Horse flu wipes $30m off Tabcorp profit

GAMING and wagering group Tabcorp says its full year pre-tax earnings will be cut by $30 million due to the impact of the equine influenza outbreak.Tabcorp said the estimate post-dates its guidance in August for 2007/08 earnings to be in line with the previous year.

"We gave our earnings guidance before the outbreak of Equine Influenza," managing director Elmer Funke Kupper told shareholders at the company's annual general meeting in Sydney.

"Our current estimate is that Equine Influenza will reduce group earnings before tax by approximately $30 million compared to last year.
"The impact of Equine Influenza will be partially offset by the performance of our Gaming business, which is performing much better than expected following the introduction of smoking bans."
He said the net impact of those two factors will become clearer as the year progresses and that Tabcorp will provide a further update when its presents its first half results in February.
Tabcorp generated earnigs before interest and tax of $895.5 million for 2006/07, which was down 3 per cent.
Its bottom line result was a net profit of $515.6 million, down 3.8 per cent.
It had forecast normalised earnings before non-recurring items for fiscal 2008 to be broadly in line with last financial year.