The CEO of the recently merged Paddy Power Betfair said the new business is off to an encouraging start as the company announced 1.3 billion pounds in revenues since merging last month.
But he also warned that the company is still working to combine the two businesses.
“There’s still an awful lot of work to do because these are two big, complicated businesses,” Breon Corcoran, chief executive of the merged company told Britain’s The Telegraph newspaper. “There are early signs that are encouraging”.
In its first set of results since the deal completed last month, Paddy Power Betfair posted total net revenues of €1.3bn and operating profits of €219.5m, boosted by a strong performance from the Irish bookmaker’s online business in Australia, according to The Telegraph.
The merger will be tested by upcoming European events including the Cheltenham Festival, April’s Grand National and soccer’s European Championships.
Corcoran told the paper that he does not want to “jeopardize momentum” with major changes ahead of these events.
Both Paddy Power and Betfair were achieving double digit growth ahead of their merger. Paddy Power had grown its revenues by 24 percent to €1.1bn in 2015, while Betfair’s final quarter as an independent company saw revenues increase by 21 percent according to SBC News.
“Our belief in the strategic rationale for the deal has only been strengthened following our early days as a combined operator,” Corcoran said in a press statement. “The combination of two industry leading operators, with aligned strategies and a strong cultural fit, is hugely exciting and the enhanced efficiency from operating at greater scale means we are well positioned to compete in both existing and new markets.”
