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How to play Ap Mccoy
Both Richards and Ahlberg state this acquisition doesn’t reflect a turnaround story for 888Africa, with a management team led by industry veteran Christopher Coyne and a footprint in some of the continent’s fastest-growing markets.
“It has real market positions already, including a market-leading position in Mozambique and a growing presence in Angola and Tanzania, so we are buying established local relevance rather than starting from zero,” Richards continues.
“That combination of proven profitability, established market share and continuity of management materially reduces the execution risk you would normally associate with re-entering a consumer-facing business.”
How to play Ap Mccoy
In a 14 August note from UBS, the investment bank reiterated its buy rating for Entain. “Overall, we believe Entain shares offer the highest theoretical upside potential within the European gaming sector, albeit with a risk profile that remains elevated relative to peers,” the note went on to say.
Entain’s share price tumble follows a broader trend for gaming stocks in recent years. Added to that is a declining interest in the LSEG, as listed companies continue to exit at pace, including Flutter, which removed its secondary listing from LSEG in August.
The gaming giant left for greener pastures in the US, expecting to benefit from higher valuations in the most liquid equity market. But analysts have noted a similar downward trend in Flutter’s share price over time.
How to play Ap Mccoy
Nor are regulatory breaches unique to gambling. Waugh notes that Tesco was fined more than £8 million for food hygiene failings in 2021, without parliamentarians demanding that it should be prevented from selling cornflakes.
“There are valid arguments to be made in relation to raising the barriers to licensing, but this may come at a cost of diminishing competition and entrepreneurship,” he says.
In any event, successive regulatory tightening and tax increases have already created a “reasonably effective deterrent” to market entry.