From the Blue Index blog

Dont bet on Ladbrokes
May 15th, 2009

Shares in bookmaker Ladbrokes (LAD) were looking like a good recovery play up to this morning, having regained over 50% of their value after the October low of 133p last year

But this morning, Ladbrokes reported a 34% slump in profits for the first four months of 2009. Profits from big spending high rollers tumbled to just GBP25m from GBP40m in 2008, with punters enjoying a particularly good Cheltenham Festival in March. These abnormal gross win margin levels, increased free bets and unfavourable cost phasing in eGaming against the previous year resulted in the profits slump, although CEO Chris Bell was at pains to point out the rate of decline is not representative of our expectations for the year, and he said the decline has already given way to more normal trends in May. And overall, added Chris Bell, the general resilience of the business and strong cost controls gives us confidence in the outturn for the full year.

But brokers Noble, Shore Capital and Daniel Stewart all see the results as disappointing and weaker than expected, particularly given that results at rival William Hill are strong and in stark contrast

Full transcript here
http://blog.blueindex.co.uk/2009/05/dont-bet-on-ladbrokes/

This thread will now terminate as the ticker LAD is obsolete. New ticker is LCL.