Member Info for KAMEL17

Doughpea1, This "Specialist" is an utter clown who is best ignored. Kamel

QueenElvis This is not a strong buy at the moment although there has to be potential upside.This revolves around an as yet uncertain offer price and nothing else. Until 888 and/or GVC/Amaya actually confirm an offer price there shall exist a significant discount to the speculated £1.1m price tag representing north of £1.25 per share. The dangers are: 1.The potential "price chipping" of either or both the likely purchasers. 2. Bwin are now in weak position where they must sell. Any collapse in takeover discussions would be accompanied by a reversion to around 70p. The BoD must act in the shareholders' interests and without an alternative plan to create shareholder value they would be in an entirely untenable position. The purchasers know this. 3. Particularly with GVC - the approval of shareholders may not be all that straightforward. 4. The withdrawal of one of the bidders prior to the conclusion of a deal may be disastrous. On the plus side however a fortnight has passed since Bwin said that a decision would be made in the "coming weeks". There is therefore a window to make a relatively good return in the short term so it may be considered a "buy" although IMHO not a "strong buy" any longer. Good Luck and here's hoping for an early conclusion to the takeover talks. Kamel

crookman, You have worked diligently over a prolonged period and it is testimony to your good judgement, other than the initial purchases I suppose, that would allow you to exit without a loss. As you have said, there are many stockholders who will see even £1.30 as a huge loss. Over the period since the merger the stock market has increased significantly yet Bwin has declined hugely. The stock price was artificially boosted by hopes of an American re-entry and the volatility attached to that sentiment. When all is said and done though, this management team were unable to deliver the basics in their own markets and were so obvoiusly incapable that it screamed out to anyone who knew the business. Over the same period the likes of Playtech or 888 have imporoved markedly as they possess good management teams,. The loss of opportunity cost has thus been substantial for long term Bwin holders. Whilst i had made good returns out of both 888 and Playtech; I'd thought Ladbrokes would find its feet and emerge from the wilderness, however, that's been a very poor decision on my part. The truth is is that there are a few parallels and the takeover will provide an exit point to mitigate losses and the ultimate exit for me from Ladbrokes will follow a similar path to yours here (except that i'd not trade it and will have to just stomach the loss) The joys of investing i'm afraid. I think your exit is quite close and you deserve your break even position( at least) just for your hard work, concentration on detail and patience alone. Kamel

Takeover agreed sell shares bank the cash accept your loss through gritted teeth never give the muppet another thought. his "bonus" has already been paid many times over already - it was continuity of employment, and he never deserved that.

Well, I'm sure the update will come this week and hopefully it will be good. The markets wobbled a little and there were a few sells and no buys of any consequence. In realty the volumes have been low and this perhpaps indicates that the update may not be transformative to the SP. In the past, on this stock, good news has often been preceded by a flurry of purchases. Given that the update is expected prior to the end of May I'd have expected more activity. Should be an interesting few days though. GLA and especilaly to the longer term holders who have shown patience here. It's an excellent company with strong people and in my view it should come good in the end. Kamel

The Company did not say they would provide an update tomorrow. They said by the end of next month i.e. the end of May.

No, I do not suppose they do. The results are fairly poor but the bar of expectation is now pretty low anyway. Even the news from the US is becoming only peripheral until the takeover question is resolved I genuinely cannot see the Board even being able to oppose the takeover as without this the shareholder value would probably revert to 80p and below with no real narrative from them on how it would return even to the level it is at today. At least there should be a meaningful decision and possibly visibility of the actual bid price that would result from the interest shown. End game here should not be too far away now. GLA

The indications that GVC/ Amaya are willing to pony up 1.5bn Euros for this (representing around £1.30) would lead one to believe that the speculators could earn a "quick buck" by just holding in the meantime and I'm surprised taht the SP has not climbed higher. There must of course be an inherent fear that talks will come to nothing and any deal will not proceed. The deal must surely be closer as a result of both GVC / Amaya and 888 showing their hands. Whether anyone else comes forward over the next couple of weeks is anyone's guess right now. There surely has to be an expectation that a formal offer shall be forthcoming. i just wonder if the 888 strategy is designed to force Hills into action. The premium to buy 888 may be increased if they have engulfed the competition as well. One thing is for sure if Amaya genuinely want this they'll end up getting it - even if it is indirectly through GVC.

Yes it has been quiet - that's the norm with this share. The history here is one failing to deliver over a prolonged period with a few disappointments along the way. I'm sure that the optimism is well founded and that the updates should provide significant upward momentum this time though. The rise to over 30p and the rapid retrace to only 13p illustrates the volatility involved. I must admit though to being amazed at the recent low volume of shares traded. Perhaps afrer all of the excitement last year this is genuinely under the radar now. A takeout is the most probable outcome and this is probably, though not wholly, dependant upon the Visitech product. The introduction of a new face to the Board recently just reeks of "due diligence" by the back door and it may be that a potential suitor is already waiting in the wings pending the test results. Best of luck to all holders here.

