Paddy Power Betfair secures £250m loan facility

Paddy Power Betfair has agreed an additional £250m loan facility, the bookmaker announced on Monday.

The company said the additional term loan facility, which will run for an initial period of 18 months with an option to extend it by a further 12, provided it with "further strategic financial flexibility".

The latest agreement takes Paddy Power's total available committed bank loan facilities to £700m, as it already has a £450m five-year revolving credit facility in place.

In a statement, Paddy Power confirmed there would be "no material change to the group’s effective cost of debt" as a result of this new facility

It continued: "The group’s balance sheet remains strong and we continue to target a medium-term leverage range of between 1x and 2x net debt to earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation."

Earlier this month, Paddy Power said like-for-like first-quarter revenues had risen 17% to £478m, while total revenues in the US jumped 47% to £78m. The FTSE 100 firm was one of the first bookmakers to enter the US market after a federal ban on sports betting was lifted a year ago, and operates under the FanDuel brand. Paddy Power said it was continuing to see "good returns" on its US investment.