BOOKMAKERS PADDY POWER is selling off 14 of its shops across the country. 

Auctioneers Savills are putting the portfolio on the market with a guide price of over €6.3 million.

Flutter Entertainment plc, which is the parent owner of Paddy Power, will take a new lease on each property. Each lease will be for a term of 15 years with five yearly rent reviews. Each lease will provide for a tenant-only break option at the expiry of year 10 of the term.  

The portfolio offers investors a spread of properties, eight of which are in Dublin, including Upper Baggot Street, Parnell Street, Artane, Cardiffsbridge Road and Finglas Village, Crumlin, Ballymun and Clondalkin.

The remainder of the properties are based in Drogheda, Maynooth, Thurles and Tralee. The portfolio also includes the Paddy Power betting shop located at Cornmarket Street in Cork city centre. 

Paddy Power has seen a lot of its business being moved online in recent years, something its CEO spoke openly about earlier this year. 

Peter Jackson said the company was going to focus on its online business rather than the traditional shops. He said there would be “no massive expansion” of its bricks and mortar operation in Ireland and across Europe. 

“I think we get much better returns from growing our online business, which is where you have seen the focus of growth for the past few years,” he said following the group’s AGM this year.

According to Savill’s auctioneers, the portfolio offers investors an opportunity to acquire a “selection of long-established owner-occupied Paddy Power properties located in Dublin, Cork and a number of leading provincial towns at an initial combined net rent of €480,000 per annum”.

Flutter Entertainment plc, which posted 2018 group revenues of £1.873 billion (around €2 billion), has over 7,500 employees globally.

A spokesperson for Paddy Power said: “We are selling our full portfolio of 14 shops on a sale and leaseback deal, which will remove the remaining freeholds from our Irish estate. The opportunity to sell these properties is not related to the Gambling Tax bill and will have no impact to customers, staff or trading hours.”