Flutter Ent Share Chat (FLTR)

Flutter has raised £812 million cash, literally overnight, via a placing at £101.00, with existing and new institutional shareholders. Announced after the close last night and all placed before 7 am today.

The recent new shorters during March, who have to have sold at under £70, must now be investing in cast-iron underpants. Though maybe some of them subscribed, so as to close their positions? My heart bleeds for them.

Flutter recently completed the acquisition of Canadian online gaming firm Stars Group. This acquisition will expand the company’s presence in online casino games, which should provide further diversification against sporting events disruption.

Aside from Marshall Wace and Blackrock, these shorters are nonentities, imo. The time to get worried is when Mr. Odey or Muddy Waters appear on your list. They both have very good records at calling for a share price collapse.

It's a simple bet that the Flutter merger won't happen. The market thinks it will.

should reduce today ,

13.33% Alarming

How will the big UK bookmakers fare? A little summary of estimates on the coronavirus' impact on earnings...
https://riverotter.co.uk/2020/03/22/betting-on-wholl-survive-the-coronavirus/

Wow!! The US betting turnover has risen from £400 million p.a., pre-NFL, to £2.3 billion at 31st December. That looks like £1.9 billion wagered in the first NFL season, with a bookie's win margin of 4.4%. Naturally initial set-up costs are heavy and sales/marketing is high as they lure new customers in, so the net result is a trading loss of £40 million.

However they say 14 states, covering 24% of the US population, are now permitting legal betting and they estimate the overall market could be as large at $10 billion pa. This number is right in the large(!) range estimated yesterday by Willie Hill, who guess that the market will end up between $5b and $20b p.a., once all the states are up and running and the bookies well set-up.

Following these results, the stockbroker Jeffries has been running their slide rule over both plc's and have substantially raised their estimates of the SP's to £135 (From £95) for FLTR and £4.00 (from £2.30) for Hill's.

The Covid-19 is causing chaos in the meantime, but for anyone with money to lock away for another 2 to 3 years, these two stocks, plus GVC (Full Year results to 31/12 due 5th March), looking to be on to something of a goldmine with sports betting in the USA.

Unless FLTR's anticipated market update includes some proper numbers, unlike Willie Hill & GVC who mostly gave percentages only, then we're going to have to wait until the trio produce their year-end annual reports, for some detailed cash amounts.

GVC's update today knocked the SP by 2.5%, which is surprising because the fall in UK betting turnover was exactly matched by the increase in USA turnover, and the company upgraded their year-end estimated profits. We've known for two years that UK turnover was headed for double digit declines thanks to the £2 limit, but it looks if the US-NFL market has made a substantial contribution in it's very first season, for both GVC & WMH.

Given, so far, that less than a dozen states have legalised online betting, and some heavy-hitters population-wise, like New York State, are expected online within the next 18 months, I'd have expected the market to be looking ahead to major profits growth from all three in North America.

The market's reaction to William Hill is truly bizarre, imho. They actually gave a few numbers, pointing out that the UK will be above previous guidance at £50m to £70 million profit tops and added that their previous estimate of a US loss of up to $20 million for the year will now be zero. So Mr. Market duly marks the price down by 2p to £1.82.

This is one reason I make no attempt to day-trade, as SP movement is, quite regularly, counter-intuitive.

Ripley, it's a frustrating habit of some chart websites to delete earlier prices as from the date of a renaming, or stock-split, as is the case here. However, if you visit "www.londonstockexchange.com" they have all the old prices and charts for Paddy Power going back years, and all seamlessly tied into Flutter's prices for the last three months. Just enter the FLTR code in the top right corner of the homepage.

There you'll see that Paddy went over £90 briefly in both 2016 & '18, as indeed Flutter did for some minutes, after announcing the Stars deal earlier this month. Otherwise the 5 year lows were traded between March and June of this year, around the £55 mark. So the current price is midway between the highs and lows.

I do not know how i am doing here all stuck in SVS acc.
Had them years chart here only shows last three months recent high 8162 Oct 7th .
Now 7500.
Are we on a 5 year high ? i recall they did have a big dip not so long ago .

