Boylesports has paid an estimated €18 million for 33 William Hill betting shops in the north, making the company Ireland's biggest retail bookie.
The John Boyle-owned chain bought all rival William Hill's shops in Northern Ireland. The Sunday Times estimated that Boylesports paid €12 million to €18 million for the business.
Boylesports, founded in Co Armagh, will have more than 300 betting shops throughout Ireland as a result of the deal, making it the biggest retail bookie in the country. It also has 13 betting shops in the English midlands.
Boylesports chief executive Conor Gray said that the company was "delighted to realise its long-held ambition to develop a meaningful presence across Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man".
William Hill is closing around 700 shops as new UK regulations governing betting machines hit many of its outlets’ profitability. The restrictions do not apply in Northern Ireland, where betting regulation is devolved, but operators there mimic the rules applied in Britain.
Profit for McKillen Jr
The Sunday Times also reported that the Paddy McKillen junior-owned Oakmount “aims to clear €15 million profit from the sale of a Dublin site for €45 million”.
Oakmount is moving ahead with the plans to sell an 11-acre site at Temple Hill in Blackrock, south Dublin, where planners last year gave it permission to build 291 apartments.
The company bought the site for €30 million in 2017 from the Daughters of Charity religious order “meaning it is targeting a 50 per cent increase in its value in a little more than two years, on the strength of the planning approval”.
Citigroup is hiring
US bank Citigroup plans to hire hundreds of new workers in the Republic, according to The Sunday Independent. The lender intends hiring 2,500 programmers globally this year.
A spokeswoman told the newspaper that the bank expects “hundreds of the new roles to be based in Dublin”. She added that the business had not yet produced an exact breakdown of the jobs per country.
Citigroup already employs 2,500 people in Dublin. The lender has 23,000 workers across the globe.
Not-for-profit housing
Not-for-profit builder Tuath Housing provided more than 1,000 new homes last year, The Sunday Business Post reported.
“Draft end-of-year accounts for the not-for-profit house builder showed its overall spend last year was €218 million, an increase on its previous record spend of €161 million in 2018,” the newspaper said.
Tuath spent the cash on building and buying 1,051 new homes, bringing the total number of properties the organisation provides and manages to more than 5,500 nationally.
