral. The recently merged company had to put up a number of its shops for sale in order to complete the merger. The transaction would cost around £100 million (€117.8 million).

After the Competition and Markets Authority announced in July that 350 to 400 Ladbrokes Coral shops will have to be sold a couple of gambling companies has expressed their interest in buying them. The Competition and Markets Authority made this decision after identifying 642 local areas where competition could be substantially lessened as a result of the merger.

So far it has transpired that Betfred was as a potential suitor for the shops. On its part, BoyleSports is not shy about its intentions, although it is still unclear is a bid on the shops has been made or is set to be made.

“In phase one, there are in the order of 360 shops that are being looked at,” said Jenna Boyle, BoyleSports Retail Director. “By Friday of this week, that’s our deadline for submitting our bid. We’re in the process of reviewing our bid with a view to making that. The plan is to expand our regional presence in Britain. What we would like to happen, would be an acquisition of the larger scale. The Ladbrokes Coral merger presented an opportunity for us which we definitely need to look at, so we’re driving that process.”

If Boylesports were successful in its attempts to purchase the shops, this would mark its first expansion outside of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, where the company operates over 200 shops.

“It would establish us in the UK,” Boyle added. “It’s fairly early doors, we’re at the starting line with it. The next thing is getting past phase one, we’ll know much more at that stage.”