This BoD may be awful but even they would not be stupid enough to preside over the almost certain collapse of the SP should a suitor not be selected. There can be no doubt now that a merger/disposal is clearly in the best interests of shareholders. Hopefully they'll be shuffling off down to the Job Centre soon enough At a price of one and half billion Euro they would be winning a watch (and so would we)

jacksparrow The phrase penned by a reporter of around £1bn is not a bid at £1bn. Even if an offer at £1bn were to be tabled, it'd be discounted on the basis that for whatever reason it may not proceed. The price would jump if a deal was proposed at say £1.20 a share, however, neither of the potentail bidders who have shown interest over the last few days have quoted any figures.One suspects that they may be keeping their powder dry at least until someone actually nails their colours to the mast and quotes an actual offer price.

The upward spike in the morning should be significant and even more so if 888 release an RNS. Monday should indeed be a fantastic day for holders here. Congrats again to all holders who shall now . it seems, at long last gain a suitable exit or look forward to owninh shares in a much better managed business. I feel that i was mistaken and that £1.20 must now surely be surpassed. 888's bid, shall force other bidders out into the open if indeed there are any.

Yes it is indeed all good on Friday afternoon isn't it. Whilst I am never going to sugar coat anything to do with share I did detail my thoughts on why this was a fair investment at the time in posts dated 11th and 12th March and articulated my reasoning at the time. I praise where I feel it is warranted and criticise in equal measure where it is not. There has been little to praise here. Have a good weekend.

I think that you are almost definetly right. There appears to be sustained upward pressure and the £1 barrier will almost ceratinly be broken today. Given the freshness of the news I'd hold over the weekend though. Wingnutter, if this ever got to 60p it would be dead to anyone with a brain. I purchased in early March at 78p as I felt at that time the risk reward had fallen in the buyers favour. As for £1.20 I think that this is a stretch but would be pleased for you all if you held out and got that. The reason i do not see it is that as far as i can see there is no competitve bidding in place to drive the price up.

Maltaproperty has made an excellent point too. The reaction of GVC holders to the adoption of this pretty toxic much larger organisation at an acquisition value of the thick end of a billion pounds will be very telling.

jackparrow, The SP has, in all fairness, risen markedly from 80p or so over recent weeks so there has been around a 20% uplift albeit not in a quick spike. The seemingly unwarranted and sustained rise over recent weeks was perhaps not as closely guarded a secret as it ought to have been. As ever. the devil will be in the detail, and the chance of the collapse, or further delays, in any talks is perhaps built into the expectations already. FWIW, my own view is that there is not much chance of a significant premium and at anything north of a quid I'd not be hanging around too long. There is no auction for this and if GVC tabled any reasonable bid - I think the majority of investors would be minded to accept rather than carrying on with the current incumbents. The other thing is that this is perhaps unlikely to be a full cash offer and paper may be involved. Would the prospects of GVC & Bwin together be all that much better or exciting to the market.? Given the last debacle involving Bwin merging; the market will surely be sceptical. This is very hard to call at the moment.

crookman Hopefully this is the ducks being lined up and the optimum value can be extracted by a sale of the constituent parts to the best bidders. Your patience may about to be rewarded at long last. Fingers crossed for you.

I agree - in this instance the sum of the parts is not greater than the whole. I'm certain this will have been considered anf it's unlikely that price was the barrier. The job of turning it around or extracting value must just appear too hard in comparison to other opportunities just now. This is a shame because it may have provided a suitable exit point for some beleaguered holders.

If a VC wanted to take an ailing business and nurse it back to health then either BPTY or LAD would surely fit the bill. Both have had around five years of dreadful stewardship with bosses who dithered and sat on their hands whilst their opponents prospered. Both have well respected names to trade upon but poor underlying businesses with terriftingly bad prospects in the longer term should they not find a better route forward and soon. A strong mangement team could bring the two businesses together and create value across both platforms with a reasonably straightforward strategy. Ladbrokes needs online and needs to be International, BPTY needs management and a concentration on the basics. Ladbrokes is rudderless but reasonably well managed and does have a compliment of fairly good people and is at least run like a business. BPTY is rudderless and not run like a business. BPTY cannot genuinely consider entering new markets as they are clearly inept in the markets where they currently operate. BPTY has far too many staff and those staff are not customer orientated enough. In both cases the marketing effort is thoroughly substandard The truth of the matter here is that for the right team this would be an opportunity to turn around two ailing business by culling the dead wood and bastardising the remainder into a streamlined entity capitalising upon the trading names. Neither business would command much of a premium, there are COO's and CEO's from competitors who could be poached and a turnaround could probably be made in 3 years or so. Thids would be standard fare for any opportunistic Private Equity player yet none has come forward for either company let alone both.

Please god do not let it be Ladbrokes. All that would create would be Party Brokes. Joking aside, The WPT link and the europe-bet.com skin is as wingnutter suggests a foray into another foreign market that just screams avoid and realistically could this Board turn it into profit UNLESS an oligarch from Georgia bought them out. wingnutter - any suggestions on who/what this may be?