Daily Mail, Thursday, August 1, 2019
Page 77
Pressure on
Hornby over
£6m Coral fine
ANDY Hornby and his senior manage-
ment team at Ladbrokes Coral have
been hammered by the regulator.
The disgraced banker is notorious
for taking HBOS to the brink of col-
lapse before the financial crisis. He is
in the spotlight again after the Gam-
bling Commission fined Ladbrokes
Coral, now owned by GVC, £5.9m for
not protecting vulnerable custom-
ers or stopping money laundering.
Hornby was chief operating officer
when the bookmaker allowed one
gambler to lose £1.5m of stolen
money, another lost £98,000 despite
their bank declining 460 deposits, a
clear sign they might not be able to
afford their losses.
The Commission said: ‘Ladbrokes
Coral Group’s management were
likely to have been aware of, and if
not, should have been aware of, the
problems that lead to the breaches.’
The breaches were between 2014
and 2017, before GVC’s £3.2bn takeo-
ver in 2018. Hornby, 52, stepped down
from GVC to join the Restaurant
Group in May, after making £8m from
the sale of the bookmaker to Isle of
Man-based conglomerate GVC.
GVC bosses kept him off the board,
allegedly to ensure his earnings
remained secret, but he is believed
to have held responsibility for retail
betting and all digital marketing.TV star
Noel
plots
fresh
Lloyds
fight
by James Burtonthat the sides have settled.
Oldfield said yesterday: ‘We’re
pleased to have settled with
Noel. We’ve apologised again for
the distress caused to him.’
But Edmonds – on holiday in
France – has told friends that he
plans to relaunch his campaign
after the summer break.
Other sources said that con-
trol of his website will be trans-
ferred to other campaigners
who want to continue fighting.
Before he took it down, the site
was offering a £10,000 reward for
information about Horta-Oso-
rio’s private life and publishing a
stream of attacks on the lender.
The site will be reactivated
under new management in com-
ing weeks, insiders claimed.
It is thought Edmonds himself
will only be able to restart hisvictims of PPI mis-selling, which
forced the bank to set aside
another £550m.
Lloyds hiked its interim dividend
by 4.7pc to 1.12p per share in a
boost for its 2.4m small sharehold-
ers. The average ordinary investor
will get a £67 payment.legal challenge if an investiga-
tion by Thames Valley Police
triggers more criminal action
against bank staff.
The Deal or No Deal star
claimed that his business Unique
Group was destroyed after it
came into contact with crooked
banker Mark Dobson, who
worked for HBOs before it was
bought by Lloyds in 2008.
Dobson was jailed for his part
in a separate fraud run out of the
HBOs Reading branch, in which
he and other crooked financiers
deliberately wrecked companies
and spent the profits on
prostitutes, lavish holidays and
luxury goods.
Edmonds said that Unique was
a healthy business which only
failed because it came into Dob-son’s clutches. To begin with he
sought as much as £100m in
damages, and has won backing
from lawsuit funding firm
Therium to sue Lloyds.
Lloyds initially tried to buy
Edmonds off with £3.6m follow-
ing mediation talks in 2017, but
he dismissed this as too little.
It is thought Edmonds has
been paid substantially more
than this as part of the agree-
ment, and may have netted
around £5m based on previous
settlements with victims.
Neither side would confirm the
amount.
It came as Lloyds posted prof-
its of £2.9bn in the first half of
2019, down 7pc on a year earlier.
The results were hit by a surge
in compensation demands fromMerger bites Just Eat profit
FOOD delivery firms Just Eat
and Takeaway.com have
reported a fall in profits ahead of
their £9bn merger.
The British and Dutch compa-
nies said earnings took a hit as
they ploughed money into their
operations to take on rivals such
as Deliveroo and Uber Eats.
The firms plan a global food
deliveries giant 52.2pc control-
led by Just Eat shareholders.
Yesterday, in its first results
since announcing the plan, Just
Eat said it was ramping up its
rollout of delivery services in its
key UK and Australia markets.It said performance was also
strong in the rest of Europe and
Canada, while also cheering
delivery deals with bakery chain
Greggs and supermarket Asda.
Just Eat said sales surged 30pc
to £464.5m in the six months to
June 30, with total orders up
21pc to 123.8m.
But profits fell from £48.1m to
just £800,000 as it ploughed cash
into expanding its delivery oper-
ations as well as iFood, its joint
venture in Brazil.
Just Eat interim boss Peter
Duffy said: ‘We’ve been working
at pace and made good progressin the first half of the year to
become the preferred food deliv-
ery app for our customers, with
a broader choice of restaurants,
better user experience and more
personalised communication.’
Takeaway reported a 68pc rise
in sales to £170m and its first
profit, of £1.6m, since it listed in
Amsterdam three years ago.
That was helped by its £850m
takeover of German rival Deliv-
ery Hero earlier this year. Takea-
way boss Jitse Groen said
expansion – not profitability –
was his priority. Just Eat shares
rose 1.5pc, or 11.4p, to 761.4p.DIRECT Line squeezed £56m out of customers
paying their insurance premiums monthly,
charging those drivers and homeowners extra.
It made £56.3m from instalment income in the
first six months of the year and raked in another
£9m from hire car companies, referring on cus-
tomers with vehicles off the road after a crash.
Another £6.2m came from selling extra break-
down cover, and £5.3m flogging legal services.
Critics have slammed firms earning extra from
instalments because those who spread the cost
most are young with high premiums.
Insurers have also been accused of overcharg-
ing for add-ons such as breakdown and legal
cover, when these are cheaper elsewhere.
Direct Line had overall profits of £261.3m, down
10.8pc on a year earlier. This was partly due to
higher injury pay-outs after a rule change. It
hiked its interim dividend 2.9pc to 7.2p per
share. Shares fell 0.5pc, or 1.5p, to 322.4p.Direct Line’s £56m
insurance squeeze
DIY chain Wickes is to be sold by Travis Perkins
amid a home improvements decline as the parent
firm simplifies its business to focus on selling
building materials to traders.
DIY chains such as Wickes and rival Homebase
have struggled as fewer people move home. The
demerger is expected to cost Travis Perkins £3.5m
in fees and IT costs.
Analysts predict Wickes could be worth around
£650m as a standalone business.
Wickes said: ‘Wickes will have the autonomy to
execute on its strategy and allocate capital to its
customer proposition and growth opportunities
with a clearer focus.’
Travis Perkins posted a £12m profit for the first
six months of 2019, after a £148m loss a year ear-
lier. sales jumped 6.9pc to £2.8bn in the period.
The group hopes to save £30m by next year.
Northampton-based Travis Perkins first employed
joiners and carpenters in 1797. The group also
owns Toolstation and building materials supplier
Keyline. shares rose 3.2pc, or 42.5p, to 1366p.Travis Perkins set
to sell off Wickes
From the Mail, July 27FromtheMailJl 27DEAL! NOEL
‘WINS £5m’
AFTER HIS
BITTER ROW
WITH LLOYDS
NOEL Edmonds is plotting a
fresh legal assault on Lloyds if
a police investigation leads to
more bankers being arrested.
sources close to the TV star
insisted that a compensation deal he
struck with the bank does not mean
his action against it is over.
Edmonds (pictured) was paid an
estimated £5m by Lloyds after bank-
ers destroyed his firm.
As part of the agreement he has
taken down a website criticising its
boss Antonio Horta-Osorio.
But there is a new row over whether
this draws a line under the matter
with the lender’s commercial bank-
ing chief David Oldfield insisting