Company Profile

YooMedia plc is one of the fastest growing interactive entertainment companies in the UK.
Since 1997 we have been developing and launching leading B2C consumer brands in the gaming and community sectors. We also work in a B2B capacity with leading brand owners, agencies, content developers and broadcasters to design and develop their interactive content strategies.

Led by Executive Chairman Dr. Michael Sinclair and Group Managing Director Neil MacDonald, YooMedia has assembled a highly experienced management team that possesses a unique blend of skills and experience in the areas of Digital TV, Internet and mobile phone services and technology.

With main office locations in London, Exeter and Maidstone, YooMedia manages core assets including:

Over 30 office locations throughout the UK alone

State-of-the-art studio, production and post-production facilities at our Wapping location.

UK broadcast return path & bandwidth owner

Fully fledged UK Bookmaker License

Database with over 350K UK singles

SMS Engine access with international reach

Fully staffed 50 seat Customer Contact Centre in Maidstone, Kent

YooMedia Dating & Chat - Our dating subsidiary company manages the oldest and largest UK-owned dating brands including Dateline, Club Sirius and Avenues. YooMedia Dating has over 20 office locations throughout the UK and also manages YooChat, our world-leading interactive chat service found on UK digital cable on the Telewest platform (platform extensions planned for 2005).

YooMedia Gambling & Games - Combining the brands of Avago and Channel 425 (in partnership with William Hill) YooMedia is on the leading-edge of interactive fixed odds, casino and poker gambling services for digital TV, the web and 3G mobile phones. Our gaming business also manages YooPlay, the only interactive just for fun games channel found on all four Digital TV platforms in the United Kingdom.

YooMedia Enhanced Solutions (YES) - YES works with brand owners, agencies, content owners and broadcasters to clarify the options, define the strategies and deliver the interactive content that enhances consumer and audience experiences. YES customers include the BBC, Nestle, Celador, William Hill, Channel 4, ZipTV, The Cartoon Network and HR Owen.

Trading Update

RNS Number:3010U
William Hill PLC
17 November 2005


William Hill PLC

Trading Update

William Hill PLC reported on 5 September 2005 that the Group (excluding Stanley
Retail Betting) experienced growth in gross win and costs of 5.5% and 2.5%,
respectively, in the 9 weeks ended 30 August 2005.

Since the last trading update, the Group has in common with other bookmakers
experienced mixed sporting results that have held back growth in gross win.
Excluding Stanley Retail Betting, in the 18 weeks ended 1 November 2005, gross
win in the Retail and Telephone channels was broadly flat and in the Interactive
channel was up 16%.

Operating costs (before exceptional items) continue to be tightly managed and
are expected to increase for the Group (excluding Stanley Retail Betting) by
between 4% and 5% for the full year in line with previous guidance.

Whilst the outturn for the year ending 27 December 2005 will depend on sporting
results in the next 6 weeks, the Board currently expects that profit before
interest, tax and exceptional items for the enlarged Group will be in the range
#230m - #240m for the full year.

The integration of Stanley Retail Betting is going well with pricing and risk
management disciplines already harmonised, the physical re-branding of licensed
betting offices well advanced, and the early trials of upgraded in-shop
technology proving successful. The integration exercise is on track to be
completed by 31 March 2006.

Other operational programmes are progressing smoothly with new electronic point
of sale and text systems installed in over 85% of the William Hill estate. The
technology is delivering encouraging improvements in labour productivity and
will ultimately improve our ability to capture and settle bets faster.

Accordingly, the Board maintains a positive view for the Group for 2006 and
beyond.

LOL, Dil thats quite witty!!

Note, Interactive Channel up 16% and the early trials of upgraded in-shop technology proving successful. The integration exercise is on track to be completed by 31 March 2006.

"Other operational programmes are progressing smoothly with new electronic point of sale and text systems installed in over 85% of the William Hill estate."

Text systems. This wouldnt be SMS time stamping would it?

If it is it could be massive! Text your bets into the shop, this would require "stamping" technology for sure.

They forgot to add that they had screwed YOO on price as they are a minnow and skint.

Nah, I think YOO went into the biggest bookmakers in the UK and slammed down their contract and Wills gave up without a fight and caved into all their demands and fees. I guess it may have happened the other way round but that depends on whether you are a ramper or de-ramper, shorter, anti christ sort of type.

Speak to Will Hill and they will tell you FOBT are the future.

Mactavish

rarely post on this thread but a question - how many people do you actually think will text in a bet? Why text when you could pop in, phone, bet on the internet (either via pc or pda). This is obviously a target aimed at the technologically competent - they all use the internet already and the clever ones use betfair rather than a high street bookie where they get a better price

Scrip - FOBTs - a mug punters paradise!!!

consumers continue to use text messaging in increasing numbers and has lots of untapped potential.

