William Hill buys Stanley Leisure for £504 million

May 16, 2005

After weeks of speculation William Hill Plc, the U.K.'s second- largest bookmaker, has agreed to buy Stanley Leisure Plc's betting shops for 504 million pounds ($930 million) in a deal that enables it to overtake Ladbrokes as the industry leader in Britain.

Bloomberg's reported this week that the purchase of Stanley's 624 betting offices will create a chain of 2,237 bookmakers, quoting William Hill Chief Executive David Harding (49) on a conference call.

Ladbrokes, owned by Hilton Group Plc, runs about 1,900 bookmaking shops in the U.K. Ladbrokes will remain Europe's No. 1 bookmaker, with 2,400 outlets in the U.K., Ireland and Belgium, according to Hilton Group spokesman James Mason.

Shares of William Hill declined 3 percent contributing to a lower close of the FTSE 100 index. Investors were not happy with William Hill's decision to cancel a 453 million pounds planned special dividend, in order to fund the transaction.

Stanley's online and international betting businesses aren't part of the William Hill transaction, and the Internet unit may now be sold separately, according Stanley's CEO Bob Wiper.

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