Ladbrokes Coral Share News (LCL)

(ShareCast News) - Recently amalgamated betting firm Ladbrokes Coral Group issued a trading statement for the unaudited year to 31 December on Wednesday, with proforma group operating profit for the full year expected to be within the range of £275m-£285m.The FTSE 250 company said that consists of Ladbrokes standalone operating profit of around £101m and Coral Group standalone operating profit of about £179m.It said the result is in line with market consensus for Ladbrokes, and in line with management expectations for the Coral Group, despite the poor sporting results both businesses faced in the second half of December 2016.The figures compare to 2015 proforma group operating profit of £235m, consisting of Ladbrokes operating profit of £80.6m and Coral Group operating profit of £154m.Ladbrokes Coral said the fourth quarter saw continued growth in digital, with net revenue 18% ahead.Despite the poor sporting results in the UK, Ladbrokes.com net revenue was 17% ahead of the same quarter last year and Coral.co.uk net revenue was 13% ahead.Sports gross win margins were around one percentage point behind expectations in both brands, with Ladbrokes at 6.9% and Coral at 7.4%, whilst in Australia, Ladbrokes net revenue was 45% ahead of last year, driven by stakes growth of 57%.UK retail net revenue was 4% behind the same quarter last year.Like-for-like over-the-counter stakes were 5% behind last year - a trend the board warned has continued into 2017 - and over-the-counter margin of 16.5% was around two percentage points behind expectations, resulting in over-the-counter net revenue 11% behind last year.Multi-channel sign ups across both Ladbrokes and Coral remained strong with more than 140,000 customers signing up to the 'Connect' and 'the Grid' products in the quarter."The last quarter of 2016 was one of significant activity with the completion of the merger, good progress on integration along with the necessary shop disposals and a busy sporting schedule," said CEO Jim Mullen."While the sporting gods did not look favourably on us in the period, it is pleasing to report that the business continued to perform well and that our full year numbers will be in-line with expectations."Mullen explained that it had been an encouraging start to the life of Ladbrokes Coral as an amalgamated group."Good progress is being made on all the key integration workstreams."We saw continued growth in our digital division with Australia going from strength to strength and further growth in multi-channel sign ups," he explained."We remain confident in our plans for 2017 and on delivering the opportunities identified in the merger."