Robbie Cooke
Presenting its 2016 full year report (period ending 30 June), Australian ASX-listed gambling operator Tatts Group has revealed a mixed set of results reporting strong digital growth hindered by legal costs.
Closing its FY 2016 Tatts Group (Tatts) would post a statutory net profit decline of -7% to AUS $233 million (£136 million).
Tatts 2016 earnings would be impacted by the firm undertaking legal losses in its AUS $540 million Australian High Court claim relating to ‘pokies compensation’, combined with accumulating a further AUS $50 million in accounting losses for its sale of UK arcade operator Talarius to Novomatic Group.
Despite its increased corporate expenditure, Tatts governance remained positive on 2016 performance, stating that its operations had seen underlying profit growth of 3.8% to AUS $263 million (£153 million).
Furthermore, driven by improved digital take-up of its products the company would hit AUS $2.93 billion in group revenues. Detailing highlights, Tatts noted the strong performance of its Lottery division which had posted a ‘record breaking year’ generating revenues of + AUS $2 billion.
Tatts governance continues to invest in its UBET sports betting division, which saw the company unify its individual Australian Tote state betting services. Tatts governance detailed that its was pleased with the divisions progress.
Chief Executive Robbie Cooke detailed that in 2017 the firm would continue its focus on strengthening its digital and multi-channel operations.
“We will continue to invest in our state-of-the-art proprietary digital platforms, with a new lotteries website to be launched in FY17 under our new ‘the Lott’ branding. This new site will provide a leading online experience with convenient access to our extensive family of lotteries products, and emphasise our place as ‘Australia’s Official Lotteries’. This will be accompanied by a program of continuous enhancement to our UBET and ‘the Lott’ apps, with new features, functionality and category leading user experience initiatives being added on a rolling basis.”
As yet Tatts governance has not presented its 2017 full-year guidance, however the company stated that current trading is performing positively.