And they duly came true three months later, Silotar. Does no-one have any (printable) views on the proposed takeover?

Some of the press seem to think they'll have difficulty getting it past the monopolies and mergers regulators. Personally, I'm more interested in the short-term results of the new market in legalised sports betting in the US. With the NFL season now into Week 5, both GVC and WMH are due to update the market next Wednesday, which may give us a read-across on how Flutter is doing there.

Can not get Flutter or Paddy Power up on ii now !!!
This site looks better .

Arbitrader, where can we read the statement/comment please?

they have though

As the company has not issued a statement along the lines ' we see no reason for the sp movement' my conclusion is that the rumours must be based on something concrete which will be revealed shortly, by tomorrow at latest .imho.

Rumors of M&A activity on Alphaville

Has BOJO said something along the sugar tax lines , ref betting? just a guess but whil up also so maybe sector news.

very odd. Nothing on the BB terminal either apart from it being suspended due to vol. it must be a leaked news story. Strange

No idea of the cause but I topped up at plus 9% thinking there must be a t/over or other great news on the way. [ Perhaps they have mad a bet at whil with their spare cash and picked a winner lol]

Know what this huge rise is in aid of?

Filtrona: UBS increases target price from 600p to 660p and keeps a buy recommendation.

"As such, Filtrona is well-positioned to deliver further balanced growth in 2013 and to continue to make progress towards its Vision 2015 objectives of at least mid single-digit like-for-like revenue growth and double-digit adjusted EPS growth at constant exchange."

The group stressed that ongoing volume leverage, operational initiatives and successful pricing programmes to mitigate input cost increases were largely offset by the dilutive mix impact of the revenue growth in the lower margin Filter Products division, which saw a 16.9% increase in its like-for-like revenue. On actual exchange rates this was 12.3%.

Operating profit in the division rose 18% on actual exchange rates to 28.9m, while the operating margin rose 60bps to 12.4%.

Elsewhere, revenue in the Coasting & Security Products division climbed 17.5% to 85.3m on actual exchange rates, while Porous Technologies grew 10.1% to 85.8m on the same basis. Protection & Finishing Products rose 45.8% to 237.7m, while 'Other' fell 8.6%.

Net cash and equivalents at the end of the year came in at 41.4m, up from 35.8m a year earlier.

Plastic and fibre group Filtrona posted a leap in both revenue and adjusted pre-tax profit for 2012 on Wednesday, boosted by growth in its Filter Products and prompting a 19 per cent increase to the dividend per share.

Revenue for the year came in at 663.4m, compared to 540.7m, up 23% at actual exchange rates and 26% at constant.

Pre-tax profit, adjusted to exclude the impact of acquisitions, disposals and foreign exchange, climbed 26% from 76.2m to 95.8m.

The dividend per share was increased from 10.5p to 12.5p.

Basic earnings per share (from continuing operations) totalled 25p, up 5.0p from 2011. The gross margin rose 20 basis points (bps) (+10bps at constant FX) to 35.9%.

Colin Day, Chief Executive said: "With like-for-like revenue up 11% and adjusted earnings per share (EPS) growth of 30% at constant exchange in 2012, Filtrona continued to make excellent progress towards its Vision 2015 objectives.

"Our results were supported by successful new product development, range expansion and geographic roll-out, and were underpinned by further investment, organisational changes and a more focused commercial structure. The integration of recent acquisitions continues to proceed well, with synergy delivery in line with expectations.

The company is looking at value-adding acquisitions to facilitate its objectives.

"He has played an important role in the delivery of Vision 2015 to date, and in the re-focusing of the division on packaging solutions and authentication and identity solutions so as to leverage our capabilities better. We wish him every success in his future endeavours."

Vision 2015 seeks to deliver profitable growth in existing and future markets and technologies. The objective is to gain revenue increases and double-digit adjusted earnings per share rises at constant exchange.

The FTSE 250 company said it was on track to delivering its targeted balanced growth in 2012 and continues to make progress towards the company's strategy Vision 2015.