That doesnt answer the question - can you give me one reason why someone would bet by text not the other mediums - ie what benefits does it offer.

The process of placing a bet using any of the other mediums is a 2 way process - you ask what the current price is and then you choose whether to be at that price and how much - by text how do you know what price you will be betting at or would it be restricted to SP only (and hence making it even less attractive!)

Hands up got it wrong.


the "text" systems refer to the display screen systems which have betting shows etc on them and these are supplied by Alphameric.The text system is called Albos and the Point of sale systems,also supplied by Alphameric are called Betsoft.

Lol, you gone short mac ?

2p by xmas ....

20p by xmas ....

38p

27.5p

If the share was priced on hopeless optimism then at least 1

If it was priced on reality you couldn't give it away!

LOL!

The AIM's full of such companies. Unfortunately though their shares are never actually free..........wonder why that is?

15p - 20p

thanks to malkie.



Im going to do a bit of speculating here just on the basis of the information at hand.

After a little chat with Axe last week he drew my attention to the wording of announcements and how you have to dissect them very carefully. If you do you can see there is often more revealed (or concealed!) than at first meets the eye.
So hear goes....

From the recent Trading Statement:

During the last three months the Board has conducted an in-depth review of the Company's activities. This has resulted in a decision to explore strategic alternatives for its Dating division following preliminary approaches from third parties. The significant value of the Dating business is, in the Director's opinion, obscured in the Company as a whole. Such alternatives are expected to provide both increased marketing opportunities for the division and strengthen the Company's balance sheet.

The more you read the above extract the more interesting it becomes:

Dissecting it; in-depth review of Companys activities commenced 3 months ago in August. At some point between then & the release of the trading statement a decision was made to explore strategic alternatives for the dating division. This decision was made with the backdrop of preliminary approaches received from third parties.

Then the really interesting bit:

"Such alternatives are expected to provide both increased marketing opportunities & strengthen the Companys balance sheet.

I think this could be more of a done deal than it first looks.

If the trading statement is to be believed, the company cannot be talking about a straightforward disposal. If it were, then whilst any proceeds would certainly strengthen the balance sheet, a disposal in itself would not result in increased marketing opportunities for the Company.

In order to provide the company with increased marketing opportunities, the proposition would need to offer the Company access to markets beyond their existing database. That says to me that a third party would also be bringing something to the party (In addition to cash) perhaps in terms of either access to a larger market, or perhaps their own database of singles.

According to the trading statement, the strategic review commenced in the middle of August, over a month before the interims were published, which announced the appointment of Josie Adams as Chief Executive of Yoomedia dating and that Jim Weir was to be positioned as Chairman of the Dating division. This signalled that the division was to be restructured, but no reason or justification was given at the time. Given the announcement of "exploring stratigic alternatives for the Division" in the trading statement, this move starts to make a bit more sense.

The "stratigic alternative" sounds to me like a JV of some description or a merger of the division with a third party. Perhaps with an equity buy in from the third party mentioned.

"The significant value of the Dating business is, in the Director's opinion, obscured in the Company as a whole"

I also think the object may not be to realise as much cash as possible by way of a disposal. Rather to achieve the benefits of a more realistic valuation attached to the division going forward and to be able to raise as much cash as is required through some type of JV or strategic alliance, thus wiping out the overdraft & seeing them through to C/F+.

It probably wouldnt pay to speculate further as to what type of entity this 3rd party may be, as there are countless possible fits.

But when ITV are looking at FriendsReunited with a 150m price tag on the business, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/07/itv_friends/
You can appreciate the Boards logic in the statement The significant value of the Dating business is, in the Director's opinion, obscured in the Company as a whole.

As I said, I think this could be more of a done deal than it looks.

But lets not get too exuberant and ignore altogether the main thrust of the trading statement and that was to advise that as a result of delays in renegotiating the WH contract, C/F+ is expected to be delayed till 1st of next F/Y and of course that the balance sheet does need strengthening.



One thing that was overlooked last week was Ciscos $6.9 bid for Scientific Atlanta, the US second largest producer of set top boxes, signalling Ciscos desire to move into the home networking market (VOD, IPTV & Cable). More evidence that the Cable war is really hotting up!


http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/18/business/cisco.php

http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2005/11/19/cncisc19.xml&menuId=242&sSheet=/money/2005/11/19/ixcity.html

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/4492.html

It looks like YOO holders are into astrology now after than last post. I've never seen so much positive spin and mis-interpretation put into one RNS, It's a classic. Definately one for the lectures. Companies WILL ALWAYS post the most positive news available, therefore any hint of negative interpretation should be taken very seriously not turned into some mystic interpretation.

As for anybody that believes that interpretation, The moon is in conjunction with Uranus.