Hard times at Betfair

Betfair’s new chief executive officer, Breon Corcoran is certainly making his presence felt…and not in a good way from the point of view of an increasing number of retrenched workers.

The Telegraph newspaper reports that Corcoran has been pulling Betfair out of countries where there is uncertainty on regulated operations, and has exited markets like Cyprus, Germany and Greece .

Corcoran has been busy with reviews of where the company can cut up to GBP 20 million in costs and increase efficiency, and he has sold off the company’s minority stake in social gaming business Kabam – a product based on the film of The Hobbit – to US giant Time Warner for $30 million (GBP18.6 million).

Just before Valentine’s Day Corcoran announced that henceforth the company will focus on regulated markets as part of his overhaul of the business, which has already resulted in over 100 redundancies, reportedly with considerably more to come.

Betfair has also sold its majority holding in the LMAX financial exchange division to a team involving Betfair’s co-founder Edward Wray for GBP 2.4 million.

Corcoran told The Telegraph that Betfair management debated “long and hard” about stopping marketing and other investment in a “long list” of countries, including Russia and Canada, which will likely lead to the loss of 24 percent of its revenues, about GBP 48 million.

But he hoped growth in the core betting exchange and other stable markets will help “soften the blow”.

In December Betfair posted results that showed a 25 percent decline in operating profits.