William Hill investors had more time than usual to digest the company’s trading statement before sending the bookmaker’s shares down almost 5% following a bleak end to 2014.
The bookmaker was forced to release its market update 11 hours early after an administrative error led to the figures being released to analysts on Monday.
When the company published the statement officially on Tuesday morning, it showed operating profit down 7% in the final three months of 2014. Performance was hit by Christmas football results and horse races going against William Hill, sending retail profit down 13% and online revenue down 6%.
James Henderson, William Hill’s chief executive, said: “Generally weaker sporting results in December impacted our revenue progression. In particular, Boxing Day – one of the busiest days in our year – was a very good day for the customer with all but one of the top 10 football favourites winning that day.”
The new year also started badly with the favourites winning all of the weekend’s big Premier League games apart from Manchester City’s defeat by Arsenal.
For the year ended in December, net revenue rose 8% and operating profit is set to increase 11% to a record £371m but investors homed in on the weak recent trading performance. William Hill’s shares fell as much as 4.6% to 359.2p.
“Notwithstanding a difficult start to the new year with highly unfavourable football results in week 3, we remain in a strong position going into 2015,” Henderson said.
The group announces its annual results on 27 February.
