The financial company upgraded William Hill to outperform from underperform, reducing its target price to 500p, and Ladbrokes to neutral from underperform with a new target price of 350p, while downgrading Blue Square parent Rank Group to underperform, while lowering its target price to 100p.
Ladbrokes has been recently the subject of renewed talks about a possible takeover bid from a private equity firm, with Dresdner Kleinwort confirming its buy rating.
In other news, the European Parliament’s Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection hosted a hearing on the internal market aspects of online gambling. The Committee Chairman Arlene McCarthy re-iterated once again that EU member state have the right to set their own gambling laws as long as they don’t discriminate foreign betting operators in favour of domestic and government owned companies. The Committee also invited the major gambling sites to discuss how to protect consumers in a growing hi-tech gambling market.
Calculators
