Member Info for elmo1512

Allwyn is the one if you're after an ATHEX listed growth engine, IMHO

No she hasn't. She's been appointed as Finance Director, she reports to the CFO (an actual Director and member of the Board). Not a Board role and not a management role.

Why would that be an RNS? No change in CFO (Director), no need to RNS.

The job of a CEO appointed 2.5 years ago who has made sweeping changes to his leadership team and the business and lost huge amounts of value for shareholders is at risk? Well I never!

3 week extension.

Confirms internal targets for revenue, EBITDA and leverage were 1.8bn, 375m and 4.6x respectively. Fell a long way short with the tax change impact still to come. Obviously no bonus. And no salary increase this year for anyone, bar the NLW employees. Miserable times for everyone at evoke!

Numbers will have been done a while ago, design agency to produce it engaged ages ago, a decision to delay for admin / practical reasons re: the publication would have been taken earlier than this. Saying there's no change to trading update indicate it isn't a last minute spanner-in-the-works with results. Which means it must be something that the Board and/or management have decided warrants a short delay in publication, which must surely be transaction / strategy review related. Perhaps they think in the next 24 hours Bally's will make a firm offer. Or they'll be able to include details of a second interested party in the results announcement. All speculation isn't it :)

Given the time of day that the RNS was published I assume another bidder is going to be confirmed in the press post-close or tomorrow.

Hopefully they set some sort of expectation for FY26 performance tomorrow.

I think the RNS is the Board trying to tempt PE into an offer. Apollo wanted William Hill back when Caesars got the deal over the line, not outrageous to think they'd be keen on evoke. They'd be able to quickly strip a lot of cost out from things no longer required in a private environment, retail is profitable but lean margins so keep it as a cash cow but continue to sell unprofitable shops where they can, and invest in online. If you reduce the cost of debt you can free up a lot of cashflow. This is not a business that struggles to generate cash.

888 had an artificially inflated value thanks to covid and got excited. The William Hill online assets are performing better than the 888 ones, retail is cash-generative but getting squeezed by legislation and has been in decline for a long time. There haven't been many worse deals for everyone involved than 888 buying WH.

Because they think it isn't going to happen? Or will end up lower? The share price hanging around 40p despite confirmation of discussions about a 50p deal says a lot about what the market thinks of evoke right now!

It is, c. 200 closing from c. 1,300 total.

12 month high is about 75p which would be a fairly typical starting point. Ultimately the debt pile is the biggest component of the value of the deal. ~1.7bn of debt to take on v 450m shares to pay for with a current market value of ~150m. That puts the total enterprise value at ~1.85bn, paying 2bn would be a small premium overall but would mean ~70p a share.

Rumour is that Bally's will be making a final/firm offer in the coming days, hence the delayed FY25 results and lack of guidance for FY26.

They need a bidding war. Bally's negotiating by themselves are going to squeeze as much as they can. Bally's v Apollo gets more interesting.

Hopefully some news coming soon

https://next.io/news/investment/william-hill-evoke-ballys-corporation-frontrunner/

Still no guidance for FY26 either. Will presumably come with the FY25 results.

Two months into FY26 and still no guidance for the year, awaiting the outcome of the strategic review. Surely a transaction bubbling away in the background?

The RNS clearly says they have already closed loss-making shops.

"We have moved quickly and decisively to execute on our mitigation plans including the closure of retail stores that are no longer sustainable as well as broader cost savings"