GVC Holdings (LSE: GVC) is a FTSE 100 income share that has the capacity to blow investors’ minds in the years ahead, I think.
Last time I covered the online gambling colossus in October I lauded its aggressive global expansion policy that has recently taken it into the US. And happily the business hasn’t wasted any time before embarking on further potentially-transformative actions, announcing last week the acquisition of Australia’s Neds International for a possible total cost of £52m.
Becoming one of the leading gambling operators down under is a core objective for the Footsie firm, and online sports betting hero Neds has illustrated the exceptional potential of the Australian territory. Despite only launching in 2017 it is anticipated to have generated gross gaming revenues of A$100m and wagers of A$1bn already.
Other news flow for GVC hasn’t been as promising in recent weeks, though, as the UK government has U-turned on an earlier U-turn concerning the maximum stakes for fixed-odds betting terminals. Laws to cut the maximum bet to £2 from £100 at present will indeed be introduced from next April, despite more recent plans by the Treasury to push them into October of next year.
Risk vs reward
And this means City analysts have cut their 2019 earnings estimates for GVC and they are now expecting a 5% earnings fall.
Despite this, I am confident that the long-term outlook for the business remains strong, thanks to its ever-improving geographical and operational placing in the rapidly-expanding digital betting arena.
Of course, concerns over changing regulatory landscapes are ever-present for the likes of GVC. But I believe that the company’s low, low forward P/E ratio of 10.4 times looks very appealing in respect of its overall risk and reward profile.
And when you throw chunky dividend yields of 4.1% and 4.4% for 2018 and 2019 respectively into the equation, I reckon it’s a splendid share to snap up today.
American hero
Another dividend share I’d happily pluck from the FTSE 100 today is Experian (LSE: EXPN).
The credit reporting agency’s brilliant prospects on foreign shores is something I’ve paid specific attention to before. So I was pleased to see evidence of further progress on this front in first-half financials released earlier this month.
Organic revenues at Experian rose 8% between April and September, driven by a 10% improvement in its core North American marketplace. Experian sources around 60% of group sales on the other side of the Atlantic, and there are plenty of reasons to expect revenues to keep on churning higher thanks to the strong economic environment and helped by a strong product pipeline. Its Ascend Sandbox is due for release for mid-market US customers in the second half, to cite one example.
This means that earnings growth is expected to rev up from here, the 1% profits rise predicted for the year to March 2019 anticipated to improve to 12% in the following year. And this means that dividends are predicted to keep tearing higher too, resulting in decent yields of 1.9% and 2.1% for this year and next respectively.
Experian might be pricey, but I reckon a prospective P/E ratio of 24.3 times is a very fair reflection of the firm’s rising might, not just in America, but across the globe.
